Fiction Selections

Every once in awhile, I make a real push to read books that have just been sitting on my bookshelves at home for years.  Sometimes I'm left wondering why I ever bought the book in the first place - where was I in my life that this sounded at all interesting?  Other times I love the book so much I kick myself for letting it sit on the shelf unread for so long!  Here's a mix of the latest flurry from the bookshelves:

The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier: After The Girl with the Pearl Earring, I never pass up a Chevalier novel when I see it at a used bookstore.  But that's not to say it won't sit on my shelf for awhile.  This book alternates between the present day - telling the story of Ella Turner who upon moving to a small town in France, decides to research her own French history.  This leads to the story of Isabelle du Moulin who lived in the same area more than 400 years earlier.  Of course, the two women are linked in some way, but the detective story that emerges as Ella attempts to find herself through her research is a definite page turner.  I should read a bit more of those Chevalier books on my shelves..

Dreaming Water by Gail Tsukiyama: I've enjoyed a number of books by Tsukiyama, including The Samurai's Garden, The Street of a Thousand Blossoms, and The Language of Threads.  I always find her stories engaging and her writing beautiful and straight-forward.  In Dreaming Water, Cate steel grieving the loss of her husband, has to face the fact that her adult daughter, Hana, is dying from a rare disease.  As Cate and Hana come to terms with their pasts and the future they don't want to face, one of Hana's old friends comes back into the picture - and the book explores their friendships and how each one deals with the end in their own way.

In The Language of Miracles by Rajia Hassib:  This story asks the question of how accepted into an "American" community a family of immigrants can be - what happens when a tragedy occurs?  Who will take the blame?  How will each member of a family deal with their loss, grief, and isolation?  The Al-Menshawy family immigrated to a NewJersey suburb from Egypt - they appear to be living the American Dream - their own home, stable jobs, and seemingly true friends in their school and neighborhood.  This book explores the painful reality of how much more it takes, both physically, mentally, and emotionally, to find one's place - especially in a place hell-bent on exclusion.