My favorite genre, historical fiction, inserts characters into real-life events. As a former news reporter, I enjoyed doing research when communicating factual information to readers. I love learning about different time periods and coming away with a fresh perspective on times gone by. History is subjective and always revised and revisited, but factual dates and occurrences remain the same. All the stories I chose to review reveal how fictionalized characters, in real events, deal with coming out on the other side of loss or pain with a stronger spirit. None of us escape loss. It’s inevitable. But there’s healing over time and trust in a God that loves us beyond expectations.
My book follows Lori Hopkins, a photojournalist, in a series of adventures, misadventures, and a patchwork of disappointments and triumphs over the course of her personal journey.
As a fourteen-year-old, Lori escapes the horrific and sudden loss of family only to test her own fate and destiny by leading a life in harm’s way. Her choices and challenges will transport readers to significant cultural events in the United States and world stage over the last sixty years. Ultimately, it’s a story about forgiveness–forgiving oneself first and forgiving loved ones and individuals for causing unwarranted or unanticipated pain.
In this book, thirteen-year-old Liv captivates my imagination and heart with devotion to her mom, a broken soul that endures her husband’s abuse, endless arguments, and irrational decisions. I’m drawn to coming-of-age stories that tug at memories of my own battles with self-criticism and angst.
As a survival story, the book serves up a double portion that I devour with every turn of the page. At its heart, the story contrasts the expansive, unforgiving, unrelenting climate and terrain of Alaska with a claustrophobic family dynamic. I love stories that weave in the raw beauty of nature and, at times, the brutality of elemental forces beyond our human control. Liv’s embodiment of endurance and the sheer will of the human spirit remains with me.
In Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone, a desperate family seeks a new beginning in the near-isolated wilderness of Alaska only to find that their unpredictable environment is less threatening than the erratic behavior found in human nature.
#1 New York Times Instant Bestseller (February 2018) A People “Book of the Week” Buzzfeed’s “Most Anticipated Women’s Fiction Reads of 2018” Seattle Times’s “Books to Look Forward to in 2018”
Alaska, 1974. Ernt Allbright came home from the Vietnam War a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes the impulsive decision to move his wife and daughter…
I cried at the conclusion of this book. I cried because I cared so deeply for the women I met on their journeys. And I cried to release the anguish I felt from their rejection, constriction, and subjugation to arranged marriages.
I’m so very grateful for a book written by an Afghan with a clear-eyed perspective of his culture and sensitivity to the tyranny of suppression, especially for women treated as unequal to men. But there’s so much more to this book; it is an homage to courage, resilience, and, ultimately, love, namely, a mother’s self-sacrificing love. The characters conquer despair and limited freedoms with enduring hope.
Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism.
In the first few chapters, the book left me cold and unfeeling about the story or characters. But, years ago, I vowed to finish every book I started.
Initially, I felt no connection to Agnes, a strange, eccentric, anti-social protagonist. By mid-story, something happened—an all-in conversion. I felt the very depth of grief that pierced the body and soul of Agnes as a grieving mother. Her ravaged heart touched my own. We all know loss in some form. But the story puts words to an emptiness that, most times, words cannot express. When an author taps into emotions, it’s a remarkable, unforgettable experience.
I’m also fond of any insight into the life of William Shakespeare, and I’ve portrayed a few of The Bard’s iconic roles while in college.
WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION - THE NO. 1 BESTSELLER 2021 'Richly sensuous... something special' The Sunday Times 'A thing of shimmering wonder' David Mitchell
TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART.
On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?
Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.
In my teen years, I deemed Great Expectations by Charles Dickens as my favorite novel. In his day, the word “Dickensian” referred to the author’s unwieldy, verbose writing style. Now, the expanded meaning of a “Dickensian world” fills my mind with gloom, foreboding disaster, and eccentric characters that appear either heroic, naïve, or inherently evil.
Recently, I acted in a recording of A Christmas Carol and played all the female roles. The recording airs annually on EWTN Global Radio, so I’m not surprised that a friend gifted me with Samantha Silva’s audio book. But, to my surprise, I’m enchanted by the fictional account of how the novel evolved from its inception. It’s as if the author time-traveled to Dickens’ world and witnessed every scene firsthand!
For Charles Dickens, each Christmas is been better than the last. His novels are literary blockbusters, avid fans litter the streets and he and his wife have five happy children and a sixth on the way. But when Dickens' latest book, Martin Chuzzlewit, is a flop, the glorious life threatens to collapse around him. His publishers offer an ultimatum: either he writes a Christmas book in a month, or they will call in his debts, and he could lose everything. Grudgingly, and increasingly plagued by self-doubt, Dickens meets the muse he needs in Eleanor Lovejoy. With time running out, Dickens…
I challenged myself by listening to Cloud Cuckoo Land and pondered keeping up with extremely diverse plots and story threads. And yet, I discovered a thrill ride that traversed the past, present, and future! I employed the five senses—sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste—with illustrative descriptions and vivid, vulnerable characters that kept my imagination on full tilt.
I learned that I don’t have to love the characters when I’m empathetic and understanding of their weaknesses, defects, and personal history of suffering and loss. I didn’t miss a beat with all the twists and turns, and a tapestry emerged from divergent storylines. Also, I love it when an author innovates word usage, especially verbs! This book is a descriptive writing master class in a book!
On the New York Times bestseller list for over 20 weeks * A New York Times Notable Book * A National Book Award Finalist * Named a Best Book of the Year by Fresh Air, Time, Entertainment Weekly, Associated Press, and many more
“If you’re looking for a superb novel, look no further.” —The Washington Post
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of All the Light We Cannot See, comes the instant New York Times bestseller that is a “wildly inventive, a humane and uplifting book for adults that’s infused with the magic of childhood reading experiences” (The New York Times…
I grew up on a family farm surrounded by larger vegetable and dairy operations that used migrant labor. From an early age, my siblings and I were acquainted with the children of these workers, children whom we shared a school desk with one day and were gone the next. On summer vacations, our parents hauled us around in a station wagon with a popup camper, which they parked in out-of-the-way hayfields and on mountainous plateaus, shunning, much to our chagrin, normal campgrounds, and swimming pools. Thus, I grew up exposed to different cultures and environments. My writing reflects my parents’ curiosity, love of books and travel, and devotion to the natural world.
After her mother is killed in a rare Northern Michigan tornado, Sadie Wixom is left with only her father and grandfather to guide her through young adulthood. Miles away in western Saskatchewan, Stefan Montegrand and his Indigenous family are displaced from their land by multinational energy companies. They are taken in temporarily by Sadie’s aunt, a human rights activist who heads a cultural exchange program.
Stefan promptly runs afoul of local authority, but Sadie, intrigued by him and captivated by his story, has grown sympathetic to his cause and complicit in his pushback against prejudiced accusations. Their mutual attraction is stymied when Stefan’s older brother, Joachim, who stayed behind, becomes embroiled in the resistance, and Stefan is compelled to return to Canada. Sadie, concerned for his safety, impulsively follows on a trajectory doomed by cultural misunderstanding and oncoming winter.
After her mother is killed in a rare Northern Michigan tornado, Sadie Wixom is left with only her father and grandfather to guide her through the pitfalls of young adulthood. Hundreds of miles away in western Saskatchewan, Stefan Montegrand and his Indigenous family are forced off their land by multinational energy companies and flawed treaties. They are taken in temporarily by Sadie's aunt, a human rights activist who heads a cultural exchange program. Stefan, whose own father died in prison while on a hunger strike, promptly runs afoul of local authority, but Sadie, intrigued by him and captivated by his…
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