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Nonfiction The sun looked like the moon PRAIRIE FIRES: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder By Caroline Fraser 515 pp. Metropolitan Books Reviewed by Diane Diekman Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder recently won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. And deservedly so. Caroline Fraser did a masterful job of researching and describing both the life and the times of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Fraser writes in the introduction that Wilder’s life was “a story that needs to be fully told, in its historical context, as she lived it.” That is exactly what Prairie Fires does. Wilder became world famous through her Little House books, written in the 1930s about her childhood as a pioneer girl and a teacher in one-room schools on the South Dakota prairie. With the editorial assistance of her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, she produced an eight-volume series of children’s fiction based on fact. Wilder died at age ninety, in 1957, at the time I was beginning t...

When Emma opened her gorgeous little chocolate shop in the harbour village of Warkton-by-the-Sea, she realised a lifelong dream. Love is also blossoming with her hunky beau, Max, who’s slowly healing her fragile heart. Summer is here and life has never felt so sweet. Until the rainclouds start to gather… A rival sweet shop and killjoy landlord give Emma a headache, and when a face from the past turns up unannounced, Emma finds herself spiralling down memory lane. With Max’s crazy work schedule driving him to distraction, Emma’s in danger of making some choices she might regret . . . With close friends, spaniel Alfie, and the whole village behind her, can Emma get the chocolate shop and her love life back on track? At Christmas I read The Cosy Christmas Chocolate shop by Caroline Roberts and let me tell you that quaint little shop and its loveable owner Emma has stayed in my mind so when I saw that there was a sequel being released I couldn’t wait. In A Cosy Seaside Chocolate Shop we ...

Fiction Music had become a political instrument A SYMPHONY OF RIVALS By Roma Calatayud-Stocks 414 pp. Calumet Editions Reviewed by Alan Goodman A Symphony Of Rivals is the second book in a planned trilogy by Calatayud-Stocks. In this story the protagonist, Alejandra Morrison, a young lady possessing an exceptional musical gift as a concert pianist, seeks an opportunity to make a name as a major orchestral conductor in what is traditionally a man’s domain. The story moves between Minneapolis, the home town of Ms. Morrison, and her medical doctor husband, Richard, to 1933 Berlin, a city experiencing the ominous political currents inspired by the rise of the Nazi party. The story begins in Berlin with Alejandra and Richard riding through the streets of Berlin, and then in their hotel, the famed Adelon in Pariser Platz. The Nazi presence, crude, ruse and unsettling, makes itself known almost immediately with an encounter in the hotel bar. A loud disturbance drew her attention....

Fiction If Prince Charming were a vampire THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS By Brian Rouff 324 pp. Huntington Press Reviewed by Eric Petersen Las Vegas based writer Brian Rouff is back with his latest novel, a delightful Carl Hiaasen-esque tale set in Sin City, which becomes a character itself. The story begins in small-town Michigan, with spunky young reporter Anna Christiansen hoping for a better assignment than writing obituaries and covering county fairs. She gets more than she bargained for when her boss Mr. Knudsen assigns her to cover a local concert by a band called the Dickweeds, whom she describes as “a retro alt country blues band with a small horn section,” and interview their lead singer, Rob Lazarus. Anna arrives for the show and finds that the paper hasn’t even bought her a ticket. The only ones left are in the Standing Room Only section. She can’t even see the band from there. To make matters worse, after the concert, Rob Lazarus, in no mood for the press, rudely gives ...