Melissa Brown

Fiction

Journeys to joy, contentment and renewal

Feature by Melissa Brown

At its best and most engaging, Christian fiction wrestles with issues of belief in a way that resonates with the reader, encouraging self-reflection and growth. These three novels present life in full, shining a light on its heartaches but also its opportunities for redemption and renewal. The truths the characters in each story learn, oftentimes painfully, can be applied to readers’ own journeys of faith.

In The Sky Beneath My Feet, Lisa Samson introduces us to Beth, a mother of two teenage sons and wife of a men’s pastor at a stereotypical megachurch.

Beth’s first-person narration, filled with questions and stream-of-consciousness shifts that at times resemble journal entries, indicates that all is not well. Beth is looking for more and not finding it. Her husband Rick is, too, but he’s decided to spend his one-month sabbatical from church duties holed up in the shed behind their house waiting to hear from God, rather than go on the beach vacation that Beth envisioned.

Left alone to navigate the challenging lives of her sons and her own heart’s questions, Beth struggles to reconcile who she was with who she is. As in her novels Quaker Summer and Embrace Me, Samson assembles a motley cast of supporting characters for Beth to interact with on the way to finding God and herself again. I alternated between laughing and cringing at Beth’s onslaught of unexpected encounters: from watching an eccentric artist neighbor use Rick as her muse for a church mural, to joining up with peace marchers, to rescuing a girl from a drug overdose in an inner-city halfway house.

Besides entertaining the reader, Samson does an excellent job of relating the feeling of being stuck in place with the wheels spinning—something both believers and nonbelievers can relate to. As the novel draws to a close, Rick and Beth find themselves where they were desperately seeking to be, though it wasn’t achieved through their efforts after all.

SOUTHERN CHARM

Denise Hildreth Jones’ Secrets Over Sweet Tea revels in its Southern setting of Franklin, Tennessee. Much like her popular Savannah from Savannah series, this book is peppered with endearments and occasional outlandish “Southernisms” that will make anyone who’s spent time in the South—including this native Alabamian—feel welcome. 

Southern charm aside, the pain Jones’ three main characters are dealing with is real and universal. Grace, an early morning news anchor, is devastated by her broken marriage. Zach, a divorce lawyer, has lost direction and meaning in his life—and risks losing his twin daughters and wife because of his costly attempts to fill those voids. And Scarlett Jo, the lively pastor’s wife who loves to get up close and personal with everyone she meets, seems like the most open book of them all, until her secret surfaces at last. Jones unfurls each person’s story one piece at a time, revealing the fractures in her characters’ lives, the friendships they build and the steps they must take to reclaim their hearts.

As an author’s note attests, Secrets Over Sweet Tea grew out of a time of great pain and a journey to healing in Jones’ personal life. Her characters’ lives are not neatly sewn up or perfectly polished (as is too often the case with inspirational fiction), another reason to appreciate this redeeming story.

CHANGED BY GRACE

One Sunday by Carrie Gerlach Cecil also has a Southern setting—and is also partly drawn from the author’s experience. The story’s broken protagonist, L.A. socialite Alice Ferguson, is struggling to adjust to life in Nashville following a one-night stand with a Southern doctor that results in pregnancy.

Agreeing to have Burton’s child, and to move in with the good doctor, uproots Alice from a lifestyle of drinking, drugging and reporting on celebrity exploits via her online tabloid, Trashville. With her new husband on call more often than not, Alice turns to her neighbor Tim, a former pro football player turned pastor. Boredom and a hunger for his wife LeChelle’s fried chicken are her initial reasons for striking up a friendship with this conservative couple, but it becomes something more. Eventually she accepts Tim’s invitation to church, and we learn more about Alice’s past, via flashbacks, as she alternately smirks at and soaks up the worship service. 

Cecil writes in a fast-paced style that cuts from scene to scene like a movie, rifling through the fragmented memories of her displaced protagonist and bringing them into focus. (Her previous novel, Emily’s Reasons Why Not, became an ABC television series.) Pop-culture references abound, and Alice’s biting commentary is always at the ready. At times, the snark is a bit much, but as Alice sifts through her past, she starts to respond to the pain she’s bottled up and lets her façade slip. Cecil writes movingly about believing and trusting in God in prose that will touch the reader as the message sinks deep into Alice’s heart. This is a riveting story of profound change. 

At its best and most engaging, Christian fiction wrestles with issues of belief in a way that resonates with the reader, encouraging self-reflection and growth. These three novels present life in full, shining a light on its heartaches but also its opportunities for redemption and…

Fiction

Stories of faith, hope and love

Feature by Melissa Brown

Belief in a higher power has been part of the human experience across time and cultures, and it can permeate fiction as well. In a small town or during a world war, within both romantic attachments and friendships, Christian faith forms the framework and the core of these inspirational stories.

Set in Holland during World War II, Snow on the Tulips finds Cornelia de Vries and her 20-year-old brother, Johan, swept up in the action as Dutch Resistance fighters push back against Nazi occupation.

Cornelia has sworn to keep Johan from being rounded up to fight for Hitler, but protecting him becomes more difficult when the conflict enters her home in the form of a half-dead Resistance fighter named Gerrit. He’s a threat to their carefully constructed neutrality—and to her heart, long shuttered since her husband’s death on their wedding night.

In an adventurous tale that reads like a movie script, Liz Tolsma weaves faith in seamlessly, moving the reader with her characters’ convictions to create a captivating debut novel. Their heartfelt prayers show that faith can grow even in times of unspeakable hardship and fear.

GOTHIC CHARM

The first in a planned trilogy, Jessica Dotta’s Born of Persuasion blends all things Gothic and romantic into a winding tale of intrigue in early 19th-century England.

The fortunes of young Julia Elliston, orphaned after her mother’s suicide, depend upon the charity of men. Some may be villains and others saints—but the novel is slow to reveal who is which.

Julia’s position in society is fragile, and her naiveté and vulnerability contrast sharply with the novel’s foreboding setting and the hazy motives of those she meets, including her mysterious guardian and the brooding, charismatic Mr. Macy, who seems to know all but shares little. Julia has been betrothed since childhood to Edward, who complicates matters further when he takes orders to become a vicar—Julia’s father was a well-known and ardent atheist who passed his beliefs on to his daughter.

Though verbose at times, Dotta’s style is clearly influenced by the Brontës, and manages to keep the reader engaged through every twist and turn.

A SOUTHERN JOURNEY

Competition for oil-drilling rights collides with an eclectic artists colony’s vow to hold onto their land in Sweet Olive, a Southern tale by Louisiana author Judy Christie.

Camille Gardner finds herself exiled (in a manner of speaking) to Sweet Olive, Louisiana, after botching a previous job for the oil company owned by her uncle. It’s painfully near the town where her father left her and her mother behind years before, never to return—a fact that brings this old hurt to the surface.

Christie writes in an inviting, colloquial style, full of great turns of phrase that make her characters’ speech feel true to life. It’s Camille’s job to get these artists to sign over the rights to drill on their land, but once she meets them and sees their work, she’s drawn in. As Camille falls for the beauty around her—and the lawyer who opposes her at every turn—the journey leads her somewhere surprising.

A LOVE THAT LASTS

A sweet story of enduring love and faithfulness, Forever Friday by Timothy Lewis shares the unique romance of Pearl “Huck” Huckabee and Gabe Alexander. For decades, Gabe sent his beloved a weekly postcard inscribed with a simple poem extolling his devotion.

Lewis, a playwright, paints a convincing portrait of the couple, and their voices are spot-on and beautiful. Seeing their relationship evolve on paper is almost like watching it unfold in real life. Hope and faith are the hinges of all their plans, from the night they meet and fall instantly in love in 1926 and through the years as they grow old together.

The narrative moves between Huck and Gabe’s relationship at different stages and 2006, when Adam Colby discovers the postcards while handling their estate sale. Colby studies the archive, hoping to find healing after his divorce. As he immerses himself in their story, he begins to find his way.

While the religious thread of the story is kept in the background, the love between Huck and Gabe is the heart of Forever Friday, and their steadfastness, though fictional, will inspire.

Belief in a higher power has been part of the human experience across time and cultures, and it can permeate fiction as well. In a small town or during a world war, within both romantic attachments and friendships, Christian faith forms the framework and the…

FictionMystery

Forging ahead, finding your faith

Feature by Melissa Brown

Failure and sin, redemption and healing form the backbone of these five novels, much as they do in the Bible that inspires writers of Christian fiction. From thrilling mystery and longed-for relationships to tests of will and heart, these works of fiction highlight God’s grace to man—who desperately needs it.

In Billy Coffey’s The Devil Walks in Mattingly, past misdeeds haunt a husband and wife in a way that blurs the line between the real world and something beyond. The sleepy town of Mattingly, Virginia, recalls Flannery O’Connor with its glimpses of the grotesque and supernatural. In this small town—prone to gossip and an inability to let bygones be bygones—the past and the present collide when heinous crimes are committed and an evil is let loose.

Coffey introduces his readers to Jake and Kate Barnett and their shared demons, centered on a boy named Philip McBride. A third party, a shadowy figure named Taylor, emerges broken from the backwoods that have borne witness to the whole shameful story. Soon the events of 20 years ago press their weight on Kate, Jake and Taylor, and sweep new victims into the arc of pain.

The story unwinds slowly and with a convincing voice that draws the reader deep into the unexplainable. The evil that wreaks havoc on Mattingly shakes many out of their stupor and awakens them to the possibility of forgiveness. Extricating themselves from the darkness of the past will mean bravely forging headlong into it.

FOLLOW YOUR CONSCIENCE
“It’s Andersonville. Men die for no meaning.” Such is the overwhelming impression felt while reading Tracy Groot’s The Sentinels of Andersonville, which focuses on the evils both within and without the infamous Civil War prison. Yankee soldiers died by the thousands in squalid conditions that Groot describes with a deft accuracy, interspersed with historical accounts and journal entries from men who died and men who lived.

A privileged but well-meaning Southern belle named Violet Stiles discovers the shocking abuses at Andersonville. Aided by a possible suitor named Dance Pickett and a Rebel soldier named Emery Jones, who had to deliver his newfound Yankee friend to the prison, they form a society to bring the horrors to light. Their hometown of Americus, Georgia, is not far from Andersonville, but its residents wish to remain removed from the goings-on there, even when confronted with the sad reality. Groot ably captures the despair of prisoners and soldiers alike, as well as the divided emotions of the Southern townsfolk, who have lost sons to the cause and hate the Yankees but want to be “good Christians.” When told of the appalling cesspool that is Andersonville, many won’t believe, others believe but won’t act, and still more focus only on the technicalities and red tape involved. Groot truthfully renders the struggle between patriotism and Christ’s call to help the suffering regardless of their affiliation.

THE CALL OF THE PRAIRIE
As in her previous “prairie romances,” Janette Oke highlights the timidity as well as the growing perseverance of a young protagonist making her way in the rough world. For Where Courage Calls, Oke shares the authorial role with her daughter, Laurel Oke Logan, and the two relate a tale that is as much about family relationships (those born and those made) as it is about faith.

Elizabeth “Beth” Thatcher has embarked on a journey to teach school in the Canadian mining town of Coal Valley, far from the shelter and comfort of her family home. The story reads like Beth’s journal as she encounters obstacles in her new community—having all her belongings stolen at the train station, being treated as an outsider, struggling with illness and uncovering the threat hidden in the woods around her new home. Her growing love for the children she teaches as well as the town’s maligned Italian immigrant workers fuels her to meet the many challenges of frontier life. Eventually her mistakes give way to truly following the call of Christ as she endeavors to improve her pupils’ lives. Readers of Oke’s previous books, which include the best-selling Love Comes Softly series, will find much to enjoy in this new novel, filled with her familiar balance of just the right amount of romance and mystery.

VIRTUAL SEDUCTION
What if you could create your perfect friend? One who literally was always available? That’s the driving question behind John Faubion’s suspenseful tale of the seductive power of technology, Friend Me. The fictional Virtual Friend Me software takes email or social networking sites and goes one better: allowing users to create the friend or companion they seek.

Scott and Rachel Douglas, parents of two, succumb to the software’s promise. Given her husband’s long hours at work, Rachel needs someone she can talk to, so she re-creates the best friend she lost to cancer. Scott sees what the intriguing new software offers his wife, and, in a life-altering decision, chooses to create a female friend. Unsurprisingly, things take an intimate turn. Little do Rachel and Scott know that Melissa Montalvo, the woman behind the cutting-edge software, has taken a personal interest in the couple. Convinced that Scott is the perfect man for her, the unhinged Melissa begins a systematic effort to break them up by any means.

The twists here are numerous, and the revealed details of Melissa’s backstory grow more disturbing. Though the characters are somewhat sketchily drawn, their dissatisfaction and mistakes lead them plausibly down a very wrong road. Will they be able to change course before it’s too late?

NO SIMPLE DEATH
Amber Wright runs the Amish Artisan Village in Middlebury, Indiana, a collection of shops where people come to admire a simpler way of life, buy handicrafts and enjoy the unique culture, charm and cooking. It is not a place where people die mysteriously. Yet as Murder Simply Brewed opens, one of her store owners, Ethan, dies in a way that is ruled natural at first. Until, that is, odd and threatening events occur and curious clues start piling up. Prophetic verses from the book of Daniel are found scrawled in blood-red paint, along with other offerings meant to frighten.

To uncover the truth, Amber and her begrudging, widowed neighbor, Tate, follow the trail. Soon, everyone from the man’s wife to his co-workers and mentally unstable sister becomes a suspect. Vannetta Chapman keeps the action suspenseful, and the who-done-it mostly unpredictable as her Amish and English characters work together to solve the mystery. Out of even such dreadful circumstances come moments of grace: between Amber and her Amish employee Hannah and between Amber and Tate, who had each given up on love.

Failure and sin, redemption and healing form the backbone of these five novels, much as they do in the Bible that inspires writers of Christian fiction. From thrilling mystery and longed-for relationships to tests of will and heart, these works of fiction highlight God’s grace to man—who desperately needs it.

Fiction

Memorable journeys of faith

Feature by Melissa Brown

The centuries may differ, but the faith remains the same. From present-day America, to an Atlantic crossing in the 1700s, to a newly established 19th-century Seattle, these three inspirational novels show that while circumstances may vary, the need to trust in God does not. 

In Christa Parrish’s fifth novel, Still Life, photographer Julian Goetz is shooting a magazine story and, while on assignment, meets young Ada Mitchell. Hosea-like, Julian responds to God’s call to marry Ada, the daughter of a militant religious “prophet” and founder of a secluded community.

Soon after their marriage, as Ada is still trying to find her place in the new world, Julian dies in a plane crash. Katherine Walker, unhappy in her own marriage and pursuing an affair to the detriment of those she loves, gave up her seat on that plane for Julian—and now she must face her reasons for doing so.

For Ada, Julian’s loss is both a death and a rebirth. Without him, she must navigate life outside the brownstone they briefly shared. Her journey to a life of her own is guided by five photographs he took—and brings her into contact with Evan, Katherine’s son.

Christy Award winner Parrish deftly guides the reader through the past and present of all her characters. She has a gift for imagery—for capturing, like a camera, all that a scene can hold. Her writing is poetic as she plumbs the angles and emotions of tragedy. As we witness the pangs of Ada’s indoctrination and wounds made by Katherine’s mistakes, Parrish reminds us that even in a broken world, there is still life worth living. Still Life is a story of starting over with the pieces that are left and building more than there was before—mercifully, by God’s grace.

AMISH AT SEA
Persecuted for their beliefs, followers of Jacob Amman in Germany undertake an arduous sea voyage to a new world aboard the Charming Nancy in 1737 in Anna’s Crossing. Though she was reluctant to make the voyage, Anna König was selected because of her ability to speak English.

There are tensions between the Amish and the others on the ship. Bairn, the ship’s Scottish carpenter, begrudges the presence of these Peculiars, as he calls them. Having them on board stirs up his ire—and something else long buried. Curious 9-year-old Felix, whom Anna is tasked with watching over, adventurously explores the ship, his exuberance giving the story its energy. The crew, and the Amish and Mennonite passengers, must deal with deprivations, death, storms and a pivotal encounter with a slave ship.

Author Suzanne Woods Fisher is known for evoking the Amish experience, and the hardships and lurking dangers of the Atlantic crossing are brought to life here as well. She draws from historical fact: A ship of the same name set sail with Amish aboard from Rotterdam to Philadelphia in 1737, in what was one of the first significant Amish crossings to America.

Anna’s steadfast trust in God is sorely tested over the months-long journey, yet she still makes strong arguments for trusting Him during those trials. These arguments slowly begin to reach Bairn, whose resistance to faith in Anna’s God is thoughtfully rendered. The touch of romance and many plot twists in Anna’s Crossing keep Fisher’s story entertaining as well as genuinely interesting.

SPOUSELESS IN SEATTLE
Two young women are at the center of best-selling author Tracie Peterson’s quaint story set at a training school for brides in late 19th-century Seattle, Steadfast Heart. Abrianna Cunningham and Lenore Fulcher make unlikely friends. Outspoken Abrianna cares for the city’s poor, while Lenore lives largely in a privileged world whose rules are dictated by society and her parents. Then Kolbein Booth arrives from Chicago to find his runaway sister, Greta, and changes the game for all three young people—as well as that of the matrons who run the Madison School for Brides. It appears that while suitors mingle with potential mates, more insidious affairs are being conducted in the city streets.

Meanwhile, Lenore experiences an awakening, Abrianna suffers a loss and Kolbein finds himself drawn to Lenore. As change swirls about them all, they must remember to find their anchor in God, trusting him for the best outcome.

Steadfast Heart has a sequel coming, and like any good first book in a series, it leaves just enough questions unanswered to make readers eager for the next installment. What this tale may lack in depth, it possesses in earnestness and the author’s desire for her characters to reflect a sincere growth in faith.

 

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

The centuries may differ, but the faith remains the same. From present-day America, to an Atlantic crossing in the 1700s, to a newly established 19th-century Seattle, these three inspirational novels show that while circumstances may vary, the need to trust in God does not.
FictionComing of Age

The Archer

Review by Melissa Brown

Vidya is a girl set apart in her time, growing up in a crowded tenement in 1960s Bombay, a place that does not value girls as it does boys. She chafes against men’s unwanted attention, and her dark skin makes her feel alienated by her own extended family. Her mother’s mysterious ways perplex her, and her father’s demands keep a distance between them. 

But Vidya’s restlessness is a gift, though it will take many years for her to understand and embrace it. As she journeys slowly into womanhood, she takes up a serious, devoted study of kathak, the storytelling dance that mesmerized her as a little girl. Her process of becoming forms the heartbeat of The Archer, and the narrative shifts from third person to first as she matures and claims her place in her own story.

Shruti Swamy’s visceral first novel after her critically acclaimed story collection, A House Is a Body, The Archer blends the corporeal and the spiritual in a story about what it means to be a woman and an artist. Swamy’s writing is transportive, precise and almost hypnotic, not unlike the controlled and expressive dance form that Vidya loves. The author’s perceptive and observant eye misses nothing, from a single ripening mango on a tree to the inner workings of a young female mind. In depicting Vidya’s interior world, Swamy captures both the dark side and long-awaited light of dawn, of discovery, of fulfillment. There is darkness, yes, but also “those dreams where you remember you could fly.” 

As Vidya maneuvers through worlds—home, school, women, men and dance, always dance—she discovers life. As a child, she “wanted to be marked, altered, changed. Split open,” and by the end of the novel, she is.

As a child, Vidya “wanted to be marked, altered, changed. Split open,” and by the end of Shruti Swamy’s novel, she is.
FictionPopular Fiction

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot

Review by Melissa Brown

When we ask questions about life, it’s often the why that most unsettles us: why bad things happen, why we didn’t get that job or marry that person—and when the time comes, why we die. Even though that last question kicks off The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot, Marianne Cronin’s first novel brims with so much life.

Lenni Pettersson is terminally ill and perceptive in the way of 17-year-olds who've experienced more trauma than most people their age. She meets 83-year-old Margot Macrae in a memorable first encounter that turns comically conspiratorial: Lenni covers for Margot while Margot’s engaged in pulling something out of a large hospital rubbish bin. They’re both alone in the hospital, and each woman soon realizes that she’s found a kindred spirit.

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Captivated by Margot’s long and storied life, Lenni concocts a creative scheme. They will make paintings of pivotal moments from their lives, one for each of their combined 100 years, as a way to chronicle their stories and transport themselves away from the reality of hospital beds and surgeries. As they paint, their creative body of work begins to surprise them, as well as their fellow artist patients and excited art teacher, Pippa. With the encouragement of hospital chaplain Father Arthur and a favorite nurse, Lenni and Margot press on through memories both painful and breathtaking.

With love and tenderness on every page, this imaginative novel is a joy to read. British novelist Cronin captures all the emotions and desires of these two tenacious women as they relive their pasts in order to make something permanent and leave their mark. Her easy prose sings with real warmth, candor and humor.

Small in scope but large in humanity, The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot illuminates the steadying force of a heartfelt connection. Even in the face of death’s inevitability, friendship can be found, forgiveness can flourish and fun can ease fear.

Even in the face of death’s inevitability, friendship can be found, forgiveness can flourish and fun can ease fear.
FictionHistorical Fiction

The Elephant of Belfast

Review by Melissa Brown

Loosely based on true events—and the real people and animals that played a part—The Elephant of Belfast captures the turmoil of both a city and a young woman’s life during World War II.

S. Kirk Walsh’s first novel opens in 1940, just as German bombardment begins to threaten Northern Ireland. The Bellevue Zoo has welcomed a new elephant named Violet to its menagerie, parading the pachyderm through the streets of Belfast with all the pomp of a visiting dignitary. Onlookers are bewildered, but young zookeeper Hettie Quin finds a sense of purpose in the elephant’s presence.

Hettie’s older sister is dead and her father absent, and she tiptoes around the house she shares with her mother, Rose. Hettie wants to be taken seriously as the only female zookeeper at Bellevue, though navigating her terse boss and the physical demands of working with large exotic animals proves challenging. But Hettie steadily proves to herself that she is capable, even resilient, despite the nearly constant state of upheaval caused by her tense relationship with Rose, confusion about the opposite sex, the ever-present Catholic and Protestant divide and the threat of bombing raids.

When the Luftwaffe bombs start to fall in April 1941, caring for Violet becomes Hettie’s sole focus. In a time where everyone is looking for something solid to hold on to, Hettie has Violet, and their relationship keeps the young woman from falling into total despair.

With such a unique premise, the novel remains engaging despite occasionally clichéd prose and a plot that gets bogged down in detail. Hettie’s grief and longing are palpable, her mounting losses real and tangible. Through heart-stirring scenes of violence and destruction in a city unprepared for the chaos of war, Walsh showcases a flair for description and emotion, and for rendering ordinary lives amid extraordinary circumstances.

In a time where everyone is looking for something solid to hold on to, a young woman’s relationship to an elephant keeps her from falling into total despair.
FictionPopular Fiction

Waiting for the Night Song

Review by Melissa Brown

The past has a way of catching up to us, often when we least expect it. In Waiting for the Night Song, the idyllic childhood summer of two girls implodes after a shocking event.

Once close friends, Cadie Kessler and Daniela Garcia went their separate ways after witnessing a deadly argument. Twenty-five years is a long time to live with a burden like theirs, but they’ve tried to move on with their lives. When the secret buried in their childhood woods is exposed, everything they thought they knew about that summer will be questioned.

In her first novel, journalist Julie Carrick Dalton extols the virtues and beauty of the natural world and laments the forces that threaten it, passionately capturing the devastation that a fire can cause and the helplessness people feel in the face of such uncontrollable disaster. Adult Cadie works as an entomologist, trying to protect the New Hampshire woods she loves from an invasive species and the ever-present fear of drought that could lead to devastating fire. Through Cadie’s eyes, we see her beloved forest as living and breathing, worthy of care.

Ever since the fateful day when gunshots echoed across her lake, fear has been Cadie’s constant companion. Dalton slowly teases out this growing sense of dread for Cadie and Daniela—and Daniela’s undocumented family— against the backdrop of impending catastrophe and growing tensions in their small town.

Though her style comes across heavy-handed at times, Dalton writes thoughtfully and poetically about a place clearly close to her own New Hampshire-based heart. Cadie and Daniela’s interrupted friendship forms the core of the novel, and Dalton captures that best-friend bond so intensely forged in youth.

Through vivid and emotional imagery, Waiting for the Night Song speaks to the power that a place and its people can have over your life.

The past has a way of catching up to us, often when we least expect it. In Waiting for the Night Song, the idyllic childhood summer of two girls implodes after a shocking event.

FictionHistorical Fiction

The Offing

Review by Melissa Brown

The passing of time encourages reflection, looking back over one’s life and the seminal moments that defined it. In author and poet Benjamin Myers’ The Offing, an old man remembers a youthful summer of significance.

As a shattered England recuperates from World War II, 16-year-old Robert Appleyard heads out to wander, in search of life beyond his village and the coal mines where his father worked. He meanders south, picking up odd jobs and witnessing remnants of a war he was too young to fight. For Robert, “the newness of the unfamiliar was intoxicating.”

A dead-end lane brings Robert into Dulcie Piper’s orbit, and thus begins an education. Well read and well traveled, unabashed and blunt, Dulcie has lived a life of adventure and pushed boundaries that Robert never imagined. For the last six years, though, her life has been overshadowed by a sudden and horrible loss. When Robert unearths a neglected manuscript in the tumbledown artist studio next to Dulcie’s cottage, his eccentric host opens up about her love and life with Romy Landau, a tormented and brilliant German poet living at a time when most British people considered Germans to be the enemy.

Myers writes beautifully and insightfully in The Offing. Highly sensory and inviting, the novel reads like a paean to the mettle of Britain’s men and women during a time of great upheaval. It’s also a pastoral ode to the lovely, verdant countryside that Robert encounters away from his coal-dusted home. Dulcie’s hospitality sparks an appetite in Robert not unlike her own youthful zest for life. His first tastes of lemon, wine and lobster, his first blush with pure poetry, his first attempt at driving a car—each has their own heady effect. Dulcie may be schooling Robert in the ways of her world, but his youthful and open perspective helps her see possibility beyond her grief.

There is plenty of wit and depth to be found in Myers’ lyrical writing and in the captivating way he envisions an unlikely friendship that charts a new course for both parties.

In author and poet Benjamin Myers’ The Offing, an old man remembers a youthful summer of significance.
FictionHistorical Fiction

Aria

Review by Melissa Brown

In 1950s Iran, religious and nationalist fervor can be sparked by last names, loyalties and different appearances. Against this backdrop, a discarded girl with a boy’s name matures in a man’s world. Through this girl’s journey, Iranian-born author Nazanine Hozar’s debut novel traces the reign and overthrow of the Shah of Iran through Ayatollah Khomeini’s dramatic return to power.

Young Aria, rescued as an infant by a sensitive army driver but abused by his angry wife, endures early censure and ridicule because of her blue eyes and red hair. Her life is marked by division and strife, but she grows up defiant and strong, wondering where she came from. Everyone she encounters—from her childhood friend Kamran, to her wealthy school pals Hamlet and Mitra, to those who know the truth about her birth mother—influence her path. She learns and loves, goes to school, wrestles with the shifting politics of her country, eventually marries and has her own baby amid the Iranian Revolution.

Hozar’s vivid depictions of daily life in the divided city of Tehran ground Aria in stark reality. Modernity strains against the confines of a place where the past always has a foothold—where history keeps being rewritten and a new future staged, where power changes hands, often brutally.

Hozar’s perceptive writing falters at times, and the plot meanders distractingly. But early poetic chapters and the novel’s thrilling climax draw the reader in. One thing is clear: Pain propels us, but so do offerings of love. Aria accepts both in her life, and they develop into the will and perseverance she needs to survive.

In 1950s Iran, religious and nationalist fervor can be sparked by last names, loyalties and different appearances. Against this backdrop, a discarded girl with a boy’s name matures in a man’s world. Through this girl’s journey, Iranian-born author Nazanine Hozar’s debut novel traces the reign and overthrow of the Shah through Ayatollah Khomeini’s dramatic return to power.

FictionPopular Fiction

Leonard and Hungry Paul

Review by Melissa Brown

Most of us lead quiet lives, strung together by the many moments that make up the act of simply living. Our lives are shaped around the mundane as much as the unexpected. We attempt a new project, talk to that person we think is cute or have an honest, loving conversation with our family. We surprise and disappoint ourselves; we often obsess and overthink. Leonard and Hungry Paul explores two such ordinary lives.

The titular friends are two guys in their 30s, playing board games and being each other’s sounding boards. At the start of the novel, Leonard’s mom has just died, and he’s working through his grief and loneliness along with the possibility of romance. Hungry Paul is happily ambling through life, living at home with his parents and occasionally being accosted by motivational speeches from his older sister. These two lifelong friends go to work (or not, as the case may be), meet new people, try new things—the stuff of everyday life. While Leonard spends his days as an encyclopedia content supervisor, Hungry Paul spends his time absorbed in the present moment. By making friends with silence, as Hungry Paul has mastered, we can learn a lot about ourselves and the world around us.

A musician and storyteller through song for many years, Rónán Hession infuses his debut novel with tangible realness, honesty and delight. Hession takes on the familiar and mines it for its beauty and significance, as well as its whimsy. With an insightfully observant eye that’s keen on details, Hession illustrates a larger picture of what being human means and how we can confound yet ultimately support one another. Leonard and Hungry Paul is a reminder that we’re all just humans doing our best to be kind, to others and ourselves.

With an insightfully observant eye that’s keen on details, Rónán Hession illustrates a larger picture of what being human means and how we can confound yet ultimately support one another. Leonard and Hungry Paul reminds that we’re all just humans doing our best to be kind, to others and ourselves.
Fiction

All Our Broken Idols

Review by Melissa Brown

In ancient Nineveh, a young girl and her brother live in poverty without support from their broken and drunken father. In modern Mosul, a young archaeologist thinks she may find her missing (or dead) father while excavating Nineveh. Paul M.M. Cooper’s All Our Broken Idols poetically intertwines the past and the present around this very particular place and explores the heroism required to survive amid devastation.

During King Ashurbanipal’s reign, Aurya and her brother, Sharo, travel from their humble river shack to the majestic Nineveh. Sharo’s talent for drawing and carving earns him a place with the king’s masons, and Aurya eventually finds her way to the library, cataloguing the scores of tablets plundered from other cities.

In 2014, locked away in the Mosul Museum by ISIL militants, Katya finds her life may come at the cost of priceless Assyrian treasures. To save her life—and that of fellow researcher Salim and a young Yazidi girl named Lola—Katya must unearth something valuable.

The epic of Gilgamesh appears in both narratives, bringing that ancient text to life and revealing the similarities across centuries as people search for answers, truth and revelations. Sharo, who exhibits a special ability to recall anything, even things he never experienced, slowly recounts Gilgamesh’s tale to his sister. Katya recites its lines while she digs through layers of history. In both storylines, memory acts as a lodestone, grounding the novel’s characters and their motivations.

With every page, the tension in All Our Broken Idols builds, as Cooper skillfully imparts a growing sense of dread and urgency in both Katya’s and Aurya’s tales. Their fates rest in the hands of those in power. Loss and pain cut through their lives at every turn. As Katya bears witness to the unspeakable, she feels a strong connection to the past. “Hadn’t this all happened before?” she often wonders.

Undeniable forces have drawn each character to this “center of the world,” a city that has been brought down and built back up. Readers will be drawn in as well.

Paul M. M. Cooper’s All Our Broken Idols poetically intertwines the past and the present and explores the heroism required to survive amid devastation.

FictionComing of Age

Perfect Tunes

Review by Melissa Brown

Girl with songs in her heart moves from Ohio to New York City. Girl meets guitarist with hypnotic eyes and a deep voice. Girl falls hard for guy, who falls harder—for the drugs and alcohol that permeate the “rise to stardom.” Perfect Tunes begins here but isn’t just about the connection between Laura and Dylan, fueled by lust, alcohol and drugs. The tragedy of Dylan’s death not long after the 9/11 attacks turns Laura’s life into one she never could’ve envisioned.

Pregnant at 22, grieving the death of someone she barely knew but was admittedly obsessed with, Laura sets aside her dreams of recording an album to become a mother to Marie. Duty engulfs her, and in a blink, 14 years pass, her musical talent relegated to teaching others or playing classes for babies. When teenaged Marie starts experiencing some dark moods similar to Dylan’s, Laura is drawn back to the past as she wrestles with where she is in the present.

Author Emily Gould covers much ground through Laura’s and Marie’s relationships and inner dialogues, ruminating on how we see ourselves, from that euphoric anything-can-happen attitude that accompanies youth to the mundanity common to all lives. The trappings of Gould’s writing are millennial, but her portrayal of the desire for self-actualization and understanding is universal. This ground isn’t new in fiction, certainly, but Laura’s and Marie’s voices each stand out for their honesty and poignancy. Gould’s women are as fearless as they are fearful, as full of bravado as nagging doubt and depression. The crush of expectations and the need to perform (in all senses of the word) never let up, and Laura’s drive to return to music gets a kick in the pants just as Marie is grappling with life’s hard edges.

Emotional and at times cringingly self-conscious, Perfect Tunes explores the mother-daughter bond through a distinctly youthful lens. Gould’s strength lies in her powers of observation, her ability to wrap words around a specific time and place in the lives of these particular women.

Emotional and at times cringingly self-conscious, Perfect Tunes explores the mother-daughter bond through a distinctly youthful lens. Emily Gould’s strength lies in her powers of observation, her ability to wrap words around a specific time and place in the lives of these particular women.

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