I’ve done my fair share of fictional reading about World War II. What I’ve never heard much about is Chinese history at the time. Peach Blossom Spring goes some way towards rectifying that as it spans one family’s journey from mainland China in the mid-20th century all the way up to America in 2015. In that time, much changes including the shape and meaning of family and ... Read More...
Shadows of Pecan Hollow
Kit is 13 when she decides to abandon being abandoned. She’s been in foster care since she was a baby, in more homes than she can remember, but none of them has been good. Or even decent. She’s starving in every way and so takes off for a town called Pecan Hollow where an overworked social worker let her know she has family. She has no plan except to run and hide so she doesn’t ... Read More...
Beautiful Little Fools
A sweltering August day, a stunning estate, and a crystalline pool, its pellucid water tinged red by Jay Gatsby’s blood. Shot once and now dead. We all know this is how The Great Gatsby ends but in Jillian Cantor’s Beautiful Little Fools, it’s just the beginning. Although the police have closed the case, Detective Frank Charles has been hired by an old friend of ... Read More...
Love & Saffron: A Novel
Seattle and Los Angeles, same coast but vastly different places, especially in the 1960s. Imogene Fortier writes a column known to readers in the Pacific Northwest so is surprised to not only get a fan letter, but a gift from a young woman in L.A. It’s a small packet of saffron with a recipe for mussels. This innocuous beginning leads to an impactful friendship in Kim Fay’s ... Read More...
The Chosen and the Beautiful
Wouldn’t you know it—as soon as I post my overlooked books of 2021 another slips in under the wire. I finished The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo Wednesday morning after my post went live. This marvelous novel is a retelling of The Great Gatsby but from the perspective of Jordan Baker, seen in the original story mostly as Daisy Buchanan’s sidekick. Now, she is Asian and ... Read More...
The Island of Missing Trees
Cyprus is a country literally divided, right down to its capital. In 1960 when the British finally left they repeated their practice of leaving a political vacuum by not resolving issues between existing groups to ensure a peaceful transition. As a result, the island’s population, mixed between a Greek majority and a Turkish minority, lived with simmering resentments until the ... Read More...
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