Juliet, by Anne Fortier

I quite enjoyed this new novel by Anne Fortier, which marries a modern mystery with a bit of history in the form of Shakespeare's famous novel, Romeo and Juliet.

Julie Jacobs is the shy half of a twin set, who spends her summers directing children's theatre. She and her her twin, Janice, were raised by their Aunt Rose in a life of relative luxury. Julie has never worried about the future, banking on inheriting half of her Aunt's estate, which she believes to be sizable. But when Aunt Rose dies suddenly, Julie learns her Aunt broke a lifelong promise to split her estate evenly. Janice inherits the entire estate while Julie is left with a key to a safety deposit bank in Sienna, Italy. Julie and Janice were born in Italy but were brought to the U.S. as toddlers when their parents both died.

Julie has no idea what is in the safety box. She hopes it's a stash of bonds or gold, but it turns out to be photocopies of old documents. Disappointed but intrigued as to why her mother would leave something that seems worthless in a safety deposit box, Julie starts to read the information and slowly learns the true story of Juliet and Romeo, the famous ill-fated young lovers made famous by Shakspeare. But, it turns out, Shakespeare was borrowing and building on a true story that was based in much earlier history, way back to the year 1340 and to the birthplace of Julie's ancestors, Sienna, Italy. As Julie gets drawn into the historic tale, she comes to realize that her mother has left her a message and a clue to her own heritage. As she learns more of her own past, she is drawn into multiples mysteries about her heritage, the mysterious death of her parents, and what really happened to her namesake, Guiletta Tolomei.

This book weaves several plots together beautifully. The pacing of the book keeps the reader wanting to learn more and more as bits of late medieval history and modern mystery come together in a very satisfying conclusion.

How did you get this number, Sloane Crosley (2010)

Life in New York seems to be a favourite source of humour for U.S. comedians. In Crosley's second book (following up on her first title: "I Was Told There'd be Cake"), we meet up once again with her witty take on being poor in the city, on looking for apartments, the perils of stinky taxis, and other Manhatten joys.

We also get to travel abroad with Sloane to Portugal and France for more adventures with getting lost (a perennial theme for Sloane who has a temporal spatial deficit disorders that makes is impossible for her to follow a map), getting accultured and getting through customs safely.

This book is fun to read, a little slow in places, but overall very enjoyable.

The Red Thread, by Ann Hood (2010)

I loved this book! It's not often I will forgo sleep to finish a book, but I really couldn't put this one down.

The book follows Maya Lange, owner of a private adoption agency, The Red Thread, which brings together orphaned and abandoned girls from China with families in the United States. The book shows us both sides of the story, weaving together the lives of the Chinese mothers and fathers who are faced with the decision to give up their baby girls and the lives of the American families who are brave or desperate enough to travel half way around the world to adopt a child.

With the Chinese government levying a cap on how many children families can have, the need for a son to take care of the parents forces many families to choose to give up their girls secretly for adoption so they can try again to have a boy. If found out, they can be punished by the government (and sometimes by the baby's father who is pushing the mother to give up the daughter) and made to take back their infants. So mothers must sneak into nearby cities and leave the baby in parks, docks, wherever they feel is the best chance for the child to be found quickly.

On the other side we get to know the lives of couples who are wanting to adopt and learn how they cope with the stress of a strenuous and lengthy adoption process. Lives falter as the wait for news pushes some couples to the brink, leaning time and again on the solid shoulder of Maya Lange, whose own secret tragedy was the impetus for her life's work to find homes for unwanted children.

The Solitude of Prime Numbers, by Paolo Giordano

Originally published in Italian as "Las Solitudine dei Numberi Primi," in 2009, Paolo Giordano's debut novel is now translated into English for the North American market.

The book follows the lives of Alice and Mattia, two people who don't fit in, who are solitary (like prime numbers). As each recoils from childhood trauma into a life of solitude, their stories start to intersect when they find one another in high school. Drawn together as outcasts often are in high school, they find comfort in each other's presence. If they are too broken to love a normal person, could they love each other? Perhaps they can find happiness, or at least inner peace, by combining their two solitudes. But, when Mattia chooses to travel far away, Alice is left behind and and know each is alone again, trying to live amongst "normal" people, trying to erase who are they really are.

Giordano's book is full of solitude and melancholy. It is beautifully written and captures the inner torment that Alice and Mattia cope with and the always emergant need for love and acceptance, for forgiveness and release.

In the Shadow of the Cypress, by Thomas Steinbeck (2010)

I love a book that teaches me something about history. Thomas Steinbeck's book weaves a great story of the history of the Chinese immigrants to California in the early 1900s. The story begins in 1906, in a small fishing village in California, where Chinese fisherman and their families live their lives almost completely apart from the mainstream residents.

When a 400-year-old Chinese imperial seal and plaque is uncovered beneath a fallen Cypress tree, the Chinese elders of the village want to keep the object in their village temple. The more powerful Chinese factions in nearby San Francisco learn about the artifact's existence and want them to be moved to their protection.

The artifacts are proof that the Chinese visited North America before any Europeans, but it's value to the fisherman goes much deeper and they fear it's loss will bring bad luck to the entire village.

The story of the missing artifacts becomes it's own mystery when, a century later, two young men try to unravel the tale and redisover the items that once stood in the middle betweenthe two groups.

No, I Don't Want to Join a Book Club, by Virginia Ironside

If you are a fan of British self-deprecating humour, you will love Virginia Ironside's latest book. As Marie Sharp girds her loins to hit the big Six-O, she is beside herself with glee at all the senior discounts coming her way. The downside is nonexistant, a status unlikely to change as she decides that sex always involves too many compromises, especially for the woman.

Marie's look back at her wild years in London during the 1960's and her look forward to impending grandmotherhood make this a wonderfully joyous read.

I highly recommend this book!

The Last Time I Saw You, by Elizabeth Berg [2010]

There's nothing quite as satfisfying as heading home for the weekend with the newest book by one of my favourite authors, Elizabeth Berg.

I was completely swept away into the narrative the author weaves amongst men and women who are about to embark on that dreaded ritual: The 40th high school reunion.

As always, Elizabeth's characters come alive through her storytelling. As we bear witness to a slice of their lives, we can relish the change to peek into each classmate's psyche as they reconnect to their past selves and the roles they each played back in high school. It is a time to reflect and measure one's life against the expectations of the past. Who has come out ahead, and what does "being a winner" mean anyway 40 years after the fact.