Novels Now

The Bishop’s Man by Linden MacIntyre, 399 pages
I only know Linden MacIntyre for his work as an investigative reporter on the CBC show the fifth estate, but he has a future as a novelist if this book is anything to go by. He writes a somewhat suspenseful tale of a lonely man, a priest facing [...]

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, 463 pages
published in ‘09
I looked up the meaning of Gothic literature at wikipedia, and would have to agree that this book is a classic Gothic novel. All the main characteristics are here: terror, mystery, ghosts, haunted houses, castles, decay, and madness. Waters has taken the time period, the 1940s [...]

Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella, 435 pages
Kinsella is getting better and better. I enjoyed her Shopaholic series, but Becky could be a little ridiculous, amusing but silly. I’ve enjoyed her stand alones even more - Undomestic Goddess, Remember Me? and now Twenties Girl may be the best of them.
This is a ghost story of sorts, [...]

I don’t know enough about the history in Indonesia to comment on what all happened in this book, but this book made me want to look up and read some other books about Indonesia in the 1960s. I know there was a movie called The Year of Living Dangerously, but I didn’t realize it was based on a book based on a speech by the president and I wasn’t aware that the Dutch ‘owned’ Indonesia before their independence. Indonesia in this tumultuous period is the setting for this novel, providing a backdrop for some broken lives [...]

The mystery was good. We really are a part of the detectives investigation in this book and only get to know what they know, making this a real police procedural. The story moves along pretty quickly as the police follow one clue after another. There was lots of discussion about immigration in Iceland and the attitudes and prejudices that can happen. I think in some ways I can identify with the Icelanders; living on an island really isolates a place and on Prince Edward Island we deal with some of the same type of issues in terms of culture and ‘the Island way of [...]

What a hoot! From the opening mugging to the final, extremely unbelievable but exciting - I can’t believe he did that! scene, I grinned and turned page after page, very quickly. I read somewhere it was described as House meets The Sopranos and that is a pretty good description.

Short, snappy, violent and crude, Peter Brown, doctor at a Manhattan hospital and member of the Witness Protection Program may have been identified and spends the rest of the book trying to decide what he should do. I preferred the present day story to his remembrance of what got him into the WPP, but the back story was necessary to set up the ending[...]

I loved that characters from many of Binchy’s other books were in this one. It gives an update on some characters from Evening Class, Scarlett Feather, Quentins, Whitethorn Hills and Nights of Rain and Stars.

The characters are realistic, modern people that fight with their family, have good friends, and hope for a better life and love.

Too Close to Home by Linwood Barclay, 404 pages
I love a good suspenseful thriller. I started this one yesterday, and since I had today off, I read all day. It was a real page turner, with twists and turns, some I could somewhat see or at least suspect, but still satisfying.
The prologue starts with Derek, [...]

When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson , 348 pages
Jackson Brodie, previous detective from Case Histories and One Good Turn, is back for Kate Atkinson’s newest novel. The title hints at the bad news following some characters that permeates this page turner. There are some desperately sad people in this book, and as [...]

Exit Lines by Joan Barfoot
What will life be like when you are old(er)? This is the story of four very different old people, because even though we say old, everyone is very different. The stereotype of the little old lady is not possible because unless we are all the same now, there is no way [...]

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
I would guess that the Man Booker judges committee this year all like the same kind of book: wry commentary on society, first person narrative, confessional story, with lots of dark humor. The White Tiger had the same tone and feel to me as A Fraction of the Whole and [...]

Before Green Gables by Budge Wilson
I believe Anne fans have been somewhat leery of this book. To attempt to write the before story, based on the small tidbits of her past that Anne let slip, was a huge undertaking for Wilson. People who love Anne would want the story to be true to LM Montgomery’s [...]

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale
Summerscale has written a very interesting book about the history of detectives, real and fictional, as well as investigating a true murder that scandalized Victorian England in 1860. The subtitle is “A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victoria Detective.”
The murder was of three year old [...]

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
I first heard of this big ole book when bookfool mentioned it, then kookiejar loved it. It’s big in size (531 pages) and ambition. Toltz covers a lot of material here, and I’ll try to summarize a bit.
Jasper Dean is writing his family’s colourful history in Australia, focusing [...]

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
My son just said to me, “Didn’t you just start that book yesterday?” Always the sign of a good book, one that I just race through. I’ve been reading some good reviews of this one in the Southern Reading Challenge. It’s a classic southern novel, tackling racist life in Mississippi just after [...]

A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
In 1988, a plane carrying the President of Pakistan crashed, killing the President - military dictator General Zia, some generals, and the American Ambassador, Arnold Raphel. This book looks at what may have caused the crash and the death of the General Zia.
I had to look up at [...]

Outcast by Sadie Jones 
The novel opens in 1957 with Lewis’ return home after a stay in prison. We quickly flashback to when he was ten and his father was returning from the war, 1945 , to the small village outside London and follow poor Lewis’s life up until his incarceration. The last third of the book [...]

Paul Quarrington has been in the news lately (in Canada) as the author of the winning Canada Reads book, King Leary. I haven’t read it yet, but when I got the opportunity to read his latest book, released March 11, 2008, I jumped.
And then I laughed my way through this book. Phil McQuigge is a [...]

The End of East by Jen Sookfong Lee
Vancouver’s Chinatown is the setting of this family history chronicling Sammy Chan’s ancestors. The novel starts with Sammy’s return to her mother’s house, but the family’s story begins with the immigration of Seid Quan from China. I don’t think Canada has much to be proud about for its [...]