Beheld TaraShea Nesbit (2020) The Mayflower passengers who founded the Plymouth Colony were not all religious dissenters. On the ship there were also indentured servants and craftspeople who did not hold with the puritanical ways of the leaders. Nesbit takes us inside the thoughts of two very different women of Plymouth, in the troubled year 1630. (Ignore the author’s failures in archaizing language.) 

A Rogue’s Company Allison Montclair (2021) First, read the previous two entries in the Sparks and Bainbridge series, reviewed here and here. Then dive into this one, which is another rollicking, intricately plotted mystery set in London immediately after World War II. The two protagonists run a staid marriage bureau but often end up in back alleys with desperate criminals.

The Last Garden in England Julia Kelly (2021) Three women interact with the elaborate fictional garden of Highbury House in three different time periods. In 1907 Venetia Smith designs the nontraditional landscape. In 1944, Beth Pedley is a farm worker—a land girl—during World War II. And in the present day, Emma Lovell is hired to restore the site to its long-ago glory. Several romances ensue in this pleasant novel.

My Kind of People Lisa Duffy (2020) Melodrama oozes off of every page of this novel, set in the present day on a fictional island off the coast of Boston. And you may protest that young architects and freelance journalists are really not as financially solvent as portrayed here. But I came to love the characters, especially Sky (a newly orphaned 10-year old girl), Leo (an architect, her unlikely guardian), and Maggie (a helpful neighbor, with her own troubles).    

The Children’s Book AS Byatt (2009) Sussex (and some London, Paris, Munich), 1895-1919. Socialists, anarchists, suffragists, libertines. Potters, silversmiths, museum keepers, puppeteers, poets, playwrights, scholars, physicians, tellers of dark fairy tales. An old-fashioned, languorous, discursive story with dozens of characters and lots of historical context.  

The Lincoln Highway Amor Towles (2021) Fans of Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow, reviewed here, will find much of the same verve and strong character development in his new offering. In 1954, two young brothers set out on a road trip to find the mother who abandoned them, but they have to take many detours. The ending could have been stronger, but this one is still entertaining.