Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende: a novel about a young woman’s search for her lover who has gone to California to seek his fortune during the gold rush of the 1850s.

On March 15, 1832, a baby is discovered on the doorstep of the British Import and Export Company is Valaparaiso, Chile. Rose Sommers, the sister of Jeremy Sommers, one of the main figures at the company, immediately falls in love with the child and adopted into the family.

Eliza, as the baby is named, has a life of privelge and learns of the world from her two very different mothers - Rose, the upper crust, very correct Englishwoman, and Mama Fresia, the Chilean cook. Her life is pretty straightforward until, at the age of sixteen, she meets Joaquin Andieta and falls desperately in love. Shortly after their affair begins, he leaves her to travel to California, hoping to become rich in the gold rush fever sweeping the world.

A few months after he leaves, Eliza, too consumed with her love for him for them to remain apart, decides to leave Chile and find him so they can be reunited. Thus begins a journey of thousands of miles and many years.

I found Daughter of Fortune to be absolutely riveting. Allende manages to bring not only Eliza and Joaquin’s story to the front, but also dozens of other characters. I found myself getting lost in several of these other people’s stories and almost forgetting that the book was actually about Eliza.

The descriptions of life in other parts of the world - particularly that of China and of California during the 1850s - was fascinating, though the corruption and inhuman treatment of minorities was deplorable and extremely disheartening.

The only problem that I really had with the book was that the ending was too abrupt for my liking. Several revelations were made that I wish would have played out more amongst the characters. I would have liked to have seen a more final conclusion than the one that was presented.

On a side note, this book has the absolute longest paragraphs I have ever come across. In some places, the same paragraph would last for a few pages. I can’t recall the last time I’ve been struck by paragraph length while reading.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more of Isabel Allende’s works in the future.

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks: the story of a English village that decides to quarantine themselves due to the bubonic plague in 1666.

As the story begins, we meet Anna Frith. She is the housemaid for the rectory in a small Derbyshire village. The year before, in the Spring of 1665, a tailor inadvertently brought the plague to the town on an infected bolt of cloth. People begin to sicken and die, causing Michael Mompellion, the rector, to propose a plan to the townspeople.

His plan is that the town seals itself off from the rest of the world (aided in part by a local earl who is willing to give them with supplies) so that they don’t spread the disease. However, this means that those that are healthy now run the risk of possibly getting sick in the future.

Despite the fact that the most prominent family in town decide to flee, everyone else stays. As more and more of the townspeople get sick, a friendship between Anna and the rector’s wife Elinor grows as they try and battle the disease. This complicates the feelings that, after the plague has just about run its course, are starting to develop between Anna and Michael, leading to an ending that I never expected.

The novel is actually historical fiction, inspired by the English town of Eyam, making it easy to feel like you’ve been transported in time and are experiencing what life for those townspeople must have been like.

I truly loved this book. I found the story to be many things: sad (Anna’s longing for her children and the time she could have spent with George Viccars was heartbreaking), courageous (the towns willingness to sacrifice themselves to help stop an outbreak), inspiring, and just downright interesting.

My only problem is with the abruptness of the novel’s conclusion. Most of it was told as a flashback to the time of the plague’s outbreak, so when we get back to present time, there’s very little of the book left. Considering what we find out about certain things, I would have appreciated Brooks taking more time to deal with these revelations.

All in all, though, I found it to be an engrossing read with characters that I really cared about, making me want to find out what would happen to them as the plague decimated the town. I also enjoyed seeing a woman gain indepence and self-reliance in a time when it was rare for so many. Definitely well worth reading.

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire: The Wizard of Oz, told from a different viewpoint from what we’re used to, that of the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba.

When our story starts off, we’re treated to the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba, swooping down on her broom to spy on Dororthy Gale and her group as they discuss her origin. The majority of the book is then told as a flashback, beginning with Elphaba’s mother getting ready to shortly give birth to her.

Honestly, I don’t feel like recapping the entire story, so I’m not. I liked about the first half of the book, but once Elphaba left for the Vinkus, I really felt like the story bogged down. Up until then, it had been interesting with political discourse, love affairs, and interesting characters. After that point, however, it seemed to just drag on and on with no real purpose.

Once the final events leading to Elphaba’s death start to get put in motion, I felt like they were very haphazad and didn’t relate well and were just rushed to finish the book up. The whole part about a possible conspiracy drawing the lives of the three witches together also never set very well with me.

I’m torn whether I would recommend this book or not. Ultimately I found it disappointing, but so many people really love it that it might be worth your time to read.

Affinity by Sarah Waters: a gothic story that’s part supernatural tale and part romance, but always interesting.

In late September of 1874, Margaret Prior becomes a Lady Visitor - a woman who visits the inmates giving them friendship and guidance in hope that when they are released they will better their lives and turn away from crime - to Millbank Prison in London.

The prison is, of course, a dark, sad place with two hundred and seventy women incarcerated (there are also men, but they don’t figure into the story). On her first visit she is captivated by the sight of a young woman holding a violet that she puts to her lips and breathes upon.

She becomes enthralled by this woman, a medium with the beautiful name of Selina Dawes and a face like that of an angel by the painter Crivelli, and an unlikely friendship which soon becomes fraught with much more.

I don’t want to say much more about the plot of the novel since half of its intrigue was in determining what had happened, not only to Selina but also to Miss Prior. Why is she watched so closely by her mother? What is the illness that she speaks of?

I enjoyed reading the book and trying to figure out where the story would go next. It was delightfully entertaining despite the somber tones of the novel. Highly recommended for those that like their stories enigmatic and a bit dark.

The World According to Garp by John Irving: a novel about the illegitimate son of nurse and feminist, Jenny Fields, and the people that inhabit his world.

T.S. Garp was born to Jenny Fields, an independent minded woman and young nurse during World War II. Jenny becomes a nurse at the Steering School for boys and raises Garp there. After Garp graduates, he and Jenny move to Vienna where she writes the novel that will make her popular as a feminist leader and Garp begins his writing career.

I don’t want to give anything away, so I’m going to keep this review intentionally vague. The book covers Garp’s life as a writer and a father, his marriage, and the lives of his family and friends, including Roberta, a former Eagles tackle who is now a woman after having a sex change operation.

The World According to Garp was both funny and sad, reflective and exciting. I found the writing style to be very inviting and I’m not surprised that this book made Random House’s Modern Library 100 Best Fiction Books of the 20th Century. I highly recommend it.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon: a fabulous book that defies classification that I’ve reread several times.

At the beginning of Outlander, the year is 1945 and we are introduced to Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, who is on a second honeymoon in Scotland with her husband Frank. One night, while at a local stone circle, Claire touches one of the stones and is transported back in time to 1743.

She quickly draws the attention of both the Scottish and the English and is emboiled in plots and deceptions. To complicate matters further, there’s James Frasier, a tall, handsome Scot on the run from the English that Claire finds herself drawn to.

This novel, the first in a series of several, is an amazing read. It’s well over eight hundred pages, but I never feel like it’s too long - in fact, I’m always anxious to start the next one right away. The writing is wonderful and the characters so full of life that you can’t help but believe they are real. You also get a history of Scotland and England’s struggles at the same time.

I’m hard pressed to put this book into a category. It’s clearly a romance, but it’s also got elements of history, science fiction, fantasy, and even mystery. While some may be put off at its length, I still highly recommend it and its sequels to anyone looking for a great read.

Jasmine Nights by S.P. Somtow: a coming of age tale set in Thailand in 1963.

Little Frog, who’s real name is Sornsunthorn but prefers Justin, is twelve years old in 1963 when our story opens. Refusing to speak his native Thai and left by his parents with his relatives, particularly his three aunts that he refers to as the three Fates, Justin finds himself living between two worlds - the one where he is but a child living in a vast protected estate and the one that he has created out of the poetry and Greek classics that he loves so much.

Soon an incident involving a stiletto high heel and his beloved pet chameleon Homer at a funeral leads Little Frog to a meeting with an American child living next door and brings about changes that he cannot even start to imagine.

I throughly enjoyed reading about Little Frog’s life. The novel had almost a poetic sense to its writing and almost every scene had a sort of poignancy to it, especially by the end. I’m not really sure that I liked how the novel ended up, but it certainly fit with the rest of it.

My only complaint was that the book was peppered with Thai phrases and vocabulary. There was is a glossary at the beginning of the novel, but I found it very annoying to have to stop reading, flip to the front, look up the word, and then get back into the story. While I enjoyed learning some foreign vocabulary, it really did break up the book.

All in all, though, the novel was extremely well written, very interesting, and well worth a reading.

The Bachelor’s Cat: A Love Story by L. F. Hoffman: the story of a struggling artist and how his life changes when he adopts a kitten.

The titular bachelor in this novel is a struggling artist with a gorgeous girlfriend. Unfortunately, she has left him time and time again for other men only to return when her interest in them wanes.

Shortly after his first gallery opening, the bachelor finds a tiny grey kitten on his front porch. He adopts her and their relationship, one built on mutual trust and love, develops. Presently he meets a woman that is very much unlike the women he usually dates (she’s almost his age and is somewhat chubby). However, he has conversations with her that intrigue him and he finds himself gradually spending all his time with her. She’s so different, though, from the girlfriend that he struggles with what he really wants and needs and can only decide with the help of his cat.

I wouldn’t really classify this little tale as a romance novel, though there were definitely elements of that there. To me, this book was more about finding out who you are as a person and finding the person that makes you happy with what you and they are.

I finished it in under an hour, but it was so charming that I honestly wished it would have been longer though it probably didn’t need to be. Well worth reading.

Bluebird Cafe by Carmel Bird: as much as I wanted to get through this short little book, I just couldn’t. There was something about the writing stlye that just made it impossible for it to hold my interest.

Felicia’s Journey by William Trevor: a strange little book about a pregnant Irish girl and the man that attempts to befriend her.

Felicia is seventeen and pregnant. Her lover, Johhny Lysaght, has returned to his job in England, so determined to find him even though the circumstances around her points to the fact that he doesn’t want her any longer, Felicia follows him.

While searching the town that Johnny is supposed to work in, she meets Mr. Hilditch, an overweight canteen catering manager. Mr. Hilditch befriends young girls in need and we are left to wonder for what purpose he feels compelled to do this.

The first two thirds of the book I spent trying to determine Mr. Hilditch’s motives. They seemed shady, but since nothing was ever definitely said, I was left wondering. Once his motives are made perfectly clear, however, I found myself not enjoying the book as much and by the last fifty pages, I really just wanted to be done with it. I also must admit that the twist revealed in the last chapter, I didn’t see coming at all.

All in all, a decent read and at two hundred pages, probably worth the read.

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: considered one of the finest books of all time, this novel tells the story of an unrequited love that has lasted for half a century.

I’m not sure what it was, but for some reason, I just could not get into this book. The prose was gorgeous, the descriptions wonderful, but I just could not get past page twenty. I suspect that a lot of stuff that’s going on in my life is to blame, but since this is a BookCrossing book that needs to move on to others, I’m going to surrender and pass it on. I hope to try it again at a later date and see if I can’t finally get into it.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov: considered a modern classic by many, Bulgakov’s book is anti-Stalin, dealing with the Devil coming to spread havoc in 1930s Russia.

Since this book is so highly regarded, I really looked forward to reading it. Unfortuantely, I couldn’t get past the first couple of chapters. I read some reviews suggesting that a few of the translations out there are almost unreadable, so I’m just going to assume I got a bad one. Maybe I’ll give it a try again some time in the future.

Harry’s War by Dr. Edward Bradley: an account of a teenager’s life in a British private school during World War II.

Fourteen-year-old Harry Lockwood has just set off to attend Markhaven College on the outskirts of London. It’s 1941 and World War II is happening all around him - bombs go off, airplanes fly overhead, and people he knows are getting killed. At the same time, Harry (or Woody to his friends) has to contend with growing up and with the harsh realities of life in the British educational system.

The thing that impressed itself upon me most of all from this book was the description of the British educational system. I’ve always found all of the corporal punishment and hazing that goes on in schools like the one Harry attended abhorent and that idea was only reinforced by this book. I find it unbelievable that people ever would think that treating a child in that manner would be good for them.

Otherwise, I found this book to be very interesting both in the description of the war and in Harry and his group of friends. I would like to read the sequel to see what happened to Harry, Captain, and the rest of his group from school.

A Gracious Plenty by Sheri Reynolds: a novel that examines the relationships between people, both those that are living and those that are dead.

Finch Noble is a cemetary caretaker that has no real friends except for the dead. Burned and left disfigured in a horrible accident as a child, Finch has been shunned by most of the town and is content to care for the cemetary and talk to the dead, her parents among them. All this begins to change, however, when she follows the request of her best friend, Lucy, a stripper who committed suicide.

Lucy’s mother cannot believe that her beautiful daughter, once a beauty queen and pageant winner, would ever kill herself and refuses to believe Finch when she tells her that her daughter wasn’t murdered. Filing harassment charges against Finch leads her to becoming close to Leonard, a policeman who’s been nothing but a failure to his father. As the two worlds interact with each other through Finch, the tension builds and results in a climax that reveals hidden secrets.

In a way, this novel was more about the people and how they deal with both their lives and deaths more than moving towards a plot resolution, though one was given. I enjoyed getting to know Finch, Lucy, and Leonard and enjoyed Reynold’s style. An enjoyable, quick read.

The Dive From Clausen’s Pier by Ann Packer: this mesmerizing debut novel asks the, “How much do we owe the people that we love?”

Carrie is twenty-three, fresh out of college, and falling out of love with her boyfriend of over eight years, Michael Mayer. At a Memorial Day picnic, tragedy ensues when Mike tries to impress Carrie by diving off of Clausen’s Pier and ends up a quadriplegic. Carrie is suddenly confronted with terrible responsibilites that she doesn’t know if she’s up to - being there for Mike, his family, and their friends while continuing to give Mike her love and support.

Ultimately, this event makes her life become a battle between what she feels she owes Mike and what she owes herself - should she stay and become the devoted, loving wife that everyone wants her to become or should she just leave and try to find out what she really wants to do with her life?

I found the suspense in Carrie’s choices - will she stay with Mike or will she strike out on her own? - so dramatic and so very real that I couldn’t wait to see what choice she would make and then to find out how she would be able to make peace within herself with that choice. The novel was well written and the characters very complex. You could sympathize with Carrie for wanting more out of life but also want her to stay with Mike since he loves her so. All in all, it was a great read and I look forward to reading more books from this author.

Parting Gifts by Charlotte Vale Allen: a touching look at the relationships between people and their families.

The novel starts off with Kyra, daughter to a well-know director father and actress mother, learning that her husband Gary has died in a freak accident. A few days later, while coming home from Gary’s funeral, Kyra is confronted by a teenage mother that insists that Kyra is her own mother and that she must now watch her son whom she plans to leave with social services if Kyra won’t comply. Kyra is confused to how this girl could think she’s her mother (she was born with a birth defect that left her sterile, so it’s an impossibility), but agrees to accept the neglected boy since she always wanted children. The rest of the book deals with Kyra and Jesse learning to live together and Kyra coming to terms with her family until an important decision that Jesse must make changes life for everyone.

I haven’t read any of Charlotte Vale Allen’s books before, but I must confess that at first I didn’t think I was going to like it. The book seemed to start off a little stilted and while we’re reading about Kyra’s family as she comes to grips with Gary’s death, I thought it was going to go right off into the land of caricature (which, in retrospect, is probably the point). Fortunately, as soon as Jesse was introduced, this proved not to be the case.

Ultimately, I found the novel to be really touching - I even cried towards the end. The characters were very real and believable and while some of it was pretty predictable, it was still very enjoyable.

The Six Messiahs by Mark Frost: the sequel to Frost’s adventurous The List of 7.

Ten years after the events of The List of 7 we find Arthur Conan Doyle a celebrated writer. He has been made famous by the creation of Sherlock Holmes, loosely modeled on Jack Sparks, his old friend who died pursuing his evil brother, Alexander.

Doyle is getting ready to embark to America for a book tour and taking his younger brother Innes with him to serve as his secretary. While on board their American-bound ship, Doyle becomes embroiled in a plot to steal a priceless religious book. This leads him to once again put his life on the line to help stop a terrible event from occurring.

The 6 Messiahs follows the same kind of formula as The List of 7, but I don’t see that as necessarily a bad thing. I enjoyed it for the same reasons I enjoyed the other book - lots of adventure and wonderful characters. I found this one easier to get into and also thought that it resolved some of the abruptness of the ending of The List of 7.

If you’re looking for rollicking good fun and an entertaining read, look no further.

The List of 7 by Mark Frost: a mix of adventure and occultism with a tiny bit of romance thrown in for good measure in Victorian England makes for quite an interesting book.

Arthur Conan Doyle is a physician of modest stature in the late 1880s in England. He has a few patients and submit manuscripts to local publishing houses. He also has a keen interest in the occult and spends a fair amount of time investigating spiritualists and mediums trying to find the real thing.

All this is abruptly thrown into disarray when he finds himself the target of a group of seven people that wish him dead before he can disrupt their plot - one he has unwittingly stumbled into.

At first, while I liked the book, I found it really hard to get into. It wasn’t until page 60 or so that I really started to enjoy the book and the direction it was taking. I was eager to see what would happen next and what the fates of various players in the book would be.

My only real complaint with the book is that at times it the prose was a bit windy. Also, while the book was set in Victorian England, I myself don’t know all their terms and slang. It would have been nice to have had some translations. The only reason that I knew that an alienist is, basically, a psychiatrist, is because of the excellent book by Caleb Carr The Alienist.

All in all, the novel contained quite the adventure and I look forward to reading the next book in the series The 6 Messiahs.

Swagbelly: A Novel for Today’s Gentleman by David Levin: a tale of a pornographer and the events and memories that make up his life.

Elliot Grubman is an extremely wealthy publisher of Swagbelly - a pornographic magazine who’s quality is below Playboy but above the crude, typical magazine that dominate the industry. Newly divorced, Elliot’s life is slowly falling apart despite the fact that he is worth over $100 million. He tries to put his life back together by dating models from his magazine, learning polo, and other measures, but what really is it that he needs and wants?

I find it hard to really describe this book. I guess it’s a “Day in the Life” kind of novel, even if that life does involve lots of money and models. It would be hard for most to like a man who uses women, intimidates people, and deals in the sex industry, but Elliot is a surprisingly rich character who I really liked. I wanted things to go well for him.

While the tale of an extremely rich pornographer may sound like an off-putting idea for a novel, I thoroughly enjoyed it and would like to see more of Levin’s work.

A Cup of Light by Nicole Mones: a surprisingly good novel that deals with Chinese history, art fraud, and romance with a deft hand.

Lia Frank, a deaf porcelain art export, has been called to China to check the authenticity of twenty expensive, rare pots. When she arrives there, she finds out that it’s not twenty pots she’s checking, but rather 800. At this point, the mystery of where the pots came from begins since a collection of this magnitude is a rarity and valued at almost $200 million.

Lia is almost a mnemonist and is able to recall every pot that she’s ever looked and every catalog or book that she’s read dealing with porcelain. This allows her to relive Chinese history in trying to track the pots and I found these interludes some of the most interesting in the whole book.

While in China Lia also meets an American staying in the same place and they immediately click. Since she’s only in China for a short while, it leads to questions about whether she should get involved with him or not.

On a side note, while I know you should never judge a book by its cover, the cover on this novel is absolutely stunning. The colors are beyond lovely and it actually seems to glow. The subtle Chinese characters repeated throughout the background and the beautiful picture of a cup is so perfect - very hoi moon.

I enjoyed reading this book immensely. It seemed almost like poetry as opposed to prose. The flashbacks to ancient China were amazing and the rich details of the porcelian pieces made me want to immediately visit a museum to see the type of perfection that she was describing. Mones is an extremely talented writer and I look forward to reading her first novel, Lost in Translation, and any others that she writes.

Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland: an incredibly powerful and hypnotic novel that pulled me in immediately.

In the beginning of the novel, Richard and Karen have sex for the first time on top of a snowy mountain. A few hours later, after giving Richard a note that she warns him not to read since she wants it back unopened, Karen inexplicably lapses into a coma. Her coma changes everything in the life of her friends and family and sets into motion unexpected outcomes. I won’t mention anything more (and I suggest not reading the reviews on Amazon since they contain a fair amount of spoilers. Best to just read this one and let you take you where it goes).

From the start, I could not put this book down. I found Coupland’s voice to be so engaging and his characters so real. I could not wait to see what was going to happen next.

Almost the entire novel was a surprise - I could not predict what was going to happen next and where it would end up. Saying that, however, I felt that the ending was weak. The book seemed to just kind of end. The last thirty pages or so were very disappointing in light of how much I enjoyed the book, but I would still highly recommend this one to others.

The Law of Love by Laura Esquivel: an absolute delight for several of the senses - seeing and hearing.

This novel starts out in Mexico as the conquistadors are obliterating the Aztecs. After a brief interlude with a conquistador and an Aztec princess, we are in Mexico City still, but far in the future. We immediately meet Azucena, an astroanalyst, who with the help of a gaurdian angel help people put the karma of their past lives into balance. She is going to meet her twin soul and true love, Rodrigo. Soon after meeting him, however, she loses him and begins a journey through many lifetimes to help all the people of the world learn the Law of Love.

At first, going from ancient Mexico to futuristic Mexico threw me off. I also felt a bit lost since the book starts talking about Azucena being an astroanalyst, but I wasn’t sure what that was. I quickly picked up on everything and enjoyed the story quite a bit. The occasional chapters from both a gaurdian angel and a demon always interrupted me from the story - they would always jolt me to reality.

There were several interesting concepts in this book that I found both entertaining and enjoyable. Whenever Azucena wanted to regress to a past life, she would listen to her CD player. A CD with the same tracks that she listened to was included so that the reader could hear what she was hearing. The past lives were also done in wonderful color illustrations by Spanish artist Miguelano Prado showing exactly what she was experiencing.

While the New Age talk may throw some people off, I found the book very entertaining and enjoyable. I would recommend this to anyone looking for something a little bit different to read.

Wake Up by Tim Pears: surreal novel that never could hold my interest as much as I would have hoped it would.

The novel starts out with John, co-owner of a very successful potato company in England, driving out to see his brother (and business partner) to tell him about two fatalities that occured in an experiment to give people vaccines administered by genetically altered potatoes. John is frightened to what these deaths are going to mean to his company and he can’t quite get himself to take the exit he’s supposed to. Almost all of this short novel takes place on that Monday in John’s car as he thinks to himself about his life and what is going to happen now.

John’s thoughts wander all over the place and he frequently changes them ("Did I say (I met my wife this way, etc.) earlier? Oh no, that’s not what happened at all; it was like this..."), which kept annoying me.

Listening to John prattle on about his life never quite could get me as interested in him as I wanted to be, so the book’s events never really mattered much to me. I will admit, however, that I wasn’t expecting the surprise revealed at the end of the book.

Would I recommend this book to others? Probably not. I didn’t really like it and ultimately, that’s what I read for - enjoyment. No enjoyment out of the book means it wasn’t worth my time. Good thing it was short.

An Ocean in Iowa by Peter Hedges: a quirky novel by the author of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape that turned out to be a quick, but wonderful, reading experience.

At the beginning of An Ocean in Iowa Scotty Ocean announces to his mother, Joan, that “Seven is going to be my year.” Turning seven does bring about many changes for Scotty, including his alcoholic mother’s decision to leave her family and try to live on her own.

The novel is set in the late sixties when the war in Vietnam raged and when man had yet to walk on the moon. Scotty experiences most of these things on the periphery since his main focus in life is his mother and how to get her to come back home.

While I enjoyed the book very much, after finishing it, I thought about how really it was quite a melancholy novel - most of the book is just life and picking up the pieces after major changes. However, Scotty’s character was so engaging (it was interesting to see a book take place through the eyes of a young child) and I wanted things to work out for him that I was compelled to read it in just a day or so.

All in all, not a very cheery book, but one that I would still suggest reading.

Talking to the Dead by Helen Dunmore: the first United States publication of Dunmore, winner of the Orange Prize (for debuting women novelists), that deals with the hidden secrets that can tear a family apart.

Nina has come to spend time with her sister Isabel after the birth of Isabel’s first child, Anthony, is much more difficult than expected. In the isolated cottage where Isabel lives is Edward (one of Isabel’s friends), Susan (the nanny), and Ricard, Isabel’s husband who’s usually away on business trips.

It’s almost difficult to describe what this book is really about without giving away the major plot details. Suffice to say, the heart of the novel is the relationship between Isabel and Nina and what is true and what is simply manipulated in the events that entwine them.

I wish now that I had gone back and read both the beginning and the ending before sending it to the person who was to read it after me. I would like to take them both in again and see if my conclusions and thoughts were the same.

Ultimately, it’s a very quick read and Dunmore’s voice is both strong and mesmerizing. I enjoyed the novel and would like to read other things by her in the future.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt: exquisitely written first novel that crosses so many genres that it is almost impossible to categorize.

Most novels do not start out with telling yo