Shades of Grey

Finished August 7

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

This is the first book in a series set in Chromatacia, a similar world to ours a few hundred years after some kind of catastrophic event. Hierarchy in this world is by what colours you can see. Some people can't see colour at all and they are categorized as 'grey'. People that can see colour have social status depending on which colours they can see and how well they see them. They have last names that give some indication of their colour ability. In their twentieth year, all people undergo a test called an Ishihara that tests their colour perception and determines their status for life. It is not unusual for people to move up or down from the status of their parents. People also earn merits from what they do and what other people confer on them. Having merits is important as if you get down to zero merits you get sent off to Reboot, which is an educational program that is remedial and then you are relocated somewhere else in the world. It is difficult to travel between places, and a ticket is necessary to do so. One of the few modern modes of transport is by train. 

The main character is Eddie Russett. Eddie has high perception of red, but he hasn't undergone his Ishihara yet, although it will happen soon. Eddie has done something that requires him to undergo a task and he is sent to a remote village near the edge of the controlled world to do a chair audit. He is accompanied by his father, who is a temporary replacement for a Colourman who has recently died. 

Eddie has a half-promise to marry a young woman back home, but she also has another suitor. He soon finds himself attracted to a young Grey woman named Jane, one with quite an attitude. He also finds himself questioning some of the things he has been taught and about the society itself and its controls. He faces carnivorous plants, conniving new friends, and an entitled woman determined to marry him.

When he goes on an exploratory expedition to an abandoned city, he finds himself with more questions, and yet he knows that those in charge don't like questions. He must learn to choose his battles, and think about more long-term goals. 

I like the imagination of this author and the way he fully creates societies in his worlds. This is an interesting one, with a dystopian feel to it. There is also an element of hope. 

It will be interesting to see where other books in the series lead. 

Pride and Protest

Finished August 7

Pride and Protest by Nikki Payne

This is a modern day retelling of Pride and Prejudice with a few changes to certain elements of the plot and characters. A great read that is well written with lots of humour and a serious undertone.

The issue at the center of the story here is affordable housing.

Liza Bennett recently moved back in with her mother, grandmother and siblings after a rent increase made her own apartment unaffordable. Along with her mom are her older sister Jayne, who has her own very interesting past and a strength that comes from dealing with adversity; her brother Maurice who is passionate about both black rights and poverty issues; and her teenage sister LeDeya who is very into fashion and does her own Tiktok videos giving fashion and beauty advice; and Granny who loves to garden and gives practical advice.

Granny is the Mr. Bennett of this story and Maurice is the Mary, both adapted and yet recognizably not only the same characterization, but a deeper one as well. 

Darcy here is a guy named Dorsey. He is the middle child in his family, but recently lost his older brother and his parents in a car accident, so now only has a younger sister, Gigi. Dorsey and his siblings were all adopted from different cultures. Dorsey is from the Philippines, and into his native culture, but also has been thrust unexpectedly into a leadership role in the company his parents ran, with his heart more interesting in his mother's philanthropic foundation. 

Liza is a strong, smart woman with a degree who works as a DJ at a Washington, D.C. radio station and has been fighting against developers gentrifying her neighbourhood and driving out the lower income people who live there now. Netherfield is a new development project there and Dorsey's company is behind it. They have done some community events to present a friendlier aspect to themselves, but it is mostly lip service and Liza is all too ready to call them on it. 

As Liza and her family get to know Dorsey, his organization, and his friends, we see a greater depth to this adaptation than even was in the original story. The characters have more complexity and the backstories are bigger. 

This also has so many things I like about modern relationship fiction, including dealing with serious real-life issues, great banter, and strong sibling relationships. 

This is a fantastic read.

The Venice Sketchbook

Finished June 28

The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen

This book caught my eye at the library when I was picking up some holds, and I ended up bringing it home and reading the whole book that same day. 

There is a short prologue in 1938 at the beginning, which sets the scene for a place and time that ends up being a key to the book's plot. From there the book follows three timelines. The first four chapters are from 1928, when 18-year-old Juliet Browning visits Venice as a gift from her aunt, and has an encounter that she will never forget. The book then moves to 2001, when Caroline Grant is facing the end of her marriage. Caroline and her husband both have degrees in fashion, but he has chosen to pursuit a career in design and recently travelled to the United States to follow that dream. As the book begins, we find that he has begun a new relationship there. The divorce is now final and Caroline will have their son Teddy during the school year, while Josh will have him for the summer and holidays. Caroline stays at her job at a women's magazine, but considers moving in with her grandmother and great aunt Lettie in the house she grew up in. When her great aunt dies, secrets get revealed and when an opportunity to investigate those secrets opens up to Caroline, her grandmother encourages her to take it. 

The story then moves back to Juliet Browning in 1938, where she returns to Venice as an art teacher accompanying her students. Several things have changed for Juliet since 1928, and while she longed to return to the city, she hasn't been able to until now. When she has a chance encounter that brings back feelings from her 1928 visit, she is once again tied to the city. Soon after, an opportunity to study abroad returns her to Venice, a move she makes despite the looming political situation.

As the 1938/39 and 2001 ones stories begin to connect, we find Caroline making interesting discoveries, and revealing possibilities that may change her own life. 

A book that encompasses romance, suspense, and intrigue, this book was one I had difficulty putting down. 

Charles Bovary, Country Doctor

Finished May 22

Charles Bovary, Country Doctor: Portrait of a Simple Man by Jean Améry, translated by Adrian Nathan West

This book is a combination of novel and literary criticism, unlike any other book I've read. The book starts in the voice of Charles Bovary after the death of Emma, as he grieves and reflects. In this first section he interacts with other characters like Berthe, Homais and Lheureux, and for some of these he shows both sides of the conversation. He also addresses his late wife, and revisits past conversations. 

In the second section he revisits the past, scenes from the novel, where he relates his inner response to these and we see how it differs from the novel. He shows how Charles is made to be stupid and ridiculous, not a real person. 

The third section switches to essay format and is literary criticism of a sort, but focused on the author and how his experience relates to what he wrote, both in terms of inspiring and in terms of limiting. 

This essay form continues in the fourth section where the author focuses on Flaubert's view of the bourgeois and how that led him to make his characters fit that mold.

The fifth section takes us back to Charles Bovary and how a man of his time and experience would have acted and felt, as opposed to the way he is portrayed in Madame Bovary. 

The last section takes us back to the novelistic format, speaking as Charles as he accuses Flaubert of betraying his reality and as he experiences the loss of his wife, both over time as she pulled away from him and in the end with her final choice. 

This book was ahead of its time in how it looked at a classic novel and responded to it. While written in 1978, it has only recently been translated into English and allows the reader of the classic a new way of looking at Madame Bovary. It definitely addresses some of the issues that I had when I read it, and shows me good arguments for my reactions to the classic. 

A great addition to the field of literature. It also had me with a dictionary by my side to look up some of the less common terminology used. 

The Three Lives of Alix St. Pierre

Finished May 10

The Three Lives of Alix St. Pierre by Natasha Lester

This novel follows more than one timeline and moves between them. The author has done a lot of research for this book and there are notes at the end that tell us what she took from real people and events and what she created. The character at the centre of the novel is a creation, but she is placed around real events and real people as her story unfolds. 

The book opens with Alix graduating from private boarding school in Switzerland and moving on with her plan to create an independent life for herself. Alix was orphaned while still a child and taken in by a wealthy Hollywood family that her parents, costumers, had worked for. We see her going to Paris and charming her way into a job in the fashion industry. 

The book then jumps ahead nearly ten years and Alix is once again arriving in Paris for a job in the fashion industry, only this time she's been invited, and the job is heading PR for Maison Christian Dior just before the launch of his first collection in 1947. Alix has been working in New York City, and has bad memories of Europe due to her time spent there during the war. Unfortunately, it seems like she isn't able to leave those memories behind as a voice from her past seems determined to affect her present. 

The book then jumps back to 1942, where Alix worked in Bern, Switzerland as an OSS agent, where she deals with a unsupportive superior, and yet still manages to make significant impacts in Italy through her contacts there. 

The book moves back and forth between Paris (and later New York) in 1947 and Alix's time in Europe during the war, and we see how the events from the past are still affecting her emotionally and with real threats to the life she wants to live. 

This is a book that sometimes had me on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what happened next, and sometimes brought emotions as I learned of what Alix did and lived through. This illuminated a part of World War II that was less familiar to me, and the author's note really helped to clarify that. 

Definitely worth the read. 

The Sleeping Car Porter

Finished January 31

The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr

This book has been getting a lot of buzz, even more so after winning the Giller Prize last year. I got a copy for Christmas and as it fit a January reading challenge, I decided to fit it in before the end of the month. 

The narrator, Baxter, is a sleeping car porter for a Canadian railway. He started the work as a summer job, but soon decided to stay until he could afford to go to school to become a dentist, a dream he has had ever since finding a dentistry textbook. He is always noticing people's mouths and diagnosing dental issues that he longs to fix. Baxter is black, like the rest of the sleeping car porters that he works with, and he is also gay, something he is careful to keep to himself. Here it is the summer of 1929 and he gets a shift as a last minute cancellation on a train going from Montreal to Vancouver. He has to memorize his passenger list, with their names and seats on the train, and where they will board and alight. When the train gets stuck for a long time in the mountains due to a mudslide, the routine is lost, and Baxter struggles to stay awake and keep his secrets to himself.

There are many situations that Baxter struggles with. One of them is his relationships with the other porters, from Templeton the head porter to Eugene the union agitator. Eugene also is related to a man that is never far from Baxter's thoughts, Edwin Drew, the Porter Instructor who trained him in his job, and who also touched his life in a more personal way. 

Another is the ghost that Baxter sees around the train, crouched in the linen closet, in the corridor, and the other ghosts he sees in passing, in trees and in the cold that emanates from some parts of the train. 

Sleep deprivation is a big issue for all the porters, but Baxter has more issues than usual on this cross-country journey, partly due to the ghosts, but also due to a child who attaches herself to him and will hardly leave his side. 

We see the working conditions of these men, who are on duty 24/7, responding to any call from the passengers. From glasses of water, trips to the bathroom, and shoes left for shining in the night to cleaning berths, compartments, and washrooms at every opportunity, these men not only have to be quick to respond, but cheerful as well. They have to be careful in their interactions with passengers, never arguing or insolent, even if they don't get called by the name on their nametag. They have to ignore deliberate insults and be respectful to everyone, never batting an eye at even the oddest requests. They have to pretend not to notice the passenger's secrets, and hope that all of these things that they do will result in tips and in no complaints. Complaints bring demerit points and there is a limit to how many a porter can get before his job is taken away.

Baxter is a man with ambitions, a man who longs for a real relationship with someone who cares about him but is also passionate, and above all a man who is good and kind.

This story draws attention to historic social issues, some of which are still in play today. It shows the common humanity of people, and how being in close quarters for a lengthy time can stress relationships. 

This is an amazing read, that had me reflecting on many things. 

Our Animal Hearts

Finished May 12

Our Animal Hearts by Dania Tomlinson

This historical fiction novel is set in British Columbia's Okanagan area before, during, and after World War I. The narrator is Iris Sparks, who is twelve as the book opens. She lives with her parents, a Welsh mother Llewelyna, English father Noah, and younger brother Jacob. Her father travels often as he is still managing his family's coal mines in Britain. Her father's family looks down on her mother and when her paternal grandmother visits, she criticizes their manners and clothes and tries to instill upper class attitudes into them. But Iris is more of a free spirit. She is tutored by an older Indigenous man named Henry, a friend of her mother's who has an extensive library and vast cultural knowledge. Henry teaches her not only Milton and Spinoza, but also how to call animals and find edibles in the woods. He tells her Indigenous legends including one of a lake monster, Naitaka. 

As the book opens, Iris's mother receives a present from her husband of a peacock egg. When it hatches, she names the bird Saint Francis and it becomes a pet, going with her almost everywhere she goes and she spent much of her time in her fenced garden, treating it like a room that she felt at home in, and where others were sometimes permitted access. Shortly after this, Iris witnesses her mother's first seizure, something she is asked to hide from the rest of the family. 

Llewelyna is a woman who believes in the paranormal, fairy tales from her childhood in Wales, and the existence of a monster in the lake nearby. Henry also believes in the ghosts of his ancestors, and talks of them to Iris, so she isn't surprised to start seeing them either.  Iris also makes friends with the daughter of a Japanese man her father hires to manage their orchards, Azami. Azami is also adjusting to her life as an immigrant. While her family has adopted Christianity, she tries to keep some customs from their culture. 

As Iris grows up, Jacob is sent away to boarding school in England, Llewelyna's seizures grow more frequent, and Iris finds herself caught between worlds. Then World War I begins and the men and older boys leave to fight. 

Iris's world offers challenges in understanding, in love, in friendship, and in the things she must do to continue to thrive. This is a story of change, of the issues of otherness, and of what constitutes home. A fascinating read. 

Caste

Finished November 30

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

I bought this book more than a year ago and have been slowly reading it for the past couple of weeks. It is a book that looks at the origins of the American caste system, and how it relates to two other caste systems, the centuries-old caste system of India, and the one that arose under the Nazis. I was aware that Nazi's had studied how America treated its non-white citizens, particularly those who descended from earlier slaves, but this book made the connections more clear about how they tried to implement some of the same concepts and how the American situation went beyond in what it dared to define for castes and for how it had evolved to be ingrained in the American culture.

In India, the lowest caste is that of the Dalit, often called Untouchables. Wilkerson, on her first visit to India and meeting Dalits was introduced as one of America's Untouchables, and after the initial surprise, she had to see the similarities. 

She often gives examples of her own and others experiences to illustrate the various norms in America that arose from the caste system there, and how it is still having its effect, despite the laws and regulations that purport to eliminate it. 

Released in the last year of Trump's presidency, it is a book that is very pertinent to what the country is going through now, a test of its democracy, an awakening of those in the lower castes to the inbededness of the beliefs that have tried to keep them in their place, below the dominant caste of white European-origin males, and how the actions we are seeing today are part of a struggle to keep the system from changing. . 

This book should be required reading in every American history and culture course, as it looks at the history of the culture in a way that has seldom been explained in such straightforward terms. Wilkerson gives homage to those researchers who came before her in this area, and talks about their work and how she discovered it and built upon it. 

There is so much I could say about this eye-opening book, but the best is for you to read it yourself.

Harriet

Finished October 23

Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins

This dark novel is an older one I found on my shelves. It is set in the late 1870s in England. The title character, Harriet Woodhouse is a woman in her thirties, but who mentally is younger. The exact nature of her developmental delay is not clear, and she is described here as a natural. She seems to show in a lack of understanding of more complex ideas and a lack of social skills, although she is outgoing and can be exuberant about some things. She has been trained to look after herself and her clothes and always presents herself well. However, she is a woman who is sometimes not easy to be around, and so her mother regularly boards her with other distant relatives who host her for the money her mother pays. It is at this point that the story begins. 

Mr. Ogilvy, Harriet's mother has remarried to a quiet man, a Unitarian minister who does care for both his wife and Harriet, but likes a quiet life. Since Harriet was left an income by her late father, she can afford to buy clothes that present her to her best advantage. 

Harriet spends the next month at a cousin of Mrs. Ogilvy's, Mrs. Hoppner. Mrs. Hoppner has two adult daughters, one, Elizabeth, married to an artist, Patrick who barely provides a living for her and their two children, and the other, Alice, single and still living at home. The money from Harriet's visit will partially go towards a new dress for Alice, something she looks forward to intensely. Of late, Alice has been seeing Patrick's brother Lewis who works as a clerk for an auctioneer. The brothers have a very close relationship, in some ways more close than a marital one. All the young people on the Hoppner side of the family are quite self-centered, focused on themselves and their own needs above all else. Elizabeth and Patrick have a young woman, Clara staying with them to help with the children and other household tasks, but although they agreed to give her some money when they can afford it, they never do in those few times of being flush. Clara is also a distant relation whose parents were glad of the opportunity to get rid of another mouth to feed. 

When Lewis meets Harriet and learns of her independent income, he focuses his sights on her. The time that Harriet spends at Mrs. Hoppner's allows him to get her confidence and thus when she returns home engaged, her mother is hard put to dissuade her or find another means of preventing the marriage from taking place. 

This book is a dark one, that show society's failure to protect the weakest amongst us. As we watch Harriet fall into the clutches of this family and get taken advantage of, we despair for her and her future. This is a very disturbing story, but very well told.

The Sari Shop

Finished September 9
The Sari Shop by Rupa Bajwa

Reading this book came about because of a reading challenge that I am participating in that had a requirement to read a book that had won the Sahitya Akademi Award for English, an Indian book award. I looked through the list and chose this one, which was the winner for 2006.
I really enjoyed the story, but I was challenged by some of the terms I wasn't familiar with.
The main character is Ramchand, a young man working as a clerk in a sari shop, the Sevak Sari House, in Amritsar. We gradually learn of his past, growing up as an only child of parents who had their own small shop and lived in a room behind it. His father had ambitions for him, intending to send him to an "English medium" school so he could become more than a shop owner. Sadly, tragedy struck his family, and thus Ramchand did not attend the school his father hoped for, and is now a clerk rather than a shop owner. There are five other clerks in the store, and Ramchand is the second from the bottom in terms of hierarchy.
When one of Amritsar's elite plans her wedding, Ramchand is tasked with taking saris and other garments to her home for consideration. This experience opens him up to new ideas and new possibilities. While he has occasionally spent money on books, he now makes considered purchases, and begins to study English with dedication. He also starts thinking about things beyond his day-to-day existence. But an experience with a co-worker's family brings him back to the cold hard reality of the world he lives in and the place he is expected to take within it.
I was hopeful for his future as he started to study and open his mind to new ideas, but discouraged by how easily he lost hope.
This book definitely showed me a world that I wasn't familiar with and expanded my knowledge of India.

The Last of the Country House Murders

Finished July 2
The Last of the Country House Murders by Emma Tennant

This book was definitely a surprise. I'd picked it up from the title, thinking it a cozy British mystery, but instead it is a weird dark dystopian fantasy novel. The story takes place at some undetermined future time. Most of the wealthy class in Britain is now housed in institutions where they have small personal spaces and spend most of the day outside on the grounds of the institution. The lower classes appear to have devolved completely and lost the ability to use language. Tourists come from other countries for general tours and for special events.
The upcoming special event here is a murder scheduled in the last country house. The house's owner is scheduled to be murdered in a few days and those that pay can get closer access to the event. A man, working for the government has been designated as the detective and he has chosen which detective (from a selection of famous literary detectives) that he will personify. He must travel to the country house, do research on the man who lives there and talk to him, determine what suspects should be invited to attend to make the event more interesting and determine who the murderer will be. But things don't go as planned, and the detective feels under pressure himself.
We get no real backstory on why society has ended up in this place, but we do see a variety of viewpoints, although mostly very superficially. Besides the detective, and the man who will be murdered, we see a few people from his past, and we see some American tourists.
The props seem to be less substantial and even those no longer living appear in some situations. There are other figures who seem to have a supporting institutional sort of role as well.
This is a very odd book, and not one that captured me.

The Deepest Night

Finished June 27
The Deepest Night by Shana Abe

This is the second book in the series that started with The Sweetest Dark. It is 1915 and Lora Jones is a scholarship student at Iverson, a prestigious boarding school for upper class young ladies housed in an old castle on England's southern coast. Lora grew up in an orphanage, and spent some time in a mental institution as well due to the music that she hears due to her special abilities. In the first book in the series, Lora discovered that she wasn't an ordinary human girl, but one that could change into a dragon. Here, she is recovering from injuries she received then, and has a new mission, to rescue Aubrey the eldest son of her benefactor, who is in a POW prison in Austria.
To help her, she has only the younger son of her benefactor, Armand, a young man who has fallen in love with her although her love is elsewhere. Armand does what he can to protect Lora, whether at the school, or outside of it. Even sometimes from his own father. And Lora does what she can to protect Armand, even as he begins to go through the changes that will bring him into his own dragon transformation.
I enjoyed the first book and always meant to follow up on the series, and am glad that I did. A lot of the plot here has to do with social classes, but there is also World War One which figures strongly in the book. Lora has her baggage from the past, and she has challenges in the present with not only the mission that the stars have for her now, but also with some of the girls that she goes to school with and with the social situation that she finds herself in. I really liked her as a character, and how she developed over the course of the book.
Looking forward to reading the third one

The Snakes

Finished June 13
The Snakes by Sadie Jones

I started this some time ago, and just picked it up again. Bea, the main character here is a psychologist, and the only daughter of a wealthy ruthless billionaire. She has mostly cut herself off from the family, not taking their money or spending much time with them. She's also recently married a man she met at an art show. Dan is an artist and mixed-race, from a working class background. The couple have taken some time away from their lives in London, and gone on an extended travelling vacation. As they are driving through France, they decide to stop and visit Bea's brother Alex at the hotel that he runs in Burgundy. The hotel is not what they expected. It is in a bad state of disrepair and Alex seems to be using a variety of substances to self-medicate. He is also dealing with a nest of snakes in the attic, setting out traps to catch them.
While they are visiting Alex, Bea's parents, Liv and Griff make a surprise visit. It is tense and Dan is meeting them for the first time. There are a lot of underlying issues here involving class and race that really play a large role in the plot.
When a tragedy strikes close to home, and the police are involved things get more intense and more muddled. The family has a hard time getting information from the police and all of them feel like suspects. This is a chilling tale about power and arrogance and the vulnerability that we all have.

The Walnut Tree

Finished April 6
The Walnut Tree by Charles Todd

This short novel is set during World War One, when a titled young woman eludes her uncle and guardian's oversight to become a nurse and serve near the front. She is inspired by her experience returning to England after being stranded in Paris at the start of the war and making her own way to the coast and a ship home. Seeing the action fighting, the injured, and the men involved makes her reluctant to just sit at home.
Elspeth is a smart and resourceful young woman, and has the support of her male cousins, which helps her cause. She is torn between feelings for her best friend's brother, a young French man now involved in the fighting, and an old friend from Scotland that she meets once again during her initial escape home.
With suspense, drama, and romance, this novel has a lot going for it. This is part of the Bess Crawford series, but Bess plays only a minor role in the story as a fellow nurse and housemate to Elspeth.

Great Granny Webster

Finished November 4
Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood

This short novel was shortlisted for the Booker, losing out the Paul Scott's Staying On. Philip Larkin cast the deciding vote, calling the book too autobiographical. The author herself remarked years later that it was "probably too true".
The narrator of the story is a girl and then a young woman, who was sent to stay with her great grandmother for the healthfulness of sea air as she recovered from an operation and the diagnosis of anaemia. Great Granny Webster is a severe woman, who sat in a hard chair most of the day doing nothing. There were car drives along the seafront with the window slightly opened, and occasional ventures to the library for the purpose of getting the girl books, but otherwise they never left the house. She was a well-trained girl, who tried to get along, and so she did what was expected of her: sat quietly, ate what she was served, read while sitting with her older relative, and hoped that this period of her life would soon be over.
She goes on to talk a bit about the experience with her father's sister Lavinia, a woman who lived for her own enjoyment, but enjoyed the support of many who knew her. A woman who was deeply lonely. And she learned more about her grandmother, a woman who lived in her own world, and has been put into a mental institution years before. The narrator's father died in the war, and she remembers only a bit about him. She talks to one of his best friends of his impressions of her family, and begins to learn a bit more about them.
This is an intensely felt novel, a novel of family and class, and how there is often a difference between how we see ourselves and how we are seen by others.
Blackwood was from an aristocratic family and was married to the poet Robert Lowell, for who she was often a muse.

Not to Disturb

Finished September 8
Not to Disturb by Muriel Spark

This inventive black comedy takes place in a country house on a rainy night. While there are some brief interactions with the upper class owners and outsiders, the majority of the action takes place on the other side of the baize doors among the servants of the household.
The staff appears prescient of the events about to take place that evening, with some minor adjustments to be made as additional information is obtained. They calmly go about their business as a violent off-screen action takes place between the Baron, Baroness, and their secretary. The butler and housekeeper are the ones that give direction, as is expected, with major roles also taken by the chef and the pregnant maid.
This is a farce, but also a social statement. This is humour, but it is on the dark side of life. A very interesting read.

Mrs

Finished August 8
Mrs. by Caitlin Macy

This was a very interesting read, told from a number of viewpoints. The character at the center of the novel is Philippa Lye a woman married to a man who owns a small family investment bank, one of the last of its kind in New York City. She hasn't joined the usual group of gossipy mothers when she drops her children off at the private school, seemingly oblivious to the expectations of her set. She does her own thing, seems a bit distracted, but nice.
Gwen Hogan knew Philippa back when they were children, and knows some of her past. Gwen had her own career as a chemical engineer, but now is a stay-at-home mom, with a husband who works as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office. They married relatively young, just out of college. She recognizes Philippa at the school, and is friendly, but she is also a bit of an outsider, with less money than most of the other parents, and a scholarship daughter who is smarter than most children her age.
When a new child begins attending mid-year, they all take note, as this is highly unusual. The mother, Minnie Curtis, is unusual too, wealthy but very open about her humble background. She, too, seems oblivious of the rules, and tries to hard to connect with the others,
As we see the dynamics between the women and their husbands, picking and dropping up kids, attending school events and children's parties, we begin to see the issues that are coming.
Gwen's husband Dan is investigating Minnie's husband, which may lead to others, and Gwen sees Philippa's distractedness as a vulnerability that Philippa herself seems unaware of.
This is a slow read, character-driven, with some very interesting situations.

Lost Roses

Finished May 20
Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly, read by Kathleen Gati, Tavia Gilbert, Karissa Vacker, and Catherine Taber

This novel is related to the author's earlier Lilac Girls, but happens in the generation earlier, around the first World War. One of the central characters here, Eliza Ferriday, is the mother of one of the main characters in Lilac Girls, Caroline Ferriday.  The story begins in 1914, with Eliza hosting a close friend that she met years before in Paris, Sofya Streshnavya. Sofya is a cousin of the Romanovs, and is married to an army officer. Her father is attached to the Treasury department of the government. Sofya's mother died a few years ago, and her father remarried, to a woman very conscious of status, class, behaviour, and material wealth. Sofya's younger sister Luba has an innovative and scientific mind and is enormously interested in astronomy. As the story begins, Sofya's baby, Max, arrives early, and in good health. Eliza is already a mother to Caroline, and while she loves her husband and daughter, she also loves to travel, and it has been arranged that she will travel back to Russia with Sofya and her family.
The story then jumps to Russia, with Eliza visiting St. Petersburg and visiting the many sites with her friend. The unrest has already begun though, and an incident during an evening to a gala at the Tsar's palace shows that clearly. Eliza makes it home safely, and Sofya's family soon after decides to go to their nearby country estate. There are already some signs of change there as well, and while the family settles in, there are incidents that arise to show what is happening in the world around them.
There is a woman living near the village by the estate that was once a member of court, but married a local man, since died, and now tells fortunes. She has a teenage daughter Varinka, whom she has taught as well as she can, including French and English, and the family hires Varinka as a nanny for young Max when their foreign nanny leaves.
The story really develops from here, showing the terrible extent of the revolution with some rebels bent on destruction and filled with hate for the upper class, while others recognize the individuals that also did good for the people whose lives intersected with theirs. Sofya's family undergoes many terrible things and she must draw on her underlying strength, and the love of her son, as well as her hope for help from her friend Eliza to survive. Varinka is already in a bad place, with the loss of her father placing her and her mother under the control of her father's former apprentice, and subject to his moods and angry actions. She is young and impressionable and doesn't always follow the guidance of her mother.
Eliza, back in the United States, is filled with worry about her friend, which she begins to put toward assisting other Russian refugees, particularly women and children. But she has issues in her personal life as well, with the health of her husband, the growing rift between her and her daughter, and the expectations of the society world she lives in.
This book has sadness and loss, but also hope. Some of my own family fled the area south of St. Petersburg following the Russian Revolution, so it was interesting to see this view of the times.
While drawing from real people and real events, the author clearly discusses in an afterword the sources for the characters that she has built here, showing the detailed research she has put toward this book.
I look forward to her next one, which goes back farther in the same family, centering on the U.S. Civil War.

Past Tense

Finished December 17
Past Tense by Lee Child, Read by Scott Brick

I always enjoy the Jack Reacher novels. This one has Reacher deciding to go diagonally from Maine, to San Diego. His first ride takes back roads to make better time, but runs into an issue back home, and he leaves Reacher to find another ride. Reacher walks for a ways, until he comes to a crossroads that has two sign posts. One of them triggers a memory, a town that his father said he was from, and that Reacher and his brother always said they'd go see one day. A town in New Hampshire called Laconia. He decides to go there and see if the house his dad grew up in was still there. Another ride comes along in a bit and he gets dropped off in town. He does his usual scouting of the town to make note of potential places to eat, and other places he needs to go, such as the town office. He finds a place to stay, and makes a simple plan.
Reacher gets help at the town office from a woman in the records department and then from the town attorney, a census buff. He also gets some help from the local police, in particular a woman who was an MP before she became a police officer. But, due to a noise he hears in the night, he also becomes involves in a more dangerous situation. A situation that also echoes the past.
His longer than expected search for the family home also brings him into an unexpected danger, one where he encounters someone who is a real challenge to him.
This novel also has a parallel storyline, one of two young Canadians, Patty and Shorty, who are planning to go to New York City to sell something that will give them a new start. Patty works in a sawmill, and Shorty works as a potato farmer, and they are both yearning for the beaches of Florida. But the old Honda that they are driving has a mind of its own and begins to overheat on a backroad. They find themselves able to make it into a motel set back a ways from the road, a motel that has twelve rooms, and no other occupants at present. There are four young men who own the place, and they seem hospitable and helpful, but Patty and Shorty each have reservations about them at different times. As their situation gradually grows more untenable and the anxiety over their future increases, the presence of Reacher nearby becomes a tease. But Patty and Shorty are more resourceful than they seem to the motel owners (go Canada!) and I was impressed by their own handling of their desperate situation.
There is a lot going on here, from entitled males to entitled wealth that is definitely of our time. I like the echoes of different stories here, and the ties to the current world.

Elmet

Finished January 29
Elmet by Fiona Mozley

This novel was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize, and I can see why. Set in Yorkshire, this story around an unusual family is one of innocence, violence, and class struggle. The narrator, Daniel, is a boy, then teen, living with his older sister Cathy, and their father. They had lived with their grandmother for their early years, but when she died, they waited for their father to come, and he took them to the forest where their mother grew up, and built a home for them there.
Their father was a big man, a man whose presence alone could make others back down. He made his living by fighting other men, for money. He had been an enforcer in his younger days, but he is at heart a gentle man, one whose size dictated his life. Cathy takes after him to a certain extent. She doesn't like being indoors, and will drive herself hard to show that she is physically capable of doing something that requires skill and effort. Daniel loves both his father and Cathy, and is the more domestic of them. He gardens and cooks, does laundry and reads books. He enjoys the outdoors and isn't uncomfortable with the outdoor tasks, but he enjoys the sessions being tutored by a woman down the road, which Cathy does not.
Things are going well, until, suddenly they are not. A local landowner comes to tell them that they are living on land that belongs to him, and can't go on living there unless he gets something in return. And when the family begins talking to others in the area, they find workers and tenants who are also being treated badly by the small group of local landowners. And a plan begins to come together.
The story is told in Daniel's voice, interspersed by a later Daniel, alone and moving slowly north, following a trail he isn't even sure exists.
This is a story I had trouble getting out of my head. I needed to know what happened to bring Daniel to this later point, and to know the outcome of his trek.