Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole

Best to state this upfront, I’m a total sucker for epistolary novels, so I eagerly opened this novel on a weeknight with lots scheduled for the next few days.  Silly me, no early bed times for me for the next couple of nights.   And yes, I read this engaging novel in two evenings.

It’s 1912 and Elspeth, an isolated poet on the Isle of Skye, receives a fan letter from a young American, Davey, as he is about to start college.  Thus begins a  5-year correspondence that starts as a friendship and grows into a love affair.  The story spans two wars, and is intertwined with Elspeth’s daughter’s (Margaret) letters as she struggles to unravel the mystery of her mother’s early years, this correspondence (affair) with Davey and ultimately, the family breaking apart.

The story is told entirely via letters,  which is a very difficult format to pull off.  Many such novels can border on the gimmicky…but not Letters from Skye.  Ms. Brockmole deftly builds her characters, giving them depth, layers and feelings. With each letter, the story, the characters and their strong bond are slowly revealed.

I had to remind myself that this was fiction, that these weren’t real letters or real people.  The letters also are able to  convey the  beautiful  ruggedness of the Isle of Skye and the war-torn Edinburgh.

Importantly this book made acutely aware of the lost art of letter writing  — where the letter-writer captures the day’s weather, mundane bits of daily life and bare their secret feelings and dreams on good old-fashioned paper.  Letters that were eagerly awaited, opened and treasured. Not like today’s temporary emails, text messages, tweets and Facebook postings.  Our correspondences are no longer treasured – what will we have to re-open, re-read, re-live?

It is obvious that the author did a great deal of research, so it’s a shame that some of the letters didn’t ring true with some of the language a bit “off” for the time period  — but that’s a minor quibble.

An enchanting book with characters that work their way into your heart.

I almost never do this anymore, but I’m keeping my ARC copy to re-read.

A quote from the book:  “I should have told you, should’ve taught you to steel your heart. Taught you that a letter isn’t always just a letter. Words on the page can drench the soul…”

Advanced reading copy provided by Random House, Ballantine Books.

State of Wonder by Anne Patchett

The opening sentence:

The news of Anders Eckman’s death came by way of an Aerogram, a piece of bright blue airmail paper that served as both the stationary and when folded over and sealed along the edges, the envelope.  The single sheet had traveled from Brazil to Minnesota to mark the passing of a man – a breath of tissue so insubstantial that only the stamp seemed to anchor it to this world.

I read that opening line with my mouth hanging open at the beauty of the writing.   Full disclosure, I’m a Anne Patchett fan – Magician’s Assistant is one of my all time favorite novels…as is Bel Canto.    So after that opening sentence,  I was mentally cancelling all plans for the next few days so I could loose myself in this book.

Marina is a drug scientist who is sent to  Brazil find out what happened to her dead colleague.  She is set down in the middle of  the Amazon jungle and immediately faces unforeseen challenges at every turn.  The dramatic storyline takes many twists and turns.  She discovers an experiment taking place among the native women, wherein they chew a native tree bark while it’s still on the tree (really?) and this bark extends their fertility well into their senior years (just say no!).

Marina finds dishonesty and false claims among the drug reports back to headquarters.  The tribal people themselves hold secrets.  She finds love (of sorts) and suffers from long drawn out, vivid dreams as a result of Malaria medication.  The dreams tended to bog down the flow of the story and I must say I kept hoping Marina wouldn’t fall asleep again so I didn’t have to read through another one of her tangled dreams.

I agree with other reviewers that the jungle itself plays a major character.  The vivid descriptions of the heat, humidity, insects, dirt, and torrential rains gripped me into believing I was there.  The story line under another author’s hand might seem incredulous, but as always Ms. Patchett allows you to suspend disbelief and journey with the characters.   I even believed it when they accidentally canoed down the wrong small river tributary and discover … well I won’t spoil it for you.

Bravos to Anne Patchett once again – a must-read adult adventure story, reminiscent of reading with a flashlight under the covers – too wrapped up in the story to go to sleep

Two of my favorite quotes (in addition to that grand opening line):

“The question is whether or not you choose to disturb the world around you, or if you choose to let it go on as if you had never arrived. That is how one respects indigenous people. If you pay any attention at all you’ll realize that you could never convert them to your way of life anyway. They are an intractable race. Any progress you advance to them will be undone before your back is turned. You might as well come down here to unbend the river. The point, then, is to observe the life they themselves have put in place and learn from it.”

“But we cannot un-braid the story of another person’s life and take out all the parts that don’t suit our purposes and put forth only the ones that do.”

Little Bee, by Chris Cleave

My friend was flabbergasted when she learned I hadn’t read Little Bee and she sternly ordered me to go home and read it NOW.

Susan you were so right. Why did I wait so long to read this?

This novel takes place in the summer of 2007, when Little Bee, a sixteen-year-old Nigerian immigrant escapes a UK detention center with little more than her wits, the clothes on her back, and a few fellow refugees. Her plan is to locate and live with Andrew and Sarah O’Rourke, former acquaintances from Ibeno Beach, where they shared a horrifying encounter two years prior.  Simultaneously, Bee makes plans for numerous suicide options for “when the men come”.  Bee and Sarah narrate, sharing their stories and their lies.  The horrific beach incident is eventually revealed but not without some major surprises.

The storyline gallops forward, but try not to read this book too quickly as the writing is exquisite.  The biggest surprise in the novel is the humor – an endearing humor that warms up the stark realities facing Bee, who is an old soul, wise beyond her years.  “Imagine a young woman cut out from a smiling ‘Save the Children’ magazine advertisement, who dresses herself in threadbare pink clothes from the recycling bin in your local supermarket car park and speaks English like the leader column of The Times.” 

This is a story of survival, interspersed with cruel reality, surprising plot twists, unforeseen revelations, humor and tragedy.  I loved it.

A great quote from Sarah about her husband (spoiler warning here):   “There was no quick grief for Andrew because he had been so slowly lost.  First from my heart, then from my mind and only and finally from my life.”

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Code Name Verity was a totally unknown book for me –a gift from a friend.  I hadn’t heard of it and didn’t know anything about this novel.   So, one evening as I curled up with my new book, I  realized I seldom read books anymore without preconceived opinions — having read reviews or based on recommendations of my respected reader friends and family.   I remembered the magic of opening an totally unknown novel and I found myself anticipating this read with a tingle of excitement.

Note to self:  do this more often.

Book Description:   Oct. 11th, 1943-A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it’s barely begun.

When “Verity” is arrested by the Gestapo, she’s sure she doesn’t stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she’s living a spy’s worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution.

The novel is targeted to the YA audience, but has a maturity that makes it suitable  for any age.    The structure is unique and fresh.  Verity is forced to write out her confession, give up military codes to get her clothes back one by one.  And does she write!  Verity writes and writes her confession in a sometimes meandering miss-mash of present, past, her friendship with fellow pilot  Maddie, details about the planes,  and most heartbreaking the suffering she and her fellow captives experience.

The confession is for Captain Von Linden (her captor) and it soon becomes clear that he is as interested in her story as gaining spy knowledge.  Verity knows this and she plays games with him during the writing.   It’s a narrative to be read slowly and without distraction as historical details abound, there are humorous passages  and many clues are given.

The characters cross over mid-novel, the narrative changes and the story takes a major twist.  No spoilers here, just trust that things get really exciting and scarey.

I was drawn into these strong women (called girls throughout the book) and their equally strong friendship.  I was also fascinated by the historical details especially about England’s WWII  women transport pilots.

I think readers of any age will be drawn into this war time novel of endurance, secrets, friendship, and most importantly strong women role models.

The Good House by Ann Leary

I heard Ann Leary interviewed on NPR and immediately walked over to my local bookstore to purchase The Good House. 

Book description:  Hildy Good is a townie. A lifelong resident of an historic community on the rocky coast of Boston’s North Shore, she knows pretty much everything about everyone. Hildy is a descendant of one of the witches hung in nearby Salem, and is believed, by some, to have inherited psychic gifts. Not true, of course; she’s just good at reading people. Hildy is good at lots of things.  A successful real-estate broker, mother and grandmother, her days are full. But her nights have become lonely ever since her daughters, convinced their mother was drinking too much, staged an intervention and sent her off to rehab.  Now she’s in recovery—more or less.

Hildy Good is a beautifully flawed character – outspoken, rude, selfish, manipulative and generally unlovable – yet she faces each day with a fragile bbravado that touched my heart.

The storyline is a revolving tale of idiosyncratic characters,  small town gossip, and an intriguing subplots – even including the Salem witch trials.  Yet Ann Leary never allows the novel to get bogged down, she keeps every character clearly drawn, the dialogue crisp and each storyline adding to the momentum  of the book.  There’s a mix of pathos, humor, charm, and human insight.

While Hildy tries and convince herself, her neighbors, her daughters and even the reader that she doesn’t have a drinking problem, the author allows the reader to know better – the mark of a good writer is the ability to pull of an unreliable narrator without talking (writing) down to the reader.

A read this book in two days, and while the ending felt contrived, I delighted in the setting, every character interaction and plot twist.

I rarely save a  novel for re-reading (I have my library of classics for that) but this went back on my shelf to savor again.

Alys Always by Harriet Lane

I usually dislike blurbs that compare books to other books, as if they can ride the tail wind of another bestseller, but this book’s blurb is spot on – “Howard’s End meets All About Eve”.

On a bitter winter’s night,  Frances Thorpe comes upon the aftermath of a car crash and, while comforting the dying driver, Alys Kyte, hears her final words. The wife of a celebrated novelist, Alys moved in rarefied circles, and when Frances agrees to meet the bereaved family, she glimpses a world entirely foreign to her: cultured, wealthy, and privileged. While slowly forging a friendship with Alys’s carelessly charismatic daughter, Frances finds her own life takes a dramatic turn, propelling her from an anonymous existence as an assistant editor for the books section of a newspaper to the dizzying heights of literary society.

That’s the storyline, and one would think oh yes, another run-of -the-mill psychological, stalker thriller – but no, this book is much more.  Frances starts to infiltrate Alys’ life, romancing her husband, charming the children, even wearing the same clothes…the book gets more and more compelling as you plunge with Frances into her new and manipulative world.  At first she appears harmless, but it soon becomes clear that Frances is a schemer and a creepy one at that.  Now that she’s discovered a wholly more attractive life, she will do anything to keep it hers.

The humor is wry, the characters are flawed, the atmosphere unsettling and I spent two late nights with the “just one more chapter” syndrome.   A debut novel, Alys Always is beautifully, yet sparsely written and what the author leaves out tells as much as her writing.    This is a tautly-written, mesmerizing read.  And best of all, there is nothing pat about the ending — it requires some thought from the reader.

Some of my favorite writing from this very talented author.

“A wall of coats, slumped there like so many turned backs”

“Her extraordinary talent for happiness was not always best served by the world around her”

“My mother has never been an engaged listener.  Other peoples speech is useful mainly as a prompt”

Save