The Valley of Amazement

The Valley of Amazement is the new novel by Amy Tan. This book is set in Shanghai at the turn of the century and follows the lives of an American mother who runs a high class courtesan house and her half-Chinese daughter, who has never met her father.

Tan is a great writer of historical fiction, and often explores mother-daughter relationships, as she does here. However, I felt like this thick book needed to be edited down from 600 pages to about 400. The story got off track so many times, it became tedious and hard to stick with. The section on how to be the perfect courtesan was way too long and mostly unnecessary.

I stuck with it to the end, and fans of Tan will probably enjoy it, but I found it tiresome.

The Shores of Paradise

The Shores of Paradise by Shirley Streshinsky is historical fiction set in Hawaii, telling of the final decades of the 1800's, marking the end of the Hawaiian monarchy and continuing into the early 1900's.

The book tells the story of True Lindstrom and Martha Moon, two orphan girls who becomes close friends with Princess Victoria Kaiulani.

This is a wonderfully written epic novel following the lives of these girls, as they grow up and they move in different directions, yet their friendship remains strong. It is a story of Hawaii and the people who shaped its future, from politics, to cattle ranching.

If you love Hawaii, you will love this book. A great read, I couldn't put it down until the end.

The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price Purveyor of Superior Funerals

The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price Purveyor of Superior Funerals, by Wendy Jones, is a novel set in a small Welsh town in1924. It tells of Wilfred Price, a funeral director coming of age in this very small town, who impulsively asks a girl to marry him, then quickly realizes he has made a mistake.

The book starts as a comedy of manners, and indeed would make a good movie, but then tackles more serious subjects as the novel progresses. What could have been just another quaint small town novel becomes a deeper portrait of human emotions and frailty, courage and tenderness all struggling to fit in with the social conventions of the time.

Wonderful characters, great writing, a good read.

The Orchard of Lost Souls

The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nafida Mohamed is set in Hargeisa, Somalia in 1987during the civil war. It tells the stories of three different women, Kawsar, a widow in her late 50's who has been badly beaten in prison, Filsan a soldier in her late 20's from Mogadishu, and nine year old Deqo, an orphan who has run away from the refugee camp where she was born, and is trying to survive on her own in the city.

This is a beautifully written book about a tragic time in a country on the verge of revolution. It shows the cost of war to ordinary people. These three women are ultimately drawn together as they try to hold on to their humanity in the most inhumane of circumstances.

A recommended read.

China Dolls

China Dolls is the new novel by Lisa See, one of my favorite authors of historical fiction. See writes about Chinese and Chinese American women. If you haven't read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, or Peony in Love, you should.

In her latest, she tells of the time during the height of the Chinese nightclub scene in the 30's and 40's, especially the famous Forbidden City nightclub in San Francisco run by Charlie Low.

See does so much research for each of her books, and this book is filled with many real people of the times. Grace, Ruby, and Helen the three main characters, are her own creations, but based on the lives of real women.

I loved this book, I almost felt like I was there in the nightclubs watching an Asian version of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing! It's also just a good story of friendship and betrayal, love and family.

Boy, Snow, Bird

Boy, Snow, Bird is the new novel by Helen Oyeyemi. I had read rave reviews about this book and really wanted to read it. It is very loosely based on Snow White.

Set in a small town in New England in 1953, we meet Boy, a girl running away from her abusive father, who marries a man with a young beautiful daughter, Snow Whitman. When Boy has her own daughter, Bird, and sends Snow away, she fulfills the inevitable part in the story where she becomes the wicked stepmother.

Oyeyemi is one of the most original voices writing today and I really wanted to like this book. She takes on issues of race and identity, but for me, it fell flat and just didn't work..

None of the characters were developed enough to understand or care about them. The story jumped around too much, and although there were moments of magic, they were too few to make it seem like a fairy tale. The ending was so out of left field and abrupt, it ruined what little investment I had in the book.

Skip this one, and let's hope Oyeyemi comes out with something better in a few more years.

The Aviator's Wife

The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin is historical fiction about Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author, pilot, and wife of Charles Lindbergh. This is the little known story of Anne's life, as she was often in the shadow of her husband. I loved her famous book Gift from the Sea, but knew little else about her.

Benjamin tells the story through Anne's voice, starting with her early life as the daughter of the Ambassador to Mexico, where she meets Lindbergh while still in college. It tells of their partnership as Anne became co-pilot on Charles' famous flights around the world, getting her own pilots license and often flying the planes herself. It tells of their troubled marriage, the widely known kidnapping of their first child and the five children that followed.

I enjoyed this book and it led me to research the Lindbergh's even more on my own when I finished reading it. Throughout the book, I came to like Charles Lindbergh less and less, but I will leave it for you to decide. A worthwhile read.

Blood Orchids

Blood Orchids by Toby Neal is a crime mystery set in Hawaii. This is not the type of book I normally read, and for good reason. I found it disturbing and not to my taste. Neal is a local author so I was interested to read her book for this reason only.

The heroine is Lei Texeira, a Big Island cop with a troubled past who finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery, while also being stalked herself. Since there are a whole series of books about Lei we assume she will be Ok, which she ultimately is. I can see how it can be intriguing to watch a mystery unfold and try to figure it out before the detectives in the book do (which in this case wasn't hard) but otherwise, I just don't see the point in reading things like this.

If crime fiction is your thing, you might enjoy this book, but it's not for me.

Aunt Dimity and the Wishing Well

Aunt Dimity and the Wishing Well by Nancy Atherton, is just one in a series of novels about life in a small English village called Finch. Finch is a very small town where everyone knows everything about everyone else, and when mysteries arise, Lori, with the help of her Aunt Dimity from beyond the grave, unravels them.

Quick, easy, fun reading if this is your sort of thing, and many people seem to love these books.

I found it a bit silly, but harmless.

The Word Exchange

The Word Exchange is the debut novel by Alena Graedon. Graedon writes of a time in the very near future where we are all addicted to our handheld devices called Memes.They can intuit what we want, order groceries for us, pay for a cab, make a call, etc and no one can remember how to live without them. In fact, people start forgetting how to use language itself, and need to purchase words and definitions on The Word Exchange.

It is also the time of death of the printed word. Ana and her Dad work for NADEL, North American Dictionary of the English Language that is about to go to its final printing. When Ana's Dad disappears, the real mystery begins, and like Alice falling down a rabbit hole, Ana sets off to try to find him.

This is an amazing debut from a young new writer that couldn't be more timely. Graedon philosophizes about what it means for us to loose words, and thus our capacity for thought, memory, history, understanding who we are, how we relate to others and ourselves. I found it fascinating and not just a little scary in light of our current addiction to technology and where we are going with it.

I highly recommend you put down your iPhone, shut off your laptop and read this book.