A FIERCE RADIANCE
Lauren Belfer, HarperCollins, 2010, $25.99, hb, 544pp, 9780061252518
Set on the home front of New York City during World War II, Belfer’s second novel (after the acclaimed City of Light) follows the development of penicillin to be used in the war effort. Though it’s told from many viewpoints, we mostly follow photographer for Life magazine Claire Shipley. Her journey begins at the bedside of a hopeless patient at the Rockefeller Institute who has a miraculous recovery followed by a swift and agonizing death once the antibiotic runs out. Without a happy outcome, her boss kills the story, but Claire is soon embroiled in intrigue, murder, betrayal and espionage surrounding its continuing development. She also finds love with James Stanton, a physician developing the wonder drug; danger to herself and her young son; and the possibility of family and legacy via an estranged and ruthless father who wants to profit from the research.
This fulsome tale of a modern marvel, and what life was like before it became ubiquitous, crackles with twists and turns, including the paths of Detective Kreindler, as he infiltrates the fifth column, and Dr. Stanton, who finds links to Claire’s father that lead to murder. Once again we’re reminded that no great fortune was made without government assistance at its beginnings. The novel is inhabited by the radiance of lost souls, too: from Claire’s daughter, whose death haunts her, to the patients who succumb, to wartime casualties, to haunting memories of parents lost in the flu pandemic that followed the last war. It’s also a beautiful valentine to 1940s New York City and its neighborhoods, painted with great affection. Although a more careful edit would have made a tighter reading experience, A Fierce Radiance’s life, humanity, and crack mystery was worth the wait. Highly recommended.
-- Eileen Charbonneau

Parrot and Olivier in America
Peter Carey, Knopf, 2010, $26.95, hb, 400pp, 9780307592620 / Faber & Faber, 2010, £18.99, hb, 464pp, 9780571253296
What a delight this witty novel is! Based on the journeys of Alexis de Tocqueville in the new American republic of the 1830s, it tells the story of Olivier, a young, exiled French aristocrat, and John Larrit, “Parrot,” a middle-aged, working-class Englishman. While based on Tocqueville’s adventures and observations, it is the details of Parrot’s often hapless life that propel this story. Parrot’s native intelligence and artistic talent take him far beyond his rough beginnings as an orphan and give him a glimpse into the possibilities of a better life. The rigid hierarchy of Europe and Parrot’s servitude to a mysterious French marquis kept him in thrall to the aristocracy. This same marquis manipulates Olivier’s life as well and leads them both to America.
Before their transatlantic voyage, however, the reader is taken from rural, working- class England and aristocratic Paris to the penal colony of Australia as Parrot’s life spins out of his control. It is as Olivier’s servant and scribe in America, however, that his life unfolds and blossoms in the possibilities of freedoms in the young America, the same freedoms that terrify and appall Olivier. Heartfelt and very funny, with love affairs for both characters, it is a fascinating look at the early American character with direct parallels to the 21^st century United States. Highly recommended. -- Pamela Ortega

THE COURTESAN AND THE SAMURAI
Lesley Downer, Bantam Press, 2010, £12.99, hb, 338pp, 9780593057933
    Hana is a true Samurai wife, enduring humiliation and beatings at the hands of her husband without complaint. Her first duty is loyalty. Then civil war breaks out in Japan, her husband goes off to fight and Hana’s duty now is to survive. Fleeing from enemy soldiers, she finds herself alone and friendless in the Yoshiwara, the famous pleasure quarter of Tokyo. There Hana vanishes and Hanaogi, the beautiful and talented courtesan, emerges in her place.
    Hana is resigned to her fate until the day she meets Yozo. He’s a fugitive soldier, evading capture by hiding in the only place that is beyond the law, the Yoshiwara. He promises to always protect Hana, even if that means choosing her above his friends and comrades. Together they might escape, but Yozo bears a terrible secret about Hana’s husband, and this knowledge might put both their lives at risk.
    The Courtesan and the Samurai is a corking read. It captures the essence of Japan’s pleasure quarters in full exotic detail. The colours, smells, exploitation, eroticism and lurking violence are vividly depicted. Equally, the accompanying scenes of the horror of the civil war are also brilliantly portrayed. Each seems all the more real for being so intricately interwoven. Every character is beautifully drawn too, from the main players to the lowly walk-on roles.
    Lesley Downer has written a wonderful novel full of fact, fiction, fear and fantasy. If you like your love stories epic, then this will surely hit the mark.
-- Sara Wilson

THE RED UMBRELLA
Christina Diaz Gonzalez, Knopf, 2010, $16.99, hb, 288pp, 9780375861901
Lucia likes bright red nail polish and skirts that swing. She reads Seventeen Magazine like a typical American teenage girl. But she is not American, and her life is not typical. It is Cuba, 1961, and Lucia’s beautiful, romantic world is being destroyed by the revolution. Lucia’s friends have all joined the Jóvenes Rebeldes and the cute boy from math class acts like an arrogant brigadista. Her parents now whisper behind closed doors and won’t let Lucia and her little brother, Frankie, outside the house. Lucia chafes at the loss of freedom and blames her parents for being overly protective. But then her parents send Lucia and Frankie alone to America through Operation Pedro Pan, and they are taken in by a farmer and his wife who live in Nebraska. Lucia now is free of her parents and the revolution, but at what cost?
I loved this story. Lucia’s teen voice is spot on, and her growth from pampered daughter of a banker to hard-working farm girl gave a wonderful depth to the narrative. Diaz Gonzalez weaves in the historical aspects of the revolution with just the right balance, informing young readers through chapter titles and dialogue about what was happening in 1961 without going too much into why it was happening or the United States’ role in the Cuban revolution, which would be more appropriate for older teen readers. This is a story about family love and sacrifice, how war can turn even best friends into enemies, and the goodness of strangers. And while these are universal themes that transcend the story, this is a story that needs to be told as Operation Pedro Pan is still one that is largely unknown in the United States outside of the 14,000 children and their foster families who participated in it.
-- Patricia O’Sullivan

Lucia Álvarez is an archetypical teen who dresses in the latest fashions and loves shopping with her best friend Ivette. When Cuban soldiers visit their small town, many people, including the people that Lucia knows, are executed for speaking out against Fidel Castro. Her father, who works at the bank, takes out their valuables and hides them in the house. Later, however, their house is searched by soldiers who take everything, including Lucia’s mother’s wedding ring. Lucia and her brother, Frankie, are sent to Miami, Florida, alone to live at a camp to await a foster family. When Lucia and Frankie are transferred to a farm on Nebraska to live with the Baxters, Lucia discovers they are the next best people to her parents. After studying English with Mrs. Baxter all summer, Lucia starts high school in an American public school with other teenagers. Lucia befriends another farm girl, Jennifer, and they are soon best friends like Lucia and Ivette once were before Ivette joined the Jóvenes Rebeldes. Just like any other high school there are cliques and football players and ordinary people who are more of Lucia’s crowd. Even with this American life, Lucia can’t help but miss life in Cuba with its warm oceans and white sand and of course, her parents.
I loved this book! It’s a moving story perfect for young adults. I can’t help but be on Lucia’s side with her strength and courage living with totally new people in a different country and feeling torn between her old life and her new one. -- Marion O’Sullivan, age 11

THE CONFESSIONS OF CATHERINE DE MEDICI
C. W. Gortner, Ballantine, 2010, $25.00, hb, 416pp, 9780345501868 / To be pub by Hodder & Stoughton in 2011
    Catherine de Medici came to the French court as a reluctant princess: young and naive, and yet somehow she knew her destiny was to guide France to glory. She was the last legitimate descendant of Lorenzo de Medici; she carried her pride well. It is written that she had second sight, and with this gift and her consultations with Nostradamus, Catherine was guided to act. After her husband’s death, her mediocrity faded and she gained increasing power. She emerged as an astute, formidable, and shrewdly confident regent who maintained a tenacious hold on governing France during her time. Religious tolerance was her mantra, and the survival of France was paramount.
    To know Catherine, the reader must understand her culture, social life, and children. Romance eluded her, with the exception of her often-overlooked friendship with Coligny, the Protestant leader whom she would later hunt down. The chasm between the followers of Calvin, the Huguenot heretics, and the Catholics who were the dominant power is historically important to her life’s story. Gortner interweaves this pivotal, complex issue into his novel, bringing with it clear understanding.
    Gortner’s story provides a compelling and fascinating view of Catherine’s life and world, her world being France. The reader will empathize with Catherine, ache for her, and sometimes recoil in disgust when her actions become too extreme. The details and the chronology of historical events told as Catherine’s confessions in first-person narrative are personal and emotionally realistic. When Hercule, her crippled son, is drawing his last breath, the scene is woefully tragic, so beautifully penned that the passage will beseech tears. You will devour this read desperate to satiate your curiosity. The writing is as illuminating and powerful as the character of infamous legend known as Catherine de Medici. Highly recommended without a doubt! -- Wisteria Leigh

BLOODROOT
Amy Greene, Knopf, 2010, $25.95, hb, 464pp, 9780525950547
    Byrdie Lamb was said to be one of those witches from Chickweed Holler, one who, as they say, had “the touch.” She gave birth to five children and buried four. Her last child, Clio, has a wandering, adventurous spirit and is not happy staying at home with Byrdie, so it comes as no surprise when she runs away to get married. One day Clio and her husband are killed, leaving behind their daughter, Myra. Byrdie’s relationship with Clio was never close, but she is devoted to Myra. They live together on Bloodroot Mountain, an inseparable pair. Byrdie shares her ways with her, and all is good until John Odom catches Myra’s eye. Like her mama before her, Myra leaves Bloodroot Mountain to get married.
    At this point, the reader picks up the story from Myra’s children’s point of view. They are twins, a son and a daughter. Myra’s life unfolds in Greene’s intricate, multilayered story that holds together like a carefully laid mosaic. Byrdie, Doug, John Odom, Laura Odom Blevins, and finally Myra share a piece of the tale, adding dimensions from their memories of the past as the truth reveals itself through them. The expressive, tangible characters breathe with a hint of Appalachia in their souls. Their story takes place from 1929, at the beginning of the Great Depression, through today.
    The pain of the characters, breathtakingly warm and genuine, will penetrate deep into your heart. Greene’s story about family, forgiveness and healing is summarized beautifully in her words: “It’s not forgetting that heals. It’s remembering.”
    Although told with a smooth, measured cadence, the story moves with unstoppable momentum. Sobbing as the final pages were read, I sat motionless, deep in thought with the opened book on my lap. A poignant debut with emotional depth. --Wisteria Leigh

BAND OF ANGELS (US) / THE WATER HORSE (UK)
Julia Gregson, Touchstone, 2010, $16.99, pb, 464pp, 9781439101131 / Orion, 2009 (c2004), £7.99, pb, 480pp, 9781409102656
    As a child, Catherine Carreg is cared for by neighbors, as her own mother is often bedridden. Catherine and the neighbor’s boy, Deio, spend their days riding horses across the Welsh countryside, pushing each other in wild and dangerous exploits. At sixteen, Catherine’s parents decide that the son of a drover is not proper company for their daughter, and Catherine is prohibited from continuing the friendship. Indignant but submissive, Catherine is forced to pursue the domestic chores necessary to young ladies who will one day be wives.
    When Catherine is eighteen, her oft-depressed mother dies during childbirth. Catherine is the only one home, doesn’t know what to do, and is unable to save her mother. Vowing to find meaning in her life, Catherine leaves Wales for London, running away from both her family and her soulmate, Deio, to become a nurse. In the early 1850s, nursing is considered a disreputable task performed by whores and drunks, and nobody understands her decision. Catherine finds a position with Florence Nightingale and soon follows her to Scutari and the Crimean War.
    This is a novel where the setting is an actual character; the cold, the dirt, the smell and the pain of the places Catherine travels create as much conflict as any of the human characters. For me, it is the setting that lingers after the last page is turned. Gregson is one of today’s best writers in her ability to bring a time and place to life. In fact, Catherine’s unbearable world is so alive, it is sometimes too much to take. For those times, Gregson delivers Deio, the handsome, the confused, and Catherine’s one true love, who follows her to war while making his own journey of discovery. -- Elizabeth Caulfield Felt

THE TEMPLAR KNIGHT
Jan Guillou, HarperCollins, 2010, $25.99, hb, 480pp, 9780061688577 / Harper, 2009, £7.99, pb, 480pp, 9780007285860
The story begins in 1177. Exiled to the Holy Land ten years earlier, Arn Magnusson is now serving as Master of the Knights Templar’s Gaza fortress. His betrothed, Cecilia, has been placed into a cloister in western Gotaland (in Scandinavia). Both were forced to perform twenty years’ penance by the Church for conceiving a child out of wedlock. Arn, known by the Saracens as Al-Ghouti, is feared for his strength, cunning and compassion. After rescuing a man he believes to be a wealthy Arab merchant, the two become friends and learn to respect one another – especially after Arn learns that the merchant is really Saladin, the most feared of all the Saracen warlords. Meanwhile Cecilia, because of her family clan, is forced into life-threatening situations by Abbess Rikissa, the head of the convent, who belongs to a different clan that presently rules the country.
The Templar Knight is second in the Crusades Trilogy. This novel and its predecessor are fascinating accounts of events leading up to the Third Crusade. Guillou handles the tales of both Arn and Cecilia masterfully by ending each chapter with a cliffhanger and alternating between the protagonists. All of the people, including minor characters and real-life individuals such as Saladin and King Baldwin IV, are memorable and realistic as they move the plot along. The novel becomes a real page-turner when the author places his major characters in difficult situations. I highly recommend this series, which has been critically acclaimed internationally and has finally become available to the English-speaking public. -- Jeff Westerhoff

LOVERS’ KNOT
Donald L. Hardy, Running Press, 2009, $13.95, pb, 368pp, 978076243685
Lovers’ Knot, Donald Hardy’s beautifully rendered and entertaining historical romance, is set in Cornwall, England, in 1892 and 1906. It artfully relates the story of Londoner Jonathan Williams, who returns to Trevaglan Farm, a place of sorrow and dark secrets, for the first time in fourteen years to claim the farm as its heir. Accompanying Jonathan is handsome Alayne Langsford-Knight, who is Jonathan’s easygoing friend and housemate. Using multiple viewpoints and alternating chapters, Hardy gradually reveals the story of Jonathan’s first summer at the farm, when he was a troubled young man. There Jonathan found peace, healing and, eventually, love with a local farmhand named Nat, only to have their relationship come to a tragic end.
Now in his early thirties, Jonathan dreads revisiting his past. Indeed, he has every right to be fearful, for once he and Alayne arrive in rural Cornwall, Jonathan is met not only with kindness but also with the contempt and hatred of a woman bent on revenge. Secret pacts from that lost summer are revealed, and in the shadows, Jonathan sees ghostly apparitions. In the meanwhile, against a backdrop dripping with atmosphere, amongst a cast of finely drawn characters, Jonathan and the lighter-hearted Alayne (who is reading Henry James ghost stories and is deliciously spooked by them) resist declaring their love for one another, each fearing rejection, humiliation or, perhaps, even worse, the loss of the other man’s friendship. Is it unfair to say that, finally, love conquers all? Lovers’ Knot is a real find, and I hope to see more novels from this gifted author. Very highly recommended. -- Alana White

THE KING’S DAUGHTER
Penny Ingham, Cava Books, 2010, £7.99, pb, 310pp, 9780955599750
    The King’s Daughter begins in 877 AD while King Alfred the Great of Wessex is fighting Norse invaders. He is supported by his bright and beloved daughter, Elflaede; his immature and jealous son, Edward; and the ambitious, charming yet cruel King of the Mercians, Ethelred, who is betrothed to Elflaede. They are fighting the sons of Ivar of Rothbrock, Guthrum and Halfdan, who swore on their father’s deathbed to finish what he had started: to take Wessex; but in his childhood a witch had warned Guthrum to “Beware the green eyes”.
    Elflaede, who has “huge green eyes”, is just seventeen when we first meet her, and she grows from an intelligent but naïve girl into a powerful woman. Her courage and the conflicts she faces are powerfully portrayed. While she has a number of implausibly lucky escapes, the difficulties of her emotional position throughout the book are convincing, so that I felt real admiration and empathy.
    The most successful characters are the ones that are the least complicated: for example, the monstrous Halfdan, benevolent Alfred and conniving Ethelred. Guthrum and Edward are more complex and so require more work from both the author and the reader. Overall, though, I think they work.
    The book brought Anglo-Saxon Wessex to life, particularly the relentless toil required to produce food, the brutality of fighting and the plight of women, especially the constant threat and use of rape as a tool of war. I enjoyed the descriptions of the varying landscapes, from the damp hidden island of Athelney to smelly, commercial London to verdant and sunny Bedford.
    I wasn’t keen on the cover (why is an Anglo-Saxon princess wearing bright red lipstick?) and I thought the blurb gave too much away, but otherwise I thought this was a pacy, engaging, enlightening and hugely enjoyable novel.
-- Victoria Lyle

UNDER HEAVEN
Guy Gavriel Kay, Roc, 2010, $25.95, hb, 559pp, 9780451463302 / Viking Canada, 2010, C$34.00, hb, 592pp, 9780670068098 / HarperVoyager, 2010, £18.99, hb, 576pp, 9780007342013
    Under Heaven is a “variation upon themes of the Tang,” a sweeping look at China during the 8th century, seen through the fictional world of Kitai. Kay’s stories are inspired by real people, places, and events, and although the world of Kitai itself is not real per se, the combination of inspiration and imagination is absolutely convincing.
    This is the story of Shen Tai, second son of a famous general, whose selfless act of respect and mourning unwittingly attracts the attention of a foreign court – and earns him a mighty gift that will change the course of his life, and the fate of the Kitan empire. “The world could bring you poison in a jeweled cup, or surprising gifts,” he muses. “Sometimes you didn’t know which of them it was.”
    The world of the Ninth Dynasty is delicate, ornate, elegant, and intricate, but also full-blooded and sweeping, and the breadth and depth of the story reflect this sensibility. The writing style can sometimes be difficult to get past, as it can be rather jagged; that said, the pace picks up significantly halfway through, and by the end you don’t want to put the book down. The story is well plotted, with a broad mix of interesting characters that you grow to care about, along with outstanding world-building.
    Richly imagined, this is an epic story of a complex and advanced civilization, an intimate look at the life of one man, and a fascinating meditation on free will, destiny and fate, coincidence and consequence. Highly recommended.
-- Julie K. Rose

The Man from Saigon
Marti Leimbach, Doubleday, 2010, $25.95, hb, 337pp, 9780385529860 / Fourth Estate, 2009, £10.99, pb, 368pp, 9780007305995
    An absorbing, often gripping novel of a young woman reporter on tour in war-torn Vietnam in 1967, The Man from Saigon is gritty, realistic and poetically written. Leimbach is a master at describing the visceral: the humidity and heat of the jungle, the ache of hunger, the recoil of the body and the brain under fire, the insanity that comes from being surrounded by bombs falling for hours and bullets like hot rain.
    The protagonist, Susan, works for a woman’s magazine in Chicago and is sent to the war to gather human interest stories. She’s not supposed to leave Saigon, but of course she does. She gets drawn in to the addiction of war reporting, inching ever closer to the heavy action while putting light years of distance between her and the ‘normalcy’ of life back in the States—until life in the war zone becomes what’s normal. Two men, the Vietnamese photographer of the book’s title, and another reporter, an American, weave in and out of Susan’s mental, emotional and physical existence in a country too far from home.
    The images are often disturbing, but the insights into war and human frailty, love and courage are meaningful and intelligent. An excellent read.
-- Mary F. Burns

THE LONG SONG
Andrea Levy, Headline, 2010, £18.99, hb, 308pp, 9780755359400 / Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2010, $26.00, hb, 320pp, 9780374192174
    Andrea Levy’s previous books have chronicled the experience of Jamaican immigrants in post-war Britain. In The Long Song she steps back into the early 19^th century, to the dying days of slavery and the early years of freedom.
    The story is told in the first person, supposedly by an old woman recalling her childhood and youth. Her son has become a well-to-do printer and he cajoles her into writing her life story. We flit between the bickering mother and son in the present and the half forgotten memories of fifty years earlier. The book cover simulates the design the son might have chosen for his mother’s book.
    This is a book about extremes of cruelty and injustice, but it is not a simple piece of ‘misery-lit’. The slaves cheat and manipulate their masters and mistresses as much as the system allows, and there is a complex mix of affection and resentment between mistress and servant, black girl and white lover. The narrator is as racist as any of the whites, arrogant that she is mulatto rather than negro and cringingly envious of her quadroon friend. Each gradation of colour can be equally cruel and patronising.
    The story is written in a form of Jamaican patois, but it is easy to read and the dialect adds humour and immediacy. This is not a didactic novel, but so far as there is a message, it’s that everybody has their pride and that the end of slavery still left most of the black population of Jamaica poor and powerless. -- Edward James

BENEATH THE LION'S GAZE
Maaza Mengiste, W. W. Norton, 2010, $24.95, hb, 305pp, 9780393071764 / Jonathan Cape, 2010, £12.99, pb, 320pp, 9780224089166
    1974, and Ethiopia is on the verge of revolution. Peasants starve in the drought-stricken countryside, while Emperor Haile Selassie remains sequestered in his palace, feeding his pet lions fresh meat every day. The time has come for change. But will replacing an ineffectual emperor with a military dictatorship improve Ethiopians’ lives, or will it catapult the country into a fresh reign of terror?
    For one family in Addis Ababa, the revolution creates an emotional gulf that widens daily. Dawit seeks to help the underground resistance, placing himself and his family in continual danger. His brother Yonas wants only to protect his wife and daughter. Their father Hailu, a prominent doctor who witnesses the horrors of the war firsthand, dreams of a return to the way things were, when his wife was in good health and his sons on friendly terms. But when a victim of state-sanctioned torture is admitted to his hospital under guard, Hailu must decide whether to nurse the girl back to health, only to hand her back to her captors—or to help her die a merciful death and risk the consequent punishment. Whatever choices Hailu makes, his life will never return to the way it was before the revolution.
    Maaza Mengiste, drawing from her own upbringing in Ethiopia, brings us a powerful and heart-wrenching debut. The novel begins slowly, with frequent shifts in viewpoint, and the reader must take some time to grow close to the characters. Once the action starts, however, the characters are catapulted from one tragedy to the next in an accelerating sequence of events. The book is not for the weak of heart: rape, murder, torture, and suicide are dealt with in no uncertain terms. But despite the pervading grief, a few thin beams of sunlight—and family reconciliation—eventually break through. An unforgettable work. -- Ann Pedtke

THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET
David Mitchell, Sceptre, 2010, £18.99, hb, 469pp, 9780340921562 / Random House, July 2010, $25.00, hb, 469pp, 9781400065455
    David Mitchell has written an historical novel which equals if not surpasses the originality of his previous prize-listed works including Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green. Japan is the ‘land of a thousand autumns’. In 1799, Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) clerk Jacob de Zoet arrives on Dejima in Nagasaki Harbour to uncover the previous chief’s malpractice. For over a century, the VOC has been the only point of contact between Japan and Europe. Foreign traders are forbidden to leave the VOC trading fortress, and the Japanese cannot leave their native land. Yet the learning of the Enlightenment seeps into Japan, and mysterious tales slip out via interpreters.
    De Zoet’s investigation makes him unpopular with his colleagues, but he is befriended by Interpreter Ogawa and becomes drawn to one of the few women on the island, Orito, a midwife. Three themes are interlinked by an intriguing narrative that ultimately resolves them. Orito is taken by Abbot Enomoto to a monastery in the mountains to join the sisters, whose purpose is shrouded with a terrible secret. The study of power and corruption on the island and on the mainland culminates when the English appear in the harbour and loyalties are stretched to the limit. De Zoet’s personal journey is the final narrative theme. His courage and intelligence are tested both by his love for Orito and by threats to the Company.
    Whilst many of the novel’s characters possess humanity, others are calculating. This is a poetic study of two claustrophobic, very different worlds, teeming with life and vividly depicted. The details are fascinating and the prose beautiful: ‘Cicadas hiss in the pines. They sound like fat frying in a shallow pan.’ The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is so rich a novel that a short review cannot do it justice. It is simply magnificent. -- Carol McGrath

THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE
Maggie O’Farrell, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010, $25/C$31.50, hb, 400pp, 9780547330792/ Headline Review, 2010, £16.99, hb, 352pp, 9780755308453
    Lexie Sinclair’s passions run deep; we meet her at her parent’s home near Cornwall, England, just after the end of World War II, as she dreams of escape from a humdrum existence of housekeeping and moral rigidity. Innes Kent, a journalist, art-lover, and bon vivant, appears on the scene and is Lexie’s way out. Innes introduces Lexie to writing, art, bohemian post-war London, and love, and she eagerly embraces all aspects of this, the life she was meant to have.
    Flash forward to the London of today, where new mother Irina is recovering from a nearly-fatal Caesarean section. Irina’s boyfriend Ted was traumatized by the experience almost as much as Irina, and they both fade in and out of reality, visited by visions and memories. For Ted, who has never had much of a memory, this is truly disconcerting, as he tries to understand and find some context for these chaotic thoughts and feelings. For her part, Irina becomes detached, overwhelmed by this small yet demanding new life who takes precedence over everything, including her painting. The chapters alternate between Lexie’s life and Irina’s, drawing the reader into both the mysteries and parallels between them.
    Post-war London comes to life with Lexie and Innes, and their arms-open approach to the future. For Irina and Ted, the geography is more emotional, with a lot of internalizing; when they do get out of their heads, and their house, the consequences are life-changing. O’Farrell draws these seemingly disparate lives together deftly, with great feeling and perfect tension, making for a superb read. -- Helene Williams

MY NAME IS MARY SUTTER
Robin Oliveira, Viking, 2010, $26.95, hb, 384 pp, 9780670021673
    Mary Sutter dreams of becoming a surgeon. She, along with her mother, serves as a midwife for the women of Albany, New York. The problem, however, is that most surgeons are men. When the American Civil War breaks out in 1861, young Mary leaves her mother, twin sister, and brother and travels to Washington D.C. to join Dorothea Dix and her legion of nurses, who are being recruited to attend to sick and wounded soldiers. This book tells the story of Mary’s struggles to achieve her goal.
    This is a finely written novel of a passionate but headstrong woman who lets nothing stand in her way. With the help of a mentor, she learns new skills under desperate circumstances, dealing with sick and dying men and, eventually, performing leg amputations. The author uses her knowledge about the war to describe the deplorable conditions under which the medical profession worked. Amputations are described in detail, and these scenes are not for the faint-hearted. The relationships between Mary and her family members, her mentor, and others she meets are exceptionally well done.
    This unforgettable novel of the American Civil War should become a classic. I highly recommend My Name Is Mary Sutter to readers who wish to gain a better understanding of the war and its effects on those who lived through it.
-- Jeff Westerhoff

HERESY
S.J. Parris, Doubleday, 2010, $25.95, hb, 435pp, 9780385531283 / HarperCollins, 2010, £12.99, hb, 464pp, 9780007317660
    The name Giordano Bruno is carved deep into the gravestone of Inquisition heretics. He was burned at the stake in Rome in 1600 for supporting Copernicus’s heliocentric theory and for proposing that the universe is infinite. Stephanie Merritt, writing as S.J. Parris, creates a new persona for this medieval scholar – he is to be an agent in the pay of Elizabeth’s own spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham.
    The story begins in 1583 as Bruno arrives at Oxford University, a visit he actually made. The visit’s overt purpose is to debate philosophy with local dons, the covert purpose to gather intelligence about subversive Catholic activity. The first gambit ends in monumental failure in a scene that Parris portrays brilliantly. The second is the meat of the story.
    And it is as colorful, multi-layered, and criminally creative a story as any mystery lover could wish for. Three murders happen in quick succession, but they are not just murders; they are grizzly symbols left by a too-clever killer. The college’s rector appeals to Bruno for help. His hunt leads him into the heart of the clandestine Catholic community. In the end, and it looks very much like the end of him as well, Bruno unmasks the killer and emerges an ambivalent hero.
    Heresy has all the elements of a great historical mystery. The setting is rich in detail but does not overpower the story. There are gothic elements aplenty: cowl-hidden figures at candlelit midnight meetings, tower rooms, priest holes. Plus, the climax is harrowing and full of surprises. Best of all, though, are Heresy’s characters. Not a one is flat or uninteresting. From Cobbett the gatekeeper to the complex Bruno himself, Parris pours extraordinary care and human insight into her creations.
    Heresy is the first in a series. I cannot wait for the next installment!
-- Lucille Cormier

THE BONES OF AVALON
Phil Rickman, Corvus, 2010, £16.99, hb, 440pp, 9781848872714
    England 1560, and the young Queen Elizabeth is still settling into her new throne. Whilst trying to usher in a new time of post-Marian religious tolerance, she is also subject to Catholic whispers about her legitimacy to reign. It is therefore decided that the ancient links with King Arthur need to be reaffirmed. To achieve this, Elizabeth’s trusted conjuror and astrologer Dr John Dee and her advisor/lover Robert Dudley are despatched to Glastonbury to find these relics and bring them to London. Whilst in this town that lives uneasily alongside the ruined abbey and the adjacent mysterious Tor, Dee and Dudley uncover a vicious hornet’s nest of murder, conspiracy, treachery, witchcraft, a great secret about the landscape and the Zodiac and even the surprising presence of the French magus Nostradamus. Even in the 16^th century, Rickman portrays Glastonbury as a magnet for all sorts of New Age oddities!
    This is a supremely well-plotted and intriguing novel. The large cast characters resonate with personality and life and the author gauges the dialogue just about right – neither gratingly contemporary, or ploddingly and faux-arcane “Elizabethan”. The mystery that Dee uncovers is absorbing in its complexity and narrative.
    Phil Rickman is more renowned for his Merrily Watkins series of paranormal stories in the M.R. James tradition. This has scope to be the first in another highly-regarded series and is ragingly well-written and entertaining historical fiction. -- Doug Kemp

BOOKS BURN BADLY
Manuel Rivas, Harvill Secker, 2010, £18.99, hb, 548pp, 9781846551468
    Rivas put the following words in the mouth of Polka the gravedigger, one of the most charismatic characters of Books Burn Badly: “Don’t be afraid of the dead. What you have to watch out for are the living who spoil life”. This novel, a literary masterpiece which blends aesthetic beauty with intellectual acuteness, gives to its readers the gift of expanding their minds and sensibilities. It is a reflection upon the tragic consequences of the Spanish Civil War, as its plot centres upon the burning of books by Falangists in Coruña’s Docks (Galicia) in August 1936. This sad event, mournfully evoked by Rivas, acts as the thread that unites the lives of his manifold characters: the boxer, the judge, photographer, the painter, the washerwoman, the prostitute, the singer, the intellectual, etc.
    Narrative is not strictly linear, as the novel’s chapters, with poetic titles and frequently changing time and place, allow the reader to see how the same events were differently experienced from a variety of perspectives. Rivas carries out a sharp critique of political and intellectual repression during Franco’s dictatorship. A wonderful example of such critique is the perverse relationship between the censor Tomás Dez and the singer Luis Terranova, as it shows how close authority comes to tyranny (and absurdity) when claiming to impose order and control in a divided country.
    Rivas raises a valid concern about the risks of intolerance, when freethinking ideas are too quickly labeled as dangerous, and when a ‘state of emergency’ is invoked to justify oppression. But Rivas does much more than condemning Franco’s dictatorship as he reminds us how contradictory persons are, being capable of generous acts of love but also of great cruelties. By revisiting the past in all its complexity, Books Burn Badly is a memorable lesson on understanding. -- Andrea Acle

The Holy Thief
William Ryan, Macmillan, 2010, £12.99, hb, 345pp, 9780230742734 / Minotaur, 2010, $24.99, hb, 352pp 9780312586454
    Moscow 1936. When the mutilated body of a young woman is found on the altar of a deconsecrated church, Militia Captain Alexei Dmitriyevich Korolev is asked to investigate. But when the victim is identified as an American, the dreaded NKVD becomes involved. Soon Korolev's loyalties and sense of duty will be tested, as it becomes increasingly difficult to know whom to trust...
    In many ways Korolev fits the mould of the tortured detective – haunted by his experiences of WWI and the subsequent Civil War, divorced, missing his son and regarded by his colleagues as something of a maverick because of his insistence on catching the true culprit of each crime, instead of fitting up someone vaguely suitable.
    But Ryan is too talented to reduce his characters to stereotypes. Korolev is a believable product of his time: not a Party member, but still striving to believe that things can and will improve under the current regime.
    Ryan captures the pervasive fear of Stalin's reign, where even a joke amongst friends can lead to denunciation and exile to the ‘Zone’. Readers of a squeamish disposition might want to skim the more gruesome scenes, but the grimness of the setting is leavened by humorous exchanges between Korolev and the more feisty characters he meets, including a gang of streetwise urchins. An impressive debut. -- Jasmina Svenne

WATERMARK

Vanitha Sankaran, Avon A, 2010, $14.99, pb, 368pp, 9780061849275

Auda is born an albino in 14^th-century France. Believed to be cursed, her tongue is cut out by a midwife’s assistant so she’ll never speak. Her mother dies in her birthing, but her father and sister protect her. Auda matures and finds solace in helping her father make paper. In this dangerous era, the church controls the use of parchment to keep ideas from the common people, and papermaking is looked upon with suspicion. Auda’s ability to read and write, along with her pale countenance and her father’s inadvertent connection to a rising heretical religion, makes her a target for the looming Inquisition.

Watermark explores a “different” woman’s quest for self and even love in a precarious time when superstition and fear of heresy are rampant. Auda fights against the restrictions forced upon her to lead not only a normal but a creative life through her own intelligence. Sankaran tells a vibrant tale, and her research into papermaking and the daily lives of the rich and poor in medieval France adds lush background to this novel. I found it a compelling page-turner, though Auda’s actions toward the end seemed bizarre and included for dramatic purposes.

A stunning debut from a talented author. -- Diane Scott Lewis

DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL
Mary Sharratt, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010, $24/C$29.95, hb, 352pp, 9780547069678
    Inspired by the 1612 Pendle witch trials in Lancashire, England, Sharratt tells a dramatic story of love and treachery. Told from the viewpoint of Bess Southerns, destitute widow and cunning woman, we gain a sense of what it was like to be instructed in, accused of, and ultimately hung for witchcraft.
    The novel stretches over the span of time when Bess gains her ‘powers’ at the age of fifty, through the birth and growth of her granddaughter, Alizon. Bess becomes known throughout her clan for her healing abilities. She gains assistance from her spirit-friend, Tibb, and soon combines Catholic rituals and medicinal herbs to provide locals with all sorts of remedies and ‘magical’ solutions to everyday issues. Alizon quickly learns the craft from her grandmother and helps Bess with her ministrations. Years pass. And in 1612, everything changes when a peddler suffers a stroke after exchanging harsh words with Alizon. A local magistrate tricks Alizon into accusing her family and neighbors of witchcraft. Friends and loved ones turn on one another as suspicion and paranoia reach frenzied heights, and the novel draws to its inevitable ending.
    Sharratt successfully combines excellent historical detail, drama, and emotional accounts that blend beautifully into a vibrant story. Perfectly plotted, impressive and full of tension, this is most assuredly a bewitching tale. Highly recommended. -- Rebecca Roberts

MURDER AT MANSFIELD PARK
Lynn Shepherd, Beautiful Books, 2010, £9.99, pb, 363pp, 9781905636792 / St. Martin’s Griffin, July 2010, $14.99, pb, 352pp, 9780312638344
    The well-known classic Mansfield Park has been transformed into a whodunit murder mystery. Murder at Mansfield Park is a page-turner with twists and turns that keep its reader gripped until the very last page. The feeble and timid Fanny Price we met in Mansfield Park has become a feisty and ambitious lady. Heiress to a large fortune, Fanny is now an untrustworthy, scheming gold-digger. She is betrothed to Edmund, but do they really love each other?
    Tragedy strikes at the house, and it becomes a crime scene. A body is discovered early one morning. Who is it that has met with a violent death? What is the motive and who is the murderer? Everyone is suspected of the crime, and Lynn Shepherd does a superb job of keeping the reader guessing with the twists in the plot in the race to find the murderer, and producing an unexpected heroine along the way.
    Two of the central episodes in Mansfield Park, the theatricals and the visit to Sotherton, are included in the rework, developing the characters and keeping the plot moving. The result is much lighter, more entertaining, and more amusing than the original. However, it still remains a respectful homage to Austen, and the novel will appeal both to Austen fans and to crime readers.
    Its language is authentic, with quotations and snippets that will warm the hearts of true Austen readers, and includes enough dead bodies, motives, murderers, and detectives to keep crime readers riveted, complete with the inclusion of a 19^th-century equivalent of a post-mortem.
    A well written and very readable first novel that certainly deserves to be devoured. -- Barbara Goldie

THE LOTUS EATERS

Tatjana Soli, St. Martin’s, 2010, $24.99, hb, 400pp, 9780312611576
    Helen Adams is an American photojournalist in love with South Vietnam because it is so “unlovable” during its transition in 1975. The sense of impending doom is everywhere. In those critical weeks, thousands of American military are abandoning Saigon and its beautiful, outlying villages to Ho Chi Minh, the North Vietnamese leader who will soon rule all of Vietnam.
    Will one more photo really matter? To Helen, they all matter – or none matters. Her desire to be the perfect wartime photojournalist/correspondent is almost inexplicable. Meanwhile, in the process of entering this brutal environment and taking photos of the most horrific scenes imaginable, she falls in love with two entirely different men.
    The intertwining themes of love of this beautiful, exotic country and how personal love arises are focal to the plot and character here. Is the brutality and destruction of war or the indomitable spirits forged by the war the transforming element? Does love enable Helen, Darrow, and Linh to keep doing their vital jobs, jobs that the Americans have lost faith in? Do the deaths of their beloved friends make them love Vietnam more and instill in them a desire to remain after the American withdrawal? And just when is it more than okay to be a traitor to save one’s country from total oblivion?
    The Lotus Eaters is one of the most honest, endearing, searing, and intriguing stories about the Vietnam War that I have ever read and as far as I’m concerned, one of the finest novels of the Vietnam era. It goes so much deeper and wider than a typical “war is hell” story. Tatjana Soli has caught the essence of this devastating conflict and the loves that ensue during and after the destruction it wrought. Highly recommended. -- Viviane Crystal

THE BLUE ORCHARD
Jackson Taylor, Touchstone, 2010, $16.00, pb, 416pp, 9781416592945
    The Blue Orchard, set in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania from the 1920s to the late 1950s, is the fictionalized story of Verna Krone, who was the author’s grandmother. This is a remarkable woman’s story, with many dimensions and a tragic secondary character: Verna’s employer, the influential Dr. Crampton, who was a black physician with status across the as-yet-unbroken color line.
    The first chapters are the familiar story of a destitute and exploited rural girl’s thorny path to education and a paying job. (She became a licensed nurse.) When Verna begins to work for Dr. Crampton, she witnesses southern-style race relations north of the Mason-Dixon and the timeless winking partnership between big money, local police, and politicians. Her rise to respectability and Dr. Crampton’s ability to deliver copious political and financial aid to his own oppressed community are based on the nature of their medical practice. Competent white doctors of that era neither treated venereal disease nor performed abortions. Dr. Crampton was a physician who left moral judgments to his patients, and therefore became the one to whom “respectable” professionals referred such cases. Judges, star high school athletes, wealthy college boys and Washington politicians with girlfriends in trouble all came because they knew him to be thorough and compassionate.
    Initially, I read The Blue Orchard for the hard-times, hard-luck woman’s story and for the evocative, dark Depression-era detail. As Verna gets an education, a good job, money, and, finally, marriage, the story becomes a political tell-all, with emphasis on Harvey Taylor’s Republican machine. Beyond the heroine’s personal struggle, this novel is an enthralling meditation on race, the low status of women, and the enduring nature of political and social hypocrisy. Highly recommended. -- Juliet Waldron

THE STONE CROWN
Malcolm Walker, Walker, 2009, £6.99, pb, 504pp, 9781406321517
    When Emlyn starts hearing voices, he thinks he is going mad like his father, who is in a psychiatric home. Little does he suspect that he has become linked psychically to the Dark Age world of King Arthur.
    Emlyn and his rebellious friend Maxine are very different in character, but both are drawn to Yeaveburgh’s ‘sleeping stones’, a place that was once the site of King Arthur’s last battle. There, they discover hidden relics of King Arthur’s time, a group of carved wooden horsemen inside which the cursed spirits of King Arthur and his men lie captive. When Emlyn and Maxine steal one of these horsemen, the rider’s soul is released into the world of the twenty-first century, wreaking havoc. Only Emlyn can see him, and he gradually realizes that, with Maxine’s help, they have a responsibility to return the horseman to his rightful resting place.
    The voices in Emlyn’s head allow us an insight into Arthur’s world of legend and magic, loyalty and betrayal, and it is through Emlyn’s character that Malcolm Walker has made it so easy for anyone aged thirteen and above to relate to the characters in the novel. Indeed, The Stone Crown is one of the best historical novels that I have read in a long time. I became so engrossed in the characters’ lives that the pages just seemed to fly by. Five hundred pages in, and I didn’t want the end to come. This is a book filled with the magic of the Dark Ages and, as a reader, I certainly felt completely entranced by it. It reminded me very much of a mixture between one of Alan Garner’s books and A House on the Strand for younger readers. I recommend it highly; it was a fantastic read. -- Rachel Chetwynd-Stapylton

HOPE AGAINST HOPE
Sally Zigmond, Myrmidon, 2010, £7.99, pb, 570pp, 9781905802197
    1837 sees the start of a powerful story about two young sisters of very different character: Carrie is hardworking and placid, while May is lively and light-hearted. They are living in a Leeds pub, but their world is suddenly overturned when the pub is purchased to clear the way for a railway line.. The sisters set off for Harrogate looking for work when an accident occurs and they meet Alex Sinclair, a Scottish railway pioneer, who offers them help. On their own in Harrogate, they come up against personal and financial deception and are driven apart. Each must follow her own destiny. Both are faced with trials and triumphs as they face their journeys,. May’s from a high-class brothel to the slums of Paris, and Carrie’s from being a mistreated servant in a squalid boarding-house to owning a hotel in Harrogate.
    The novel is packed with misunderstandings, betrayals and resentments, and over a ten-year period the sisters each cross the paths of three men: Alex Sinclair; Charles Hammond, a tormented physician; and womaniser and entrepreneur Byron Taylor. The reader is pulled into the lives of the well-drawn characters, with plenty of heart‑stopping moments. It is a tense, gripping page-turner.
   The reader is readily transported into the Victorian Era by the author’s vivid descriptions. The cities come alive complete with the sounds, smells and different cultures.
    There is something for every reader: happiness, sadness, warmth and a bit of humour, sisters, hotels, revolutions, railways, love and loss. It is beautifully written, very readable, powerful, and gritty. A wonderful debut novel that keeps the reader enthralled and guessing. It is very difficult to put down until the last page is turned, and the story will stay with the reader long afterwards.
-- Barbara Goldie

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