Sight Reading by Daphne Kalotay is a novel set in the world of classical music, from Boston to Vienna and across Europe. Three lives intertwine as Hazel and then Remy fall in love with composer Nicholas Elko. What makes this book special is Kalotay’s writing and her ability to create characters full of flaws and emotions covering the full spectrum of what it means to be alive and human. Her love of music saturates the book. A good read.
A Sudden Light by Garth Stein is set in the Pacific Northwest. Fourteen year old Trevor and his father travel to his father’s childhood home to try to persuade his aging grandfather to sell the house and move into a retirement home, which would solve their financial problems, but of course things are a bit more complicated than that. What ensues is a journey into generations of the families past, some appearing as ghosts to tell their stories to Trevor…
The Muse by Jessie Burton is her follow up novel to The Miniaturist. The novel focuses on two women, one a painter living in Spain in 1936, the other a Caribbean immigrant living in London in 1967 working at an art gallery. One mysterious painting links their lives together and it is an ongoing mystery throughout the novel to try to figure out exactly how. Beautifully written, full of gorgeous details and woven together in a way only Burton seems…
Wake of Vultures/Conspiracy of Ravens-The Shadow Books 1 & 2 by Lila Bowen are fantasy horror books and not something I would normally read. I loved Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, but these books cannot compare. Set in the 1870’s Old West, we follow Nettie, a half black-half Indian slave girl who doesn’t know anything about her origins or what she really is. She escapes, dresses like a boy, changes her name to Rhett, gets a job with the Durango Rangers…
Absalom’s Daughters by Suzanne Feldman is a novel about two girls, one black one white, with the same daddy who left them to grow up poor in rural Mississippi in the 50’s. When they find out there might be money left to them, they take off in a broke down car with little food and money and head to Virginia hoping to find their inheritance. This is a beautifully written novel, shining light on all different kinds of racism and…
Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler is a modern day retelling of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. It is brilliantly written, funny, clever, witty, wise and a bit outrageous. Kate, the older daughter is stuck in a boring job, taking care of her father and her pretty younger sister and she has become bitter. When her Father comes up with a ridiculous plan to help further his work that involves Kate, she wants no part of it. What follows is…
Piece of Mind by Michelle Adelman is a novel about Lucy, a 27 year old woman who suffered a brain injury when she was 3 that left her missing certain brain functions. She loves to draw animals, read comic books and knows everything about coffee. After she is forced to move in with her college age younger brother and start fending for herself for the first time in her life, everything changes, and she finds that she is much more…
Swing Time is the new novel by Zadie Smith. Set in London, two young brown girls study dance together falling in love with all the old musicals and dreaming of a life on stage. Only one has real talent and their lives eventually diverge. The unnamed protagonist ends up working as a personal assistant for a very famous white singer and travels with her to West Africa where she wants to start a school for girls. Tracey, the dancer, manages…
The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler is set on Long Island Sound, in an old house sitting precariously on a cliff side ready to fall into the sea. Here lives Simon, a librarian, who comes from a family of mermaids, and tarot readers and carnival performers. He receives a very old, mysterious book that belonged to his Grandmother and begins a quest to uncover the curse that seems to be haunting his family. Set in the past and the…
The Witches Market by Mingmei Yip is a book about a Chinese American professor of anthropology in San Francisco who may or may not be a witch/shameness. She has a dream that takes her on a year sabbatical to the Canary Islands where she will supposedly write a book about witches. What follows is the most ridiculous, poorly written book I’ve read in ages, not really as much about witches as about solving a murder mystery. I don’t know how…