After Before by Jemma Wayne is a novel that tells the story of three women whose lives overlap one British winter, all struggling with different issues. Lynn, not yet 60 is dying, Vera, a newly converted Christian engaged to Lynn’s son is battling with secrets from her past, and Emily, Lynn’s caregiver is trying to forget the horrors she survived during the Rwandan genocide that killed the rest of her village. Sad, tragic and at times difficult to read, yet…
How to Start a Fire by Lisa Lutz is a novel about three female college friends who manage to stick together through thick and thin over the course of 20 years. Jumping back and forth through time and space, at first I found the novel’s format disconcerting, but once I surrendered to it, everything fell into place by the end. Lutz has created unique, well drawn characters that are impossible not to care about. Quirky, witty, clever, sad, beautiful, brave,…
The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman is historical fiction based on the life of Camille Pissaro, the Father of Impessionism, and his mother Rachel Pomie Petit Pizzaro. Both born and raised in St. Thomas and later living in Paris, this is an imagined story of the painter’s early life and ancestry on this little island in the Carribean. Beautifully written, Hoffman brings to life 1800’s St. Thomas and one fierce girl who always dreams of Paris. Hoffman is a…
Act of God by Jill Cement is slim novel about a glowing mushroom found in a corner of a closet in Brooklyn that turns into a super mold that destroys blocks of the city, leaving many homeless and some dead. Part comedy, part horror story, and totally original, it is really the story of a small group of people coming together and what it means to be a family. I found it so compelling that I couldn’t put it down…
I loved Paying Guests by Sarah Waters, so I thought I’d read one of her earlier novels. Affinity is a Victorian Era crime mystery lesbian love story set in a women’s prison in London. Waters is an amazing storyteller, there were so many twists and turns, by the end I felt like I needed to read it all over again to see what I had missed. Not as good as Paying Guests, but Waters is such a brilliant writer it…
Dietland by Sarai Walker seems at first to be a light comedy, but quickly becomes quite subversive, a feminist call to arms. Plum, an overweight woman about to have surgery to release the skinny woman inside her has been struggling with her weight her whole life. Everything in her life gets turned upside down when she finds herself being followed by a mysterious girl in colorful tights and combat boots. From there she becomes involved with all kinds of women…
All the Stars in the Heavens by Adriana Trigiani is historical fiction based on the Golden Years of Hollywood in the 1930s. Trigiani reimagines the love affair between Clark Gable and Loretta Young and the daughter they had together that they hid from the world. I enjoy Trigiani’s novels, her characters, her storytelling and all the rich details she fills in the scenes with. This is not my favorite of her books, however. Much of the way she painted the…
Mobile Library by David Whitehouse is a novel about a group of misfits who somehow write their own story and become a family while traveling through England and Scotland in a huge Mobile Library. It’s a wonderful little book for all those who love stories and always imagined they could be the protagonist of a great adventure story. Funny, sweet, and entertaining; full of great characters, a good read.
Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal is a novel that really has very little to do with kitchens of the mid-west. We meet Eva Thorvald, the protagonist when she is just a six month old baby and can’t get enough heirloom tomatoes at the Farmers Market. However, from there the book jumps around so much and introduces so many other characters, with Eva often on the periphery, we never get to know her deeply, understand, or care…
The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild, the first woman chair of the National Gallery in London, is a wonderfully original and very funny novel about the absurdity of the London art market and the world’s mega-rich who will do anything to own the latest hot painting. It tells the story of Annie, a young chef, caught up in the madness by mistake and in a clever twist, many of the chapters are voiced by the painting itself. Well written,…