It is difficult to know where to begin in describing Catherine Banner’s truly excellent debut novel. Set on the Mediterranean island of Castellamare and covering almost one-hundred years, The House on the Edge of Night tells the story of four generations as they face world wars, economic collapse, fascism, and the advent of modernity. However, this novel is so much more than that. Night begins when a young doctor with no family arrives on the island in 1914 and begins collecting the stories of its inhabitants. Those stories open each part of the book, lending the character’s stories a mythic quality. As the lives of Esposito, his descendants, and the other islanders unfold over the next several decades, a sort of quiet magic envelops their lives and irresistibly draws the reader in. Furthermore, Banner masterfully imbues the lives of her characters with a sense of continuity in the bonds of family and friendship through the generations despite the hardships they face. Overall, Night is an absolute delight for the reader and should not be missed.
(Reviewed in exchange for a copy of book for Seattle Book Review.)
For the amateur artist, working from real life may provide a significant challenge. With so many changing variables in a real life situation, working from a photograph seems far less stressful. In her latest book, however, Cathy Johnson not only makes “on the spot” sketching seem possible for the average artist, but strongly preferable.
In Faithful, teenager Shelby Richmond is driving one winter night with her friend, Helene, when they become involved in a horrific car accident, which leaves Helene in a vegetative state. Unable to forgive herself, Shelby in effect stops living that night, and Faithful is the story of the painstaking process by which she slowly pieces her life together to become whole again. At the same time, this is an Alice Hoffman novel, and the supernatural is at play: miracles begin to be attributed to Helene after the accident, and an angel who appeared to Shelby on the night of the accident remains a presence in her life. That said, the real strength of Hoffman’s writing is her ability to see the magical or mystical in the everyday without those elements becoming the focus of the work. Rather, the supernatural merely enhances the human emotions and actions at play. While an angel seems to oversee Shelby’s life, her recovery is complicated and occurs primarily because of Shelby’s own efforts. This perfect balance of the mystical with gritty realism makes Faithful an incredibly satisfying novel.
In Summerlong, a mysterious young woman named Lioness appears on an island in the Pacific Northwest and enters the lives of middle-aged, long-term partners, Abe Aronson and Joanna Delvecchio, and Joanna’s adult daughter, Lily. As these three become increasingly aware of Lioness’s unique abilities and troubling past, their own lives become more tumultuous. When the havoc subsides, what will remain?
Krissy Hancock, owner of the Death by Coffee bookstore and café, has an unusual knack for getting involved in murder investigations. In this third installment of the Bookstore Café series, Krissy is invited to a swank Halloween party in what can best be described as a Halloween nightmare of a mansion. When one of three Marilyn Monroes is found dead after she humiliated her boyfriend in front of the entire party, Krissy cannot resist getting involved.
In The Lafayette Sword, a killer infiltrates a Freemason temple to kill two and steal a ceremonial sword, and police detective and Freemason Antoine Marcas feels especially compelled to find the killer as one of the victims is not only his Freemason brother but also his close friend. Thus begins an intense chase involving two continents and a 700-year-old puzzle to stop the killer before he learns the alchemical secret which could destabilize the world.
Miss Emily Dorothea Seeton is a sleuth like no other. Trouble seems to follow the sweet, retired art teacher, who is either the law’s greatest asset or nightmare, depending on the officer queried. Armed with her ever-present brolly and her art supplies, she purports to draw culprits, but in fact makes bizarre sketches for Scotland Yard that baffle until fairly eccentric connections are made to reveal the culprit.
The Muse revolves around two interconnected story lines. In the 1960s, Olive Schloss moves with her art dealer father and her depressive socialite mother to a Spain on the verge of revolution. There, the secretly artistically-gifted girl falls in love with Isaac Robles, a revolutionary, and befriends his sister, Teresa. Robles becomes Schloss’ muse, spurring her to paint brilliant works. These paintings are passed off as Robles’ to Schloss’ father, as tensions rise between the characters and in Spain. In late 1960’s England, a young writer from Trinidad, Odette Bastien, becomes a typist at the Skelton Institute of Art. There, she comes to the attention of an older woman, Marjorie Quick, but when Bastien’s boyfriend brings a lost Robles’ painting in for evaluation, Quick begins to lose control.
The premise of Paula Huston’s One Ordinary Sunday is really quite simple. She attempts to explain the power of Sunday Mass in her own life for herself and for those who do not really understand what occurs during Mass. To do so, she researches Church fathers and contemporary theologians, popes and Christian historians. She proceeds to meticulously examine each aspect (and sometimes individual lines) of the Mass, tracing them as far back as their Jewish roots. To stop here, however, would only tell half the story. As Huston sits in her pew reviewing her research, she also reveals her own inner struggles: her vague, gray feeling of grief over the deaths of those she has lost, her worries for her grandchildren’s futures, and her discomfort with aspects of the Mass because of her Protestant upbringing. Indeed, in one poignant quote, Huston says, “Do I understand all of it? No. Do I believe it? I am trying.” Therefore, the beauty of One Ordinary Sunday is how it reveals the coming together of human beings, with their problems, doubts, and sorrows, to be transformed by a 2,000-year-old liturgy which is suspended in time, pulsing, and occurring around the world on any given Sunday. In capturing that coming together of human frailty with ancient liturgy, Huston encapsulates the power of Sunday Mass for those who may feel disconnected from it.