The Spymistress

This historical novel by Jennifer Chiaverini (Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker), tell the story of  Elizabeth Van Lew, a young well to do lady of Richmond, Virginia during the turbulent Civil War. This historical figure risked her life as a Union sympathizer to pass information to Northern forces and offer aid and comfort to the wounded Union prisoners of war that lived in deplorable conditions. The author deftly tells her story and offers readers a fascinating portrait of this amazing woman. She was so well regarded by the North that when she died destitute in 1900, Massachusetts admirers arraigned for a boulder from the grounds of the Massachusetts State House to be shipped to Richmond to serve as her headstone.

            

Goodreads | The Last Summer of the Camperdowns by Elizabeth Kelly – Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16226024-the-last-summer-of-the-camperdowns

Z a Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

by Therese Anne Fowler This is a fascinating work of fiction that brings the mysterious and enigmatic Zelda Fitzgerald to life and fleshed out a personality previously portrayed as crazy and shrewish. Zelda had talents and dreams of her own but was unable to make a name for herself as hers were always subjugated by those of her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald, and his fragile ego feared anyone’s success over his. The author drew from archived letters from and to both F. Scott and Zelda to create this vivid and fascinating portrait.

A Dual Inheritance

 by Joanna Hershon

A sweeping novel of the lives of two very different men, in background and temperament, who meet as students at Harvard in the early 1960’s. Bold and outspoken Ed Cantowitz is from working class Dorchester and strives to climb the economic and social ladder. Hugh Shipley on the other hand is from a wealthy Boston family, already perched at the top of his social class, he is a budding photographer with a penchant for whisky. Their paths converge and then part as the choices each of them make take unexpected tolls on each of their lives. Love, family, tragedy and social class distinction converge in a series of twists of fate in this lush novel.

The Edge of the Earth by Christina Schwarz

You’ll have to wait till April to read this one, but it is well worth the wait!

Trudy is a young woman who leaves a comfortable life with her by her parents in Wisconsin in order to marry the man she loves, not the match long expected.  She leaves everything she’s ever known  to tend a secluded lighthouse on the California coast with her new husband, whom she barely knows. They work with and for the Crawley’s, a  family who have kept the lighthouse for years.

As Trudy discovers a whole new world offered up by the sea, she becomes fascinated by the creatures that inhabit it, having been raised land-locked, it is a whole new world to explore. A beloved teacher had previously unlocked her curiosity in the natural world and she begins to draw the creatures and study them.

Slowly she discovers the secrets bound within the Crawley family, and within a dark cavern beside the sea. I loved this book, and found the exploration of natural history in the 1910’s particularly fascinating. It really rips along towards the end as a secret is revealed and the characters true natures are exposed.

 

The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin

  Melanie Benjamin is one of my favorite author’s and one I love to recommend others to discover. Her newest, The Aviator’s Wife is even a step up from her previous work. In this work of fiction she imagines the inner (and public) life of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the daughter of an ambassador who is swept off her feet by the dashing young aviator, Charles Lindbergh, who is at the beginning of his career. Her marriage to the difficult Lindbergh, the tragedy of their baby’s kidnapping, and her care of him at the end of his life are all chronicled in a thoughtful and poignant way. I felt as if I finally ‘knew’ Anne, and had to keep reminding myself that this is a work of fiction. Ms. Benjamin was respectful of the Lindbergh families’ privacy and due respect, while engaging us thoroughly in the inner life of an amazing woman in her own right. I thoroughly recommend this novel.

“The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry” by Rachel Joyce

This is a poignant tale of an older retired Englishman who embarks on a 600 mile walk across England after receiving a letter from Queenie Hennessy, a long ago co-worker, telling him she is dying. His marriage has become lifeless, his wife carps on him regarding how he butters his toast every morning. So after writing Queenie a letter, he goes out to post it and simply keeps walking, in the belief that as long as he does, Queenie will hang on till he gets there. Beautifully written, this novel prompts the reader to examine their own life and the choices we make.

“The Art of Fielding” A Modern Classic?

Just finished reading “The Art of Fielding” by Chad Harbach and I believe quite strongly that this is a new American classic, in line with “The Great Gatsby” , “A Seperate Peace” and “Catcher in the Rye”. I am curious as to how many people agree with me. This is a debut novel from this author and I am anxious to see what he comes up with next! This novel’s publication was the result of some rejection at first, then an intense bidding war, as facinatingly portrayed in “Vanity Fair” magazine last spring. It is now out in paperback and I’m hoping to see a lot of copues being read on the beach this summer, I couldn’t put it down! The general gist of the novel is the story of a young man, Henry Skrimshander,  with amazing shortstop skills, plucked from obscurity and given a berth on the perennial losing baseball team of small Westish College, on the shores of Lake Michigan.  His unofficial ‘coach’ is Mike Schwartz, the young classmate at Westish, who saw him play and was the first to recognize his incredible talent.

The president of the college is Guert Affenlight, who has fallen unexpectedly in love with an inappropriate person, his daughter, who dropped out of Yale and  ran off to California to get married to an older professor has now run from the husband and back to Westish to figure out what to do next,  then there’s Owen Dunne, a member of the baseball tema and friend to all, who is accepted into the fold, despite his being openly gay.  These characters (and others) interact with each other and therefore change the course of each of their lives. It’s a coming of age story that reflects the seemingly small incidents that can put us on a path that we are surprised to find ourselves on.

Highly recommended!!!

Tigers in Red Weather-July 2012

This is a remarkable first novel by Liza Klaussmann, the great-great-great granddaughter of Herman Melville (writing must be in the genes!). She also is a noted writer for the New York Times.

The novel takes place mainly around the family estate on Martha’s Vineyard  known as Tiger House. Nick and her cousin Helena have grown up here, through many summers, and in the years following World War II their lives have taken divergent paths. Helena heads off to Hollywood to a husband Nick is wary of. Nick reunites with her husband who is attempting to adjust to life after military duty. The cousins reunite at Tiger House as their lives are brought together and torn apart by family secrets and a local murder.

Wonderfully written, you can smell the salt air drifting over blue hydrangea and the sound of pounding surf. Dramatic and engrossing!

“Beautiful Ruins”

Pub date June 2012
This novel is a brilliant story of love told in two time periods, Italy 1960’s and “Recently” in Hollywood and elsewhere. Most of the Italian portion takes place in a tiny village on the coast where young Pasquale dreams of turning his late father’s small hotel “The Hotel Adequate View” into a tourist draw that will finally put their tiny village on the map. One day a beautiful American actress arrives, she has gotten ill during the filming of “Cleopatra” (Richard Burton plays a key role in this novel, realistically portrayed)

What happens to these diverse characters as they collide and converge over the course of their lives will keep you reading long into the night. The once famous film producer, who as a young man was sent to ‘rescue’ the disastrous Burton/Taylor mess that was “Cleopatra”, and who bears a striking resemblance to Robert Evans (extreme plastic surgery) and ended up the puppetmaster behind the scenes of Richard Burton’s philandering. Dee, the beautiful actress who leaves the Italian coast,  and Pasquale, forever changed, and many other characters who are all searching for love and meaning in their lives and grow into people who can accept the mistakes of the past because they created a present they can live with. Imagine if you could make amends (or attempt to) for something in your past left undone?

A brilliantly written novel that is as entertaining as it is unexpectedly literary.