My Dear I Wanted to Tell You
Louisa Young, 2011
HarperCollins
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061997143
Summary
The lives of two very different couples are irrevocably intertwined and forever changed in this stunning World War I epic of love and war.
From the day in 1907 that eleven-year-old Riley Purefoy meets Nadine Waveney, daughter of a well-known orchestral conductor, he takes in the difference between their two families: his, working-class; hers, "posh" and artistic. Just a few years later, romance and these differences erupt simultaneously with the war in Europe. In a fit of fury and boyish pride, Riley enlists in the army and finds himself involved in the transformative nightmare of the twentieth century.
While Riley and his commanding officer, Peter Locke, fight for their country and their survival in the trenches of Flanders, Peter's lovely and naive wife, Julia, and his cousin Rose eagerly await his return. But the sullen, distant man who arrives home on leave is not the Peter they knew. Worried that her husband is slipping away, Julia is left alone with her fears when Rose joins the nursing corps to work with a pioneering plastic surgeon treating wounded and disfigured soldiers.
Only eighteen at the outbreak of the war, Nadine and Riley want to make promises to each other—but how can they when their future is out of their hands? Youthful passion is on their side, but then their loyalty is tested by terrible injury, and even more so by the necessarily imperfect rehabilitation that follows.
Moving among Ypres, London, and Paris, this emotionally rich and evocative novel is both a powerful exploration of the lasting effects of war on those who fight—and those who don't—and a poignant testament to the power of enduring love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Zizou Corder
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—London, England, UK
• Education—Cambridge University
• Currently—lives in London and Italy
Louisa Young grew up in London in the house in which Peter Pan was written. She studied modern history at Cambridge and was for many years a freelance journalist, working mostly for the motorcycle press, Marie Claire, and the Guardian. She lives in London and Italy with her daughter and the composer Robert Lockhart. (From the publisher.)
Young, along with her daughter, Isabel Adomakoh Young, writes under the name Zizou Corder. Together they have co-authored the well-known young adult Lionboy trilogy, Lee Raven Boy Thief and Halo.
Book Reviews
Known to children around the world for the best-selling Lionboy series…Louisa Young makes use of her abundant storytelling gifts in her first novel for adults: My Dear I Wanted to Tell You, a moving tale of men and women tested to their limits by World War I.
Wendy Smith - Washington Post
Singular in quality, if not unique in plot or tone, Young's WWI novel, her adult debut after coauthoring the Lionboy YA trilogy, follows two emblematic couples: Peter and Julia Locke, lovely and well-placed until their relationship disintegrates under the pressure of war and changing conventions, and, more centrally, working class Riley and posh Nadine, who, in a nice bit of symmetry, are hampered before the war by the very upper crustiness that the Lockes embody, but are subsequently more free to love each other and better suited by their modernity and openness to survive. Still, separation and a terrible injury ensure uncertainty and tension. The plot has a certain Atonement feel to it—working-class boy is semiadopted by upper-middle-class family and educated beyond his station, then falls unacceptably in love with their independent-minded daughter and goes to war while she becomes a nurse—but the similarities become increasingly irrelevant as Young's characters come into their own and easily shoulder the burden of escorting readers through an unsensationalized and thoughtful story of English class, world war, and that universal constant—love.
Publishers Weekly
Set in London, Paris, and Ypres, Belgium, Young's (Desiring Cairo) latest novel quickly captivates with a tale of two couples, each affected in powerful ways by the horrors of World War I. Riley Purefoy and Nadine Waveney met as children and formed an instant bond. Challenged by class differences and later by distance, their love is put to the test when Riley volunteers for military service. Riley's commanding officer, Peter Locke, is suffering his own tribulations in the trenches, while Peter's naive wife, Julia, undergoes a metamorphosis at home. Perhaps the only person who can keep them all from falling apart is Rose, a toughened yet loyal and compassionate nurse, who acts as a support system and whose character adds a wonderfully rich layer to the story. Verdict: With well-written, mesmerizing prose reminiscent of an earlier era, this novel will be enjoyed by any fan of romance or historical fiction. The level of detail and description is sometimes shocking but always poignant and relevant. —Amy M. Handley, Kent State Univ., Columbus
Library Journal
Innocence, devastation and restored hope cycle through two British couples after the men go to France to fight World War I and the women cope with their absence in very different ways. This is Young's first adult novel to be published in the United States.... There's considerably less sentimentality than you usually encounter in such stories. Young, a graceful and light-handed writer, offers apowerful account of war, and her detailed descriptions of the experimental reconstructive surgery add a compelling element to the story. A literate, moving wartime tale in which love triumphs over despair.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. To what extent does Riley's class influence his behavior, and the behavior of others throughout the novel?
2. How does Riley's attitude to the war change as the novel progresses?
3. Do you think the actions of Riley and his reasons for going to war were good ones and do you think society has learnt lessons from the atrocities that occurred, or is it still happening today?
4. Do you think society's attitude to going to war today (ex: Afghanistan) differs from the attitude at the time of the First World War?
5. "Julia had learnt to love her own beauty, because beauty was currency, and other people valued it so highly." Discuss how this view of Julia's influences her behavior throughout the novel.
6. Compare her experiences of plastic surgery with those of Riley's. Is feeling ugly on the inside really that different to looking ugly on the outside?
7. "A girl needs a good reputation, these days more than ever. Art school is for times of peace and plenty, not for unmarried girls in wartime." Consider this advice that Nadine's mother gives her. How does this symbolize society's attitude to women, and does the war change this view in the novel?
8. The title of the novel is taken from a standard-issue field postcard that soldiers had to fill in during the war—Riley fills in one such field postcard. Consider the ways we communicated with our loved ones then compared to now.
(Questions issued by publisher.)
On Mystic Lake
Kristin Hannah, 1999
Random House
420 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345471178
Summary
Annie Colwater’s husband has just confessed that he’s in love with a younger woman. Devastated, Annie retreats to the small town where she grew up. There, she is reunited with her first love, Nick Delacroix, a recent widower who is unable to cope with his silent, emotionally scarred young daughter.
Together, the three of them begin to heal. But just when Annie believes she’s been given a second chance at happiness, her world is turned upside down again, and she is forced to make a choice that no woman in love should ever have to make. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September, 1960
• Where—Southern California, USA
• Reared—Western Washington State
• Education—J.D., from a school in Washington (state )
• Awards—Golden Heart Award; Maggie Award; National Reader's Choice
• Currently—lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Her own words:
I was born in September 1960 in Southern California and grew up at the beach, making sand castles and playing in the surf. When I was eight years old, my father drove us to Western Washington where we called home.
After working in a trendy advertising agency, I decided to go to law school. "But you're going to be a writer" are the prophetic words I will never forget from my mother. I was in my third-and final-year of law school and my mom was in the hospital, facing the end of her long battle with cancer. I was shocked to discover that she believed I would become a writer. For the next few months, we collaborated on the worst, most clichéd historical romance ever written.
After my mom's death, I packed up all those bits and pieces of paper we'd collected and put them in a box in the back of my closet. I got married and continued practicing law.
Then I found out I was pregnant, but was on bed rest for five months. By the time I'd read every book in the house and started asking my husband for cereal boxes to read, I knew I was a goner. That's when my darling husband reminded me of the book I'd started with my mom. I pulled out the boxes of research material, dusted them off and began writing. By the time my son was born, I'd finished a first draft and found an obsession.
The rejections came, of course, and they stung for a while, but each one really just spurred me to try harder, work more. In 1990, I got "the call," and in that moment, I went from a young mother with a cooler-than-average hobby to a professional writer, and I've never looked back. In all the years between then and now, I have never lost my love of, or my enthusiasm for, telling stories. I am truly blessed to be a wife, a mother, and a writer. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Hannah is superb at delving into her main characters' psyches and delineating nuances of feeling.
Washington Post
You know a book is a winner when you devour it in one evening and hope there's a sequel. Such was the case with Kristin Hannah's new novel, On Mystic Lake, which is both a touching love story and a fascinating study of a woman's compassion for a small child...this page-turner has enough twists and turns to keep the reader up until the wee hours of the morning.
USA Today
Brimming with the kinds of emotions that tug at the heartstrings…Hannah's writing is all her romance fans have come to expect. It is as rich as the fertile Pacific Northwest rain forest she writes about and as soft around the edges as the fog on Mystic Lake.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
In her first hardcover after a distinguished career in paperback romance (Home Again), Hannah shows what it takes for an author to make that defining leap. Never one to gush, she is more than ever disciplined in her writing, and the result is a clean, deep thrust into the reader's heart. Annie Colwater knows she's in for a spell of loneliness when her 17-year-old daughter, Natalie, leaves Southern California for a summer in London, but the teary airport farewell is just the beginning of a chaotic time. Blake, Annie's husband, tells her that he wants a divorce so he can start a new life with his sweetheart, a young partner in his law firm. Blake's a cad—a habitual philanderer, and the sort of father who forgets birthdays--but we don't totally blame him for bailing out. Annie is Natalie's doting mother, Blake's dutiful wife and otherwise barely there. In search of the self she must find to survive, Annie goes back to Mystic, Wash., and the home of her father, gruffly loving Hank Borne, who did his best to raise her after the early death of her mother. Maternal loss is a terrain Hannah seems to know to a harrowing fare-thee-well. Annie's redemption begins with her profound kindness to six-year-old Isabella Delacroix, whose mother, Kathy—once Annie's best friend—has recently died. A romance with alcoholic cop Nick, Isabella's father, unfolds tenderly and with suspense, for all its inevitability. When Annie discovers she is pregnant with Blake's child, and then gives birth prematurely to a tiny girl who may not survive, the phrase "page-turner" is redefined. In Hannah's world, nothing can be taken for granted and triumph must be earned, with hard work, truthful reckoning and tears.
Publishers Weekly
The life of Annie Bourne Colwater has always revolved around her family's happiness, so she is unprepared for the day her husband announces he wants a divorce. Adrift in an unfamiliar and painful emotional landscape, she escapes to her childhood home in Mystic Lake, WA. What she finds are people needier than herself, especially her old friend Nick and his motherless, traumatized six-year-old daughter, Izzie. Annie welcomes the love she finds, but, more importantly, she unearths her own dormant soul. When life throws her yet another curve, it is a more dimensional Annie who rises to meet it. Susan Ericksen gives a stunning performance, capturing the very essences of Annie, Nick, and little Izzie, silent and frightened and disappearing one small finger at a time. This is essential for every public library along with a sticker warning against reading while driving and requiring a full pack of tissues. Expect Hannah, a notable romance author, to become a major player in mainstream women's fiction. —Jodi L. Israel, Jamaica Plain, MA
Library Journal
Hannah, after eight paperbacks, abandons her successful time-travelers for a hardcover life of kitchen-sink romance. Everyone must have got the Olympic Peninsula memo for this spring because, as of this reading, authors Hannah, Nora Roberts, and JoAnn Ross have all placed their newest romances in or near the Quinault rain forest. Here, 40ish Annie Colwater, returns to Washington State after her husband, high-powered Los Angeles lawyer Blake, tells her he's found another (younger) woman and wants a divorce. Although a Stanford graduate, Annie has known only a life of perfect wifedom: matching Blake's ties to his suits and cooking meals from Gourmet magazine. What is she to do with her shattered life? Well, she returns to dad's house in the small town of Mystic, cuts off all her hair (for a different look), and goes to work as a nanny for lawman Nick Delacroix, whose wife has committed suicide, whose young daughter Izzy refuses to speak, and who himself has descended into despair and alcoholism. Annie spruces up Nick's home on Mystic Lake and sends "Izzy-bear" back into speech mode. And, after Nick begins attending AA meetings, she and he become lovers. Still, when Annie learns that shes pregnant not with Nick's but with Blake's child, she heads back to her empty life in the Malibu Colony. The baby arrives prematurely, and mean-spirited Blake doesn't even stick around to support his wife. At this point, it's perfectly clear to Annie and the reader that she's justified in taking her newborn daughter and driving back north. Hannah's characters indulge in so many stages of the weeps, from glassy eyes to flat-out sobs, that tear ducts are almost bound to stay dry.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. On Mystic Lake opens with two scenes of leaving—Natalie fleeing California for England, and Blake quitting his marriage. How do these two acts set the tone for the rest of the book? How is it significant that Annie has little agency, or choice, in these decisions?
2. At the beginning of the novel, how is Annie, in effect, trapped by her own image? How has she fashioned that persona, and how is it the creation of her husband, Blake?
3. Why do you think Kristin Hannah tells the story through several narrative points of view, including those of Annie, Blake, Nick, and Izzy? What does this add to your understanding of the novel? Is there one character that you consider to be the true voice of On Mystic Lake?
4. After Blake asks for a divorce, Annie admits that she's put her family's needs above her own. What events in her past have spurred her to do so? How has she been rewarded for her selflessness, and how has it been damaging to her development?
5. Annie and Nick are both linked by loss in their families. How does learning to live alone—and discovering yourself in the process—constitute a theme of thebook? In your opinion, who is the most successful at forging his or her own identity? Why?
6. Why didn't Kathy and Annie keep in touch after high school? Do you think that Annie felt guilty about losing contact? Why or why not?
7. Why do you think Nick chooses to date and marry Kathy, in lieu of Annie? How does this decision affect the dynamic of the "gruesome threesome"? Ultimately, do you think Nick made the correct choice? Based on his memories of Kathy, do you think he truly loved his wife? Why or why not?
8. How does Annie react when she learns of Kathy's suicide? What do you think drove Kathy to end her life? How has it affected Nick and, most notably, Izzy?
9. Why is taking care of Nick and Izzy so important to Annie? What tools does she use to appeal to Izzy, and to make the child feel cherished and cared for? What is it about Annie that appeals to Izzy, and vice versa? How does Annie's relationship with Natalie parallel the rapport she enjoys with Izzy?
10. The relationships between fathers and daughters are integral to the development of both parties in On Mystic Lake. Compare and contrast the relationships of Hank and Annie, Blake and Natalie, and Nick and Izzy. What does each daughter want from her father? As the story unfolds, do the fathers change to become more receptive to their daughters' needs, and if so, how? In your opinion, who has the greatest chance to establish and maintain a successful father-daughter relationship?
11. What does the compass symbolize to Annie? Why does she stop wearing it around her neck, and why does she begin to wear it again later? Why does she give it to Izzy?
12. "It doesn't matter," Annie says to Nick about her love for him. At that point, why doesn't she believe that her passion for Nick can guide her life? How is she a pragmatist, and how is she a romantic? Ultimately, what compels her to change her mind and leave Blake?
13. Kathy didn't want to "live in the darkness." How do each of the characters in the book deal with grief, depression, and loneliness? What coping mechanisms do they use to cope and grow?
14. What shakes Nick into seeking help for his drinking problem? How does his drinking mirror his mother's? In what ways is he a product of the nature versus nurture argument?
15. Why does Izzy stop talking? What compels her to speak again, and how is Annie instrumental in drawing Izzy out? Why is she wary of speaking to Nick, and how do the two slowly rebuild a rapport? How does Annie facilitate mending the breach between father and daughter?
16. "Our lives are mapped out long before we know enough to ask the right questions," says Nick. What questions do you think Nick would like to ask? In what ways are Nick and Annie trapped by having to do what is ex pected of them? Ultimately, how do they exercise free will over their own lives? How do the other characters in the novel do the same?
17. Annie's known in various ways—including Annie Bourne, Annalise Colwater, Mrs. Blake Colwater, mother, wife. How does each name or designation constitute a different identity? At the end of the book, has she embraced one or the other of these identities, or has she developed a new one? How does she incorporate each of these identities into a newly forged character?
18. What compels Blake to end his affair with Suzannah and call Annie? Why doesn't she immediately return to him and to her marriage? How does he view her as a prize to be won? Does he exhibit love toward her? How?
19. How does Annie's relationship with her daughter change once Natalie goes to England? In which ways does Natalie look up to and admire Annie? With what aspects of her mother's character does Natalie find fault? Do you think Natalie's personality is at all similar to her father's? How?
20. How does Annie's pregnancy represent a turning point for her? Why does she return to Blake after she realizes she's carrying his child? Why doesn't she remain with Nick?
21. How does Nick help Annie grapple with her fear and concern about the premature baby? How do his actions contrast with Blake's behavior? Why doesn't Annie's husband connect with children?
22. How do you think Annie would act and feel after signing her divorce papers? How is this character different than the one we meet at the beginning of the book? Why does Annie feel buoyant at the end of the book?
23. Do you believe that at the end of the story Annie will have a joyous reunion with Nick and Izzy? Do you think she'll open that bookstore in Mystic? Why or why not?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Room of Marvels
James Bryan Smith, 2007
B & H Publishing
197 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780805445633
Summary
In one tragic blow after another, accomplished Christian writer Tim Hudson lost his mother, his close friend, and his two-year-old daughter. Now he’s on the brink of losing his faith.
Room of Marvels takes readers on a silent spiritual retreat with Tim where he is swept up in a dream vision of heaven and given a guided tour by those he has lost. Reminiscent of the C. S. Lewis classic, The Great Divorce, the book carries a contemporary voice that made Library Journal declare it “a good companion to Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven.
Remarkably, Room of Marvels mirrors author James Bryan Smith’s own heart-wrenching season of loss when his mother (Wanda), close friend (“Awesome God” singer Rich Mullins), and two-year-old daughter (Madeline) passed away within months of each other.
Room of Marvels will comfort those touched by grief and stir the hunger for heaven in every reader. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
James Bryan Smith teaches theology at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas. His previous books include A Spiritual Formation Workbook, Devotional Classics (coauthored with Richard Foster), and Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven. Jim and his wife, Meghan, have two children, Jacob and Hope. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
If you’ve ever felt the sting of death from the loss of one you love, Smith’s book will lead you into a warm, inviting room.
Knight Ridder
One of those profound, special books that only comes along once in awhile.
InfuzeMag.con
There's some serious theology here, but communicated in a way that brings it to life, as a story…Highly recommended.
Christian Fiction Review
Revealing the hope of heaven, this book gives more than platitudes. It portrays a different—and comforting—mindset about death, showing in story form that for the Christian, what appears to be death is really life. Though I’ve never lost someone close to me, it will be the first book I reach for when I do. If you can’t find the words to say to a friend who has lost someone, let Room of Marvels speak for you.
Katie Hart - Christian Book Previews
[All of what Tim encounters in the dream] sounds very kitschy and schtick-y.... Yet it's not. Smith, who is Chaplain and Assistant Professor of Theology at Wichita's Friends University, has crafted a deceptively simple and psychologically clever read about the things—thing, really—that matter most to Christian faith.
Faithful Reader.com
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Room of Marvels:
1. When Tim Hudson says he has arrived at "God's address," what does he mean? Is that a literal...or metaphorical address?
2. Why does Hudson head to a monastery? What is he hoping to find...or escape from?
3. What is the state of Hudson's faith at this point? What is he questioning?
4. Why does Tim find Brother Taylor irritating? What role does Brother Taylor play in Tim's soul journey?
5. Talk about the significance of Tim's dream. What happens, whom does he meet and where is he taken? Is it a dream, or is it something else? (For Narnia lovers, who is Jack?!)
6. What does Tim learn through his dream? What are the lessons or insights he gains about himself and his life? Are those insights applicable to you...to others?
7. A review by Faithful Reader says that everything in this "dream revolves around love: love given, taken, rejected, fulfilled." Discuss that observation: what does it mean; do you agree?
8. How does this book portray death? Does it open up, or offer, a different perspective? Or does it align with your own perspective?
9. Has this book altered you? How does Smith present Christianity, or what it means to be religious? Does he present a different view or one that is similar to your own?
10.Would this book—its message—be of help to someone grieving the loss of a loved one? Would you recommend it to others who are not in the midst of grief?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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When Will There Be Good News?
Kate Atkinson, 2008
Little, Brown & Co.
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316154857
Summary
Thirty years ago, six-year-old Joanna witnessed the brutal murders of her mother, brother and sister, before escaping into a field, and running for her life. Now, the man convicted of the crime is being released from prison, meaning Dr. Joanna Hunter has one more reason to dwell on the pain of that day, especially with her own infant son to protect.
Sixteen-year-old Reggie, recently orphaned and wise beyond her years, works as a nanny for Joanna Hunter, but has no idea of the woman’s horrific past. All Reggie knows is that Dr. Hunter cares more about her baby than life itself, and that the two of them make up just the sort of family Reggie wished she had: that unbreakable bond, that safe port in the storm. When Dr. Hunter goes missing, Reggie seems to be the only person who is worried, despite the decidedly shifty business interests of Joanna’s husband, Neil, and the unknown whereabouts of the newly freed murderer, Andrew Decker.
Across town, Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe is looking for a missing person of her own, murderer David Needler, whose family lives in terror that he will return to finish the job he started. So it’s not surprising that she listens to Reggie’s outrageous thoughts on Dr. Hunter’s disappearance with only mild attention. But when ex-police officer and Private Investigator, Jackson Brodie arrives on the scene, with connections to Reggie and Joanna Hunter of his own, the details begin tosnap into place. And, as Louise knows, once Jackson is involved there’s no telling how many criminal threads he will be able to pull together — or how many could potentially end up wrapped around his own neck.
In an extraordinary virtuoso display, Kate Atkinson has produced one of the most engrossing, masterful, and piercingly insightful novels of this or any year. It is also as hilarious as it is heartbreaking, as Atkinson weaves in and out of the lives of her eccentric, grief-plagued, and often all-too-human cast. Yet out of the excesses of her characters and extreme events that shake their worlds comes a relatively simple message, about being good, loyal, and true. When Will There Be Good News? shows us what it means to survive the past and the present, and to have the strength to just keep on keeping on. (From the publisher.)
This is the third in the Jackson Brodie series, following Case Histories and One Good Turn.
Author Bio
• Birth—1951
• Where—York, England, UK
• Education—M.A., Dundee University
• Awards—Whitbread Award; Woman's Own Short Story Award; Ian St. James Award;
Saltire Book of the Year Award; Prix Westminster
• Currently—lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Kate Atkinson was born in York, and studied English Literature at the University of Dundee, gaining her Masters Degree in 1974. She subsequently studied for a doctorate in American Literature which she failed at the viva stage. During her final year of this course, she was married for the first time, although the marriage lasted only two years.
After leaving the university, she took on a variety of miscellaneous jobs from home help to legal secretary and teacher. She lived in Whitby, Yorkshire for a time, before moving to Edinburgh, where she taught at Dundee University and began writing short stories. She now lives in Edinburgh.
Writing
She initially wrote for women's magazines after winning the 1986 Woman's Own Short Story Competition. She was runner-up for the Bridport Short Story Prize in 1990 and won an Ian St James Award in 1993 for her short-story "Karmic Mothers," which she later adapted for BBC2 television as part of its Tartan Shorts series.
Atkinson's breakthrough was with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which won the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year award, ahead of Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh and Roy Jenkins biography of William Ewart Gladstone. The book has been adapted for radio, theatre and television. She has since written several more novels, short stories and a play. Case Histories (2004) was described by Stephen King as "the best mystery of the decade." The book won the Saltire Book of the Year Award and the Prix Westminster.
Her work is often celebrated for its wit, wisdom and subtle characterisation, and the surprising twists and plot turns. Four of her novels have featured the popular former detective Jackson Brodie—Case Histories (2004), One Good Turn (2006), When Will There Be Good News (2008), and Started Early, Took My Dog (2010). She has shown that, stylistically, she is also a comic novelist who often juxtaposes mundane everyday life with fantastic magical events, a technique that contributes to her work's pervasive magic realism.
Life After Life (2013) revolves around Ursula Todd's continual birth and rebirth. Janet Maslin of the New York Times called it "a big book that defies logic, chronology and even history in ways that underscore its author's fully untethered imagination."
A God in Ruins (2015), the companion book to Life After Life, follows Ursula's brother Todd who survived the war, only to succumb to disillusionment and guilt at having survived.
Atkinson was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to literature. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
A deliciously underhanded, echo-filled novel…Although When Will There Be Good News? has been expertly rendered by Ms. Atkinson, it is a reminder that she is too versatile a writer to stick with any one incarnation. It is very much to be hoped that she keeps this gratifying series going. But she has already shown herself capable of creating a varied body of work, starting with her debut novel, the Whitbread prizewinner Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Good as it is, this latest Brodie book nearly bursts at the seams. It shows off an imagination so active that When Will There Be Good News? can barely contain it.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Thank God, in these hard times, for a cheerful, ghoulish, gory book like this....This is a grand mystery, with plenty of misdeeds and overwrought coincidences, as well as quotes from Scots ballads, old nursery rhymes and the classics, so you can feel edified while being creeped out—as you wait for that happy ending we all long for, and think we deserve.
Carolyn See - Washington Post
(Starred review.) In Atkinson's stellar third novel to feature ex-cop turned PI Jackson Brodie (after Case Histories and One Good Turn), unrelated characters and plot lines collide with momentous results. On a country road, six-year-old Joanna Mason is the only survivor of a knife attack that leaves her mother and two siblings dead. Thirty years later, after boarding the wrong train in Yorkshire, Brodie is almost killed when the train crashes. He's saved by 16-year-old Regina Reggie Chase, the nanny of Dr. Joanna Hunter, nee Mason. In the chaos following the crash, Brodie ends up with the wallet of Andrew Decker, the recently released man convicted of murdering the Mason family. Enter DCI Louise Monroe, Brodie's former love interest, who's tracking Decker because of a recent case involving a similar family and crime. When Dr. Hunter disappears, Reggie is convinced she's been kidnapped and enlists the reluctant Brodie to track her down. A lesser author would buckle under so many story lines, but Atkinson juggles them brilliantly, simultaneously tying up loose ends from Turn and opening new doors for further Brodie misadventures.
Publishers Weekly
Evocative, smart, literary, and funny, Atkinson's third novel featuring one-time police detective Jackson Brodie (after Case Histories and One Good Turn) is both complicated and a page-turner. Set mostly around Edinburgh, Scotland, the tale begins with a six-year-old girl escaping an attacker who kills her mother, eight-year-old sister, and baby brother. Atkinson then weaves a plot that connects Brodie to the girl, now an adult, through coincidence and more tragedy, this time a train wreck. Detective Chief Inspector Louise Morse, who has a thing for Brodie, returns to his life, and a new character appears: Reggie, an orphaned 16-year-old girl with a criminal for a brother and a desire to study for her A-levels even though she has dropped out of school. The characters quote literature (sometimes in Latin), and fabulous turns of phrase abound, but the narrative remains buoyant; it is sprinkled liberally with humorous observations (particularly from Reggie), making each wild turn of events seem like just another bump in the road. A book that will easily stand up to more than one reading; highly recommended for all fiction collections.
Nancy Fontaine - Library Journal
A third appearance for former police investigator and private detective Jackson Brodie in this psychologically astute thriller from Atkinson (Case Histories and One Good Turn). In the emotional opening, six-year-old Joanna witnesses the brutal killing of her mother and siblings by a knife-wielding madman in the British countryside. Thirty years later, Joanna, now a doctor in Edinburgh, has become a mother herself. Her baby's nanny is 16-year-old Reggie. To Reggie, whose own mother recently died in a freak accident, Joanna and her baby represent an ideal family (Joanna's husband, a struggling businessman, seems only a vaguely irritating irrelevance to fatherless Reggie). When prickly, self-loathing policewoman Louise Monroe comes to call on lovely, warm-hearted Joanna, watchful Reggie (think Ellen Page from Juno with a Scottish brogue) is struck by the similarities between the two well-dressed professional women. Actually Louise has come to warn Joanna that her family's murderer is being released from prison. Louise chooses not to mention her other reason for visiting, a suspicion that Joanna's husband torched one of his failing businesses for the insurance. Jackson's connection to the others is revealed gradually: Jackson and Louise were once almost lovers although they since married others; as a youth Jackson joined the search party that found Joanna hiding in a field following the murders. Rattled after visiting a child he suspects he fathered despite the mother's denials, Jackson mistakenly takes the train to Edinburgh instead of London. When the train crashes near the house where Reggie happens to be watching TV, she gives him CPR. Soon afterward, Joanna's husband tells Reggie that Joanna has gone away unexpectedly. Suspecting foul play, Reggie involves Louise and Jackson in individual searches for the missing woman and baby. While Louise and Jackson face truths about themselves and their relationships, Joanna's survival instincts are once more put to the ultimate test. Like the most riveting BBC mystery, in which understated, deadpan intelligence illuminates characters' inner lives within a convoluted plot.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Kate Atkinson is an author formerly known as a prize-winning literary writer, but with the three Jackson Brodie novels, she has introduced elements of the traditional crime novel. What do you think turns a novel into a "crime" novel? Don’t all good novels that catch the public imagination have elements of the crime novel: a sense of suspense, a mystery, a violent death or two? What crime novel conventions can you discern in this book?
2. Kate Atkinson always creates very strong female characters. What do you think about the women in this novel – Dr Hunter, Reggie, Louise? And what about the men: are they generally weaker than the women, and does this make it a feminist novel?
3. The initial tragedy that opens the books is reminiscent of familiar high-profile news stories. What is it about those cases of random violence that make them so very haunting? Does it have something to do with the fact that when mothers are attacked they can’t run, because they feel the need to stay and protect their children?
4. Similarly, it would appear that Kate Atkinson used the Selby train crash as the inspiration for the train crash in the novel. Discuss the impact of these tragedies on the nation’s morale. Do you think Kate speaks for us all when she asks When Will There Be Good News?
5. Jackson Brodie believes that "there are no rules. There isn’t a template we’re supposed to follow. We make it up as we go along." Do you feel this statement also applies to Kate Atkinson’s writing – and to real life itself?
6. "How ironic that both Julia and Louise, the two women he’d felt closest to in his recent past, had both unexpectedly got married, and neither of them to him." Do you think Kate Atkinson should ever allow Jackson Brodie to have a successful romantic relationship? Why do you think he is such an appealing character?
7. Jackson Brodie believes that "a coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen." Discuss the coincidences in the novel. Do they make the story seem more or less real? If Kate Atkinson had written a conventional crime novel, would it be as appropriate to use coincidence to move the plot forward?
8. There are "good" characters and "evil" characters in the novel, but Kate Atkinson is rarely black and white in her portrayal of either. Louise, Reggie and Jackson Brodie are essentially good, but will break the law to achieve the right result. What is the moral code at work in the novel?
9. "As in the best crime fiction, dramatic events and unexpected twists abound, but Atkinson subverts the genre by refusing to neatly tie up every thread." (From the UK's Independent). Did you notice any loose threads in the plot?
10. The British pride themselves on their dry wit in the face of adversity. Despite the bleakness of the subject matter and the streak of sadness running through the novel, Kate Atkinson’s writing is often very funny. What did you find humorous about the book, and do you think that it’s a particularly British sort of humour?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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My Soul to Keep (Immortal Brethren series #1)
Tananarive Due, 1997
HarperCollins
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061053665
Summary
When Jessica marries David, he is everything she wants in a family man: brilliant, attentive, ever youthful. Yet she still feels something about him is just out of reach. Soon, as people close to Jessica begin to meet violent, mysterious deaths, David makes an unimaginable confession: More than 400 years ago, he and other members of an Ethiopian sect traded their humanity so they would never die, a secret he must protect at any cost. Now, his immortal brethren have decided David must return and leave his family in Miami. Instead, David vows to invoke a forbidden ritual to keep Jessica and his daughter with him forever.
Harrowing, engrossing and skillfully rendered, My Soul to Keep traps Jessica between the desperation of immortals who want to rob her of her life and a husband who wants to rob her of her soul. With deft plotting and an unforgettable climax, this tour de force reminiscent of early Anne Rice will win Due a new legion of fans. (From the publisher.)
This is the first book in Due's African Immortals series, followed by The Living Blood (2002) and Blood Colony (2008).
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Education—B.A., Northwestern (USA); M.A., University of
Leeds (UK)
• Awards—American Book Award, 2002
• Currently—lives in Southern California, USA
Tananarive Due—pronounced tah-nah-nah-REEVE doo—is the American Book Award-winning author of nine books, ranging from supernatural thrillers to a mystery to a civil rights memoir.
Her most recent novel, Blood Colony (2008), is the long-awaited sequel to her 2001 thriller The Living Blood and 1997’s My Soul to Keep, a reader favorite that Stephen King said "bears favorable comparison to Interview with the Vampire."
Due also collaborates with her husband, novelist and screen-writer Steven Barnes. Due and Barnes published Casanegra: A Tennyson Hardwick Novel, which they wrote in collaboration with actor Blair Underwood. Publishers Weekly called Casanegra "seamlessly entertaining." In the Night of the Heat, is the second in the series.
The Living Blood, which received a 2002 American Book Award, "should set the standard for supernatural thrillers of the new millennium," said Publishers Weekly, which named The Living Blood and My Soul to Keep among the best novels of the year. The Good House was nominated as Best Novel by the International Horror Guild. The Black Rose, based on the life of business pioneer Madam C.J. Walker, was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. My Soul to Keep and The Good House are both in film development at Fox Searchlight.
Due’s novel Joplin’s Ghost blends the supernatural, history and the present-day music scene as a rising R&B singer’s life is changed forever by encounters with the ghost of Ragtime King Scott Joplin. Due also brought history to life in The Black Rose, a historical novel based on the research of Alex Haley—and Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights, which she co-authored with her mother, civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due. Freedom in the Family was named 2003's Best Civil Rights Memoir by Black Issues Book Review. (Patricia Stephens Due took part in the nation’s first “Jail-In” in 1960, spending 49 days in jail in Tallahassee, Florida, after a sit-in at a Woolworth lunch counter). In 2004, alongside such luminaries as Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison, Due received the "New Voice in Literature Award”" at the Yari Yari Pamberi conference co-sponsored by New York University’s Institute of African-American Affairs and African Studies Program and the Organization of Women Writers of Africa.
Due has a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University and an M.A. in English literature from the University of Leeds, England, where she specialized in Nigerian literature as a Rotary Foundation Scholar. Due currently teaches creative writing in the MFA program at Antioch University Los Angeles. Due has also taught at the Hurston-Wright Foundation’s Writers’ Week, the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop, and the summer Imagination conference at Cleveland State University. She is a former feature writer and columnist for the Miami Herald.
Due lives in Southern California with her husband, Steven Barnes; their son, Jason; and her stepdaughter, Nicki. (From www.tananarivedue.com.)
Book Reviews
From the beginning, Jessica knows that David is different, but life with him seems perfect. With the birth of their daughter, life should be blissful. However, his ageless face and his perfect skin cause her investigative-reporter instincts to start questioning. Also, his lack of interest in the events of her life and work cause her to doubt the completeness of their marriage. By chance, a newspaper story Jessica writes on elder care evolves into a book proposal. Research into one of the cases leads mysteriously to David—her David. As the story develops, Jessica learns the truth about her husband and the choice he made so many centuries ago. David sold his soul for eternal life on Earth. He tells her he is not David, but Dawit, an immortal. Now he is offering her the same choice, against the doctrine of this secret society of believers. Readers are introduced to their world before Jessica discovers the truth. Present-day human interaction and the ways of the immortals are woven together with imagination and suspense. Traditional religious values, exhibited by Jessica's family, add another dimension to the plot and impact on the woman's reaction when she learns the truth. Those familiar with Anne Rice's novels will be instantly drawn into the world of Dawit and the society created by the immortals. — Beth Devers, Elmhurst Public Library, IL
School Library Journal
Due's second novel is more compelling than her first, The Between (1995). In the spirit of Octavia Butler's novel, Kindred, the supernatural elements are rooted in an African and African American heritage and culture. Dawit's story spans 400 years and several countries. Yet, it is his current life, with wife Jessica and daughter Kira, that he wants to hold on to forever. His lives as a warrior, slave, jazz musician, teacher, husband, and father have all ended amid sorrow and extreme human conditions. He seeks to balance his mortality and immortality, yet with each mortal experience his perceptions of life are more human than wizardly. He is summoned to return to the house of his Life Blood brothers. This order, complicated by his love for his family, causes him to disobey and jeopardize the existence of the brotherhood. Due has written an incredible story about eternal life and succeeds in inducing the reader to suspend disbelief until the very end of the book. — Lillian Lewis
Booklist
Some 500 years ago, young Dawit of Lalibela, in Abyssinia, was inducted into the 52-member group called The Immortals by the master Khaldun, who had drunk the blood of Christ. Still looking 30, Dawit (now known as David) lives in Miami, his Khaldun-transfused blood so filled with T-cells that no disease or injury can kill him. He is, for all practical purposes, immortal. He's had many careers. He's also had many lovers, wives, and children, and watched age overtake them while he remained young. Today, his daughter Rosalie, from a liaison in New Orleans in the 1920s, lies infirm in a Chicago nursing home. David stops off to administer euthanasia. Then he returns to Jessica, his wife of six years, a Miami reporter who's just started research on a book about disgraceful conditions in nursing homes. The Immortals think themselves above humans, so when David feels threatened by Jessica's research he kills her fellow researcher, Peter. Although he's killed before to protect his identity, his love of Jessica makes him feel, for the first time, guilty for what he's done. David realizes that he doesn't, for once, want to outlive and, to protect his secret, abandon his human family. Will Jessica discover that her husband's immortal? Will he give his blood to her and their five-year-old daughter, Kira, so that they can always be with him? Suspense tightens neatly with modest melodrama but with a big sense of family life. Due is careful to portray David as both hero (he's charming and talented, polylingual, and a published author) and threat. He is, essentially, an alien trying to mimic a life that can never really be his. Top-flight soft-horror novel.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Ultimately, in your view, what is this novel really about?
2. Would immortality be a blessing or a curse?
3. What was Jessica’s biggest mistake in the course of this novel?
4. What was David’s biggest mistake in the course of this novel?
5. How are real-life relationships mirrored in the relationship between Jessica and David? How often do we ignore what we don’t want to see?
6. Is David capable of true love as we know it?
7. What role, if any, does Jessica’s Christian faith play in this novel?
8. At one point, the ghost of Jessica’s father tells her, “There are no good monsters.” Is this true? Is David a monster?
9. Are there any evil characters in this novel? In what ways does this novel make you question your concepts of “good” and “evil”?
10. Discuss the use of Christ’s blood in the mythology of the immortal Life Brothers. Should this notion trouble Christians? Why/why not?
11. How would you be living your life differently if you were an immortal?
12. What do you think of the separatist philosophy of the Life Colony? Is the Living Blood being wasted?
13. Who is most responsible for the tragic death in the Louisiana motel room?
14. Should Jessica have given Kira the injection of blood? Why/why not? Why didn’t she?
15. If you were Jessica, how would you have behaved when David arrived in South Africa at the end of the book? What, if anything, should she have done differently?
16. In what ways, if any, had Jessica changed by the end of this book?
17. In what ways, if any, had David changed by the end of this book?
(Questions from www.tananarivedue.com.)