The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville

The tragedies of past times take center stage in this thriller set in latter-day Northern Ireland.  The main character of Gerry Fegan is a former hitman who is tortured by the ghosts of his victims.  He drinks himself into oblivion to relieve himself of their constant manifestations, but they refuse to leave his conscience and appeasing them turns [...]

The Lady and the Poet by Maeve Haran

I was an English major, and I well remember studying the writings of John Donne—the poems which he wrote during the many courtships of his youth, the love poems celebrating his relationship with his wife, and the religious poetry and prose of his later years.  This novel tells the story of Donne and his beloved wife, [...]

Long Story Short; Flash Fiction by Sixty-five of North Carolina’s Finest Writers, edited by Marianne Gingher

Flash fiction is a term meaning “very short fiction.” The stories in Long Story Short range in length from one page to five pages, and, Gingher writes, “the longest can be read, even savored, in less than ten minutes.” If you’re a reader who doesn’t often choose short stories when looking for reading material, remember that [...]

The Concubine’s Daughter by Pai Kit Fai

You may have read—and possibly discussed with a book club– the amazingly popular Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, the fictional story of a young Japanese woman (if not, you’ll want to read it.)  The Concubine’s Daughter, set in China in the early 20th century, is also about a resourceful young girl who grew [...]

The Sister by Poppy Adams

When I first started reading this book, the premise of it struck me as something like “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?”  in an English manor house setting.  All the elements of a Gothic thriller are here – the grand but crumbling mansion, skeletons in the closet, etc.  The narrator is Ginny, the older of two sisters who [...]

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

An elderly man, an adolescent girl, and a purported author of a book within the book all tell their respective stories in this occasionally confusing but kind-hearted, funny, and well written ode to life, death, and loves both lost and newly-discovered.  The point of view changes between Leo, an eighty-something ex-locksmith whose last days on earth [...]

Sail by James Patterson and Howard Roughan

Sail is a quick summer read, a bestselling page-turner.  Katherine Dunne, a heart surgeon whose husband died in a scuba diving accident four years ago, is blissfully happy in her second marriage.  However, the older two of her three children are not doing so well.  Eighteen-year-old Carrie suffers from bulimia and depression, while sixteen-year-old Mark is [...]

Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg

This recent novel tells about 59-year-old Helen Ames, whose husband dies a year before the story begins.  She never expects that sorrow would be so lasting, and people keep expressing surprise that she is still grieving.  Her career as a popular fiction author has come to a standstill from an apparently permanent case of writer’s [...]

Promises of Change by Joan Medlicott

If you’ve enjoyed Jan Karon’s Mitford series, you may be interested in Medlicott’s bestselling Covington series. Like Karon’s novels, these books are set in a small town in the North Carolina mountains, and, as in the Mitford series, the main characters are senior citizens who provide loving assistance to local residents of all ages. The [...]

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

This novel by New York Times bestselling author Lee tells the story of two sisters from Shanghai, Pearl and May.  Despite their traditional parents’ protests, the two work as “beautiful girls,” models who pose for an artist who paints advertisements and calendars.  Suddenly their family faces economic difficulties, and the girls’ father sees no solution except [...]