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Đang hiển thị bài đăng từ Tháng 6, 2019

A Long Petal of the Sea, Isabel Allende's epic of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath

Allende’s fluidly written saga conveys her deep familiarity with the events she depicts, and her intent to illustrate their human impact in a moving way. The scope spans most of the lives of Victor Dalmau, a Republican army medic in 1936 Spain, and Roser Bruguera, a music student taken in by Victor’s family and, later, his brother Guillem’s lover and the mother of Guillem’s child. The story follows them over nearly sixty years, beginning with the tumult of the Spanish Civil War. Guillem is killed fighting against the Fascists, news that Victor can’t bear to tell Roser initially. After surviving separate and terrible circumstances that leave them refugees in France, where authorities treat them with contempt and worse, the two marry for practical reasons in order to join Pablo Neruda’s mission transporting over 2000 Spanish exiles to Chile aboard the S.S. Winnipeg . In Santiago, the Dalmaus find many Chileans sympathetic to the Spaniards, while others make them unwelcome. With a poetic ...
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The Secret

The Secret

The Mozart Girl by Barbara Nickel, a lively story of Wolfgang Mozart's musically talented older sister, Nannerl

Please forgive my two-week absence!  I was away at the Historical Novel Society conference in National Harbor, Maryland, and then at the American Library Association conference exhibits in DC.  Then I returned to the library and quickly got overwhelmed with work. But without further ado, on with some reviews of historical novels. This one is for a middle-grade story, but readers of any age can enjoy it. Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart enjoys beautiful gowns, birthday gifts, and sweets as much as any 12-year-old girl, but she has an extraordinary talent and big dreams. She yearns to perform music before royalty and to become a world-famous composer. The first goal may be achievable, but the second sadly isn’t, because she lives in Salzburg in 1763, and only boys like her younger brother, Wolfi, can hope for a musical career. Although “Nannerl” loves her playful sibling, she’s jealous of the attention he receives and dislikes doing household chores while he practices music. A...
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Dawson's Fall by Roxana Robinson, a timely novel of the Reconstruction-era South

Robinson’s documentary novel intermingles fiction and family memoirs, period editorials, letters, and journal entries in its penetrating rendition of key moments during the lives of her great-grandparents, Frank and Sarah Morgan Dawson. Their characterizations and strong principles are clearly etched throughout; both were outliers in their time yet inextricably defined by it. English-born and a defender of the rule of law, Dawson is moved to join the Confederate Navy; he later rises to become a prominent Charleston newspaper editor, whose progressive writings championing African Americans’ rights and civic participation make him unpopular. Raised in a Louisiana family brought low through loss, Sarah is a talented writer all-too-aware of women’s social inferiority. The novel’s suspenseful second half details a disturbing incident involving the Dawsons’ neighbor and governess. While the patchwork approach means the narrative isn’t exactly smooth, it proves unyielding in its timely themes...
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Marriage, mayhem, and murder: Allison Montclair's witty historical mystery The Right Sort of Man

Allison Montclair’s The Right Sort of Man sees two unlikely business partners running a matrimonial agency in post-World War II London – and teaming up to pin down a murderer. It’s an inspired pairing. Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge, a tall, elegant war widow, has an intuitive knack for sizing up characters and situations, while Miss Iris Sparks has moxie to spare, a string of past fiancés and lovers, and an analytical mind that served her well in wartime intelligence (which she isn’t allowed to talk about). Their ongoing banter is quick and clever without feeling forced. In part, think The Bletchley Circle but with cheeky wit instead of creepy suspense. Both women have traumatic personal histories that shape their approaches to life, though, which lends the novel a sense of gravitas absent from more standard cozy mysteries. Their new business venture, located in upscale Mayfair (which would be a fashionable venue if not for the bombed-out rubble surrounding their building), threatens...
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Mark Haddon's The Porpoise, a quasi-historical mythic tale about women's lack of agency

Haddon’s ( The Pier Falls and Other Stories , 2016) new novel works on multiple levels: as an entertaining adventure, a creative patchwork of an ancient story’s many manifestations, and an exploration of how women suffer when men control their fates. Born after her pregnant mother's death in a plane crash, Angelica grows up in luxury, but her father, Philippe, sexually abuses and isolates her, and the staff on his English estate are little help. An attempted rescuer, the son of Philippe’s business associate, is attacked by Philippe and flees for his life. Aboard the Porpoise , an oceangoing yacht, the young man’s journey turns fantastical as he transforms into Pericles, Prince of Tyre, hero of the Shakespearean play, whose story parallels the modern-day situation. The settings are colorfully rendered, and the fast-paced action is occasionally disorienting as scenes alternate between Pericles’ quasi-Greek world, a gritty Jacobean London, and Angelica’s traumatic life. Considerable a...
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A visual preview of summer 2019 in historical fiction from UK publishers

Here's a collection of new and upcoming historical novels from British publishers, with their corresponding cover designs.  Please note that the UK focus below reflects the publisher, not necessarily the author's nationality.  Some of these twelve books will be appearing from North American presses later this year, while for others, I recommend Book Depository.  I'll be traveling to the UK later this year and am hoping to find some of these in person. A young woman in occupied Tuscany during WWII falls in love with a black American soldier. Bloomsbury, Sept. 2019. [ see on Goodreads ]  Also published by Bloomsbury in the US. Romantic historical fiction set amid the exuberance of post-WWI England, from the award-winning author of Letters to the Lost .  Simon & Schuster UK, May 2019. [ see on Goodreads ]  Also to be published by Thomas Dunne in the US in December. A shift in historical era for the multi-faceted Harris, whose new thriller is set in a remot...
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Free $100

Free $100