Novel Whore

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Books come into your life much like friends, sometimes they just seem to arrive at the right time. 31 Bond Street fell into my lap just as I was leaving to spend a long weekend in NYC. Written by Ellen Horan after she stumbled across an old newspaper page from 1857 with a sketch of an elegant townhome on Bond Street depicting the crowd that had gathered after a local dentist had been murdered. Much like I would have done myself, this lead Horan to research the event, which eventually became the basis for this novel.

Dr. Harvey Burdell was a successful dentist with a penchant for engaging in shady business deals on the side. Thrown into the mix is Emma Cunningham, a widower with 2 children that occupied the upper floors of the townhouse in exchange for running the household and staff. Emma is cast at the murderess that was after Dr. Burdell’s fortune. What follows is nothing short of a scary legal process that had me clenching my gut for 2 days. (more…)

History is always painted one of two ways, romantic or brutal. The King’s Mistress by Emma Campion explores the world of Alice Perrers, mistress to King Edward III, as she makes her way through what seems like a separate Universe from the World of today.

Campion opens with Alice asking the question “Yet when had I a choice to be other than I was?” It’s certainly a question we’ve all considered about our own choices. Most historical accounts portray Alice as a usurper that worked her way into the King’s bed in order to take over the castle, gain lands, and a fortune of her own. Campion paints a picture that I think is much more realistic when looking at the power that a commoner would have had in England at the time. A time when a commoner, especially a woman, would have no choice about the trail her life would take. (more…)

I will follow Barbara Kingsolver to the ends of the Earth. Her profound sense of the past and dedication to research is amazing. I fell in love with The Poisonwood Bible and Prodigal Summer long ago, and so I was on the edge of my seat waiting for the Doylestown Library to get The Lacuna.

Set in Mexico and the U.S. from 1929-1951, Kingsolver tells the story of Harrison Shepherd, a young boy on the verge of adolescence, interacting with some of the largest political players in history. Born to an American father that knows nothing of him, and a Mexican mother that is always looking for her next companion, Harrison is on his own navigating through life. (more…)

The French Revolution is probably one of the scariest events in “modern” history for me. I’ve never been able to grasp in my head how it must have felt to live in France at that time ever since I read A Tale of Two Cities almost 20 years ago. That’s why I was drawn to The Good Doctor Guillotin by Marc Estrin, billed as historical fiction following 5 instrumental figures leading up to the guillotining of the French Revolution. I’ve always wondered how the person that puts into motion such historical events felt while making the decision and watching the destruction after, whether it’s the inventor of the nuclear bomb, or a president declaring war. (more…)

I have a confession, I have a sick obsession with the Holocaust. I wasn’t alive, my parents weren’t even alive, but we are part German, even if my great great grandparents had already emigrated out of Germany, I still feel responsible. I wonder what I and my family would have done as we watched our neighbors and friends being taken from their homes. Would we have stopped them? Hid them? Risked our lives? By high school I had already read Night by Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi’s If This Is A Man, Diary of Anne Frank, and numerous other books that were available. Our final project in English my senior year was to read a book on a historical figure, and I chose Hitler. Instead of the thin books available in the school library, my teacher forced me to head to the large library in a nearby town and grab The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. There is still so much to learn and remember, so I picked up Sarah’s Key by Tatiana De Rosnay a few years ago. (more…)