Call Your Daughter Home

 Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera

Three women in 1920s South Carolina tell their stories and form bonds, helping them weather difficult and disturbing circumstances. 

Retta works as cook for the influential Coles family, and with her husband, Odell, is still grieving the loss of their 8 year old daughter years ago. 

Miss Annie (Mrs. Coles), whose father left her money her husband can't touch, runs her own business, The Sewing Circle, providing jobs for a number of the local women. She, too, grieves the loss of a child, as well as her estrangement from two daughters who left home abruptly 15 years ago and haven't been in contact since. Her husband...well he's another story. I'll let you hate him...I mean meet him...in the book.    

Gertrude has a deadbeat, abusive husband and 4 young daughters who will soon starve if she can't find a way to provide for them. Her solution to the first part of that problem becomes clear in the opening line of the book "It's easier to kill a man than a gator, but it takes the same kind of wait." Desperate times...

The three women's lives intersect when Retta takes in Gertrude's very ill youngest girl to nurse her, then helps Gertrude find a place to live and to get work in Miss Annie's business. It's an uneasy situation with Retta's neighbours looking askance at her taking a white child into her home and moving a white family into their neighbourhood, but that will turn out to be the least of the complications in Rhetta's life. 

At our book club meeting some of us felt it was hard to say we liked the book because of the disturbing subjects dealt with, but there is no question it is a good, maybe even great, book. Solid writing, strong characters, and a gripping plot all make it worth reading. Instances of spousal abuse, racism, child molestation, and murder don't overwhelm other themes of friendship, family relationships, and women standing up for women. Highly recommended. 

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

 Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

With a slow start I wasn't at all sure I'd like it, but the pace picked up, I got invested, and then didn't want to put it down. 

Sam and Sadie meet as children in a hospital, Sam a patient undergoing a number of surgeries on a foot mangled in a car accident, and Sadie spending time with her sister who has cancer. They bond over video games then lose touch until they meet again as college students. Together with Sam's roomate, Marx, they design and market games, eventually setting up their own successful gaming company. 

The tech part of the story is fun but it's the relationships that are mesmerizing and the core of the story. The love - the incredible bond - between the three of them, particularly Sam and Sadie, is palpable, as are the bitter anger and resentment that often get in their way. When you tire of a character's bad behaviour you still can't stop wanting better for them. All three are brilliant and head strong and beautifully vulnerable, evidence of this author's gift for creating characters you love even when they aren't lovable.     

A great story, emotional but written with restraint. I just finished another novel unfortunately written with no restraint at all, wallowing in emotion on every page. Ugh. Restraint is greatly appreciated. 

Not a romance but a love story, unlike any I've read before. 

One of Our Thursdays in Missing

 One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde

In this sixth volume of the Thursday Next series, the action takes place inside a re-made Book World and the narrator is the written Thursday Next. The real Thursday is missing. And if that sounds confusing, hang on. 

The real Thursday was scheduled to appear at peace talks to calm down genres intent on war, but no one has heard from her or knows where she is. The written Thursday - the one in the book the real Thursday wrote about her work as a literary detective - sees a chance to live up to her namesake's reputation and determines to find out what happened to her and effect a rescue if that is needed.

This re-made Book World is very different from that of the first five books. I'm not as keen on it as I was the other, but still it was fun traveling through it and seeing how it operates now. And they give you a map! In the front of the book there's a detailed one of Fiction Island that I had fun studying and found myself referring to many times. I do love a book with a map.

One reviewer called the book "inspired lunacy" and I can't think of a better description. Book World is a weird and wonderful place, full of quirks and curiousities like these:

• a support group for the lesser-known siblings of famous characters. James Bond's brother, Harry Potter's sister, and The Great Gatsby's siblings, Mediocre Gatsby and Loser, all discuss their jealousy and inferiority complexes there. 

• written characters who get shot and fly apart in words, which then get stuck in walls and furniture like shards of glass.

• "met labs" where metaphors are made by stripping similes of their likes and as's. The quality of the product is low but they sell well on the black market because of the dearth of fresh metaphors.  

I don't know how he does it, and how he keeps doing it book after book, but Jasper Fforde's imagination is off the charts. If you're new to the series though, don't start with this one; jumping in the middle might cause you to doubt your own sanity as well as Fforde's. Begin at the beginning and just enjoy the whole wacky ride.

Silverview

 Silverview by John Le Carre

This was my first John Le Carre novel and from what I understand it was the last one he wrote, not being published until after his son (author Nick Harkaway) found it packed away in a drawer following Le Carre's death. I knew he'd been a prolific writer but thought his books were gritty spy novels, a genre I was never much drawn to. I don't remember how I came into possession of this one but gosh, it was good. 

The main character, Julian, leaves his high-paying city job to open a small town bookshop. A couple of months in, a man called Edward comes into the shop and and charms Julian into renovating the basement to sell old and rare literary works. He offers to do all the sourcing and Julian, to his own surprise, quickly agrees. 

Elsewhere, news of a leak within a covert goverment sector sends chief Proctor on a hunt to find the weak link. His inquiries into Edward's past reveal a complicated world of spycraft and an Edward who is much more than simply a charming, aging bibliophile.

It is indeed a spy novel but with a lot of heart and very little, if any, grit. Edward has a fascinating story, as does his wife Deborah (also a spy), and their daughter Lily, who doesn't know much about either of their secret lives and becomes the love interest for Julian. Much of the plot lies in the back stories but that doesn't lessen the intrigue; it was hard to put down. 

The characters are well constructed, vivid and realistic, touching in their unique ways. These are people you can root for; they aren't perfect but they are likeable and you want things to work out well for them.

Good writing, solid plot, and authentic characters. Excellent book.