Book Review: "The Pink" by Marshall Thornton

I think May is going to be remembered for how many terrific books I found randomly and loved. As a mood reader, sometimes I stare at the books I haven’t read yet and feel unmotivated, so that’s when I start looking for something new. And The Pink is another unexpectedly terrific book I found.

In 1913, 22-year-old Lewis lives with his mother in Chicago. He is studying physiognomy, and dreams of an academic life, in the company of his friend and mentor, Josiah. But his mother unexpectedly turns the tables on his dreams. Claiming sudden financial woes, she tells Lewis it’s time to get a job.

But knowing her son all too well, she gets him an interview at the famed (and infamous) Pinkerton Detective Agency. It’s where his father once worked. And while the last place Lewis wants to work is the company known for busting unions, he’s drawn to detective work. He proves to be quite good at it, as well.

Lewis’ mother is also determined to find him a wife. As a supporter of the Temperance movement, she lands upon a woman she finds suitable for Lewis—Edna, an intelligent, outspoken heiress. While getting married is not among Lewis’ desires, Edna intrigues him, and offers him a chance for something he had never thought of for himself.

Meanwhile, his star is on the rise at Pinkerton. When he unwittingly thwarts a burglary by inadvertently shooting the culprit, he surprises his colleagues—and himself. But an insurance investigation proves to be more complex—and more dangerous—than he expects.

I devoured this book in one sitting. I thought Lewis was a great character—naive in the ways of love but set on what he wanted—and he was a natural detective. I loved the setting and his constant battles with his mother. Might there be another book or two with Lewis at the helm?

Book Review: "Train Dreams" by Denis Johnson

What’s this? Two backlist books in a matter of a few days? What about all the shiny new ones, lol?

Robert Grainer is an ordinary man living in the American West in the early days of the 20th century. He’s not particularly smart or ambitious; he just wants to provide a good life for his young wife and infant daughter.

He has always been fascinated by trains. While he doesn’t know exactly what happened to his birth parents, he knows he was put on a train and sent to live with his aunt and uncle. But he has little recollection beyond that. Still, from time to time, he makes a living clearing trees and doing other manual labor so that railroad tracks can be built out west.

Grainer remembers being part of an attempt to kill a Chinese man accused (rightly or wrongly) of stealing. The Chinese man curses those who try to kill him. When tragedy strikes Grainer’s life, he wonders if it is the manifestation of the curse, or perhaps it’s punishment for not helping an injured man he found in the woods when he was a teenager.

This is a bleak story punctuated by moments of levity. I’ve never read Denis Johnson before, but his prose—particularly his imagery—is luminous. I don’t know if I enjoyed this per se, but it definitely made an impression on me.

Book Review: "The Sicilian Inheritance" by Jo Piazza

If you read a ton of books set in Italy, can you be considered an honorary citizen? Asking for a friend.

Sara’s aunt Rosie was one of her favorite people. She was an absolute dynamo, fun-loving and wild, but smart as hell, accomplishing anything she set her mind to. Rosie’s death leaves Sara devastated, and at a time when her marriage and her career have both fallen apart, the loss knocks her for a loop.

She’s completely unprepared for Rosie’s dying request that she travel to Sicily, where their ancestors are from, and scatter her ashes. Rosie also left her the deed to a plot of land in Sicily, and she asks Sara to research whether it truly belongs to their family. Oh, and one more thing: Rosie wants Sara to look into the murder of her grandmother, Serafina, in the early 1920s.

When Sara arrives in Sicily, she is taken by the beauty of the island, but she quickly realizes that nothing is what it appears. She isn’t sure whom she can trust, there’s doubt about whether her family actually owns the land—and if they do, whether she can lay claim to it—and there are all sorts of conflicting stories about Rosie’s grandmother. The more she digs, the more danger she’s in.

The narrative shifts between Sara in the present and Serafina’s in the 1910s and 1920s. The story is part mystery, part historical fiction, but it’s a fascinating look at how women find power and can thrive despite the barriers they face. I did feel like one narrative had more closure than the other, though.

I’ve read a few of Jo Piazza’s books—one of her own and two she co-wrote with Christine Pride—and I really love the way she writes. I enjoyed this a great deal, and thought it was cool it was based on a story from Piazza’s family.

Book Review: "Maurice" by E.M. Forster

One of E.M. Forster's lesser-known novels, Maurice is a classic gay love story that was ahead of its time.

Wait, what? I’m not only reading a backlist title but also a classic? Look at me, expanding my horizons!!

Maurice was written in 1913 and 1914, but Forster (author of A Room with a View and Howard's End, among others) knew that publishing it would destroy his career. He stipulated it couldn’t be released until after he died. It was published in 1971.

While certainly much of the language used in the book is very old-fashioned and some (if not all) if the attitudes around class are different, it’s amazing how ahead of his time Forster was.

This is the story of Maurice, a young man we first meet when he is 14. It follows him through his education and his path toward the life expected of him. But when he strikes up a friendship with a fellow classmate, he realizes how different his life is from what he thought, and how ultimately he needs to follow his own path in order to be happy.

Who would’ve thought you’d ultimately get a gay Edwardian love story with a happy ending, not one where the characters are trapped in marriages of convenience or something worse happens? The movie adaptation of Maurice is wonderful—it was one of the first gay love stories I saw.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day about people reviewing classics long after they were published. While I think it’s difficult to view a classic in a sphere different than the one in which it was written, it’s fascinating to find a book so ahead of its time yet it needed to be hidden until much later.

Book Review: "The Alice Network" by Kate Quinn

"Why did it matter if something scared you, when it simply had to be done anyway?"

Bravery can come from the least likely of sources. And in Kate Quinn's The Alice Network, she weaves together a story of some brave but unknown women from history with some fictitious ones.

In 1947, Charlotte “Charlie” St. Clair has been dragged to Europe by her mother. Charlie is 19, pregnant, and unmarried, and the plan is to go to Switzerland to have her “little problem” taken care of. But Charlie is less interested in dealing with her own issues and would rather try to find her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared during WWII.

Charlie escapes her mother’s clutches and flees to London to try and find a woman who supposedly can help her. When she meets Eve Gardiner, the woman is drunk, angry, and pointing a gun at Charlie, and refuses to help her. But when Charlie utters one man’s name, and the French city where Rose had supposedly gone during the war, Eve reluctantly agrees to help.

It turns out that Eve isn’t just a drunk older woman—during WWI she was a spy, part of the Alice Network, a group of women trained to ferret out information from the most dangerous of sources. Stationed in France, Eve was excellent at her job, until something goes awry, and a betrayal tears down the whole network. She bears the physical and emotional scars all these years later.

This is a great historical fiction book, alternating between Eve’s time in France in 1915 and Charlie’s 1947 efforts to find Rose. It’s intense, suspenseful, and emotional, and although it was a tiny bit too long, I really devoured it. I've heard Quinn's other book, The Huntress, is good as well.

It's funny: I often say that historical fiction isn't my thing because I'd much rather read contemporary stories than anything else. But strangely enough, all of the historical fiction I've read lately (without really considering it "historical") has been pretty great. So now I'm just a big contradiction, lol.

Book Review: "Cartier's Hope" by M.J. Rose

I love it when a book surprises you, not just with how compelling the story is but also with how layered the plot is, that it's so much more than you expected. That was definitely the case with M.J. Rose's newest book, Cartier's Hope.

New York, 1910. Vera Garland is the headstrong daughter of the owner of one of leading department stores. Much to her mother's chagrin, she has chosen to pursue a career as a journalist, a field that has not historically been amenable to women, paying them much less than their male counterparts, taking prime story assignments away from them, and relegating them to the traditional "soft" subjects like fashion and gossip.

But Vera has taken a different track, working under a pseudonym and wearing a disguise, and her undercover work on controversial topics such as abortion have received admiration from other female reporters, who could never imagine that the courageous reporter is actually Vera.

With New York City abuzz due to the arrival of the Hope Diamond at Cartier's jewelry store, society elite are mesmerized by the stone and the legends of bad luck that surround those who have possessed (and even touched) it. Still reeling from the death of her father, who always championed her bravado and willingness to fight for what she believed in, Vera discovers deep secrets and a blackmail scheme which appears to have led to her father's death. Devastated and angry, she vows revenge.

Determined to make the blackmailer, a ruthless magazine publisher known for blackmailing businessmen into buying advertising to guarantee his silence, pay for his sins, Vera decides to use the legends of the Hope Diamond's curse to her advantage. She creates a scheme which she hopes will "uncover" a scandal that the publisher can use to blackmail the famed jeweler, Cartier—and then the scheme can be turned on its head to expose the blackmailer.

It's a complicated and dangerous plan which requires keeping secrets from many she cares about. In order to succeed, she turns to a charismatic Russian jeweler for help. Yet as she does her research and pulls her facts together, she finds herself drawn to this man who has secrets of his own. For so long she's guarded her heart from love and the need for a man in her life; how ironic that her feelings are changing because of a man from whom she has to hide the truth about her plans and her identity?

Cartier's Hope is an utterly fascinating novel of historical fiction with a little bit of mystery thrown in for good measure. It's a fascinating look at a time just before the world changed dramatically, with World War I and women getting the right to vote both on the horizon. I also loved the look into New York society during that era and the role of women in journalism.

I've often said that I'm not a big fan of historical fiction, yet every time I've read a book in this genre lately, I've loved it. I loved the complexity of Cartier's Hope, the family dynamics, the secrets, the issues that would have been so controversial during that time. But more than that, I just loved the way M.J. Rose writes, and how she immediately pulled me into this story and didn't let go until the book's conclusion. Vera is a fascinating character I wouldn't mind seeing again.

I'm honored to have been part of the blog tour for Cartier's Hope. Atria Books and Get Red PR provided me an advance complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!