The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones, is one of the most disturbing books I’ve read in a long time. Sebold is a gifted writer who choses difficult subject matter to explore. Her writing can be compelling and absorbing, but her gifts were lost here, as there was so little to redeem this novel. The novel opens with Helen Knightly murdering her mother, who suffers from demention, and it spirals down from there into even more…
The Saffron Kitchen is a bittersweet debut novel by Yasmin Crowther set in equal parts in London and Iran. Sara has grown up in London, the daughter of a British father and Iranian mother (like Crowther herself,) and always sensed a sadness in her mother when letters from Iran would arrive and her mother would be torn between her old life and new life. This culminates in an event at the opening of the novel which sends Maryam, Sara’s mother, back to…
Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell is a wonderful piece of historical fiction set during the time of the Cairo Conference in 1921. The ficticious main character, Agnes Shanklin, is in Cairo at the time, along with Winston Churchill, T.E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell and others. This is fabulous storytelling mixed in with well researched historical fact. I was captivated from the beginning. Whether you want to find out more about Lawrence of Arabia and the creation of the…
When Autumn Leaves by Amy S. Foster is a novel set in the small town of Avening on the Pacific coast, where magical things seem to continually happen. Autumn, the town wise-woman, is leaving Avening and looking for someone to replace her, someone with magical gifts of her own. The town draws many unusual people to live there, and many unexpected women and girls come forth seeking this position. This is their story. I usually enjoy books filled with magical…
Did you ever wonder what happens to Madame Butterfly’s child after she kills herself at the end of Puccini’s Opera? Butterfly’s Child by Angela Davis-Gardner is the imagined story of the blond haired Japanese boy named Benji, son of U.S. Navy Lieutenant Frank Pinkerton and the geisha Cio-Cio-san, known as Madame Butterfly. Benji is taken from Nagasaki, to a farm in Illinois with his father and step mother, his true identity concealed, to a life he knows nothing about. He grows up in…
In the Kingdom of Men by Kim Barnes is a novel set in Saudi Arabia in the 60’s. It is the story of Americans working for Aramco, the Arabian American Oil Company there, and living within its gated compound. Newcomers Gin Mitchell and her idealistic husband Mason McPhee from Oaklahoma, find themselves way out of their depth, as problems with the company spiral out of their control. This is a fascinating novel, giving us a portrait of a time and place most…
The Shortest Distance Between Two Women by Kris Radish is the story of a 78 year old widow and her four grown daughters, all but one of which still live within walking distance of each other in South Carolina. It is told from the point of view of Emma, the youngest daughter, as she struggles to make peace with the crazy women in her family and find happiness in her own life. It is a feel good story reminding us of the…
Never Let Me Go is a haunting novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, author of The Remains of the Day. We meet Kathy, Tommy and Ruth, all growing up at Hailsham,a secluded boarding school in the English countryside, and from the beginning it’s obvious that something is not quite right. The story unfolds as Kathy looks back at her life at and we are given subtle hints as to what was really going on. Part coming of age story, part science fiction,…
Prayers and Lies, the debut novel by Sherri Wood Emmons, is set in rural Appalachia, in the Coal River Valley of West Virginia. The novel is narrated by Bethany, a young girl who lives with her 3 sisters and parents in Indianapolis, and visits the Coal River where her Mother grew up, every summer to spend time with her cousins there. Her cousin Raena May becomes like a sister to her, and the book traces their lives as they grow together, and…