The extraordinary story of Edmonia Lewis

Mary Edmonia Lewis (1844-1907) was a neoclassical sculptor of Black-Indigenous parentage who gained international renown in the late 19th century yet fell into obscurity decades later. Alongside a recent artistic revival, her life and work should get a deserving boost through Baker’s eloquent biographical novel.

Pub. by Dafina/Kensington, April 2026 (288pp)

Her imagined first-person voice makes a statement. With cool, deliberate pacing and an exalted vocabulary, Edmonia reveals her extraordinary story, from her childhood in northern New York, where she wove baskets with her Ojibwe aunts for tourists, through the height of professional achievement in Rome, where she settled after tiring of racist treatment in her birth country.

Much about Lewis remains shadowy even today. And so, while anchored in the historical record, Baker’s tale includes fictional episodes for dramatic purposes and to fill in gaps.

The most unusual events in the narrative really did happen. After attending New York Central College through the financial support of anti-slavery Baptists, the teenager then known as Mary enrolls at Oberlin College in Ohio, where she endures sniffy racial attitudes and is brought to trial for poisoning two female students. Baker’s explanations for this shocking accusation make logical sense, as does Mary’s decision to use the middle name she was given in baptism, Edmonia, after moving to Boston to start afresh.

Edmonia Lewis, ca. 1870. By Henry Rocher
Adam Cuerden - National Portrait Gallery (United States)

A detailed author’s note would have been beneficial, but one could hazard a guess that some secondary characters and unlikely coincidences involving them were invented. What feels entirely real, though, is Edmonia’s strength of will. She is bold, uncompromising, occasionally prickly (even with her benefactors), confident in her abilities, and determined to elevate and showcase the humanity of her people by sculpting them in marble. What a force she must have been. Edmonia brings to life a woman who refused to be defined by anyone but herself.

This review, cross-posted to the Historical Novel Society website, was based on my reading of a NetGalley copy. I had included Edmonia in my preview of spring/summer 2026 novels, and it didn’t disappoint in the least. The novel has only a few dozen Amazon reviews, so it seems to be flying under the radar (I would contribute one myself, but Amazon doesn’t seem to like me posting reviews there).

Edmonia Lewis was the focus of an exhibition at the Peabody-Essex Museum that ran from Feb-June 2026, and an interview with the curator (on YouTube) is still posted at the PEM website. The exhibition has since traveled to the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia, so if you’re in the vicinity of Athens (Georgia, that is) between now and next January, it looks very much worth checking out. Many photos of Lewis’s sculptures are posted at the museum website.

From the mountains of Morocco to northeastern France

There’s an almost mystical quality about the horse that draws together the passionate cast of characters within Elizabeth Letts’ newest novel.

To be sure, Tassa—whose name means “beloved” in the Berber language (Tamazight)—is a flesh-and-blood creature, a stunning mare the “color of a red-cheeked apple… light on her feet and queenly in appearance,” who is born in the Sultan’s royal stables in Fes, Morocco’s capital, in 1905. Over the years, Tassa will change hands many times, be acquired and lost, cross the sea, and disappear for stretches, fiercely missed by the boy who cherished her. She is innocence, strength, nobility, glory, and hope, qualities frequently trampled upon amid the scourge of the First World War. She represents, to quote a phrase spoken at the dawn of an earlier devastating war, the better angels of our nature.

Pub. by Ballantine (Aug. 2026)

 

(To ease any concerns, as the author herself has done: Tassa doesn’t die a heroic death in battle. The title doesn’t refer to that.)

Fallen for France opens with a six-year-old village boy from Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains. Beddou is sent away to be indentured with a distant cousin, Saïd, who turns out to be a cruel man. Rescued from his isolated life as a shepherd by the roguish Hassan, and apprenticed to a saddlemaker in Meknes, Beddou comes to care for Tassa, all too briefly. After losing her to theft, Beddou dreams of reclaiming her. Tassa and the string of amber beads gifted by his mother, which "glowed like six shining suns," become, for him, ideals that symbolize love and home.

Both broadly scoped and intimate, the perspective passes smoothly through many well-constructed characters, including Beddou, Hassan, and an Algerian-born French soldier called Jean-Baptiste Thibault. The action moves forward overseas, along with Tassa. There we encounter Estelle Maillot, a young woman caring for her disabled younger brother alone in rural northeastern France, close by the expected approach of the German army; and Thomas Bellows, head of veterinary surgery for the Blue Cross in the adjacent town of Court-Chapelle. Both know horses well and recognize Tassa’s magnificence when they see her. While not a viewpoint character, Louhou, Saïd’s sympathetic young wife, weaves colorfully through many of their lives.

The novel acknowledges the fact, which few other WWI novels have, that several hundred thousand troops from France’s North African colonies served in Europe. Yet this is neither a traditional wartime tale nor a familiar coming-of-age journey about a boy and his horse. Instead, it centers on how war comes to touch those not on the battlefield. The phrasing is poetic and thoughtful:

As he chased behind his cousin on the well-trodden paths that crossed the Atlas, in the country his kinsmen thought of as “the Berber lands,” Beddou didn’t know that a powerful wind was blowing down from the north as Europe’s great empires jockeyed for power over this sovereign land. The Kaiser’s visit and its aftermath would later be called the First Moroccan Crisis. The first bead slipped onto a cord that would eventually lead to the necklace known as the Great War. In time, all would wear it.

Alongside, the author unfolds a beautiful story of love, loss, and an ever-present yearning for things that may or may not be attainable.

Letts has worked and lived in Morocco, where her husband hails from, and her respect for the country and its people comes through clearly. As does her love of horses, the subject of several of her acclaimed and best-selling previous books. Like Geraldine Brooks’ magnificent Horse, Fallen for France should appeal to anyone appreciating a high-quality literary experience, both prior equine lovers and not.

The young women who disappeared: Kate Schatz's Where the Girls Were

Feminist writer Schatz knocks it out of the park with her debut novel about a young woman in late ´60s California who—like so many from her generation—gets trapped between the contrasting values of American counterculture and a society that denies her agency over her own body and choices.

Pub. by The Dial Press (March 2026)

The soon-to-be valedictorian at her high school, Elizabeth Baker Phillips is her parents’ pride, the natural culmination of her studiousness and a loving upbringing overlaid with high expectations. Then her path to Stanford is wrecked after she gets caught up in the blissful freedom at her cousin May’s party at San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury and has a short affair with an attractive hippie. Suddenly Baker, a “good girl” who’d barely touched a man before, finds herself pregnant and lost, a situation presented with deep understanding.

Desperate to conceal their family’s shame, Baker’s mother, Rose, drops her off, without her prior knowledge, at a home for unwed mothers. Here, Baker and others are meant to spend months behind locked doors and pressured to sign their babies away for adoption; after going into labor, they’re whisked off and never mentioned again. She gets curious about all the girls made to disappear and ponders what to do next.

The camaraderie amongst the girls is suffused with warmth. Each situation is unique, but they all recognize the unfairness: they’re effectively imprisoned, while for the men, “he just gets to live his life.” Through Baker’s work as a teacher’s assistant, Schatz enhances the themes by interweaving words from the literary women Baker admires.

This isn’t a thriller, but with the heightened anticipation of Baker’s actions as her time of childbirth draws near, it often reads like one. The story offers utter believability and character intimacy, including Baker’s observations about the changing body she no longer recognizes. It’s nearly impossible to look away.

Where the Girls Were was published in March by The Dial Press/Penguin Random House, and I reviewed it initially for the Historical Novel Society. I haven’t heard much about this novel in the histfic community since its publication (maybe because it’s not the first on its subject?) and think it deserves more attention.  I’ve since read other reviews, mostly positive, which have mild critiques about the ending. I understand this, but I also understand and appreciate the author’s choice of finale. 

There have been a growing number of recent historical novels about the "Baby Scoop Era,” which spanned from the post-WWII years to the early 1970s. During this time, an estimated 1.5 million unmarried girls and women were coerced to give up their newborns for adoption, signing away their parental rights, and told to forget it ever happened. Ann Fessler’s nonfiction history The Girls Who Went Away (2006), based on interviews with many of the women affected, brought these unethical practices into widespread public view.

Other novels on the subject include:

Meagan Church, The Girls We Sent Away (Sourcebooks, 2024), set in 1960s North Carolina.

Grady Hendrix, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls (Berkley, 2025) - St. Augustine, Florida, in 1970. From the title, you can guess this is a historical fantasy novel.

Kelly O’Connor McNees, The Myth of Surrender (Pegasus, 2022) - rural Illinois in 1960.

Kim van Alkemade, Counting Lost Stars (William Morrow, 2023) - 1960 NYC, told in parallel with a thread set in the Netherlands during the Holocaust.

Susan Wiggs, Wayward Girls (William Morrow, 2025) - in which young women are confined in a Catholic reform school in Buffalo, New York, during the Vietnam War years. Earlier this month, the author wrote an essay for People Magazine about the letters she received from survivors after her novel was published.

A portrait of women's choices, cultural assimilation, and generational differences (plus other historical fiction news)

Vivian Jacobson is beyond overwhelmed. The children of Russian Jewish immigrants, she and her loving husband, Mel, moved from Chicago with their family to a new house in suburban Wilmette, so people of her time—1956—may believe she’s achieved the pinnacle of American womanhood. But with four young children needing her undivided attention, Vivian’s completely frazzled. A solo homemaker six days a week, she’s left without transportation while Mel takes their Oldsmobile downtown to work at his family’s eatery.

When Vivian learns she’s pregnant again, to her despair, Mel agrees to support her choice to seek an illegal abortion with a doctor her obstetrician recommends. The place is grimy, the provider sarcastic and rude, and Vivian’s too scared to proceed. Now what? She has a week to change her mind.

Pub. by She Writes Press (2026)

First-time novelist Leavitt draws us fully into Vivian’s daily life and emotional turmoil as she weighs this most painful of decisions. Alongside, we also see Vivian’s mother, Hannah Kolson, raising a large family in a small apartment in 1923 Chicago.

Isolated as a non-English speaker, Hannah contends with a sexist husband who lays frequent claim to her body. She, too, has an unwanted pregnancy, a situation which Vivian gradually discovers. One of many very personal women’s stories, as we see in this compassionate and psychologically involving work, that exist but are rarely spoken about.

Vivian’s Decision is also delightfully full of Jewish wisdom, traditions, and immigrant history, from the classic Settlement Cook Book to a rabbi’s sensible advice. We see how much has changed between the ´20s and the more modern ´50s—wives no longer sit separate from their husbands in shul—but the importance of women’s freedoms remains constant, as it does today. This riveting novel about female friendship and agency is strongly recommended.

Della Leavitt’s Vivian’s Decision was published in April by She Writes Press, and I’d reviewed it initially for the Historical Novel Society. I chose it because it focuses on Jewish immigrant life, it’s set in Illinois, and because I’d loved Jennifer S. Brown’s Modern Girls, an earlier novel set in 1930s Manhattan that addresses similar themes.

The cover image, depicting a woman from above, reminded me of a few other recent designs. Four isn’t enough to call it a trend, but The Frozen River was so popular that I’m surprised there aren’t more of these. Did I miss others?

~

Among other historical fiction news:

Of this year’s winner, the judges of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction said it “may be the most unusual book you read this year.” Alice Jolly’s The Matchbox Girl took home the honors. Set in Nazi-occupied Vienna in 1938, it follows a young, non-speaking girl who comes to the attention of Dr Hans Asperger… and other children at the doctor’s pediatric clinic have been disappearing. The Matchbox Girl is published by Bloomsbury.

Nobel laureate Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, the Japanese-born British author, has announced his upcoming novel: Miss Lambert Steps Aboard Danger, to be published in March 2027 by Faber (UK) and Knopf (US/Canada). It’s described as a spy caper set in Britain in 1938 that draws on the author’s “love of music, art and Golden Age cinema,” says Faber publishing director Angus Cargill.

For Writer’s Digest, Julie Gerstenblatt (her second novel, The Stargazer of Nantucket, is out now) contributes an article with five good tips on How to Bring a World to Life in Historical Fiction.

Sylvia Plath in the English countryside: Helen Bain's innovative debut, The Daffodil Days

The Daffodil Days, Helen Bain’s debut, can be read on different levels.  It's a multi-angled portrait of the small English town of North Tawton as its residents observe, react to, and recall the bright spirit of an American newcomer who settled among them for a short time.

It also works as a unique lens on the person herself, the brilliant author Sylvia Plath. The structure is unusual. As the chapters move backward through time, from late 1962 through summer 1961, each reveals the viewpoint of someone who interacted with Plath over these fifteen-odd months.

Pub. by Scribner (June 9, 2026)

In the beginning, Sylvia is present only through the memories of others and the artifacts she left behind. At Court Green, a thatched farmhouse in Devon, Nancy Axworthy, who served as part-time housekeeper to Plath and her family during their residence there, cleans up the home before closing it up for the winter. As Nancy scours the sink, she keeps a loose eye on her grandson while a neighbor offers his thoughts about Sylvia. We’re privy to her life through these conversations:

I said she didn’t have to leave, Gilbert says, laughing. She’s a free agent. Especially now she doesn’t have a husband telling her what to do.

Separated from her husband, poet Ted Hughes, after discovering his infidelity, Sylvia has moved with her two children to a flat in London. Although she’d told Nancy she expected to return to Court Green in the spring, others suspect she won’t be back.

Knowledge of Plath’s death by suicide at her London home in February 1963 (not mentioned, but so well known that it’s not a spoiler) is always in the background. Yet this isn’t a somber novel. While the pacing is relaxed, it’s infused with personality and life, along with periodic glimpses of the brilliant yellow daffodils that Sylvia loved.

Each of the viewpoint characters is fully dimensional, and their impressions of Sylvia progressively join to form a kaleidoscopic picture.

In October 1962, Dr. Hugh Webb, a physician in North Tawton, reflects on the differences between his current daily routine and his previous medical practice in Kaduna, Nigeria. Then he spots Sylvia in his waiting room. She’s injured her thumb while cutting an onion and sits calmly, unflinchingly, as he sews it up and makes careful inquiries about her health.

Months earlier, on a Tuesday morning in June, Stella Woodhouse, a producer at London’s Broadcasting House, sets up a recording session for Sylvia and her reading of her “dramatic poem,” as she describes it. Sylvia is a tall, sociable woman with a distinctive transatlantic accent (“Wait until you hear her… sounds more RP than the ruddy Queen,” Stella’s colleague says) who has exacting standards – for herself most of all.

Is this what it is like to be inside Miss Plath’s mind? This rich exactitude, this precise point of intelligence, this controlled tempo. Each individual item considered, measured, selected.

It is focused, sharp, amusing. It holds your attention. It is precisely what a six-minute Features recording ought to be.

(Anyone curious to hear Plath’s voice firsthand, with its unique Massachusetts-English blend, can do so; there are numerous recordings on YouTube.)

The UK cover (Bloomsbury Circus, March 2026). Very different!

Readers seeking in-depth views of Sylvia’s troubled marriage or creative process won’t find them here, but there are hints. Throughout the chapters, we’re immersed in Sylvia’s domestic side – at a dress shop, beside a local churchyard, at home as a salesman demonstrates a newfangled washing machine, at a riding lesson atop a horse called Ariel – and see her hopes for finding contentment and creative inspiration in the English countryside.

The reverse chronology means that The Daffodil Days ends on a poignant note of promise. Extensive prior knowledge of Sylvia Plath’s biography and works isn’t required. If you’re unfamiliar with all things Plath, you’ll miss some references within this beautifully subtle novel, but don’t be surprised if it also spurs new interest in her life and work.

The Daffodil Days appeared from Scribner/Simon & Schuster on June 9th. This is a significant expansion/reworking of my original (175-word) review for Booklist, which ran in their June 2026 issue.

The glamorous Gabor sisters and their survival stories: Run, Darling, by Karen Essex

Through their novels, authors can unearth obscure figures from the past and draw the public eye toward their interesting lives. They can also reveal the little-known backstories of the wildly famous and wildly rich.

In Run, Darling, Karen Essex illustrates the complicated family and romantic histories of the Gabors and the astonishing trials they endured before arriving in America and becoming fixtures of mid-20th-century gossip columns. They could be called the original Kardashians, but this obscures the core of strength behind the glamorous front.

Pub. by Kleopatra Books (2025)

Having grown up in the 1970s and 1980s, I remember this about the Gabor sisters:

* Eva and Zsa Zsa – unforgettable names – had charming Hungarian accents, wore their blonde hair in fabulous updos, draped themselves in jewels, and dropped “dah-link” into most conversations

* Their multiple marriages were notorious, even for Hollywood

* They were regulars on TV talk shows and periodic guests of Captain Stubing on his luxurious Love Boat voyages

What I didn’t know before reading this novel:

* There were three sisters! The oldest, Magda, known as the responsible one, married a minor Polish count – the first of multiple husbands. Within the story, they call themselves the “unholy trinity."

* Their mother, Jolie, a jeweler and classic “momager,” had as colorful a personality and almost as chaotic a love life as her daughters did. What a character – it’s impossible not to admire her chutzpah, but she can’t have been easy to live with.

* They belonged to a Jewish family that converted to Catholicism, which didn’t stop the Nazis from targeting them. Despite increasing evidence to the contrary, like Hungary’s passage of anti-Jewish legislation, Jolie continues to believe the family’s wealth and prominence will protect them.

* They arrived in the United States separately in the late 1930s and ‘40s. Their journeys to get there – and desperate attempts to rescue family members in Europe (some eager to escape, others refusing to leave) – make for a nail-biting plotline.

Essex relates their individual, intertwined adventures in this enticingly dishy and sympathetic account, allowing their personalities to shine. Eva, the first to emigrate, lands in Los Angeles eager to star in films though runs up against overbearing sexism and struggles to become successful. Zsa Zsa marries an older Turkish diplomat for security and to evade maternal pressure to become a celebrity in Vienna; her status as a high-profile political wife puts her into dangerous company. In England, Magda undertakes heroic actions and falls in love with intriguing men while hoping her parents in Budapest will see sense and get out.

The Gabor women’s stories positively drip with drama, scandalous antics, and guest appearances from Hollywood luminaries and other famous names. They make impulsive decisions with the best intentions (“Perhaps jumping without a net is just what Gabor women do,” Zsa Zsa muses), which is sometimes necessary to survive. Some of the male characters breeze by on the page without leaving a deep impression, but there are, admittedly, quite a lot of them … and as we know from history, there’ll be more where they came from. The text could use a closer proofread, too, to catch typos and name inconsistencies.

But who can resist a group of almost larger-than-life sisters who keep “emergency diamonds from Mama” they can use in a pinch to save their lives when needed? This novel about a trio of determined, one-of-a-kind women certainly instilled in me a newfound respect for how they survived, using their own talents to do so.

A historical fiction bestseller that lives up to the buzz: Tayari Jones's Kin

“The road Vernice is walking is paved different from yours,” Annie’s grandmother tells her towards the beginning of Jones’s remarkable novel. “It ain’t fair, but that’s the way life takes us.”

Annie and Vernice (Niecy) grow up as “cradle friends” in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, their bond closer than sisters. Both lost their mothers young, Niecy to murder and Annie to abandonment, and the relatives who take in the girls can’t make up for the emotional loss. Niecy’s Aunt Irene raises her as a young lady, saving coins to send her to Spelman College in Atlanta.

Annie’s path to escaping Honeysuckle is more sudden and chaotic, but escape she does, in an old Packard with her intended boyfriend and two others, heading to Memphis where she’s heard her mama lives. Her path to the big city and in life is far from smooth, but neither is Niecy’s, who navigates the challenges of color and class, and her nascent sexuality, with the friendship of other female students.

Niecy and Annie switch off narrating, their distinct voices full of personality and casual wit, but progressively diverging in tone and vocabulary as their lives stretch further apart. The historical atmosphere is first-rate, with unobtrusive details on growing up Black and female in the 1950s Jim Crow South and all that entails: segregated movie theaters, rooming houses “vouched for by the Green Book,” and the compromises that social elevation demands.

There are so many extraordinary characters that it feels like the novel could shift focus to any one of them and tell an equally fascinating story. Jones’s ability to unfold a tale is just marvelous—there’s always something going on, but the plot never feels unrealistic. A fierce, occasionally wrenching novel about the meaning of family: those rare beings who see you as you truly are.

Tayari Jones’s Kin was published by Knopf in February. In the UK, the publisher is Oneworld, and it appeared from Viking in Canada. I reviewed it initially for the Historical Novel Society. It’s been a New York Times bestseller and an Oprah’s Book Club pick and has had rave reviews in numerous publications. One can’t say this novel is flying under the radar. The attention and acclaim are well-deserved. It’s already appeared on one “best books of the year so far” list, and will undoubtedly land on others in the coming months.

The first few times I heard about this book, I didn’t realize it was a historical novel. The publisher’s blurb doesn’t list the era, although it didn’t quite sound contemporary either. I think it was a NetGalley widget sent to me that clued me in to the timeframe. In a Q&A on her publisher’s website with Tia Guerrier, Jones explains how she came to write it:

I have to give you a little backstory. This was not the novel I was contracted to write. I was supposed to write a novel about gentrification in modern Atlanta. I tried, but it just wasn’t happening. My students would say, “The book was not booking.”

So I went old school. Pencil and paper. And I met Annie and Vernice, and I saw they were living in the ’50s. And I thought, no, I don’t contain a historical novel. That’s not what I do. But I had to follow it. It became clear to me that this is what I was being called to write.

Who else has read it? I enjoyed it so much I may read it again sometime down the road.

A problem like Medea: Natalie Haynes and her new Greek myth retelling, No Friend to This House

Unless you’ve been chained to a rock off the Mediterranean coast for the past decade, you’ll likely have seen the growing cluster of new novels reinterpreting the lives of women (goddesses included!) from classical mythology. They look at the ancient tales through a female lens, allowing us into the perspectives of unfairly sidelined characters or those not granted sufficient voice by their original male authors. Andromeda, Circe, Ariadne, Aphrodite, Phaedra, Hera… they’ve all had their turn, some more than one.

The story of Medea poses a conundrum for a feminist reboot. The daughter of King Aietes of Colchis, she gave vital, magical help to Greek adventurer Jason after he and his Argonauts set sail to steal the golden fleece from her royal father. She also fell in love with Jason and wed him. Considered an barbarian foreigner after the couple moved back to Jason’s homeland, he abandoned her to pursue marriage with a princess of Corinth – after which Medea took drastic, violent revenge against him via their sons.

Medea is an infamous example of a bad mother. How do you rehabilitate that?

Enter Natalie Haynes: broadcaster, classicist, and experienced chronicler of other mythological lives via novels such as Stone Blind (2023), about the tragedy of Medusa, and A Thousand Ships, about the Trojan War’s women. No Friend to This House, a polyphonic tale like its predecessors, doesn’t so much reinvent Medea and other female figures from Euripides’ original text as much as bring them to the forefront and explore their actions and motivations. In doing so, she offers much to think about.

Haynes follows the myth’s standard outline, beginning with Jason’s sea voyage to distant Colchis, on the Black Sea. Departing from tradition, nearly all the viewpoints are female, and they switch off with each chapter. Those familiar with the source material are best equipped to follow the narrative thread through this labyrinth of stories. They all connect to Jason’s trip, not always to each other, so the uninitiated may find the telling a bit choppy – at least until Medea makes her first appearance, around halfway through.

With the men’s quest decentered, this approach allows for the discovery of interesting, previously tangential characters. Among them are the murderous women of Lemnos and the odd backstory to their crime. With deep grief and anger, a woman named Theophane shares a lament for her son, imprinting her forgotten existence (and his) on the reader’s memory:

No one speaks of the golden ram, they prefer to focus on what was important to Jason and his Argonauts: the golden fleece. Such a simple shift in emphasis, you scarcely notice a living creature becoming the remnant of a dead one. And perhaps you also don’t notice the small slip of the tongue, either? Because fleece is not the right word to use … [Jason] was on a quest to find the skin of the creature who wore it, a mythical creature, who was mine, my child, taken from me when he was still so new.

The dove sent to test the Argo’s passage between clashing rocks observes what she sees, as does the goddess who caused Medea’s terrible lovesickness for Jason. Likewise the river Phyllis, Medea’s sister Chalciope, and even the Argo herself. And many more.

As for Jason – the man Medea loves who so cruelly betrays her – he returns to Greece in valiant triumph, but as the years pass, he finds life as a former hero confusing and difficult. His ego is hungry, so he looks for people to feed it. It’s his fate to have his story seen through the female gaze in this revamped version, and the novel’s core tragedy ultimately turns on his actions.

You may be curious how Haynes handles the act that transformed Medea, in the popular mindset, from a sympathetic witch into a murderous one. No spoilers here, but the novel’s nail-biting finale fits with Haynes’s portrayal of this multifaceted and complex woman.

No Friend to This House was published by Harper (US/Canada) in March 2026, and by Mantle (UK) last September. This review is an expansion and substantial reworking of a much shorter review I’d written for Booklist which appeared in their February 1, 2026 issue.

A dance of love and power: Kelly Scarborough's Butterfly Games

Might you be interested in reading about a tender friends-to-lovers romance between two attractive young people, the complicated repercussions of their secret affair, and a damaging whisper network spreading rumors amongst their families and the country’s royal court – all set in the sparkling world of the early 19th-century nobility?

There’s even a meddlesome Queen Charlotte in the background.

If you’re picturing Regency England and Bridgerton, think again – and head northeast. Butterfly Games centers on the forbidden love story between Countess Jacquette Gyldenstolpe and the young man once known as Oscar Bernadotte, now the heir to Sweden’s newly elected crown prince.

It’s based in history, with reasonable liberties taken to fill in gaps.

As historical fiction fodder, this story offers ample material. In her author’s note, Kelly Scarborough reveals how she came up with her subject after reading Annemarie Selinko’s classic Desiree – about the unlikely rise to prominence of Prince Oscar’s mother – and how she immersed herself in the history and culture of Napoleonic-era Sweden to write Jacquette’s story. The result is a thoroughly engaging work of biographical fiction that digs deep in revealing her protagonists’ vulnerabilities and how larger political forces shift the course of their connection.

Jacquette and Oscar first meet in 1811 on the grounds of Drottningholm Palace, the royal household’s summer residence near Stockholm. Though only fourteen, Jacquette already knows she hates court life. She comes from a family of scandalous women, including her mother, Aurora, whose divorce has set the tongues of the queen’s maids of honor (the “Chatterati”) atwitter – and Jacquette’s unhappy about being left with them while Aurora’s away traveling with her lover, Chancellor Wetterstedt. Born a French commoner, Oscar, two years younger, has all the cheekiness and emotional uncertainty of a typical adolescent and none of the airs of a prince.

Jacquette and Oscar commiserate about their broken families and share unguarded views on political notables. In exchange for his keeping a confidence, she agrees to his one request: “Always tell me the truth.” Both are bright and well-meaning, yet naïve, since truth and trust are rarities in a court where secrets and “butterfly games” – short-lived dalliances – are de rigueur.

Four years later, when their friendship turns into passionate love, they learn, with painful firsthand experience, how the predatory royal court strips away everyone’s innocence.

Jacquette is engaging from the start. Royal mistresses are commonplace in history and in fiction, yet her personality shines with her youthful exuberance and, later, her determination to keep her head above water and protect her closest secret. While her mother seeks to exploit Jacquette’s closeness to Prince Oscar for the family’s benefit, Jacquette does find several allies, including her outspoken maid, Brita, and her stepfather, Wetterstedt, surprisingly a better father figure than her own father ever was. The author’s use of close third person to evoke Jacquette’s mindset is very effective, so the move into Jacquette’s first-person voice just for Part Four is jarring. The move into present tense afterward is less noticeable, but still feels unnecessary.

Political intrigue, ever-present, adds suspense. The former Crown Prince Gustav has been living in exile since boyhood, when his father was deposed. His potential return is desired by some, and dreaded by others. Because we stay within Jacquette’s viewpoint – knowing only what she knows and hears, as appropriate – we get a sufficient amount of knowledge about the current vs. former rulers of Sweden. On the other hand, for anyone curious about the complex circumstances that led Sweden to reject their monarch and elect one of Napoleon’s generals, Oscar’s father Marshal Bernadotte, to become heir presumptive to the throne as Crown Prince Charles Jean – you may want to do some outside reading.

One of the pleasures of reading this novel lies in seeing the many subtle channels through which power can flow, and in rooting for Jacquette as she develops the maturity to judge how best to react to them. The Swedish setting for Butterfly Games, an unusual one for Napoleonic-era fiction, has its own definite appeal.

Butterfly Games is published by She Writes Press this week; I read it from a NetGalley copy.

A dual-timeline Tudor novel: what worked and what didn't

Anne Brandon, eldest daughter of Henry VIII’s best friend and brother-in-law, was one of many aristocrats whose lives were torn apart by the king’s quest to divorce Katherine of Aragon. Turning the focus on Anne, as Alexandra Walsh does in her latest dual-timeline novel, illuminates a little-known story of marital strife, revenge, women’s resilience, and lasting love.

Anne grows up in the affectionate household of her Papa, Charles Brandon, and her stepmother, Mary Tudor. Her social position means she must marry a nobleman, and the partner chosen for her is Edward Grey, Baron Powis, even though Anne has always loved another. Edward’s taunts escalate to cruelty after Anne fails to give him a child.

The parallel narrative, set in 2024, features Caroline Harvey, whose reclusive late grandfather had authored a massively bestselling science fiction series. In researching the history of the remote Pembrokeshire woodlands that served as his writing nest, Caroline finds the ruins of a place called Hanworth House and investigates its provenance. In the process, Caroline reconnects with two old friends and deals with (or has her agent deal with; she’s a very wealthy woman) a difficult ex and his new girlfriend, who are squatters in Caroline’s London flat.

While Caroline’s narrative is interesting enough to hold attention, its ties to Anne’s story are loose—Caroline doesn’t make discoveries we don’t already know—and it’s frustrating to know that the author is withholding secrets about Caroline from the reader. For anyone who prefers historical over contemporary narratives, Anne’s tale can easily be enjoyed on its own. It offers a strong plot and a rewarding character arc for Anne, from her changing observations about the scandal-ridden royal court to her complex relationship with her charming, flawed father.

Alexandra Walsh's The House of Echoes was published by Boldwood Books (UK) last January.  I reviewed it initially for the Historical Novel Society and thought I'd expand upon my reaction a bit more.

Novels with parallel narratives set at different points are time are popular, and some intertwine their storylines more closely than others.  Anne Brandon's life story, which I hadn't known before, is a real find for the historical novelist. The modern storyline here is also fully fleshed out.  All good.  But in this case, the strand featuring Caroline didn't feel structurally necessary.  

In addition, Rebecca Makkai's Substack post "Hold the Withholding" hit my inbox after I'd finished writing my review, and her comments crystallized my thoughts about why one aspect of the novel bothered me.

Makkai explains in detail what many writers hope to achieve through narrative withholding, and gives instances when (and why) it can be a problem. 

The modern storyline of The House of Echoes is told in third person from Caroline's viewpoint, and we're open to her thoughts... except about some major secrets she's keeping.  We're reminded about these secrets periodically, and we don't learn what they are until the big reveal at the end.  The intent may have been to create suspense, but this technique was too irritatingly coy for my taste.

That said, if you're interested in lesser-known Tudor stories, the novel's worth reading for that aspect alone, and I'd recommend checking it out.

Through a Darkening Glass by R. S. Maxwell, a gothic-tinged mystery set in 1940s Lancashire

In summer 1940, Ruth Gladstone, an English literature student at Girton College, Cambridge, evacuates with her grandmother to the Lancashire village of Martynsborough after an unexploded bomb lands on the campus. While staying with her great-aunt Vera, from whom her Gran (Edith) had been estranged for years, Ruth gets pressed into dreary administrative work and delves into a local ghost story – which she glimpses firsthand.

A young woman garbed in white has been seen lurking around the fields and lanes, calling to mind a tragedy from 30 years before, when a woman’s body was seen floating in a lime-kiln pond on the grounds of Wolstenholme Park, a crumbling old manor.

The story begins as everyone’s already on edge from potential German bombings and amps up the tension with a gothic subplot. Furthermore, Ruth’s seeking an exit strategy from an unwanted engagement to a soldier who writes her embarrassingly crude love letters from overseas, and she worries he’ll come home and expect an impromptu wedding. The stage is set for a tale where suspense and dread build from multiple directions.

What transpires, though, feels more atmospheric than spooky or horrifying; this ghost story is pretty low-key. There is some mystery about whether the white apparition is Elise, wife of Ruth’s coworker Malcolm, a Frenchwoman who became mute and dissociated from the world after a brain injury. From the villagers, depicted (with a few exceptions) as stereotypically insular, emerges the feeling that the evacuees in their midst have stirred up the wraith, but Ruth doesn’t buy that explanation.

On the hunt for a subject for her first novel, Ruth decides to research the history of the hauntings in Martynsborough, which goes over about as well as you’d think. With an occasionally brusque manner, Ruth sometimes feels closed-off and distant, although she does earn the reader's empathy. Her growing rapport with Malcolm makes for an awkward “forbidden romance” scenario, since his wife is very much alive, and it’s unclear how mentally present Elise is.

While all of the mystery threads (including the surprising reason behind Vera and Edith’s falling-out) are sufficient to hold interest, Through a Darkening Glass functions better as a portrait of country life during wartime, showing people’s day-to-day experiences and their adjustments to new circumstances as the war trundles on much longer than anyone expects or wants.

Through a Darkening Glass was published by Lake Union/Amazon Publishing in January 2023; I snagged it from NetGalley. It was also an Amazon First Reads pick last month.

Heather B. Moore's In the Shadow of a Queen introduces Queen Victoria's rebellious daughter Princess Louise

Princess Louise, sixth child and fourth daughter of Queen Victoria, was a trailblazer within the British royal family. Not only did she marry a commoner, a highly unusual circumstance at the time, but she was a talented sculptor who pursued a career as an artist, enrolling in the National Art Training School and attending classes – when her schedule allowed – alongside ordinary people. But getting her devoted Mama’s permission took work. So did essentially everything else in her highly regulated, scrutinized, and isolated existence within royalty’s privileged cocoon.

“Nothing is private when you are the daughter of England’s sovereign,” writes Heather B. Moore in her biographical novel about Princess Louise, succinctly stating her heroine’s predicament and illustrating the difficult path she navigates as she gingerly moves out of Queen Victoria’s shadow and into a role that offers greater fulfillment.

Sadly, Louise’s childhood is dominated by her father Prince Albert’s early death and her mother’s stifling control and refusal to emerge from mourning. Each of Victoria’s unmarried daughters, in turn, is expected to serve as her personal secretary, a role she thinks Louise is too excitable and strong-willed to handle. Louise’s few friendships are supervised, and her associations with outsiders strictly limited.

A good part of the novel involves the husband hunt, a challenging task since there are few good options. Moore nimbly sketches in the political background that overshadows Louise’s choices (many potential fiancés are objectionable to either the Danes or the Prussians, whose families Louise’s older siblings married into, and who are in a territorial dispute). Also, the Queen doesn’t want her to reside abroad. Louise finds the whole process embarrassing, and it’s clear why that is. How could anyone possibly be themselves while dating – to use a modern term – under the view of multiple chaperones?

The standout scenes are those where Louise asserts her independence: perfecting her sculpting abilities to the point where she wears down her mother’s objections to further training; stepping from her carriage into the halls of the art school; daring to visit physician Elizabeth Garrett at her home and pose questions about women in medicine. Queen Victoria’s sense of royal dignity is such that, when Louise does get engaged, she demands that her future husband call her “Princess Louise” all the time – even in private! Louise is her own woman, though, and knows that’s not the type of marriage she wants.

author Heather B. Moore

Following Louise from ages 12 through 23, In the Shadow of a Queen uses excerpts from historical letters to start each chapter, and the author’s prose approximates the same tone and characterizations. Moore has done careful research, and her endnotes – which are so detailed that the actual novel ends at the 90% mark on my Kindle – emphasize her dedication to the source material. Readers hoping to find secret love affairs or other juicy rumors brought to life should look elsewhere. Instead, they’ll find a well-rendered, convincing portrait of a talented young woman’s efforts to balance her royal role with her need for independence.

The novel is published by Shadow Mountain Publishing today, October 4th, and my review is part of the blog tour with Austenprose PR (I read it from a NetGalley copy).

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOK DEPOSITORY | BOOKSHOP | GOODREADS

AUTHOR BIO

Heather B. Moore is a USA Today best-selling and award-winning author of more than seventy publications, including The Paper Daughters of Chinatown. She has lived on both the East and West Coasts of the United States, as well as Hawaii, and attended school abroad at the Cairo American Collage in Egypt and the Anglican School of Jerusalem in Israel. She loves to learn about history and is passionate about historical research.

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Emma Donoghue's Haven, set in early 7th-century Ireland, explores the demands of faith and obedience

Skellig Michael, a steep, rocky island off the southwestern Irish coast, is the setting for this atmospheric work, an imagined story about its early human inhabitants.

In the seventh century, Artt, a scholar-priest guided by a dream, asks two monks to join him on a pilgrimage to an empty isle “less tainted by the world’s breath.” Excited at achieving a greater life purpose, the elderly Cormac, a talented storyteller and mason, agrees to go, as does Trian, a lanky, adventurous younger man.

From the days-long boat journey through their mission to establish an island settlement and worship God appropriately, their work is arduous. Donoghue’s (The Pull of the Stars, 2020) prose glimmers with images of the pristine natural world, including many varieties of sea birds, but as Artt’s sanctimonious piety increasingly challenges common sense, Cormac and Trian wonder if their vows of obedience will doom them.

As always, Donoghue extracts realistic emotions from characters interacting within close quarters and delicately explores the demands of faith. This evocative historical novel also works as a cautionary tale about the dangers of religious control.

I wrote this review for the June 1st issue of Booklist.  Haven was published by Little, Brown (US) last Tuesday, August 23rd.  Isn't the cover art gorgeous?  I'm a fan of Emma Donoghue's work, and my favorites are Frog Music and The Wonder, the latter of which is soon to be available as a Netflix film starring Florence Pugh. 

For additional perspectives (which are also positive recommendations), please check out Kristen McDermott's review of Haven for the Historical Novels Review as well as Ron Charles's review for the Washington Post.  I always enjoy seeing other reviewers' takes on novels I've read myself.  Charles's description of Haven as "Room with a view" is an inspired, smart observation that's remarkably accurate!  

Emma Donoghue was also interviewed by Margaret Skea for the Historical Novels Review's August issue, and you can read that piece here.

Review of Paulette Kennedy's Parting the Veil, a Victorian romantic suspense debut

Paulette Kennedy’s debut, Parting the Veil, is a veritable Gothic feast. Romantic suspense is a genre the author clearly loves, and the novel’s stuffed full of its hallmarks and tropes: a single woman, a mysterious inheritance, a crumbling mansion reputed to be haunted, its broodingly handsome owner, a shocking Tarot card reading… and that’s just to start.

The fun is in recognizing which of these elements will play out as expected, and which will be given an unexpected twist.

In 1899, Eliza Sullivan and her younger, mixed-race half-sister Lydia, natives of New Orleans, arrive in the Hampshire village of Chesterbridge to take up residence at Sherbourne House, which had been left to Eliza by a great-aunt she barely knew. The terms of Tante Theo’s bequest, though, disconcert the independent-minded heiress. Eliza learns that to take possession of her fortune, she must get married within three months.

Malcolm, Viscount Havenwood, is the sole surviving member of his family after a fire three years earlier damaged his home’s south wing. An immediate physical attraction springs up between Eliza and Malcolm. She throws caution to the wind and – against the practical Lydia’s advice – weds him.

But married life perplexes Eliza. While ardent in the bedroom at night, Malcolm is cold and proper, even condescending, during the day. His behavior will have readers wondering whether Malcolm deserves a happily-ever-after with our heroine.

A profusion of mysteries drives the story along. What (or who) causes the rhythmic tapping Eliza hears at night? What happened to Malcolm’s Scottish mother, who was rumored to be mad? Why does he behave so weirdly? Why is Eliza haunted by painful childhood memories?

author Paulette Kennedy

The atmosphere is a piquant blend of Southern Gothic meets Jane Eyre. As Americans, Eliza and Lydia’s entrance into Hampshire society meets with curiosity; contrary to stereotype, though, they aren't treated like unwelcome outsiders. They form friendships with local women, including newlywed Sarah Nelson, whose candor is a breath of fresh air. There are hints of same-sex relationships in some women’s pasts, which add layers of intrigue. (One minor complaint: the pet name “darling” is overused.)

For readers on the fence about romantic suspense, the ambience may be overwhelming. But for those who adore it, settle into this compulsive read and soak it all in.

Parting the Veil is published by Lake Union this month; I read it from a NetGalley copy as part of the blog tour for Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.

The Lengthening Shadow by Liz Harris, a saga set in England and Germany between the world wars

The title of this fast-paced and memorable saga, spanning from 1914 through 1934 in England and Germany, reflects the historical atmosphere: the darkness spreading across the land as the Nazis rise in power and influence, and its chilling effect on the people living beneath it.

Each volume in the Linford series focuses on different characters. In this third entry, the protagonists are Dorothy Linford, eldest daughter of Joseph, chairman of a prominent London-based building company; and her troubled younger cousin, Louisa. Although some material overlaps with the previous two books, they can all be read independently, and readers familiar with the saga will appreciate how Harris has avoided spoilers for The Dark Horizon (book one) and The Flame Within (book two) – this is very skillfully done!

Serving as a nurse with the Voluntary Aid Detachment during WWI, Dorothy meets and falls in love with one of her hospital patients, Franz Hartmann, a German internee. Disowned by her parents after their marriage, Dorothy moves with Franz to Germany, where they raise two children. Although she misses England dreadfully, she loves the friendliness and religious amity in their small town, Rundheim.

Through the experiences of the Hartmanns and their neighbors, the novel shows the subtle and, later, overt pressures that ordinary German citizens felt to support Hitler, even against their better judgment. One scene set in 1933, where the view from a mountain hike sweeps from the beauteous natural backdrop to the swastika flags flying from windows below, evokes an unsettling contrast.

As her worry and fear grow, Dorothy has painful decisions to make. Back in England, Louisa, a surly teenager, must reassess her priorities after a major wrongdoing. The characters realistically grow and change, and readers will turn the pages eagerly, hoping for optimistic endings for them all.

The Lengthening Shadow was published by Heywood Press in 2021; I reviewed it for May's Historical Novels Review. This is the third and last book in the Linford series.  The author's next historical novel, The Darjeeling Inheritance, out in October, is set in India in 1930.  I look forward to reading it.

Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian, a thrilling novel of 17th-century New England

How far will a woman go to escape an abusive husband? In Puritan Boston in 1662, divorces are rarely granted, but Mary Deerfield, a beautiful 24-year-old goodwife, sees no alternative. Barren after five years of marriage to Thomas, a prosperous miller in his mid-forties, Mary conceals bruises beneath her coif and brushes off concerns from her adult stepdaughter.

Thomas has a pattern of returning “drink-drunk” from the tavern, taking his anger out on Mary, and apologizing the next morning. Their indentured servant, who admires Thomas, never sees any violence, only a husband properly correcting his wife. Then comes the evening when Thomas attacks Mary’s left hand with a fork.

Mary has allies, most notably her caring, wealthy parents. But in a culture that views women as subservient helpmeets, and with no witnesses to Thomas’s cruelty, Mary’s petition has slim chances. She must also tread carefully: the Hartford witch-hunts weigh on people’s minds, some of her behavior appears suspicious, and Satan’s temptations lurk everywhere.

Themes of women’s agency in a patriarchal society are common in historical novels, but this fast-moving, darkly suspenseful novel stands out with Bohjalian’s extraordinary world-building skills. From speech patterns to the detailed re-creation of colonial households to the religious mindset, the historical setting is very credible.

The rich have finer options—Mary’s mother wears vivid colors, for instance—but her father struggles to get across that the three-pronged forks he imports from abroad are just utensils, not the “Devil’s tines.” Mary isn’t an outspoken iconoclast but a product of her era, and readers will worry for her—for many reasons, which become clear as the story progresses.

The quotes opening each chapter, taken from court proceedings occurring later on, diminish some of the novel’s surprises. Nonetheless, the plot moves with increasing urgency that will have readers racing toward the ending.

Hour of the Witch is published today by Doubleday; I reviewed it from NetGalley for the Historical Novels Review.  If this doesn't convince you to read it, also check out Diana Gabaldon's recent review for the Washington Post.

Women in the margins: Pip Williams' The Dictionary of Lost Words

Some historical novels forever change the way you think about their subjects. Pip Williams’ debut novel is one of these.

Moving from the late Victorian period through the suffrage movement, World War I, and after, The Dictionary of Lost Words examines with a questioning eye the painstaking process involved in producing the Oxford English Dictionary. Scholars are so used to regarding this masterwork as an authoritative reference for meanings and etymologies that it’s easy to forget that, as a product of human labor, its contents reflected the fallibility and biases of its compilers and its era.

The narrator, Esme Nicoll, is the daughter of one of the OED’s lexicographers. Her mother had died in childbirth, so Esme’s father, Harry, is obliged to bring her with him to his office in Oxford. As Harry and his male colleagues collect words, definitions, and quotes on slips of paper, young Esme spends her days concealed under their worktables in the Scriptorium (a building resembling a garden shed) near the house of the dictionary’s principal editor, James Murray.

When one slip floats down to her on the floor, forgotten, she claims it, reads the word – “bondmaid” – and learns what it means. (This word really did slip through the cracks.) Thus begins Esme’s private collection of words omitted from the dictionary. She becomes attuned to the reasons that words are left out: for example, if they’re quoted only in books written by women (and considered of lower importance), or if they have the potential to offend (such as those referring to female body parts). Slang only spoken aloud doesn’t get included, either.

As she grows up, Esme takes it upon herself to gather as many of these “lost words” as possible, using the local community of women as her informants. These include the Murrays’ illiterate maid, Lizzie, who loves her like a younger sister, and Mabel O’Shaughnessy, a poor, shabbily dressed woman with a raunchy vocabulary who has a stall at the Covered Market. These women, terrific characters both, have their own hard-earned wisdom. Who’s to say that their words aren’t worth recording?

Esme’s journey is not just an intellectual exercise but also an emotional one, related with deep empathy by the author. She soaks up life along with the words describing it, feeling their joys and many sorrows. Meanwhile, work on the OED continues, and Esme yearns to be a full contributor. Pip Williams also manages to create an overtly feminine-centered narrative without stereotyping its men. Harry Nicoll obviously loves his daughter, encourages her curiosity, and supports her in times of strife. Sometimes the story is almost too sad to bear, but there’s beauty within the melancholy, and hope shines through at the end.

Esme is a fictional character, but her presence in this historically based story isn’t too much of an imaginative stretch. Women did play roles in the OED’s creation, although they didn’t receive proper acknowledgment. In The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams lifts them out of the margins of the OED and gives them, and their words, the recognition they deserve.

If you’ve read this far, and are curious to learn more, please jump over to the author’s website to read her blog post on the real history, Reflecting on the work of women in compiling the Oxford English Dictionary.

The Dictionary of Lost Words is published by Ballantine this month in the US. In Australia, where it became a bestseller, the publisher is Affirm Press. I read it from a NetGalley copy.

W. S. Winslow visits small-town Maine across the 20th century in The Northern Reach

There’s a large genealogical chart at the beginning of W. S. Winslow’s debut novel, a collection of integrated stories set in and around the small coastal town of Wellbridge, Maine, across the twentieth century and beyond. The timeline for this saga is as original as the many individuals populating it. The tales move forward and back in time, sometimes zipping along the chart on the diagonal as they center on separate families – the Lawsons, Moody, Baineses, and Martins – linked by blood, marriage, and illicit relationships.

The Northern Reach recounts how the unforgiving environment molds its characters, who have mixed or antagonistic reactions to their hometown. The austerity of the locale suffuses many lives, and happiness can be as fleeting as the summer temperatures. Perhaps it’s not surprising that the hero of one story ends up as the villain in a tale set a generation later.

The most sympathetic characters are those who consider themselves outsiders – those who escape from Wellbridge or want to. Among them are Liliane, a Frenchwoman who in 1958 meets fisherman Mason Baines, a handsome sailor in the merchant marines, marries him, and raises two children. Her foreign ways are denigrated by her narrow-minded mother-in-law, Edith. Edith appears as an elderly woman in the opening story, her mind fading as she stares out to sea following her husband’s and favorite son’s deaths in a boating accident.

Winslow incorporates dark humor in the tale of Victoria Moody, who returns to Wellbridge after ten years’ absence to attend her father’s funeral. Relieved to have left her fiancé back in Portland, away from the “horror show” of her embarrassing family, she finds it impossible to leave the past behind. Another insightful story shows a woman’s ghost coming face to face with her children’s true feelings, learning details they never spoke in her presence during her lifetime.

In the earliest accounts, especially, the bleakness can be overwhelming, but the descriptions create memorable images nonetheless: “Above the reach low clouds sleepwalk across the February sky. Today they are fibrous, striated, like flesh being slowly torn from bone.” Other observations about troubled lives pique the imagination with their realness. Admirers of character-centered historical fiction will find much to like in these introspective stories.

The Northern Reach is published by Flatiron this month; thanks to the publisher for the e-copy.

Zorrie by Laird Hunt observes a woman's 20th-century life in the rural Midwest

Deliberately echoing the form of Gustave Flaubert’s novella, “A Simple Heart,” Hunt celebrates the majesty and depth in a life that may superficially seem undistinguished. Zorrie Underwood is a farmer in central Indiana, and as she and readers survey her 70-or-so years, her joys and sorrows are deeply observed and felt. 

Raised by a cranky aunt, Zorrie is left homeless at 21, in 1930, and travels though the countryside doing odd jobs for food. Following a stint painting clock faces at the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Illinois, she settles in her home state and marries a kindly couple’s farmer son, enduring setbacks and grief while adhering to daily routines. 

With compassion and realism, Hunt recounts Zorrie’s story straightforwardly, with setting-appropriate dialogue and an eye for sensory details: the glint of fireflies, the clay soil’s rich scent, the “mineral-sweet taste of warm blackberries picked off the vines.” Zorrie’s relationship with her neighbor Noah Summers, the eccentric protagonist of Hunt’s Indiana, Indiana (2003), is presented with expressive subtlety. A beautifully written ode to the rural Midwest.

Zorrie was published by Bloomsbury this month, and I'd reviewed it from an Edelweiss e-copy for the Nov. 1st issue of Booklist.  I was impressed by how well Hunt encapsulated a full life within a novella of fewer than 200 pages.  Living in the rural Midwest myself (Illinois rather than Indiana), I recognized the landscapes of the story.  You can find more background on the Radium Dial Company and the young female dial-painters employed there in Kate Moore's bestselling The Radium Girls.

Snow by John Banville, a chilling historical mystery set in 1950s Ireland

Snow: cold, soft, brilliantly blinding. It muffles sound and casts a thick shroud over whatever lies beneath. The symbolism is apropos in Banville’s newest crime novel, the first to be written under his own name rather than the pseudonym (Benjamin Black) he’d established for genre-fiction purposes.

Snow takes place in County Wexford, Ireland, a time when the Catholic Church reigned supreme and buried its adversaries. One frigid day in 1957, Detective Inspector St. John (pronounced “Sinjun”) Strafford arrives at Ballyglass House to investigate a murder. The body of Father Tom Lawless, longtime friend of the Osborne family, lies on the floor of the ornate library, throat cut and private parts removed. A parish priest’s killing is bizarre enough on its own, and almost no one seems upset about it. Strafford shares the privileged Protestant background of the Osbornes but finds, to his annoyance, that this doesn’t gain him any ground in his sleuthing.

The story appears to follow a standard country-house mystery plot, with a closed-in setting and characters fitting familiar types: a refined patriarch, his attractive younger wife, their rebellious adult children. Banville peels away at these tropes as the personalities behind the theatrical parts make themselves known. Strafford is himself an intriguing figure, both in his career – most policemen in the Garda are Catholic – and in his reactions to the women he meets.

That said, he’s surprisingly slow on the uptake in pinpointing motive. An interlude late in the story, seen from Father Tom’s viewpoint, makes things clear for anyone who hasn’t yet figured it out. Banville has a consummate hand with establishing atmosphere, though, in sentences of chillingly ethereal beauty: “Surely such a violent act should leave something behind, a trace, a tremor in the air, like the hum that lingers when a bell stops tolling?”

Snow was published by Hanover Square Press in October; in the UK, Faber and Faber is the publisher. I reviewed it for the Historical Novels Review from a NetGalley copy. This novel seemed apropos for this time of year in the US Midwest. This is my first time reading one of John Banville's (that is, Benjamin Black's) crime novels; if you've read others you'd recommend, please comment.