Review: So Far Away by Meg Mitchell Moore

Three women, three voices, three generations, but a single ache caused by separation from those they love. Meg Mitchell Moore's So Far Away introduces us to three very different characters: Kathleen Lynch, a research librarian at the Massachusetts State Archives; Natalie Gallagher, a young teen who comes to the archives to work on a school project; and Bridget O'Connell, who immigrated to Boston from Ireland in the 1920s.

Because the nature of the principal characters' problems and losses are revealed slowly, I don't want to talk about them here and thus spoil the suspense and mystery of the book. Kathleen (in her 50s) and Natalie (13 years old) narrate So Far Away in alternating sections. Each tells her own story, looking into the past as well as moving the plot forward. They are both private people, and keep their troubles to themselves as best they can. Bridget, too, is given a voice, but her tale is told through her journal, which Natalie found in the basement of her house. Like the others, Bridget held her secrets close.

It's easy to become invested in Kathleen, Natalie, and Bridget. I was especially drawn to Bridget's journal, but I also wanted to know more about Kathleen's history and Natalie's present. Moore even had me rooting for the minor characters, including Kathleen's dog. Although this sounds like a sad book or a book with little action, it's not either. So Far Away isn't light fiction but it doesn't lack hope, and there's plenty going on in the characters' lives.

Moore writes about the many faces of loss and how our attitudes have changed over the generations. What was devastating to Bridget would be more acceptable today. But what Natalie faces is the product of the 21st-century. From the very first chapter, we learn about one of Natalie's issues: She is the victim of cyber-bullying, and this makes her tale the most heartbreaking of the three.

Another theme of So Far Away is the question of reaching out to help when you see someone in need. Where is the line between being kind and invasive? Do you tell your friends, or even strangers, that you think their child is in trouble? How do you get others to listen, particularly when you know from personal experience that it's unlikely they'll heed your warning? There are no easy answers, but Moore makes you think.

I listened to the unabridged audio edition (Hachette Audio; 11 hr, 2 min) read by Emma Galvin (as Natalie) and Suzanne Toren (as Kathleen). My positive audio review will be available at the AudioFile website later this month.

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Published by Hachette / Reagan Arthur Books, 2012
ISBN-13: 9780316097697
Source: Review (see review policy)
Rating: B
Copyright © cbl for Beth Fish Reads, all rights reserved (see review policy)

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Today's Read: The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina

MizB at Should Be Reading hosts Teaser Tuesdays. Here's how it works: Grab your current read; let the book fall open to a random page; and share 2 "teaser" sentences from that page. For more teasers, click on through to MizB's blog.

Perfect for October reading, this second in the Alex Morrow series promises to be heart-thumping scary and definitely gritty. I can't wait to see where this psychological thriller/police procedural mix is going to take me.

Sarah understood abruptly: he wasn't afraid that she would remember his face because he had come here to kill her. She would never get to leave this house. She would never get out of here.

She couldn't die here, in a cold, run-down house she had been fighting to escape her whole life, with a bare backside and two insolent kids coming into the room that was once her nursery.

Through a shimmer of tears she saw the space between them, the open door beyond.

Sarah put her head down and ran. (p. 9)

—From The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina (Little, Brown / Reagan Arthur Books, 2011 [from uncorrected proof, may differ from published edition])

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Review: 13 Rue Thérèse by Elena Mauli Shapiro

What would you do if you found a box of mementos that belonged to a woman who lived almost a century ago? What stories would be revealed by those bits of someone else's life? When American scholar Trevor Stratton discovers just such a box in his temporary office at a Paris university, he cannot help but study the objects that were so carefully saved, wondering about their history and meaning.

The more closely Trevor examines Louise Brunet's belongings, the more the lines between time periods begin to blur. Eventually, Trevor seems to have experienced Louise's life firsthand . . . but how could he have?

Elena Mauli Shapiro's 13 Rue Thérèse is on the surface the story of Louise Brunet, a passionate, musically talented woman who lived in Paris through the two world wars. On different levels, however, the novel explores war, heartache, loss, love, and marriage and is colored with a mood of mystery and magic.

We learn the details of Louise's life piecemeal, as Trevor looks through and comes to understand the photographs, letters, coins, and other items stored in her memory box. Only after he becomes obsessed with Louise can he begin to sort out how the meanings of the objects come together to create a coherent biography. The deeper Trevor's research takes him, the harder it is for him to stay in his own time period. Eventually, he believes he has seen life and death through the eyes of the original owners of the preserved objects.

Louise's treasures are not left to readers' imaginations. Instead Shapiro's novel is illustrated, so we see, in full color, the items that Trevor is studying. The text is intimately linked with the illustrations, as you can see in the scan of page 33 to right (click to enlarge). Thus the artwork does more than enhance the text, it is part of the story.

In addition, Shapiro includes 16 QR codes (square bar codes that can be read by a scanner or smart phone) in the back of the book. These codes are linked to pages on the novel's website and contain more information about the items Louise saved. This interaction between text and Internet provide readers with an enhanced experience.

Although the premise of the novel is solid and the visuals and QR codes make the book fun to read, the ending of 13 Rue Thérèse is unsatisfying and a bit too neat.

Give it to me quickly: American professor in Paris discovers a memory box from the early 20th century and becomes obsessed with learning the owner's story; excellent historical details of World War I, eye-catching illustrations, but weak ending.

To learn more about Elena Mauli Shapiro, visit her blog. To learn more about the novel, visit its website.

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Published by Little, Brown / Reagan Arthur Books, 2011
ISBN-13: 9780316083287
YTD: 45
Source: Bought (see review policy)
Rating: B
Copyright © cbl for Beth Fish Reads, all rights reserved (see review policy)

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Review: The Wolves of Andover by Kathleen Kent

Martha Allen is stubborn and strong willed--not the best traits for a woman on the verge of spinsterhood in colonial Massachusetts. At nineteen, she is too old to be a dependent, so her parents send her to live with her cousin Patience, who is pregnant with her third child. Even if Martha can't get a husband, she can certainly help out by cooking and cleaning and helping out her extended family.

Patience's husband, Daniel, has hired two indentured servants: the tall, strong, and mysterious Thomas Carrier and his younger companion, John, an amiable and hardworking Scotsman. Thomas and Martha each have secrets to hide, but as they work alongside each other trust builds, and their relationship deepens. Before they can think about the future, however, Thomas must settle some long-standing issues that go all the way back to Cromwell's rebellion.

The Wolves of Andover by Kathleen Kent is the prequel to the very popular The Heretic's Daughter. I have not yet read Kent's first novel, so the characters and their stories were new to me, but the book seemed to stand on its own quite well.

The book is historical fiction, but the two main characters, Thomas Carrier and Martha Allen, were real people; in fact, they are Kent's ancestors. Thus the novel is based not only on research but also on family stories. As result, the setting, the details, and the personalities all seem believable.

The novel doesn't sugar-coat or romanticize colonial life in Massachusetts. Early settlers coped with their fear of ruffians and Native Americans, the pressures of social expectations, the absence of choices for women, and the lack of medical knowledge and skill. Furthermore, despite the expanse of ocean separating them from the mother land, British citizens were very much under the watchful eyes of royalist agents.

The Wolves of Andover is a solid entry in the historical fiction genre.

I listened to the unabridged audio edition (Hachette Audio, 8 hr, 42 min), read by Ellen Archer. Although Archer skillfully took the reader from description to conversation to action, I felt her deep voicing and somewhat stilted inflections for Thomas. especially when he revealed his secret past to Martha, was heavy handed and a bit droning. Regardless of those sections, I thought the audiobook was nicely produced, and it kept my attention.

The Wolves of Andover was an Indie Next pick for November 2010. To Learn more about Kathleen Kent and both her novels, visit her website. Note too that the novel was published under the Regan Arthur imprint; to learn more about that imprint, visit the Regan Arthur Books Perpetual Challenge blog.

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Published by Hachette Group / Regan Arthur Books, 2010
ISBN-13: 9780316068628
YTD: 11
Source: Review (see review policy)
Rating: C+
Copyright © cbl for Beth Fish Reads, all rights reserved (see review policy)

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Review: Day for Night by Frederick Reiken

I have to start this review by telling you straight off that this is not going to be a review in the style in which I normally write. In fact, it's probably not much of a review at all. I have thoughts, and I'm going to share those thoughts with you.

Day for Night by Frederick Reiken is a series of stories. It is not a series of short stories or a series of interconnected stories—at least not really. It is a series of personal snapshots, each told by a different person. Characters in those stories may or may not appear in more than one story. Some people appear many times. Somehow, the core characters are tied together in the end—sort of.

Now I've scared you off, but you shouldn't be. Some descriptions of Day for Night say it's a novel about how people's lives are unwittingly interconnected. I've read that it is a kind of a fictional rendition of the game Six Degrees of Separation. Some reviewers have said it's a Holocaust novel. Others say it's about good and evil. But I don't agree.

You may call the intertwining of the characters in Day for Night coincidence, but I think it's more. It has to do with the Diaspora—ancient and recent. It concerns the idea that no one knows where all those people ended up and what they did to find comfort. It has to with individuals who have been pushed off of (or is it on to?) their intended paths by hate or by extremism or by extreme circumstances.

At the same time, the novel recalls an idea associated with reincarnation: that no matter what form your spirit takes in a particular life—male/female, rich/poor, Jewish/Christian, Western/Eastern—you are always surrounded by the people you have been close to throughout all your lives. These are people with whom you've shared an intensity, with whom you've instantly bonded, with whom you've experienced important moments.

Day for Night is somehow about all of this—of people who died or were killed in war, of people who have been scattered across the globe, of people whose spirits are woven together through time and space, of the thirty-six righteous men, of the nonlinear nature of reality.

I am not sure how to describe what I think about the novel. While I was reading it, I felt indifferent, engrossed, a bit bored, and then came round to what I wrote here. It is a book worth reading and thinking about. It is a novel that may seem profound to some, yet shallow to others. Reiken addresses such an immense concept, that I'm not quite sure I have drawn it all in or articulated it well.

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Published by Reagan Arthur Books, 2010
ISBN-13: 9780316077569
Challenges: New Author, Reagan Arthur Books, 100+
YTD: 51
Source: Review (see review policy)
Rating: B+

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