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#historicalfiction, #politicssocialjustice, #fourstarbookreview

matter-of-fact approach to life and her graceful ability to cope with her significant past trauma and dark history

01 Out Front the Following Sea by Leah Angstman In Out Front the Following Sea, upcoming historical fiction

Rees does an excellent job of taking us through Edith's amateur spy struggle and provides fascinating details of life in Germany at the end of World War II. It's 1945, and Edith Graham is a small-town British schoolteacher who is thrilled to sign on with the British Control Commission to help get schools back up and running for the children in war-torn Germany. Edith has a degree in German (and, more importantly and unbeknownst to her, an old connection to a hunted war criminal), and she's recruited by the Office of Strategic Services. She'll keep her cover by assisting with schools while actually trying to help locate Nazis. Smart but inexperienced Edith quickly finds that she must negotiate the various British intelligence groups purportedly working together--some of whom are unofficial--who have vastly different goals. One faction wants to use the horrifying knowledge of Nazi doctors who enacted abuse and torture upon Jews during the war; others want due process for these criminals; still others want to assassinate the monsters without delay. Edith must constantly determine who to trust as she seeks the truth and tries to ensure that justice is served. Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook alludes to the way Edith includes coded intelligence within her letters' recipes and chatty notes. Although I wasn't completely clear on how the clever messaging worked at a level of detail that would have been useful, it was easy to suspend my disbelief because I loved it so much. But even more interesting to me were the detailed snapshots Rees offers into the foods of the place and time--for struggling regular Germans as compared to the privileged, occupying British and Americans. The scarcity of supplies and necessary improvisations, as well as black-market riches, together served as a vivid backdrop for the story. The details Rees provides of this confused time in the world are wonderful: the complicated workings of different groups' postwar efforts; the bombed--or jarringly lush and untouched--settings; the creative, sometimes alarming dietary options; and the clothes and fashion. It's clear that she thoroughly researched all of these aspects. There are some implausibly long, expository soliloquys that explain the machinations of the Nazis or offer background on the politics of the American and British postwar factions. Toward the end of the book, I stumbled at some awkward scene transitions, and there is a late, abrupt point of view shift. I sometimes confused the various British men attempting to serve as puppet masters, but I raced to the conclusion of the increasingly interconnected, complex story lines because I couldn't wait to find out what happened to the key players. Rees does an excellent job of taking us through Edith's amateur spy struggle to determine what information to entrust to whom, how to extract the details she needs from unsuspecting sources, and how to stay alive once she's embroiled in a situation that turns out to be far more dangerous than she could have imagined. What did you think? I found the author's note about her inspiration for the book's hook and story line really interesting. Rees has written other books that look fantastic: Pirates! (obviously yes to this one), Witch Child (again, yes), and its sequel, Sorceress (yes). I first mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 9/22/20 Edition.

But disaster strikes, and Jax finds herself trying to unravel the twisted, complicated history of her family and its land--a history Lexie had been researching and had become obsessed by.

This is a spooky, atmospheric, gothic Victorian ghost story perfect for the season. Elsie thought she had married out of her hardworking life and into a life of wealth and leisure. But when her kind husband passes away suddenly just after the wedding, pregnant Elsie and her tedious cousin-in-law Sarah must head from London to the family's neglected country estate, The Bridge, to bury him and set the house to rights. Behind a door without a key--a door that is sometimes locked and other times mysteriously not--a "silent companion" (a realistic, freestanding painted wooden figure) sits eerily, as though waiting. Impossibly, the centuries-old figure bears a shocking resemblance to Elsie. Mysterious noises, inexplicable goings-on, the appearance of additional silent companions, haunting stories of the past, and the superstitious hatred of the village folk for the family make Elsie begin to believe something is not right at The Bridge--and that maybe her husband's death wasn't natural at all. In the mid-1600s, the family living in The Bridge is readying for a royal visit, but there seems to be something dark at work--and immense power that's spiraling out of the control of those who first wielded it. In the book's 1865 timeline, our main protagonist has recently been placed in a mental institution, trying to piece together what is real and what is imagined--with the help of a modern-thinking young doctor who's determined to help her. Horrors from her childhood are alluded to and contribute to her fear, her reluctance to trust, and her doubts about what is fact and what is fiction. Then everything in this good old Victorian ghost story kicks up ten notches to become even more spooky. Purcell takes us through the disturbing events surrounding one family living two hundred years apart in the same house, making you wonder how reliable any of our main protagonists are. (And there's a twist and a double twist I loved.) What did you think? Purcell has also written other gothic novels I'd like to read: The Poison Thread, Bone China, and her newest, The Shape of Darkness. I first mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 9/22/20 Edition.

Donoghue immersed me so fully in this world that everything else fell away for me. Set in Ireland in 1918, The Pull of the Stars follows a nurse, Julia; a doctor, Kathleen; and a young volunteer, Bridie, over the course of three tumultuous days as the fiery, complex, capable women work desperately to help the patients at their understaffed hospital who are about to give birth while suffering from the devastating new influenza. The country is reeling at the end of World War I. Permanent holes have been created in families, and the loss of men has left medical and other support systems overloaded. Our heroines are sometimes trapped by the chauvinistic framework they're working within, and we see them try to create their own solutions to crises, follow tradition or improve upon it, and fly under the radar to instinctively and knowledgeably help their patients rather than rely on, for example, young, untested, book-smart male doctors. And then there's the no-nonsense, scandalous Sinn Fein activist and doctor Kathleen Lynn, who bursts onto the scene to Handle It left and right. She is unusual in that she trusts and delegates power to her nurses, who have long been hamstrung by rules and limitations (so that in many cases all they may offer a birthing or dying woman is diluted whiskey as they wait for the few doctors to come by the ward). Donoghue weaves a good amount of fact into this story. She offers sometimes horrifying particulars of early twentieth century medical care and exquisitely detailed glimpses into daily life and the workings of society at the time. And Doctor Kathleen Lynn was a real, formidable figure. I wasn't sure how wise it was to read about a pandemic during a pandemic. Donoghue doesn't pull any punches with the sometimes horrific details of the flu's devastation (or the varied life-threatening dangers of childbirth). There's a constant push and pull of life and death--a microcosm of what is occurring on the battlefields and in the world. Yet for the book's characters, the life-and-death wartime and influenza crises bring laser focus to the most essential everyday matters: living life as truthfully and joyfully as possible, fighting against unjust systems, and offering grace to others. The author allows her practical characters to imagine glorious possibilities beyond the scope of what is known to them, and this added immense heart to the story. Donoghue immersed me so fully in the moment-by-moment health and emotional crises; the women's determined, sometimes desperately creative attempts to preserve lives; and the occasional triumphs that the rest of the world fell away for me as I was reading. I couldn't wait to get back to this book when I was away from it. What did you think? I was engrossed. The author of the disturbing, fascinating book Room knows how to craft a story of survival and of finding hope in the most dire situations. I recently mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 9/16/20 Edition.

Kalb shares rip-roaring tales of family history; Bobby's distinct pride in generations of the family

complicate Jill and Kit's finances, but threaten Kit's identity and shake the family's sense of personal history

country--and her journalistic discoveries threaten to unearth the painful secrets of Smita's own family history

The characters frequently intersperse political, historical, feminist, cultural, and other context throughout

supporting characters--as well as a romantic story that tackled weighty issues (my favorite kind), and a historical

McLain's When the Stars Go Dark, about a missing persons detective coping with her own tragedy; the historical

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading A Rip Through Time, the first in Kelley Armstrong's time-travel historical

I'm doing a lot of things for the first time in human history out here and there's a lot of stuff that

Through mining past research and history for wisdom as well as interviewing highly successful individuals

In Rachel Hawkins's new mystery The Wife Upstairs, each of the main players and their histories aren't But each of these characters turned out to be hiding elements of their histories that put into context

essential to the productive understanding of the past and current racial situation, including a basic history reading this or other books on race and anti-racism that you recommend for a better understanding of history

this book (along with the epic science fiction/fantasy To Sleep in a Sea of Stars and a young adult historical

This book traces the history of the Tearling as a kingdom crushed by famine, feudalism, corruption, greed Elyssa recalls that the history shared by her tutor Lady Glynn was made up of: "...tales of good, but

McDaniel's Appalachian-set novel Betty with my book club, Xiran Jay Zhao's young adult blend of Chinese history

the cons aims to right some wrongs in two of the characters' shared (but mysterious and complicated) history

Female characters--as well as their female friends and relatives who appear in retold stories and histories and bravery required by Rum's female characters--but also many other real-life women--to write a new history

nine TV seasons aired in the United States--including the story of how it was almost canceled after six

villages of her home country--and threatens to unearth the secrets of Smita's own family and their history

Schwab's stories take place within her detailed fantasy world (with some historical fiction elements

also wrote the fantastic Spinning Silver and Uprooted, both of which appear on the Greedy Reading List Six

That was suuuuch a different book (dark historical fiction set in 1933 New Guinea), but as in Writers

I was hoping for answers, but Vance focuses on pointing out the layered, complicated cultural and historical

They return to Beirut, each broken in a way, each searching for home, fulfillment, history, peace, or

last week) courtesy of NetGalley and Random House. 03 Legend (Legend #1) by Marie Lu In an alternate history

I mentioned Boy Swallows Universe (along with A Burning and The Office of Historical Corrections) in

Grande digs into her family's complicated history of trauma, disappointment, struggle, and, for some

the stories across time, he also set up rich glimpses into characters' lives at different points in history

held secrets of the Crossing that prevented younger generations from learning helpful lessons from history

the desire to remove the pressure on people of color to be walking Google sources for experience and history

former IRA top man Gerry Adams managed to create his own fact-defying narrative, practically erasing his history

Towles crafts a solid historical fiction adventure for his young-men protagonists, balancing weighty

about writing and books, there are wonderfully faulted love-crossed main protagonists with a shared history

Hawkins's mystery The Wife Upstairs, set for January 5, 2021 publication, the main players and their histories

can write about almost anything and make it interesting and comprehensible (as evidenced by his Short History

She provides lots of action; sometimes poignant internal conflict; some dark humor; and she builds history

of essential projects—the creation of Central Park, the founding of the Met Museum and the Natural History

Then Luke Larsen, a handsome, grumpy magical historian, comes to stay at Jasmine and Sera's inn along

Then a handsome, magical historian and his young sister come to stay at Jasmine and Sera's inn, and suddenly

He has a painful history he's trying to accept and get past, but sometimes darkness seeps into his thoughts

French is the author of six books in the Dublin Murder Squad series: In the Woods, this book (my absolute