An engrossing story, a compelling narrative voice: Three Souls is an easy book to recommend. Because of the setting and romantic elements of the story, it's tempting to draw comparisons with the novels of Amy Tan and Ai Mi. Given the readability, one might think of Sue Monk Kidd's The
This is from Gabriel's neighbour, Giuditta. "One day Gabriel opened up more than usual and told me he had four sons. From four different women. In four different countries." The reader wonders if perhaps he opened up more to her than to anyone; Gabriel is a cipher, someone the reader knows
Readers have an elevated view of the events in Cary Fagan's A Bird's Eye. "Over streets, over the buildings of the university with the zigzag pattern on their roofs, over the playing fields towards the downtown." And, yet, readers glimpse, in the opening chapters, all the characters necessary for an
At first it seems simple. One scene after the next. Imagine them, jotted on yellowed, soiled, stained pages from eighty-someodd-years ago. Scattered across time and space, you quietly order each of these moments in your reader's mind. You think you are assembling a timeline, affording these scenes refuge
I first posted about Robert Hough's novel in a whirl, having read Dr. Brinkley's Tower in less than 24 hours, falling fast and fully into the story. I avoided specifics about the plot and the characters, because the wonder of this novel is rooted in the telling. House of Anansi,
