Christmas Bells: A Novel by Jennifer Chiaverini

Christmas Bells: A Novel.  Jennifer Chiaverini. Penguin Group (USA). October 27, 2015. 336 pp.  ISBN#: 9780525955245.

“I heard the bells on Christmas Day/ Their old familiar carols play/ And wild and sweet/ The words repeat/Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”  This is the famous chorus of the poem/song written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  The story begins in the pre-Civil War year of 1860 when we are introduced to the Longfellow family, an almost ideal family who deeply cared for each other and thoroughly enjoyed their Boston, Massachusetts environment.  Harsh, then, is the extinguishing of the joyful flame when Henry’s wife, Fannie, dies in an accidental fire.  Longfellow is extremely overcome at the loss of his beloved wife and the thrill of Revolutionary times is also being squelched by the decisions made by Southern states to secede from the Union.  The issue of slavery and its economic realities has become the divisive factor calling for the split of a barely one hundred year old united nation. Longfellow’s family will be called to also sacrifice much during the duration of the war, perfectly summarized in Longfellow’s entire poem, “Christmas Bells.”

Travel in time another hundred years and we are watching how a devoted and talented music teacher, Sophia, is devastated with the news that her job has been eliminated because of financial budget cuts.  She’s also the conductor and director of a local church choir that is preparing to perform Longfellow’s poem as part of the annual Christmas celebration.  Her accompanist, Lucas, loves her but is afraid to honestly broach the subject with her. 

At the same time another family suffers because they have not heard from their husband and father who is serving in the National Guard in Afghanistan.  He used to call regularly but all of a sudden those calls stop.  Some other conflicts arise from here, later to be challenged by a Catholic nun with remarkable intuitive powers – or are they divine? 

There is so much more than can be described herein that makes this story real with all of the pain and grace-filled happiness that normal life challenges bring, even in the beloved season known as Christmas!  Jennifer Chiaverini crafts stories that convey an easy style intertwined with real, harsh challenges that don’t crush the reader with the elicited tension riddling so many scenes.  This reader is always delighted to read another Chiaverini novel and highly recommends this excellent work of historical fiction!!!! Perfect for any season!!!

Give Us This Day: A Brooke Burrell Thriller by Tom Avitabile

Give Us This Day – A Brooke Burrell Thriller. Tom Avitabile. The Story Plant. October 2015. 350 pp.  ISBN#: 9781611882095.

Brooke Burrell is tired and would like to step away from her FBI Director role and retire to Hawaii with her husband Mush.  But she also still has the fire in her belly and is now quickly drawn into a devious plan in which certain high finance leaders are funneling money into terrorist pockets for use in an act of terrorism as yet unknown.  What initially comes to light is that there’s a leak somewhere in the group trying to find out how the Prescott firm is involved in the financial side.  Even Brooke is subject to temptation but chooses otherwise. She seems to be one of the few who realize how many deaths could result from the successful transfer of monies to these fundamentalist Islamic groups. 

Meanwhile violet acts are occurring at an increasingly alarming rate.  An art gallery explodes to the point where there’s nothing left to analyze inside the non-existent building.  Several women who are involved in passing funds are now romantically involved with some very, very dangerous people.  Even some of the criminals involved in this carefully planned act of terrorism are being watched carefully as they aren’t deemed as religiously committed as they should be.

Now the countdown toward disaster is moving forward far too quickly but the terrorists have been sloppy and left behind evidence that only someone of Brooke’s high caliber intelligence is able to find.  The search is fraught with danger and even ambivalent support from her Washington boss who suffers from a case of paranoia about Brooke and the President who holds the power to decide everyone’s future. 

As the reader is now fast and furiously turning the pages, the violence accelerates and many will die before Brooke’s discoveries bear fruit.  One extreme act will kill far too many of Brooke’s team but her action will prevent something ten times worse from occurring.

Give Us This Day… is an awesome thriller that will please lovers of that genre and particularly of Tom Avitabile who never fails to provide powerful, realistic scenarios reminiscent of the best spy or thriller novels.  Highly recommended reading that again would also make for a captivating movie!

The Italian Wife: A Novel by Kate Furnivall

The Italian Wife: A Novel.  Kate Furnivall. Penguin Group (USA). October 2015. 432 pp.  ISBN#: 9780425281383.

Isabella Berotti is enjoying a coffee in a shop in Bellina, Italy in 1932.  The massive building across the street is one that she actually helped design.  She’s proud of her work and her marriage.  That work came after a terrible time when her husband Luigi was killed by a sniper and she was devastatingly shot in the back.  Ten years of surgeries and pain, as well as attempting to build a new life for herself as an architect, have culminated in her job planning the construction of buildings in Mussolini’s latest project.  Mussolini is determined to make this city of Bellina the greatest city in Italy, indeed in the world! But disaster begins to wreak its designs, which Isabella realizes will only get worse if the tyrant has his way! Now immediately after a young woman asks Isabella to watch her daughter and quickly states she knows who killed Isabella’s husband, the woman crosses the street, climbs to the top of the tower, and jumps off the building.  Isabella, like all observers around the building, is stunned beyond words and then realizes she has a little girl who no longer has a mother!

The remainder of the novel is a journey to find out who this woman was, how she knew about Isabella’s husband and what is happening in this city in which nosing around brings brutal repercussions!  Isabella meets a young photographer, Roberto Falco, who is an uncommonly caring individual.  He introduces her to a world of migrant workers who are brought into the city to farm and work on its new buildings but who also face interrogations and brutality from Mussolini’s police and guards.  It turns out that Isabella’s husband, who was a “Blackshirt” was much more than the person she thought she knew and loved.  The child Rosa has already lived a life with more drama, cruelty, and fear than any adult over an entire lifetime.  She’s a beautiful but scarred individual who responds to Isabella’s kindness, even after she is taken away from Isabella, her only hope for a different future.

The Italian Wife… is a novel filled with tension-ridden scenes and some lovely descriptions of architecture and country life.  The story is based on facts about Mussolini’s rule and desire to impress the world with his revolutionary attitudes about how a city should be constructed and ruled! This is historical fiction at its best and Kate Furnivall is a talented writer who has captured the essence of Italy and its citizens in the midst of changing, turbulent times!

Stones in the Road by E. B. Moore

Stones in the Road.  E. B. Moore. Penguin Group (USA). October 2015. 384 pp.  ISBN#: 9780451469991.

A young Amish man, Joshua, lives with his family in 1867 Pennsylvania.  His father is a well-respected Deacon in the Amish community, but his father’s hatred comes out clearly when he has been drinking, a frequent evening activity that proves to be life-threatening for Joshua.  On one similar night, his father drags Joshua to a barn and sets about to kill him, not just beat him; but accidental movements occur and a fire is set that all but destroys the barn and leaves the father, Abraham, a physically and mentally scarred man. He’s a broken man who cannot utter what he was really trying to do that night.

Joshua runs away a second time.  He had been away once and had enough of life with “the English” that he wanted no more.  Now, however, he has no choice.  He has suffered burns himself in the fire and receives merciful treatment from unexpected characters.  His mother, Miriam, refuses to believe he died in the fire and searches the lands around their farm for days and days.  She’s a complex character who loves Abraham for the past moments of tenderness they have shared but who also knows his uglier side.  The stance she now takes with this wounded man and now being forced to manage their farm is evidence of the formidably strong and enduring woman she is. 

This then is the tale of these three main characters and those with whom they interact in their journey until mother and son might be reunited. It’s also a marvelous look into post-Civil War life from Pennsylvania all the way to Colorado and beyond.  The characters are gritty survivors of those who journey and live in western lands, those who prefer to be friendly and supportive because they believe in the love that binds American lives and those who would hurt and kill in a moment because of fear and anger at the sacrifices mandatory for those who would tame the difficult land and work for prosperity.

Stones in the Road is fine historical fiction about western life as well as a novel that gently depicts the life of Plains Amish people as well as their beliefs.  Very nicely done, E. B. Moore!  A notable, worthy follow-up to Moore’s facinating previous novel, An Unseemly Wife. 

The Splendor of Ordinary Days: A Novel of Watervalley by Jeff High

The Splendor of Ordinary Days: A Novel of Watervalley.  Jeff High. Penguin Group (USA). October 2015. 432 pp.  ISBN#: 9780451474100.

Luke Bradford, in this third Watervalley novel, has become more attached to the rustic beauty and pleasant, interesting people of Watervalley, Tennessee.  Part of it is the satisfaction he experiences with his medical practice and the stronger part is definitely his budding romance with Christine Chambers.  However, there’s always something brewing in the town that starts out small and grows with distressing power and the latest quandary is what keeps Luke from giving his whole heart to the town and the decision to permanently stay.

The latest conflict involves a phone call one night that there’s a fire close to the Mennonite community nearby.  Once the first responders arrive, they stop as they realize they will not be needed, for the Mennonite have their own fire brigade and reject any outside involvement.  The only man who has plenty of experience with the Mennonites is Luther Whitmore but what that is seems completely unknown to the townspeople.  When Luther, editor of the town newspaper, pens an irate editorial in the paper, though posed as a news story, the residents fail to see a connection and instead start conversations that put veterans to the forefront.  The town is proud of all the men who died in past wars over the last hundred years and so everyone accepts Luther’s irate words as gospel truth.

The secrets around this problem will gradually be revealed, as well as an effort to honor military veterans in the town with a memorial.  Luke, however, has an uncanny ability to warm up conversations and several characters in the book wind up eventually sharing their military and secular secrets, in this novel yielding forgiveness, repentance and healing that can only benefit Watervalley.

Luke and Christine will battle their own personal challenge, the first to test their deep love and personalities.

The Splendor of Ordinary Days… is a wonderful read with muted conflicts but high energy when it comes to being protective and caring toward each resident of the valley.  The descriptions of animals and setting, as well, are gently presented and make the reader feel he or she is also a resident, fully satisfied and loving one’s surroundings and neighbors.  Nicely crafted, Jeff High, again!  Recommended to all and the earlier novels in this series as well!

Another Woman's Daughter: A Novel by Fiona Sussman

Another Woman’s Daughter: A Novel.  Fiona Sussman. Berkley/New American Library. October 2015. 304 pp.  ISBN#: 9780425281048.

Celia Mphephu wants the best for her daughter, Miriam.  Celia works as a maid for Michael and Rita Steiner in 1960s Johannesburg.  This white couple thinks the world of Miriam, teaching her to read and paying for her to go to school, even though that schooling is far from normal for Miriam, who much preferred the Afrikaans school.  Eventually Miriam makes an Indian friend and that makes all the difference in the world.  Celia is shocked galore when the Steiners offer to adopt Miriam and take her with them back to England, offering her opportunities that would otherwise be impossible.  Later on we will find that lies and more lies have been told and the truth kept secret, but for now in a vividly brutal scene Celia realizes she cannot do otherwise but sacrifice her daughter for a while.

Miriam discovers in England a dual world, one in which she becomes well-educated but also one in which she is the victim of prejudice that is more subtle but no less traumatic.  Over time Rita Steiner becomes obsessed with her work world in the field of medicine and the gentleness of Michael is Miriam’s only saving grace.  Even then Miriam will be shocked several times before the end of the novel over the Steiner relationship and what they have kept from her.  Miriam will also fall in love with an astonishingly gentle, understanding man whose love is tested when Miriam insists after many years of returning to Africa to search for her own identity.

These are the years of the harshest apartheid treatment in Africa, and the narrator does not spare the reader the reality of the brutal treatment of black Africans.  However, this is also the time period when rebellion takes root, when protests over the Soweto tragedy and the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela erupt. 

To say more would deny the reader the full impact of this poignant story. While it does not go into depth about both sides of the fire storm beginning to grow in Africa, it speaks for those white and black residents in Africa and abroad who were sensitive to, allied with, or fiercely opposed to the apartheid realities.  For that reason as well as a story carefully crafted, this reader highly recommends this potent, truthful historical novel!

Chance Harbor by Holly Robinson

Chance Harbor.  Holly Robinson. Penguin Group (USA). October 215. 448 pp.  ISBN#: 9780451471505.

Catherine and Zoe, two sisters who look like each other but couldn’t be more different, are now separated. Zoe, the rebel in the family who did drugs, dropped out of school and more, ran away, leaving her daughter Willow with Catherine and Russell.  The latter seemed like the proverbially successful, married couple but are now separate as well, Russell having sired a father by his high school student Noel.  Catherine is having a hard time coping with it all, especially in light of the fact that her father has recently passed away and her mother, Eve, has decided to sell the family summer home, Chance Harbor, on Prince Edward Island.  Sounds like a course in Family Dysfunction 101.  The difference herein is how does each character deal with the gradual revelations that initially stun all of them and what kind of new relationships develop as the family life evolves?

Numerous descriptions of beautiful Chance Harbor will engage every reader, a place where it’s safe to relax and let nature heal, if possible, what needs to be let go and what needs to be grabbed and dealt with.  It’s the perfect combination of seashore and rugged living!  Near to Catherine’s home are wooded and mountainous areas where hiking and fresh air also serve to relax and fully engage with the present moment! The environment clearly parallels the family’s turbulent transformation that is patiently and poignantly described.

As the story evolves, strong feelings are verbalized and secrets are revealed, especially with the undoing of Catherine and Russell’s marriage, the reappearance of Zoe who is now clean, repentant and willing to try to undo the damage she left behind years ago.  New romances will emerge, one’s that respect the past and serve to accept a different kind of future.  Willow is a young woman who has her own moments of wisdom and mistakes, and she is able to demonstrate how one opens up to see something other than stereotypical patterns which enables Catherine and even her grandmother Eve to realize the past need not be repeated.

Chance Harbor is a lovely novel with some very complex interactions that seem rather edgy but which are transformed at just the right moment to scenes that keep the reader fully engaged.  The reader finds that he or she wants to know how the relationships of mother-daughter, father-daughter, sisters, and lovers will grow or terminate.  Very carefully crafted story about love that endures the worst that life can throw, stays solid where it should and leaves behind the dross! Highly recommended contemporary fiction!