The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn

Reading this book now--after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine--is a chilling  experience.  In this new piece of historical fiction, the true story of World War II female Ukrainian sniper Lyudmila (Mila) Pavlichenko reveals strong truths about war and presents eerie similarities to the situation of the Ukrainian people 80 years after this took place.  

Mila only wanted to be a historian, was a graduate of Kiev University, and working at the library in Odessa with an eye on finishing her dissertation about the Ukrainian accession to Russia, when the Germans invaded.  Her skill at marksmanship put her life into an entirely different trajectory, and she decided to join the war effort where she became an outstanding sniper.  That this job is difficult for anyone is made clear, and the added challenges for women in the Army was even more so.  War is hell, but the burning desire of Ukrainians to defend their homeland (then Russia) has strong echoes to the present moment, when they were invaded without provocation and with superior forces.  

Author Kate Quinn creates a you-are-there feel in her descriptions of nights out on reconnaissance and patrol, on staying motionless for hours at a time, on living through massive bombings, on being hit by shrapnel, on recuperating at frontline hospitals, on depending on the men in your battalion, on the challenges of being a woman in a man's world, and on watching your comrades die on the battlefield.  Part of this immediacy is developed through Mila's first-person narration that is often contrasted with the words of her actual official biography called Lady Death: The Memoirs of Stalin's Sniper.  In addition, Quinn adds other perspectives to the story, such as Eleanor Roosevelt's notes during Mila's visit to the U.S. in 1942. 

The real Pavlichencko did visit the U.S. with a Russian delegation, trying to explain the eastern front and the war experience of the Russians taking on the superior German Army.   Their goal was to get America to support their cause and enter the war to help them out; Mila's speeches across the U.S. at this time are well-documented.  In the novel, President Franklin Roosevelt, trying to thoroughly understand the Russian fighting force, says to her, 

"Years of war...and our side hasn't succeeded anywhere in resisting their enemies as long as you Russians have done.  Is it your military spirit, your training? The skill of your officers and generals? The unity between army and populace?...What would you say?" 

"It's will," I answered....Because we hold and fight or we die.  But no amount of willpower in the world matter if we have no bullets to shoot or rifles to fire."  (p. 277)

If this doesn't make readers think of Ukraine at the present moment and the stirring speeches of President Volodymyr Zelensky, I don't know what would.  An article in the Washington Post this morning shows the Odessa Opera House (where Mila's friend was a ballerina) protected by the very kind of barricades used during WW II to protect it from the Nazi invasion.  This novel, written just months before the current events, is astonishing in its timeliness. 

Mila's visit to the U.S. also draws out the incredibly patronizing and asinine questions from the American press that focus on her uniform, whether she wears make-up on the frontlines, and the like.  That there is a complete incomprehension of battleground conditions is obvious, which goes along with an utter lack of respect for the abilities of this woman.  One of the things that Quinn points out is that snipers not only face down the enemy at very close range, but they are also highly skilled at physics and mathematics, making calculations in an instant.  

The story stays close to the known account of this woman, but the author has added some dramatic moments that are either imagined or strongly possible based on this woman's life.  In addition, Quinn creates an emotional life for Mila that is totally absent from the official biography.  Notes at the end give details on what was historically based and what was changed slightly for the demands of a novel.  

This would be excellent for discussion in book groups, but at its very basic level, it's an important and compelling read to help understand Ukrainian history.  Don't miss this!  (On sale March 29)

Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for an advanced copy.

The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb

Bravissimo! This wonderful novel by a debut author is rich in themes that make it both an engrossing read and a great candidate for book discussion.  The book drops the reader right into the main problem: concert violinist Ray McMillian, an American contender for the prestigious Tchaikovsky Competition, has his rare and exceptionally valuable Stradivarius violin stolen during a hotel stay in New York City.  Multiple issues surrounding this heist are introduced before the story then flashes back to Ray’s early years as a child deeply interested in music and in the old violin that was handed down through his great-grandfather, whose ancestor was a former slave.

If this isn’t enough to make a story, we see Ray facing all the impossibilities of following his musical dreams by the fact of his color—Black. In addition, his mother is uninterested in supporting his music lessons, his extended family is determined to sell his prized violin once discovering how valuable it is, and descendants of the original owner of the violin start harassing him for its return.  We also see how he’s treated at both his early musical gigs as well as at national and international concerts and competitions.  

The saving graces for Ray are his loving grandmother who encourages him in his musical pursuit and his college mentor who does everything possible to smooth his way in the musical world.  One of the things she provides him is an excellent education at his university, which Ray meets with fiery commitment.  The behind-the-scenes look at the making of a musician is brilliant, both in describing the technical needs of a violinist and the emotional response to various compositions that brings it all to life for the layperson.  

Coincidentally, I read this novel while also reading Caste by Isabel Wilkerson.  In a chapter in that book about how people are compartmentalized into specific boxes (whether by law or by inheritance),  it talks about how people are put onto the wrong shelf.  This very thing happens to Ray constantly throughout the novel, because a Black man is never seen as someone who is—or could be—a classical musician. Some of the most dramatic and tense scenes are where this occurs, and the author describes situations and how Ray manages to work through them.  Amazingly, these also bring out some of the best humor in the novel.  

In addition to the themes of music and racial inequality, there is also the discussion of valuable instruments, their insurance, and their sales on the black market.  When Ray’s violin is stolen and a ransom is demanded for its return, Ray takes things into his own hands to get it back, working alongside the law enforcement, in addition to law enforcement, and even without their knowledge.  This adds to the suspense.

A piece at the end describes how the author was inspired to write this novel, and it reveals why this story rings true.  I highly recommend this multilayered novel and especially to discussion groups.

It will be published by Penguin Random House on Feb. 1.  Thanks to the publisher and to Edelweiss for an advance copy.   

Happy Jolabokaflod! (a little late)

There is a charming tradition from Iceland that my family adopted seven years ago called "Jolabokaflod" (literally Christmas Book Flood), which takes place on Christmas Eve.  Each person receives a book and chocolates that night and spends the rest of the evening reading and eating candy.  There's something really refreshing and calming about this, and despite all the presents waiting under the tree, the red and white-wrapped book may be the present I most look forward to.

Iceland is the most literate nation in the world, and their book publishing is concentrated between September and November.   In addition, they have a strong tradition of giving books as gifts, and reading is enjoyed by a very large portion of the population.  There's more information here: https://www.npr.org/2012/12/25/167537939/literary-iceland-revels-in-its-annual-christmas-book-flood

It helps that two of us in my family are librarians, and we carefully monitor what each is reading and wanting to read for book ideas.  You don't need to be in the book business, though, to pick out thoughtful titles for your family members.  I collect ideas throughout the year, which might come from book reviews, book displays at libraries or book stores, lists of "best books," or publications like BookPage, available free from the library.  (Bookstores have a similar publication.) I also consider personal likes and hobbies and how much time each reader might have.  And if there isn't anyone in your family to select your book, make a suggestion or get your own!

The seven books that I've received are pictured.  I've enjoyed each one and was glad to be introduced to authors Jenny Colgan and now this year to Matt Haig through my Jolabokaflod gifts!  As you can see, there is a strong literary bent here, although each is unique.  

It's a Christmas tradition well worth starting.  Collect your ideas now for 2022.  Then prepare yourself for to leave the hectic rush behind and to dive into a new book--and chocolate--on December 24! 

 

Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn

Oh, Yinka! What are you thinking?  Oxford-educated banker Yinka Oladeji goes off the deep end when her mother and one of her many aunties pray for her in public to get a "huzband."  Her response to being called out for what is a traditional expectation in her Nigerian-British family is to try to show her friends and family that she is a success on her own, but which prompts her to act in outrageous ways that often include exaggeration, half-truths, and outright lying.  

Adding to her chaotic life is job loss from redundancy, an ongoing feud with her cousin Ola, jealousy of her younger sister Kemi, and an unrealistic and out-of-character plan to line up a plus-one for her cousin's wedding.  Yinka's impetuous decisions can drive you wild--and yet, that is exactly what helps the reader see the frustration of her friends.  

The cultural aspects of the book are interesting, but there are also many universal truths in the story.  One of the nicest parts of the book was Yinka's decision to see a counselor (I couldn't help but think about Dr. Sharon Fieldstone from "Ted Lasso" who helped her patients so well), and this helped Yinka make some important life changes--and to put her Post-It notes to good use!  

Yinka's friends, including three of her cousins, fellow workers, and people from the past add depth to the story, as they help Yinka (whether intentionally or not) accept her identity and embrace the person she is.   There are many engaging minor themes--of religion, cooking, city living, career choices, and friendships--woven throughout the story.  This is a well-done first novel with a beautiful, eye-catching cover. 

The book reminded me quite a bit of the novel by His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie (Algonquin, 2020), about a Ghanian young woman whose arranged marriage doesn't end her quest for her own personal dreams, and I would recommend each if you liked the other.
 

Thanks to Penguin/Viking and NetGalley for an advance copy of this title to be published in January 2022.

The Vanished Days by Susanna Kearsley

Scottish history, alternating perspectives, two main time periods, a complex and engaging storyline: this is entirely appealing to me and a novel I highly recommend to you.

In the story, Sergeant Adam Williamson stands in for his superior officer on an investigation into a woman who is claiming widow’s rights to her late husband’s salary. He is staying in Calder’s Land, the name for a thin multi-story tenement in Edinburgh, as he gathers information about the woman and whether her claims can be verified. Nothing is as it seems, about said widow, about the political climate of the city and the country, about the motives for this investigation, and about whether he can stay entirely unbiased in his investigation into the beautiful Lily Aitcheson, who has ties to the Jacobites (the Scottish movement to put a Stuart on the throne).

One of the outstanding aspects of this novel is the language the author uses to depict the way people spoke in late 17th and early 18th century Scotland, which is unforced, believable and consistent. Another is the way that the story of these characters is peeled back layer by layer, revealing relationships, secrets, and identities. And a third is the poetic nature of her descriptions for scenes, feelings or philosophies. Susanna Kearsley is an impeccable researcher, and I was fortunate to hear about her methods in a talk at the Lockport Public Library in 2012 about the companion novel to this one, The Winter Sea. You don’t need to read that in order to read this one, but you may want to look into all of her novels if you enjoy well-told historical fiction.

This novel is framed beautifully by the John Masefield poem, "The Word," at the beginning and this conversation near the end: 

"You could have been clear," she says, "at the beginning."

"I was clear enough."

"You did not tell them all the truth."

I've always like the answer Robert Moray gave to me, and so I use it now: "All men leave pieces out when they tell tales," I say.  "It is no crime."

She sighs, and picks a kitten up and puts it in the basket.

"They will get there in the end," I promise.  Readers always do.

Thanks to Sourcebooks and Edelweiss for an advance copy. To be published October 5th, 2021.

The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker

The hidden palace is just one item of many that is hidden in Helene Wecker’s new novel of the same name (Harper Collins, June 8).  Appearances, thoughts, motivations, lives, and constructions are among the many secret things in this altogether engaging read with its captivating and beautifully designed cover featuring the former Penn Station.

The story here is big and bold—in plot, characterizations, setting, and tone—and it creates a culturally rich view of New York in the early part of the 20th century and particularly in the Syrian and Jewish communities.  Woven into this portrait is the story of two mythological creatures—Chava, a golem from Jewish folklore who is made of clay and is highly attuned to the thoughts of others, and Ahmad, a jinni from Arabian mythology with the ability to fly, change shape, and lead men astray.  Both create human lives for themselves, where Chava works as a baker and a laundress while longing for more, while Ahmad has partnered with a Syrian metal worker.

There are also multiple human characters in a series of storylines that eventually converge:  Sophia Winston, a beautiful young socialite who needs to travel to the Middle East to find a cure after her short affair with the jinni causes a mysterious illness; young Kreindel, the orphaned daughter of a mystical rabbi who tries to negotiate her time in an orphanage with her big secret hidden in a disused school alcove; Toby, a messenger boy who is puzzled by the odd occurrences related to his mother’s friend Chava; Maryam Fadool who owns a cafe in Little Syria and oversees the welfare of the jinni from a distance; Dima, an unreliable and injured jinniyeh who may be Sophia’s only hope for a cure.

How these characters and major events of the time period come together, including the Titanic, the Lusitania, the war, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, is an involving story told with suspense and beautiful writing that is often poetic.  Here, Ahmad (the jinni’s) metalworking is described: “He worked in midair, upon a slender iron scaffold, a five-story drop at his back.  Days and nights went uncounted, unnoticed.  The filtered sunlight entered first one set of windows, then another.  His life was heat and movement; his thoughts were in the sounds of flame and wind as much as human words.  The forge sustained him, it was his companion and his storyteller, whispering to him from the past.”

Although the mythological creatures may be off-putting to some who like straight historical fiction, they provide a special interest and depth to the story and stand in as foils to the human characters.  Chava and Ahmad both have special abilities due to their natures, but they are also limited in ways that humans aren’t, particularly in relation to their emotional capacity.  Their view into human life as well as their interaction with it produce some wonderfully intense observations about the human condition and the state of the world during this time period.  

From Sidney Taylor’s All-of-a-Kind Family (1951) to Elizabeth Acevedo’s Clap When You Land (2020), the immigrant story in New York City is an endlessly fascinating one, and few provide the depth that Helene Wecker does in The Hidden Palace, a follow-up to her novel
The Golem and the Jinni. The novel can be read on its own, although the first one provides more understanding of these characters and is another entertaining read.  Highly recommended.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy.

For the love of books and bookstores

 As I list all the things that I want to do as we get back to a more normal life, visiting a bookstore is near the top of my list.  I’ve been to a bookstore once since the pandemic started, and although I was there to make a quick pick-up of Christmas orders, I took a few minutes to look around while the store was quiet.  There is nothing like meandering through the aisles, admiring the shiny new covers, picking up books to rifle through the pages and smell their particular aroma.

The pure enjoyment I find in bookstores came across in two new books that are publishing this spring.  The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin (Harlequin, April 6) and The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser (Random House, May 4) are quite different in many ways, but they share some important characteristics.  

Both novels feature women accidentally employed in local bookstores whose proprietors are somewhat difficult men who are not keen to hire either one of them.  Thanks to women who stand up to them (a mother figure in The Last Bookshop and the protagonist in The Bookshop of Second Chances), both find themselves in jobs that hold no particular interest to them in the beginning but which increasingly take their attention.  These shops both need some tender loving care in terms of arrangement, stock and displays, and both women succeed in those things, while also promoting the shops in specific and successful ways for their time periods.   And finally, and best of all, each vividly portrays the atmosphere within the store and the great joy of reading and connecting with others through books.

In The Last Bookshop in London, young Grace Bennett moves to the city where she rents a room with a childhood friend of her late mother’s.  Grace works in the bookshop nearby with elderly owner Mr. Evans and starts making improvements to the dusty and disorganized interior, partly because her interest in reading is sparked by a handsome young airman whose own extensive reading helps her see books and reading in a new ways and partly by her visits to famous bookshops in London’s Paternoster Row.  Although this work is satisfying, Grace also is inspired to help in the war effort, and she becomes an ARP warden ushering people to safety in air raids.  One night in a dark and damp shelter, she starts reading to the people there, beginning a tradition and creating new relationships with the appreciative listeners.  This novel is in a long line of recent stories about World War II, but it is set apart by its intense descriptions of blackouts and air raids and the lovely descriptions of the enjoyment of reading.

In The Bookshop of Second Chances, forty-something Thea Mottram, devastated by the worst kind of betrayal in her marriage and a redundancy at work, discovers that she has inherited a Scottish "lodge" from her great uncle. Thinking that a change of scene will help her move on with her life, she goes north with a friend to check it out and see what do with the house and the library of rare and valuable books inside.  When friend Xanthe leaves, Thea remains in the village on her own, getting to know her neighbors and starting a job in the second hand bookstore, where owner Edward Maltraver’s prickly nature doesn’t put her off at all but simply amuses her.  She becomes fascinated with this type of business and suggests ways to make it more attractive to visitors and begins to promote it using her Instagram skills.  

This novel might be considered a romance or women's fiction, but its depth of understanding of grief following major life catastrophes and then how well that is portrayed through the first person narration (really, a conversation), kind of defies categorization. It feels so authentic and Thea is such a believable and quirky character that the plot is really compelling.

Both women, through their work in the bookshops and their friendships made through books, find themselves and become confident women after their early hardships.  I enjoyed these books about books and the stories of hope and community from reading, and it was a fun way to immerse myself in the bookshop experience until I can do so again!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for advance copies.