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The debut novel from one of my favorite authors tracks a horse thief and an orphan who bond and find love amid the turmoil and destruction of the final year of the brutal Civil War. “You like to think that people, in general, and I mean on the scale of generations, are learning from their mistakes, getting better. But with what all I seen, I don't know if I could believe that.” Taylor Brown's debut novel Fallen Land is set in the final year of the Civil War. Callum, an Irish horse thief, fled to America an orphan at fifteen years old. Ava's family is gone, killed by war. The young couple find one another and bond to each other in their desperate run to escape the devastated South. They encounter the fiery ruin of Sherman's March on their way to safety and a new life, and their love is one beautiful light in the darkness of the country's ravaging war. “You die down there, you better hope I live a real long time. Because that's all the goddamn peace you're gonna get.” I was soooo stressed reading Ava and Callum's circumstances, but the preciousness of lives lived moment by moment (while the characters fight for survival--and also attempt to live as good people and find love and joy) was wrought beautifully by Brown. Their perspective of coming upon the devastation immediately after Sherman's March through Atlanta was particularly shocking and affecting. This is a rough yet sometimes tender story set at the end of the Civil War, amid the confusion and desperation and cruelty and kindnesses of that time. I love Taylor Brown's books! I included this book in the Greedy Reading List Six Historical Fiction Stories about the Civil War . Brown also wrote the wonderful novels Gods of Howl Mountain , Wingwalkers , and Rednecks .

They're living through wartime challenges but weren't wartime spies or deeply involved in war efforts The two men and Mary end up in a heartbreaking wartime love triangle. Anna is haunted by her wartime experiences and compromises, and she is fearful of Trudy's potential reaction the microcosm of a ship full of hundreds of women--and even more naval officers at the end of their wartime of over 600 brides from Australia to England in 1946, after World War II, to be reunified with their wartime

Novik introduces vain, strong-willed, talking dragons, their complex, wonderfully faulted handlers, and wartime

I liked Divine Rivals and the gutsy characters facing wartime struggles and challenges, but I was surprised structure for the book's main conflict, but the story feels primarily focused on everyday, regular-human wartime

Steve Sheinkin ( Bomb ), the young protagonist Lizzie Novis becomes an unlikely asset to the British wartime

Patrick Ryan's literary fiction traces decades of the messy, poignant lives of two families shaped by uncompromising societal expectations who work to connect across secrets, upended traditional roles, shocking loss, and unanticipated love. The wisdom that comes with age was needling, he found, because it brought the clarity of hindsight without the means to change anything. In Patrick Ryan's literary fiction title Buckeye , which begins before World War II and spans to the end of the twentieth century, we begin with the story of a young couple in Bonhomie, Ohio, as they meet, fall in love, build a family, and struggle to stay connected. Young wife Becky Jenkins is fearlessly unconcerned with others' opinions. Since a young age she has been able to contact the dead, and she holds regular seances to help those who are worrying and suffering from loss. Her husband Cal is, disappointingly to him, unable to serve in the war due to congenital factors causing one leg to be shorter than the other. Now he's working at his father-in-law's hardware store and is bewildered about how to live a life worth living, feeling helplessly buoyed along by others' interests and concerns. The day the news of the Allied victory is announced, Margaret Salt enters their lives. Overcome with relief at the radio report, she passionately kisses Cal, a stranger, then strides away. But her general relief turns to fear when she learns that her husband, serving out of harm's way on a cargo ship, might have been a casualty of war after all. But she and Cal feel a link that draws them together and complicates everything. The book's focus shifts significantly to Margaret and her hidden life, tracking back to the origins of her relationship with her husband Felix, to Felix's point of view and pivotal life moments, and then to the intersections of the lives of the two couples. But while significant page time is spent on Margaret's life and the factors that shaped her, she is ultimately unknown even to herself, feeling incapable of deep emotional connection, commitment, or working through messiness. This was unsatisfying to me as a reader but pivotal to the plot. An aspect that is ever-present and essential to the shaping of each of the main characters are the female and male roles in society, family, and marriage in the times in which they lived--and their heartbreaking lack of options when they consider or attempt to depart from the norms or typical roles of the era. Women had the babies, and men, if they felt like it, began to distance themselves the moment they pulled out. Because they had to go to a wife, or to work, or to war, or to that secret place of stoic brooding all men were given the key to at birth. Had any mother ever had the time to stoically brood? Ryan sometimes offers what feel more like lists of historical, societal events than developed factors; these set the stage of time and place and establish some of the outside influences on our characters as years pass. The book's pacing (appropriately, but sometimes painfully) flags for a time as our protagonists spend months and years suffering in their own worlds, trodden down by yet apart from the swirling events around them, feeling they are in stasis, hiding their true selves, and just trying to keep getting up every day. Relationships shift, unlikely ties grow stronger, characters grow apart and find their way back together, and what seemed like indelible relationships fall away as Buckeye  stretches across decades of life, choices, and loss. Forgiveness wasn't so great if you were the forgiver, Becky discovered. Forgiveness was supposed to be the high road, but it was low and bumpy--and long. The unexpected, unorthodox, secret-based links between the two families shape the story (with a supporting cast made up of an older generation steeped in habit and old-fashioned values yet poignantly capable of change and growth). The found-family messiness was a highlight of the novel; the caring that emerges due to and among heartbreaking splits is particularly powerful. Wasn't it a fair measure of a person, what they did with their mistakes? How they managed to stumble into some of the right steps, after taking all the wrong ones? Resolutions aren't always possible, and characters don't magically recreate themselves or invariably meet their full potentials, but Buckeye offers quiet peace after lives lived across eras and in the wake of mistakes, missteps, generous grace, and the gift of others' devotion. I received a prepublication version of this title, which was published September 2, courtesy of NetGalley and Random House. More from This Author Patrick Ryan is also the author of The Dream Life of Astronauts, Send Me, and young adult novels. For more family stories you might like, please check out the Bossy reviews at this link .

But by 1914, World War I is drawing most of these young boys into a swirl of wartime horrors. The wartime mud and trench nightmare, endless slog, relentless death, horrifying gore, and mostly pointless-seeming

ICYMI: Daniel Mason's atmospheric, mysterious, languorous story is of a shy piano tuner's trip to Burma to get the piano of an eccentric army surgeon up and working. A good piano tuner must have knowledge not only of his instrument but of “Physics, Philosophy, and Poetics,” so that Edgar, although he never attended university, reached his twentieth birthday with more education than many who had. In 1886 England, middle-aged, shy piano tuner Edgar Drake is asked to do something unusual for the British War Office: travel to the jungles of Burma. There, Edgar is asked to repair a temperamental piano owned by an eccentric surgeon who has become essential to the war effort. The Piano Tuner is a strange, slowly paced adventure story but also an anti-imperialist, pro-music take on the world. The story's jungle setting and music focus mean that the languorous and sultry tone feels just right. Motivations aren't always clear, and characters seem enigmatic to Edgar and therefore to the reader. It would be lovely to read the book while listening to a playlist of the works mentioned throughout. This isn't my absolute favorite Mason book, and I didn't connect to the characters as I did in The Winter Solider, but the author's writing is gorgeous as always. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Daniel Mason is also the author of The Winter Soldier and North Woods.

Kate Quinn, the queen of historical fiction about women during wartime, recommends these titles that If you like stories about brave women during wartime, you might also like the books I listed on the Greedy

The first in this dragon rider series by Yarros is full of dramaaaaatic teen angst, a cutthroat path to becoming a warrior, bucking expectations, a looming war--and, my favorite element of the story, dragons! Fourth Wing is the first in Rebecca Yarros's Empyrean fantasy series, about a war college for dragon riders. Twenty-year-old Violet was hoping to live out a studious, satisfyingly quiet future in the Scribe Quadrant. That is, until the cutthroat commanding general--who also happens to be Violet's mother--pushes her to vie with the rest of Navarre's young people to secure spots in the select Riders Quadrant, as dragon riders. Violet is smaller than average, without the drive to fight. But the war is raging, leadership is clearly keeping secrets, and working with the ruthless, deadly dragons is starting to feel like her best bet. Aside from the dragons, my favorite element of the story is Violet's determined coping with and accommodations for her chronic illness and significant disability. She shows kickass stubbornness in the face of adversity--even if, within the book's various dangerous scenarios, it repeatedly seemed that Violet might well do herself in by ignoring and pushing through her physical issues while facing the impossible situations she is forced to endure. I'm a fan of varying language and also of creative cursing, so at the risk of being a Grumpy Old Lady for mentioning this, I have to say that the word "fuck" appeared so frequently in the text as to feel irritating and distracting to me, so I counted: 257 instances in my electronic edition. The overuse of smirking and " a corner of [his/her] mouth lifts" for amusement, the "cupping" of cheeks for affection; I was drawn out of the moment by multiple instances of odd tone shifts and what felt like repeated nonsensical or strange timing for characters' reactions (after a reminder that a classmate is dead, a character "quips," for example; the silly and youthful exclamation "I miss sex" seems to come out of nowhere; sexual innuendos seem to come at strange, inopportune times; a main character's repeated indignation at her safety's being doubted when she is clearly out of her element and in danger seems warranted, yet she persists in being outrageously offended over and over). Some of the "bad guy" characters feel too easy to hate--they're so purely evil, so outrageously deserving of justice, that their comeuppance is assured from their first appearance on the page. Other characters aren't what they first seem, and while the initial enemies-to-maybe-lovers setup of the book is easily predicted, the attraction is fun to see as it grows, with complicated motivations and the weight of a nation's safety clouding the teens' love lives. It makes sense that Yarros is the author of a romance series, Flight & Glory, as well as other romance titles. There are many dramaaaaaatic teen angst moments here ("As if knowing him would somehow make me want him less, but everything I learn about him only makes me tumble harder and faster"; "Is it absolutely toxic that I'm attracted to this look on him? Probably. But one look, and my temperature rises") and intense fixations on elements such as a character's "incredible scent" that stopped me at times. And yet, this is a book about dragons, and I am typically all in on a book about dragons (see the link below to other dragon books I've read and reviewed). So while I wished for a heavier editorial hand in the copyediting stage of this one, Fourth Wing was a fun read, and I loved the twist at the end of book one. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? You might also like these other books I've read and reviewed about dragons.

Bossy Short Story Love Some of my fellow readers have told me in the past that they don't gravitate toward short stories, whether because they want to dig in more deeply over the course of a longer story and book, because they feel like situations in short stories sometimes feel unresolved, or for another reason. Sometimes short stories tend toward exploring tragedy, as in many of the luminous collections here and their gorgeous heartbreaks. But sometimes nothing does the reading trick like shorter works--especially when time is tight or when I might have trouble concentrating (for example, during a worldwide pandemic)--and I especially love an interconnected set of stories that when taken collectively offer the richness of a longer, in-depth story. Have you read any of these collections? Do you have any favorite short story collections I should read? My own to-read list of short stories includes Maggie Shipstead's upcoming short story collection You Have a Friend in 10A, BJ Novak's One More Thing, Leah Hampton's F*ckface, Kevin Wilson's Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, and Ron Rash's Something Rich and Strange. 01 Thunderstruck & Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken “Whatever you have lost there are more of, just not yours.” McCracken is a fantastic writer who highlights odd, strangely beautiful elements in small moments. Each of the nine stories in this collection builds from a loss of some kind. In what feels like careful, deliberate shaping by McCracken and her editor, the early stories felt more bleak to me and the later ones offered a little more hope, or at least acceptance. “This was her flaw as a parent, she thought later: she had never truly gotten rid of a single maternal worry. They were all in the closet, with the minuscule footed pajamas and hand-knit baby hats, and every day Laura took them out, unfolded them, tried to put them to use.” McCracken is also the author of The Giant's House, Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry, The Souvenir Museum, Bowlaway, and the beautiful, heart-wrenching An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination. 02 The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans She thought the insistence on victims without wrongdoers was at the base of the whole American problem, the lie that supported all the others. In The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans offers short stories centering around themes of race, relationships, identity, the fallibility of those who shape historical "fact," as well as grief and loss. She beautifully and powerfully illustrates essential, deep truths by tracing moments in her characters' everyday lives. The themes here are often haunting, always powerful, and wonderfully nuanced, even when the scenes (the artist's exhibition, the actual on-the-spot printed and posted corrections of "fact," and others) take metaphors to their limits. Click here for my full review of The Office of Historical Corrections. 03 Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy “His heart felt dangerously full, for the first time in years. That dried-up battered organ, suddenly flush with love. It could kill him.” In Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, Maile Meloy keeps you on your toes as you consider what may lay in wait within the relationships she lays out, and you may not be able to anticipate who's going to have a life-changing revelation (or not), who is just who they say they are, and who isn't at all what they seem. A couple of these stories left me wishing for more, but Meloy doesn't leave you hanging, instead drawing you in with the depths of each work. Meloy is also the author of Liars and Saints and A Family Daughter as well as the story collection Half in Love. She also wrote the Apothecary trilogy for young readers. 04 Nothing Gold Can Stay by Ron Rash In Nothing Gold Can Stay, a collection by Ron Rash, the stories take place in different eras, but all are set in North Carolina. The state is as prominent as a character as Rash explores trapped despair, haunting choices, and the beauty of even bleak moments. Rash's writing here is, as always, exquisite, and within these 14 stories, he turns his attention to characters who yearn, regret, and desperately attempt to hide their fragility behind steely exteriors. North Carolina's Rash (he teaches at Western Carolina University) is also the author of other Appalachia-set books: Serena, The World Made Straight, Burning Bright, Above the Waterfall, The Risen, The Cove, and One Foot in Eden, among others. 05 Redeployment by Phil Klay “There are two ways to tell the story. Funny or sad. Guys like it funny, with lots of gore and a grin on your face when you get to the end. Girls like it sad, with a thousand-yard stare out to the distance as you gaze upon the horrors of war they can’t quite see. Either way, it’s the same story.” In Iraq Marine veteran and Dartmouth grad Phil Klay's National Book Award winner Redeployment, the author shares short stories about war and life afterward that read like autobiographical vignettes. This is, as you might expect, difficult subject matter--exploring powerful emotions, troops haunted by decisions and unforeseen dangers, painful adjustments to life after war, and injury and loss. But Klay draws you into his characters' situations too fully for you to want to turn away. 06 Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout As soon as I finished reading this short story collection from Elizabeth Strout (author of, among others, Olive Kitteridge, the wonderful Olive, Again, My Name Is Lucy Barton, and Oh William!), I wished I’d slowed down and taken notes or could start all over and read it again immediately. I love how Strout interlinks characters, backgrounds, and stories so gracefully, yet also allows them to stand on their own. The stories feel immediate and real. Strout shines a light on turning points: small but powerful shifts of power or emotion, masterfully illustrating how a moment sends ripples through the day or the broader life of those involved in it—it’s fascinating. For my full review, please see Anything Is Possible.

Juhea Kim's looping story of Korea, courtesans, pickpockets, and the powerful figures complicating and shaping all of their lives involves love triangles, superstition, heartbreak, and a complicated, shifting interconnectedness that spans decades. In a snowy forest in 1917 Korea, an unlikely moment of kindness shared by a Korean hunter toward a Japanese officer creates a connection that binds the fates of the two men forever. Meanwhile Jade, a young girl who has been sold to a courtesan, befriends JungHo, a young orphan boy in Seoul. JungHo grows older and becomes involved in the fight for independence, while Jade finds an unlikely romantic interest. Beasts of a Little Land tracks Jade's schooling, found family, artistic expression, and her social position as a courtesan within the culture, while following JungHo as he sets sights on more than pickpocketing and scrambling to find enough to eat one day at a time. Conflicts between Korea and Japan and war and occupation swirl around them and those within their orbits--Jade's adoptive family members Lotus, Luna, Dani, and Silver; JungHo's childhood clan all grown up; each of their loves; and the wealthy and influential men pulling strings on all sides. In Beasts of a Little Land, Juhea Kim explores friendship, enemies, trust, possibility, heroes, and beasts of all kinds. The story is looping and cyclical, with interconnected webs of interaction, power, and love. Some of what various characters cling to in hopes of saving themselves or securing their futures ends up being their undoing. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Beasts of a Little Land is Juhea Kim's debut work. Kim is donating a portion of the proceeds of the book to the Phoenix Fund, a conservation nonprofit working to protect the Siberian tiger and the Amur leopard.

nonfiction, but I'm reading another one at the moment that's great so far (Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime If you like stories about brave women during wartime, you might also like the books I listed on the recent

Hart tells a captivating story of broken boys and men, battered by experiences of wartime brutality or the walls; extensive page time spent with a sociopathic serial killer on death row; and a complicated wartime-hinged

If you like stories about brave women during wartime, you might also like the titles I listed on the Rose Code is a wonderfully spun historical fiction story of three very different women who answer the wartime well as The Phoenix Crown , which she wrote with Janie Chang. 06 Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime The nonfiction Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy is made up of vividly recounted behind-the-scenes

But by 1914, World War I is drawing most of these young boys into a swirl of wartime horrors. The wartime mud, endless slog, relentless death, and mostly pointless-seeming pushing onward toward mutual

necessary during desperate times; and particularly her ability to navigate a potentially deadly and complex wartime

ICYMI: My favorite Kate Quinn books center around strong young women proving their mettle during wartime

But a surprise job offer from the US military leads her to Lisbon--opening her eyes to wartime difficulties truth behind what ends up being a shocking surprise to Ava late in the book regarding others' true wartime

fiction novel from Quinn is a departure from much of my favorite Quinn fiction--brave women during wartime

Puritanical community; to an English soldier who escapes battle to grow apples; to spinster twins coping with wartime

If you like stories about brave women during wartime, you might also like the books I listed on the Greedy I found some moments melodramatic, even considering the naturally fraught wartime setting, but nevertheless

themselves--in fits and starts--as young adults, and I came to care deeply about them, their roles in the wartime

She trains as a psychologist, with a World War I wartime interlude serving as a nurse, before turning

She trains as a psychologist, with a wartime interlude as a nurse, before turning her keen eye for detail

They're living through wartime challenges but weren't wartime spies or deeply involved in war efforts The two men and Mary end up in a heartbreaking wartime love triangle. the microcosm of a ship full of hundreds of women--and even more naval officers at the end of their wartime I have a future list in mind focusing on stories about women who were wartime spies, so I've saved back a few World War II books about brave women in the thick of wartime intrigue and danger for that post

The wartime detail as well as the jarring shift to post-war life were exceptional elements.

If you like stories about brave women during wartime, you might also like the titles I listed on the Rose Code is a wonderfully spun historical fiction story of three very different women who answer the wartime For my full review of this title, please see The Rose Code. ​6 Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime The nonfiction Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy is made up of vividly recounted behind-the-scenes

Puritanical community; to an English soldier who escapes battle to grow apples; to spinster twins coping with wartime

The young women's wartime experiences take Viv to glamorous Harrod's, settle Grace in a dusty old bookshop

Steve Sheinkin ( Bomb ), the young protagonist of Lizzie Novis becomes an unlikely asset to the British wartime

Young Flora and her teen sister Hazel were evacuated in 1939 from the bombing and danger in wartime London

servant in a Belgravia mansion, but Maisie ultimately trains as a psychologist, with a World War I wartime themselves--in fits and starts--as young adults, and I came to care deeply about them, their roles in the wartime

Callahan Henry Young Flora and her teen sister Hazel were evacuated in 1939 from the bombing and danger in wartime

Rivals (Letters of Enchantment #1) by Rebecca Ross I liked Divine Rivals and the gutsy characters facing wartime structure for the book's main conflict, but the story feels primarily focused on everyday, regular-human wartime

Rose Code is a wonderfully spun historical fiction story of three very different women who answer the wartime

and owned at one time--and I adore this one, although I suppose it doesn't necessarily clearly evoke wartime

heartbroken when a whirlwind romance with a young German army officer, Marco Zeiller, is complicated by wartime

servant in a Belgravia mansion, but Maisie ultimately trains as a psychologist, with a World War I wartime themselves--in fits and starts--as young adults, and I came to care deeply about them, their roles in the wartime

Reading Now I'm reading the first in Rebecca Yarros's Empyrean series about a training college for wartime

Rivals (Letters of Enchantment #1) by Rebecca Ross I liked Divine Rivals and the gutsy characters facing wartime structure for the book's main conflict, but the story feels primarily focused on everyday, regular-human wartime

The young women's wartime experiences take Viv to glamorous Harrod's, settle Grace in a dusty old bookshop

The Rose Code is a wonderfully spun story of three very different women who answer the wartime call to

For more books set in wartime, please check out the titles at this Bossy link . 06 Anything Is Possible

Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy is made up of vividly recounted behind-the-scenes peeks

Rose Code  is a wonderfully spun historical fiction story of three very different women who answer the wartime

She's eager to dig in and learn more about her mother's wartime history, yet desperate not to be defined

From captivating natural landscapes to striking wartime images, from bustling city scenes to quiet moments

She's eager to learn more about her mother's wartime history, yet desperate not to be defined and constrained

in a time of darkness and desperation) books, and I think it's for the same reason I'm captivated by wartime