I signed off on my book review blog nearly a year ago (see my Blogger Reflections), but I’ve read so many good books since then that I felt obliged to check in with my faithful followers.
During the 2020-21 pandemic, I’ve gravitated toward two genres: historical fiction and mysteries. Historical fiction carried me off to times other than my own, letting me escape the distress of current life in the United States. With a good mystery, I could get so wrapped up in untangling the plot that I could forget about case counts, mortality statistics, and vaccine data for a few hours.
Here are seven titles that I recommend:
Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague Maggie O’Farrell (2020) Yes, the title is kind of off-putting during our modern plague, but there’s not a lot of contagion in this fictional imagining of William Shakespeare’s domestic travails. The title character is William’s son, Hamnet, whose name is an alternate spelling of Hamlet; you can make connections to the play of that name. And the writing in this novel . . . it’s just magical. See also my review of O’Farrell’s This Must Be the Place.
Stuck in Manistique Dennis Cuesta (2018) Local color abounds in this well-done mystery set in a small city in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. There’s also the stranger-comes-into-town trope, as the main character, from Chicago, arrives to settle his aunt’s estate. Readers from the Mitten State should especially enjoy this one.
The Voyage of the Morning Light Marina Endicott (2020) In this epic tale set in 1912, two half-sisters sail through the South Pacific on a merchant ship. Canadian author Endicott doesn’t shy away from complex issues such as colonialism, bigotry, and religious arrogance, both in Micronesia and (through flashbacks) at a school for first-nations children in Canada. The scenes on shipboard are really brilliant.
Someone Alice McDermott (2013) McDermott can conjure up New York in the early-to-mid twentieth century better than any other author I know. In this novel, she gives us an intimate portrait of an Irish Catholic woman’s ordinary life, from youth to old age. The beauty here lies in the simplicity and the lovely language. See also my review of McDermott’s The Ninth Hour (2017).
A Royal Affair Allison Montclair (2020) In 1946 London, Iris Sparks and Gwendolyn Bainbridge of The Right Sort Marriage Bureau are hired to investigate a potential problem with the engagement of Princess Elizabeth to her prince. This lighthearted mystery is historical, so it hits both of my pandemic requirements! See also my review of the first Montclair novel with Iris and Gwendolyn, The Right Sort of Man (2019).
The Clergyman’s Wife Molly Greeley (2019) I usually steer clear of fan fiction, but this spinoff from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice stands on its own as a gentle historical novel of the Regency period—and the Austen links give it extra resonance. The wife of the title is Charlotte Collins (née Lucas), a friend of P&P’s Elizabeth Bennet who made what Elizabeth considered a disastrous marriage. See how this modern author imagines that Charlotte’s choice played out.
Moonflower Murders Anthony Horowitz (2020) This offering from one of my favorite mystery writers is a long haul, because it includes within its covers a second complete mystery novel, supposedly written by someone else. Hang in there for the denouement. I’ve reviewed three previous Horowitz mysteries, Magpie Murders (2017), The Word is Murder (2018), and The Sentence is Death (2019). This guy is prolific, and his metafictional mastery is astounding.
More brief reviews of my pandemic reads will be posted in coming weeks!