Cathryn_Conroy

Ah, lovely and tranquil Three Pines, a Canadian village so small that it isn't on any map, has had its loveliness and tranquility shattered once again when a dead body is found in Peter and Clara Morrow's garden. And the corpse is not a stranger. She is Lillian Dyson, Clara's best friend growing up before the two became bitterly and irrevocably estranged decades ago.

Written by Louise Penny, this is the seventh of 20 (and counting) Chief Inspecter Gamache mystery novels. And, yes, you MUST read them in order because each volume contains references to the previous books—what are essentially big time spoilers.

The book opens at Clara Morrow's much-anticipated solo art show—a vernissage—at the prestigious Musée in Montreal. Everyone in the Canadian art world who matters is there, as well as many of the Morrows' good friends. Most, but not all, are invited back to Three Pines for a celebratory reception there. And all is well until the next morning when Peter and Bistro owner Olivier Brulé encounter the body in the peaceful garden.

Calling Chief Inspector Gamache! What he and his team find are secrets and lies, and they must unravel them to find the truth behind this coldblooded murder.

This is not a spoiler, even though Chief Inspector Gamache says this near the end of the book to summarize what happened. Instead, it is poetic and says so much about the writing: "This murder is about contrasts," said Gamache, his voice low, soft. "About sober and drunk. About appearance and reality. About change for the better, or for the worse. The play of light and dark."

As all the books that preceded it, this is a literary murder mystery. The plot is grounded in references to both the creative and often lonely world of artists and the competitive and often cut-throat world of art dealers. In between the storyline of the murder investigation, you'll learn a lot, too!

Every Louise Penny book is a delight to read. The plots are complex enough that most readers won't figure it out too early, the pacing is perfect, and her words of wisdom about living a good life are sagacious and spot-on. She carefully examines the psychology and emotions of all her characters, which serves to bare their souls in such a way that we readers fully understand their motives and actions.

Just a culinary note: As with all her books, Louise Penny writes descriptively about the food her characters eat. So delicious! This time we encounter blueberry pancakes, eggs Benedict, warm croissants, grilled garlic shrimp with mango salad, and so much more. Try not to read this when you're really hungry.

From a 17-year-old girl who shocks her parents when she tells them she is marrying a man old enough to be her grandfather to a wealthy family gathering in the country for a birthday celebration during which a secret rendezvous takes place that will change all their lives, this book of a dozen short stories by British writer Tessa Hadley is a literary delight.

Some are emotionally searing, others are quietly insightful, and still others are charmingly quirky. All are brilliant observations on human nature, especially family life, among rich and poor, young and old, men and women. Almost all of them take place in the United Kingdom between the 1950s and the 2000s, although one is set in 1920.

Another thing they have in common is sex. A line in the story "She's the One" sums it up for the entire collection: "There was like a hum of sex in the air all the time."

But here is something some readers may not appreciate: Virtually all the stories end in such a way that forces the reader to imagine what happens next. The endings are rarely clear cut and final. As in, when you turn the page, you'll expect it to continue—but it doesn't.

Some of my favorites in addition to the two mentioned in the first sentence of this review:
• "The Trojan Prince": A 17-year-old boy who is struggling to figure out his life after school, tries to woo a wealthy a cousin, but things don't turn out the way he planned.

• "A Mouthful of Cut Glass": Neil and Sheila are college sweethearts, who come from very different backgrounds. Now it's time to meet each other's parents, and when they make the overnight visits, their relationship changes.

• "She's the One:" Ally is 22. Her younger brother died by suicide, and the family is an emotional wreck. Thinking she should stay at home now, she gets a job as an administrative assistant at a creative writing center. There she meets Hilda, a woman who is older than her mother, but the two strike up an unlikely friendship. And then Hilda tells her a disturbing story about her childhood.

• "Post Production": Borrowing a bit from "Hamlet" (by Tessa Hadley's own admission), this is the story of two brothers. Albert is a brilliant and revered film director. His younger brother Ben is his assistant. Albert dies. His widow, Lynne, and stepson, Tom, are devastated, relying on Ben for emotional support. But Tom becomes jealous of Ben, especially when he sees Ben has designs on his mother.

Smart observations, sophisticated plots, and lyrical prose combine to make this a remarkable collection of short stories.

I thought this book would be a challenge to read. And it was. But not for the reasons I anticipated. I thought would be big, bulky, and dense. After all, it did with the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 2019. And it is big. And little bulky. And somewhat dense. But the challenge I encountered was closing the book so I could deal with real life.

Wow! Just that…wow! This is a book unlike any other I have read.

First, there are stories. So many stories. Gripping, compelling, and captivating stories. Stories I wanted to keep reading to find out more…find out how they continued…and eventually how they ended.

And then there are facts. So many facts. This is one of those novels that is really nonfiction at its core, but it's disguised in the stories so you don't realize at the time how many facts you're learning.

Masterfully and creatively written by Richard Powers, this is the story of trees. Don't let that dissuade you. This is one of the best books you'll ever read. A plot description is far too difficult to write. Instead, we have characters—nine of them—and their stories that define this book. Some of their stories intertwine, as tree roots do deep within the ground, and some only glance upon each other, barely touching, as tree branches do.

The characters:
• Nicholas Hoel: The descendant of men who loved chestnut trees, Nicholas is the last in the line on the family farm in Iowa. And when I say last, I mean it…the last one. He is a talented artist.

• Mimi Ma: The daughter of a Chinese immigrant, Mimi becomes an engineer, but all her genius and business acumen is for naught when a stand of pine trees she loves is destroyed and her life changes forever.

• Adam Appich: A brilliant graduate student, Adam is researching his dissertation in social psychology when his field work encounters a glitch: He crosses over the line.

• Ray Brickman and Dorothy Cazaly: He loves Dorothy. She is fiercely (fiercely!!) independent. But their lives are forever changed with a tragic development.

• Douglas Pavlicek: A Vietnam veteran whose life was quite literally saved by a tree, he becomes incensed when the city is summarily cutting down pine trees for future development.

• Neelay Mehta: This boy genius creates a video game that makes him one of the wealthiest men in the world, but a childhood accident has left him paralyzed. The trees talk to him.

• Patricia Westerford: Hard of hearing, a little odd, but brilliant, she is changing the world with her discovery that trees communicate with each other.

• Olivia Vandergriff: After a near-death experience as a senior in college, Olivia turns into a different person. She hears voices from the trees telling her what to do—and she does it.

This is a novel about trees and their interconnectedness to each other and us. It's impossible to read this book and not look at trees differently. It's impossible to read this multifaceted, original, and imaginative book and not want to immediately plant a tree. Trees are a miracle.

Imagine this: An old, large, but slightly dilapidated beach house, nicknamed The Folly, located on the wealthy East End of Long Island. The people inside, as we peer through the windows, seem picture-perfect: Aging mother and father still very much in love, their three grown daughters, and four grandchildren. They are gathering as a big Irish family for Thanksgiving.

But wait! Just scratch the surface and what is revealed is far from perfect. It is tragic. It is spiteful. It is lonely. It is heartbreaking.

Written by Heather Aimee O'Neill, this is the story of the Ryan family. Robert and Nora have been married for decades and have four children: Topher, Cait, Alice, and Maggie. In August 1990 as teenagers, Topher and Cait were involved with their friends, Luke and Daniel Larkin, in a boating accident that left 14-year-old Daniel dead. Whose fault was it? Topher took the blame, and with that everything about his life changed, plunging him into a downward spiral.

Fast forward 25 years to Thanksgiving 2015. Topher has been dead for several years, dying by suicide. The family is still reeling, still trying to come to terms with what happened and why—but they barely talk about it to one another. In addition to their grief, each feels responsible for Topher's death.

The three sisters bring problems and much personal drama to the Thanksgiving festivities:
• Cait, who lives in London, is divorcing her husband, Bram, with whom she has five-year-old twins, Poppy and Augustus. After losing her prestigious job as an attorney for a top law firm, she has flown home for the weekend to reevaluate her life. Cait is wealthy. Very wealthy. She has hired caterers to cook the entire Thanksgiving dinner, including a raw oyster bar and signature cocktails. Meanwhile, Cait secretly has eyes on Luke Larkin, something that will horrify her mother and sisters as the Ryans and the Larkins had a huge falling out after Daniel's untimely death.

• Alice is married to Kyle, the principal of St. Mary's School; they have two sons, teenagers Finn and James. All is not well. Because she is the only daughter nearby, Alice is solely responsible for caring for her parents, something that feels more onerous and burdensome by the day. She also has a secret—and a solution—that could rip apart her marriage.

• Maggie is a star teacher at an upscale boarding school where she recently met Isabel, a playwright, and Maggie is deeply in love. She brings Isabel home for Thanksgiving to introduce her to her family, knowing her conservative Irish Catholic mother will be horrified. Ever since Maggie came out, she has felt lonely and isolated for who she is. Meanwhile, she, too, has a secret she is desperate to keep from Isabel, knowing it could tear them apart.

Each member of the family tries to act as if everything is fine, but it's not. Eventually the tensions, lies, and secrets come tumbling out. More than anything, this is a novel about grief and the reckoning it takes on our lives when we try to bury those emotions deep inside. This is how a family comes to terms with the worst kind of tragedy.

The book is a brilliantly paced page-turner with a big heart.

Just remember that no matter how picture-perfect a house may look on the outside, it is the people inside who tell the true story.

Trigger Warning: Topher's suicide is central to much that happens in this novel. It is a pivotal part of the plot and is mentioned or alluded to frequently.

While this is a really good novel, the narrative is uneven. There are a lot of pages in which the plot is being slowly—very slowly—unspooled, but once it hits the final third of the book, the pace picks up considerably. Just know that going in.

Written by Kelly Mustian, this is a novel told in two timelines, taking place from Clay Mountain, North Carolina to Natchez, Mississippi and several lonely, backwater spots in between.

Storyline No. 1: It's 1971 and at age 42 and in between jobs, Nell Brown is determined to uncover the mysteries and unanswered questions about her birth and her sister Evie's even more enigmatic early childhood. Nell's mother Hazel refuses to offer any information and is offended when Nell asks questions. Nell has no idea who her father is, and neither of them know about Evie's parents. Nell vaguely remembers a dark, rainy night when Evie not yet two years old was brought to their house by a man in a truck, and soon after Hazel fled the area with the two little girls. One day as children, they find a "cradle roll" tucked into a copy of "Jane Eyre" that lists two strangers as Evie's parents. Where had Evie come from?

Storyline No. 1: It's the early 1930s during the Great Depression. Soon after Becca Chambers loses the only woman she has ever known as her mother, a woman who cared for her since she was six years old, Becca is also widowed. After Ben's untimely death, Becca is left having to support their baby girl, Evie. Her evil, meddling mother-in-law causes Becca to flee far away with Evie. Even so, the unthinkable happens to Evie after the greatest betrayal imaginable, destroying Becca's life.

When the two stories finally merge after quite a few twists and turns, the novel becomes a page-turner that is impossible to put down. But you have to be patient until you get to this point. Tighter writing and better editing would have fixed the early issues.

Engaging and tender, this multilayered story that is filled with secrets just waiting to be revealed is one that celebrates the love of mothers, the desolation of betrayal, and the exaltation of redemption.

Talk about getting into the weeds! If you're passionate about words, then you're probably interested in letters, and if you're interested in letters, then you may also be interested in their history. This book isn't for everyone, but I found it fascinating.

Prodigiously researched and written by David Sacks, this is the detailed and comprehensive—okay, meticulous—history of each of our 26 letters. Read this book to find out the origin of each letter and how each one got its shape and sound. And then there are the specific fun facts to know and tell: Why is X the unknown? Where did the Irish rock band U2 get its name? Which two letters were the last to be included in the alphabet? (Spoiler alert: The answer is J and V.)

Each chapter is a little biography of the letter, and Sacks offers each letter's chief significance for modern readers—such as A meaning quality and B always being second best. Our alphabet is one of those spectacularly successful inventions. Says Sacks, "Judged on longevity and extent of modern daily use, it compares with the wheel." Why? Like the wheel it transformed the ancient world, it is still with us, and it has never been superseded.

Most importantly, the alphabet gave power to all the people, allowing them to learn how to read and write—and that is still true today.

Our alphabet has a long and storied history beginning in Egypt around 2000 BCE, but even greater credit goes to the Phoenicians in 1000 BCE where about 19 of our letters can be traced directly to Phoenician counterparts. We also have to give thanks to the Greeks, the Etruscans, and the Romans. And in 1066 when the medieval French Normans invaded and conquered England, they brought French vocabulary and spelling rules to England, too.

Some fun facts (read the book for many more!):
• The word "alphabet" combines the first two Greek letters' names: alpha and beta.

• All our original letters began as pictures. A was pictured as an ox. The A's legs were horns pointing upward some 3,000 years ago. A is regarded as the most primitive word sound and is typically the first sound said by a baby.

• Among the 26 letters, S ranks about eighth in frequency of use in printed English, but it is No. 1 as an initial letter. That is, more of our words start with the letter S than any other.

• Fully one third of all English words begin with one of three letters: S, C, or P.

• O is the only letter whose name creates its shape on the speaker's lips.

• The letter with the most calming effect is L. Think of the feeling inspired by "lull," "lullaby," "lollipop," and "la-la-land."

• The letter T is the second most-often-used letter in print after E. But the "T" section of a dictionary isn't especially thick because T occurs more often at the middle or end of words than as the first letter.

Do take time to smile at the chapter titles—one for each letter. They are quite amusing! Some include: "C of Troubles," "F is For—Forget It," "T Party," and "Living with Your X."

While the book is heavy on history—sometimes very, very heavy and even a bit cumbersome—author David Sacks treats the subject with humor. My eyes might glaze over at times, but then I am suddenly laughing out loud.

It was just a kiss. A kiss on VE day in May 1945 when World War II ended in Europe. A kiss in the basement of a hardware store in Bonhomie, Ohio because that is where the only radio was located. And that one kiss between Cal and Margaret—each unhappily married to other people—changed everything.

It was just a kiss.

Written by Patrick Ryan, this book was published with a lot of hype, and it turns out that hype is true. This is a really, really good book. It is the story of two couples—Cal and Becky and Felix and Margaret. With that one kiss and more that followed, the lives of these families became forever intertwined.

Margaret Anderson is an orphan. Her mother left her in a basket on the steps of an orphanage in a small Ohio town, and she was never adopted, although she did live with various, often frightening foster families. When she turns 18, she moves to the big city of Columbus and discovers the joy of sex. Upon meeting handsome, muscular Felix Salt, she realizes he is different. He's a gentleman. After just a few months, he proposes in the middle of the Lazarus department store. Margaret doesn't love him, but she sees a future with him so she agrees to marry him. Meanwhile, Felix is harboring dark secrets of his own that he hopes Margaret will never discover. Felix is on the fast track with his employer, who moves them to the small town of Bonhomie, Ohio. They buy a house. They begin their lives. And then World War II interrupts everything. Felix comes home a very different kind of man.

Cal Jenkins, who was born with one leg two inches shorter than the other, marries the first girl he ever dates, but he and Becky are madly in love and ecstatic with one another. In short order, they have a son—a junior they nickname Skip. Becky has an unusual gift. She can commune with the dead. Cal works in his father-in-law's hardware store, and is miffed and embarrassed when no military branch will accept him. And on VE day, Margaret can tell there is some big news afoot, so she rushes into the hardware store, assuming it would have a radio.

It was just a kiss.

The novel follows these four people from the 1920s to the 1970s, as the bigger world around them changes and as their smaller worlds implode in a small Ohio town where secrets are difficult to keep. The news events—from World War II and the economic and baby booms that followed to the big societal changes of the 1960s and the Vietnam War—are juxtaposed against the characters' lives in ways that range from hilarious to hopeful and joyful to tragic.

The characters are vibrant, the plot engaging, and the writing accomplished. Keen insight and superb pacing make this a captivating read. This is a novel filled with love and passion and the indomitable human spirit where one can always long for forgiveness and hope.

This book is also a love letter to the Buckeye state—for all those who once lived in Ohio, live in Ohio now, or hope someday to make it home.

Quite simply, this just might be the Great American Novel. Read it!

This is a love story that doesn't follow the rules of a love story—as in, girl meets boy, girl and boy fall in love, girl and boy suffer a broken relationship, girl and boy reconcile…and live happily ever after. Instead, this is a love story that is raw, passionate, (very!) sexy, and impossible to stop reading.

But it breaks all the rules. It's brilliant!

Magnificently written by Lily King (who may just be my new favorite author), this is the story of college student Jordan, an English major and creative writer, who meets two young men her senior year who totally change her life: best friends and housemates Sam and Yash. In addition to encouraging her take herself, her studies, and her innate creativity more seriously than she has ever done before, Jordan first enjoys them both as dear friends but soon starts dating Sam. However, her real crush is for Yash and he for her. It's a weird love triangle with lots of hurt feelings. She and Yash get together after Sam drops her, and a passionate, intense, wildly delirious love affair begins. They graduate and grow up and begin their lives, loving and hurting each other in ways that will mark them always. The choices they make as young lovers, often on the spur of the moment and based on feverish emotions, will forever alter the course of their lives.

This short novel—just 188 pages—is an intelligent and captivating celebration of young love, unbridled passion, forgiveness, and redemption. It is filled with joy and tragedy. It will wreck your heart and stir your soul. And you won't want it to ever end.

But when it does end, there is a bit of a surprise, which you'll only understand if you have already read Lily King's "Writers and Lovers."

This is a literary novel about connection…brokenness…and repair on multiple levels. And while the symbolism and themes mostly work, in the end it just feels quite heavy and cumbersome.

Written by Colum McCann, this is the story of a down-on-his-luck Irish writer named Anthony Fennell. Unable to focus on his creative fiction, he decides to write a magazine article about the miles and miles and miles of relatively fragile undersea cables that connect our Internet. Yes the "cloud" is mostly in the ocean, and when those cables break, which happens due to natural disasters, such as underwater volcanoes and landslides, as well as accidental and rogue encounters with ships, someone has to fix it. The cables are far too deep for divers, so ships atop the sea must send down grappling hooks to do the work. It's difficult, treacherous, and demands highly skilled people. Fennell hops aboard a ship in South Africa that is heading out to repair three different breaks.

While Fennell narrates the book in the first person, the novel is really about John Conway, the mission specialist who is charge of finding and repairing the cable. He is young, handsome, and troubled. And he is not at all who he says he is.

This is a story about survival—physically and psychologically. Just like the cable at the bottom of the ocean that is ruptured, both Fennell and Conway's lives are ruptured with trauma and in need of repair. As Conway says at one point in the novel, "Everything gets fixed, and we all stay broken."

Still, the storyline can feel slow, although it is highlighted in parts with surprising dramatic tension…and then goes back to being slow. In addition, the writing is dense with a lot packed into a relatively short book.

The novel explores a profound topic about the human psyche, but ultimately it just gets weighed down.

The Watergate break-in on June 17, 1972 occurred eight days after I graduated from high school. That summer and the next two summers when I was home from college, our house was obsessed with the news developments. Well, mostly it was my father. If Dad was home, he was watching the news. I started paying attention. With each new and often confusing development, what happened became more horrifying—and terrifying.

This short and fascinating book is authored by Bob Woodward, who was half of The Washington Post team, along with Carl Bernstein, that is credited with bringing down a president. This is the tell-all book so many waited for. Although it was published in 2005 on the heels of a Vanity Fair magazine article in which Deep Throat—Mark Felt, the No. 2 man inside the FBI—revealed himself, it is still a riveting book for today's reader. While the identity of Deep Throat is important, the how, why, what, when, and where that drove the story is even more interesting.

Without Deep Throat, the inside government source who spilled the beans to Woodward in the underground parking garage in Rosslyn, Virginia during clandestine 2 a.m. meetings, Woodward may have remained on the lowly Washington Post police beat that he held in 1972 a lot longer instead of becoming an all-star reporter.

Who was Deep Throat? While quite a few speculated it was Mark Felt, no one knew for sure until that Vanity Fair article that was published on May 31, 2005 and the subsequent confirmation from Woodward and Bernstein, who kept the secret for 33 years.

In this book, Woodward details not only Deep Throat's identity, but also how it all worked—how they met each other in the first place, how they contacted each other, where the meetings took place, what was said, and the eventual falling out they had.

Some of the book's highlights:
• Find out the first time Bob Woodward and Mark Felt met in 1969 or 1970 (Woodward can't quite remember the date), how this serendipitous meeting occurred, and the surprising location. Had this chance introduction that led to an accidental friendship never occurred, there would not have been a Deep Throat.

• Learn why Mark Felt was deeply torn and even uncertain about being such a source to The Washington Post, both wanting to do it and not wanting to do it.

• Discover the extraordinary lengths Mark Felt took to protect his identity, lying to everyone he knew—even his family and closest friends.

• Find out how an apartment balcony flowerpot with a flag and a daily copy of The New York Times were critical components of the secret meetings between Mark Felt and Bob Woodward.

• Learn what Mark Felt would tell Bob Woodward and what he would not tell him—and why.

• Early on, the Nixon White House surprisingly correctly identified Mark Felt as Deep Throat but decided they couldn't out him for fear of what he would do next. The man simply knew too much and had access to absolutely everything inside the FBI.

This book is more than an unveiling of the source's identity as it reaches deeper to explore why a career professional at the pinnacle of success would risk so much. It's a piece of history that reads like a spy novel!

Bonus: "A Reporter's Assessment," which is the afterword by Carl Bernstein is fascinating reading. Don't skip it.

Extraordinary. Stupendous. Masterful. This is one of those history books that reads like a thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat even though I knew the outcome. To be able to write a page-turner history book says so much about the talents of author Ilyon Woo.

Beginning in December 1848, this is the true story of William and Ellen Craft, married slaves in Macon, Georgia, who in four days planned a most daring escape—something that belonged on the pages of a novel, not printed later as fact in newspapers. Ellen's skin color was so pale that she routinely passed for white. She was a small woman, while her husband was quite tall and dark-complected. The plan was masterful: Ellen, a talented seamstress, would dress as a wealthy young man in clothing she mostly made herself so it would fit. William, a skilled cabinetmaker, would be her trusted slave. She required his services because she feigned illness—her arm in a sling and her face partially covered with a scarf. She walked with a limp and leaned on William. The ruse was a trip to Philadelphia where physicians there might heal her. It took years, but the two had saved enough money for the trip, which required travel by train and ship, as well as walking. But it wasn't enough to look the part. For this bold plan to succeed, Ellen had to act and talk like a man—without ever slipping up.

William and Ellen Craft escaped slavery by hiding in plain sight.

How they pulled off this stunning feat while at so many times along their journey they could have been caught in this monstrous lie and returned to face horrific punishment, is what makes this such a thriller. And once they safely made it out of the South, they told their story. It was so extraordinary that it was picked up by newspapers, and that meant the folks back home in Macon found out what happened to these two missing slaves. The enslavers weren't happy about it and meant to get their property back. The thriller continues.

While this reads like a novel, author Ilyon Woo is quick to point out that every description, quotation, and line of dialogue comes from historic sources, including the Crafts' own written account of their quest for freedom. Find out the backstory of their enslavers, why the Crafts chose to escape when they did, and the small details that allowed them to pull it off, as well as the times when they almost failed. And even when the Crafts were safely in Boston, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 meant that anyone at any time could kidnap them and send them back to Macon. Danger stalked them at every turn; they were no longer safe anywhere in the United States. Best of all, find out about the life they created for themselves after they self-emancipated.

This exceptional book, the 2024 winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Biography, is truly an epic—a captivating and compelling story of true courage and an unshakable faith in God.

This book is bit odd, quirky, and even eccentric. And though it can be confusing if you don't pay close attention to the narrative, it is superb!

Written by Amy Bloom, this is the story of siblings Samir and Gazela, who are orphaned at a young age while living in Paris during World War II. Algerian by descent, they manage to elude authorities and remain together. Samir goes to work in a bakery, while Gazela gets a job as a caretaker for the author Collette. Thanks to Collette's generosity, Gazela emigrates to the United States; Samir goes back to Algeria but eventually finds his way to Gazela in Poughkeepsie, New York. Gazela meets two lively sisters—Anne and Alma Cohen—and the three become inseparable.

The novel is then the story of their lives together until their deaths, bouncing back and forth in time from 1930 to 2015—so pay close attention to the chapter headings. After Samir joins them, the four become the head of an unconventional family. Secrets abound, especially sexual secrets, but the unconditional love they feel for one another buoys and protects them throughout their lives.

This is a multigenerational family saga with lots of sex and intimacy in a story about power and love that is more focused on the women than the men.

While this book won't be beloved by everyone, I thought it was ingenious, beautifully written, and just idiosyncratic enough to make it special.

This is a short but powerful novel that begins very (very) sloooowly, but at about 40 percent into the book—so you have to stick with it and read quite a while—it packs a literary sucker punch that left me breathless. And from then on, I could not turn the pages fast enough.

Written by Addie E. Citchens, this is a Southern Black family drama about a revered and respected preacher, his pill-popping/alcohol-drinking wife, and five sons. Sabre J. Winfrey Jr. is not only the head pastor of The Seven Seals Missionary Baptist Church in Dominion, Mississippi, but also owns the town barbershop and radio station. He rules his family. His wife, Priscilla, is held on such a pedestal by the congregation that they call her the First Lady.

The Winfreys have five boys, all of whom except the youngest, Emanuel (nicknamed Wonderboy), are grown. Wonderboy is finishing his junior year in high school when the novel opens. He excels at seemingly everything—from football to academics to music. While the girls just fall all over him—all he has to do is smile—he has one special girlfriend, Diamond. While Wonderboy grew up in a huge home with all the advantages money can buy, Diamond is an orphan with a heartbreaking childhood. Meanwhile, Wonderboy isn't as perfect as he seems. The violent activities that make up his shocking secret life are building to a fever pitch that will eventually strike down this illustrious family in a way they never saw coming.

The novel is creatively structured. The book begins with a history of The Seven Seals Church, and then many chapters start with Sabre's Sunday sermon notes, including a brief scripture passage. Pay attention to this as it foreshadows what will happen in the next pages.

The story, which is primarily told in the alternating first-person voices of Priscilla and Diamond, focuses on the joys and corruption of sex, the pain of misogyny in a patriarchal world, and the fight for women's independence in a society that wants to keep them in their lowly place.

The title of the book, "Dominion," has several meanings in the novel from the name of the town to the way men govern women.

Pay attention! The cover illustration is priceless (and hilarious) once you read a passage on page 25.

With evocative descriptions of everything from the thorns of a kapok tree to the sooty grime of a train, this lovely novel by Gail Tsukiyama will transport you to China at the beginning of the Chinese Cultural Revolution when so many traditional elements of Chinese society were brutally purged—including many who disagreed with the government and had the courage to say so. It was a dangerous time.

It's 1957. Sheng and Kai Ying are happily married with a 7-year-old son named Tao. They live in Sheng's family's villa in Guangzhou, a bustling port city on the Pearl River, along with his aging father, Wei, and an old family friend, Auntie Song. The family endures two crises. Although Mao has decreed "Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend," the government cracks down hard on any one with a dissenting point of view. One day, Sheng is arrested for writing a letter criticizing the Communist Party and is sent 1,000 miles away to Luoyang, a diminished industrial city, to be "reeducated," a brutal years-long process of intense labor and near starvation that most do not survive.

One year later, Tao is climbing the kapok tree in the villa's courtyard in an attempt to see the peaks of White Cloud Mountain in the far distance, but he slips and falls 30 feet to hard surface below. While his injuries are severe, he survives the fall, but it forever changes all their lives. And then during a monsoon, a 15-year-old pregnant girl stumbles into the courtyard in hard labor. Who is she? Why did she choose this home? Meanwhile, secrets abound in this household, but Wei's secret is so dark and disturbing, it is taking a toll on his health.

This is a beautifully written historical novel filled with grace and remarkable insight into the human condition, especially when lives are irrevocably torn asunder and the only way to survive is through courage. But as sad and troubling as it is, the story ends with a sense of hope and redemption.

This is a novel about a beloved friend dying in hospice. And…are you ready?...it's hilarious. Yes, it's incredibly sad, but author Catherine Newman is able to find the funny without being sacrilegious about death and dying.

Edith is married to Jude and they have one precious little boy named Dash. Edi is dying of ovarian cancer, and her physician says it's time for hospice. Edi, Jude, and Dash live in New York City, while Edi's BFF for life, Ashley—they first became besties in preschool—lives in Western Massachusetts. For a number of reasons, Jude and Ash decide the best place for Edi to be in hospice is near Ash so she can be with her almost 24/7 and 7-year-old Dash will not have to endure the trauma of watching his mama die. So that's what they do. Edi moves into a hospice facility named Shapely where there are resident dogs, a resident singer, a palliative care physician they call Dr. Soprano because he resembles James Gandolfini, and many caring nurses. Except for the dying part, it's perfect.

Meanwhile, Ash's life is a mess. She and her husband, Honey (yes, that's his name), have separated, but they're still in love. Ash is having sex with two men (Edi's brother Jonah and Dr. Soprano), as well as a woman. Her older daughter, Jules, is in college studying engineering, while the younger daughter, Belle, is in high school—except she is skipping school almost every day. Ash's life may be a shambles, but it's grounded in love.

It's winter. It's snowing. And Ash is grieving and laughing and remembering and, most of all, not wanting to let Edi go.

More than anything else, this is a love letter to those deeply abiding friendships between women, a loving embrace to losing a loved one, and a profound statement about the joy of living. There are also many wise words about death, dying, and grieving and what it feels like to be survivor.

Reading this book is as comforting as a hug, especially because it will make you laugh out loud—a lot.

This is magnificently written and deeply researched historical fiction about the first class of women at England's prestigious Oxford University. But… And this is a big but. It's slow-going. Parts of it are fascinating and sometimes the women's stories rise to almost being a page-turner, but for the most part it's a bit sluggish.

Written by Joanna Miller, this is the story of four very different women who live in Corridor Eight of St. Hugh's College, and they are quickly nicknamed "The Eights." The novel traces their journey at Oxford as they forge a path for women—after 1,000 years of being a male bastion—despite much opposition, ridicule, and uncouth comments from the men at the university. The novel begins in October 1920, soon after the end of the Great War when so many men were killed or maimed that a generation of women would never be able to marry.

The four women who make up The Eights:
• Beatrice Sparks is socially and physically awkward, standing six feet tall and always struggling in clothes that do not fit her large frame. She is the daughter of a militant suffragette, who rarely pays attention to Beatrice except to reprimand her.

• Marianne Grey is the impoverished daughter of a widowed Anglican rector. Her mother died giving birth to her, so sorrow has followed Marianne all her life. She is a scholarship student, studying literature with the hope of teaching someday. Marianne is carrying a tragic secret—one she dare not reveal to even her closest friends. It is so scandalous that if the truth came to light, she would be forced to leave Oxford in disgrace.

• Theodora Greenwood, nicknamed Dora, is perhaps the most beautiful woman on campus, but her heart is filled with grief. She not only lost her favorite brother, George, in the war, but also her fiancé, Charles, whose body is buried in an unmarked grave in France. Her parents allow her to attend Oxford because George cannot. Several months into the academic year, Dora learns a shocking secret that devastates her to her core, threatening everything she holds dear.

• Ottoline Wallace-Kerr, nicknamed Otto, is wealthy, beautiful, fashionably dressed, an absolute flirt, and a mathematical genius. Her mother is so angry she has matriculated at Oxford, eschewing marriage, that she has not spoken to her in a year. Otto flaunts Oxford's quite restrictive rules for women—so much that she is at risk of being sent down (permanently expelled).

The novel focuses on these four women, their abiding friendship, and their arduous days as the first females in what had been for centuries an all-male university, as the unsettled ghosts of the Great War still haunt their lives. The plot is minimal, but the well-developed characters and the historic descriptions of Oxford make up for some of that.

While you'll learn a good bit of history and have a new appreciation for these pioneer scholars, the novel is not a particularly riveting read and even falls flat in places.

Note: Before you even begin reading, bookmark the highly useful glossary at the end of the book. Terms such as chap rules, cuppers, Hilary term, pigeon post, rustication, tute, and many more are defined, and most are critical for understanding the text. (Or you can just Google it term-by-term.)

I read a lot, and I read many types of books—fiction, nonfiction, classics, short stories, and essays. Rarely do I read poetry. Even though it's more than four years later, I still am haunted by the beautiful, evocative words of poet Amanda Gorman when she stood on the west front of the U.S. Capitol reading her poem "The Hill We Climb." She was only 22, and she took my breath away. So I read this book of poetry, which includes that extraordinary piece.

Taken as a whole, this volume is a history of the Covid pandemic creatively and heartbreakingly told in poetry. Although there are a lot of facts sprinkled throughout the book, it is primarily an accounting of how we felt during that time of quarantine and isolation, fear and uncertainty, life and death. And while it did bring it all back for me, it was also a solace filled with a special kind of healing and even hope.

While the "The Hill We Climb" is my favorite poem in this selection, my second favorite is title "The Miracle of Morning" with plays on the words morning and mourning, but primarily about how just taking an early morning walk in Covid times brought a welcome sense of normalcy. It's not just a poem; it's also a story. And that is true of many of the pieces in this book.

It starts out like this:
"We thought we'd awaken to a world in mourning.
Heavy clouds crowding, a society storming.
But there's something different on this golden morning.
Something magical in the sunlight, wide & warming."

Unlike a novel or a history book, this tome is not read for content. I had to change how I read, going much slower, rereading, pausing to contemplate, and then returning the next day to reread something that I couldn't stop thinking about.

This is not only a lovely small book but also a subversive one.

What a book! This is an intense love story—an impossible love triangle shrouded within a whodunit murder. It's a delicious ChickLit/soap opera plot that is unputdownable.

Written by Clare Leslie Hall, this is the story of Beth Johnson, who is madly, passionately, and totally in love with two men. Two very different men. It's the 1950s in the (fictional) rural village of Hemston, England when Beth first meets Gabriel Wolfe one hot summer day. Beth, an avid reader, excellent student, and aspiring poet, is the daughter of two teachers. Gabriel is the son of the wealthiest family in town, living on a posh estate with his older father and snobby, angry mother. But it's love at first sight for Beth and Gabriel, and even though Beth is still in high school and Gabriel will soon be starting college at Oxford, they have a steamy and fiery sexual relationship that lasts all summer.

Beth aspires to go to Oxford herself, hoping to snare one of the few spots allocated for women. When she goes to the college to take the entrance exams and interviews, she learns a horrifying fact about Gabriel. She bids him farewell forever, heartbroken and distraught. Soon after, she takes up with Frank Johnson, a steady, safe farmer who has loved Beth from afar since he was 13. Frank is kind, compassionate, and filled with a pure love for Beth. They marry and have a wonderful life together until their little boy, Bobby, dies, leaving them inconsolable and forever changing their marriage.

Fast forward to 1968. Gabriel, who is now a famous and wealthy novelist, returns to Hemston and his family's estate with a little boy of his own and an American wife who divorced him and moved to California. Beth tries to avoid Gabriel, but to no avail. The attraction is too strong, too vital, leaving her with an impossible choice to make: Gabriel or Frank? As dangerous secrets that had long been buried in the past rise up again, tragedy strikes. A man is killed—but is it murder or an accident?

Beth's love stories—past and present—are interwoven with the tale of the murder trial. With colorful characters, a riveting and multilayered plot, and superb pacing, Clare Leslie Hall has written a perceptive, mesmerizing novel that simmers with tension and sex. It's the perfect escape read.

And the ending? It is completely unexpected, incredibly powerful, and absolutely perfect.

Oh, this is a good book!

Vida Avery has a secret. A horrifying, life-altering secret that she has never told anyone. Now it's 1979--15 years later.

Fiercely independent Vida is living a satisfying, albeit not particularly happy, life at Fayer Academy, a posh prep school nestled on a secluded island off the coast of New England. She is an English teacher in the upper school so she is able to immerse herself in novels—so much so that the characters on the pages are more real to her than her colleagues and friends. Vida, who never married, has a teenage son, Peter. She loves him, but she has recurring nightmares about hurting or even killing him. Now Vida has impulsively accepted widower Tom Belou's proposal of marriage, and she and Peter move in with patient, understanding, and wonderful Tom and his three children. Simon is 18 and has dropped out of life since his mother's death, embracing weird philosophies while entertaining girls in his room at night. Fran is in 11th grade and vacillates between being snippy and mean and kind and compassionate. Little Caleb is a sweetheart. Peter is ecstatic about being part of a real family, even as he begins failing most of his classes at Fayer and his classmates seemingly shun him. Meanwhile, complex and wounded Vida is terrified of sex, so the newlyweds are having great difficulty in bed.

Brilliantly written by Lily King, the novel reflects the plot of Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the d'Urbervilles," as Vida, who teaches the book annually to her 10th graders, realizes that Tess's life is mirroring her own. Vida's mental state is precarious at best as she realizes her marriage was a huge mistake. Meanwhile, Tom knows that Vida isn't telling him something and it's creating a huge wedge in their relationship.

We readers are eventually apprised of Vida's lifechanging secret long before anyone else finds out (although it's fairly easy to figure it out if you're paying attention), making her psychological downfall all the more harrowing.

This is a profound and moving tale that is emotionally charged and at times deeply unsettling as all the characters must deal with their own kind of grief if they want to move forward with their lives.

Note: While it's not necessary to read "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" before reading "The English Teacher," your experience will be much richer if you do—or at least Google the plot of "Tess."

I could tell from the first page that would be an excellent book, but then there is a plot twist that was so unforeseen and astonishing that it transforms the novel into something truly extraordinary.

Written by Yael van der Wouden, this is the story of Isabel, a lonely, bitter, mean 20-something woman with a face so stern that "not even honey could sweeten that vinegar." It's the summer of 1961 in a small town of Zwolle in The Netherlands in the rural province of Overijssel. World War II is long over, but the wounds and scars still seem fresh. Isabel lives in the small country house she shared as a child with her widowed mother and two brothers, Louis and Hendrick. The house was purchased for them by their generous Uncle Karel. Their mother is now dead. Louis is living the bachelor life with a new girlfriend every few weeks, although he swears each one is the woman he will marry. Hendrick is gay and lives with his longtime lover, Sebastian. Isabel is alone in the house, a house that will someday go to Louis, according to Uncle Karel. But it is Isabel, not Louis, who loves and cares for this old house that is filled with secrets and cherished relics.

One day Louis begs Isabel to allow his latest girlfriend, Eva, to move into the house for most of the summer while he leaves on an extended business trip. Isabel cannot imagine anything worse. While Isabel is obsessively neat and ordered and follows a strict routine, Eva is a free spirit, who talks incessantly and walks loudly. Most troubling of all, she touches everything. And Louis has said she could stay in their mother's room—a room that has been off-limits to everyone since their mother died.

It takes a few weeks, but Eva breaks through Isabel's mighty defenses and her repressed desires, and the two become unlikely lovers—wary and frightened at first and then devoted and passionate.

But then Isabel makes a horrid accusation about Eva and soon after discovers a truth about Eva's life that changes everything in a stunning plot twist that was so shocking I actually had to close the book and just breathe for a minute or two.

The writing is masterful, the rather erotic story is utterly engrossing, and the remarkable symbolism—pay especial attention to the pears—transforms this novel into literature.