Eliza Borné

FictionPopular Fiction

A heartbreaking love triangle

Review by Eliza Borné

There’s something irresistible about a boarding school novel: the picturesque grounds; the tight-knit community of teachers and students and staff; the routine of seminars, lacrosse games and chapel; the inevitable romances that bud in such an insular world. In The Half Brother, her second novel after 2010’s sensual The Swimming Pool, Holly LeCraw has created an appealing setting in the Abbott School, a campus at the top of a ridge in north Massachusetts where azaleas and cherry blossoms surround the stone and clapboard buildings, and the grass almost shimmers with mist.

After he graduates from Harvard, where he never quite belonged, Charlie Garrett falls under the spell of Abbott. “The only time I felt even slightly proficient at life was when I was holding a book in my hands,” he reflects during his interview to become a teacher. So he is hired to teach English, and one of the true joys of the novel is watching him gain confidence in the classroom. And it is a pleasure to get lost in LeCraw’s prose, which is both graceful and filled with smart observations. (“She nodded like a doctor who was pretending to be solicitous but really was just thinking of her next patient.”) The dramatic plot is less enchanting—though the pages turn quickly as we move back and forth from Charlie’s childhood to a decade of his life at Abbott.

Contrary to the title, the relationship at the center of the novel is that between Charlie and May Bankhead, the daughter of Abbott’s enigmatic chaplain. As May comes of age and the two seem to circle each other in the classroom and on campus, the romantic tension between them is palpable. But for reasons beyond their control, they cannot be together. In a somewhat inexplicable act of sacrifice (or possibly self-punishment), Charlie encourages his half brother, Nick, a golden child, to pursue May when the three of them eventually find themselves on the faculty at the same time. As this love triangle develops, readers will no doubt balk at certain twists that strain belief. Still, by the end, we’re invested in the characters and want to see them happy. And we understand the draw of Abbott, which seems humble yet magnificent—an enclave where people grow up and blossom in the rolling hills and the charming “honeycomb of crisscrossing paths.”

 

This article was originally published in the March 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

There’s something irresistible about a boarding school novel: the picturesque grounds; the tight-knit community of teachers and students and staff; the routine of seminars, lacrosse games and chapel; the inevitable romances that bud in such an insular world. In The Half Brother, her second novel after 2010’s sensual The Swimming Pool, Holly LeCraw has created an appealing setting in the Abbott School, a campus at the top of a ridge in north Massachusetts where azaleas and cherry blossoms surround the stone and clapboard buildings, and the grass almost shimmers with mist.
FictionLiterary Fiction

Station Eleven

Review by Eliza Borné

The end of the world might seem like an odd time to care about music and art; why worry about Shakespeare when civilization has collapsed? But in Canadian writer Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, it seems perfectly plausible that a Traveling Symphony would cross the wasteland that exists 20 years after most of the world’s population has died from a flu epidemic. They perform in parking lots, traveling from settlement to settlement and raiding long-abandoned houses for costumes. The musicians care for each other like family and work to hone their craft, because as Mandel writes early in this suspenseful and haunting novel: “What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still so much beauty.”

The narrative moves back and forth in time—before the collapse and after, introducing and reintroducing characters at different moments in their lives. This nonlinear structure contributes to the novel’s quick (and addictive) pace. A Hollywood actor dies during a production of King Lear, then the man who tried to revive him attempts to save himself from the quickly spreading flu. Kirsten, a child actor in Lear, survives the sickness and grows up to join the Traveling Symphony. A dangerous prophet gains power, and a British expat builds a museum of artifacts from the world before the collapse. Somehow, these disparate threads nest and connect, often returning to an exquisite graphic novel that links several of the storylines.

Though apocalyptic societies in literature may seem a bit tired, Station Eleven feels like something special and fresh: a story that occasionally has the adrenaline of The Hunger Games, bolstered by gorgeous sentences and complex characters who mourn for the fallen world, yet find joy in what remains. After playing Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Kirsten reflects on “the state of suspension that always came over her at the end of performances, a sense of having flown very high and landed incompletely, her soul pulling upward out of her chest.” Upon finishing Mandel’s wonderful novel, readers will know the feeling.

RELATED CONTENT: Read a Q&A with Emily St. John Mandel about Station Eleven.

This article was originally published in the September 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

BookPage Fiction Top Pick, September 2014: Creating beauty amid the ashes
FictionDebut Fiction

Two sides of a complicated friendship

Review by Eliza Borné

Early on in Rufi Thorpe’s elegant yet intense debut novel, the narrator, Mia, makes a prescient observation: “Normally, friendships between girls are stowed away in boxes of postcards and ticket stubs, but whatever was between me and Lorrie Ann was not so easy to set aside.”

The Girls from Corona del Mar spans multiple births, deaths, continents, and love affairs as Mia does the difficult work of looking back on her friendship with Lorrie Ann, her figurative “opposite twin.” At one point, she sums up the frustration of knowing Lor: “What if I didn’t really know her? What if all those years I just saw what I expected to see, what I wanted to see? . . . Can anyone know anyone?” This novel may convince readers that as much as we love our friends, the answer is no.

"Can anyone know anyone?” This novel may convince readers that as much as we love our friends, the answer is no.

Children of a Southern California “sleepy ocean hamlet” called Corona del Mar, Mia and Lorrie Ann are lifelong friends. In contrast with Lorrie Ann, who grew up “beautiful, pure, and good” with a happy and charming family, Mia always considered herself “the bad one” with the booze-loving mother. So the narrative of their friendship goes off track when Mia is accepted to Yale and Lorrie Ann becomes pregnant, marries a high school beau, gives birth to a severely disabled son, and becomes addicted to opiates. As Mia’s own star rises as a classics scholar, she unspools the concurrent—and increasingly distant—story of her friend, which becomes more and more of a mystery. As she says, “I was given only fleeting glimpses into the labyrinth of her mind, and so was forced to piece together her inner world through inference and observation.”

Not unlike many friends, this novel takes a while to get to know; Thorpe writes descriptive and unhurried sentences, and the character of Lorrie Ann feels alternately vivid and hazy, lovable and loathsome—like Mia, the reader will constantly grasp to understand her better. However, it’s worth it to take the time to get to know The Girls from Corona del Mar and contemplate the beautiful and thorny—even agonizing—sides of friendship.

Eliza Borné is an editor at the Oxford American.

 

Early on in Rufi Thorpe’s elegant yet intense debut novel, the narrator, Mia, makes a prescient observation: “Normally, friendships between girls are stowed away in boxes of postcards and ticket stubs, but whatever was between me and Lorrie Ann was not so easy to set aside.”

Fiction

A spiritual journey to connect past and present

Review by Eliza Borné

Julia Glass’ fifth novel borrows for its title a lyric from “What a Wonderful World,” the song made famous by Louis Armstrong. In Glass’ book, the reference comes up when Fenno McLeod, the Scottish expat introduced in Three Junes, is at a therapy session with his boyfriend. “The past is like the night: dark yet sacred,” the therapist says, neatly summing up the crux of this big-hearted story of family ties. “There is no day without night, no wakefulness without sleep, no present without past. They are constantly somersaulting over each other.” So it goes in And the Dark Sacred Night.

The plotline somersaults back and forth, from past to present, and there are several points of view—though they all come back to Kit Noonan, a scholar of Inuit art who is out of a job and in an emotional rut. Kit’s wife believes that he must solve the mystery of his paternity in order to move forward; Kit’s mother got pregnant as a teenager, and she’s always refused to reveal the identity of her young lover. (It doesn’t take long for readers to learn that Kit’s father is Malachy Burns, the witty and enigmatic music critic who died from AIDS in Three Junes.) To solve the mystery, Kit travels to the house of his ex-stepfather—a woodsy, tender Vermont ski instructor—and eventually on to Provincetown for a charged weekend with people who knew Malachy.

Knowledge of Three Junes isn’t a prerequisite to enjoying this companion novel, though readers who liked the National Book Award winner will be satisfied to find out what’s happened to Fenno in the years since Malachy’s death. (Sadly, Fenno’s charming West Village bookshop has gone the way of Border’s. His parrot Felicity is still very much in the picture.) Glass is skilled at capturing how people relate to one another, and her descriptions of grief are especially piercing, as when a mother reflects on the passage of time since her child’s death. The distance from the tragedy has only moved her pain “to a more distant room; when she enters that room, though she does less so often, the pain still blinds her with its keen, diamondlike brilliance.”

My one quibble with And the Dark Sacred Night is the blandness of Kit compared to the rich and varied supporting cast; I was more invested in the interior lives of the other characters than in Kit’s midlife crisis, which launches the book. Be patient and keep reading. It’s worth it to watch how the story unfolds. Like life, the plot can be wretched and wonderful—indeed, dark yet sacred.

Julia Glass’ fifth novel borrows for its title a lyric from “What a Wonderful World,” the song made famous by Louis Armstrong. In Glass’ book, the reference comes up when Fenno McLeod, the Scottish expat introduced in Three Junes, is at a therapy session with his boyfriend. “The past is like the night: dark yet sacred,” the therapist says, neatly summing up the crux of this big-hearted story of family ties.

FictionHistorical Fiction

Secrets revealed in the Blue Ridge Mountains

Review by Eliza Borné

By all appearances, Thea Atwell lives a charmed life. A child of Emathla, Florida, “a stone’s throw” from Gainesville, she rides horses and explores the lush land with her cousin and twin brother, insulated from the Great Depression by her family’s citrus fortune.

But in July of 1930, at age 15, Thea is sent to a year-round camp for girls in the Blue Ridge Mountains, an idyllic enclave where Southern young women go to become ladies. Because as the headmistress says, “Becoming a lady is not simply a thing which happens, like magic . . . becoming a lady is a lesson you must learn.” Turns out Thea has done something very bad, and the camp—far away from Florida—is her punishment.

Sensual, lush and surprising, this debut set in the North Carolina mountains is a story to savor.

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, Anton DiSclafani’s sensual debut novel, shifts back and forth from Emathla to North Carolina, building toward the “series of events” that leads to Thea’s banishment. The story hinges on this mysterious transgression, something so terrible that the Atwells do not send for Thea at Christmas or visit when she falls ill at camp. In spite of this, the headstrong young woman is able to settle into life at Yonahlossee, where she quickly makes a best friend and establishes herself as a top equestrienne. However, home is never far from her mind, even when Thea has grown to like her world of “horses and girls, girls and horses.” Readers who have experienced the joy of riding—the adrenaline of fearless jumping, the pleasure of grooming, the comfort of getting to know a horse—will appreciate the scenes of Thea with her animal.

DiSclafani unspools the drama slowly and seductively, tempting the reader with ominous letters from Florida and other hints from Thea’s past. This pace allows the author to dreamily revel in lovely settings—the picturesque camp in the mountains or the wilds of the Atwells’ land in Emathla—but at times the plot feels languid. Still, patient readers will be rewarded with a passionate climax. The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls is a story to savor in the heat of summer.

By all appearances, Thea Atwell lives a charmed life. A child of Emathla, Florida, “a stone’s throw” from Gainesville, she rides horses and explores the lush land with her cousin and twin brother, insulated from the Great Depression by her family’s citrus fortune.

But in July…

Fiction

Crisis management in an age of public mistakes and apologies

Review by Eliza Borné

Americans follow a familiar script when a powerful man falls from grace. We’re shocked, though news of such-and-such tweeting his private parts or engaging in an affair may secretly fill us with glee—especially when he’s forced to confess after a strategy of “deny, deny, deny.” Is it human nature to relish watching the train wreck of a public collapse? In Jonathan Dee’s A Thousand ­Pardons, his first novel since 2010’s The Privileges (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), we see another side of this story. It is human nature to forgive—if only the transgressors will let us.

Helen Armstead finds herself in a sticky situation after Ben, her corporate-lawyer husband, is accused of sexual assault and driving while intoxicated. He’s disbarred and checked into rehab, and Helen, a stay-at-home mom, has to find a way to support her family. She gets a job at a struggling public relations firm in New York City and discovers an untapped talent: She can turn the tide of a PR nightmare by making men apologize. By ’fessing up, the men are in charge of their own narratives.

One conversation Helen has with a client—an executive at a grocery store chain—underscores her intuitive philosophy. The grocery store is in deep trouble when a young mother claims she bought a bunch of bananas stuffed with razor blades. Naturally, the manager is indignant; he thinks the mom planted the razors. But Helen implores him to apologize: “If you keep denying what they believe, that just strengthens their suspicion. You’re already guilty in their minds.” If the man owns the accusations, then he’s the one “making the choices that drive the story from that point forward,” Helen says. This is because the public’s “ultimate desire is to forgive.”

The story also follows Ben as he attempts to rebuild his life, the Armsteads’ daughter as she attempts to rebel and a movie star in need of Helen’s services. However, Dee is at his amusing and clever best when he homes in on Helen and her no-nonsense approach to public relations (and personal survival). Readers will root for her success and evaluate how their own opinions have been shaped by some astute public relations.

RELATED CONTENT
Read a Q&A with Jonathan Dee for A Thousand Pardons.

Americans follow a familiar script when a powerful man falls from grace. We’re shocked, though news of such-and-such tweeting his private parts or engaging in an affair may secretly fill us with glee—especially when he’s forced to confess after a strategy of “deny, deny, deny.”…
Fiction

The dark arts of real life

Review by Eliza Borné

When beginning The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults, readers would be best advised to drop their expectations and instead pick up a pen and paper. The opening pages unfold as a series of introductions to more than 20 residents of the town of Pagford, in England’s West Country, and you may need a chart to keep up with the interconnected cast. The story starts shortly after the sudden death of Barry Fairbrother, a kindhearted member of the parish council. The townspeople’s reactions range from devastation and bewilderment to opportunistic scheming. Who in this group will take over Barry’s spot on the council? Termed a “casual vacancy,” this political opportunity is thought of as more than an empty space. It is a “magician’s pocket, full of possibilities.”

Some readers may think that any mention of magic is pure cruelty on Rowling’s part. Unlike Harry Potter, who is whisked from his awful home on Privet Drive to fight a bigger battle from Hogwarts, the characters in The Casual Vacancy must stay and duke it out in their own neighborhood, with only the aid of sharp tongues and fists. (Unlike Harry Potter, the people of Pagford do know how to use a computer.) But even though some of these personalities seem to channel Harry’s most unappealing acquaintances—Crabbe and Goyle (oafish cronies of Harry’s arch-nemesis), Vernon Dursley (Harry’s heartless guardian) and Rita Skeeter (truth-bending journalist) come to mind—it is impossible not to become engrossed in their insulated drama. Rowling is a master at fleshing out characters and describing their world, and she takes her time, examining moral dilemmas and town gossip from multiple points of view. Though it does not include spells and sparks, the climax of The Casual Vacancy is wrenching. We have come to know these characters and to root for them. Even though they are flawed—and some are repulsive—it is painful to watch them fall. Readers often want stories that “transport” them. The Casual Vacancy is a difficult read because it transports us to a sad and serious reality. The only fantasy here is the characters’ wish for a better life.

After Barry Fairbrother dies, there is one pressing reason why the people of Pagford are eager to name his replacement on the parish council: Barry was an advocate for the Fields (a public housing estate) and a nearby addiction clinic. With Barry out of the picture, Howard Mollison, the leader of the parish council, hopes to rid Pagford of the Fields and the clinic once and for all. He rallies for his son to run for Barry’s spot. On the other side is Colin Wall, deputy headmaster of the local school and Barry’s best friend. He feels a duty to run for the seat and complete his friend’s work.

The only fantasy here is the characters’ wish for a better life.

The Weedon family provides a close-up view of life in the Fields. Krystal Weedon, the 16-year-old daughter of the family, was well-liked by Barry, who coached her rowing team and believed in her in spite of her tough exterior. Though she heroically tries to keep her family together—her mother’s heroin addiction threatens to send Krystal and her young brother to foster care—Krystal is a symbol for the more genteel people of Pagford: She is a brash and ill-behaved example of how poverty poisons a middle-class town, especially when kids of drastically different backgrounds are able to go to school together. Many townspeople would rather wash their hands of the addicts and troublemakers from the Fields. In the midst of a charged presidential campaign in the United States that often pits the “haves” against the “have-nots,” the arguments against government assistance programs will sound all too familiar: These people are lazy, and these programs will never make a difference. Rowling’s characters fall on all different sides of this argument, and—true to life—there is no lasting solution.

Many of the scenes in The Casual Vacancy are heartbreaking, both extreme (rape, self-mutilation, domestic abuse) and mundane (parents who belittle their already self-loathing children). The cast of characters can be drawn into two categories—the parents and their teenage children—and it is the hardships of the kids that hurt the most. Fortunately, there are darkly funny moments, too, from the absurdity of small-town minutia to disastrous dinner parties. At more than 500 pages, the novel tends to drag in the middle—bogged down by parenthetical asides and the sheer weight of keeping up with so many characters. But the payoff is in the satisfying conclusion. It isn’t magical, but people do change. In a novel filled with so much fretting and despair, that is welcome news, indeed.

When beginning The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults, readers would be best advised to drop their expectations and instead pick up a pen and paper. The opening pages unfold as a series of introductions to more than 20 residents of the town…

FictionDebut Fiction

A 21st-century tale of wonders

Review by Eliza Borné

Robin Sloan’s funny debut novel, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, is both a celebration and a send-up of the clashing worlds of technology and those who cling to dead-tree books. After losing a job at the corporate headquarters of NewBagel, where “ex-Googlers” developed software to create the perfect bagel, Clay Jannon gets hired at an unconventional bookstore in San Francisco. Unconventional because it’s open 24 hours, has very few customers, is vertical—there are three stories worth of books you have to climb a ladder to retrieve—and the books are written in secret code. What at first seems to be a front for an illegal operation turns out to be connected with a cult, and Clay goes on a mission to solve the mystery that has been plaguing its members for centuries, enlisting the help of a quirky team, like the Google acolyte he’s dating, the friend who got rich by developing “boob-simulation software” and Mr. Penumbra himself, the hopeful store proprietor.

Though there’s a code to be cracked in these pages, the real treat of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is Sloan’s energetic storytelling—and the many, many lines that you will surely want to share on Facebook and tweet to the masses. (“He has the strangest expression on his face—the emotive equivalent of 404 PAGE NOT FOUND.” Or: “If fidgets were Wikipedia edits, I would have completely revamped the entry on guilt by now, and translated it into five new languages.”) Readers who don’t know a hashtag from a wiki will still appreciate the book’s ultimate message about friendship, and the conclusion that nothing—not even a world full of programmers and hackers—can substitute for a cunning mind.

Robin Sloan’s funny debut novel, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, is both a celebration and a send-up of the clashing worlds of technology and those who cling to dead-tree books. After losing a job at the corporate headquarters of NewBagel, where “ex-Googlers” developed software to create…

FictionHistorical Fiction

Finding magic in a time of cruelty

Review by Eliza Borné

Stories enrich us in different ways. They entertain us and take us to faraway lands. They give insight into the lives of others, and aid us in our own introspection. For Raami, the child narrator of In the Shadow of the Banyan, stories bring salvation, giving her the strength to survive the Cambodian genocide. Raami contracted polio as an infant, and her father tells her stories from a young age, saying, “When I thought you couldn’t walk, I wanted to make sure you could fly . . . I told you stories to give you wings.” Raami holds these stories inside herself during impossible circumstances, maintaining the will to live.

This haunting debut novel is based on the amazing life story of author Vaddey Ratner, who was five when the Khmer Rouge came to power in the 1970s. Like Raami, she was born as minor royalty, forced out of her home in Phnom Penh, separated from family members and forced to perform hard labor until she nearly starved. In an author’s note, Ratner explains that she wrote a novel instead of a memoir because she wanted to reinvent and reimagine her experiences where “memory alone is inadequate.” Although the fictionalized story of Raami—who is seven when the story begins—stands on its own, the reader’s knowledge of Ratner’s close personal connection to the material makes the novel feel even more intimate and devastating.

Remarkably, In the Shadow of the Banyan is an uplifting story, as Raami’s humanity—her fierce choice of life—is juxtaposed with the cruelty around her. Ratner’s lyrical prose and graceful descriptions serve as a lovely counterpart to bleak situations, reminding us of literature’s ability to transcend. Her novel will no doubt inspire readers to learn more about this painful chapter in world history.

Stories enrich us in different ways. They entertain us and take us to faraway lands. They give insight into the lives of others, and aid us in our own introspection. For Raami, the child narrator of In the Shadow of the Banyan, stories bring salvation,…

Children's & YAPicture Book

Comfort in a mother’s absence

Review by Eliza Borné

At one point or another, all children will have to say goodbye to their mothers for the first time—whether for hours (nursery school) or days (a business trip for mom). In Meet Me at the Moon, Gianna Marino captures the pain of parting with a parent, and the comfort that comes from remembering that parent’s love while she is away.

Little One is an elephant on the African plains. During a drought, his mother “must climb the highest mountain to ask the skies for rain.” Little One is upset at the prospect of being alone, but his mother tells him that he shouldn’t worry. She says, “You will feel my love in everything around you.” The baby elephant needs only to listen to the wind, feel the warmth of the sun and seek out the brightest star in the sky. He will hear, feel and see his mother’s love all around him in nature. Besides, while Mama is away, Little One isn’t really alone, since friendly giraffes and zebras look after him.

Marino’s quiet story of separation is sweet and relatable, although it is her gorgeous illustrations, vivid and textured, that will have young readers eagerly turning pages. The gentle animals loom large on the page—loving and expressive—and the African landscape is pictured in bright colors. After Mama leaves, children will be able to feel her presence through the swirling wind—depicted as a stream of dots—and the warm beating sun. They will especially feel Little One’s relief when he remembers to sing out the calling song after the rain has come and gone; Mama suddenly reappears on the plains, and the small family is united and overjoyed. After all, while it may be reassuring to have reminders of a loved one, there is nothing better than saying “I love you” in person and getting a big hug from mom when she finally comes home.

At one point or another, all children will have to say goodbye to their mothers for the first time—whether for hours (nursery school) or days (a business trip for mom). In Meet Me at the Moon, Gianna Marino captures the pain of parting with a…

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Young word nerds unite!

Review by Eliza Borné

Meg Wolitzer has written a string of smart, critically acclaimed novels for adults in the last decade. In her newest book, The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman, the main characters are middle schoolers (not moms). The action of the plot surrounds a national Scrabble tournament—and it’s a hilarious, heartwarming story of suspense, friendship and family dynamics.

Life could be better for Duncan Dorfman. He and his single mother have moved to Drilling Falls, Pennsylvania, where they live with Duncan’s great-aunt Djuna in a “squirrel-colored” house that smells like yams and beans. At Drilling Falls Middle School, Duncan’s classmates call him “Lunch Meat,” and his only friend is video game-obsessed Andrew Tanizaki. In a desperate moment, Duncan reveals that he has recently discovered an unusual talent: He can read with his fingers. This greatly interests Carl Slater, a competitive Scrabble player (and jerk) who aspires to go all the way at the national Youth Scrabble Tournament and take home the $10,000 prize. Carl recruits Duncan to be his partner, knowing that he can draw only the best tiles. What Carl doesn’t anticipate is that Duncan will fall in love with Scrabble—and find that cheating takes all the fun out of the game.

At the tournament in Yakamee, Florida, Duncan meets April Blunt and Nate Saviano, two players who have their own sets of problems. April is the lone word nerd in a family of jocks, and Nate’s dad was a runner-up at the Youth Scrabble Tournament years ago, and has forced his son to live out his dream. In between nail-biting Scrabble games, excursions to the creepy amusement park Funswamp and skateboarding mishaps, the group of players forms a tight-knit group. They realize how lucky they are to meet other kids obsessed with words. “When the weekend was over, they would return to the real world, where no one knew what bingo-bango-bongs were, and where vowel dumps sounded like something embarrassing that could happen to you on the toilet.”

Equally appealing for boys and girls, The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman captures the experience of not fitting in at school—and the pure joy of finally finding your niche. Without being preachy, Wolitzer fits in a lesson on ethics, as readers will consider whether it would be fair for Duncan to use his secret talent, even if he’d never get caught. Young Scrabble fans will delight in learning new tips, and readers who have not yet discovered the game will appreciate its puzzle-like aspect—and maybe be convinced that word games are cool and give Scrabble a try.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Wolitzer for The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman.

Meg Wolitzer has written a string of smart, critically acclaimed novels for adults in the last decade. In her newest book, The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman, the main characters are middle schoolers (not moms). The action of the plot surrounds a national Scrabble tournament—and it’s…

Mystery & Suspense

Betrayal in the bayou

Review by Eliza Borné

Read just a chapter of Sandra Brown’s Lethal and you’ll figure out in a hurry why the Texas-born author has written so many New York Times bestsellers (60, in fact). She sets the stakes high and early—and you can’t help but keep reading.

Honor Gillette is a smart, practical and attractive young mother living in the small town of Tambour, Louisiana. She’s also a widow, since a car accident that killed her police officer husband. Though Honor is devoted to Eddie’s memory, he’s been gone for two years, and she’s managed to create a happy life for herself and her four-year-old daughter, Emily.

That all goes out the window when Emily sees a bloody man in the front yard.  Assuming the man is hurt, Honor (pausing from icing cupcakes) attempts to help—until he pulls out a gun and forces her back inside. It turns out the man, Lee Coburn, is a suspected murderer who opened fire at a warehouse the night before, and he’s now wanted by the police.

Though he initially seems like your typical pushy and cold-hearted criminal, Coburn turns out to be a bit more complicated than that. It’s not food and shelter from the cops he’s after, and he’s not out to murder a mom and her daughter. Instead, Coburn has specifically sought out Honor for information she may be hiding about her late husband . . . who may not have been as honest as he seemed. And Coburn may not be as evil as he appears, either.

Before long, Honor and Emily have been swept up in Coburn’s quest for clues, and they’re all three running from the law. Honor doesn’t know who to trust, or even if Coburn is good or bad. Her world is turned upside down when Coburn reveals that there’s an illegal human- and drug-trafficking trade going strong in her town, and some of her husband’s lifelong friends might be involved—and want her dead.

Readers have come to expect such dramatic plot twists from Sandra Brown, who started her writing career in 1981 and now has more than 80 million books in print. A native of Waco, Texas, she worked in modeling and television before turning to writing full-time.

A master at building suspense, Brown is especially good at keeping her readers guessing. Just when you think you can trust a character, she will plant the seed of suspicion, and you’ll be forced to configure the puzzle in a whole new way. 

Lethal is packed with chase scenes and action, but not to the detriment of developed characters. Readers will passionately root for Honor and Emily’s safety, and be tugged by the widow’s dilemma: To trust an accused murderer . . . or not?

Get ready to raise your blood pressure a few notches this fall with Sandra Brown’s Lethal—and I dare you to guess the identity of the villain.

Read just a chapter of Sandra Brown’s Lethal and you’ll figure out in a hurry why the Texas-born author has written so many New York Times bestsellers (60, in fact). She sets the stakes high and early—and you can’t help but keep reading.

Honor Gillette…

Fiction

Heartbreak and charm in the South

Review by Eliza Borné

The best of Southern fiction depicts both the charms and the underbelly of regional communities, and Jenny Wingfield’s The Homecoming of Samuel Lake fits nicely within this tradition. The story takes place on a farm in the south of Arkansas in 1956, where the charms range from spunky children creating worlds for themselves on large stretches of property, to family suppers complete with made-from-scratch biscuits, to neighbors who operate on the honor system. This idealized, simple life is rocked by no small list of heartbreaks: animal abuse, suicide, rape, murder and the near falling apart of a family.

Samuel Lake is a preacher, and every summer his wife, Willadee, and their three kids go without him to the Moses family reunion. His wife is a Moses, and the reunion is on her parents’ farm; Samuel can’t attend because of an annual conference of Methodist ministers. This year, however, is different. A tragic event takes place during the reunion, and Samuel learns at the conference that he’s lost his church. Samuel and Willadee decide to stay at the Moses farm all summer with their clan: eldest son Noble, who longs to be “formidable,” book-loving youngest son Bienville, and daughter Swan, a charming 11-year-old spitfire with a big mouth and a mind of her own. And yes, her name is Swan Lake.

Wingfield has also written screenplays for The Man in the Moon (a 1991 movie starring Reese Witherspoon) and The Outsider (a 2002 Western with Naomi Watts), and there are plenty of cinematic moments in The Homecoming of Samuel Lake. Drama runs high on the Moses farm, not least of all because the family runs two businesses on their land—a grocery store and a bar, which doesn’t always sit well with Samuel the preacher (although the bar does attract a crowd when he holds a tent revival across the yard). All hell really breaks loose when Swan harbors the young son of a mean horse trainer—the villain of the story—and when Willadee’s conniving sister-in-law decides she’d rather be married to Samuel.

There are many threads and personalities packed into this novel, and at times I wondered how it was all going to come together. Due to a quick narrative pace and funny, kind-hearted characters, though, readers will gladly stick it out and immerse themselves in the world of Samuel Lake.

The best of Southern fiction depicts both the charms and the underbelly of regional communities, and Jenny Wingfield’s The Homecoming of Samuel Lake fits nicely within this tradition. The story takes place on a farm in the south of Arkansas in 1956, where the charms…

Sign Up

Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.

Sign up now

Trending Features

All Features