Thea and Kezia have been friends since childhood and have just finished college to begin their teaching careers in The Care and Management of Lies by Jacqueline Winspear. That is until Kezia decides to marry Thea’s brother Tom, leaving Thea feeling isolated and betrayed. While Kezia adapts to married life and being a farmer’s wife, Thea throws herself into the suffragette ... Read More...
Wonderland
In fact, I was in wonderland then, but only in some hazy amber of memory. At the time, I wasn’t anywhere. I was reaching for the train as it disappeared, flash of silver, around a curve. Now I’m trying to go back to a place I’ve never been. Anna is a rock star. Not the classic variety but the indie variety. On her way to the top, with a record deal in hand and three albums ... Read More...
The Pink Suit
The pink suit is both the description of the outfit worn by Jacqueline Kennedy when her husband was assassinated and the name of Nicole Mary Kelby’s new novel, The Pink Suit. The novel traces the history of the infamous suit, but Kelby goes beyond that to seamlessly weave a story behind the facts. Kate is a young Irish immigrant whose sewing is of such high quality that she ... Read More...
Beauty: A Novel
Beauty is Frederick Dillen’s new novel and in it we meet Carol McLean, who spent her teen years helping neighborhood boys find parts for their beat-up cars but grows up to work for a private equity firm that buys companies only to sell their parts. She is the go-to person for these company shut downs, known as an undertaker, for coming in and laying off all staff and ... Read More...
The Blazing World
Sometimes all it takes is a name and the die is cast. For Harriet Burden, the fact that her father called her Harry from a young age felt like a challenge; one that she grabs onto with all the tenacity of a pit bull, even when it causes her nothing but pain. Harriet is the protagonist in Siri Hustvedt’s new novel, The Blazing World, a tour-de-force of one woman’s determination ... Read More...
We Are Water: A Novel
How a work can be solid and delicate, earthy and of air is a mystery but describes Wally Lamb’s novel, We Are Water. Ostensibly it is the story of Annie Oh—wife, mother, artist and keeper of secrets, secrets that grow and beget other secrets, changing her life and the lives around her. When she is only five, she watches as her mother is swept away by a flood, along with her ... Read More...
