First, the context: East-end Vancouver from 1933-39, an area called Hogan’s Alley which is home to Black and immigrant communities. At its core, this brilliant book is about complex mother-daughter relationships: Junie and her jazz singer mother Maddie, and Estelle and her mother Faye. As Junie progresses from age 13-19, her artistic talents bloom despite a disquieting reality. Thanks Amy, for this recommendation: highly recommended.
Author: AJ
How Much Of These Hills Is Gold – C Pam Zhang
It is the Gold Rush in the American West (1842-67). Lucy and Sam, 12- and 11-year-old siblings in 1862, are newly orphaned. What follows is a survival story – how do Chinese American children survive under these circumstances? This is a sweeping adventure story with amazing language.
The Fake – Zoe Whittall
Full disclosure – this is a superb relationship book, my favourite genre. Shelby meets Cammie at a grief support group. Shelby is grieving the sudden death of her wife; Cammie is recovering from cancer and many other apparent calamities. Gibson is recently divorced, meets Cammie in a bar and falls in love. But what if Cammie is a lying psychopath, a consummate con person? And what does it say about the psychology of Shelby and Gibson that they can be so profoundly manipulated? Finally, the ending of this book is sublime in its simplicity: highly recommended.
Ghost Music – An Yu
A quiet and occasionally disturbing story set in contemporary Beijing. There are dreamlike sequences involving suspenseful secrets that have been withheld. Piano music is a central theme linked to real mushrooms and surreal ghost mushrooms. Overall, a haunting experience.
Bad Cree – Jessica Johns
This remarkable debut novel is all about Indigenous women. Mackenzie is a young Cree woman living in Vancouver, but darkness dreams drive her to return to her home on High Prairie, Alberta, in part to confront her unprocessed grief over the death of her older sister. Can spirits visit people in their dreams? Can evil entities feed off the hurt, isolated and grieving? This is both a masterful mystery and horror story that will forever change your appreciation of the phrase “murder of crows”. Highly recommended.
The Magician – Colm Toibin
Thomas Mann was a favourite author of my great German Canadian friend Thea, so I decided to read this biographical portrait of the Nobel Prize-winning author by Toibin, the magnificent Irish writer. Mann’s life, separate from his writing, is fascinating, evolving from a German nationalist in WWI to become an internationalist and anti-Nazi figure. Conflicted relationships abound within his troubled family and within his homeland. Overall, an epic story of a complex man.
The Orphan Girl – Kurt Palka
Sometimes a sentimental historical novel fits the bill perfectly. The time period is 1944-46. Kate survives a London bomb but then circumstances force her to live with a doctor friend, Claire. Complex issues complicate their lives: a murdered father and the return of Claire’s troubled husband from the war. This story is about friendship, promises, courage and independence. Key details are left unexplained, to make for a very satisfying plot.
The It Girl – Ruth Ware
A mystery-thriller set in an Oxford college (yay!) Ten years after the murder of her roommate, Hannah begins to suspect that the person convicted of the crime may have been innocent. Was the actual killer one of her Oxford friends? Typical of the amateur sleuth genre, there is rampant suspicion and multiple red herrings. And I can confidently predict that no one will be able to predict the big reveal at the end.
Hotline – Dimitri Nasrallah
A Giller long-listed book and a recent Canada Reads contender: Muna is a widowed single mother who escapes to Montreal in 1986 from Beirut. What follows is a one-year struggle to find work as an immigrant, to help her son Omar adjust to a radically new environment, to survive her first winter, and to overcome marginalization and prejudice. A compelling story.
