General Fiction
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Plot/Idea: This is an epic coming-of-age treat that evokes the broken innocence of childhood while illuminating the push and pull of adolescence, embedded in the backdrop of post-World War II America. Duggin sets a flawless stage, rich with hidden meaning and humming with tension, and brings his story full-circle to a powerful ending.
Prose: Duggin is a masterful storyteller, and his profound metaphors cast light on the novel’s deeper themes while stirring up nostalgia and a haunting wistfulness. Readers will be swept into Duggin’s dynamic renderings and find themselves lost in reflection throughout the book.
Originality: Boys In Exile is an explosive story of inner turmoil and finding one’s place in the world. The scenes will weigh heavily with readers and consume them long after the book is finished.
Character Development/Execution: Duggin’s characters are richly developed, with subtle intimations of emotional conflict that resonate across the pages. The protagonists are given equal footing in their own distinctive ways and feed off of each other with perfect rhythm and balance, lending them a meditative and almost mournful quality as they navigate forced maturity from childhood.
Blurb: A haunting coming-of-age journey through the volatility of adolescence, overflowing with intensity and subtle power.
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Plot/Idea: Pettee has crafted an engaging and twisty story that will hold readers' interest until the unexpected conclusion. The story moves along at a steady but brisk pace, and the dual narrative adds a satisfying layer of mystery.
Prose: The Devil I Know is written in an entertaining style, and Pettee deftly balances dialogue with description. The action scenes are well-crafted and buoyed by the dynamic, smooth prose.
Originality: Pettee melds action and romance well while still managing to deliver an all around suspenseful read that builds up to a satisfying ending.
Character Development/Execution: The dual narrative allows readers insight into the minds and motivations of both main characters—a smart choice on Pettee's part, given the storyline's unexpected turns.
Plot/Idea: McDade suffuses this drama with heart and a hearty helping of magical realism. Ben and Nina’s separate odysseys still manage to be artfully interwoven.
Prose: McDade’s prose is full of life; the author manages to capture the weirdness of the narrative through compelling characterization and welcome touches of humor throughout.
Originality: McDade takes a standard drama centered around couples growing apart and turns it on its head. Readers will find themselves immersed in a work of literary fiction that is surprising in all the right ways.
Character Development/Execution: McDade successfully captures the attitudes of university students. Nina and Ben are both rich characters whose journeys readers will relate to.
Blurb: This compelling drama follows couple Ben and Nina as their lives converge and diverge.
Plot/Idea: The intriguing plot that is dominated by the flawed personalities of the two protagonists. There can, at times, be an imbalance in the pacing when it spends too much time on battlefield history.
Prose: Told in the third-person, the prose is evocative, suspenseful in parts, and showcases the bitterness of unrealized glory. There is an underlying sense of tragedy that seeps into every aspect of the tale.
Originality: This book takes a clever approach, in which the battle that neither protagonist fights in becomes central to both their lives.
Character Development/Execution: The novel is dominated by John Spenser and Jack Hagan, who are both expertly drawn. While neither man is at all likable, the reader will feel a mixture of pity, embarrassment, and disgust for both. The myriad of soldiers that Spenser interviews for his book feel unflinchingly real.
Plot/Idea: Castle Gordon is both a compelling family drama and an engrossing romance story, filled with plenty of suspense and twists. Some of the book's plot points, though, can seem a little far-fetched, like Joseph and Graham meeting in the war and Graham saving money aside for Anna.
Prose: Jaskula's writing is elegant, exciting, and often impossible to stop reading, especially when the tension ramps up later in the novel. The book is largely dialogue-driven, and while the author's portrayal of conversations is strong, allowing more page time for description could help balance out the narrative.
Originality: Castle Gordon creatively and sensitively depicts women's hardships during the historical period, particularly the struggle to gain financial independence, like men. The time and place, Kincardine, Canada, immediately post-WWII, is also a unique setting choice.
Character Development/Execution: Jaskula's characters, like the kind, yet mysterious Joseph and the strong-willed Anna, practically pop off the page, with their exceptional voices and strong personalities. Character development does sometimes slow down narrative momentum, however, like the repeated similar arguments between Ian and Anna throughout the course of the novel.
Plot/Idea: Tales of the Romanov Empire is an impressive historical epic novel that chronicles slightly over 300 years of Russian history in short vignette chapters. Some of these sections, however, work better than others: the most successful passages integrate the wider historical context seamlessly into the narrative, and tend to be more character-driven: for example, the chapters about the plight of the Jewish people. The book's relentless brutality can also make for a difficult read at times.
Prose: Anolic's prose is polished, elaborate, and gorgeously descriptive overall. The writing runs into issues with awkwardly inserting information into dialogue, especially when the author is trying to clarify the historical context for readers.
Originality: Tales of the Romanov Empire is a bold, innovative project that compellingly overviews more obscure history, like manipulative bride shows, alongside more well-known material like Russia's dealings with Napoleon. Anolic also has a real knack for imaginative reveals and inserting surprisingly timely elements into the narrative.
Character Development/Execution: Generally, Anolic is more concerned with the wider machinations of history and chronicling linear time than individual character development, which can be to the novel's detriment. Some characters who are given more page time do stand out, though, like the headstrong and emotionally-developed Catherine.
Plot: Jasmine in Paris is a charming historical coming-of-age story with far-flung international settings. Jasmine Barrington, an aspiring artist, relocates from Penang and Nairobi to Paris to enroll at the Beaux Arts school.
Prose: Flynn's prose is balanced, descriptive, and captures a clear sense of time and place.
Originality: At its heart, this is the story of a young woman finding herself and her artistic vision in the city of lights. However, Jasmine in Paris is unique in its integration of Malaysian politics and Jasmine's continued connection to her country of origin.
Character/Execution: Readers will certainly benefit from having read the previous books in the series, though this work does successfully stand alone. While the connection between Jasmine and Howard is somewhat strained (by distance and via the placement of their narratives in the novel), readers will be eager for them to find happiness together.
Rising Wind: Like Feathers of a Wing: Deep Informative and Pertinent (Book 4)
by Diane OlsenRating: 7.50
Plot/Idea: Olsen has presented the reader with a complex—and sometimes difficult to follow—plot that involves climate change, poverty, Indigenous peoples, ancient and modern history, and many other components. The reader may struggle a bit to get situated with the workings of the story.
Prose: The story is full of dialogue, ancient lore, and delicate moments. Although written appealingly in pleasant prose, it can be hard to follow as topics change, or new characters are introduced.
Originality: Olsen's story is highly original, with different inspirations culminating from throughout the world and history.
Character Development/Execution: The dialogue can be challenging to follow at times, so readers must pay close attention to whom is speaking throughout the book. However, once the reader is more acquainted with the characters, their vivid personalities come to light.
Plot: Mixing together moments of heartbreak and levity while having the main character navigate her identity, mental health, career, family, and more, Khoh's spins an engaging plot in this novel.
Prose: Khoh opts for straightforward prose in her novel to ensure the focus remains on the internal monologue of the main character as she navigates the world around her.
Originality: Recent years have seen an uptick of books centered on mental health that stand against stigma and shame. Black and Blue navigates similar conversations in ways that many will find relatable and powerful.
Character/Execution: As the book focuses on the main character Jade, readers are given ample time and space to get a full picture of her realities.
Plot: Beattie's historically based novel is deftly plotted, alternating between the points of view of the women at its center. The protagonists are caught up in the war of Rhodesian independence, the toll it takes on lovers and children, masters and servants, colonialists, and natives.
Prose: The word-craft is unexceptionably fluent and compelling, with a variety of voices, some ethnically African, some Scots, some properly British.
Originality: The work is sometimes baldly romantic in breathless social or sexual encounters, sometimes stirring in its depictions of political and military violence. There are inevitable echoes of Hemingway, Conrad, et al., in the treatment of the experience of Europeans in colonial Africa.
Character/Execution: The main characters, after whom the chapters are named, are women. The narrative centers on their relationships with one another and with the men who are their lovers. Europeans and native Africans narrate individual sections. Their interior monologue is textured and convincing.
Blurb: An illuminating insider's view of a febrile period of Rhodesian (now Zimbabwe) history, fictionalized but hewing closely to the historical record.
Plot/Idea: Price delivers a wryly humorous story of Wyatt Lewis, who unapologetically loves the hedonistic side of sun-drenched Southern California.
Prose: The prose is straightforward, clear, and sprinkled with candid reflections on life as a millennial on the brink of a pandemic.
Originality: Stories of youthful indiscretion and efforts to escape from a painful family legacy are commonplace. Price's novel stands out for its vivid setting, tragi-comedy, and the protagonist's pigheadedness, despite disappointment upon disappointment.
Character Development/Execution: Wyatt is a man whose development is subtle, yet deeply resonant. Price effectively creates a wide cast of characters that embody the spirit of reckless indulgence and ultimate sense of loneliness that pervades the story.
Plot: The Bequest, an endearing work of women's romantic fiction and the first in the Birch Creek Ranch series, offers a compelling setup as two wildly different women are thrown together in the aftermath of their husbands' deaths.
Prose: Baker's prose style is candid, warm, and will allow readers to feel immediately connected to the two protagonists.
Originality: Odd couple stories are familiar, but Baker brings freshness and fun to the story of two 'couldn't be different' individuals who find they have more in common than they'd anticipated.
Character/Execution: Despite some focus on minutiae both in the protagonists' narrations and in dialogue, Baker clearly establishes her characters from the get-go. The small town, cattle ranch setting allows their distinctive traits to emerge vividly.
Plot/Idea: Rover’s tense plot about a boy lost in the Oregon wilderness builds on the very adult fear of losing one’s child. Rover manages to fuse the frustrations of a crime investigation with the prejudices of a small town for a blend that mystery fans will find engrossing.
Prose: Rover writes with a clear sense of place. Her prose is sharp and succinct, capturing the idiosyncratic life of the citizens of a small, rural town.
Originality: Rover manages to suffuse a standard missing child plot with enough twists and turns to keep even the most seasoned reader entertained.
Character Development/Execution: In some instances, Rover’s descriptions of Native American characters would benefit from additional nuance. Other characters are rendered in more sympathetic terms, and they brim with color and life.
Blurb: This heartrending mystery in the Oregon backwoods follows Cody, a precocious young child who goes missing.
Plot/Idea: The Sun and the Moon follows the lives of two young people, best friends Robin and Tommy, who are in constant search of love and in pursuit of their careers. The author integrates compelling and hard-hitting and well-explored content, including abuse by a priest; coming out; and AIDS activism. The romance angle takes over, and events unfold fairly quickly for both of them in this energetically-paced novel.
Prose: The prose is even, rich, and highly readable.
Originality: Scantlebury sets up a compelling dichotomy between the two protagonists and the directions they take in life. A notable original element is Robin's intensive botany work in the Adirondacks.
Character Development/Execution: The central figures effectively serve the storyline, and come across as convincing, young individuals navigating their futures while holding onto the connections from their past.
Plot/Idea: This is an honest and heartfelt coming-out narrative, and a feel-good story of a young man meeting his goals. All this is not without some violence and tough circumstances, as well as a welcome layer of suspense.
Prose: The prose is generally smooth and readable, if prone to occasional moments of awkwardness.
Originality: There are many coming-out stories, but this one of a young man becoming a documentary filmmaker feels quite original.
Character Development/Execution: Aiden, Zeke, their friends, and their newfound dog are all portrayed as extremely kind, authentic people, who care deeply for one another. In a lesser writer's hands, this may come across as idealistic, but here, readers will revel in the characters' successes and experiences of joy.
Plot/Idea: The situations presented in this multigenerational story are alluring and convincing. The novel offers an intimate exploration of relationship dynamics and emotional conflicts. The text is also somewhat overwritten and extends itself, encompassing too much territory to effectively cover all of the ground.
Prose: The prose is rich and finely detailed, although some phrasing can come across as overinflated.
Originality: This work has an unusual premise and there's a grandness to the scope. Although somewhat overstuffed, the work is nonetheless an epic accomplishment.
Character Development/Execution: Some characters come across as stiff and serve as narrative tools rather than fully realized characters. Regardless, the dialogue is effective and helps illuminate characters and their relationships with others.
