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CHILDREN IN REINDEER WOODS
Kristín Ómarsdóttir
Translated from the Icelandic by Lytton Smith
The opening scene of this novel left me reeling, and I remained rather stunned throughout the book. In a few short, staccato pages, Kristín Ómarsdóttir creates a world where the absurdity and casual brutality of war is played out …
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Reviewed by Lisa Sanders
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THE LÖWENSKÖLD RING
Selma Lagerlöf
Translated from the Swedish by Linda Schenck
Translator Linda Schenck's notes to her 1991 English version of Selma Lagerlöf's The Löwensköld Ring are almost as interesting as the novella itself, and anyone interested in literary criticism might easily get sidetracked musing about theories of translation instead of focusing on the brilliance of this …
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Reviewed by Jean Raber
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THE FLIGHT OF GEMMA HARDY
Margot Livesey
A good story never dies—instead, it can always either be resurrected or re-interpreted by an insightful author who knows the value of an intriguing narrative and thoughtful characterisation. This is certainly the case with this new novel …
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Reviewed by Dorothy Dudek Vinicombe
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STORIES AND ESSAYS OF MINA LOY
Mina Loy
Edited by Sara Crangle
Mina Loy is one of the lost women of English literature. Writing in the first half of the twentieth century, she was part of the Futurist poets community in Florence and a prominent member of the European arts scene, mingling with …
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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BOUNDARIES
Elizabeth Nunez
The title of this insightful novel serves as a perfect descriptor for its major theme: the boundaries that separate cultures, literature, colleagues, and those who love and sustain each of us.
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Reviewed by Darryl Morris
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THE WATER CHILDREN
Anne Berry
In the wicked British heat wave of 1976, four damaged lives collide in The Water Children. Each of the four characters is enigmatically and passionately connected to water, or to be more specific, the forces of water.
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Reviewed by Joyce Nickel
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THE LIFEBOAT
Charlotte Rogan
Grace Winter, the narrator of Charlotte Rogan's The Lifeboat, is as unreliable as narrators come. Twenty-two years old, a newlywed and a widow, Grace is standing trial for her life. The Lifeboat is her attempt to recreate …
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Reviewed by Caitlin Fehir
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THE GIRL GIANT
Kristen Den Hartog
Ruth Brennan is a wonderful character. She is a giant, a girl who grows to enormous height, and her family struggles to cope by pretending all is normal until medical issues finally bring her condition into the open. Much more than a coming-of-age story …
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Reviewed by Lisa Sanders
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WHEN THE NIGHT
Cristina Comencini
Translated from the Italian by Marina Harss
Marina is a young mother who is never quite certain that she really wanted children in the first place. She loves her toddler Marco with an almost obsessive fixation but she also despises his ability …
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Reviewed by Judy Lim
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THE UNINVITED GUESTS
Sadie Jones
I am a big fan of Sadie Jones. Her first two novels, The Outcast and Small Wars, are heart-wrenching looks at troubled characters trying to maintain tumultuous relationships.… On the surface, The Uninvited Guests, Jones' third novel, feels nothing like her previous two.
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Reviewed by Caitlin Fehir
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HOMESICK
Roshi Fernando
In Homesick, author Roshi Fernando interweaves seventeen short stories to form what the publisher calls "a composite novel." In these stories, Fernando introduces us to an extended cast of characters living in the Sri Lankan immigrant community of South London.
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Reviewed by Joyce Nickel
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THE FLOWERS OF WAR
Geling Yan
Translated from the Chinese by Nicky Harman
Before reading Geling Yan's The Flowers of War, I had never heard of the Nanking Massacre. I was surprised to learn about this fairly recent historical event …
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Reviewed by Caitlin Fehir
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SACRIFICE
Karin Alvtegen
Translated from the Swedish by Steven T. Murray
Two women—worlds apart in their circumstances—struggle to come to terms with their respective pasts. Neither is able to move beyond the deep-seated pain they experienced as children, which torments them and robs them of their lives in the present.
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Reviewed by Akeela Gaibie Dawood
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LYRIC NOVELLA
Annemarie Schwarzenbach
Translated from the German by Lucy Renner Jones
Lyric Novella is brief and delicate; it takes place in Weimar Berlin, and relates the story of a developing obsessive love by a young diplomat-to-be for Sibylle, a night club singer.
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Reviewed by Ceri Evans
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THE YOUNGEST DOLL: STORIES
Rosario Ferré
Translated from the Spanish by the author
Dr. Rosario Ferré is well known in her native Puerto Rico as a writer, poet, essayist, teacher and scholar, not to mention her service as First Lady of the Commonwealth when her father was Governor and her mother passed away during his tenure.
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Reviewed by Kathleen Ambrogi
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