Category Archives: Fiction

The Daylight Marriage by Heidi Pitlor

07 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by in Fiction, mystery

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In this mystery set in the Boston area, the author explores the dysfunctional marriage of tall beautiful Hannah and her distracted climate scientist husband, Lovell.

When Hannah doesn’t return home one day, the family unit starts to crumble. Their children find solace elsewhere – Janine, the teenage daughter with the couple next door and Ethan with his He-Man toys. Lovell immerses himself in his work and courts the media in his effort to find his missing wife.

The many references to local spots, South Boston, Carson Beach, MIT, Martha’s Vineyard, will keep the reader turning pages in this psychological thriller which is similar to Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train.

“Pitlor brings forth the emotions that surge beneath the surface with the precision and power of a conductor . . . This powerful analysis of how dreams become nightmares will make readers want to hold their loved ones close.” —Booklist, starred review

 “Likely to linger in the reader’s mind . . . a perfect microscope with which to examine the inexhaustible fascinations of marriage, and as Pitlor flashes between the day of Hannah’s disappearance and Lovell’s uneasy consideration of their past resentments, she finds a nice voice — thoughtful, lyrical, unforced.” —New York Times Book Review

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The Children Act: a novel by Ian McEwan

13 Monday Jul 2015

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Right from page one, this male author has a rare sensitivity to his women characters.  A female English judge is faced with some difficult cases and portrayed with much compassion.

“Irrefutably creative … With his trademark style, which is a tranquil mix of exacting word choice and easily flowing sentences, McEwan once again observes with depth and wisdom the universal truth in the uncommon situation.”
—Booklist, starred review

“A short, concise, strong novel in which a judge’s ruling decides the fate of a teenage boy in ways she never intended or imagined … it’s a book that begins with the briskness of a legal brief written by a brilliant mind, and concludes with a gracefulness found in the work of few other writers.”
—Meg Wolitzer, NPR

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The Turner House by Angela Flournoy

07 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Fiction, Historical Fiction

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The Turner House is a thoughtful, character-driven novel centered on the beloved home of an African American family. Francis and Viola Turner leave their sharecropping roots in Arkansas with their baby son Cha-Cha to find opportunity in Detroit during the city’s industrial heyday. Through sacrifice and hard work, together they raise a large family at 6257 Yarrow Street, a place that embodies their pride and hope for a brighter future. When matriarch Viola falls sick in 2008, the Turner family, thirteen-strong, must reckon with changing realities over which they have little control.

“A lively, thoroughly engaging family saga with a cast of fully realized characters…[Flournoy] handles time and place with a veteran’s ease…She puts her own distinctive stamp on this absorbing narrative.”–Publisher’s Weekly, starred and boxed review
“Nobody can take you from joyful to infuriated as fast as your brother or sister. Similarly, the ups and downs of the 13 siblings that populate The Turner House, the first novel by Angela Flournoy, whip from laugh-out-loud to heart-crushing. Still, she proves even bonds that have stretched a mile long have the ability to snap back.”—Essence
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A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

29 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by in Fiction, Historical Fiction

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9780316176538_p0_v3_s114x166 Kate Atkinson’s new book A God in Ruins is a companion piece to her 2013 novel Life After Life. Both books follow the Todd family in England before, during, and after World War II, focusing in particular on siblings Ursula and Teddy. In each story, Atkinson plays with the idea of time, and writes beautifully and powerfully about war. Both books are compelling in different ways; I recommend reading Life After Life first.

“Atkinson isn’t just telling a story: she’s deconstructing, taking apart the notion of how we believe stories are told. Using narrative tricks that range from the subtlest sleight of hand to direct address, she makes us feel the power of storytelling not as an intellectual conceit, but as a punch in the gut.”―Publishers Weekly
“A sprawling, unapologetically ambitious saga that tells the story of postwar Britain through the microcosm of a single family, and you remember what a big, old-school novel can do.”―Tom Perotta, New York Times Book Review

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You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz

22 Monday Jun 2015

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Set in Manhattan with some side trips to the Boston area, the first third of this book is slow-paced and the characters are vague.  However, the reader will soon discover that as the details are filled in, all is not perfect in the life of the main character, Grace Sachs, a family therapist, who thinks she has a perfect marriage. Suddenly there is a murder, a mystery and a missing husband! You will read this book in a “New York minute”!

“This excellent literary mystery [unfolds] with authentic detail in a rarified contemporary Manhattan. . . intriguing and beautiful.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Korelitz does not disappoint as she chronicles the emotional unraveling of her heroine in this gripping saga…A cut above your average who-is-this-stranger-in-my-marriage-bed novel, “You Should Have Known” transforms itself at certain moments from a highly effective thriller into a nuanced novel of family, heritage, identity, and nurture.”—The Boston Globe
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Transatlantic by Colum McCann

01 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by in Fiction, Historical Fiction, Travel

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9780812981926_p0_v2_s114x166McCann, the author of Let the Great World Spin, has created a remarkable novel of multiple generations of fictional female characters, and has interwoven their lives with those of real historical figures in both Ireland and the United States. With the characters Lily Duggan, an Irish maid, her granddaughter, Hannah Carson, Arthur Brown, the aviator, Frederick Douglass, the former slave and abolitionist, and George Mitchell, former U.S. senator who mediated the ceasefire in Northern Ireland, the author spans continents and leaps centuries and links the New World with the Old.

Read this book once for the story line and then read it again to fully understand and follow the threads of family and history.

“One of the greatest pleasures of TransAtlantic is how provisional it makes history feel, how intimate, and intensely real. . . . Here is the uncanny thing McCann finds again and again about the miraculous: that it is inseparable from the everyday.”—The Boston Globe

 “What distinguishes TransAtlantic from [Colum] McCann’s earlier work isn’t the stunning language or the psychological acuity or the humor and imagination on display—all of that has been there before. It’s the sheer ambition, the audacity to imagine within the same novel the experience of Frederick Douglass in 1845 . . . then the first nonstop trans-Atlantic flight in 1919 . . . then to leap into the near-present and embody the former senator George Mitchell, . . . knitting through and around them the stories of four generations of women.”—The New York Times Magazine

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My Father’s Wives by Mike Greenberg

11 Monday May 2015

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9780062325860_p0_v4_s114x166 A light and engaging “romance novel” or possibly “chick lit” written by one of the very male co-hosts of ESPN’s “Mike and Mike” sports talk-radio show.  Greenberg’s main character, Jonathan Sweetwater, who is bothered by his lack of a relationship with his late father and distraught by his own troubled marriage decides to track down and interview his father’s six wives including his own mother in hopes of finding answers to the questions about his past.

“Turns out Greenberg knows a lot more than sports. He knows about men–the holes we dig ourselves into and the mess we make trying to pull ourselves out.” (Jonathan Tropper, author of This Is Where I Leave You)
On the surface, My Father’s Wives appears to be an examination of relationships. Fathers and sons. Husbands and wives. It is that for sure. But it’s also so much more…Fully realized characters, deft pacing and spot-on dialogue.” (Associated Press)
“Greenberg imbues his second novel with an autobiographical sense of purpose and undeniable honesty . . . A highly enjoyable walk through Jonathan’s foggy past, tumultuous present, and imagined future. Fans of Joshua Henkin and Emma Straub will enjoy Greenberg’s wry, unflinching domestic fiction.” (Booklist)

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Euphoria by Lily King

04 Monday May 2015

Posted by in Fiction, Historical Fiction

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I can’t wait to post this book on the blog and share it with everyone who is looking for a gripping page turner!  My only complaint is that it ended too soon…only 261 pages.

Masterful…Euphoria begins so deep in the action that the reader is captured on Page 1… a thrilling and beautifully composed novel…A great novelist is like an anthropologist, examining what humans do by habit and custom. King excels in creating vignettes from Nell’s fieldwork as well as from the bitter conversation of the three love-torn collaborators, making the familiar strange and the strange acceptable. This is a riveting and provocative novel, absolutely first-rate.”—Seattle Times

“Atmospheric and sensual, with startling images throughout, Euphoria is an intellectually stimulating tour de force.”—NPR.com

“Set between the First and Second World Wars, the story is loosely based on events in the life of Margaret Mead. There are fascinating looks into other cultures and how they are studied, and the sacrifices and dangers that go along with it. This is a powerful story, at once gritty, sensuous, and captivating.”—Booklist

“Atmospheric…A small gem, disturbing and haunting.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Winner of the 2014 Kirkus Prize

Winner of the 2014 New England Book Award for Fiction

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Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper

29 Wednesday Apr 2015

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An intriguing read by a Canadian first time author who confronts with deep compassion the struggles of big families in the wilderness whose number one strength is self reliance.  It touches on the rivalries and comaraderie between spouses and friends via spare description and crisp, concise conversation.

“Drawing on wisdom and whimsy of astonishing grace and maturity, Hooper has written an irresistibly enchanting debut novel that explores mysteries of love old and new, the loyalty of animals and dependency of humans, the horrors of war and perils of loneliness, and the tenacity of time and fragility of memory.” – Booklist Starred Review

“Debut novelist Hooper’s spare, evocative prose dips in and out of reality and travels between past and present…This is a quietly powerful story whose dreamlike quality lingers long after the last page is turned.” – Library Journal Starred Review

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The Clothes They Stood Up In; and, The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett

24 Friday Apr 2015

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Two delightfully humorous and “veddy” British short stories which deal with the strange nature of possessions or the lack thereof.  In the first story, Mr. and Mrs. Ransome return from a night out at the opera only to find that all of their possessions have been stolen, even the roll of toilet paper. Who will they become without the belongings that they have accumulated over the years?

The second story, to be released later in 2015 as a movie starring Maggie Smith, is laugh-out-loud funny.  What would you do if a very eccentric mature woman parked her van in your driveway, refused to move and stayed for fifteen years.  This book will lift your spirits on a rainy day!

“The Clothes They Stood Up In…... is a completely charming entertainment: a small gem by one of Britain’s most versatile and gifted writers.”   -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“Sharp…a happy evening’s read and a tantalizing mental challenge to those of us who, like the Ransomes, find [our] lives encumbered and [our] senses blunted by too much stuff.” -Brooke Allen, The New York Times Book Review
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