This novel pulls the reader in with old-fashioned powerful storytelling. It offers tension, atmosphere, compelling characters, strong plot. But what makes "The Lotus Eaters" special - and maybe a little amazing because presumably the author did not experience this place at this time herself - is the depiction of war-time Vietnam.
Though the primary focus appears to be on the American perspective, largely through the eyes of the photojournalist Helen, what comes across as more complex and more unique is the Vietnamese perspective. It is borne mostly by Linh, Soli's strongest creation, but also by minor characters such as Mr. Bao, Grandmother Suong and the orphan Lan. It is not just that the Americans don't really understand what is going on here, but that for all their firepower and wealth, they hardly matter.

Soli gives us breathtaking images, not just the ones of war but just as memorable scenes such as the young women singing love songs on the riverbanks, the tiger appearing like a dream image in a high mountain clearing.

It is not a perfect book. There are many jarring point of view shifts in mid-paragraph. The story really took hold beginning in chapter two and remained hard to put down through chapter thirteen, then flagged a bit. Helen's quest, especially when it moves outside Vietnam, is uneven in its hold on the reader.
But overall it is a moving, absorbing, masterfully told story.

One might expect a story set in post-genocide Rwanda, with the spread of HIV/AIDS continuing to cut through those in the prime of life, to be weighted with misery. "Baking Cakes In Kigali" hardly ignores those realities but they are blended in with the other human issues of day-to-day life in this sweet, light tale.
Angel Tungaraza has a cake for every dilemma brought her way, and every one goes away from her with a slice of hope. The string of stories that make up this novel are engaging, though they have somewhat repetitive story arcs and similar tidy resolutions. It all rides along on polite and correct conversations that give this the feel of a thoughtful and inventive children's book.

There will be inevitable comparisons to the lady detective Precious Ramotswe of Alexander McCall Smith. Both feature a profoundly decent woman wrestling with the heartaches of life and the foibles of human nature. Both place an emphasis on the positive and the heart warming, and let us see that good can triumph in the end, at least in the small battles.

There is one particularly chilling turn when Angel welcomes in an Army captain as a prospective customer, only to find that this former boy soldier has a hollow moral center and some bad intentions. I expected the story to take a turn into deeper and darker conflict. But the threat the soldier poses quickly fades, and he is last heard from as the crux of an amusing plot twist involving two other side characters.