Books Set in North America, New Hampshire, United States of America

The Last One at the Wedding, by Jason Rekulak (2024)

Read:  November 25, 2025

5 Stars

Books Set in Europe, Paris, France

The Perfumist of Paris, by Alka Joshi (2023)

Read:  September 26, 2024

4 Stars

This is the third book in the Jaipur Series.

The Henna Artist: Read February 6, 2021 and August 27, 2024

The Secret Keeper of Jaipur: Read September 8, 2024

The Perfumist of Paris: Read September 26, 2024

Books Set in North America, United States, Georgia

The Twelve-Mile Straight, by Eleanor Henderson (2017)

Read: September 14, 2024

4 Stars

Books Set in Asia, India

The Daughters of Madurai, by Rajasree Variyar (2023)

This novel is about a mother and daughter relationship, but mostly focuses on the mother’s life growing up poor in Madurai, India.  The story takes place in the present (daughter’s story) and in the 1990s (mother’s life).

Janani, the mother was born into a poor family in a lower caste.  After being married young in an arranged marriage, Janani was sent away from her family to live with her husband and his family.  As a new wife, she was basically her new family’s servant.  She lives in a culture that does not value girls.  Her first baby is a girl, which Janani is “allowed” to keep, but her subsequent daughters are taken from her and killed.  Janani struggles with her loss, as well as being trapped in a loveless marriage with a cruel mother-in-law.  It sounds cliché, but as written, Janani’s life comes alive.

Jump to present day, and Janani is married and living in Australia with her husband and children, including Nila, her now-adult daughter.  Janani has never shared her past with her children.  When her father-in-law- is dying, Janani and the family return to India to see him.  The trip sparks memories of the past, which slowly reveals itself.

I found this book somewhat difficult to read due to the names and nicknames of the characters.

Read:  April 1, 2024

3 Stars

Books Set in North America: United States

Dava Shastri’s Last Day, by Kirthana Ramisetti (2021)

Dava Shastri is 70 years old and has a terminal illness.  She is an extremely wealthy businesswoman who had created a foundation to help kickstart careers for people less fortunate.  All her adult life, she has been very controlling, especially of her own children who are involved with her businesses.

The novel begins in 2044.  She has controlled every aspect of her life, including a doctor-assisted death.  Shortly before Christmas, she summoned her four children, their significant others, and her grandchildren to her estate on a private island.  They arrived just as a news leak reports Dava’s death.  Dava had assumed that reports of her death would also focus on her good works.  Instead, secrets of her past are brought forth.  Secrets that she must now confront, both to herself and her family.

Although the events surrounding Dava’s death take place in the future, much of the story recounts Dava’s life and her relationships with her family and friends.  Dribs and drabs of Dava’s past life are revealed, as well as the turbulent relationship of her family.

Sadly, for me, none of the characters were particularly likable.  Families squabble.  Sibling fight.

I was on a nine-hour plane flight, so this book was a distraction.

Read: November 27, 2022

3 Stars

Books Set in Europe; Italy

Murder in Matera, by Helene Stapinski (2017)

 

Journalist Helene Stapinski grew up with the family lore of her great-great-grandmother Vita.  Vita had immigrated to the United States in the 1890s with her two teenage son, leaving her husband behind.  Vita was a murderess.  She had killed someone and left Italy to escape punishment.  She was also said to be a loose woman.  Why did she leave her husband behind?  She certainly paid the ultimate price for her crime when she, herself, was killed by a blow to the head at age 64.

 

Once in America, one of Vita’s sons went into a life of crime, as did the author’s grandfather.  Now the author ponders whether there really is a criminal gene, and would it be passed on to her children?

 

This thought haunts her, so she decides to venture back to the family’s ancestral home in Bernalda, Italy ~ the instep of Italy’s boot to learn her family’s history.  With little knowledge of her family background, with limited ability to speak Italian, and with two small children in tow, the author arrived in Bernalda and began asking questions.  She comes up empty.

 

Ten years later, the author ventured back to Italy, this time armed with two capable researchers who assist her as she pores over public birth, death, marriage records, and court murder transcripts.  What she finds astonishes her.

 

In the course of uncovering her family history, the author describes what life would have been like for the average peasant living hand-to-mouth in this rugged part of Italy.  The wealthy landowners were still expected to sleep with a young bride of his peasant worker.  The author envisions that this is what happened to Vita.  Her telling of Vita’s life is largely fiction, but is a plausible snapshot of how people lived in Bernalda in the latter half of the 1800s.

 

Spoiler Alert:  The trial transcript does, indeed, describe a murder.  The murderer is not, however, Vita, but instead, her husband Francesco.  The peasants are starving and do anything to get food for their families.  In the dead of night, Francesco and two of his friends were out taking pears from their landowner’s property.  They were confronted by whom they thought was the landowner.  The landowner had a shotgun and shot at the three men, slightly injuring one.  The other two men confronted the gunman, knocked him to the ground and badly beat him.  The injured man died a few days later.  Only later to they learn that the injured man was a young teenager, probably out to protect his family’s fruit orchard.  Francesco is found guilty of manslaughter and sent to prison.

 

A close look at the birth certificates of Vita’s children reveals that Vita is the wife of Francesco, but that he is “far from town” at the time of the births.  This leads the author to surmise that, with her husband in prison, Vita “gave” herself to the landowner in exchange for food.  The author also realized that if there is a murderous gene, it was not in Vita’s side of the family afterall.

 

This was a fast-paced read.  Much of what the author writes about her “murderous” great-great-grandmother is speculation, but does provide a glimpse of the harsh life of a peasant living in southern Italy in the later 1800s.

 

Read:  April 16, 2022

 

4 Stars

 

 

Books Set in Australia; Melbourne

The Family Next Door, by Sally Hepworth (2018)

How well do you know the family next door?  That is the premise of this novel.  The novel focuses on a few neighbors in a quiet suburban neighborhood of Melbourne, Australia.  Essie and Ben seem to have the ideal life.  Angie and Lucas seem happy, as do Fran and Nigel.  All have young children.  When Isabelle moves into a house in the neighborhood, suddenly secrets come out.

Why is Isabelle, who is unmarried and has no children of her own, so interested in the children of her neighbors.  Does she really have a job?  Why is she so interested in Essie?

After the birth of her first child, Essie, suffering from post-partum depression left her newborn in a park for several hours.  After a stint in a psychiatric hospital, she returned to Ben, and they had a second child.  Essie’s mother moved nearby to help with the children.  Angie and Lucas appear to the outside world as a happy couple, despite Lucas’ past affairs.  Can Angie really put his past behind her?  Nigel is a loving father, but will his depression cause a rift in his marriage to Fran.  Do we really care?

As the novel moves forward, we learn the secrets of the neighbors, but ultimately, their lives are not really all that revealing or satisfying.  After having read Sally Hepworth’s novel, The Mother-in-Law, my expectations were high, and this book didn’t meet my expectations.

Read:  March 10, 2022

3 Stars

Books Set in Australia

The Mother-in-Law, by Sally Hepworth (2019)

 

The novel begins with the death of Diane Goodwin, the title’s mother-in-law.  She was mother to Ollie and Nettie and mother-in-law to Lucy.  Diana’s death appeared to be a suicide, but certain evidence caused the police to investigate.  Why was a suicide note left in a drawer, and not out where it would immediately be discovered?  Where did those mysterious gold threads come from, and why is there only one pillow in the sofa?  Diana was very rich, so there is motive and opportunity for foul play.

 

Lucy lost her mother when she was 13-years old, so she had hoped to be able to establish a warm and loving relationship with her mother-in-law.  Diana, however, does not have the warmest personality and keeps her thoughts and feelings to herself.  Even her friends do not really know Diana.  Thus, Lucy’s relationship with Diana is strained.

 

The novel goes back and forth in time and between Lucy and Diana.  Lucy and Ollie have what seems to be a perfect marriage.  They have three young children, Lucy is a stay-at-home mother who supports her husband’s business ventures.  Lucy is not keen on Ollie’s business partner, but believes in her husband.

 

Lucy and her mother-in-law have a strained relationship.  Lucy seemingly can do anything to please her mother-in-law.  From Diana’s voice, we learn that she had a very traumatic experience in her early years that shaped her ability to interact with others.  Diana worked hard to achieve her goals and believes that her children should do the same.

 

As we delve into the novel, we discover that each family member has secrets.  Nettie is desperate to have a child and is willing to do anything to have a baby.  All she needs is money.  Patrick, Nellie’s husband has secrets he is keeping from his wife.  Ollie’s business is not doing as well as he leads Lucy to believe.  All he needs is money.  Lucy has her own secrets.

 

This book has some wonderful twists and turns, that kept me guessing right to the end.  The conclusion of the novel did not disappoint.  I read it in one sitting.

 

5 Stars

 

Read:  February 27, 2022

 

 

Books Set in Asia: Siberia, Russia and North America: New York, New York.

The Nesting Dolls, by Alina Adams (2020)

 

The Nesting Dolls focuses on three Jewish women: Daria (from 1931 to 1942), Natasha (from 1970 to 1991) and Zoe (1991).  Daria is Zoe’s great-grandmother, who was born in Russia and married the talented musician, Edward Gordon.  They and their two young daughters were sent to Siberia for a minor infraction during the Stalin years.  The janitor, Adam, of their building was also deported to Siberia.  He had a reputation for having reported on his mother for her infractions, thus was feared.  He ostensibly was being deported for not having reported Daria’s family to the authorities.  In Siberian village, however, he was granted better quarters than most if its occupants.  Adam would come to play a vital and integral role in saving Daria’s family.

 

We then skip a generation to Natasha, Daria’s granddaughter.  The family was now living in Odessa.  Natasha had a brilliant mind for mathematics and was hoping to attend the prestigious Odessa University.  Sadly, the quota for Jews was filled and Natasha was giving failing marks on her entrance exams.  She had to settle for a mediocre school and was then given a job teaching math to junior high students.  Her childhood friend, Boris, had always been in love with her, but she took him for granted.  One day she met Dima, a refusenik, who convinced her that she could be instrumental in letting the outside world know about the atrocities going on in Russia.  Natasha fell in love with Dima, and soon finds herself pregnant.  Her only way out was to marry Boris who, while being seemingly apolitical, was able to gain passage out of the USSR.

 

Finally, we meet Zoe, Natasha’s granddaughter.  She was born in America but bears the burdens and guilt imposed upon her by her grandmother and great-grandmother.  Like them, she, too, has two men in her life and must choose between what she believes is best for her family and what is best for herself.

 

Each of the three women are encased in each other’s lives, much like the nesting dolls that Russia is famous for.  Life does not always give you want you think you want, but it just might give you what you need.

 

I loved this novel.  I really felt the characters come alive.  I also loved how the author skipped a gereration and focused on the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of Daria, the initial character.

 

Read:  June 15, 2021

 

5 Stars

Books Set in North America: United States, Madison, Wisconsin and Seattle, Washington

This Is How It Always Is, by Laurie Frankel (2017)

 

When Dr. Rosie Walsh is pregnant with her fifth child, she hopes for a girl.  Her four other children are all boys.  Her fifth child is also a boy, whom they name Claude.  By age 3, Claude announces that when he grows up he wants to be a fireman, a truck, a girl.  All the things that young children imagine they will be when they grow up.  By age 5, however, he is wearing dresses and wants to be a princess.

 

The family takes Claude’s quirks in stride.  Then they realize that Claude is transgender.  He decides his name is Poppy.  To her older brothers, Poppy is just another sibling.  In kindergarten, her classmates just treat him as another kid in the class.  All is well until the father of a classmate freaks out and threatens the family.

 

The family moves from Madison, Wisconsin to Seattle, Washington where they feel the environment will be more welcoming to a transgender child.  Once in Seattle, however, Poppy’s birth gender is kept a secret.  A secret that the whole family keeps, but one that can’t be hidden forever.

 

This novel dealt with the issue of raising a transgender child.  It provided a lot of research in the trials and tribulations that the family and the child encounter.  In this book, the family was loving and accepting, but the author also emphasized problems trans children encounter when their families are not so accepting.

 

Sadly, for me, this book fell apart in the last section when Poppy and her mother travelled to Thailand where Rosie would temporarily be practice in a remote clinic in the Thai jungle.  I understand why the author took us there, but it just didn’t seem in keeping the the tenor of the rest of the novel.

 

Read:  May 25, 2021

 

4 Stars

 

Books Set in North America, United States, Virginia

Miracle Creek, by Angie Kim (2019)

 

This novel is part courtroom drama, part mystery.  Pak and Young Yoo and their daughter Mary, are South Korean immigrants.  They immigrated to the United States in hopes of providing their teenaged daughter a good education.  For visa reasons, Young Yoo and Mary arrived several years before Pak could join them.  Once the family is together, they find themselves in rural Virginia in a town called Miracle Creek.

 

Pak was able to get a license to run a private hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) center.  The therapy claimed to provide treatment for a variety of illnesses and conditions, including autism and infertility.  The HBOT chamber is a refurbished submarine that can accommodate several patients in one “dive.”

 

The novel opens with a fire at the facility, in which two of the people chamber were killed, and several others seriously wounded.  The mother of the 8-year-old autistic child who died in the fire is the prime suspect.  Usually, the mothers would enter the chamber with their children, but on this day, Elizabeth, opted not to participate.

 

Elizabeth’s demeanor in the courtroom certainly makes her look suspect, and as witnesses testify, her guilt seems clear.  But as the trial continues, the author peels back the stories and motives of the Yoos and the other families who were in the chamber on the day of the fire.  Each person has his/her own reasons for keeping secrets.

 

This was a quick read as a novel, but ultimately, I was left unsatisfied.  There were still too many issues that were raised in the book, that were left unanswered.  As Chekhov noted: If in Act One you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act.

 

Read: February 2, 2021

 

3 Stars

Books Set in Asia and North America: Sri Lanka and California

What Lies Between Us, by Nayomi Munaweera (2016)

 

This novel is narrated by a young woman who was born in Sri Lanka during a tumultuous political period of war.  Her father was the son of a wealthy family and her mother was of a poor family.  Her father was light-skinned, but her mother was dark.  Although her father’s family had little to do with her, she grew up in a loving family, surrounded by servants.  One of the servants, Samson, who worked as a gardener, was one of her childhood’s closest friends.

 

As a young teen, however, her life is transformed by events that she dares not speak of.  She has memories of being molested that are closely associated with Samson.  One night, during a monsoon, her father goes to confront Samson.  That same night, her father mysteriously disappears.  His body is found several days later, ostensibly having been drowned in the monsoon.  Samson soon disappears also.  After her father death, she and her mother immigrate to America to live with her mother’s sister and her family.

 

Although our narrator was light-skinned in Sri Lanka, in California, she suddenly finds herself dark-skinned.  This is just one of her adjustments living in her new country.  She adjusts, attends college and becomes a nurse.  She is still a bit of a loner and has dispensed with all thoughts of finding love due to her foreign status.  Then she meets Daniel and falls deeply in love.  

 

They marry and, although, they had not planned to have children, but when she discovers she realized that she wants a child.  Daniel initially says that he doesn’t want a child and she agrees to an abortion.  At the last minute, Daniel changes his mind, and they have a beautiful daughter.  The secrets she has suppressed since childhood, however, bubble to the surface.  As Daniel grows close to the baby, our narrator has traumatic nightmares of her childhood.  She fears for her daughter and makes the ultimate sacrifice.

 

 

In addition to an intriguing tale, this novel provides a beautiful view of Sri Lanka.

 

Read:  January 29, 2021

 

4 Stars

Books Set in Asia and Europe: Iran and England

The Saffron Kitchen, by Yasmin Crowther (2006)

 

Maryam Mazer was born and raised in a small village in Iran in a wealthy family.  Her father was a general in the Shah’s army.  She grew up in a somewhat traditional family where women were expected to marry a man selected by the father.  When she is 16, her father found a man for her to marry, but Maryam had other ideas.  She dreamt of being a nurse and helping people.

 

Her closest childhood friend was Ali, her father’s servant.  He grew up in a very tiny village and taught himself to read.  In Maryam’s family, he became her father’s confident and secretary, however, he was treated as a servant.

 

When the Iranian Revolution, Maryam found herself in the middle of a family tragedy and was sent to Tehran, and ultimately to London.  Maryam had ventured from her home during rioting in her village.  Ali saw her and brought her to his apartment until it was safe for her to return the next day.  Her father assumed that she had slept with Ali, and thus shamed the family’s name.  He disowned her; but allowed her to go to Tehran to pursue her nursing dreams.  She left, knowing that Ali had been beaten within an inch of his life by here father’s men.

 

In London, she met Edward, who became her devoted husband, and they had a daughter, Sara.  She had what seemed to be a perfect life.  She would occasionally return to Iran to visit family.  When her last living sister died, however, her 12-year-old nephew, Saeed, was sent to London to live with Maryam and Edward.

 

Saeed had difficulty settling life in London.  His presence in Maryam’s household opened the floodgates to her memories of Iran, which she had suppressed for years.  She believed that the only way to face her demons would be to return to Iran and to the tiny village where she had spent many pleasant summers as a child.  Ali was still living there, waiting for her return.

 

The book goes back and forth between Maryam and her grown daughter, Sara.  Sara’s life was only in England, but she knows of her Iranian roots.  The novel slowly peels back the layers of Maryam’s life so that we understand what brought her to London and back to Iran.

 

Read: January 14, 2021

 

4.5 Stars

 

Books Set in Africa; Nigeria

Stay with Me, by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ (2017)

 

This novel takes place in Nigeria, mostly in the 1980s, against the political upheaval in the country.  Yejide and Akin were university students when they met and fell in love.  In a country where it was not uncommon for men to have multiple marriages, Yejide agreed to marry Akin only if he would not take other wives.  Yejide’ mother had died when she was born and was raised by her father’s several other wives, none of whom were especially kind to her.  In her marriage to Akin, she initially bonds with her mother-in-law.

 

After four years of marriage, the couple have not been able to have a baby.  They seek out fertility doctors and healers, all to no avail.  Akin’s family pressures him into taking another wife.  Finally, Akin is forced to give into family demands. Yejide was furious when she learned after the fact that her beloved husband took another wife.  Under mutual agreement, the new wife has an apartment on the other side of town and Akin only spends weekends with her.

 

Yejide believes that the only way to save her marriage and have life return to the early days of their marriage is to become pregnant.  She will do whatever it takes to become a mother, despite the cost.

 

After Akin’s younger no-good brother, Dotun, lost his job, he briefly moved in with Akin and Yejide.  He seduces her and soon Yejide gives birth to a beautiful little daughter.  Five months after the birth of her daughter, the child died suddenly.  Dotum again seduces Yejide a second time and this time she gives birth to a son.  When he is about 5 years old, he is diagnosed with Sickle Cell Disease.  Dotum was a carrier of the disease, but not Akin.  Akin rages when the doctor tells him that he could not have been the father.

 

Later we learn that Akin knew all along that he was impotent and talked his brother into seducing his wife so that they could have children.  Akin, however, couldn’t even admit to himself, that he could not father children.  Finally, Yejide learned the truth about her husband, and leaves him, only to see him years later at his father’s funeral.

 

I loved this book.

 

Read:  December 6, 2020

 

5 Stars

 

Books Set in North America: United States: Mississippi

Pale: A Novel, by Edward A. Farmer (2020)

In 1966, Bernice, a young Black woman whose husband has left her, moved to be closer to her brother, Floyd, who worked in the field at the Kern cotton plantation in Mississippi.  Bernice would work in the plantation house with another Black servant, Silva.  At the house, they would tend to old Mister and his younger, but vindictive wife, Missus.  Neither the old Mister nor his wife seem to care much for each other, or anyone else, for that matter.  Years ago, they lost their young daughter, Elizabeth, an event from which Missus never recovered.

Silva was a widow with two young sons.  One summer, Silva’s sons, Jesse and Fletcher, were hired to work in the field picking cotton.  Missus threw a tantrum when she saw Fletcher and forbid him from working on the property.  She sought out Jesse, however, and began a dangerous flirtation with him.  She convinced Jesse to write her love letters and instructed him what to write.  Bernice tried to warn Jesse, but Missus held a power over him.  And she was trying to get back at her husband, who fathered Fletcher.

Fletcher had plans to go leave Mississippi and obtain an education.  After his first year at school, Missus used the letters Jesse had written to blackmail him into returning to the plantation to work as a field hand.  She insists that being on the plantation is his home and where he belongs.

Dark and twisted secrets hold the servants and owners to the land.

Read:  September 3, 2020

4 Stars

Books Set in North America: United States: Maine

The Guest Book, by Sarah Blake (2019)

The Miltons were an old WASP family to whom the word “summer” was a verb.  One summer afternoon in 1936, while sailing in Penobscot Bay, Ogden Milton and his wife Kitty decided on a whim to buy Crockett’s Island.  This Island became the family’s rock and anchor for the next several decades.  The novel follows three generations of Ogden women, and the story goes back and forth between Kitty the matriarch, her daughter Joan, and granddaughter Evie.

A year earlier, the Milton’s had lost their 5-year old son when he fell from a window.  Thus, when Elsa, a German Jew who was an acquaintance of Ogden’s, asked Kitty if she would take care of her young son to protect him from the War, Kitty declined.

The Milton’s were known for hosting elaborate parties on their summer island, but the guest were all old money.  The next generation began mixing with people who were NOKD (not our kind, dear).

Ogden was head of a family investment firm and all his employees were of moneyed families.  When he hired Len Levy, a Jew, everyone was wary of him and the stereotypes of Jews and money was not far from their minds.  Len was assigned a somewhat menial task of reviewing documents.  In the process, he uncovered the firm’s investment with Nazis.

The surviving Milton son, Moss, was expected to join the firm and take over from his father.  Moss, however, was artistic and wasn’t interested in his family’s firm.  He befriended Reg Pauling, an African-American writer.  On a whim, he off-handedly invited both Reg and Len to his family’s island.  When they decided to take him up on the offer, the Milton’s were caught off guard.

Kitty spent the rest of her life trying to atone for the decisions she made in her life.

I felt this book tried to take on too much by mixing race and religious stereotypes into this novel.

It was a fast read.

Read:  August 7, 2020

3 Stars

Books Set in Asia: Israel

Waking Lions, by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen (2014)

Dr. Eitan Green is a young neurosurgeon who had been transferred to a remote hospital in the Negev because he refused to participate in a bribery scheme in his hospital in the city.  While driving home one evening after a long day at the hospital, he ran over and killed an Eritrean immigrant on a lonely stretch of the desert road.  He got out of his SUV to investigate, and, although the man was still alive, it was clear that the man was fatally injured.  Eitan got back in his vehicle and drove home to his wife and two young sons.

The next morning, the dead man’s widow, Sirket, knocked on Eitan’s door and handed him his wallet.  She told him to meet her late in the evening in a garage nearby.  Thinking that she wanted money, Eitan withdrew a large sum of money to bring to their rendezvous.  Sirket took the money, but she wanted so much more.

Illegal immigrants from Eritrea have been flooding into Israel and are in need of medical care.  Sirket quickly saw that she could blackmail Eitan into treating these people in return for his silence.  She demanded that he go to the garage each night after his daily rounds are over.  In order to do this, Eitan must begin a web of lies with his wife and with his boss at the hospital.

Meanwhile, Eitan’s wife, Liat, is a police detective.  She was assigned to investigate the hit-and-run.  Her fellow officers, however, were disinterested in tracking down the driver, since the victim was “just” an illegal.  Furthermore, they blamed the hit-and-run on young Bedouin boy, who refused to participate in his defense after he was arrested.

This is a novel of secrets.  As the layers of the characters are peeled back, the reader learns of the secrets each one carries and the price of those burdens.  The novel also investigates the complex relations between the Israeli, Bedouins and Eritreans.

The title of the book comes from an Eritrean proverb that says once a lion has woken up and tastes human flesh, it will never eat anything else again.  As we learn more about Sirket, we realize that she has become the woken lion.

Because Eitan is a neurosurgeon, the first few pages describe medical conditions.  I was struck by the description of the hit-and-run victim because my mother was also struck and killed by a car (although not a hit-and-run) and suffered a similar injury.

This is the best book I have read this year.

Read:  July 21, 2020

5 Stars

Books Set in North America; United States; New York

The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother, by James McBride (1995)

The Color of Water is a touching memoir of James McBride’s mother.  The book alternates between McBride, in his voice, telling about his life growing up and his mother’s voice recounting her life.  The author was an adult before he learned of his mother’s background.

Ruth McBride Jordon was born on April Fool’s Day in 1921 in Poland to an Orthodox Jewish family.  Her given name was Ruchel Dwajra Zylska.  When she was 2 years old, she immigrated to the United States with her mother and older brother.  Her father had already settled in the United States.  She became known as Rachel once in America, but later changed her name to Ruth because she thought it sounded more “American.”  Ruth is an interesting choice, since there is a Biblical Ruth who is known for converting to Judaism.  Ruth McBride, however, tried to hide her Jewish roots and converted to Christianity.

When the author finally confronts his mother about her past, she acknowledges that they sat shiva for her 50 years earlier, as she became dead to them when she left her Jewish background and married a Black man.  We slowly learn of her childhood.  Her parents were in an arranged marriage and there was no love between her father and mother.

As a child, he would sometimes ask his mother why she looked different from the mothers of his friends, but her response was simply that she was “light-skinned.”

Life in the McBride home was not easy, but it was filled with love.  The author was one of 12 children.  The author never knew his father who died of cancer shortly before his birth.  Sometime after the death of her first husband, Ruth remarried Hunter Jordan, another Black man, who became a loving stepfather to James and 7 older siblings.  Ruth and Hunter would have another 4 children.  Jordan did like the chaos of so many children, so lived apart from the family except for weekends.

Ruth was a formidable woman and saw to it that all of her children went to college, and many went on to earn graduate degrees.  All the while, James, as a bi-racial child coming of age in the 1970s faced questions of his identity and race.  The author’s initial impression of the Jewish community seems harsh, but he was initially learning of Judaism through the eyes of his mother, who left an abusive and unloving childhood home.  Through his mother and his stepfather, whom he called Daddy, he learns a life of love and the important things in life.

I loved this book and look forward to reading other books by James McBride.

Read:  June 17, 2020

5 Stars

Books Set in Europe: England and France

I'll See You in Paris, by Michelle Gable (2016)

I’ll See You in Paris is loosely based on the life of Gladys Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (née Gladys Deacon; Feb. 7, 1881 ~ Oct. 13, 1977).  A bit of background: Gladys was born in France into a wealthy, but eccentric American family.  When she was a child, her father killed her mother’s lover.  Her father spent a few years in prison, but when he got out, he was given custody of his children.

As an adult, Gladys travelled in an artistic social circle and encountered many major authors and artist of the time.  She became close friends with Consuelo Vanderbilt, who was married to the 9^th Duke of Marlborough.  Theirs was an unhappy marriage.   Gladys became the Duke’s mistress.  It was a happy arrangement for decades.  When Consuelo and the Duke divorced, Gladys and the Duke married, making Gladys the Duchess of Marlborough.

In her later life, the Duchess became a recluse.  She lived in a small village in England with a host of cats and dogs. She was known to threaten visitors with firearms.

This is where the novel begins.  The novel goes back and forth in time and we slowly learn about Gladys’s life.  The novel begins in 2001 with Annie Haley, a young woman newly engage to a marine who has been shipped to Afghanistan.  Annie was raised by her single mother, Laurel.  Annie never knew her father ~ her birth certificate lists her father as being “unknown.”

Laurel has business in England and invites Annie to accompany her.  While her mother is tending to business, Annie wanders through the little village and encounters Gus, an aging aristocrat.  They strike up a friendship over a book entitled The Missing Duchess.  Gus knew the woman who was the subject of the book, although she adamantly denied she was the Duchess.  His recounting of the Duchess brings us to the 1970s, where a young American woman named Pru was hired to be a companion to the aging Gladys.

This was a fun and quick read.  The style of moving back in forth in time, while not entirely seamless, was smooth enough to keep me turning the pages.  It is not necessary to know the background of Gladys Deacon to enjoy this book.  While reading this book, I did a little research to see how closely the novel tracked the life of the Duchess.

Read:  Oct. 28, 2019

4 Stars

Books Set in Europe: London, England

The Secret Keeper, by Kate Morton (2012)

The Secret Keeper is a mystery with all sorts of twists and turns.  The novel begins when 16-year old Laurel sees her mother, Dorothy, stab a strange man to death at their country estate.  The murder is deemed have been in self-defense, and, with one exception, the family never discusses the matter again.  Laurel, however, her the man address her mother by her first name. Who was this man and what was his relation to her mother?

Laurel has never forgotten the murder.  Now, 50 years later, Dorothy is nearing the end of her life and Laurel hopes to learn of her mother’s past.  Dorothy’s children have gathered around to care for her.  Laurel goes over old photograph albums with her mother and comes across a mysterious photograph taken during London during World War II. She also finds Peter Pan book with an inscription to Dorothy from Vivian.

The story is told between the present (2011) and London in 1941.  We learn early on that Dorothy may have had a checkered past.  Laurel seeks to learn about her mother’s past.  Dorothy lives across the street from the wealthy and beautiful Vivien Jenkins. They both do volunteer work for the War effort.  Dorothy has a vivid imagination and attempts to befriend Vivian.  Dorothy’s boyfriend is Jimmy, a young man from a working class background, making a living as a war photographer.  Although Dorothy loves him, she doesn’t want him to come in contact with the wealthy Vivian.

Somehow, thought, Laurel knows that there is a relationship between her mother, Vivian and Dorothy.

The characters really come alive.  There were twists in this novel that I never saw coming.  It held my interest from page one to the end.

Read: August 21, 2018

5 Stars