The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe is a memoir about Mary Anne Schwalbe and her son Will, who form a book club of two during the remaining two years of Mary Anne’s life, after she is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The book club meets mostly during Mary Anne’s chemo treatments. This book was so moving for so many reasons. Mary Anne lead a very inspiring life, fighting for the rights of refugees, and working tirelessly to…
The Firebird by Susanna Kearsly is a big fat romantic novel full of mystery and travel and a little magic. Nicola Marter has the rare gift of psychometry, touching an object and being able to see its history. She works for an art dealer and holds a small carved wooden bird that the owner claims once belonged to Catherine the Great. There is no proof of this, yet Nicola knows it to be true as she has seen it all…
The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier (author of Girl With a Pearl Earring) is a novel set in Ohio in the 1850’s. It tells of a Quaker woman, Honor Bright, who has travelled with her sister from England to start a new life in a new world. Her sister dies during the journey, and she finds herself alone in a strange new land. The women who befriend her have a secret to keep, and Honor needs to decide if she…
Peaches for Father Francis by Joanne Harris is a continuation of Chocolate, the Story of Vianne Rocher as she returns eight years later to the little French village of Lansquenet, where she had a chocolate shop and fell in love with a gypsy named Roux (played by Johnny Depp in the movie Chocolate.) I love this story and the way Harris brings the sights sounds and smells of a place to life, especially through the use of food in her…
A Hundred Flowers is Gail Tsukiyama’s latest novel. I always look forward to reading her books and wasn’t disappointed this time. Her elegant prose is beautiful to read, and in her deceptively simple style, she brings us deep in to the emotions of her characters, while the place comes alive as well. This novel is set in China, in 1958 during Mao’s reign. It focuses on one family of intellectuals, and what happens when one decides to write a letter…
The Poet Prince by Kathleen McGowan is the third book in The Magdalene Line Series. It is my least favorite of the three, but still worth reading if you are already invested in the series. This time, the novel is set in Florence during the Renaissance, and explores the lives of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Botticelli, and Michaelangelo, as they relate to the story of the teachings of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. The modern characters in this novel are not as…
The Book of Love by Kathleen McGowan is book two of The Magdalene Series, following The Expected One. In this historical fiction novel, McGowan writes of the undiscovered gospel written in Jesus’ own hand as preserved and taught by Mary Magdalene. The story is also set in the present day, again following the life of Maureen Paschal as she is led into a new mystery uncovering this lost document, as well as the life of eleventh century Countess Matilda of…
Consider This, Senora by Harriet Doerr is a novel set in a small town in rural Mexico in the 60’s. Three North American women come to build houses here and for one, live out the rest of her days. Deceptively simple, the novel shows how Mexico changes each of these women, as the local people carry on with their lives. Beautifully written.
Still Alice by Lisa Genova is an incredible novel about a 50 year old woman named Alice, at the height of her career as a cognitive psychology professor at Harvard, who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. The novel is written in the voice of Alice. Through letting Alice tell her own story, Genova gives us a powerful and in depth view into the mind of someone with Alzheimer’s. It becomes increasingly painful to read, as Alice’s mind is slipping…
The Expected One by Kathleen McGowan is a novel about Mary Magdalene that McGowan researched for two decades. In the same vein as Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, this novel is filled with hidden scrolls, secret societies, ancient mysteries, symbols, and most importantly, the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. At the heart of the novel is Maureen Paschal, “The Expected One” who is meant to uncover the original gospel of Mary Magdalene. Whether or not you believe the claims…