Placidia was only 17 and not even thinking of marriage when widower Major Gryff Hockaday swept her off her. She had a single day to decide whether to accept his proposal. Only a few days after they married, the major was called back to join his Confederate troops, and Placidia was left to manage the farm, oversee the slaves, and care for Charles, her husband's toddler son. As the situation deteriorates, Placidia finds herself charged with a crime, but she is keeping her secrets.

The novel is told in the form of letters and diary entries. Most of the action takes place in 1864-65, and the early letters are between Placidia and her cousin Mildred, but later sections set in the 1890s focus on how Achilles, the son of Placidia and Gryff, uncovered his parents' secrets and changed the way he thought about them and himself.

I can't say much more without giving away too much. I found the novel held my interest and that the author did a great job of heightening the suspense while slowly revealing the truth. The novel explores the hardships of women left alone to manage while their men are at war, as well as the dark side of slavery, but it also depicts a marriage that, although sorely tried, survives because of love.

I love historical fiction but am not a big fan of mysteries, so I wasn't sure how well I would like The Tudor Secret. Overall, it was a fast and fun read, but the novel has many flaws that make it less enjoyable than it might otherwise be. The pacing was uneven and the narrative often repetitious, and Brendan's quick admittance into high circles was unbelievable. For example, the same day he arrives at court, having just been raised from his position as stable boy to valet, he strolls the garden alone with Princess Elizabeth. It just wouldn't happen. I also found the love affair weak: once minute Kate treats Brendan like a foolish boy and the next they are romping in bed. Worst of all for me was the two-layered "secret" as to why Brendan's parentage had been hidden. I know that it's fiction, but even fiction has to seem like it could be true. Neither what Cecil tells Brendan nor what he intuits for himself could ever have happened. (I can't say why without giving away the plot, but trust me, a scholar of the period: it just wouldn't have happened.) This wasn't a terrible book, just nothing I'd recommend to anyone who knows a bit about the period.

This book is a bit lighter than my usual fare, but I was absolutely charmed by it. If I lived in Edgcumbe-St.-Mary, I think I'd be in love with the major, too. It's the gentle tale of a widowed retired major who is grieving for his recently-deceased brother when friendship blooms with Mrs. Ali, the widow of a Pakistani shopkeeper. Friendship inevitably turns into stronger affection--but what will the members of the club say (let alone the major's son, a broker schmoozing his way up the corporate ladder)? And will the major ever succeed in reuniting a pair of Churchill shooters given to his father by a maharajah and divided between his sons at his death? Much of the novel is centers on conflicts between the "older generation" values of the major and the new values of "progress." Mrs. Ali, too, has conflicts with her own beliefs and the traditional Islamic values of her husband's family.

If I could give this book 4.5 stars, I would. It's not quite a 5, but awfully close!

The premise of this novel sounded intriguing: a young Jewish man, running away from the life his domineering father had planned for him, joins the Union army and is recruited as a spy. His first assignment: to kill his own uncle, who is believed to be plotting to kidnap and murder Lincoln. Jacob performs admirably, despite personal qualms, not because of any devotion to the Union but in hopes of a promotion. But he does his job so well that he is sent on a second mission: to marry into a Southern Jewish family involved in another plot.

The main difficulty I had with this novel is its series of unbelievable coincidences and a number of gaps in the plot. The writing is fine enough but doesn't quite overcome these flaws. Horn apparently intended the novel to question Jacob's conflicts between his faith and his loyalty to the Union; but I never got a sense that he was particularly devoted to either. He seemed more of an ungrounded man being carried along by the flow of events.

An imaginative, touching book about love, the longing for family, and the search for identity. Both Ida and May are caught among racial identities (African, Chinese, Caucasian) in the changing Jamaica of the 1960s and beyond. The author portrays perfectly the prickly relationship between mother and daughter, especially Ida's need to protect May. Cezair-Thompson writes beautifully, and she clearly has a mastery of Jamaican dialect and customs. I highly recommend this wonderful novel.

Although I'm a big McEwan fan, I wasn't sure, after reading a few reviews, that I would enjoy On Chesil Beach. How much could one write about a single night, even a failed wedding night? Plus the reviews tended to focus only on the awkwardness of that night (and the sexual details) and the repressiveness of the 1960s. On Chesil Beach is so much more. It's a story about individuals, their love for and misunderstanding of each other, the question of whether people from very different backgrounds can make it as a couple, the conflict ebtween desire to be loved and the need to be oneself, the experience of falling in love, the sadness of lost love and lost opportunities, the pressure of expectations, the fear of the unconventional, the haunting sorrow of what might have been, and the lingering effects of disappointments in our lives.

This sparsely written, elegant little book stayed with me for months after I finished reading it. McEwan keeps getting better and better, more introspective and kinder to his characters as he ages. Don't miss it!

This is by far Philippa Gregory's best historical novel. I love the way she interweaves the voices of three characters--none of which have been given much voice in previous novels by other authors. I've always wondered what motivated Lady Rocheford (Jane Boleyn) to assist in Katherine Howard's silly scheming, and Gregory explores one possibility. I also knew that Anne of Cleves stayed in England and was kind of an "auntie" to Henry's children, but she becomes a much more real person here. I can't wait for Gregory's next novel, The Other Queen--about Mary, Queen of Scots--to come out in Spring 2008.

I have mixed feelings about Russell's collection. "Weird" might be a better word than "unique," and at times I felt like she was being weird for weirdness sake. Don't get me wrong--weird can be great, but I like it to have some meaning or purpose. The title story didn't do much for me, but I loved "Children's Reminiscences of Westward Expansion." (If you want to know what I mean by weird, this one begins with the dad, who happens to be a minotaur, hitching himself to the pioneer wagon.) But she does write beautifully. In the story mentioned above, the descriptions of the prairie are astounding.

Naslund's portrait of Marie Antoinette makes the doomed queen a much more multifacted and interesting character than previous historical novels. The technique of interweaving letters between her and her mother with the narration of events worked quite well.