Reviewer: Karen R.
Book: The Family Man
Author: Elinor Lipman
Genre: Fiction

When Henry Archer pens a note of condolence to his ex-wife, who has now become a widow, he unleashes a series of events that will transform his life. Most importantly Henry reconnects with his long-lost stepdaughter, Thalia. Thalia, an aspiring actress, has embarked on an elaborate deception to resurrect the flagging career of a B-list movie actor. But “all’s well that ends well” in another urbane and witty Elinor Lippman novel.
This novel is frothy, fun, and charming. Best are the characters of the sweet-tempered Henry himself and New York City in its Sex-and-the-City glamorous yet friendly incarnation. If Jane Austen was writing about today’s New Yorkers, she might be Elinor Lippman!

THE LITTLE STRANGER

Reviewer: Karen R.
Book: THE LITTLE STRANGER
Author: Sarah Waters
Genre: Fiction

I never read ghost stories but I loved this one! Anchored by well-drawn characters and great detail, this is a book taut with tension: familial, class, sexual, science vs. supernatural. The novel takes us to an England still recovering from WWII in rural Warwickshire, where the local physician, Dr. Faraday is summoned to remote Hundreds Hall to attend a sick servant. Thus begins Faraday’s immersion (and ours) into the lives of the aristocratic Ayres family: widowed Mrs. Ayres; son Rodney, the crippled RAF pilot; his older sister Caroline, seemingly destined for spinsterhood. Then there is Hundreds Hall itself – once an elegant manor house, now decaying from neglect and lack of funds. Faraday’s mother had once been a nursery maid in the Ayres’ household and Faraday is shocked and dismayed to see the decline of the once-splendid estate since a childhood visit there. Soon Faraday is more shocked and baffled by inexplicable events that target the house and its residents in escalating violence and terror. Are these horrors the result of an evil spirit – the ghost of Mrs. Ayres’s first daughter, Susan, who died before her siblings were born? Or are these horrors the result of human actions: Rodney’s shell-shock, Caroline’s desire to escape Hundreds Hall, Mrs. Ayres’s grief and loneliness? And what of Dr. Faraday’s growing obsession with Caroline and Hundreds Hall itself? Author Sarah Waters has devised a delicious and disturbing thriller. Enjoy but read it in daylight!

Review: Among the Mad

Reviewer: Nancy Kelley
Book: Among the Mad
Author: Jacqueline Winspear
Genre: Fiction

This is # 6 of the Maisie Dobbs novels and one of the best I think. Among the Mad takes place in London at the end of 1931. Maisie Dobbs attempts to stop a man from committing suicide but fails. Even though it is Christmas Eve she can not enjoy herself because she is slightly injured and can’t stop thinking about the man and what she could have done to help him, even though she did not know him or his background.

The usual people that she works with are here again including Bill Beale, her assistant, her father, Frankie, Inspector Richard Stratton and her good friend, Priscilla. Masie is still working as a private investigator in London during the dark foggy days following the Great War when the wounded veterans are sent home from hospitals and unable to find work and cope with their shell shock and other mental conditions.

Miss Winspear writes a good mystery story that is unique because she includes sidelights of the clothing styles and the changes in the social classes that are taking place which will change British society forever. If you haven’t read any of the Masie Dobb’s novels before you are in for a treat. (think of a grown-up Nancy Drew) They don’t have to be read in order although you probably will want to read the first one once you have read Among the Mad!

Nancy Kelley
6/12/09

Review: Brooklyn

Reviewer: Mary Meyer
Book: Brooklyn
Author: Colm Toibin
Genre: Fiction

The novel “Brooklyn” by Colm Toibin (Scribner, 2009) is the riveting account of a young woman’s journey from a small village in Ireland to big city America in the 1950s.

Unlike her popular, attractive and athletic sister Rose, Eilis Lacey is unable to find full-time work in her Irish village. Although Eilis, not Rose, appears to be a more suitable caretaker for their aging mother, Irish priest Father Flood arranges for Eilis to move to New York. He lines up housing and work in a Brooklyn department store.

In clear and simple language, author Toibin paints a realistic picture of Eilis’s reactions to her new environment – overwhelming homesickness, anxiety about making friends with the other women who live in her boarding house, curiosity about men and the possibilities of striking up a romance, and diligence in her pursuit of higher education by attending night class.

Just as her new life settles into place (she falls in love with an Italian plumber and finishes her bookkeeping education), shocking news regarding her sister Rose turns her world upside down.

I found this book mesmerizing. The author provides a strong sense of how individuals are trapped by accidental circumstance and misfortune. Eilis’s personality is constantly defined by the narrowness of her experience. She cannot develop outside of the set of circumscribed choices at hand. She can only remain alert and watchful, carefully considering options that she is powerless to control. Her mistakes are heart-breaking.

“Brooklyn” is Colm Toibin’s sixth novel. His novels “The Master” and “The Blackwater Lightship” were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He won the LA Times book Prize in fiction and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. He lives in Dublin and is a visiting professor at Princeton University.

Review: Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy

Reviewer: Karen R.
Book: Heart and Soul
Author: Maeve Binchy
Genre: Fiction

The formation of a new clinic for heart patients brings together a cast of old and new friends from Quentins, Scarlet Feather, and The Night of Rain and Stars. Fiona, returned from Greece and now a nurse, is hired by the clinic which is run by the formidable Dr. Clara Casey. Fiona and young heart clinic doctor Declan Carroll soon fall in love. Their romance affects their friends and clinic co-workers, including the sweet and hard-working Polish immigrant, Aria. Even Dr. Casey has her struggles -- the break-up of her marriage and her longing for a new romance while coping with her two adult daughters.

Heart and Soul features Binchy and Dublim at their most heartwarming and charming. The magic of Maeve Binchy’s books, for me, is their creation of a community with people sharing and helping each other. I always leave her books, reluctantly, with a smile and a renewed faith in humanity. So don’t worry if you haven’t read her previous novels, come right in, meet everyone, and enjoy!