Elizabeth Crane’s latest novel, The History of Great Things, is a poignant dual narrative featuring a mother and daughter whose disparate paths ultimately prevent them from ever truly understanding each other.

For Crane’s two heroines—ambitious Lois, who speaks from beyond the grave, and her only child, Elizabeth, who shares a name with the author—untangling the knots of their messy lives means sifting through decades of memories, both shared and separate. These include the Great Depression and Lois’ Midwestern youth, the early days of Lois’ first marriage, and the turmoil of Elizabeth’s childhood and adolescence as she copes with her mother’s absence.

A gifted musician and aspiring opera singer, Lois feels trapped by the soul-numbing domesticity prescribed to women of her generation, and she doesn’t hesitate to ease her unhappiness by sacrificing her daughter, whose birth has cast her ambitious mother’s dreams asunder. While many women of her era would have accommodated a passion for music by joining the church choir, compromise is not in Lois’ vernacular. Her pursuit of her career comes at the detriment of her soon to be ex-husband and daughter.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s problems are rooted in the perils of self-medicating with alcohol, which she first turns to as a way to escape her pain and anxiety as a teenager as she shuttles between Iowa and New York City. As an adult, she has difficulty establishing a healthy relationship.

Alternating between laugh-out-loud humor and heart-rending melancholy, Crane gives us a mother and daughter who never quite grasp each other’s life stories, but who find truth through unconditional love.

A reader of fashion writer and editor William Norwich’s latest novel, My Mrs. Brown, could be forgiven for thinking its titular heroine is living in the 1950s, like Evan S. Connell’s Mrs. Bridge. The lady described is in late middle age. Mrs. Brown is modest, fair-minded and dutiful, and lives in a quiet Rhode Island town. The highlight of her year is being asked to help with an inventory of the estate of a philanthropic widow. Only then does it becomes clear that the story takes place in the present day. Are there still people like this?

Norwich’s answer is an enthusiastic “Yes!” There are ladies who wear twinsets and sensible shoes, bake morning glory muffins and still write letters in the age of Facebook and endless texting. You’ll be surprised how shocked you are when you encounter the first F-bomb in this book. No, it does not come from Mrs. Brown.

During the inventory, Mrs. Brown sorts through Mrs. Groton’s sumptuous dresses, and she finds one whose twin she simply must have. She’s a good seamstress but she could never sew such a glorious garment. No, Mrs. Brown has to go to New York to find such a dress, and the prospect fills her with the terror and excitement of a recruit waiting to storm a beachhead.

Even if you find Mrs. Brown anachronistic, with the gentle conservatism of an age long-gone, you come to like and respect her. Then, you come to love her. For along with her belief in decency and humility comes tenacity. She is determined to overcome her fear of New York—its crazy transit system and good/bad smells and confusing street signs and all the rich and sophisticated people who still manage to be kind when they meet her—because she must have that Oscar de la Renta dress, which she has painstakingly saved for. She does not want the dress to entice a man, or to flatter her figure or even because she thinks she’s as good as Mrs. Groton, although she is. The reviewer will leave it to the reader to find out the reason why.

Goodness really is its own reward, says Norwich’s gentle-hearted book. Better yet, sometimes goodness is rewarded.

This article was originally published in the April 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

For both parents and child, the subject of adoption is fraught with emotional complications. That’s the point of departure for New York writer Boris Fishman’s perceptive second novel, Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo. And like his debut novel, A Replacement Life, it also deals with the challenges facing immigrants from the former Soviet Union as they adapt to life in the United States.

There’s definitely something different about Max Rubin, the adopted 8-year-old son of Alex Rubin, of Belarus, and his wife, Maya, of Ukraine. The blonde-haired, green-eyed boy is fond of sleeping in a tent and has even taken to tasting some of the varieties of grass growing around his New Jersey townhouse. His decision to abandon the school bus and disappear one late spring afternoon throws his family into crisis.

Maya’s need to unravel the mystery that is Max eventually leads her to propose a family odyssey to Montana, where Max was born. For the suburbanites, Montana might as well be Mars, a reality Fishman adroitly reveals in describing both its geography and its culture.

At the heart of this family drama is mercurial, deeply sympathetic Maya, who senses disaster lurking around every corner. Fishman patiently uncovers the tensions embedded in the Rubins’ relationship that intensify Maya’s restlessness. They’ve reached the midpoint of their lives in an alien land without a clear vision of where life is taking them, and with a vague sense of unease that’s exacerbated by their sharp disagreements over how much of Max’s history they need to know.

Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo—the plea of Max’s young mother as she hands over her child to his adoptive parents—is a ruminative story about the often fragile bonds of family. Even the most comfortable parents and children may someday confront a crisis as unsettling as the one that afflicts the Rubins, a truth that allows this novel to resonate with unexpected force.

This article was originally published in the March 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

If you’re looking for a typical story in which two people meet, fall in love and live happily ever after—this is not it. Theresa Rebeck’s comedic and heartbreaking love story, I’m Glad About You, is anything but predictable. From Hollywood red carpets to Midwestern mansions, Rebeck takes us on a wild ride through the lives of two high-school sweethearts who just can’t seem to get it right.

Alison Moore and Kyle Wallace’s romance was complicated from the start. They fell in love in high school, but went their separate ways after realizing their future ambitions didn’t quite align. Alison wanted to escape Cincinnati and become a movie star, while Kyle hoped to practice medicine. Years pass as they build their lives independently, but when fate brings them back to Cincinnati, they’re forced to face past regrets and the magnetic connection that remains despite the time and distance. Will they put their careers and families on the line to finally be together?

A seasoned playwright and producer—she was the creator of the TV drama “Smash”—Rebeck gives readers a behind-the-scenes peek into show business and the price of fame. Whether at a Hollywood movie set or a Midwestern cookout, her characters are faced with the (sometimes ugly) truth of what happens when life isn’t unfolding exactly how you thought it would. I’m Glad About You is a refreshingly honest character study that explores how flawed people attempt to build a love that thrives in a messy, complicated world.

This article was originally published in the March 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

When we meet Charlie Goldwyn, he is hurtling through life at breakneck speed. Recently widowed, Charlie is pouring all his energy into his high-pressure, high-stakes job at a prestigious corporate law firm and clearly not dealing with his grief over his wife’s death. Nearly ’round-the-clock workdays have put a serious dent in his relationship with his quirky 5-year-old son, Caleb, and are not winning Charlie any father of the year awards. Pile on a complicated relationship with his own father and you have a portrait of the workaholic, emotionally out-of-touch, modern male. 

Of course, readers know that this “life” Charlie has created is unsustainable. Cue office party and a booze-soaked moment of truth that leaves Charlie humiliated, unemployed and an instant YouTube sensation. Now jobless, Charlie is stuck at home with Caleb for the summer. What ensues is a hilarious, touching romp of a journey that finds Charlie learning what fatherhood truly means. 

Cristina Alger, author of The Darlings, has written a big, heartfelt book that reads like your favorite sitcom. Charlie’s evolution to a secure, confident stay-at-home dad is wonderfully satisfying, and he is as relatable as Will Freeman in Nick Hornby’s About a Boy. This Was Not the Plan is a familiar story of love, loss, parenthood, friendship—and of finally understanding what it means to create a life that is truly in balance.

This article was originally published in the February 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Yes, the heroine of The Things We Keep, Anna, is a 38-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s disease who is confined to an assisted-living facility. But no, Australian writer Sally Hepworth’s second novel is not depressing, and while her narrative can be sad and even painful at times, it is never bleak. On the contrary, the story of Anna and her “boyfriend” at Rosalind House, fellow patient Luke, is tragic but also hopeful, positive and even romantic.

Anna and Luke’s relationship may be the heart of the novel, but its peripheral characters are equally compelling. First among these is Eve, a young mother who lost her identity after her husband’s precipitous fall from grace and reinvents herself as the cook at the assisted-living facility. Hepworth’s depiction of Eve’s spirited daughter, Clem, is also heartrending, as are her portrayals of the eclectic contingent of residents at Rosalind House.

Hepworth’s debut, The Secrets of Midwives, was critically acclaimed, and it’s always a formidable task to impress readers with a second novel. But with The Things We Keep, Hepworth proves that literary lightning can indeed strike twice.

This article was originally published in the February 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Three American women become ensconced in the cultural mélange of Hong Kong’s expat community in Janice Y.K. Lee’s absorbing, character-driven novel, following 2009’s The Piano Teacher. The author, who was born and raised in Hong Kong, opens her novel with a spot-on description of that sprawling city’s expat contingent—the Chinese, Irish, French, Koreans and Americans—“a veritable UN of fortune-seekers.” They have come for their jobs, or their husbands’ jobs; for six months, a year, maybe three years or more. And they have no idea what to expect from their temporary new home.

Mercy, 27, is a Korean-American woman who has been trying to make a “new start” in Hong Kong for three years. She was raised in a cramped apartment in Queens and graduated from Columbia, a “fancy college with fancy kids who showed her a different world.” She is having trouble finding a steady job and is not yet feeling comfortable in her role as one of the few single expats.

Margaret Reade also arrived three years ago, following her husband, a higher-up with a U.S. multinational. On the surface they are living the enviable, seemingly perfect expat life, but they have suffered a recent loss, and Margaret is finding it nearly impossible to move on. 

Hilary and her husband, David, have been in Hong Kong for eight years, and she has been trying to become pregnant ever since their arrival. Her marriage has “cooled into politeness,” but she’s hoping a child might help.

In Hong Kong’s insulated atmosphere, the paths of these three women manage to cross in intricate and unexpected ways. As they tell their stories in alternating chapters, Mercy, Margaret and Hilary become so familiar, the reader seems to have met them before. We know them not just superficially but are privy to their inner thoughts, frustrations and dreams. Like Jodi Picoult and Kristin Hannah, Lee is a perceptive observer of her compelling characters and brings them vividly to life in this moving novel.
 

RELATED CONTENT: Read our interview with Janice Y.K. Lee about The Expatriates.
 

This article was originally published in the January 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

That one of the recurring characters in The Portable Veblen is a squirrel tells you much about the experience of reading Elizabeth McKenzie’s clever second novel. Veblen, the 30-year-old protagonist who chats with the squirrel, describes herself as an “independent behaviorist,” translates for the Norwegian Diaspora Project in her spare time and “still favored baggy oversized boy’s clothes.” This novel is like vegetables cut on a bias: slightly skewed, pleasing to look at, and, thanks to its skilled chef, a joy to consume.

Veblen is named after Thorstein Veblen, the early 20th-century economist who “espoused anti-materialistic beliefs,” and is, like her namesake, a nonconformist. She lives alone in a bungalow in Palo Alto, but has fallen in love with Paul Vreeland, an ambitious young neurologist. Although they’ve known each other for only three months, they plan to marry. And Paul has another plan: He’s developing a device that will help medics perform emergency craniotomies on the front lines.

Paul’s device isn’t ready for the field yet, but the Department of Defense is interested, as is Cloris Hutmacher, a Tesla-driving pharmaceutical heiress. As Paul decides whether to enter into business with a firm that is the antithesis of Thorstein Veblen’s writings, he’s also grappling with his hippie parents and an emotionally challenged brother. Veblen’s side of the family presents challenges, too, most notably her mother, a hypochondriac who keeps a typed list of her medical history behind a ceramic bowl filled with pinecones and presents the list to Paul when they’re introduced.

The Portable Veblen has extraneous plot points, but for the most part, this is a funny and well-written novel about family, love and the perils of misplaced ambition. Adding to the experience are the many photographs wittily distributed throughout: Next to the paragraph in which Veblen’s stepfather offers her a chicken burrito is a tiny photo of a stuffed tortilla wrapped in foil. When you know what you’re doing, as McKenzie does here, to go against the grain is no bad thing.

RELATED CONTENT: Read our Q&A with Elizabeth McKenzie about The Portable Veblen.

This article was originally published in the January 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Once in a while, a reader needs to dive into a book that makes her feel just a bit unclean. The book doesn’t have to be trashy—and Chris Bohjalian’s latest, The Guest Room, is much too well-written and psychologically astute to be close to trashy—but the author must have no compunction about dropping the reader into the muck and leaving her there. This Bohjalian certainly does, with glee.

The bad stuff comes early. Richard Chapman, a mild-mannered investment banker, allows his sleazy brother, Philip, to throw a bachelor party at Richard’s house in a tony New York City suburb. This predictably sordid affair takes a nightmarish turn when the bodyguards of the barely legal strippers are murdered in view of the guests. Because, see, these strippers aren’t strippers at all, but Armenian sex slaves—and the cue-ball-headed, no-neck bodyguards are their Russian overseers.

The point of view alternates, and Richard; his wife, Kristin; their daughter, Melissa; and an enslaved girl dubbed Alexandra by her captors all get a chance to tell the story. Richard has no idea what to do with himself. Kristin is freaked out—not so much because people were slaughtered in her house, but because her husband almost had sex with a girl half their age. Melissa is frightened and bewildered, which is perfectly OK because she’s 9. This, the book says, is how people who thought they had it made come unmade.

But consider what Bohjalian, author of the bestseller Midwives, does with the hapless Alexandra. She is the conscience in this conscienceless world, a girl who manages to hold on to her innocence and compassion despite the horror of her life. Her voice, with its sometimes uncertain, quirky English, is rendered with such perfection that it’s easy to forget that the author is male. This, the book tells us, is what happens to the innocent. It’s all very dark and greasy—and enjoyable.

This article was originally published in the January 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Jan Karon, author of the best-selling series of Mitford novels, is back with another that readers won’t want to miss. Come Rain or Come Shine picks up where Karon’s last novel left off—with the upcoming marriage of aspiring veterinarian Dooley Kavanagh and his longtime sweetheart, Lace Harper.

In true Mitford style, Dooley and Lace have decided to get married in a barn, on the farm they’ve just purchased for Dooley’s vet practice. They want their wedding to be simple, so they’re doing it potluck-style. Of course, nothing is ever as easy as it seems, and the threat of a torrential downpour and 60-mile-per-hour wind makes for a logistical nightmare, not to mention the already grueling task of shuttling guests to various locations on the 100-acre farm. But with seemingly inexhaustible help from those they hold most dear, the couple has vowed to savor every minute of it.

This beautiful novel examines a Southern tradition—the do-it-yourself, at-home wedding—in all of its intricacies, from the cast of characters who make the big day a reality and the new relationships that form in such intimate settings to the surprises that wedding guests will tell stories about for years to come. In this case, readers encounter two unexpected wedding guests, including the farm’s first bull, Choo-Choo, who nearly crashes the wedding at the most inopportune moment.

Karon has a gift for breathing life into small moments that make readers both laugh and cry. In one moment, just days before the wedding, Dooley and Lace test the lights that they’ve strung up in the trees and exchange a heartfelt set of promises that are built on years of history. In another, the couple’s good friend Harley vaults a fence at a near-sprint to get away from the horns of the almighty Choo-Choo.

Come Rain or Come Shine is about immeasurable love, the inevitability of change and the extraordinary power of ordinary moments. 

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

BookPage Fiction Top Pick, October 2015

The seedy, soap opera-tinged underbelly of Hollywood is fertile ground for fiction. Los Angeles resident Alex Brunkhorst makes the most of that setting in her second novel, the suspenseful and romantic The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine. It’s the star-crossed story of two lives that are wildly different yet forever intertwined.

Thomas Cleary is a journalist who’s never lived the high life. He comes from the working class, and despite being surrounded by the Hollywood elite, he’s never really mingled with them. That all changes when he’s assigned to write an obituary for a Hollywood mogul, which leads him to Matilda Duplaine. Matilda is beautiful, charming and instantly memorable, but she’s also a mystery, a young woman who has never left the grounds of the estate where she grew up. As Thomas’ fascination with Matilda deepens, he yearns to show her the outside world, even as he comes to discover that her very existence contains a secret that will shake both of their lives.

Thomas’ narration lends the story personality, sensitivity and wit. We see the alien world of Hollywood’s richest through an outsider’s eyes, giving the novel a vicarious appeal. And Brunkhorst, who has worked as a luxury real estate agent in California, knows that glittering world well enough to make it feel real to readers. Matilda is a fascinating character, full of Golden Age Hollywood affectations and eccentricities that stem from her life in exile, but we see her only through Thomas, who first mythologizes her, then strips her down to who she really is, odd upbringing and all. This creates an interesting dual perspective and a sense that we’re watching not one, but two people slowly come to grips with reality. When that reality finally hits, it’s shattering.

The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine is a fascinating, bittersweet journey into the heart of modern-day Hollywood—the perfect treat for readers who love both doomed romances and Tinseltown fables.

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