Nick Dybek’s haunting, vividly cinematic tale is set in rural France after the horrific World War I battle at Verdun, where almost a million men died. Each of Dybek’s three central characters has a tie to the site of the carnage—beginning in 1921 with Tom Combs, a young American ambulance driver working for the church, collecting remains from the battlefield to be placed in a huge ossuary, which will eventually hold the remnants of 130,000 French and German soldiers. Tom diligently carries out his macabre assignment, even as he ponders how to tell those searching for their missing loved ones that “the shelling was so incessant during the battle that a man’s remains might be buried and unburied and blown a mile into the distance and buried again?” Hundreds of bones are found every day, “mangled and unmatched.”

It is there that Sarah Hagen comes, searching for her husband, Lee, who was in the American Field Service and went missing in 1918. Perhaps to ease her evident stress from a long and fruitless search, Tom tells her he met Lee in Aix-les-Bains while Lee was on leave. Tom and Sarah begin an intense yet brief affair—she is immersed in grief, and Tom feels guilty over his lie. She leaves Verdun to continue her quest, and Tom moves on to a job as a journalist in Paris.

Dybek’s story then moves from Verdun to Bologna, where a year later Sarah and Tom meet again—both drawn by reports of an amnesiac patient in a mental hospital who may be Lee Hagen. There they encounter Dybek’s third enigmatic character, Paul Weyerhauser, an Austrian journalist who has his own wartime backstory—and a reason for questioning the amnesiac.

The narrative leaps forward to Los Angeles in the 1950s, where Tom and Paul meet unexpectedly at a funeral. Each has his memories of Sarah and their time together in Italy—memories viewed through different lenses and clouded by time. Dybek’s poignant tale of the harsh realities of war juxtaposed with a dreamlike love story will linger with readers in the same manner as Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient.

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

PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author Kevin Powers descends into the corrupt heart of the American South with his Civil War-era novel, A Shout in the Ruins, a lacerating and elegiac—if at times uneven—novel about the lasting effects of human bondage.

Powers, whose debut novel, The Yellow Birds, is among the best works of fiction to come out of America’s 21st-century wars, has penned a tragic tale of moral corruption set in Virginia. While chapters alternate between the final days of the antebellum South and the 1950s, at its heart the book is the story of the Beauvais Plantation, where Emily Reid, impoverished daughter of a crippled Confederate soldier, marries plantation owner Antony Levallois.

From the author of The Yellow Birds comes an elegiac tale of the American South.

Already at the plantation are slaves Nurse and Rawls, star-crossed lovers who are little more than toys for Levallois. The most interesting character in the book, Levallois is more animal than human in his needs and methods, yet his manipulation is sophisticated enough to hold the entire countryside under his thumb. But as the South falls to pieces, so does his control of the people around him, leading to revenge and murder.

Another storyline follows nonagenarian George Seldom as he tries to investigate his murky origins. Aided by a diner waitress, he makes his way to a dimly recalled childhood home, where he comes face to face with memory and grief.

While the story grows confusing at times, the only discordant notes are a couple of narratives that focus on fringe characters who appear to exist only to move the story along. Still, the author’s writing possesses the same intimate, lyrical power as his haunting debut, which was written after his experience serving in Iraq with the U.S. Army. This time, the Richmond, Virginia, native gets closer to home.

This is a fine, relevant novel from a notable author.

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

Paula McLain’s fascination with Ernest Hemingway runs deep. She proved this seven years ago with her novel The Paris Wife, which presented the extraordinary author through the lens of his first marriage to Hadley Richardson. McLain has repeated that magic in Love and Ruin, which focuses on Hemingway’s third wife, Martha Gellhorn.

Martha, or Marty, is an aspiring writer and world traveler, two passions that lead her to become one of the first female war correspondents in modern history. In between covering major wars from the front lines, she pours her heart and experiences into an impressive collection of fiction.

Marty idolizes Ernest like many others of her time, and as fate would have it, the two fall in love while covering the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Marty is very much a woman in a man’s world, and her fearlessness, independence and writing chops make her irresistible to Ernest. From Key West to Madrid to Havana, we follow their courtship and eventual marriage, which is full of romance, hope, inspiration and encouragement—until Marty realizes that marrying one of the most famous men in the world comes at the cost of her own goals.

McLain’s ability to base a work of fiction on real people is nothing short of superb. Readers may pick up Love and Ruin because of their obsession with Ernest Hemingway, but they’ll fall in love with it because of Marty Gellhorn.

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

The First Lady of the South, Varina Davis, made the best of her life one day at a time. Her only other option—to take her own life with the tiny revolver given to her by her husband, Confederate President Jefferson Davis—was one she chose not to embrace.

Told in a nonlinear fashion to one of her long-lost children, renowned author Charles Frazier’s new novel, Varina, recounts her life both before and after the nation’s bloody Civil War in mesmerizing fashion. Her journey begins as a teenager when she marries the already widowed “Jeff” Davis as a matter of convenience, believing that doing so will result in a secure lifestyle on his Mississippi plantation. Through periods of on-again, off-again romance, Varina and Davis have several children. She even rescues a black child, James Blake, from a beating and makes him part of the family.

When Davis enters politics and is appointed president of the Confederacy, Varina’s complicity makes her equally culpable. With Richmond falling to Union forces, Varina is forced to take the children and flee south. Varina relates the group’s slow, arduous travels on the country’s back roads, contending against inclement weather, disease, roving brigands and bounty hunters. In an uncertain time when refugees—“hungry, desperate rebel soldiers and freed slaves alike”—are unsure what is to become of them, Varina inspires her family to “just keep going one more day and one more day after that.”

Frazier, best known for his National Book Award-winning novel Cold Mountain, returns to form with this emotional and often harrowing depiction of a complicated woman. While Frazier paints Varina as a strong mother and staunch defender of her husband, he skillfully shows the consequences of her complicity in Davis’ decisions. Frazier contrasts that with her later life as a writer in New York as she strives for the reconciliation of a fractured nation, even if it means admitting “that the right side won the war.”

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Frazier for Varina.

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

Ariel Lawhon’s two previous historical novels delved into the Jazz Age in New York City (The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress) and the final flight of the Hindenburg in 1937 (Flight of Dreams). In her latest, she imagines the last months of Russia’s royal Romanov family—Czar Nicholas II; his wife, Empress Alexandra; their four daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia; and their son, Alexey—following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

Lawhon focuses on Anastasia, the youngest daughter, illuminating those harrowing months in late 1917 and 1918, beginning when the imperial palace is taken over by the revolutionary army. The family is put under house arrest, limited to the few rooms not occupied by soldiers, and their activities are closely monitored. Lawhon recounts their haunting journey east into Siberia by train, when the girls, including Anastasia, are raped. The family is housed in an abandoned army barracks in the “godforsaken outpost” of Tobolsk. Their lives become even more unbearable when the Red Guard takes command, their mission to cruelly punish the family for their former excessive lifestyle. From Tobolsk they are sent further east to the town of Ekaterinburg, where, in July 1918, the whole family is executed by firing squad.

Or—did Anastasia somehow miraculously escape the massacre? Threaded in and out of the chapters recounting the last days of Anastasia and her family is the story of a young woman who, two years later, is pulled from a canal in Berlin and claims to be Anastasia Romanov. She has scars that could be from bullet wounds, and she bears a remarkable resemblance to the young Romanov duchess. Those who refuse to believe her story give her the name Anna Anderson and see her merely as a fortune seeker. Lawhon’s extensive research traces Anna’s steps backward from 1970, when a Hamburg court determines that her claim is “not proven.” In the years leading up to this moment, she is institutionalized, interviewed by Anastasia’s family and contemporaries, and romanticized in plays and movies.

The truth of her own sad story is revealed only at the conclusion of Lawhon’s mesmerizing saga, which encompasses over 50 years and travels from revolutionary Russia and interwar France to the United States in the 1970s.

Though DNA evidence has finally proven what happened to the Romanov family, Lawhon’s labyrinthine tale remains fascinating to the end.

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

On Sunday, April 5, 1936, a tornado devastated Tupelo, Mississippi. More than 200 people were reported dead, and the hundreds of African-American casualties were not even counted. The stories and folklore surrounding the storm flourished for decades—a woman found a baby in a crepe myrtle, a cow flew upside down, etc. In her second novel, Minrose Gwin (The Queen of Palmyra) harnesses the intensity of the tornado and pieces together a dual narrative of survival.

Dovey Grand’homme is an old African-American washwoman, and Jo McNabb is a white 15-year-old schoolgirl. The Grand’homme and McNabb families are connected by more than just the intimate laundry that Dovey sorts through weekly—they are also irrevocably linked by a despicable act. Son McNair, Jo’s older brother, raped Dovey’s granddaughter, resulting in a light-skinned baby boy named Promise. During the storm, both Promise and Jo’s baby brother are lost. When Jo finds a baby in her yard, she assumes it is her brother, and the premise is set for this impressive novel.

Promise takes on the page-turning pacing of a mystery while remaining solidly literary. Gwin’s writing is as precise as it is entertaining, and she creates unique rhythms for Dovey and Jo, giving each a distinct pulse. Their memories, supported by a great cast of nurses, neighbors and relatives, bring great richness to the story.

The aid available to the African-American community was obviously insufficient, and literally countless lives were lost for the sake of keeping segregation intact during immediate relief efforts. Humans may have the ability to overcome disaster, but as Gwin illustrates here, segregation neutralizes humanity.

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

A late-season blizzard batters 1879 Albany, New York, and the blinding white seems to have swallowed up two young sisters, Emma and Claire O’Donnell. The snow cripples the city for days, and when it finally begins to melt, Emma and Claire are still missing. Not sure whether the girls are alive or dead, Drs. Mary Sutter and William Stipp, close friends of the family, cease their search and try to continue living without them. When the news of the disappearances reaches Mary’s mother, Amelia, and niece, Elizabeth, who are abroad in Paris, they return home on the next ship.

Spring comes to Albany and brings a flood as the frozen river breaks up, just as the town seems to crack in two along with it. Marriages are strained, sons grow suspicious of fathers, business dealings are not what they seem—and that’s just in the Van der Veer family, one of the city’s most prosperous. At the center of it all, the disappearance of the “winter sisters” continues to captivate Albany’s residents, from prostitutes and police to lumber barons and society matrons. Allegations swirl, and the truth eventually proves stranger than anyone had imagined—or feared.

In Winter Sisters, Robin Oliveira (My Name Is Mary Sutter) spins a long, twisting tale, mixing amended historical facts with the intrigue of a true crime drama. Though her characterizations do descend into well-trodden molds at times, her women are strength and courage personified. Many of the men (except for a phenomenal few) fall short at best and, at worst, commit reprehensible acts. But in Mary, Amelia, Elizabeth and others, Oliveira shows the tenacity of women. They rise to meet challenges with an unwavering sense of morality and duty. And Oliveira holds the reader in her thrall through each suspenseful turn.

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