Archived Book Nook News: Vol II, Issue 2, May 1998

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, by Jennie Fields

Attention anyone who sat in the movie theatre, watching Bridges of Madison County and the scene where Meryl Streep sits in the truck, her hand reaching for the handle, will she jump out and run off with Clint Eastwood or will she stay?  And for those of you who sat, screaming silently, “GO!  GET OUT OF THE CAR!  GO WITH HIM!  TO HELL WITH IT!  GO!!!”  To those of you who wished for the fairy tale, alternate ending: read this book.  Read it in good health.

Zoe Finney has moved from her posh Manhattan digs to Park Slope, Brooklyn.  With her are her charming daughter, Rose, and her severely depressed, nearly catatonic husband, Jamie.

Zoe and Jamie’s personas are vast and complex.  Zoe is the daughter of holocaust survivors.  Born poor, raised to believe she had no right to want anything, need anything, or dare complain about it, she satisfies her aching soul by shoplifting, attaining an almost sexual thrill from her petty thieveries.  This need to take what she feels she can’t have continues even after she marries into money.  Jamie, one of the Feeneys of Baltimore, believes a curse follows him; a teenage drunk-driving incident which left two people dead leaves him riddled with guilt, further compounded by the accidental death of Jamie and Zoe’s first child, Charlotte.  He satisfies his soul by retreating deep within.

Zoe hopes the move to Brooklyn will provide an escape from her rich, snobbish in-laws who never accepted her anyway.  Perhaps it will even help Jamie to snap out of it and start anew.  Instead, Zoe becomes attracted to the schoolteacher next-door, Keevan O’Connor, whose passion for life is made more intense when compared to Jamie’s depression.  He woos her with games of Clue, literary discussion, and an Irishman’s virility (he’s desribed as redheaded but I kept seeing him as Billy Baldwin…)

As a passionate affair begins, Zoe’s need to shoplift is quelled, but her guilty heart is as heavy as ever.  Jamie has become not much of a husband, and less of a father to Rose (Rose calls him by his first name, even wishes he were dead so Mama can marry “Uncle Keevan”). Her wonderfully eccentric sister-in-law, Alicia, urges Zoe to leave Jamie for Keevan.  (“If you love this man, let him be in your life.  Yes, I’m encouraging you.  I’m giving permission, damn it!”)  Still, Zoe longs for the Jamie she once knew, and her vacillations between love and duty, between Jamie and Keevan, go on until resolution finally arrives.

Woven within the main plot are several mini-plots: a peek into the lives of the other brownstones in this predominantly Irish neighborhood.  The most enjoyable is the plight of Patty, Keevan’s sister-in-law, who finally manages to kick out her deadbeat husband, get over her infatuation with Keevan and get a life.

OK, even I admit that some of the complicated situations get tied up and fixed up a little too easily.  Zoe’s shoplifting, for one thing.  Naturally she’s going to get caught (she nearly does, once, only managing to elude arrest by puking on the sales clerk and making a run for it).  Probably she wants to get caught so her dirty secret will be out there and she can finally test Keevan to see if he really loves her.  And Patty, for another – imagine all you can do with the right haircut, a pair of high heels and some lemongrass.  But I cheered her on, anyway.  Sometimes, I’m just in the mood to read a story where it all works out all right.  I loved it.  What really did it for me were the the vivid and nostalgic descriptions of the tight-knit, lovably-nosy neighborhood;  the likeable and believable characters, and face it, some of the SEXIEST writing I’ve ever read.  It was yummy.

The Plague Tales, by Ann Benson

Wow.  A big, reverberating WOW!  Wow. Wow. Wow!  I was up half the night because I couldn’t put it down, and when I put it down, I’d still be up with the creepy-crawlies. Pretty scary stuff.  Pretty gross.  And pretty Fan-tatty!  What really knocks me out is that this is Ann Benson’s first novel; all her other works have been about beading!  Yes, I said Beading.  How does a beadweaver just sit down and write this incredible medical thriller?!

You have 2 stories going at the same time; the chapters alternate.

Plot 1: 14th Century France.  Alejandro Canches is a Jewish physician on the run.  His crime: dissection of corpses to further his medical studies.  He hides in Avignon under the name of Hernandez – a name he takes from the Spanish soldier who bodyguarded and befriended him back to the city, and subsequently died of the plague.  Canches/Hernandez, the renegade Jew, in an ironic twist of fate is appointed by Pope Clement to the court of Edward III of England, in an attempt to protect the court from the plague which is ravishing all of Europe.  At the same time, Alejandro must protect his true identity from the king, the court, and most of all, from the woman he comes to love.

Plot 2: London, 2005.  Virulent outbreaks in the US have made all antibiotics obsolete and sent aspirin and ibuprofin back behind the counter and onto the black market.  A medical reassignment lottery has forced Dr. Janie Crowe (bereft of both husband and daughter from the outbreaks) to leave her career as a surgeon and enter the field of forensic archaeology.  She arrives in London with her assistant, to complete a soil-sample study that will hopefully result in her certification.  The samples are taken from random sites in London, and one of them contains a little something more than dirt: Yersinia Pestis.  Bubonic Plague.  The microbe is dormant, waiting for a host, and a freak lab accident provides the host.  Once again, plague is on the loose in Europe, and mankind is just as helpless to it as he was in Alejandro Canches’ time.

Ultimately, the stories converge.  Two parallel stories, two parallel characters, linked by history.  It was a thrilling, exciting “doomsday” tale, something like the Hot Zone, or Outbreak, but with a much more intruiging flavor because of the historical aspects.  A great blend of love and loss, medicine and politics, the medieval and the futuristic.

Wow (shiver).

Beads?!

Three Daughters, by Anna Mitgutsch

Three generations of women in rural Germany.  A portrait of poverty - material poverty and emotional poverty, and the struggle to survive both kinds.  Mother beats daughter, who grows up to beat her daughter.  Third daughter desperately trying to break the cycle with her own daughter.  I hope she does.  I don’t know because I couldn’t finish it.  It was too brutal, too depressing, too violent, too upsetting.  I couldn’t go on, I couldn’t take another beating; I don’t know how the narrator did, or even how the author kept on writing.  I really don’t.

(Shudder)

The Serpent Garden, by Judith Merkle Riley

A tale of Tudor England.  King Henry VIII arranges the marriage of his younger sister Mary the aging French King, Louis XII, with the intent of putting an English heir on the French throne.  Within Mary’s wedding entourage is a widowed painter, Susanna Dallet.  Left penniless after the murder of her lecherous, spendthrift husband, Susanna is forced to rely on her natural wit and artistic talent to provide for her household. The daughter of a talented Flemish painter, Susanna had been rigorously schooled in the meticulous technique of the portrait miniature. Initially regarded as a curiosity, Susanna soon gains fame and renown as a portraitist, and is retained by Thomas Wolsey as the official "paintrix" of the court of King Henry VIII.  But within her unwitting possession are the remnants of a valuable manuscript that holds the key to an age-old mystery involving the French Royal line and the Knights Templar.  Susanna becomes the target of a diabolical secret society intent on procuring the ultimate power. 

I loved it.  It had a little bit of everything: history, mystery, artistry, suspense, romance, court intruige and a tinge of the occult.  The only thing I didn’t like was that it was so closely and intriguingly woven in with the myths, mysteries and histories of the Knights Templar.  If you happen to be a Templar-phile, you’ll love it.  If you haven’t a clue who they were or what they were about, the book is still enjoyable but you might be a little lost.  I fall into the latter category.  I knew they were the order of Knights involved in the Crusades, but all the talk of “the great secret” left me confused.  The “secret” is eventually revealed, towards the end of the book, but I was so curious that I stopped reading about halfway through, went onto the Internet and did some research on the Templars.  I suppose it was cheating, but I did read the rest of it with much more pleasure, without that eyebrow-wrinkling feeling of “huh?” at every other chapter.

Again, the book is totally enjoyable in of itself.

Also by Judith Merkle Riley: The Oracle Glass, in which Riley again blends her tremendous historical knowledge with romance, mystery and a touch of the supernatural.  Set in the court of Louis XIV, where elegant French aristocrats rub secret shoulders with fortunetellers, poisoners, abortionists, and stagers of black masses. Within this dangerous milieu, Genevieve Pasquier finds notoriety, wealth, love...and an exit. 

Born crippled, into a noble house, Genevieve is rescued from suicidal despair by La Voisin (a real personage, as are several other characters), the queen of France’s occult society.  La Voisin sees potential in the sixteen-year-old, and so brings Genevieve to her house on rue Beauregarde and reinvents her as the Marquise de Morville, a 150-year-old fortuneteller.  Genevieve, now as the Marquise, is a success, with a true talent not only for cards, but for reading the swirling waters of the oracle glass which she does for King Louis, and his queen, and his reigning mistress.

The descriptions of court life are contrasted with the bustling hovel of female energy which is La Voisin’s house.  But there’s murder in the streets, the cries of witchcraft are rising, the Sun King’s satellites are closing in, and the house on Rue Beauregarde is soon to fall.  Genevieve is bound for the dungeon and ultimate trial unless she can escape…

London, by Edward Rutherford

Wow.  For the highly ambitious history lover (that ‘twould be me).  A two-pound book of historical vignettes spanning two millenia from Celtic times to the World War II Blitz, all made thoroughly entertaining by great characters and great storytelling (much better than James Michener’s, in my opinion).  Starting from Caesar’s invasion of the city on the Thames, eighty generations of several different families tell the story of London.  That’s a lot of people to keep track of, requiring several flips back to the family tree page, trying to recall who is related to whom.  Often, as soon as you become endeared to one character, the chapter is over and a new one’s begun, it’s forty years later an now you’re dealing with that characters grandchildren.  Each chapter can almost be treated as a separate story in of itself.

This is not light reading!  But I loved it, not only for the historical detail and the storytelling, but also because in every chapter, I learned something interesting: linguistic expressions (how such-and-such place got its name; cultural traditions; why stock is called stock; why the door to Parliament is ceremoniously slammed in the monarch’s face at every season opening, etc., ad infinitum). I can’t say the story was 100% enthralling from start to finish, but if you are interested in the genre of history to begin with, I think you’ll enjoy it.

               

Also by Edward Rutherford: Sarum, another century-spanning novel of England, this one set in the city outside Stonehenge; and Russka, same idea, set in Russia.  Both given to me for my __th birthday from Jen, thanks honey!!! (kiss kiss)  Again, not intense page-turners; I found I could put one down and pick it up again a few days later with little loss of plot.  But I enjoy history, and these stand as the most enjoyable ways for me to learn about it.

Pillars of Gold and Silver, by Beatriz de la Garza

After the death of her father in the Korean War, 7-year-old Blanca Estela and her mother, Lilia, move from Los Angeles to Ravilla, Mexico, to live with Lilia’s mother, Doña Anita.  Blanca Estela is troubled as she arrives in this strange land, so different from her home.  Her mother’s acute sadness disturbs her.  She does not understand much Spanish, and she worries about making friends.  But the children who befriend her are kind, and they teach her games.  The games, which all involve folk songs, serve as a ribbon which weaves together the chapters.  Blanca becomes close to her grandmother, learns about the lives of her neighbors, makes her first communion, and gradually, her concept of “home” changes.

I didn’t realize it was a “children’s book” when I took it out.  But after exhausting myself reading Rutherford’s London, Sarum and Russka, this was a delight.  To go from all the busy, historical detail of great, bustling cities and social/political intrigue, to the slow-paced life in a rural Mexican town was a welcome change.  Sensory descriptions of food, clothes, people and places; the charm of the children’s games; the tender, growing relationship between daughter and mother and grandmother.  A simple story, uncomplicated and touching and not just for kids.  Something to curl up in bed with.

Good Intentions, by Patricia O’Brien

Rachel Snow and her producer, Berry Brown, need a hook to expand the audience for Rachel's morning talk show on a Chicago radio station. A mysterious caller claims to be "the Truthseeker," a man who stalked and killed college students; he scares Rachel with his sexy talk and the details he knows of her life. Berry wants a show to revolve around him, so she lines up stalking experts and solicits media coverage.

Meanwhile, Rachel buys and remodels the house in which she was raised and deals with personal matters as best she can. Her mother, who keeps quiet about money and cancer worries, returns from Florida while Rachel's daughter, Edie, comes home from private school for Christmas with a new driver's license and a lascivious boyfriend. Rachel must also cope with two beaus, one a newspaper reporter and the other the station owner, who are polar opposites. With all the activity swirling around Rachel, she learns that friends are not always what they seem.

This is a good “who-dunnit”; great summer reading.  I read a few critiques which complained that there was just too much going on, and true, Rachel is dealing with quite a lot.  But I didn’t feel overwhelmed at all.  I was compelled to stay with it and find out who the stalker was (I was also quite pleased with myself for having pegged the culprit about ¾ through).  I enjoyed the characters, I thought they were very believable, very interesting women.  In particular I enjoyed the mother-daughter and grandmother-grandaughter interactions.

The Serpentine Cave, by Jill Patton Walsh

After her mother dies, Marion Easton goes back to the house of her childhood to confront her past and find the identity that has been kept from her.  Her artist mother, Stella, had been a highly eccentric, highly secretive mother who was more devoted to her painting than her daughter.  She kept the past, particulary the whereabouts of Marion’s father, a tightly guarded secret.

Middle-aged and divorced, Marion brings her two grown children to the town of Cornwall and its colony of painters called “The St. Ives Society of Artists”, of which Stella had been a member in the war years.  Of Cornwall, Marion has only sketchy memories.  But there is a cave, and a distant recollection of something terrible happening in it, a narrow brush with death, and a man who saved her.  Was the man her father?  Where was this cave and what did happen there?  Through interaction with the people of the remote fishing village, Marion finds that her identity and her mother’s artwork are tied to a 1939 lifeboat disaster.

While Marion is sleuthing her past, her children are on their own personal quests: Alice is a talented violist with love problems, and Toby is a broker with some inside-trading troubles.  The village comes to touch them as well, as the past is slowly unfolded.

I wouldn’t call this mystery/suspense so much as a story of a town’s secrets.  I took it out thinking it would be similar to Rosemunde Pilcher’s novels, which I love so much.  It turned out to be nothing like, but still, I enjoyed it a lot.

Bitter Grounds, by Sandra Benitez

Memorable pairs of mothers and daughters, caught up in the violence of recent Salvadoran history, live, love, and die for their passions. Benitez tells the story of three generations of mothers and daughters whose lives intersect.

She begins with the infamous massacre of 1932, when Indian peasants suspected of being communists were slaughtered in the countryside. Thirteen-year-old Jacinta and her mother, Mercedes Prieto, are the only survivors of the attack in which their home is burned and Mercedes's husband killed. The two struggle to survive. When Mercedes begins working for wealthy landowners Elena and Ernesto de Contreras, however, life improves.  Elena, a more enlightened product of her class and times, has her own sadness: On the eve of daughter Magda's wedding, she discovers Cecilia, her best friend, in bed with Ernesto. Hurt and angry, she vows never to see Cecilia again, which of course has repercussions in a story that suffers from foreshadowing.

As the country experiences coups and falling coffee prices, the women try to live normal lives but find it impossible. Exile in Miami with a hint of a happy ending as the war heats up in the late '70s is the only option for Jacinta, Magda, and her family.

A vivid chronicle of strong women facing the challenges of living in sad and violent times.  I really loved it…its style was very similar to Isabel Allende’s Eva Luna, or The Chin Kiss King by Ana Veciana-Suarez.  I’m looking forward to reading A Place Where the Sea Remembers.

The Third Miracle, by Richard Vetere

In the playground of a parochial school in Queens, a statue of the Virgin Mary is crying tears of blood.  Within the church, a mass is being said for the late Helen Stephenson, a prominent lay-nun in the convent.  Late for mass, little Maria Katowski, who is ill with lupus, is alone in the schoolyard and witnessing this miracle.  She reaches out to touch the blood, and is cured of her disease.

Thus the wheels of beatification are set into motion.  Led by Father Killeare the parish pastor, the people of St. Stanislaus petition the Cardinal to make Helen declared a saint.  A cult arises in the schoolyard, with the sick arriving to be healed by the tears of blood, which for ten years now, have been falling every October (the month of Helen’s death).

The postulator appointed to investigate Helen’s case is Father Frank Moore.  Moore has been involved in other such miracle-investigations: the last case involved Frank’s mentor, a priest who became surrounded by miracles following his drowning, and was also a candidate for canonization.  After discovering that Father Falcone’s death was a suicide, Frank’s faith was shattered (he now calls himself “the Miracle Killer”), and he went into hiding.

Frank is appointed by the Cardinal to Helen’s case.  In no way does the Cardinal wish Stephenson beatified because she spoke in favor of females being ordained as priests.  It’s Frank’s job to search for skeletons and character flaws in Helen’s life.  One skeleton seems to be a purported relationship between Helen and Father Killeare.  Another is Helen’s daughter, Roxanna, whom Helen abandoned to enter the convent.  It seems Roxanna has never forgiven her mother.  It is she who holds the key to the liason between Helen and the parish priest.

Whether the unholy relationship existed or not, the validity of the miracles, and his own sudden passion for Roxanna, are all things Frank must take into consideration as he presents Helen’s case to a Vatican team of cardinals.

An interesting, absorbing story of the inner workings of the Catholic church, the process of canonization, the nature of miracles, and faith.

               

Shifting Stars, by Page Lambert

Skye MacDonald is the product of two proud cultures: Highlander Scots and Lakota Sioux. Her mother, Breathcatcher, was a Lakota princess when she met and married Gregory MacDonald, a trapper who left Scotland to escape persecution of Highlanders.

When Skye is a child, Breathcatcher is killed by a wild cougar. Now a young woman, she returns with her father to visit her maternal grandparents, hoping to connect with her Lakota heritage.

Skye’s grandmother, Turtle Woman, hopes to teach Skye what she needs to know of women’s ways.  Through stories, rituals, festivals, Turtle Woman imparts the ancient, handed-down wisdom of the Lakota women.  Skye responds to the nurturing presence of her mother’s people, and becomes enamored of a young warrior scout, Mahto.

But all is not well in the Lakota camp. Gregory's old rival for Breathcatcher, Caws Like Magpie, still nurses a bitterness that he now directs toward Skye. His ominous presence eventually separates Gregory and Skye and propels her toward a deeper understanding of her mixed heritage.

Wonderful reading.  A profound, spiritual story of love and revenge, the frontier and the tragedy of White Man’s impact on Native American culture, but also, how tragedy of man-conquering-man has been a universal occurrence in all cultures.

A Natural History of Love, by Diane Ackerman

This is one of those books that you can read a little here, a little there, skip a paragraph or a chapter.  Take what you like, leave the rest.  A cultural, literary and physiological exploration of that “great intangible”, that “white light of emotion”, also known as: love.

Interpretations of classic love stories such as Orpheus and Eurydice and Tristan and Iseult.  Stopovers in Egypt, Greece and Rome.  An extended pondering of the tradition of chivalry and courtly love.  A selection of vivid profiles of such lovers and students of love as Don Juan, Ben Franklin, Stendhal, Proust, and Freud.   I admit I skipped over all the philosophical stuff in favor of studies such as: hair; the cuddle chemical; the evolution of the face; women and horses; men and cars; men and mermaids; kissing; and sexual chic.

Interesting, and a lot of fun.  If you enjoy it, try Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses.  Another great book to “nibble” on.  A potpourri of scientific facts, history and personal observation on each of the senses.  If I remember correctly, it includes a whole chapter devoted to chocolate.  Or maybe it was a whole chapter on kissing?  Either/or.

Archive Book Nook News: Vol II, Issue 1, March 1998

Eva Luna, by Isabel Allende

Story of the life of orphan Eva Luna, from her impoverished beginnings, to her rise to fame and fortune, and all the incredible, nutsy, lovable, detestable characters she meets along the way.  The German immigrant.  The Turkish benefactor and his crazy wife.  The rebel lover.  It wasn’t The House of the Spirits, also by Isabel Allende, which I HIGHLY recommend, but still extremely enjoyable.  I love Allende’s writing: visual, sensual, imaginative, magical…I’ve heard it described as “fantasy surrealism”.  There were chapters when I felt like I could eat the words right off the paper, especially the parts about Rolf and the dalliances with his luscious German cousins.  A lot of fun.

Also by Isabel Allende: The House of the Spirits; Of Love and Shadows; Infinite Plan

The Visitation, by Sue Reidy

I took this out because it sounded hil-ar-ee-ous!  It really was a scream; it covered some very interesting subjects in a very comical way.

While other children in 1960s Chatterton, New Zealand, play cops and robbers or cowboys and indians, Catherine and Theresa Flynn play Martyrs and Suffering Virgins.  They pass their afternoons eagerly reenacting the torturing and demise of their favorite female saints.  Still, they are completely unprepared for the sight of the Virgin Mary, appearing to them in their lemon tree.  All Mary wants them to do, it turns out, is deliver a sealed, handwritten message to the Pope.  Awestruck, the two obediently pass the Virgin's letter on to their mother - who promptly turns it over to her sternly devout husband - who self-righteously opens and reads it before passing it on to the local priest.  Disagreeing with the letter's content (the Virgin wants the Pope to acknowledge the importance of contraception), Terrence Flynn alters the message to conform with his own and the Church's misogynistic doctrines.

The result, as this wacky family history would have it, is Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae forbidding the use of the Pill - an edict that forces Mary to reappear on Earth (with the girls as her witness) to initiate a movement intent on helping women control their own procreative destinies.  A movement longed for by Catherine and Theresa’s exhausted mother.  Eight children has taken its toll on Mrs. Flynn; she resents Rome treating her sex as breeding mares; resents that a group of men have the final say on childbirth and child-rearing; resents giving herself, body and soul, to the care of her home and family with so little rewards.  Most of all, she resents having to feel sorry for feeling this way.  There’s a very moving scene where she cannot bring herself to say an Act of Contrition when confessing these “sins” to her priest, and she walks out of the church.

Meanwhile, Theresa and Catherine go about their own very mortal lives- - experimenting with sex, falling in love with a long-haired cousin, a doctor's son, and whatever other target wanders into their path.  They struggle to “be good,”' whatever that means, in the face of their father's violent temper, their mother's depression, the local monsignor's failure to guide them, and the utter chaos of life in a houseful of Flynns.

I loved it.  It was laugh-out-loud funny, and a little tight-in-the throat poignant.  A really offbeat look at Catholic girlhood.

In the Land of Winter, by Richard Grant

Pippa Rede, a single mom and self-described witch, loses custody of her daughter after she is attacked by a number of gossiping, right-winged crusaders.  In this small Rhode Island (I think?) town, QROST is the buzz-word of the day, standing for Quasi-Religious Occult Sexual Trauma.  In other words, Pippa makes the townfolk nervous because she isn’t a Christian:  she prays to goddesses atop a mountain in winter.

When the paper prints attacks on Satanism, implicating Pippa, and an alarmist letter speaks of “ritual abuse”, Pippa’s daughter is deemed in danger and Pippa is deemed unfit to be a mother.  On the contrary, this indifferent witch is a great mother.  OK, she’s a lousy breadwinner, and has racked up more than a few weird relationships, but her daughter, Winterbelle, adores her.

Pippa’s misery at becoming childless leads to her becoming jobless and homeless.  One thing about hitting rock bottom – there’s no where to go but up.  Pippa gathers an eclectic and eccentric band of allies, among them a lawyer, a Native-American law school dropout, a teenage boy (step-son to the woman who started the whole breuhaha of persecution and in my opinion, one of the true witches in the story), a werewolf, a delivery man, and more than one witch.  Together they embark on a crusade to rescue Winterbelle, and Pippa, usually so accepting of what comes her way, discovers the strength of her own magic.

A modern-day fairy tale, with all the usual characters:  heroines and heros, prince charmings, fairy godmothers, wicked witches, elves and fairies.  OK, it gets “out-there” at times.  Like with the werewolf, you’re asked to believe in something you wouldn’t necessarily.  But, hey, it could happen…witch-hunts take on all sorts of disguises.

Also by Richard Grant:  Tex and Molly in the Afterlife. While wandering in the woods, Tex and Molly, two aging hippies, fall into a ditch and die, thus beginning the greatest adventure of their afterlives. Soon the couple finds themselves communing with ancient woodland spirits and battling genetic manipulation and a mega-corporation.  Sounds…interesting.

The Chin Kiss King, by Ana Veciana-Suarez

A tender novel about three generations of Cuban-American women who turn the brief life of a handicapped baby into a celebration of life and love.

There is Cuca, the grandmother and matriarch, long-widowed but still in touch with all her dearly departed ones, and mindful of their advice.  Cuca’s daughter, Adela, a compulsive Lotto player, who calls on her spirituality when it best suits her.  Adela was divorced while raising her only daughter, Maribel, and now has a long-standing affair with her best friend’s husband.  And Maribel, a career woman and compulsive housekeeper with no time or interest for her grandmother’s ghosts and her mother’s eccentricities.  Maribel, in fact, is a “stranger to risk and adventure”…except for that wild, passionate affair she had with Eduardo, the drug dealer.  The affair that has left the single mother of a severely handicapped child, Victor.

Victor is born with trisomy 18--an extra chromosome--and Maribel is told he won't live long.  In the months that follow, she at first fights to keep him alive, then eventually learns to accept what can't be changed as Victor begins to weaken.  Adela also joins the fight, discovering some surprising inner resources along the way.  And Cuca, keeping watch over the dying baby, is comforted by seeing all she had loved and lost “waiting for Victor, ready for him.”

A book about life, love, pain, mothers, women and letting go.  Tissues necessary.  And Xerox machine for the chapter on Cuca’s 8 life lessons.  I loved her scenes the most...

The Tree of Red Stars, by Tessa Bridal

Apparently this book began when the author jotted down some amusing memories of her aunts coming to tea.  It ended as an intense coming-of-age story set agains Uruguay’s transisiton from a democracy to a military dictatorship.

Bridal describes life in Montevideo through the eyes of Magda, a young woman from an upper-middle-class family who has lived a sheltered and secure existence--until the growing political unrest threatens to erupt even within her own wealthy neighborhood.  Magda recalls how, as the youngest in a distinguished family, she was brought up to be a young lady of traditional habits and interests.  But Magda also relates how she befriended the beggar Gabriela; listened as Emilia's mother talked of revolution; heard Che Guevara speak and was assaulted by the police in the subsequent riot; and admiringly watched Marco, a handsome young neighbor and soldier, attempt to help the poor.  Soon a member of the Tupamaros, she spied on the US and British, was imprisoned, then eventually released only with Marco's help.  But Marco, who had used his military rank as a cover for revolutionary activities, was finally arrested, and Magda fled the country.

Now Magda has returned to Uruguay, having learned that Marco is about to be released from prison.  Will they be reunited?  Will happiness last?  Read this amazing story to find out.

The Villa Marini, by Gloria Montero

Spanish immigrants in Australia?  Well, I didn’t know.

Marini Grau battles prejudice, a loveless marriage, and Australia's harsh natural elements to maintain her family's plantation, mold a life for her son, and fulfill her late father's Hispanic dreams.

When Mariano Grau arrives in North Queensland, Australia, with small daughter Marini in tow, he ends a journey that began in his native Spain.  In Cuba, he had grown sugar until the Yankees ousted the Spanish; then, still mourning the loss of his beautiful wife Guillermina, who died soon after Marini's birth, as well as the death of his first-born son, Mariano, he wandered the world until he reached Queensland.  There, he starts to grow cane as he did in Cuba, dreams of building a fine villa, and sends Marini to the local convent school.

It's in the convent that Marini, now 17, nurses a mysteriously ill Irishman, Dominic Moran, who's been rescued from Aborigine cannibals.  When her father is accidentally killed, Marini decides to marry the convalescing Dominic, the idea being that he will help her fulfill her father's aspirations.  Soon, Marini--a dynamo who cuts cane with the men, defies strikers by driving a locomotive, and faces down any male chauvinist who dares to question her--is rich enough to build the splendid villa her father dreamed of.  She is also the mother of an adored son, Joel.

Things are going too well, in fact, so of course they must fall apart: Dominic smokes opium; Marini has an affair with his brother Michael, who has moved in with them; she gives birth to handicapped Rosemary; and on the night they all celebrate Joel's coming of age, fate delivers the ultimate blow.

It was a little soap-operatic, but it read quickly and was entertaining.  The ending was a surprise.

The Conquest, by Elizabeth Chadwick

Love thine enemy, as the saying goes.   In The Conquest, a young Saxon woman suffers the harsh consequences of the Norman invasion of England.  After both her husband and brothers suffer violent deaths at the hands of the conquerors, Ailith temporarily loses her wits and attempts to take her own life. Thwarted by Rolf de Brize, a lusty, sympathetic Norman, Ailith agrees to assume the position of chatelaine of his English estate. Though she bears his child and spends many contented years as his mistress, she reluctantly realizes that the fundamental gulf that separates them is too wide to sufficiently bridge. When she discovers that Rolf has betrayed her both physically and spiritually, Ailith flees, bequeathing her young daughter a bitter legacy of love and loss.

Historical romance on a grand scale.  I found that I lost a little interest once the character of Ailith was gone.  I pushed on to see what would happen to her daughter, but it wasn’t like I was dying to find out.

Also by Elizabeth Chadwick: Daughters of the Grail.  Set in 13th century France, focusing on a descendent of Mary Magdelene.  Haven’t read it but sounds pretty neat…

A Stone Gone Mad, by Jacquelyn Holt Park

Difficult (for me) story of a girl trying to come out of the closet in the 1960s.  Fifteen-year-old Emily Stolle of White River, New Hampshire, first recognizes that girls turn her on when her big sister's best buddy, Mattie, starts meeting her for trysts on the terrace behind Emily's house.  Alas, Dad (a widower who keeps his distance from his daughters) and straight-laced sister Sheila stumble onto the pair, resulting in a boarding school for Emily and a further breakup of the already fractured family.  It's the Fifties, so Emily tries to bury herself in the trappings of adolescent sexuality. But in college her urges resurface and are played out with a friend who retreats from Emily once the two of them achieve consummation.  Then it's off to beat New York, where Emily studies English at Columbia and defeatedly accepts the fact that she's a lesbian, frequenting downtown gay bars with names like Circle 3, The Naughty Angle, and Pandy's.  It takes a few unsatisfactory relationships before she finds a woman she can love.  Still, Emily can't bring herself to tell her friend Lillian--the only person from her past who means anything to her--that she's gay. But then Lillian admits she has terminal cancer, and that opens up Emily's floodgates at last.

I found it difficult because it was so heartbreaking.  Besides Emily’s wondering if she is sick or mentally ill, and her painful attempts to “cure” herself, there are the estrangements:  first her family – her father sends her away, and her sister refuses to allow contact between her daughter and “perverted” Aunt Emily.  Then her friends distance themselves; throughout Emily’s repeated bouts of depression, friends beg her to confide in them, whatever it is, they will understand.  So she confides.  And they either flee in denial or retreat in homophobic horror.  Her one true champion, Lillian, is kept in the dark the whole time…A review from Amazon.com wrote “ …a tangled mess of finding and defining oneself according to one's understanding of society's rules.”

It got my feelings in a tangle.  I couldn’t say if I liked it or not, but it stuck with me for a long time, afterwards.  I guess you could say it upset me in a way.

               

The Characters of Love, by Susie Boyt

A short novel of obsessive love.  Another one that I couldn’t decide if I liked it or not, but I thought about it for a while after I’d finished reading.

Nell Fisher’s 11th birthday party is interrupted by the sudden appearance of her father, Richard, whom she hasn’t seen in nearly a decade.  Richard, a cool and detached psychiatrist, has recently become interested in the field of child psychology, and in doing so rekindles an interest in his daughter.  He begins to “woo” back Nell by meeting with her every Wednesday for tea.  He wins, at first, her adolescent awe, then her trust, and after a few years of the father-daughter ritual, her heart.  Richard then announces, rather abruptly, he is leaving the UK for a job in the States. 

Bewildered and betrayed, Nell pines for her father as she enters college.  She develops a crush of epic proportions on her tutor/father-figure, the distinguished drunkard/melancholy poet Bill Marnie. The crush evolves into a obsessive fixation which both Nell and Marnie translate as love.  Surely it must be love:  Nell is sick to her stomach at nearly every encounter with Marnie, just as many of her Wednesday tea-times with Richard ended with her throwing up.  That’s love, right?

Marnie proposes marriage but then, afflicted by a recurring mental illness, suffers a total breakdown, which in turn throws Nell into a near-catatonic tailspin.  The book ends quite suddenly, with Richard returning to London, and an implied therapeutic resolution to Nell’s problems.  I couldn’t really tell what the implications were, actually. 

A well-written, complex portrait of a troubled woman, but a lot of loose ends left dangling at the end.  I guess that’s why I kept thinking about it later.

Archive Book Nook News: Vol I, Issue 4, December 1997

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Are you familiar with the Old Testament story of Joseph, particularly “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”?  Did you know he had a sister?  Interested?  This is the book for you, a dazzling story of Dinah, Jacob's only daughter in the Book of Genesis

A minor character from the book of Genesis tells her life story in this vivid evocation of the world of Old Testament women. The only surviving daughter of Jacob and Leah, Dinah occupies a far different world from the flocks and business deals of her brothers. She learns from her Aunt Sarah the mysteries of midwifery and from her other aunts the art of homemaking. Most important, Dinah learns and preserves the stories and traditions of her family, which she shares with the reader in touchingly intimate detail. Familiar passages from the Bible come alive as Dinah fills in what the Bible leaves out concerning Jacob's courtship of Rachel and Leah, her own ill-fated sojourn in the city of Sechem and her half-brother Joseph's rise to fame and fortune in Egypt.

After several nonfiction works on Judaism, Diamant's fiction debut links the passions of the early Israelites to the ongoing traditions of modern Jews, while the red tent of her title (where women retreat for menstruation, childbirth and illness) becomes a resonant symbol of womanly strength, love and wisdom.

The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi by Jacqueline Park

The "secret book" of the title--or libro segreto, in the old Florentine manner--is the detailed account of Grazia dei Rossi's exciting and turbulent life, written so that her son might know his legacy.

Inspired by a letter written centuries ago by a young Jewish woman to Isabella d'Este, The Secret Book of Grazia is a rich and complex work of fiction. This historical novel brings to life the sublime art, political corruption, and religious intolerance of 16th-century Florence from a rarely explored vantage point: the complicated symbiosis between Christian and Jew. Grazia dei Rossi, educated daughter of a wealthy Jewish family, has fallen in love with a young Christian nobleman. Forced to choose between her love and her faith, she chooses love. But her betrothed is whisked away by kinsmen, and the humiliated Grazia is ruined--until fate throws her another chance in the guise of a second marriage proposal, this one from the powerful Judah del Medigo, scholar, physician, and adviser to popes and kings. Under his guardianship, Grazia flourishes as a scholar and scribe, eventually becoming the secretary to Isabella d'Este, where she reenters the world of courts and courtiers.

And that's just the beginning; Park blends scholarship, imagination, and a compelling heroine to serve up good, old-fashioned literary stew, thick with the irresistible details of place, plottings, and passions.

The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan

Olivia Yee is six years old when her half-sister Kwan arrives from China.  Olivia’s neglectful mother, who in pursuing a new marriage can’t provide for her dauther’s needs, finds Kwan to be a handy caretaker.  Olivia grows up sharing a room with Kwan and becomes privy to Kwan’s secret:  she has yin eyes, meaning Kwan talks to ghosts.

Uninterested, and only pretending to believe Kwan to avoid the consequences (once she mentioned Kwan’s ghosts to her parents and Kwan was sent to a mental institution), Olivia listens to stories of Kwan’s childhood in China, and her past lives as well.  Only once does Olivia show true interest in her half-sisters ghosts:  she engages Kwan’s yin eyes to persuade her boyfriend, Simon, that his dead ex-girlfriend wants him to move on to a new life.

Thirty years later, Olivia and Simon, married and co-owners of a public relations business, are seeking divorce, much to the ceaseless advice and pleas to reconsider from Kwan and her ghosts.  Olivia is sure that Simon never gave up his love for his dead sweetheart.  Kwan sees things otherwise.  She begs Simon and Olivia not to cancel their planned trip to China to write an article on authentic Chinese cuisine.  Kwan will accompany them herself, taking the opportunity to return to her home.

In the village where Kwan grew up, Olivia confronts the tangible evidence of what she has always presumed to be her sister’s fantasy of the past.  And there, she finds the proof that love endures, and comes to understand what logic ignores, what you can know only through the hundred secret senses.

This book is a never-ending unravelling ribbon of sisterly love, letting go, past-life regression, karma and opening your heart.  I couldn’t put it down – I was sneaking chapters whenever my email was polling or the boss wasn’t around.

I am Mary Tudor by Hilda Lewis

After reading I, Elizabeth, by Rosalind Miles (a fantastic autobiographical account of Queen Elizabeth I, which I highly recommend if the subject interests you), I was eager to read more about Elizabeth’s half-sister, Queen Mary I, the infamous “Bloody Mary”.  I thought I had found a jackpot in I Am Mary Tudor.  The inside cover described the journey of a sweet, kind, loving young woman who in later history was only remembered for her fanatical acts of cruelty against Protestants.  Where had the transition occurred?  

The book delivered well, describing not only Mary’s relationship with her mother, Catherine of Aragon, and her father, King Henry VIII, but also her experience with her five step-mothers.  She was hated by Anne Boleyn and banished from court.  Jane Seymour enabled her to return.  Anne of Cleves became her confidante.  She watched as Katherine Howard met her bloody fate and looked on at her father’s last years at the side of Catherine Parr.

With anticipation and heartbreak we learn of Mary’s endless betrothals to this or that European sovereign, yet by the end of the book she is still an unmarried spinster in her thirties.  She is ruthlessly persecuted for her never-failing Catholic beliefs.  She is intimated again and again in plots of treason against her brother, Edward VI.  But thanks to the Act of Succession, and the constant support of Anne of Cleves and Catherine Parr, Mary becomes Queen after her brother’s death, and, of course, after that little Jane Grey is put out of the way.  England welcomes her with open arms, cries of joy, parade and pageantry.  And you can’t help but cheer for her as well.  Finally!  She’s getting hers!  Now things are gonna get really down-and-dirty, interesting, intruige, bring it on, Hilda…

And then it ends.  Mary is crowned.  The End.  That’s it!  So the book ends up not delivering on it’s most tantalizing question:   how did this much-loved queen turn into the cruel “Bloody Mary”?  The story is fabulously written, but it ends so abruptly that it’s a let-down.  I honestly thought pages had been removed from the book.

Archive Book Nook News: Vol I, Issue 3, August 1997

Chasing Cezanne and Anything Considered by Peter Mayle

You’ll notice I find one author and read him or her to death…

OK, I think I’ve figured out Peter Mayle’s style:  Start with England or America.  Add one out-of-luck or down-at-heart bachelor with a heart of gold and cosmopolitan tastes.  Add a believable reason to go to the south of France, throw in a girl and some lunch and some sort of scam.  Let the adventure begin.

Both Cezanne and Anything follow this pattern (in Cezanne the scam involves a stolen painting; in Anything Considered it’s the truffle industry at stake), but Mayle writes so wonderfully, so wittily, so deliciously, who cares?  The adventure and situations are believable, but you know it will turn out right in the end, in time for the next meal.  I find reading one of his books as gratifying as taking a day off from work.

Army of Angels by Pamela Mercantel

A novel of Joan of Arc.  What Mercantel tries to do is not write of Joan of Arc, the saint, but of Jehanne the Maid, the girl.  Who was the person, the human being behind the legend?  Who or what were the voices she claimed to have heard all her life, the voices that encouraged, drove, and helped her win France from the English?  Who were her family?  Her friends?  And why, why, in the end, was she forsaken and betrayed to the enemy?

For me, Mercantel succeeds, and it’s a beautiful, incredible story.  I love historical fiction, but I had trouble staying with this one…because I knew what was going to happen in the end.

Patchwork by Karen Osborn

This was pure hidden treasure…it fell off the bookshelf when I was reaching for something else.

In a saga spanning three decades, two sisters and the daughter of a third recount life in a rural South Carolina mill town.  Sounds simple, but it’s a beautiful, moving, complex drama of women, sisters, daughters, mothers and grandmothers.  It’s about circumstances and choices, set against the grueling work conditions of the cotton mills.  There is Rose, the eldest, the wise and steady one, married with children and managing to plod along, keep her life going, keep the family ties from unraveling, and keep her faith in God.  There’s fly-by-night Lily, married to the mill-boss but unable to keep her hands off her first husband Charlie.  Julie, the youngest, who marries above her station to the town banker and is then institutionalized for attempting to murder her baby.  And Sylvia, Julie’s daughter, taken in by Rose and smitten by Rose’s son Benjy, unaware he is her own cousin.

The title is perfect; Osborn has pieced a quilt of female voices, each unique and compelling.  It’s not a dramatic story, but I couldn’t put it down.

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

This book weaves difficult themes--justice, racism, the weight of memory--into a seamless, sensitive narrative.  Set in a small town on an island in Puget Sound in 1954, the story revolves around the trial of a Japanese-American accused of murdering a white fisherman he had known all his life.

This is a very dramatic story.  Not only for the resolution of the murder case, but for the  flashbacks to the forceful interning of the Japanese residents during World War II; for the tender coming-of-age love affair between a white boy, now the editor of the local paper, and a Japanese girl, now the wife of the accused man; and for the shifting trust and enmity between the two communities.  But the drama is quiet, gentle, meditative, like the warm rains that fall in Seattle.  It has lyrical, beautiful language, and powerful, almost cinematic imagery…I know I’ll be looking for the movie in a few years!

Renaissance Moon by Linda Nevins

Tale of a beautiful scholar whom the cold moon goddess Artemis drives mad.

Selene is the daughter of Professor Sterling Alva Catcher, a Greek scholar at Cambridge who holds moonlit rites to Artemis and tells his students that the pagan Moon Goddess is the true goddess of mankind.  Selene knows that as a baby she was offered to the goddess, and she grows up hoping to be an initiate as loyal as her late father. At first she has an active sex life, but then takes a vow of chastity; her hatred of men eventually grows into a mania, poisoning her life.

When the legends that have shaped her view of the world erupt and spill over into her personal life, Selene, who has an obsession for Italian Renaissance paintings, becomes a bloodthirsty pagan whose newfound attitude colors her interpretation of Christian art.  She publishes some impressive works on Annunciation paintings of the Italian Renaissance, coming to believe that the Virgin Mary is an incarnation of the Moon Goddess

I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would.  It only gave the slightest taste of the myths of Selene-Artemis-Hecate, known as the triple Moon Goddess of the Greeks, which is the part I was expecting more of and looking forward to.  Also it keep me from truly understanding what motivated Selene.  After a while, I found the whole thing a little dark and disturbing.  I’m interested in goddess religion and mythology, but this was a little too cultish for me.

Linda Nevins also wrote Commonwealth Avenue.          

After years of being a film production assistant, Zoe Hillyard's big break comes with the assignment to work on a movie set in 1890s Boston. Returning with reluctance to the city of her childhood, Zoe is confronted by the secrets and familial rivalries of the Hillyard mansion on Commonwealth Avenue.  The book moves between the events of present-day Boston, and excerpts from Zoe’s grandmother’s diary.  The attention to detail which bogged down Renaissance Moon, works beautifully here as Zoe uses the Commonwealth Avenue mansion to design her movie, The Gilded Age.

Serenissima by Erica Jong

(This, I believe, is the original title, and was later released as Shylock’s Daughter)

Jessic Pruitt is a popular Hollywood actress who has come to Venice to be a judge in the Venice film festival.  She begins receiving roses and sonnets from an unknown admirer who beckons her to leave the narcissistic present and enter an enchanted past.

Jessica goes deeper and deeper into Shakespeare (with heavy allusions to the Bard’s Merchant of Venice) and the history of the city which the Venetians call “la Serenissima”.  While exploring the Jewish ghetto of Venice, Jessica suddenly finds herself transformed into a Venetian Jewess of the sixteenth century.  And who does she meet but Will Shakespeare himself, come to Italy to escape the plague in England.  Jessica experiences the great sensual love she has always been seeking, a love that history decrees cannot last, except in the timeless world of poetry.

Interestingly, when I took this out of the library, there was a piece of paper taped on the inside jacket titled “readers comments”.  Here’s what our anonymous guest critics had to say:  “Great fun!”  “Enjoyed every minute”  “Unfortunately, rather boring”  “Waste of time.  Read ¼ and returned book.”  “Extravagant and too fevered, but wonderful, too.”

Well, I wasn’t too fazed by the mixed review because I know Jong is not for everybody, but she’s always been high on my list of favorites and the story sounded interesting (appealing to my interest in Italy, etc.), so I took it out.

Good Grief!  What a disappointment!  I mean, it wasn’t pathologically boring, but it wasn’t the Jong I know and love.  Usually I can’t put her work down; I had to press to keep going with this one.  I think she got a little over her head.  She’s so earthy in her writing, that once she delved into the Elizabethan speech of the 16th century, it sounded ridiculous and cliché.

If you want vintage Jong, stick with Any Woman’s Blues or Parachutes and Kisses.

Archive Book Nook News: Vol I, Issue 2, June 1997

The Law of Love by Laura Esquivel (author of Like Water for Chocolate)

The story of a passion that survives from the fall of Montezuma's empire to the Mexico City of the 23rd Century. Azucena is an "astroanalyst," a sort of a highly evolved psychotherapist, who ministers to the karmically challenged.  As an enlightened soul, Azucena has finally caught the brass ring of reincarnation: she is allowed to meet her twin soul, her true love,Rodrigo.  But after one night of supreme passion, the lovers are separated, and Azucena must search for Rodrigo across the galaxy and through 14,000 lives.

The concept of this book is quite interesting – it’s meant to be a multi-media experience.  The secret to the past-life therapy is through music.  The book comes with a CD, and at certain points in the book, you are prompted to play the CD and experience the music as the character experiences his or her past lives.

Because of the CD accompaniment, this isn’t the most convenient book to read on-the-go, as I always am.  But I taped the music and took my Walkman along and it worked out just fine.  I’m not a huge fan of futuristic science fiction, but being tied in with past-life regression and reincarnation and Laura Esquivel’s zany sense of humor, I found it easy to follow her vision of the 23rd century and I really enjoyed the story, the music and the illustrations.  I liked that the book touched so many of my senses, one of the big attractions I found in Like Water for Chocolate (food does not play such a major role in Law of Love, however!). 

I can believe in the philosophy of paying off your karmic debts, of repeatedly coming in contact with the souls you have hated in past lives until you learn to contact them in love, all with ultimate goal of finding your true soulmate.  I also hope there will be such things as aerophones and crime-free societies.

And if you end up not really liking the book, you still get a nice CD of music…

Arranged Marriage by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.

Divakaruni's book of short stories, Arranged Marriage, focuses on family-arranged matches, a centuries-old tradition in India. These stories about Indian immigrants to the U.S. show how the dislocations of immigration are making this tradition problematic.

I wouldn’t say that these are happy stories.  They are beautifully written and they evoke strong images, but the overlying feeling between the pages, to me, was of such sadness and despair and frustration for these women who exist solely for their husbands.  Women who from the day they are born are looked on as a burden, a dowry price, until finally they are married and subsequently the property of their husbands and in-laws.

Yet there remains a sense of pride, strength and courage in these women, and with some of the stories I felt hopeful at the end.  The woman whose husband is murdered decides not to go back to India, but rather to stay in the U.S. and find her own way.  Another woman is determined to sponsor and see her dearest friend safely to America, for the latter is being encouraged by her in-laws to terminate her pregnancy because she is carrying a female, not a suitable sex for a first child.

Arranged Marriage provoked many of the same emotions I had when reading Mists of Avalon, the utter inability to comprehend a culture or religion that is so unfair to women.  But the women each have a story to tell and I was glad to read them all.  And I hoped they would be all right.

The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. 

A magic realism tale on Tilo, a woman from India who is given immortality by the gods as long as she remains chaste. In her old age Tilo ends up California, running a spice shop and helping immigrants. One day enters Raven, a handsome American and Tilo transforms herself into a beautiful woman for a night of love. Now she must pay the price.

There is nothing like a story written by someone who really  knows her stuff.  In the same way the Passion Dream Book made me want to be an artist, or Like Water for Chocolate made me hungry, or the Sixteen Pleasures made me long to go to Italy and experience the art of Florence first hand, The Mistress of Spices got me itching to learn more about this mysterious Indian art, and delve back into my books on herbology and aromatherapy.

There’s such a wonderful duality to Tilo, the Mistress, because she is sage and wise and magical, but at the same time there is a poignancy to the sacrifices she has made to her powers.  Not only must she remain chaste in a sexual sense, but she must remain always detached, emotionally, to the people who come to seek her help.  She must never leave the store, never reveal that she immediately and instinctively knows their troubling situations; it is the people who must come to her and voice their problems, never the other way around.  Tilo’s conflict is not only with Raven, the American Indian with whom she falls in love, but to Lalali, the battered wife, Haroun the troubled chauffeur, Jagjit the young boy falling in with the dangerous gangs of Oakland, the falling-out between Ramu and his daughter Geegit because Geegit is in love with a Hispanic.  As Tilo is drawn deeper and deeper into the lives of these people, the spices speak to her less and less, and she is forced to take stock of her life and choose between her powers as the immortal Mistress of Spices, or to forsake all to be a normal woman in love, an ordinary woman with friends and a home.

I loved it.  Divakaruni writes so beautifully, with such simple words weaving together plot and characters.  She tells a wonderful story.

The Nun’s Story by Kathryn Hulme. 

Picking this up was truly a whim.  I had just seen the movie with Audrey Hepburn and loved it, and was curious as to how closely it followed the book.

If you are a reader who gets annoyed or distracted by side stories or tangents, this is a book for you.  Hulme writes briskly, sticking to the subject, moving things along…it’s as if she is using her simple, concise language as a metaphor for the nun’s life, because within the unadorned narrative is a rich, complex, emotional and bewildering tale…much like the character of Sister Luke.

It’s a very revealing peek into life in the convent, into the training of the Brides of Christ, and raises some very interesting questions and choices a nun must make.  Absolute selflessness, and Sister Luke’s own nemesis, absolute obedience.  Her desire to do good cannot be kept within the context of her vows; she cannot reconcile the nurse within her and the nun within her.

I thought it was a very engaging, powerful story, but again, it’s a matter of taste.  I just thought I’d throw it out there.

Year in Provence by Peter Mayle

I know at least 2 of you on my distro list will say it’s about time I got around to Peter Mayle, and I stand thoroughly chastised (thanks, Linda, for making me take it off your bookshelves).  I can’t believe I didn’t read this sooner.  In keeping with my books-about-food theme, this story is a feast.  I only wish it were called “Decade in Provence”.

This book made me so happy!  It was delightfully, wittily written, much like the style of Robert Fulghum, whom I love.  The plot isn’t complex, in fact it centers around day-to-day life, but the settings and characters and situations involved are described in such a way that you end up with a very in-depth look at Provencal culture.  And the food is out of this world.