Books Set in North America: Canada and United States, Boston, Massachusetts

The Arctic Fury, by Greer Macallister (2020)

 

In 1853, Lady Jane Franklin sought out Virginia Reeve, a young adventurer, to lead an expedition into the Arctic to find her husband’s missing ship, which was lost somewhere in the Arctic.  Virginia had earned a reputation leading expeditions across the United States as settlers began making the trek across the country.

 

Although she had never travel that far north, Virginia was experienced in traveling across the Rockies in winter weather.  Lady Franklin insisted that a team of resourceful women could accomplish what the teams of men had failed to do.  Virginia was to take 11 women with her, most of whom were preselected for her.  One woman, Caprice Collins, was a spoiled young woman from a wealthy Boston family.  Although Caprice had experience in hiking in the Alps, she had an attitude, and from the beginning, she clashed with Virginia.  She also insisted bringing her maid with her, so instead of the original twelve women, the party consisted of 13 women.

 

Not all of the women who set off on the adventure returned.  A year after the team set off on their travels, Virginia found herself on trial for the murder of Caprice.  Five of the survivors attend the trial to lend support to Virginia.  Virginia has insufficient counsel and the prosecutor seemingly has damning evidence.

 

The novel goes back and forth between the trial and the Arctic trek.  We do not learn a lot about many of the women on this trek, but their background stories are slowly revealed as the novel proceeds.  Lady Franklin made it clear to Virginia, that if the expedition was a success, Virginia would be handsomely rewarded.  If, however, it was unsuccessful, Lady Franklin would deny all knowledge of Virginia.  [Spoiler Alert:  Throughout the novel the author drops hints that Virginia was a part of the Donner Party.  We learn at the end of the novel that Lady Franklin feared that her husband and his crew met the same fate, and that her motive for the expedition was to hide any evidence of cannibalism.]

 

This novel is very loosely based on historical events.  Lady Jane Franklin really did pay for several excursions into the Arctic to search for her husband’s lost expedition, although she did not hire a team of women to make the trek.

 

I loved this book.  There were several twists and turns throughout and the novel held up to the very last page.  I think I have found a new favorite author!

 

Read:  April 27, 2021

 

5 Stars

Books Set in North America; United States, Massachusetts: Boston, Marblehead

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, by Katherine Howe (2009)

This novel takes place in Massachusetts primarily in 1991 and with interludes in the late 1692 during the infamous Salem witch trials.

 

The main character is Constance “Connie” Goodwin, a 20-something graduate student in colonial American history.  When the novel starts, Connie has just passed her oral exams and is in search of a solid research project.  Before settling on a dissertation topic, she is called to assist in the sale of her grandmother’s long-abandoned house in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

 

She must first clean up the house, and so decides to stay there for the summer.  The house has running water, but no electricity or telephone.  Remember, 1991 is before the age of cell-phones; so Connie is often in a phone booth calling on a pay phone!

 

One of the first things Connie comes across, is an old family Bible.  When she picks it up, she feels a strange electric charge and a key with the name Deliverance Dane.  Suddenly, Connie thinks that she has found her research topic.  She spends much of the summer tracking down this Deliverance Dane person, who, Connie discovers, had a “physick book”, which contained recipes for folk remedies, but might also have labeled its owner as a witch.

 

The book was a fun read, but fell apart near the end.  I did find the author’s spelling attempt at the Boston accent to be annoying and unnecessary.

 

Read:  April 13, 2021

 

3 Stars

Books Set in Africa and North America: Egypt and Boston, Massachusetts

The Book of Two Ways, by Jodi Picoult (2020)

In ancient Egyptian mythology, the Book of Two Ways describes the roads through the afterlife.  One route is through water and the other by land.  The roads are separated by a lake of fire, but both routes have the same destination.

In this novel, the author uses this theme as a way to describe Dawn’s life.  Dawn had been an up-and-coming graduate student in Egyptology, when she learned her mother was in hospice and would soon die.  Dawn left her studies to be with her dying mother.  After her mother died, Dawn suddenly found herself responsible for raising her young brother.  At the hospice facility, she met Brian, whose grandmother was dying.  They took comfort in each other, had a child and then married.

Brian represented security.  He was a respected theoretical physicist at Harvard who studies, in its own way, a theoretical path of two ways.  After giving up her studies in Egyptology, she becomes a death doula – she assists people at the ends of their lives.

For 15 years, Dawn has had a wonderful life.  Her relationship with her teenaged daughter becomes rife with teenage angst.  Her marriage reaches a stalemate.  Dawn finds that she can’t forget Wyatt, the pedigreed fellow graduate student, with whom she initially had a love-hate relationship, back before she gave up on her studies in Egypt.

The novel takes the path of two ways.  In one path, Dawn travels to Egypt to find Wyatt.  In the other path, she stays with Brian as their relationship frays.  The novel also goes back and forth in time, from the present to events that occurred in Dawn’s student days.

The author seemed to try too many story lines.  Dawn’s parents never married.  As presented in the story line, the reader thinks there must be a reason for this that will be later explained.  Kieran’s brother is gay, but this is irrelevant to the story line.

Ultimately, none of the characters were very likable.  I read this book while trapped on a plane for several hours.  Otherwise, I might not have finished reading it.

Read:  March 19, 2021

2 Stars

Books Set in the United States: Boston, Massachusetts

The House of Velvet and Glass, by Katherine Howe (2101)

3 Stars

Read: November 28, 2014

Books Set in the United States: Boston, Massachusetts

The Art Forger, by B.A. Shapiro (2012)

I loved this book, which was inspired by the art heist (which has never been solved) at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.  Claire Roth is an artist with a checkered past.  With her career in ruins, she works for a company that specializes in copied art works.  It is no crime to copy art, however, it is to pass such work off as the original.  She is given the opportunity to revive her career and have a one-woman show at a prestigious art gallery if she agrees to copy a Degas masterpiece that was one of the works stolen from the Gardner museum.  As Claire begins to work on the copy, she comes to the realization that the "original" is, itself, a forgery.

5 Stars

Read:  April 19, 2014