Category: Historical Literature & Fiction

Circling The Sun: Book Review by Arlene

Review:

The life of Beryl Markham is intricately woven for us in this very readable novel by Paula McLain. Once again, as in The Paris Wife, McLain succeeds in creating a novel, based on the life of a remarkable, complex woman who lived in a time period of history where women were held to a standard below their capabilities and intelligence.

Beryl Markham broke through those bonds on her own terms. She was smart, strong, courageous and defiant because she had to be starting at a very young age. Paula McClain captures her story and grips you all the way through this novel and doesn’t let go. Continue reading “Circling The Sun Book Review” →

Beneath A Scarlet Sky: Book Review By Dinh.

Synopsis:

Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.

In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders. Continue reading “Beneath A Scarlet Sky Book Review” →

Commonwealth: Book Review by Dinh.

Summary:

One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.

Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them. Continue reading “Commonwealth Book Review” →

Lilac Girls: Book Review by Dinh.

Summary:

New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate but on the eve of a fateful war, her world is forever changed when Hitler’s army invades Poland in September 1939—and then sets its sights on France.

An ocean away from Caroline, Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager, senses her carefree youth disappearing as she is drawn deeper into her role as courier for the underground resistance movement. In a tense atmosphere of watchful eyes and suspecting neighbors, one false move can have dire consequences. Continue reading “Lilac Girls Book Review” →

Sweetbitter: Book Review by Arlene.

Review:

The broken wine glass on the book jacket cover is the perfect silent opening line of my review.

If you are a lover of good food and wine you might be drawn to read this debut novel by Stephanie Danler.

If you choose to read this book after viewing our intro comments, keep in mind the story line is entirely based through the eyes of Tess, the 22 year old young woman searching for answers to her own life when she leaves her mid west town alone for the mystique and inviting intrigue of New York City in downtown Manhattan. Continue reading “Sweetbitter Book Review” →

A Gentleman In Moscow: Book Review by Dinh.

Synopsis:

When in 1922, the thirty year old Count is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, he is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. An indomitable man of erudition and wit, Rostov must now live in the attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Continue reading “A Gentleman In Moscow Book Review” →

The Nest: Book Review by Dinh.

Synopsis:

Every family has its problems. But even among the most troubled, the Plumb family stands out as spectacularly dysfunctional. Years of simmering tensions finally reach a breaking point on an unseasonably cold afternoon in New York City as Melody, Beatrice, and Jack Plumb gather to confront their charismatic and reckless older brother, Leo, freshly released from rehab. Continue reading “The Nest Book Review” →

The Underground Railroad: Book Review by Dinh.

Synopsis:

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits.

When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. Continue reading “The Underground Railroad Book Review” →

Fates and Furies: Book Review by Dinh

Synopsis:

They meet in the final months of college, and by graduation, they had married. It’s 1991. At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. There are lean, romantic years that follow: potluck parties in a Manhattan basement apartment; a wilting acting career that doesn’t pay the bills; a household that seems to run on good luck and good sex. Continue reading “Fates and Furies Book Review” →

Britt-Marie Was Here: Book Review By Dinh.

Synopsis:

Britt-Marie can’t stand mess. A disorganized cutlery drawer ranks high on her list of unforgivable sins. She begins her day at 6 a.m., because only lunatics wake up later than that. And she is not passive-aggressive. Not in the least. It’s just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticism, which is certainly not her intention. She is not one to judge others- no matter how ill-mannered, unkempt, or morally suspect they might be. Continue reading “Britt-Marie Was Here Book Review” →