Tag Archives: literary fiction

Review: Above the Bay of Angels

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Above the Bay of Angels
by Rhys Bowen
4 stars

Isabella Waverly is a servant girl in London, and is afraid she’ll be doing this the rest of her life.  Then, on her one afternoon off, she observes a young woman get hit by an omnibus.  As the woman is dying, she thrusts an envelope into Bella’s hands.  It is a job interview for a cook at Buckingham Palace.  Bella knows how to cook, and feels that this might be her only opportunity to escape her current situation.  She gets the job and assumes Helen Barton’s rightful position.  All is going well–she is learning a lot and enjoys cooking for Queen Victoria.  She is chosen to accompany the queen to France for the summer, and can hardly believe her good fortune until she is blackmailed by Helen’s brother and a member of the queen’s royal party dies from possible food poisoning.  Since she cooked the last meal, she is under suspicion of murder.  How could one little lie possibly get her into this much trouble?

Read alikes

An Appetite for Violets by Martine Bailey

Death Below Stairs by Jennifer Ashley

A Death of No Importance by Mariah Fredericks

 

Review: The Good People

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The Good People
by Hannah Kent
4 stars

I loved Hannah Kent’s debut Burial Rites, so I was eager to read her second novel.  The Good People takes place in Ireland in the early 1800s.  Nora Leahy has lost her daughter and husband and is left alone with her ill grandson, Michael.  Michael was once a happy healthy young boy, but now has constant fits and is a burden to Nora.  Nora hires Mary to help care for the young boy and turns to elderly Nance for medical advice.  Nance suggests that Michael may be a changeling, which leads Nora to become obsessed with the idea.  Nora, Nance, and reluctant Mary begin to try a series of “cures” to bring back Nora’s beloved grandson.

Based on a true story, I found the tale fascinating and was eager to learn more about stories of people in Ireland who had believed they were effected by “the good people.”  Just as in Burial Rites, Kent’s writing is lovely and surrounds the readers with vivid descriptions of setting.  I’m excited to see what she writes next!

Read-alikes

To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman

Review: Summer Hours at the Robbers Library

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Summer Hours at the Robbers Library
by Sue Halpern
5 stars

Sunny is a fifteen-year-old girl who was caught stealing a dictionary at a bookstore.  She is sentenced to 12-weeks community service at the Riverton Public Library.    You would think a teen-ager would be upset by this, but Sunny is actually quite excited.  She’ll get to spend time with people other than her hippie parents who don’t believe in formal education, and she’ll be around the books and knowledge she craves.

Kit is a librarian at the Riverton Public Library.  She likes working there because it’s peaceful—until Sunny comes along.  Kit is put in charge of Sunny and they begin a cautious relationship that grows and then encompasses some of the other patrons of the library.   But everyone has secrets.  Will Sunny discover these secrets before the end of summer?

I really loved this book.  Yes, I’m a librarian and I like anything that has to do with libraries and reading, but this book was so much more than that.  We can tell from the start that Kit was trapped in an unhappy marriage, and she’s no longer in the marriage.  The author expertly drops little tidbits all through the book that explains what happened in her marriage that makes the reader want to continue reading.  I was rooting for both Kit and Sunny right from the start because they’re both smart, strong women.  I think it’s the sign of a well-written book that, days later, I am still thinking about these characters.

Read-alikes:

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

The Library at the Edge of the World by Felicity Hayes-McCoy

By the Book by Julia Sonneborn

 

Review: The Great Alone

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The Great Alone
by Kristin Hannah
5 stars

“You stand by the people you love.” As crazy as it proves to be, this is the motto of Leni, a young teen trapped in a tortured family where love and pain are twisted together in a torturous knot. After her parents move to Alaska to escape the “craziness” of life in Seattle during the early 1970’s, they are met with the uncompromising realities of living off the grid in a tiny fishing community where darkness reigns 16 hours a day during the long winters.

However, Leni and her mother also find strength in true community: a fellowship of women who stand up and work together to protect each other and their way of life. Finding friendship and love in her tiny high school also brings to light possibilities of a future different than that of her parents.

This book opens a window into the lives of modern day “pioneers” living in the last true wilderness of the United States.  Kristin Hannah is a master of weaving together stories that resonate long after you put the book down.

Read-alikes

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Heroes of the Frontier by Dave Eggers

Educated by Tara Westover