In comparison to our current crop of dingy squillionaires and robber barons, the Vanderbilts, Belmonts and Astors were so much more entertaining, with their monstrous Fifth Avenue chateaux and even more monstrous “cottages,” their frivolous costume balls, their genteel contempt for the hoi polloi and their obsession with bloodlines, both their own and those of their thoroughbred racehorses. Therese Anne Fowler’s biographical novel isn’t about careless people, but people who care too much about the wrong stuff.

Alva Vanderbilt Belmont married for money, as did just about everyone else in her set. She hasn’t a scintilla of a sense of humor. She is a hypocrite and a coward. She may feel bad about letting her lady’s maid go because she is black, or for shunning one of her friends because he penned a silly book, but she does it anyway. She all but imprisons her beautiful, dimwitted daughter, Consuelo, because she wants her to marry the Duke of Marlborough and not the older, less well-heeled Winty Rutherfurd. (Fowler leaves out how Alva used to beat Consuelo with a riding crop but leaves in how she threatens to shoot Rutherfurd dead.) Fowler skillfully depicts both the doomed, cruel, ridiculous society that Alva married into and how she tries, in her plodding yet ruthless way, to navigate it. It is ever so tempting to believe that Edith Wharton’s ghastly Undine Spragg contains some of Alva’s DNA.

But don’t feel sorry for the Vanderbilt women. Both Alva and Consuelo lived to ripe old ages, and both gained some wisdom, no doubt born of pain. The end of Fowler’s absorbing book finds them at a suffragette rally in London’s Hyde Park, spellbound by the words of a true heroine who really knew how to buck the patriarchy. As the book says, “[Alva] was no Emmeline Pankhurst.” Indeed.

This article was originally published in the November 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

BookPage Top Pick in Fiction, November 2018

It might not be so wrong to review Edward Carey’s new novel, Little, with the simple declaration that it is exceptionally good. Filled with delightfully macabre illustrations, Little is about the journey of Marie Grosholtz, a rather odd-looking, diminutive child born in a tiny Swiss village in 1761. An orphan by the time she is 8, Marie finds herself in the care of the equally lonely and eccentric Dr. Curtius, a wax sculptor for the village hospital.

There, amid the real bones and organs, Marie is not scared but instead intrigued and anxious to learn the magic of plaster and wax to replicate anything at all. Soon, the master and his little apprentice escape to Paris, where they meet Widow Picot and her son, Edmond. With a head for business, the widow knows how to cash in on Dr. Curtius’ skills, and the Monkey House is born as a spectacle for the locals to marvel at wax heads of famous (and infamous) personalities. Money and fame follow, but not for Marie, whose unseemly looks overshadow her artistic talents, and she is banished as a worthless servant and denied money, power and love.

If this seems dark, it’s because it is. But Carey portrays Marie as one of the most ambitious characters you will ever meet. She is funny and kind, but above all, she is relentless in her pursuit of opportunities, which she first finds as a teacher to a princess at Versailles, then as a sculptor of wax head castings during the bloody French Revolution and later as the legendary Madame Tussaud. Marie is little only in name.

An irresistible tale, Little will please all readers, especially those who love period adventures and old-fashioned stories of triumph over human folly.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Carey for Little.

This article was originally published in the November 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

War “is all failed plans and improvising,” muses a character in Abigail DeWitt’s third novel, News of Our Loved Ones. Though liberating, D-Day brings the worst horror upon the Delasalle family, as a bomb destroys the family’s home in Caen and splinters the survivors’ lives. For 18-year-old Geneviève Delasalle, this is a seminal moment to which she returns throughout her life, and years later, it fuels the stories that enthrall her boisterous American children, especially her daughter Polly. For Geneviève’s extended family in France, it is a constant presence, even as decades pass.

Set primarily during events surrounding World War II, News of Our Loved Ones functions less as a cohesive, plot-driven narrative and more like a collection of short stories, a string of vignettes or character studies. The chapters, some of which were published previously on their own, feel a bit truncated, and often a strong narrative thread is obscured by this abruptness. Still, DeWitt is ambitious with her latest novel, told from several perspectives through time, ranging across France to America and back again. The lives of her characters intertwine in a widening maze of infidelity, loss and secrecy, as the war links generations together as much as it tears those bonds apart.

While the shifts in time and point of view could have been more deftly handled, DeWitt’s strengths lie in keen emotional observation and the portrayal of her characters’ inner turmoil. DeWitt poetically illuminates her characters’ lives, weaving in and out like a knitting needle through wool.

Brodie Moncur, the protagonist of William Boyd’s latest novel, has a gift: His perfect pitch and attention to detail make him a once-in-a-generation piano tuner, employable anywhere in the world. He takes his skills from Edinburgh to Paris and St. Petersburg, working with some of the most renowned musicians of the late 19th century. Even bloody bouts of tuberculosis don’t dim his prospects.

But his brilliance is threatened by his love for an unattainable woman. Lika Blum, a mediocre Russian singer, lives with John Kilbarron, one of Brodie’s main clients. Brodie is drawn to Lika’s blonde beauty, her kindness and the way she fills him with contentment “like a powerful liquor; like some ambrosial, aphrodisiacal tonic invading every blood vessel and capillary in his body.”

Soon enough, though, it becomes clear that Brodie gives in to his feelings at his own peril. Kilbarron is a drunk and a drug user, and his manager brother is not above threats to get the best deal for his brother—and himself. After their illicit love affair turns deadly, Brodie and Lika find themselves on the run across Europe, and Lika faces a terrible choice to ensure her lover’s safety.

Boyd, the author of more than a dozen novels, including Any Human Heart and A Good Man in Africa, is exceptionally good at evoking a vivid sense of place. He takes us to the gloomy Scottish countryside and the Mediterranean shores of Nice, enveloping the reader in a time in European history when horses are being replaced by cars, women still have few choices, and men can settle their feuds without the interference of law. Love Is Blind is a cautionary tale in how passion can both lift up and destroy lives.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón returns for the fourth and final time to his gothic Barcelona and (every book lover’s fantasy) the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. In The Labyrinth of the Spirits, Zafón introduces Alicia Gris, a fierce, courageous but damaged young woman who was orphaned during the Spanish Civil War and recruited to become a member of the Spanish secret police. Already disillusioned at 29 with the darker demands of her work, Alicia reluctantly agrees to investigate one final case for her boss, Leandro Montalvo, in exchange for her freedom. She and her partner, Juan Manuel Vargas, must investigate the disappearance of Spain’s Minister of Culture, Mauricio Valls.

When Alicia discovers a copy of a rare book by Victor Mataix hidden in Valls’ desk, she and Vargas start down a twisting path that leads them back to Barcelona and eventually reveals connections between Valls’ mysterious disappearance and a series of atrocities committed years earlier during the corrupt Franco regime. At the same time, Alicia must confront her own complicated past, which includes a return to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.

Barcelona after the Spanish Civil War provides the perfect setting for Zafón’s novel, with its shadowed, misty labyrinth of streets, foreboding buildings and sinister sense of corruption. The plot is exquisitely intricate, like an elaborate steampunk timepiece. Alicia, a fragile but ferociously formidable, vampire-like seductress, is unforgettable. The pacing is exceptional, with its incessant, rolling waves of tension. Even the dialogue is remarkably sharp and fresh.

The Labyrinth of the Spirits is a masterpiece more than worthy of sharing a shelf with its bestselling predecessors, The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game and The Prisoner of Heaven. For those who have read Zafón’s earlier novels, some loose ends are finally resolved. Readers’ one regret will be that Labyrinth is the last in this ingenious cycle.

This article was originally published in the October 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Novels revolving around the assassination of John F. Kennedy have become a genre unto themselves. There are plenty, and likely even more conspiracy theories to boot. So at first take, November Road, the new thriller from author Lou Berney, may seem like just another book to add to the stack. Berney, though, is not just another author. Through gorgeous prose, the Edgar, Macavity and Anthony Award-winning author of The Long and Faraway Gone elevates an otherwise simple cat-and-mouse story into a heartfelt journey of hope and discovery for two characters running from their pasts.

While the loss of the president is certainly felt throughout November Road, it only serves as a backdrop to what is essentially a story of redemption. The novel follows Frank Guidry, an enforcer for mobster Carlos Marcello, whose hands are all over JFK’s death. Frank is tasked with retrieving and disposing of a getaway car parked near the scene of the crime in Dallas, and a hit man has been tasked with disposing of Frank once the job is done. Aware that his life is in jeopardy, Frank makes a desperate dash for freedom along Route 66.

At the same time, young mother Charlotte Roy, along with her two daughters, is making her escape from a failed marriage in Oklahoma. Naturally, the storylines eventually cross as Frank encounters Charlotte, whom he sees as a way to throw off his pursuer. What begins as a convenient way to cover his tracks evolves into a serious romance between the two characters. But with a killer after Frank, the suspense builds toward a fateful showdown.

In the end, November Road is more than the sum of its parts—a thrilling plot, an iconic period piece and unforgettable characters. Above all, it’s an American novel not to be missed.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Lou Berney for November Road.

This article was originally published in the October 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

One of the enduring staples of fiction is the English country house. They are centerpieces of many novels, from Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day to Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. Kate Morton puts one such house at the center of The Clockmaker’s Daughter.

The house, situated on the River Thames, is Birchwood Manor, with staircases that turn at odd angles and “wall panels with clever concealments.” The house also conceals a secret inhabitant: a ghost who once went by the name Lily Millington and who now spies on guests who periodically drop by.

Lily first came to Birchwood in July 1862, when aspiring artist Edward Radcliffe invited fellow anti-establishment types to the house for a summer of painting. He couldn’t have predicted the fateful night to come, a night that featured “[t]wo unexpected guests. Two long-kept secrets. A gunshot in the dark.” That gunshot took the life of Fanny Brown, Edward’s fiancée.

Cut to 2017, when Elodie Winslow is working as an archivist, caring for the former belongings of Victorian banker James Stratton. One day, she discovers a waxed cardboard box containing a document case belonging to Stratton and a sketchbook of Edward’s. Among the drawings is one of Birchwood Manor.

It turns out that the house has relevance to Elodie’s family. What follows is an intricate tale that involves an 8-year-old girl who grows up in Bombay before her English parents abandon her at Birchwood in 1899; a 1920s historian researching the story of Edward Radcliffe; and a present-day journalist in search of a gem known as the Radcliffe Blue.

The Clockmaker’s Daughter is overstuffed with incident, but readers who enjoy a symphony of voices and multiple storylines will find much to like here. Morton builds considerable drama as she unveils the secrets behind Fanny’s death, the gem and more. It’s an imaginative tale for fans of historical fiction.

This article was originally published in the October 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.