It is impossible to read John Shors' second novel (after Beneath a Marble Sky) without thinking what a great movie it would make. Beside a Burning Sea is wonderfully cinematic, with a cast of well-developed characters, major and minor, male and female and of various races and backgrounds. Despite revealing who the villain is early on, Shors creates considerable suspense, and toward the end of the novel, the question of "what happens next?" becomes "who will make it to the end?"

In September of 1942, Benevolence, an American hospital ship—which, unbeknownst to the majority of those on board, is carrying munitions, making it an acceptable target for the enemy—is destroyed by a torpedo while in the Solomon Islands of the South Pacific. Only a small number of passengers survive and make their slow and painful way to an island. The survivors include the captain, a religious man who feels tremendous guilt for the sinking of his ship; his wife Isabelle, a nurse; and her sister Annie, also a nurse. Annie only reaches the island because Akira, a wounded Japanese soldier and the one surviving patient, helps her make the swim. Rounding out the group are Scarlett, another nurse; ships officers Roger and Nathan; Jake, a black farmer turned assistant engineer; and Ratu, a young Fijian.

Seventeen days on an island lead to many changes in the lives of these characters. Although there is nothing mystical about the setting (well, there is the swimming with dolphins), things happen that normally would not: friendships blossom, future plans are made and love is found as they wait for rescue, search for food and fresh water, and watch for the enemy. Of course, it's not all roses. There's also a villain on the island, and he's hoping that friendly ships will not be the first to reach the Americans.

In Beside a Burning Sea, Shors has combined the classic desert island adventure with touching stories of love among the castaways. These elements provide an irresistible pull; Shors makes the reader a willing accomplice on this rewarding journey.

Joanne Collings writes from Washington, D.C.

Even now, no one really knows what caused the atrocities known as the Salem Witch Trials. In 1692, more than 150 people—mostly women—were arrested and accused of witchery. Historians have blamed everything from Puritan misogyny, to landlust, to ergot poisoning from a fungus that grows on rye and can cause psychosis. Kathleen Kent’s debut, The Heretic’s Daughter, a novelization of a true event, tells the story of one family caught up in the madness.

The Carriers are not like other Puritan families. The patriarch, Thomas, is over seven feet tall. His much younger wife, Martha, is difficult and sharp tongued, and no one knows this more than her daughter Sarah, the book’s narrator. Their lives are somber, their days dominated by backbreaking work. The family members are, perhaps, not as kind to each other as they could be. Dangers are everywhere, from murderous raids by Indians whose land is being encroached upon, to illnesses and calamities that know no remedy. When we first meet the Carriers, they’re making their way, in the middle of another hard winter, from the town of Billerica in the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the neighboring town of Andover. They believe they’re outrunning the smallpox. They’re not. And this is where the trouble begins.

Kent recounts the townspeople’s case against Goodwife Carrier, incident by small incident. Her family brought the smallpox, she bewitched a fire so that it blew onto someone else’s land and not hers, her insolent tongue caused livestock to sicken and die. Tellingly, there’s a beef between her husband and brother-in-law, and her nephew wants her property. Soon Martha is arrested and brought 17 miles to Salem, where she’s accused by that lovely bunch of girls from The Crucible.

A descendent of the Carriers, Kent relates the story quietly, with moments of beauty that give way to horror, then to redemption. The Heretic’s Daughter not only chronicles the insanity of the witch trials, but a family learning—maybe too late—to truly value each other.

Arlene McKanic writes from South Carolina.

The bibliography tucked at the tail end of Philippa Gregory's The Other Queen might come as a surprise to those who assume that only nonfiction writers are rooted to the rigors of scholarly research. For this best – selling author of novels such as The Other Boleyn Girl, The Queen's Fool and The Virgin's Lover, a passion for historical accuracy is the cornerstone of her abundant story – telling gift. Deftly weaving fact and fiction into a lyrical, literary tapestry that transcends the boundaries of the too – often predictable genre of historical fiction, Gregory has once again crafted a mesmerizing novel that will keep readers turning pages deep into the night.

Gregory's legions of loyal fans are already well aware of the author's aptitude for capturing the timeless pathos of 16th – century Englishwomen, royals and peasants alike. Perhaps never before has Mary, Queen of Scots, been portrayed in such a contemporary, complex manner: a beautiful, charming, headstrong and spoiled young woman who is both maddeningly self – absorbed and overwhelmingly courageous. The same is true for the novel's anti – heroine, Bess of Hardwick, who transcends her hardscrabble childhood via a trail of calculated betrothals and consequent widowhoods. Proud and pragmatic, Bess harbors no illusions about romantic love, and instead, sets her heart on the comforts of rank and financial security, a coup she achieves with her final marriage, to George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury.

Nonetheless, after Bess and George Talbot are asked by Queen Elizabeth to provide "sanctuary" for the beleaguered Mary, Queen of Scots, the couple's companionable marriage is jeopardized, with poor George smitten by the young queen's winsome ways, and his once implacable wife reeling with jealousy and, worse, the discovery that she is once again on the brink of poverty. In the end, which arrives after a series of riveting chapters alternating between the voices and perspectives of Mary, Bess and George, nothing is what it seems. This spell – binding tale of Elizabethan England adds up to a novel as sweet and thorny as a wild English rose.

Karen Ann Cullotta is a freelance writer and journalism instructor in Chicago.

What does it feel like to be seized body and soul by sudden fear or desire? To steal power, submit to power, relinquish power? To tumble for the first time with the love of your life? To mourn a father? Lose a child? Betray someone's trust, or have yours betrayed? Or, finally, to be able to acknowledge your own hunger, your own mortality, your insatiable lust for living?William Shakespeare answers these questions again and again, in play after play, always with stupendous insight. The Bard shows us the human being exactly as it lives and suffers and rejoices, under ever – familiar circumstances, however dramatically enhanced. To be so well – versed in humanity, Shakespeare must have been one hell of a human being – or not, but such a contradiction would only intensify the mystery. That's why it's so tantalizing to have so few scraps of evidence about what sort of person dear old Will really was.

To British author Christopher Rush, these scraps – along with the plays and poems themselves, which he taught for 30 years – are all the stuff he needs to perform his own feat of Shakespearean magic. Just as Will summons into thrilling reality hunchbacked Richard, ill – used Othello and fat Falstaff, Rush brings to startling life Shakespeare himself – or rather, "brings to death," for the pages of Will are spoken by Will himself, on his deathbed, consigning his final will to his lawyer. Above all, it is the sheer chutzpah of Rush's enterprise – the detailing of Shakespeare's life and work from Shakespeare's own mouth, from before the cradle to beyond the grave – that elevates his story into its authentic globe, where the ultimate human heart is revealed. Here's the rare rendering of an artist in which art is not reduced by biography, but enlarged by it; where sex and death are not the caricatured obsessions of the poet, but his boundless and worthy themes. But take warning, reader: the London of the Elizabethan Age is rough trade, the theatre lying hard by the whorehouse and execution ground. Christopher Rush gives it all to us with uncensored glee and unfeigned horror.

Michael Alec Rose is a professor at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music.

Beatrice Colin's irresistible novel, The Glimmer Palace, follows the eventful life of a Berlin orphan who becomes a rising star in the brand-new medium of the cinema. Early 20th-century Berlin is just like Colin's engaging main character: anything it wants to be, and full of promise to be more.

The Glimmer Palace follows the dramatically named Lilly Nelly Aphrodite (her mother was a cabaret star, after all), but Berlin is also a central character in the story. As we watch the city wax and wane, trying to scrabble out of the heap of economic ruin after the Great War, we watch Lilly scrabble right along with it, from her life at an orphanage through WorldWar I to an early marriage and the seedy clubs where she tries to eke out a living. Finally, she gets a job typing scripts, which eventually lands her a screen test, and she blossoms on screen.

Colin's memorable tale is also the story of Germany's film industry between the wars (inspired by her great-aunt Nina, who had worked in the industry in Germany in the 1920s). Though the historical detail rings true, it is a mere backdrop to the compelling story of Lilly, and the greater unfolding of the journey of Germany toward the Third Reich.

This story may be too epic in some ways, but when it focuses on the lives of a few, The Glimmer Palace is haunting. Elements of romance blend with horrific details of wartime deprivation and death. We are given the fates of minor characters even as we meet them. We are never left hanging; we know exactly what happens to everyone. We want a happy ending for Lilly, but that ending is something you never see coming. This is Colin's third novel, and with a plot and setting so captivating, we can only hope it draws more notice than her first two.

Linda White is a writer in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Although he's an esteemed author in his native Spain and received critical praise here for his 2001 novel Sepharad, Antonio Munoz Molina remains largely unknown in the U.S. The publication of A Manuscript of Ashes, his prize-winning first novel originally published in 1986, in a translation by the eminent Edith Grossman, is likely to introduce Munoz Molina to a broader American audience.

In the winter of 1969, a young student named Minaya travels to the home of his uncle Manuel in the small town of Mágina. Minaya, who was imprisoned briefly during the waning years of the Franco regime, is there to research his doctoral dissertation on the life of Jacinto Solana, a poet and political activist of the 1930s and '40s.

Minaya's scholarly task quickly takes on a new and darker cast. He finds himself drawn inexorably into the story of a tragedy that occurred at his uncle's home in the early morning hours of May 22, 1937, when Mariana Rios, a former model who had been introduced to Manuel by his friend Solana and who had wed Manuel the previous day, dies from a gunshot wound to the head. Thirty-two years later, her killer's identity remains unknown.

Shortly after Minaya arrives in Mágina, he discovers a diary-like manuscript entitled "Beatus Ille," written by Solana in early 1947, after he was released from an eight-year imprisonment and returned to the town. Through that manuscript and with the help of Ines, a beautiful young housekeeper who becomes Minaya's lover, the young man tries to piece together the mystery of Mariana's death. In the process he unravels the story of a love triangle acted out against the political turmoil of the Franco era, leading him to a startling discovery that upends his, and our, perceptions of all that has gone before.

Munoz Molina's novel is a dense, at times devilishly complex tale that yields its secrets slowly, all the way up to its astonishing final pages. It's a challenging metafictional work that demands close reading, but one that in the end will gratify those willing to make that commitment.

Harvey Freedenberg writes from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

For sheer enjoyment, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is one of the best books of the year. This quirky title brings with it a quirky novel that, if the world is fair, will appear on summer bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic.

Looking around for new inspiration for her books in 1946, English author Juliet Ashton finds it in letters she receives from inhabitants of the Channel Island of Guernsey. They write seeking her help in literary matters, and, incidentally, telling of their remarkable history as a German possession during World War II. As an epistolary novel, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society captures the immediacy of the Guernsey Islanders’ experience during the German occupation in a way that arguably could not have been expressed otherwise.

Surprisingly, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was begun by an American book editor and bookseller, Mary Ann Shaffer, who found herself fascinated by Channel Island history. After she became ill, and later died, her niece, children’s book author Annie Barrows, completed the novel.

Besides revealing that the British postal system is apparently much faster than our own (letters and their answers are sometimes dated the same day!), this maze of interactive letter writers sheds reflective light on each other and their literary society, which was formed spontaneously to protect Islanders from Nazi retribution. Beyond that, one learns more serious lessons, including the variant results of war on different societies. (Americans, even after the War, are seen as relatively “un-mangled by it.”) Despite this book’s American provenance, its wit bears all the earmarks of the sly and whimsical English take on life, which is not just colorful here, but prismatic.

For some readers, grinning may be optional throughout this book. For many of us, however, despite some serious subject matter, it is unavoidable. “Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books,” says one letter writer, so be forewarned: your level of tolerance may be lowered by this delightful, unforgettable novel.

Maude McDaniel writes from Maryland.

You don't have to be a lover of war literature or a fan of historical fiction to appreciate City of Thieves. Author and screenwriter David Benioff's second novel, set during the siege of Leningrad, crosses genre lines (even as his characters cross battle lines) to become a story with universal appeal.

Virginal 17-year-old protagonist Lev Beniov possesses a Woody Allen-esque charm—full of immaturity, precocious intelligence and desire for accomplishment. Having fallen into Russian military hands for breaking curfew and looting in his native Leningrad, Lev is deployed on an impossible quest in exchange for having his life spared, accompanied by a charmingly grandiose young soldier-turned-deserter, Kolya. His implacable sense of the absurd accompanies him throughout a forced sojourn into the frigid Russian countryside, where starvation and cruel Einsatzkommandos await.

Despite the obvious similarity of the Benioff-Beniov names, Benioff says City of Thieves is not his grandfather's life story. Yet the work offers not just verisimilitude but also truths: It carries the hallmarks of intensive research, including interviews with his grandfather, enabling depiction of the time period in detail. Cannibalism, casual bullets to the brain, dead soldiers serving as frozen signposts, dogs loaded with armaments in a futile attempt to thwart German tanks—Lev encounters these sights and more in a book that is, incredibly in the face of such details, fun. It is as riveting as the Odyssey, and, like Homer, Benioff is a master of rising and falling action. Just when the blood and snow and mayhem seem unendurable, Lev and Kolya stumble upon a warm house and a meal with Russian beauties held hostage, forced into pleasuring their German captors. Of course soul-searing horrors soon rear up as the girls recount how the Germans punished the 14-year-old who ran away.

With deft phrases like "the plane's burning carcass falling like an angel cast from heaven," Benioff puts the action in grand context. Lev says of his own people, the Russians, "we were the children of a thousand lost battles and defeat was heavy in us." And yet the tale holds many moments of humor, and heartbreak yields to hope.

Andrea Brunais is a writer living in Tampa, Florida, and Bluefield, West Virginia.

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