Sonata for Miriam is a slim, elegant novel by Linda Olsson, author of Astrid and Veronika. Sonata takes us on both a physical and emotional journey with Adam, who has just lost his daughter Miriam in an accident in New Zealand. He returns to Poland where he was born, in search of his past and then to Sweden where he was raised. Reading the novel is like listening to the different movements in a piece of music. Olsson’s writing is spare and…
Gail Tsukiyama is a wonderful and prolific author of such novels as The Samurai’s Garden and Women of the Silk, to mention just a couple. The Street of a Thousand Blossoms tells the story of Kenji and Hiroshi, who are orphaned as young boys and raised by their grandparents in a quiet neighborhood of Tokyo. The story spans almost 3 decades from the late 30’s-60’s. Hiroshi has always dreamed of someday becoming a sumo master, while Kenji is fascinated by the…
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is the best book I’ve read in a long time. An incredible debut, I just didn’t want it to end. Morgenstern creates an amazing and magical world inside the travelling circus called Le Cirque des Reves, that only opens from dusk until dawn. No matter how many times you enter that world, there are always more wonders to discover. The plot circles around a challenge between two young illusionists that are magnetically…
The White Garden, A Novel of Virginia Woolf, by Stephanie Barron is a reimagining of Virginia Woolf’s last days. There is a three week period between the time Woolf supposedly committed suicide by drowning herself in the river, and her body was found. During this time, Barron’s mystery unfolds, in which Woolf is very much alive, yet possibly in grave danger. The novel centers around American gardener Jo Bellamy, who has come to Sissinghurst Castle in England to view the…
Siam or The Woman Who Shot a Man is a slim, elegant novel by Lily Tuck. It takes place in Thailand in 1967 as the US begins bombing North Vietnam. Claire, a young newlywed has just moved to Thailand with her husband James, a government contractor. Shortly after arriving, she meets Jim Thompson, an American Millionaire who is the owner of the Thai Silk Company. Within weeks, he disappears in the jungle and Claire becomes obsessed with finding out what…
Julia’s Child by Sarah Pinneo is an entertaining, contemporary novel about a Mom of two small boys who quits the corporate world to start an organic food company for toddlers, called Julia’s Child. At times it made me laugh, yet I found it somewhat contrived and predictable, with nothing special about the writing or the characters. Some of it was simply hard to believe. However, Pinneo does capture the feeling of a harried Mom of young children trying to make…
I’ve come to love Susan Vreeland’s historical fiction based on famous works of art. Luncheon of the Boating Party is perhaps my favorite. It is based on Renoir’s famous painting Le Dejeuner des Canotiers. In it, the fourteen people captured enjoying lunch along the Seine in 1880’s France, come alive. Each modeled for Renoir for eight Sundays over the course of two months in late summer to complete the painting before the light of summer disappeared. Vreeland brings to life…
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell is a futuristic novel about a Jesuit mission to a newly discovered planet and an unknown species. Sounds far fetched? Doria Russell’s novels are so well researched and intriguing, I was captivated for most of the novel. This novel works because it is character driven, by the group of mismatched friends sent on the mission, led by Puerto Rican Priest and linguist Emelio Sanchez. It was reminiscent of Star Trek, and in fact the…
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey is a wonderful novel, mixing fairy tale magic with the realities of life, homesteading in the Alaskan wilderness in the 1920’s. Mabel and Jack always wanted children, but this was never to happen. Searching for a different life, they head to Alaska, only to discover vast wilderness, bitter winters, and hard earth that doesn’t seem able to yield enough food to live on. One night, during the first snow of the season, they build…
The Bird Sisters, the debut novel by Rebecca Rasmussen, is about two sisters, Milly and Twiss, who are old now, but are remembering back to the summer when they were teenage girls in Wisconson in 1947. That was the summer their cousin Bett came to live with them and everything in their lives changed. I wanted to like this novel more than I actually did. It was lacking in plot and character development, and for some reason, it never fully…