Life burns hot in The Law of Dreams, an exceptional novel about a young man’s struggle for survival during the Irish potato famine. Fergus O’Brien knows only the mountain wastes when the potato blight strikes. Threatened with eviction, the O’Briens stay put – until their death by black fever. Fergus survives and is sent to the workhouse, which he soon escapes. He is hijacked by thieves, has a last confrontation with his landlord, and then falls in with cattle drovers on their way to Dublin. There, among the starving crowds, he takes a boat to Limerick, where more trouble awaits. Hungry and battered, he yearns for an existence free of regrets, and a life that is more than a battle for survival. With a little luck and the help of an Irish gypsy girl, he gathers enough coin to pay for passage on a timber ship to Canada. The “law of dreams,” he comes to learn, is always to keep moving.

It is hard to believe that this book is Peter Behrens’s first novel. With the sparest of language, the author depicts the internal struggles of a good-hearted young man in the midst of the unthinkable; a man who learns he must suppress terrible memories in order to move forward; a man who despite all his troubles, still believes in the possibility of a full and passionate life. A moving achievement, The Law of Dreams is a book for the keeper shelf.
-- Lisa Ann Verge

THE GIRL FROM CHARNELLE
K. L. Cook, Morrow, 2006, $24.95/C$32.95, hb, 374pp, 9780060829650
It is New Year’s Eve, 1959. Almost 16-year-old Laura Tate, her father, and her three brothers have been trying to make a life for themselves since their mother left them without explanation the previous year. At midnight, Laura receives a kiss from John Letig, her father’s friend, a married man twice her age. It’s a simple New Year’s kiss just outside the Armory, where the whole community is kissing to welcome in the New Year. Then he kisses her again, slowly and passionately. Laura knew it was dangerous to kiss like this, but she finds it exciting. Mr. Letig is an attractive man, and she’s thrilled to be noticed by him. From this first night of 1960, Laura starts living a secret life apart from her friends and family, absorbed in her attraction to this older man, and his attraction to her.
Cook effectively immerses his audience in the 1960s Texas Panhandle, describing the effect of historical events on his characters and using elements of the terrain to enhance his story: the female characters’ interest in all things Jackie, the frustration of Texans when the young Jack Kennedy is running for president instead of Texas’ own LBJ, and the relief of swimming in the cool waters of Lake Meredith. The book is fast-paced for an introspective novel, and the complex feelings of the characters make it hard to put down. It is difficult to avoid the natural discomfort felt when a 30-year-old man is having an affair with a minor, but this discomfort enhances the reader’s empathy for the main character. The whole is a poignant story of a young woman who must grow up too quickly. This first novel is a literary work of art. -- Nan Curnutt

ALWAYS AND FOREVER
Gretchen Craig, Zebra, 2006, $3.99/$5.99, pb, 414pp, 0821780190
Behind this novel’s nondescript title and cover art lies one of the most entertaining historical novels I’ve read in a while. The powerful opening scene captured me immediately. On a Creole plantation in 1823 Louisiana, five-year-old Josie’s father, Emile Tassin, uses his wife’s pearls to buy back his dark-skinned mistress and their daughter from slavers. To protect young Cleo from his jealous wife from that point forward, Emile makes Josie promise to take good care of her half-sister. Over the next 15 years, Josie tries to keep her vow, but she’s not always successful.
Josie and Cleo grow up together, mistress and slave, although Josie remains ignorant of their blood connection. Adolescence, personal tragedies, and financial crises etch new lines onto their personalities. Characters always carry the heart of a saga, and I became fully involved with lives of Josie, Cleo, and their families. Despite the closed little world she inhabits, Josie remains a good person, and as she matures, she adjusts her relationships with everyone around her. These include her sharp-eyed Grand-mère, Emmeline, who struggles to teach Josie how to run a plantation; handsome Phanor, whose poor Cajun heritage makes him an unacceptable suitor; and her elegant second cousin, Bertrand, whose sensuality attracts her, but whose roving eye follows Cleo.
Though labelled as a romance, this is really a family saga in the grand old style, told by a master storyteller. The setting is vividly described, from the sugar cane crops and wild honeysuckle on the Tassins’ plantation to the nightclubs, velvet evening gowns, and deadly yellow fever in antebellum New Orleans. Racial issues, always at the forefront, are handled realistically and perceptively. I can’t say how much I enjoyed visiting with Craig’s fascinating and believable characters; while I was reading, the hours flew by. Highly recommended. -- Sarah Johnson

MEDICUS AND THE DISAPPEARING DANCING GIRLS
Ruth Downie, Michael Joseph, 2006, £12.99, hb, 352pp, 0718149297 / To be pub. by Bloomsbury USA, 2007, as Medicus
Britannia, 117 AD. Having just joined the hospital staff at the Roman legionary fortress of Deva (Chester), world-weary surgeon Gaius Petreius Ruso examines the murdered corpse of a young woman dredged up from the river. Then a ‘barmaid’ goes missing from Merula’s establishment. If this indicates a serial killer at large, Ruso doesn’t want to know. Saddled with the debts of his dead father and home improvement-obsessed sister-in-law in Gaul, he needs to finish writing his Concise Guide to Military First Aid and obtain a speedy promotion. All he has gained up to now is the useless, broken-armed slave girl he impulsively rescued from a passing merchant.
So far, so Lindsey Davis, you might think. Perhaps, but this novel (three of whose early chapters won Solander’s first writing competition) more than holds its own in the Roman detective stakes. Grounded in solid but unobtrusively historical knowledge, it has memorable characters, a satisfying mystery and a vivid sense of place. Downie also treats us to some inspired comic dialogue and a running joke showing the Roman military medical service as an NHS-in-microcosm, complete with bean-counting bureaucrats and literal-minded clerks. An engaging debut, set fair to become a popular series. -- Sarah Cuthbertson

SPY SMUGGLER
Jim Eldridge, Scholastic, 2004, £5.99, pb, 187pp, 043996884
It is October 1942, and 13-year-old Paul Lelaud is hiding in a bush with his friend, Antoine, by the railway station. They are watching Paul’s best friend, Emile, being shoved into a cattle truck along with many other Jews by the German soldiers who are occupying their town of Chinon, in France. They do not know where Emile is going, but instinctively know that he will not return. Half a year later, Paul starts a fight with his pro-Nazi teacher, Monsieur Armignac, and is sent to jail because of his violence. However, he is treated well there, and released soon after.
Soon after he arrives home, he learns a secret that his uncle has been keeping –– that he is a member of the French Resistance against the Germans. Paul is invited to join, and he eagerly accepts, fuelled by his hatred of the Germans after they killed his father several years earlier. Paul embraces his new role, and even after his second mission, he feels that he has been in the Resistance for many years, and feels that he has matured a lot. Yet, he never hesitates to participate in some of the dangerous activities that they carry out, which include working against the Germans constantly and their most dangerous mission –– smuggling a surrendering German official and English spy out of the country by plane in the dead of night.
I found this book engrossing, and was gripped at the end with the risky mission that they carry out. The time line and photos of the real French Resistance at the back of the book gave me a better understanding of this period in time. I would recommend this book to 12-15 year olds.
-- Charlotte Kemp

THE ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY VERMILLION
Loren D. Estleman, Forge, 2006, $24.95/C$33.95, hb, 272pp, 0765309149
“Most of what follows took place in the West. Not just any West.” So begins the tale of Johnny Vermillion’s theatre troupe, The Prairie Rose Repertory Company, and their adventures in performing – on stage, and in bank robberies – in the Wild West of 1873. When a Pinkerton agent figures out their scheme, he sets an elaborate trap to catch them. And in the course of their escapades, Johnny’s troupe unknowingly robs from an intended target of the dangerous Ace-in-the-Hole gang, who now want revenge on the Prairie Rose players as well.
Estleman is renowned for his westerns – he is a five-time Spur Award-winner – but to call The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion purely a western is unfair and limiting, for this historical romp is much more: a feast of humour, action, drama, and suspense. Johnny Vermillion’s players may be thieves, but they are likable characters who take their acting roles seriously (their playwright also struggles to produce fine, legitimate work in his adaptations as well). I found myself wanting both the Pinkerton agent and the Prairie Rose players to succeed. Estleman has written one of the rip-roaringest stories that I've read in a long time. Highly recommended! -- L.K. Mason

THE LADY GRACE MYSTERIES: Feud
Patricia Finney, Doubleday, 2005, £6.99, hb, 215pp, 0385608519 / Delacorte, 2006, $9.99, 208pp, hb, 0385903421

This is another from the fictional diaries of Lady Grace Cavendish, Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth and secret Lady Pursuivant. Carmina, another of the Maids, is ill and no one knows what is wrong with her. Then Lady Grace accidentally finds out the cause of her mystery illness.
At the top of the Palace is a workroom where painters are constantly at work on a number of portraits of the Queen. Lady Sarah has to dress in the Queen’s robes and stand in for her. This is boring and so Lady Grace has to read to her. Grace is fascinated by the workroom and is thrilled when she is even allowed to try her hand at painting herself. When she is finished, being Grace, her hands are covered with paint. She reaches for a sweetmeat left by Lady Sarah but Mistress Teerline, who is in charge of the workroom, stops her in time and i

mpresses on her that paints are very poisonous.
And Grace suddenly realises that someone is trying to poison Carmina. But who would want to? With the help of her secret friends Ellie the laundry maid and Masou the boy tumbler she determines to find out.
This series is notable for the fact that every book manages to throw light on a different facet of Elizabethan life. And this one mainly illuminates the court limners and the painting techniques at the time. But there is also much information about the making of sweetmeats and Tudor medical practice and beliefs. It comes with the usual note on the Tudor period, a glossary, and additional notes on the miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard and Levina Teerline, the mistress of the workroom.
Just as enjoyable and informative as the others in this series. Ages 10+
-- Mary Moffat

GUARDIANS OF THE KEY
Clio Gray, Headline, 2006, £19.99, hb, 309pp, 0755331044
Gray has skilfully crafted a tale that leads from Italy under the burden of Napoleonic rule to the Italian quarter of London, where Lucchese merchants have traded their fine silk since the time of Henry III and earlier. The thread that weaves its way across borders and through the centuries is the story of Lucca’s holy relics, which safeguard the city’s prosperity and its autonomy, and it is this thread that is slowly but brilliantly unravelled by Whilbert Stroop, an engaging sleuth with an encyclopedic memory and a warm heart.
Stroop is called upon to help Mabel Flinchurst, a young girl who has been adopted by her great-aunt and brought to live in London. The shocking suicide of a stranger in the church opposite Mabel’s new home threatens her life and that of her entire family. The Lucchese community itself is aware of the treachery that has infiltrated its Inner Council, and it too joins in the race to find the only person who can save Lucca from humiliation and possible destruction. The killings are violent and cold-blooded, and the suspense is maintained right until the last few pages.
Gray has an exceptional eye for detail, and her characterisation is superb. It is a delight to discover characters like Mabel, Jack, the enigmatic Stroop and the silk merchant Castracani, and refreshing that psychological development is deemed as important as historical detail. Even the extras, like Stanley Izod or the old caretaker in St Frigidian’s Church, are described with the delicate clarity of Mabel’s embroideries. Although not for the faint-hearted, this is a fantastic first novel by a prize-winning short-story writer, and I look forward to meeting Whilbert Stroop again. -- Lucinda Byatt

WHITE GHOST GIRLS
Alice Greenway, Grove, 2006, $13.00/$C17.95, pb, 176pp, 0802170188 / Atlantic, 2006, £10.99, pb, 176pp, 1843544393
Some “literary” novels contain rich, descriptive language that might be enjoyable to read but has no real bearing on the story they profess to tell. In the short book White Ghost Girls, the language is rich and descriptive, and every word counts. Alice Greenway’s first novel shows a brief period in the lives of two teenage sisters, the “white ghost girls.” Kate and Frankie are living in Hong Kong with their otherworldly artist mother in 1967. Although communists march, and dead bodies float up in the harbour (all that is left of people desperate to flee Mao’s China), the girls’ summer consists of swimming and picnics, whispered secrets in a jungle hideout, and forced attendance at expatriate parties. Life is occasionally enlivened by their father’s visits (he shoots photos of the escalating war in Vietnam). Underlying all is heavy tension.
From the first page, we know something catastrophic will happen to the sisters, but when it does happen, it shocks, though it is wholly believable in the context of the setting and the personalities of the characters. The advance reading copy I received contained several endorsements of Alice Greenway’s debut novel. They write that it is about memory and love and loss and homesickness, but to me it was also about secrets and our failure to communicate effectively with those we profess to love best. I agree with the endorsements – it’s fabulous. -- Claire Morris

AFTERLANDS
Steven Heighton, Hamish Hamilton, 2006, £14.99, hb, 416pp, 0241143381 / Houghton Mifflin, 2006, $25.00, hb, 416pp, 0608139346
In 1871 a thwarted American expedition to the Arctic casts 19 survivors adrift on an ice floe off the coast of Greenland – one white and one black American, a Dane, a Swede, an Englishman, five Germans and two entire Inuit families. Their ordeal casts a shadow over the rest of their lives, as Heighton shows in this beautiful, accomplished and mesmerising novel. A man can travel from Alaska to Mexico, but wherever he goes, he takes his hunger and the ice in his soul with him.
Heighton employs a clever, intertextual approach to his story, mixing passages from George Tyson’s Arctic Experiences, published in 1874, with his own third-person narrative of events told from the viewpoints of one of the German seamen and the Inuit woman he is in love with. Most intriguingly, he adds excerpts from the notes on which Tyson based his book, illustrating the space which opens up between the actual and the recollected. Heighton’s notes at the end of the book on the way in which he has used the historical texts make a valuable contribution to the debate about truth and imagination in historical fiction, and the limits an author imposes on himself in making things up.
If this all sounds dry and intellectual, don’t be put off. Heighton is a poet, and the atmosphere he evokes with his prose is magical. The book is, perhaps, a little too long, but moving and absorbing. It stays with you long after you have closed it for the final time. Dog lovers beware: there is an account of a husky being slaughtered for food so moving I almost wish Heighton had let his characters starve to death instead! -- Sarah Bower

SEARCH AND DESTROY
Dean Hughes, Atheneum, 2005, $16.95/C$23.50, hb, 224pp, 068987023X
Rick Ward, a confused boy from Long Beach just out of high school, drifts into the army. He may be running away from an overbearing father, a pointless existence of beach parties, or perhaps he just needs to do something meaningful. In that spirit he goes to Vietnam and volunteers for the Charlie Rangers, an elite group who infiltrate the jungle to beat the enemy at their own game. He wants to be tested, to experience life like his heroes, Ernest Hemingway and Joseph Conrad. Most of all, he longs to be a man.
    He discovers that nothing about war is what he or others had thought. He finds himself in a restricted world of just him and his team, trying to survive in a jungle hell, where the highest honor is not fighting for his country, or even just surviving, but helping a buddy to stay alive, to make it back to “the world.”
    This is a powerful story about how war profoundly changes a man. The ugliness of war screams off the pages: its horror, hypocrisy, and utter futility. The author does a marvelous job of blending this with the larger realities of the Vietnam era, not shrinking from the controversies but not taking a stand either. The truth is too complex, too overwhelming for any one individual to understand. In the end, it is the individual’s humanity that counts.
    This skillfully written book is highly recommended for teens and adults. Ages 12 and up. -- Ken Kreckel

THE ELIXIR OF DEATH
Bernard Knight, Simon & Schuster, 2006, £18.99, hb, 347 pp, 0743259513
AD 1195. ‘Crowner John’ – otherwise the splendidly-named Sir John de Wolfe, black-haired and frequently bad tempered – is confronted by an abandoned ship and the bodies of its master and crew: all murdered, but the former is his old friend, Thorgils. John has an implacably hostile wife, Matilda, and an independent-minded mistress, red-haired Nesta. Thorgils’ lovely wife Hilda was John’s childhood sweetheart. Now she will be a desirable widow, complicating the coroner’s stressful life as he proceeds with the investigation of seemingly unconnected, increasingly blasphemous and gruesome killings. The Crowner and his team are condemned to interminable journeys across Devon in foul weather, alchemy, treason, phantoms, mysterious monks and the irksome presence of his odious brother-in-law, Richard de Revelle. The coroner must look back to the disastrous Crusade of fifty years ago before he can establish the connection linking these sadistic crimes and frustrate the threat of worse horrors.
John is described as insensitive. Female readers may not agree, although shrewish Matilda undoubtedly would. Lusty, outspoken and incorruptible, as a born leader he has patience to spare for anyone who deserves it.
A first-time reader will have no problem picking up the previous histories of the Crowner, his women, his friends and enemies. Energetic narrative, excellent pacing and a solidly convincing background combine to complete the pleasures of reading The Elixir of Death. -- Nancy Henshaw

DEATH AND THE CORNISH FIDDLER
Deryn Lake, Allison & Busby, 2006, £18.99, hb, 298pp, 0749082968
When newly widowed John Rawlings and his daughter Rose are invited to accompany Elizabeth di Lorenzi to Helstone for the annual Floral (or Furry) Dance, they jump at the chance. A rural festival seems just the place to relax and enjoy the Countess’s company. They are sadly mistaken. First a young child disappears, and then a known courtesan is found murdered in her bed. Mystery and danger seem to lurk round every corner, and how is the enigmatic blind fiddler involved?
Rawlings decides to investigate, not realising that he might be putting his own daughter at risk – especially when he is increasingly distracted by his feelings for the beautiful Elizabeth.
I must confess I love these John Rawlings mysteries, and Death and the Cornish Fiddler is up there with the best of them. Deryn Lake goes to great pains to evoke what is a very real sense of the mid-18th century – complete with all its sounds, smells, attitudes and social mores. With all his faults, John Rawlings is an agreeable fellow. Every novel seems to add a new facet to his character, and in this his latest outing, his relationship with his young daughter is developing especially well. Here’s hoping the series long continues.
-- Sara Wilson

THE BIRTH HOUSE
Ami McKay, Fourth Estate, 2006, £10.99, pb, 400pp, 0007232829 / Morrow, $24.95, hb, 400pp, 0061135852 / Knopf Canada, 2006, C$29.95, hb, 400pp, 0676977723
This novel, already and deservedly a best-seller in Canada, tells the story of Dora Rare and her struggles to maintain a holistic, woman-led approach to childbirth and women’s health in the first half of the 20th century. Dora has learned all she knows from Miss Babineau and her deeply spiritual knowledge and wisdom. When a new doctor arrives in her small Nova Scotia coastal community advocating ‘modern’ interventionist methods of childbirth, the scene is set for a battle of wills that splits the community.
The author is a fresh new voice in Canadian writing, and she stylishly re-creates the pioneer days of Nova Scotia with a fine eye for descriptive detail and history. Her characters are fully rounded people and belong to their environment. Wise, wry, witty and yet deeply serious, this novel reminds me of the novel L. M. Montgomery might have written about Anne Shirley had she been allowed, and had her heroine chosen to become a midwife and not a teacher. The small town prejudices and tittle-tattle are all there but the tone is darker, yet not oppressive. This is a novel of hope, wisdom and humanity. What more could you ask for? -- Sally Zigmond

ABUNDANCE
Sena Jeter Naslund, Morrow, 2006, $26.95/$34.95, hb, 525 pp, 0060825391
The author of the bestselling Ahab’s Wife, Sena Jeter Naslund takes on a true historical figure this time, in Abundance, an imaginative, well researched, and gripping novel about Marie Antoinette.
Transported naked across the French border – to symbolize the relinquishing of her Austrian ancestry – the adolescent 'Toinette is greeted by loving and affectionate crowds. Once in Versailles, however, very little of the outside world penetrates the court, or the protective love of her husband and family. Thus cocooned, she lives a life of great splendor and excess, ignorant of cost. Gambling thrills her; she indulges. She revels in fashion. She imagines herself a simple lover of flowers and natural beauty. Her adoration for Count von Fersen is soul-deep but chaste. She chooses her ladies for their looks, and overlooks their faults. As heedless as a teenager well into her thirties, she is repeatedly astonished at the virulence of the public tirades against her.
“Après moi, le déluge,” said the former king upon his deathbed, and indeed, Sena Jeter Naslund portrays Marie Antoinette as a heedless but good-natured woman caught up in a bloody tidal wave of events well beyond her understanding. But the author’s greatest triumph is not only in painting an intimate portrait of the queen, or of life at Versailles, but in weaving a narrative so absorbing that this reader stayed up late into the night – even knowing the ending – in the hope that it all might turn out differently. Bravo to Ms. Naslund: She has penned another fabulous bestseller. -- Lisa Ann Verge

THE REBELS OF IRELAND: The Dublin Saga (US) / IRELAND: Awakening (UK)
Edward Rutherfurd, Doubleday, 2006, $28.95, hb, 863pp, 0385512899 / Century, 2006, £17.99, hb, 896pp, 1844137945
Rutherfurd’s latest bestseller concludes his sweeping look at Irish history first begun in The Princes of Ireland (Dublin in the UK). The two-book saga charts Ireland’s struggle from earliest Celtic history through to the early 20^th century. Rebels opens in 1597 with the Plantation period – the final step in English domination enforcing the Catholic persecution in earnest – and takes readers through Cromwell, the Battle of the Boyne, the Potato Famine and the struggle for independence.
Well-written and captivating, this mammoth book is filled to the brim with Irish heroes. Historical figures Daniel O’Connell, Jonathan Swift, and Robert Emmet, among others, mix with fictional families such as the O’Byrnes, Doyles, Walshes, and Budges to fully bring to life the dramatic history of Ireland. Rutherfurd so expertly blends fact with fiction that readers will find themselves engrossed in the characters’ lives, finish the book, and realize that they have learned much about what can seem a confusing national history.
Rutherfurd incorporates the beauty of Dublin and the wildness of the surrounding mountains and countryside so well that, at times, it feels as though the setting is actually another character. (Such detail provides almost a mini-vacation!) This isn’t one of those sequels where a reader feels lost if they’ve not read earlier books; the author sums up the first book superbly before beginning this concluding work. However, the always-present danger of such sweeping sagas – trying to keep family lines straight – is almost impossible to avoid after nearly 1600 pages between the two books.
With its well-crafted plot, characters and setting, this book is brilliantly done. Overall, The Rebels of Ireland is a must for Rutherfurd fans, Irish history buffs, and those readers who appreciate compelling stories of struggle for personal freedom and independence. -- Dana Cohlmeyer

THE HUMMINGBIRD’S DAUGHTER
Luis Alberto Urrea, Back Bay, 2006, $14.95, pb, 500pp, 0315154520 / Little, Brown, 2006, £5.99, pb, 512pp, 0316013811
Luis Alberto Urrea had a “flying Yaqui aunt” in Tijuana, Mexico, a woman who was said to be the mystical guiding force behind Mexico’s revolution. Teresita Urrea is born in 1873 with a red triangle on her forehead, a clear sign of a “healer” to the Yaqui healer, Huila. It is Huila who becomes the predominantly powerful force for Teresa, abandoned by her mother, almost beaten to death by her aunt, and raped at the age of 16.
But this book is not about Teresa’s tragic survival. The magical realism of Latin fiction reigns supreme in this fascinating novel where the sacred and profane realities of Mexico interweave into a multicolored tapestry of delight in everyday life. Plants have energy, the dead communicate joy and sorrow, warriors sing with the coyotes, and anyone can fly into a better world.
Forced by the tyrannical rulers of the day to migrate from the Mexican state of Sinaloa to Cordoba, the Urreas and their itinerant workers begin to sense the imminent destruction of those who refuse to bow to dictators who prefer the monetary favors of North America to the betterment of their own people. So the North becomes the place ready to unite rebels under one independent, free people who come to Teresita. She takes their pain into herself, and then God cures her. He also blesses their endeavor for independence, depicted with that magical realism approach, “A festive woodpecker sounded in the trees behind us, its industrious hammering representative of Nature herself bending toward the construction of a New Mexican Republic – God Himself putting Nature on the Diaz plan!”
This exquisite novel celebrates not only the political and religious realities of Mexican life but also the sheer love of life itself, bursting with love, hate, sex, war, peace, and passion personified. -- Viviane Crystal

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