The Scent of Lemon Leaves is a novel by Spanish writer Clara Sanchez. It tells the story of pregnant and lost Sandra, living in her sister’s house on the Costa Brava wondering what she is going to do with her life. She is befriended by two older Norwegians that treat her like kindly grandparents, but who are not at all what they seem to be. She meets Julian, a concentration camp survivor and learns that she is involved with a…
Trans-Sister Radio by Chris Bohjalian is a novel about a woman, Allison, who falls in love with a man, Dana, only to find out he’s preparing to have a sex change operation and become the woman he always felt he was. The novel takes very ordinary people and puts them in this situation to challenge our ideas and stereotypes about trans-sexuals. Bohjalian does a good job of presenting the story with compassion, and perhaps more surgical details than the reader…
Purple Hibiscus is a powerful debut novel from Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche. Set in Nigeria, the novel tells the story of 15 year old Kambili and her brother Jaja, growing up in fear of their strictly religious father. He is a rich and powerful man and Kambili wants nothing more than to please him. She has no thoughts of her own that are not dictated by her father. When she visits her aunt and cousins, she gets her first taste of…
Without Reservations, the Travels of an Independent Woman is a travelogue/memoir by Alice Steinbach. Steinbach had been working for years as a journalist, and in her 50’s, divorced and with two grown boys, decides to take a year off to travel and live in Europe. She starts in Paris, then moves on to England and Italy. Although Steinbach calls this “The Year of Living Dangerously” there is nothing too adventurous here. She has spent time in all these places before,…
Alexander McCall Smith must be the most prolific writer alive, he seems to pop out a new book every few months. One of his latest, The Forever Girl, is set in the Cayman Islands, then Scotland, England, Austalia, and Singapore; we get a look into the lives of wealthy expats raising their children in exotic locations. The story centers around Clover and her lifelong love for James, a boy she grew up with, but never dated. Although different from his…
The Mermaid Garden by Santa Montefiore is written in two narratives, one set in Tuscany and the other in a small coastal village in England. For most of the novel, the reader is wondering how these two stories relate to each other. The setting is beautiful, the characters interesting, the writing is good, and I was enjoying the story and the mystery, all the way until the end of the book.Montefiore ruined her own wonderful tale by giving it such…
The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty is a wonderful novel that I didnt want to end. Evelyn Bucknow is a young girl growing up in Kansas, without many opportunities, but with a lot of courage, wit and honesty. She is caught between her very religious grandmother, who she loves dearly, and her science teacher, who she greatly admitres. She navigates her own way through adolescence, as her young mother is at home with her developmentally delayed baby brother and…
When the Emperor was Divine is a sparse, elegant little novel by Julie Otsuka that packs a big emotional punch. Otsuka tells of one Japanese family from Berkeley, Ca that is relocated during WWII. Otsuka’s writing is flawless. She evokes the feelings and experiences of the family as they move through the night by train to their internment camp in the Utah desert where they spend the next 3 1/2 years. Through simple details and images the broader picture unfolds,…
Night of Many Dreams by Gail Tsukiyama is about two Chinese sisters growing up in Hong Kong during WWII. During the Japanese occupation they move to Macao, then return to Hong Kong after the war. Emma continually dreams of traveling to far away places, while beautiful Joan expects to get married and enter into high society. While things don’t work out exactly as planned, they always have their family to return to. Tsukiyama is one of my favorite writes, I…
Isabel Wolff‘s love of vintage clothing is apparent in her novel A Vintage Affair. The protagonist, Phoebe Swift opens a vintage clothing shop in London, then meets all sorts of interesting people who come in to shop or sell their old clothes. Each piece of clothing tells a story, and Phoebe quickly gets caught up in the story of a little blue coat belonging to Mrs. Bell, an elderly Frenchwoman who is dying. As Mrs. Bell’s story unfolds, so does…