Fiction by Howard Norman
It's 1918 in Nova Scotia. "Come to the window," says Elizabeth Frame to her new husband, as she stands in the moonlight looking from their honeymoon hotel room. She has seen a whale beach itself and finds the sight moving, but her husband doesn't come to look at it. So... she shoots him in the head.
Wait, what?
Yes, this is a weird book. I didn't really like it.
Fiction by Martha Hall Kelly
This story begins in 1914 with Sofya Steshnyva, a cousin of the Russian czar, and her American friend Eliza Farriday. The two young women are happy young wives, unaware of the looming threats of war and revolution in their futures.
This was a good enough book, but not as good as its predecessor Lilac Girls. (see below)
Fiction by Catherine Banner
This story was about the Esposito family, who lived on a small (probably fictional) island off the coast of Italy near Sicily called Castellemare. It takes place over the course of most of the twentieth century.
It was okay but...the characters just didn't hold my attention. I finished it but felt like it hadn't been worth it to push through to the end. I can't really articulate why.
