Title/Author: The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai Publisher: Algonquin Books Pages: In a nutshell (Publisher): With the epic sweep of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko or Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing and the lyrical beauty of Vaddey Ratner’s In the Shadow of the Banyan, The Mountains Sing tells an enveloping, multigenerational tale of the Tran family, set against the backdrop of the Viet…
Category: war
Jee reviews ‘The World That We Knew’ by Alice Hoffman @ahoffmanwriter @SimonSchuster #magicalrealism #holocaust #WW2 #adultfairytale
Title/Author: The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman Publisher: Simon & Schuster In a nutshell: In Berlin, at the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her twelve-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. She finds her way to a renowned rabbi, but it’s his daughter, Ettie,…
Jee reviews ‘Cilka’s Journey’ by Heather Morris #CilkasJourney #HeatherMorris @StMartinsPress #Netgalley #eARC #HistoricalFiction
Title/Author: Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris In a nutshell (Publisher): Her beauty saved her — and condemned her. Cilka is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1942, where the commandant immediately notices how beautiful she is. Forcibly separated from the other women prisoners, Cilka learns quickly that power,…
Jee reviews #FruitOfTheDrunkenTree by @ingrid_rojas_c @doubledaybooks @dBookFestival #doubledaybooks #dbf2019 #comingofage #HispanicAmericanLiterature #fiction #war #PabloEscobar #femaleEmpowerment
Title/Author: Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras Publisher: Doubleday Books In a nutshell (Publisher): Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister Cassandra enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo…
Jee reviews #TheGown by Jennifer Robson @AuthorJenniferR @wmMorrowBooks and is looking forward to meeting her at @DBookFestival !! #historicalfiction #DecaturBookFestival #dbf2019
Title/Author: The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding by Jennifer Robson Publisher: William Morrow In a nutshell (Publisher): London, 1947: Besieged by the harshest winter in living memory, burdened by onerous shortages and rationing, the people of postwar Britain are enduring lives of quiet desperation despite their nation’s recent victory. Among them are Ann Hughes and…
Jee reviews #SoldOnAMonday by @KrisMcMorris #SourcebooksLandmark #historicalfiction #journalism #DepressionEra
Title/Author: Sold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark In a nutshell (Publisher): 2 CHILDREN FOR SALE The sign is a last resort. It sits on a farmhouse porch in 1931, but could be found anywhere in an era of breadlines, bank runs and broken dreams. It could have been written by any…
A tiger’s wife, a deathless man, Punjabi women & a murder mystery case! Jee delves into two very different worlds with these #minireviews : #TheTigersWife by #TeaObreht #RandomHouse @randomhouse #magicalrealism #literaryfiction & #EroticStoriesForPunjabiWomen by #BalliKaurJaswal #AsianAmericanLiteratureFiction #WilliamMorrow @WMmorrowBooks
Title/Author: The Tiger’s Wife: A Novel by Tea Obreht Publisher: Random House Verdict: Read if you like magical realism! The death of her grandfather led Natalia to retrieve the items that he left behind. That journey took her mind back to her days spent with him and the stories he told her about his encounters…
In anticipation for the sequel, #TheDragonReplublic, Jee reads & reviews #ThePoppyWar by #RFKuang @kuangRF #historicalmilitaryfantasy #asianFiction #fantasy @HarperVoyagerUS
Title/Author: The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang Publisher: Harper Voyager In a nutshell (Publisher): A brilliantly imaginative talent makes her exciting debut with this epic historical military fantasy, inspired by the bloody history of China’s twentieth century and filled with treachery and magic, in the tradition of Ken Liu’s Grace of Kings and N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy….
Jee reviews #TheWolfAndTheWatchman by #NiklasNattochDag @AtriaBooks #Netgalley #eARC #HistoricalFiction
Title/Author: The Wolf and The Watchman by Niklas Natt och Dag Publisher: Atria Books In a nutshell (Publisher): One morning in the autumn of 1793, watchman Mikel Cardell is awakened from his drunken slumber with reports of a body seen floating in the Larder, once a pristine lake on Stockholm’s Southern Isle, now a rancid…
Jee reviews #DaughterOfMolokai by #AlanBrennert #Netgalley #eARC #StMartinsPress #HistoricalFiction #MolokaiSequel
Title/Author: Daughter of Molokai Publisher: St Martin’s Press In a nutshell (Publisher): Alan Brennert’s beloved novel Moloka’i, currently has over 600,000 copies in print. This companion tale tells the story of Ruth, the daughter that Rachel Kalama―quarantined for most of her life at the isolated leprosy settlement of Kalaupapa―was forced to give up at birth. The…