Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris

Suspense and intrigue, but nothing so desperately out of the ordinary in this war story - and yet, it didn't matter.  There was so much tactile and sensual beauty in the words and in the structure they built - this tale felt utterly unique.   

I was pulled in.  It was if there had been no other family trying to survive a devastating war before.  There had been no resistance groups or behaviors before this novel.  There had been none of the painful irony of children playing adults in an underground that feels like a naive game of pretend.  Never before have mothers hidden their true selves from their children in order to protect them.  And it seems as if there has never been a daughter, in all of recent literature, that has found compassion for her monstrous mother, too late - much too late.

Joanne Harris has skillfully woven the present day with the dark days of World War II in the Loire Valley.  A father is killed in battle and a mother, battling debilitating migraines and her own personal judgments, is left to keep her family alive, waiting for the war to be over.  

The farms and orchards are the mother's sole pleasure and cooking and preserving her art.  But she also has a scrapbook she keeps, mingling recipes, truths, and secrets.  Her youngest child possesses that book, and also the key to events  that have strangled the village.

There are twists, deceptions, and heroics that tumble into a fictional world that feels all too real.

Photo credit: http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388374999l/15096.jpg

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

"My primary interest as a writer is in bringing compelling historical events to life as vividly and accurately as I can.”  http://www.danieljamesbrown.com/about/#.Vag8UfldxnQ

What can I say about The Boys in the Boat that has not already been said – over and over again?  At some point accolades become trite and lose their meaning.  Yet not so here.

This book is magic.  It is real life –  yet larger than life.  It is about real boys – men – but also heroes.  It is about a time of desperation and fear – and about hope and radiance.  The power of the human spirit.  It speaks of our need for connection in order to tap into our highest sense of faith in self.   And trust in those around us.

It has already been summarized eloquently:  nine college boys, new to the sport of crew, come together during the Depression at the University of Washington, with skill sets that come from laboring backgrounds.  They impress the world as they progress to the 1936 Olympics - defeating the elite, the privileged, the Nazis - winning the gold medal.

What is so fantastic about this telling is the idea that each historical event has a personal story at its heart.  It’s why we bother to care 80 years later.  And this is the story of Joe Rantz and the other 8 boys that made up the heroic team.

Each chapter is introduced with a quote by George Yeoman Pocock: shell builder, rower, artisan, and philosopher.  We are brought into this generation – globally and locally – and are given context to understand the immensity of what the boys accomplished.  There are pictures framing the time period, the events, the boys and their boat.   We see the story from different vantage points, giving us an appreciation of what this story meant then – and what it means now.

Daniel James Brown says he takes five years to research and write his books.  They become labors of love.  The care and attention create a compelling story that is beautiful, moving, and memorable.

Photo credit: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51eKgrKBTcL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

The Mine by John A Heldt

The Mine is a self-published historical novel (available on Amazon).  It is fast-paced.  A happy ending is guaranteed.  This is light reading with short, episodic chapters.   It is a love-story set in motion by time-travel and a swash-buckling hero.

I love a love story.  And I found the ending to be quite satisfying.  The middle-school girl deep inside me was certainly caught up in the romance that blossomed between Joel and Grace.  And I was excited to read a story that was reminiscent of Back to the Future but set in the 1940s.  The dialogue is well-written and show-cases the characters personalities.  Conversations are lively and added to the pacing.  

But I like stories that examines the real “meat” of a situation.  The emotions shown through the actions of realistic characters.  Joel was larger than life, always the good guy.  I like the characters to be human and not akin to contract-actors from MGM or RKO Pictures.

It feels “edited”.  Heldt’s voice is there, for sure, but some of the writing feels like he snipped and cut, rearranged.  While this can be a good thing at times, it just didn’t come across as natural.

This story feels gimmicky at points.  It is trivia –laden, nostalgic and romanticized.  Lists of minutiae or news events felt like they were cut and pasted from “On This Date in History” web pages.  I would rather read the experiencing of those examples by the characters instead.

Joel, fearless hero, referenced Marty McFly (twice) but didn’t examine his own struggle with life nearing time of Pearl Harbor.  Any of us going back six decades would experience struggles – with tasks that are simple now due to advancements in technology.

This idea has been done.  I wanted something different.  Something less kitsch.  Something less surface.  Less clichéd.   

But I will repeat: it is a fast-paced, satisfying love story.  If looking for a quick read with a happy ending, you’ll find it here.

This book is part of a series by the same author.  The Mine is Northwest Passage Book 1.

Photo credit: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41oakTsA0-L._AA160_.jpg

This review can also be found on Amazon. 

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Previously published in the Canon City Daily Record on April 25, 2015.


All the Light We Cannot See has spent 50 weeks on The New York Times Besteller List and just has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. And for good reason. As soon as I finished the 530th page, I immediately turned back to the beginning. I had to read it again. It is a beautiful book that I did not want to end.

Anthony Doerr's tightly knit story began as a simple idea: a blind girl reading to a boy over a radio, and developed into a gorgeous World War II novel of depth and honesty.

The striking cover was my original attraction to the book. It is a photograph of the town of Saint-Malo in France, but it is not traditional black and white. It is many shades of blue. The lyrical title is in pure white font, bright, above the horizon. Still, I put the book down and walked away. I didn't want to read another book about World War II.

I am glad I was again pulled to it, for this is not your average World War II story. There is no discussion of the Holocaust or the Japanese. It is not about the British or the North African front. It concentrates on these two children and how their experiences overlap, even running headlong into each other. It is about the intersection of human hearts.

Marie-Laure LeBlanc has been blind for ten years and learns to find her way around the neighborhood by scale models built by her father, the Master of Locks at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Werner Pfennig, an orphan in a German mining town, finds that his talent for radios lands him in an elite Nazi-run school, where he is forced into an existence that confuses and overwhelms him.

Mr. Doerr's details and imagery are crafted in such a way that I was swept into the world of Marie-Laure, blind, working in the Resistance, seeking to do the right thing. At the same time, I was drawn into the dark and celebrated world of Werner, and his path - finding and destroying those resistant to Hitler. These children are caught up in a very "grown-up" war. They are called to make decisions that both cost and save lives.

I found that the short chapters and shifting points of view create a fast-paced book. It is sweeping and cinematic, but, at the same time, small and focused. There is suspense and grief - with moments of celebration and hesitation. It is about the strength of a seaside town against a giant enemy and a jewel called the Sea of Flames. It is about the power of radio as propaganda to the poor, the masses, the foot soldiers. It invites us to examine what we choose when we are alone and the decisions we make in the presence of others.

With realistic characters and a surprise ending, this story challenges the notion that the difference between good and evil is clear in people. People are not so polar. They cannot be. For people are filled with "all the light we cannot see."