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…
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats is a beautiful new novel by Jan-Philipp Sendker. After coming across an old love letter from her father to an unknown woman, Julia, a New York lawyer, sets off for Burma in search of her father, four years after his disappearance. There she meets a man named U Ba who claims to know her father and the story of the first twenty years of his life growing up in a remote village in Burma. The…
The Master Quilter by JenniferChiaverini is part of the Elm Creek Quilts Series. I have enjoyed some of these in the past, particularly The Aloha Quilt. This one, however, is not one of my favorites. All the regular quilters are here, but this time they are all keeping secrets from one another and the sense of a strong group of women, coming together with a love of handwork and supporting each other through all aspects of their lives is a little…
The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn by Janis Hallowell is a story of ordinary people longing for the divine and finding it in the form of a 14 year old girl at a local cafe. It shows how faith can make even the impossible seem true, and that devotees come in all forms, from loving to violent. The novel tells of the universal search for God, for miracles, for something extraordinary in even the most ordinary of places. The story is told…
I had read some of Susan Vreeland’s other historical fiction, Girl in Hyacynth Blue, The Passion of Artemesia, and really enjoyed it, so I picked up a copy of The Forest Lover, Vreeland’s historical fiction based on the life of Canadian painter Emily Carr. I will admit that I hadn’t heard of Carr before, much to my loss. She is Canada’s most celebrated female painter, although she was hardly recognized in her lifetime. Living and painting in Vancouver at the…