Category: Location / Setting

The Weight of Ink – Rachel Kadish

Be advised: this sweeping story of historical fiction is long (652 pages) but exquisite writing creates a literary mystery. In 2000 in England, an elderly female historian with Parkinson’s and an American graduate student are asked to evaluate a newly discovered cache of Jewish documents from the 1660s, the writings of the blind Rabbi HaCoen Mendes and his scribe Aleph. Eventually, Aleph is discovered to be a woman, Ester Velasquez. There are two critical tensions in this book. First, what are the prospects for a Jewish woman more than 300 years ago in London? Is there a brief bloom of intellectual freedom or is there a longer lasting consequence of a hunger for knowledge and learning? And second, the description of contemporary academic politics is vicious and compelling. This is an astonishing novel about a quest for knowledge: highly recommended.

Junie – Chelene Knight

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.

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.