The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian

 “The Slaughter You Know Next to Nothing About” is the tragic historical event upon which the novel The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian is based.  In the year 1915, one and a half million Armenian Christians were slaughtered in an ethnic genocide led by the Turks who began the killings under the false premise that the Turkish border to Armenia was vulnerable to attack.  It was WWI and the Turkish had sided with the Germans with the intent of controlling all of Europe and perhaps the world.  The “preemptive cleansing” began with firing squads in towns all along the border of Turkey, but it escalated to mind boggling cruelty, butchery and unbelievable savage indifference toward the women and children who were marched across the desert with little or no food and water and left in mass graves, the sandcastles it would seem.  The story is told from the perspective of a “modern day” writer who chose to investigate her grandparent’s history.  The story of Elizabeth and Armen is a heart wrenching tale of love and loss and determination and strength.  Bohjalian manages to relate the horrors of this time with clarity and yet shows the reader that there is no absolute even in war.  Even in the heart of darkness, you can find light in people who resist, who try to right wrongs and who are determined to show some kindness and love.  I really learned much about a time in modern history that I knew next to nothing about. Some in our group were overwhelmed by the ugliness of the storyline, but agreed it was an important read.  Not for the faint of heart, but a book that will give you much to think about.  As we know, we are bound to make the same mistakes if we do not learn from the past.  Awareness is the key.

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

 What would happen if you could see your future and then make changes to the present that would ensure  happiness?  In Rebecca Serle’s book, In Five Years, the main character, Dannie, has mapped out her life, her love life and her future and totally believes this plan is the way to control all possible outcomes.  As is often the case with this kind of over planning and control, “life” has other ideas.  Blindsided by the news that Bella, her best friend, falls ill and this changes everything.  Bella was the only person that Dannie allowed to really know her or see her with her protective walls down. Suddenly, Dannie is forced to live spontaneously and off her prescribed track.  It is when Dannie allows herself to really look at her life while “off program” that she realizes that she is settling instead of really living.  Serle lets us look at the results of allowing fear to control your life in order to avoid pain.  We see the mistakes of the control and we are relieved when Dannie starts to open up her life and her heart to new possibilities.  Serle uses a  “dream” premonition to begin Dannie’s awakening, but we were not sure this literary trick was entirely necessary.  The overall result of the novel was acceptable.  This would be a good beach read.

The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

Finally, a good mystery.  If you like stories that unwind slowly and that have characters you really like even when you do not understand their actions then The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave is a good read for you.  In her novel, we come to know the main characters through flashbacks. We meet Owen the coding genius who disappears leaving behind a duffel bag full of money, and a note that say “protect her”; his teenage daughter; Bailey, a bright 16 year old who is wary of anything that changes the life she shares with her father; and Hannah, a bewildered new wife who finds herself caught up in a mad race against time.  In a charming boy meets girl setup, we learn that Owen had swept Hannah off her feet with a passionate love she had longed for her entire life and then transported her away from her steady life on the east coast to his floating home on the west coast. Owen led her to believe that he and his daughter had no family to speak of and even though Bailey is a typically selfish teenager, Hannah tries desperately to fill the void left by her dead mother.  Their life seems to be nearly ideal until the day Hannah suddenly finds herself swept up in the mystery of Owen’s disappearance. Because she loves Owen and truly believes he is a good man, Hannah is determined to protect his daughter which was his last request.  Hannah’s fear and confusion is compounded by the appearance of FBI agents and a U.S. Marshall who claims to be Owen’s friend, demanding answers that Hannah does not have. With the help of her old boyfriend, a lawyer, Hannah is able to piece together Owen’s past and she finds that it is not at all what she believed it to be.  Laura Dave shows us through this well plotted novel that there is often a fine line between good and evil and that sometimes a person’s best intentions bring much heartache and sadness.  I love a good mystery and this is one that I recommend highly.  Enjoy!

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

Maggie Shipstead is an extraordinary wordsmith.  In her fiction novel Great Circle she mesmerizes the reader with descriptions, dialogue, character development and plot details.  Her story moves back and forth between two protagonist, Marian Graves the fictional female pilot who attempted circumnavigation of the planet crossing over both poles rather than over the equator and Hadley the actress who wants to find a way to be more that the child star she is forever viewed as.  We discover at the beginning that Hadley has been cast in the movie of Marian’s attempt at circling the earth. As she researches her character, Hadley unravels the mystery of the end of Marians’s life. Like Amelia Earhart, Marian disappeared in the last leg of the flight presumably drowned after ditching her plane when she ran out of fuel over the ocean.  This story is much more than a retelling of a tragic adventure.  The real story comes from the main characters and their interaction with each other.  We learn early on that both Marian and Hadley were orphaned early in life when their parents die in tragic accidents.  Neither woman had anything resembling a normal childhood and the damage they experienced in their younger years scarred them and affected  them their entire life.  Both characters searched and searched for love, for connection even for recognition, but neither knew how to relate to people or how to love at all.  The people in their lives were critical to their story, but these people were also worthy of their own development and Shipstead took the time to tell their stories too to some extent.  The only negatives for readers is that the book is very long and has a somewhat disjointed beginning. Like many novels, this book starts at the “end” and then circles back to explain how the characters got to that point.  Because there are two stories the circling back is a bit confusing, but it does not take long for all the storylines and characters to fall into place. There were many themes to discuss such as love vs. obsession or the need for connection vs. isolation and each theme was interesting and timely.  Through these wonderful characters we see that the wondrous circles of life may seem to meander and change, but in the end each circle is completed and life moves on.  Great Circle is under consideration for a Pulitzer Prize which may or may not influence readers consideration.  I think it is a worthy choice for reading. Just know it will take some time.

We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker

T. S. Elliot said, “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”  Chris Whitaker adopted this philosophy for his book, We Begin at the End and created the lives of his main characters, Duchess, Robin, Vincent and Walker to explore this idea.  We learn early on that one moment of inattention, of human carelessness, can ruin the lives of many people leaving them unalterably broken and damaged.  This less than uplifting theme was cleverly delivered in a very interesting murder mystery. Despite the plot that included murder, arson, abuse and fear the storyline had moments of humor and grace and truly heartwarming details. Whitaker jumped back in time on occasion to reveal important details that he then wove into the mystery.  One particularly important element that was demonstrated through several characters was that of selfless love and sacrifice. There were many examples of people who seemed completely despicable who we later discover have given abundantly in their own life to those who are in need.  This is a wonderful book with deep emotional connections that effect all of us at one time or another.  It allowed for reflection and self discovery and was very engaging for discussion.  This is a good one!

we start from.

make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from

The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher

 Let me begin by saying I was the lone voice in my club that did not enjoy this book.  The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher is an older book that was very popular when it was written in 1984.  It is a “big fat novel for women.”  Think of the Thornbirds and you get a feeling for the tenor of this book about a dysfunctional family and the people who come into their lives.  The main character, Penelope, is the only child of a once famous artist who grew up in a very Bohemian household where mother was a bit of a gypsy, father was older and very open in his thinking.  Add into this extended family member like war widows and renters who never moved out and you see life of this young girl.  As with many “love stories” of this genre, Penelope makes a huge mistake when she married a spoiled soldier who wants her fathers fashionable car more than her.  Three less than lovable children later and a life filled with hard work and strife because of divorce and abandonment, Penelope finds herself with a life altering heart condition and one very valuable painting of herself as a child that her father painted called The Shell Seekers.  As is often the case, money and inheritance become the focus for the adult children while memories of her one true love who was lost in the war move Penelope toward difficult but predictable denouement.  As I said, I found this novel difficult mainly because the family characters where really difficult and for the most part unlikeable.  There was a “happy ever after” ending in a way, but getting there did not balance the angst of the plot line for me.   

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

 We have read several WWII historical fiction books in the last few years.  Invariably, we come away with a new awareness of what really happened during this war and most of the new information we gather looks little like the John Wayne, Henry Fonda war movies we grew up on.  The war was cruel and ugly and not won or lost only because of men.  Kate Quinn, in her novel The Rose Code, enlightened us about an extremely important group of women who were integral to the code breaking operation in England’s Bletchley Park.  The Nazi codes were nearly impossible to decipher but through hours of tedious, brain buster determination, the code was broken and the result was a turning point in the war.  Quinn’s story tells us about three brave women who worked tirelessly and at a great personal expense to gain access to the Nazi war correspondences.  Each of the main characters is based loosely on real women who worked at Bletchley.  The fictional parts of the story had some basis in fact and added a human element to an  otherwise very information packed book.  Each of the women had a unique back story and their friendship and subsequent split added interest and important storyline detail needed to carry the  novel.  Our discussion began with an in-depth look at the enigma machine of the Germans and the bombe machine that was created at Bletchley Park to decipher codes, and the very specific vocabulary needed to detail the work done by the main characters.  Luckily, the novel is very enjoyable and educational even without the history lesson on the machines.  Some may be thinking that they have read enough about WWII, but this book is one that should not be missed. Women and their heroics are not celebrated enough, but Kate Quinn’s book does a wonderful job and should be enjoyed by many.