Category Archives: Reviews

Review: Moving On—Two Ex-Beatles’ Very Different Lives in the 1970s

Posted on May 17, 2020 by Gabriella West

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Beatles lately. Perhaps it’s because I started off the New Year by reading Mark Lewisohn’s masterful Tune In (2013), the first book in his proposed Beatles’ trilogy. It’s long and exhaustive, but you … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, Reviews | Tagged 1970s, Astrid Kirchherr, Beatles, Bermuda, Coming Up, depression, diaries, Double Fantasy, ex-Beatles, Fred Seaman, Future, John and Yoko, John Lennon, Man on the Run, Mark Lewisohn, Murder, Myth, Nowhere Man, paul mccartney, Robert Rosen, Starting Over, Tom Doyle, truth, Wings | Leave a comment

Review: Between Heaven and Hell by David Talbot

Posted on February 16, 2020 by Gabriella West

Between Heaven and Hell: The Story of My Stroke (Chronicle Prism, 176 pp, $22.95, January 2020) David Talbot—journalist, popular historian, longtime San Francisco resident, and author of Season of the Witch—has written a surprisingly vulnerable, intimate, often funny and engaging … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, Health, Reviews, San Francisco, Writing | Tagged Between Heaven and Hell, David Talbot, Health crises, Hollywood, meaning, memoir, mortality, nonfiction, Salon Magazine, San Francisco, Strokes | Leave a comment

A Knight’s Tale: Montargis Gets a BookBub Promo, Starting Today!

Posted on January 24, 2020 by Gabriella West

The follow-up to A Knight’s Tale: Kenilworth is now featured on BookBub and available for 99 cents at all the major ebook retailers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, Google Play)! Writing the book in the winter of 2017 through … Continue reading →

Posted in LGBT, Reviews, Writing | Tagged A Knight's Tale: Montargis, bisexual romance, Bookbub, desire, historical romance, kindle book reviews, LGBT, love, medieval france, promotion | Leave a comment

Upcoming in March: Read an E-Book Week, Followed by Guest Blogger Paula Butterfield

Posted on February 21, 2019 by Gabriella West

February has been shooting by, and I have not posted here, but let me remedy this before the month disappears completely into the rearview mirror! The first week of March (March 3-9) is the time for Read an E-Book Week … Continue reading →

Posted in LGBT, News, Reviews, Writing | Tagged 19th-century French art, Berthe Morisot, Elsie Street series, guest post, impressionism, Joan Mitchell, La Luministe, LGBT romance, Paula Butterfield, Read an Ebook Week, Return to Carlsbad, sale, Smashwords, The Pull of Yesterday, women artists | Leave a comment

Review: Becoming Mrs. Lewis

Posted on October 16, 2018 by Gabriella West

Becoming Mrs. Lewis, Patti Callahan’s just-published novel (Thomas Nelson; $25.99), is a fictional take on the story of poet Joy Davidman (1915-1960) and writer and academic CS Lewis. I had previously seen and adored the film Shadowlands, so I came … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, Reviews, Writing | Tagged 20th-century women writers, Becoming Mrs. Lewis, C.S. Lewis, cancer, literary legacy, love, marriage, Oxford, Patti Callahan, poet, review, Thomas Nelson, tragedy | Leave a comment

April Promotions

Posted on April 3, 2018 by Gabriella West

It’s April and we’re in Mercury Retrograde. Seems like a good time to have a promotion or two in the M/M romance genre. My latest historical novel, A Knight’s Tale: Montargis, came out on March 6, though it seems very … Continue reading →

Posted in LGBT, News, Reviews, Writing | Tagged A Knight's Tale: Kenilworth, A Knight's Tale: Montargis, Amazon, April, Free, LGBT, National Poetry Month, promotion, The Waste Land | Leave a comment

End of Year Reading

Posted on December 29, 2017 by Gabriella West

As the new year approaches, I’m burying myself in a good biography, something I love to do. This one is Douglas Botting’s bio of Gerald Durrell, which is available on Kindle US for the bewilderingly cheap price of $1.99 (it’s … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, News, Reviews, Writing | Tagged A Knight's Tale: Kenilworth, alcoholism, biography, Botting, depression, Gerald Durrell, happiness, Kindle, New Year, preorder, success | Leave a comment

The Downhill Slide: Two Literary Biographies

Posted on December 18, 2016 by Gabriella West

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin Manderley Forever: A Biography of Daphne du Maurier by Tatiana de Rosnay Literary biography can be such a depressing genre, although I read it, I realize, to feel vicariously alive, to really … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, LGBT, Reviews, Writing | Tagged 1950s, anxiety, barbiturates, bisexuality, Cornwall, Daphne du Maurier, daughters, dominance, Dublin, feminist, France, Gertrude Lawrence, ghosts, haunted lives, lesbian, life, literary biography, London, marriage, Menabilly, mothers, old age, Rebecca, Ruth Franklin, Shirley Jackson, Stanley Edgar Hyman, Tatiana de Rosnay, truth, Vermont, women's lives | 3 Comments

Review: Paul McCartney, The Life by Philip Norman

Posted on August 21, 2016 by Gabriella West

Paul McCartney, The Life. Philip Norman. Kindle Edition, 2016, $15.99 I loved Philip Norman’s revealing biography of John Lennon. This hefty volume doesn’t quite match up, but that may not be Norman’s fault. McCartney has lived 36 years longer than … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged babycham night, biography, control, George Harrison, Heather Mills, Jane Asher, John Lennon, loss, paul mccartney, philip norman, review, the beatles | Leave a comment

Review: Lust & Wonder, A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Gabriella West

Oscar Wilde once famously said that all women become like their mothers; that’s their tragedy. He added, “No man does. That’s his.” Wilde was implying that all men become like their fathers. The fact is, the last book I read … Continue reading →