Finland has a population of 5 million today, and the Finnish-American population is about half a million. The Scandinavian-American community is dominated by the 3.5 million of Swedish origin. Given these numbers, it is not surprising that most people know...
There’s no shortage of authors who write popular historical-fiction novels. What makes Robert Harris distinctive among them is the solid research that goes into his novels, and the accurate, detailed descriptions that leave the reader more knowledgeable than before. Some...
In a small Irish village — “dead centre. The exact middle of the country” — in the 1850s, an English nurse is hired for a most unusual task: to watch over eleven-year-old Anna O’Donnell, a child who has taken no...
Two boys in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, become friends in the 1940s. They are both fifteen, both Jewish, both highly intelligent, both have fathers who are rabbis, and both study at yeshivas (Orthodox Jewish schools). They have an enormous amount in common,...
Although I began to read this book with eagerness, it is with reluctance that I am reviewing it. I had enjoyed several of Khan’s other novels featuring Inspector Chopra and the baby elephant, mostly set in Mumbai, a lighthearted set...
Marie Mitchell is a welcome update to the fictional is spy contingent. She is female, black, and American, all of which give Lauren Wilkinson’s debut novel a completely different atmosphere from the classic spy genre dominated by Cold-War British men....
This is one of Chevalier’s earlier novels – her third actually, after Girl with the Pearl Earring and Virgin Blue – and for some good reason I can no longer recall, I began to read it but didn’t get far...
It was more than 10 years ago when I read a few Rose Tremain novels (The Road Home, Restoration, Letter to Sister Benedicta), so when I came across this Islands of Mercy published in 2020, and saw from the blurb...
British WWII novels often have an oldfashioned charm with their dashing doomed fighter pilots or sturdily phlegmatic women keeping up the home front. On the surface, The Kitchen Front would appear to be a pleasant addition to the collection, but...
Having enjoyed The Lieutenant, I was looking forward to another Kate Grenville novel. A Room Made of Leaves is the account Elizabeth MacArthur nee Veale writes 12 years after her husband’s death, contradicting the narrative he had spun. John MacArthur...
Heads-up: this novel has a daunting cast of characters. In their favour, they are interestingly diverse: they live over multiple decades in two continents, they are black, white, married, single, straight, gay, male, female, and of various ages. Some are...
To situate a novel partly in 1960s Italy with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and partly in 2000s Hollywood is surely a unique approach. This novel goes quite a bit further in both location and time. Beautiful Ruins opens in...
Spanning 300 years, 2 continents, 7 generations, and 14 different perspectives, Homegoing is an astonishing debut novel by a 26-year-old Ghanaian-American. In 1700s Ghana, two half-sisters are born. Effia the Beautiful is a well-born Fante whose mother, Maame, had vanished...
Should authors write about communities that they themselves do not belong to? I can see both sides. On the one hand, a writer should be free to write about anything they want, and we, the readers, get to decide if...
“Noriko, promise me that you will obey in all things. Do not question. Do not fight. Do not resist. Do not think if thinking will lead you somewhere you ought not to be. Only smile and do as you are...
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