Great Recent Fiction!
I’ve read some fantastic books this year – and it’s only May! It’s such a privilege being able to share my recommendations with you all here.
This month, I’m talking about some wonderful recent fiction: a great romance, a brilliant example of what I suppose you’d classify as women’s fiction, and an epic journey through the twentieth century via one dashing woman pilot and her adventurous life.
Last year, I read Maggie Shipstead’s Astonish Me (2014) which was based around the world of ballet and I loved it to death. So I was eager to read Great Circle (2021) which charts the life and adventures of Marion Graves, an intrepid pioneering aviatrix from the back blocks of Montana.
Contrasted with Marion’s trials and triumphs from the 1920s onward is the story of modern actress and troubled glamour girl Hadley Baxter, who has been cast as Marion in a big-budget movie that is her last chance to revive her flagging film career.
I loved the way the two stories twined about each other. A really skillful use of dual time-line so that each story illuminates the other. This is a compelling and unusual book that I’ve thought about a lot since.
While it took me a little while to get into the story, in the end, I was absolutely transfixed. So this is definitely well worth sticking with. This is one of those novels that justifies the description ‘epic.’ You get a huge cast of fascinating characters, a goodly wad of history, and a stack of events and emotion to keep you entertained.
My next recommendation is a great romance called The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston. This one’s a real charmer, with a little bit of sweet magic thrown into the mix to push things along.
Personally I’ve always been a sucker for love stories with a bit of woo-woo. Think of The Lake House or The Portrait of Jenny or Just Like Heaven. The Dead Romantics is very much in that vein. The paranormal element is laid on very lightly and with a deft emotional touch, but adds a special spice to the story.
Florence Day is a ghostwriter who literally sees ghosts (that got my attention immediately!). After a really horrible break-up with her self-serving boyfriend, she’s given up believing in love. This proves to be a disaster for her personally and professionally. Florence ghost-writes for one of the world’s most successful romance writers and her new cynicism about happy ever afters has given her a dreadful case of writer’s block just as her deadline approaches.
Not to mention that she has a new editor who refuses to give her an extension. Even worse for a girl who’s sworn off men, he’s the most gorgeous male she’s ever seen and there’s a good dose of sexual tension between them immediately. What a pity, he’s such a meanie!
But all that falls by the wayside when Florence receives news that her beloved father has died and she must return to the small town where she grew up and where her unusual gifts brought her scads of unwelcome attention. But, holy haunting, Batman, what happens once she arrives home and discovers that she’s brought another ghost with her from New York – and that ghost is Ben, her late editor!
This book was just lovely – there’s a gorgeous balance of dark and light, and humor and poignant emotion. As you can tell, it’s an intriguing, unusual set-up that draws you in and it was really touching watching these two prickly but essentially good-hearted people fall in love with each other. And never fear, the ending is really beautiful! The book as a whole is funny and sweet – and definitely romantic!
While the first two recommendations are excellent books and well worth picking up, this next one is the real stand-out from this month’s list.
I read Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (2022) in one hit, staying up until 3am to finish it. I can’t remember the last time I did that with a book. Even worse, I had urgent work I needed to do the next day (oh, that was painful having to try and concentrate after only a couple of hours’ sleep!).
Frankly, I just loved this book. It was quirky and funny and painful and emotional and altogether a wonderful reading experience. I love books that surprise me, and this one did. It didn’t go where I expected, but where it went was just right. The characters are fascinating and unusual, the story is compelling, and the book has a lot of important things to say about being a woman in the 1960s or in any era, really.
Elizabeth Zott is a brilliant chemist who is trying to make her way as a scientist in a man’s world (a lot of this story has a positive feminist agenda). In many ways, she’s a woman ahead of her time. An unusual woman deserves an unusual character arc, and that’s certainly the case here. After finding her scientific ambitions frustrated on every front, she ends up becoming a phenomenon on television as she hosts a revolutionary (in all senses of the word) cooking show. Where she goes from there, I encourage you to discover for yourself as this book is such a rip-roaring ride.
Lessons in Chemistry is a rich mix of unusual elements, including a really touching romance. And the ending is positively triumphant! Definitely a book I’m happy to recommend to you all!