Novels Now

You are browsing the archives of 2008 January.

I had a love-hate relationship with this book. I loved the fact that we see Tully and Kate from a young age and we get a sense of what makes each girl tick.
I hate the fact that Tully is such a selfish jerk and I find it hard to believe that anyone could maintain a [...]

I read The Tea Rose last year and when I heard that there was a continuation in the series, I couldn’t wait to read it.
I was glad to see Fiona and Joe Bristow make a reappearance in this book. After all the angst and drama they suffered through in The Tea Rose, they deserve to [...]

The House at Riverton is a strong debut novel by Kate Morton. Already a bestseller in the U.K., it is slated for release in the U.S. in April of 2008.Grace Bradley, a 98 year old former servant of the Hartford family, recounts in a series of flashbacks the events surrounding the house and the family [...]

I have read one other book by Geraldine Brooks, Year of Wonders, which I liked, so I had high expectations for this book.
When I first started reading People of the Book I was sure it was on track to be one of my top reads of the year. There were places where I stopped to [...]

Rating: 4 Stars (Very Good)
First Sentence: Mataprasad Mahadev, fifty-three, dark, and fiercely mustached, was in a thoughtful mood as he sat legged in dhoti and chappals on the floor of the luggage compartment of the Churchgate-bound local.
Comments: Author Murzban F. Shroff attempts to capture the dichotomy of Bombay, both the beauty and the ugliness, [...]

And every week there was the unspoken question behind it, the one I did’nt know enough to ask myself - Have you found her yet? The one who reminds you of you? -From Have You Found Her, page 22-
Janice Erlbaum is in her mid-30s and decides to volunteer at a shelter for homeless girls - [...]

Janice Erlbaum spent a couple of months in a homeless shelter when she was a teenager. It turned out to be an event that put her on the path to a successful and happy life. Twenty years later, she decided that it was time to give back and she begins volunteering her time to the [...]

War makes history seem deceptively simple. They provide clear turning points, easy distinctions: before and after, winner and loser, right and wrong. True history, the past, is not like that. It isn’t flat or linear. It has no outline. It is slippery, like liquid; infinite and unknowable, like space. And it is changeable: just when [...]

Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell is a fictional story about Agnes, a middle-aged woman from Cleveland, who finally gets the courage and means to travel on her own. Her choice is Cairo, and while there she meets up with Winston Churchill, Gertrude Bell, and T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) while they are [...]

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton swept me away into a tale of love, murder, war and revenge. Admittedly, I was a little hesitant to read this book, partly because of its length (470 pages), but also because I feared it would read like romantic fiction. I was wrong. The story encircles you and [...]

Her gray eyes sparked with passion as she spoke. Sid looked into them and for a second he glimpsed her soul. He saw what she was - fierce and brave. Difficult. Upright. Impatient. And good. So good that she would sit covered in gore, shout at dangerous men, and keep a long, lonely vigil - [...]

This was an absolutely wonderful way to start the new year. This is one of those books that leaves you feeling slightly melancholy that it has ended.
The story opens with Grace in a nursing home reflecting on her past. We know from the beginning that she has held secrets and regrets close to her heart [...]

The girl stood in her ditch under a a hard, small moon. Pale foam rose from where her shoes sank into mud. No more voices inside her head, no noise but these dogs. She saw her own course along the ground as a trail of bright light, now doused in the ditchwater. She clambered [...]

Historians will tell you that to understand the present you must comprehend the past. I believe that is what Mary Doria Russell is trying to show us in her latest book, Dreamers of the Day.
At initial glance, Dreamers of the Day is a coming-of-age novel about late bloomer, Agnes Shanklin, who becomes an heiress after [...]