Welcome to Kathy's recommendations!
Check out what Kathy has been reading below.
The Comfort of Ghosts completes Jacqueline Winspear's bestselling Maisie Dobb's series. Set in1945 in a London of bombed out buildings, homeless people, and traumatized soldiers and civilians, Dobbs, a psychologist and investigator, puts her skills to work to help four homeless teenagers and her assistant Billy's son, who suffered horribly in a prison camp. Maisie, as always, is tenacious and compassionate in her quest to uncover truth and find justice and healing. Filled with characters we've come to know and love - Billy and Doreen, Maisie's father and stepmother, and her dear friend Priscilla - this book does not disappoint.
"Everything on earth stops me and whispers to me, and what they tell me is their story." So says Alma, a celebrated author, struggling to complete her final stories. When she inherits a plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she decides to create a cemetery and, literally, bury these stories. The protagonists of the stories, however, are not content to end up buried. Instead, they tell their "true" narratives to Filomena, a local woman hired to maintain the cemetery. Inventive and compelling, this book weaves together many threads. But at its heart, it's about storytelling: Whose story gets told and whose doesn't? And, ultimately, are the stories that are told complete and true?
How does a family move on when the person holding them together dies unexpectedly? That is the question at the heart of this tender and moving story by Quindlen. Annie dies and her husband, four young children, and best friend must find their way in a world without her. Surprisingly, it is Ali, the 13-year-old daughter forced to take care of her younger brothers and her grieving father, who finds a way to keep significant parts of their life with their mother alive. Quindlen writes with such compassion for all the characters, even when they are not at their best, that you will continue to root for them to find their way.
Growing up on her grandparents' farm in 19th century Scotland, Lizzie is still a child when she begins having glimpses into the future. She doesn't see everything, and she has to accept the reality that she has no control over what she sees. The life she has known changes dramatically when a sister she didn't know she had comes to live on the farm, and Lizzie begins to question what she believed to be true about her family and what she kind of life she wants for herself. An absorbing story that takes us on a journey with Lizzie as she leaves the farm and moves to Glasgow to follow a young man she is in love with and to create a different life for herself. What happens to Lizzie, how her life evolves, and the sometimes difficult the choices she has to make are at the center of this heartfelt book. Written with compassion for a flawed but still engaging young woman.
Great read with an engaging protagonist on a journey to find Ernest Hemingway, the man she believes is her father. Her quest begins after WWII, when Delphine, scarred by her mother's alcoholism and unreliability, flees Paris, first to Harlem to stay with friends of her mother, and then to Cuba. An aspiring author, she feels that the books she will eventually write will prove to Hemingway that she is his daughter. During her years in Cuba, she finds unwavering support from Javier, who becomes a friend and mentor. She does meet Hemingway and, while not exactly what she was hoping for, that relationship becomes key in her coming-of-age journey. While Delphine's story is at the heart of this book, the Cuban revolution and a mysterious murder referred to early in the book also play a significant role in her journey. This is a novel that will hold your attention till the very end.
A dystopian novel set in a future when smog due to climate change has enveloped the world. Crops die, animals go extinct, people struggle to survive. Our narrator, an unnamed young chef, applies for a job at an ‘elite research community’ set atop a mountain in Italy and dedicated to bringing back to life extinct animals and plants with a vision to “save the world.” Here, she plans, prepares, and cooks lavish meals for the super-rich who live in this community. This is a gorgeous novel filled with brilliant descriptions of the color, textures, smells, and tastes of food that explores who gets to survive a catastrophic event and questions of right and wrong (is it understandable to collude with unethical behavior when survival is at stake? Do the ends always justify the means?) that the narrator struggles to answer for herself.
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Sarah Thankam Mathews first novel about friendship, romantic love and family - how they intersect and sometimes challenge each other - is wonderful. Sneha's story, an immigrant and recent college graduate struggling in her first job, is at the heart of the book. She carries a painful childhood memory she has never shared with anyone that causes heartache for her and for those who love - or try to love - her. And the book is also the story of a group of friends attempting to create a community that works for them in spite of their differences that both challenge and strengthen them. A great read! Every time I thought there could be no more insight into human nature to take in and ponder, I found out I was wrong.
I loved this book of short stories! Set in China and America after the Cultural Revolution, we meet people young and old struggling with identity, love, family, and marriage as they search for connection and belonging. Each story is a gem written with great feeling and love for the characters with their strengths and weaknesses.
The first book in this historical mystery series set in Victorian London was a real page-turner! Encompassing the worlds of music halls, high class clubs, and the city's gritty underbelly, Minnie Ward, a feisty and courageous music hall script writer, sets out to solve the murder of her best friend with the help of former police officer private investigator Albert Easterbrook (think Miss Scarlett and the Duke). Dark and compelling, with humor and wit walking side by side with violence and danger. If you are a fan of Sarah Waters novels, I think you'll like this one!
An imaginative and engaging book of short stories that are full of wit, humor, and unexpected connections. The characters and the situations they face are delightfully inventive, with spot on observations about human nature and relationships. Couldn't put it down, so I read one after another, though I usually pace myself with a book of short stories!
A mesmerizing book that, in our COVID world, hits uncomfortably close to home. Set in London during a deadly pandemic for which the world is unprepared, Neffy, a disgraced marine biologist, has volunteered for an experimental vaccine trial. When the staff and most of the other volunteers flee the hospital, Neffy is one of five remaining and the only one of the five who received the vaccine. Cut off from society and left to fend for themselves, these strangers are forced to rely on each other to survive. In part a meditation on choices made in order to survive, this is also very much Neffy's story, with chapters dedicated to her life as a marine biologist, her fascination with octopuses, and her complicated family relationships.
In her new and engrossing history-based thriller, the Maisie Dobbs series author Winspear has created a new protagonist, Elinor White. Recruited as a teenager in Belgium to spy on German soldiers during WWI, she continues her work as wartime operative and trained killer in WWII. We first meet Elinor in post-war Britain - a woman haunted by the past and actions she was forced to take as an operative as well as by the fate of her family. Intent on creating a new and solitary life, she instead becomes involved in the lives of a young couple and their daughter who are also struggling to leave a difficult and dangerous past behind them. As with the Maisie Dobbs books, Winspear brings to vivid life the significance and often untold reality of women's incredible contributions during the world wars.
An engrossing page-turner about class, privilege, secrets, and murder that will keep you guessing until the very end. Tash is struggling to relaunch her career as a journalist while carrying for her two-year-old who's not adjusting well to daycare. When three moms at her son's daycare befriend her and offer to set up playdates, Tash is drawn into the lives of these well-to-do, successful women - a world she desperately wants to belong to. But when a young nanny is found dead under suspicious circumstances and Tash decides to investigate, she uncovers information that threatens her relationship with her husband and her new friends. Who exactly are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? Who is lying and who is telling the truth? And, are there really good guys and bad guys?
Poverty, by America addresses important questions about financial inequities in our country. Why hasn't the level of poverty changed in spite of calls for reform? Who benefits from poverty (his answers may or may not surprise you) and from government programs set up to address it? And where does much of the money designated to help poor families really end up? Desmond makes a compelling argument that the gross inequality and financial insecurity in America is no accident. Nor is it the "fault" of the poor who many need to believe are poor because they are lazy and unwilling to work. Citing numerous studies and statistics, Desmond dispels many of the myths we hold and suggests solutions through systemic reform, the election of people willing to make changes, and all of us understanding how we benefit from a permanent underclass.
Old Babes is Atwood's first collection of short stories since 2014, and they are engrossing. With a nod to her interest in sci-fi and post-apocalyptic writing, these stories focus on the nature of human relationships and how they influence us over time; who we keep close to us in spite of differences and how we move on when the person most important to us dies. Often touching, sometimes funny, they are worth a read.
This powerful work of historical fiction is compassionate and compelling in its exploration of a family struggling to survive in a nation torn apart by internal conflict. During the Partition of India, both Muslims and Hindus were grateful to be free of British rule. Unfortunately, the anger and tension between two groups who once lived peacefully side by side caused unspeakable violence. A Hindu family in Bengal whose husband and father is murdered while attending to wounded from both sides of the conflict finds their world turned upside down. The wife and daughters try desperately to understand and support each other. One dreams of becoming a doctor like her father, one falls in love with a Muslim man and is banished from the family, and one struggles to find her voice and significance in the family constellation. Inspiring and gripping, with fascinating characters whose lives are woven together in often heartbreaking ways.
If you liked the book The Secret Garden (or even if you never read it or read it and didn't like it), Riazi's reimagined story of a difficult child searching for family is worth a read. Maria, an orphan whose been shuttled from one home to another, is argumentative and hard to like. When she immigrates from Pakistan to the US to live with yet another family, she stumbles upon a locked and neglected garden. Her insistence on saving this garden sets her on a path that will change her life. Interspersing poetry with prose, this is a lovely book about finding love and family.
I loved this often poignant, sometimes funny story that is full of insights about identity and the struggle to fit in. 18-year-old Kim doesn't feel like she belongs anywhere - not at her expensive private school, nor in her diverse Queens neighborhood, or even with her own family. A well-written exploration of the lives of people who immigrated to the US, people with multiple identities, the distance between the haves and have nots, and the frequent missteps of even well-meaning white people attempting to support people of other races and ethnicities.
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A coming-of-age story told from the perspective of Sam, who is seven years old when we meet her. She loves her father fiercely, though he is highly undependable, and struggles with her mother, who has primary responsibility for her two children. When she discovers rock climbing, all of her energy goes into perfecting her skills at the expense of most everything else in her life. Sam's journey to adulthood is engrossing, and this book is filled with deeply felt reflections on growing up, parenting, and the power of dreams.
Another well-written, emotionally moving book from Ng. This one weaving the stories of America's past, present, and, possibly, its future. 12 -year- old Bird searches for the mother who left him years ago in order to understand why she left and what connection she might have to a series of small acts of rebellion. Ng's novel encompasses grief as well as hope for an America living under an oppressive regime, ongoing police brutality, racial violence, and economic inequality.
An engrossing book that imagines a back story for Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter. Isobel (a proxy for Hester Prynne) is a skilled seamstress who has synesthesia, causing her mind to link letters on a page and words people speak to particular colors and hues. She emigrates to Salem from Scotland with her husband and is soon on her own, struggling to make a living and build relationships with people in the town who are suspicious of newcomers. A chance meeting with Nat Hathorne (later Hawthorne) leads to unintended consequences, and Isobel must turn to her new friends for help. Isobel's synesthesia is used to wonderful effect throughout, as is the history of the Salem witch trials and of the underground railroad.
A terrifically engaging and beautifully written story. Imagine combining historical fiction with a love story with a ghost story, and you have this marvelous book. Blanca, whose life becomes intertwined with George Sand, her two children, and Chopin, has been dead for centuries, her spirit haunting the monastery rented by Sand on Mallorca. Blanca's observations of Sand and her family along with the abilities she's developed to enter into the lives of people and to communicate with them are sometimes witty, sometimes humorous, and often full of pathos.
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An unforgettable coming-of-age story that manages to be serious and thoughtful as well as lighthearted and humorous. 21-year old Carla is insecure, searching for meaning and something to feel passionately about. A reading disability held her back in school and, in her mind, limited her choices, so when she meets a famous poet while working as a landscaper and is invited into the insular world of poets and poetry she is, to say the least, surprised to find herself drawn to this world and finding an unexpected path for her own life.
Lydia and Bristal, high school seniors living in the small town of Henley, Ohio, couldn't be more different. But when they join forces to create podcasts based on a historically ‘bad’ week in Henley in order to get the credits they need to graduate, this unlikely duo uncovers secrets long hidden and, in some cases, unknown to the residents of this seemingly peaceful (and in Lydia's view, boring) town. An engaging story about learning to work together and to value another person's strength and perspective.
It's the 1950s and a mass dragooning takes place. Women shed their human selves and turn into dragons, a reality that is denied by the powers that be. Alex is 8 when her aunt transforms, leaving her daughter, Beatrice, to be cared for by Alex's mother. Forbidden to speak of her aunt or dragons, Alex struggles to find her place in a world that denies her incredible mathematical skills. When Beatrice's fascination with dragons becomes evident, Alex fears losing the person she is closest to. A heartfelt book of women finding their strength in a world that denies their intelligence and abilities.
An intensely moving and brilliantly written story of pain and loss and the search for love and forgiveness. Sara moves from Chicago to Memphis to escape a troubled past. There, in Mama Sugar's boarding house, her son is born, and she begins to find her way to the promise of a better life. But dealing with past trauma on a personal level as well as the larger issues of racism and segregation makes her journey difficult. There are no easy answers and no fairy tale endings in this story, but following Sara on her journey is worth every minute spent reading this heartfelt book.
Maise Dobbs, Psychologist and Investigator, is back in book 17 in the series. It's 1942, and Maise has been hired to investigate the death of a pilot. Not just any pilot but an aviatrix, a member of Britain's Women's Air Force Auxiliary (WAAF). Combining mystery and psychological study, Winspear introduces us to the WAAF, the Land Girls, and Eleanor Roosevelt's visit to England. And, of course, Maise faces challenges including prejudice and injustice with intelligence, courage, and the love and support of family and friends.
Kravetz’s book is a beautifully written novel blending fact and fiction, past and present, to create a story at the heart of which is Plath's novel, The Bell Jar. Told through the distinct voices of three fictional characters, Kravetz draws us into Plath's life - her lifelong battle with depression, her overwhelming need to express herself through words, and her struggle to be taken seriously as a poet and writer.
Another gripping, can't-put-it-down novel by Schwab; a story of parallel worlds, haunted houses, ghouls, and ominous family secrets. Tenacious 16-year-old Olivia, who is mute, longs for a home and family but has only her mother's journal. When she is invited by her uncle to return to the family home, she finds family is not as simple a concept as she thought and ultimately must decide where she belongs. And if the writing isn't compelling enough, the amazing illustrations will surely draw you in.
Both a riveting memoir and an urgent call to remember, journalist Schwarz tells the story of her grandparents, who lived in Germany and France during WWII. Neither heroes nor villains, they had no active role in the Holocaust but took advantage of and benefited from anti-Semitism. Schwarz places her family's story in the broader context of blame-shifting that ignores citizen complicity and even enthusiastic support for the Holocaust and asks us to ponder the questions: How do we define complicity? How do nations learn from history? And, possibly most importantly: if we avoid confronting the past, are we vulnerable to repeat it?
In this compelling book, we are taken on a heart-wrenching journey into the life of an addict. Sonya, an out-of-work, once-promising stage actor, whose love for her son forms the center of this story, struggles to be the mother he needs and deserves. Forced by her father, with whom she has a strained relationship, into rehab in order not to lose her child, Sonya at first resists all attempts to help her just as she has consistently resisted acknowledging how badly her life has gone off track and the dangers her behaviors pose to those around her. Often unlikeable, Sonya is still a compelling and, at times, sympathetic character in her journey to confront past trauma and to make better choices for herself and for her son.
An intense read with complex plots and told from multiple perspectives, Death at Greenway takes place during WWII. Two young women claiming to be nurses sign on to help care for children evacuated from London during the Blitz and taken to Agatha Christie's home, Greenway. Neither one is who she seems to be, and after a murder in the town, each women's story is slowly revealed. A well-written novel of loss, grief, and survival.
In this engaging work of historical fiction, Groff creates a story for real life poet Marie de France, who was cast out of the French court of Eleanor of Aquitaine and sent to an ailing abbey to be its prioress. Angry and resentful at first, Marie slowly takes charge, transforming the abbey and empowering the women who live and work there. Wonderful blend of historical people and events and the author's vivid imagination.
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An intriguing, innovative dystopian novel set in the USA after a dire climate prognosis comes true. Massive flooding leaves coasts and cities under water and countries drastically reduced in size. This is a world filled with loss, deprivation and violence. Myra and her 7-year daughter, Pearl, live on a boat, trading the fish they catch for supplies. Their solitary life changes when Myra decides to search for the daughter taken from her before Pearl was born. This decision and her decision to join a group of people searching for a safe place to create community causes her to struggle with how to balance her responsibility and love for each of her daughters as well as what she owes the community of people she has come to depend on. A well written debut novel.
A thought-provoking feminist fantasy that drew me in from the first page to the last. 12-year-old Marya has always been told she has no meaningful place in the world - unlike her brother, who is being groomed to become a respected sorcerer. An intended mistake lands Marya in the Dragomir Academy. The bonds she forms with other students, some teachers and eventually her brother lead her to question all she's been told and to ask "Who does this story serve?"
A heartfelt and heart-wrenching novel that tells the story of biologist Inti Flynn, in Scotland with her team of biologists to reintroduce wolves to the remote Highlands in the hope that they can help to heal a dying landscape. Accompanying her is her twin, Aggie, who has been emotionally damaged by events in her past that are revealed in stages throughout the book. Facing anger and resentment from people in the town, Inti struggles to persuade them to care about the wolves as she tries to help her sister heal. The narrative weaves together past and present to explore both environmental issues and the effects of trauma.
Addie, born in France at the end of the 17th Century, makes a deal with the devil to escape a life she doesn't want. The price she pays for immortality is to be instantly forgotten by everyone she meets. Addie’s story unfolds between her life in present-day New York City and flashbacks of her experiences traveling the world and witnessing historical events. Extraordinary writing infuses this engrossing and moving book.
Wilkerson tells the stories of Black Americans who left the South between 1915 and 1970 searching for jobs and a life without Jim Crow only to confront racism, segregation, and the caste system in their new homes.
Tsukiyama writes with compassion and tenderness the stories of young, mostly rural, Chinese women sent to the city to work in the silk factories. The reader is immersed in a world of hard work and their struggles to create a fairer, safer workplace as well as the kindness and support from the women with whom they live and work that surrounds and sustains them.
Vera Stanhope is back. and she's as curmudgeonly (and, occasionally, endearing) as ever. This time she's been called in to find out who killed one of a group of friends who have been meeting on Hope Island (inaccessible at times due to the tides) every five years since they were in high school. Vera and her long-suffering team must uncover what secrets these friends have been hiding for 50 years, and whether or not those secrets have anything to do with the murder. A worthy addition to Cleeves's series!
If you, like me, have struggled to understand the roots of ongoing animosity between the United States and Cuba, this book is a must read. Spanning more than five centuries, the author lays out how the modern nation of Cuba evolved, a record of conquest, colonization and slavery as well as revolutions and independence as well as the influence of the United States on this history. A very readable, accessible book that gave me the insight I was looking for and that, most importantly, ends by exploring what a new, healthier relationship might look like and how it could be achieved.
A beautifully written debut novel revealing a seldom seen or acknowledged side of America's "wild" west. After the death of their parents, sisters Lucy and Sam flee their family home to travel through the West to California. Of Chinese descent and having lived in poverty, they face not only an ongoing struggle for shelter, food, and water, but prejudice and abuse. Weaving back and forth in time through family history, their battles to overcome the differences between them and make the compromises needed to stay together, and the future, this is an intense and enlightening read!
I loved this beautifully written book, so filled with humor and pathos. Noe, the 78-year-old narrator, reflects back on the summer he lived with his grandparents in Faha, a parish on the western coast of Ireland. Young Noe observes and interacts with the people of Faha and the strangers who, in 1958, have come to bring electricity to this community. The adult Noe writes with compassion, kindness, and understanding for his young self as he does his best to understand the people he gets to know - their connections to each other and their strengths and weaknesses. I found myself pausing and reflecting frequently after reading sections of this amazing novel.