I was excited to read The Swans of Fifth Avenue because I loved Melanie Benjamin's The Aviator's Wife. I read all of The Swans because I didn't remember much about the real-life main characters, except for Truman Capote, about whom much has been written and filmed, and I wanted to know "what happened." However, even though we are told about the close, then failed, relationship between Babe Paley and Capote, I didn't feel I knew them or could empathize with their tragedies. Also, there were too many other "swans" about whom we learned even less even though we got their point of view at times, almost like a Greek chorus but not as focused or illuminating. I would wish that the book had brought the characters of Paley and Capote to life instead of spreading the story across all the "swans." I felt like I was reading People magazine. Fun to read but disappointing as fiction.

I was so excited to read this book because I am a long-time devoted reader of all things Virginia Woolf, including reading the 6 volumes of her letters and the 5 volumes of her diary--twice! (I know, get a life!)

Priya Parmar's book is beautifully written. She gives us the imagined point of view of the non-writer, silent sister, Vanessa, a painter who has always been in the shadow of her famous writer sister, Virginia. Vanessa is writing about the years 1905 to 1912, when both women were coming into their adulthood, their art, and their marriages, and when their close relationship to each other began to change drastically, perhaps driven by the pressures of coping with terrible family tragedies.

There is much more to this book--the whole Bloomsbury group of the sisters' friends and fellow artists appear in all their individual and quirky colors--but I especially love the irony that Vanessa is given a voice that soars and sings with humor, insight, and brilliance, qualities traditionally recognized only in her sister Virginia.

Horan's book brings the story of Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny van de Grift Osbourne to vivid life. The tales of their travels across the globe, ever in search of places where R.L.S., an off-and-on-again invalid all his life, can be nursed to health or kept healthy by Fanny's forceful and devoted care, are as adventurous and fascinating as the books R.L.S. wrote. And in his turn, when Fanny has a complete mental breakdown later in their marriage, R.L.S. looks deep within and finds the kindness, love, and understanding he needs to nurse her back to health.

The outward manifestation of his gentle therapy is the poetry he writes for her. He pins poems to her bed curtain where she sees them when she wakes up each morning. Besides conveying the adventurous lives and bigger-than-life personalities of the Stevensons with great gusto, this book is tender and moving. At the end, it leaves us almost as bereft as Fanny when, after living many more years of life than he ever expected, her beloved Robert Louis Stevenson dies.

I think this book is outstanding for the historical detail that takes you right into the midst of unromanticized 17th century England and for its plucky main character, Lucy Campion, who works from within the limits of her lowly servant status to solve the mystery of the savage murder of her friend and fellow servant Bessie.

The author writes in a direct simple style that creates a realistic sense of what it was like, for example, to be quarantined and facing the high probability of death in plague-ridden London, as Lucy was, or to be a languishing, falsely accused prisoner in the horrors of Newgate prison, as Lucy's brother was. Even though I'm not a big reader of historical mysteries, I look forward to the next book in this new series.

I highly recommend this fictionalized story of the Lindberghs (based on the author's deep research). It is astonishing because although everyone knows of the famous couple--Charles, an aviation pioneer, and Anne, writer of Gift from the Sea--and, of course, of the terrible kidnapping of their firstborn child--the whole story of their relationship is not widely known. It is a sad, rich story, told from Anne's point of view, beautifully written in words both accessible and poetic. A brief example: After Anne, age 19, meets Charles for the first time and he singles her out, asking her to fly with him, Anne "...slept lightly. As if...I had a dream beneath my pillow that I did not wish to crush." Anne was a remarkable woman and this is a remarkable book.

I read all of The White Forest, hoping that it would redeem itself, because it is well written. It did not. The characters, the plot, the premise did not inspire a "willing suspension of disbelief," without which a story simply remains implausible. For example, I did not believe in the characters or care about them: The narrator, Jane, has a mean streak. She is set up in the book as a saint or saviour figure. Gradually, she discovers her identity and fulfills her destiny as a powerful goddess. Her "friends" Maddy and Nathan are untrustworthy and the three use each other for their own means. The villain, Ariston Day, wants to free London from corruption by breaking down the boundaries between human-constructed reality and an Empyrean level of nothingness (the white forest of the title), from which life originated. But instead, in the effort, he corrupts and destroys London's finest young men. Jane, aka the Red Goddess, prevails against Day in preserving the essential boundaries that protect human life. None of this was compelling. The story remained implausible and the characters indifferent. This book is just not my cup of tea.

The Starboard Sea by Amber Dermont is intensely powerful, full of suspense and well written. I think of a cross between Lord of the Flies and Ordinary People. Jason Prosper (a highly ironic name on many levels) arrives for his senior year at Bellingham, a “second chance” private boarding school, among other rich kids of his class. He is sent there because of troublesome behavior at his previous boarding school following the suicide of Cal, his roommate, best friend and sailing partner. The mystery of Cal’s death underlies Jason’s story of his time at Bellingham, a mayhem of hazing, elitism, cruelty, vandalism, assault, and even, possibly, murder. Among these dangerous shoals, he must come to terms with his own culpability in causing harm to those he cares about in spite of his loving and caring heart. The abiding lodestar in Jason’s life, and a pivotal metaphor in the book, is sailing. Descriptions of his sailing matches conveying a deep passion for the challenge of wind and waves are some of the most beautiful passages in the book. The title is a phrase from a game of Jason and Cal’s to call up words and phrases that originate from sailing (“…’true blue,’ ‘high and dry,’ ‘hand over fist,’ ‘know the ropes’….”). When they decide to make up their own phrase, Cal comes up with “the starboard sea,” meaning, he says, “the right sea, the true sea, or like finding the best path in life.” This is a gripping story of redemption by the power of the human spirit to find find its way through pain and confusion to the starboard sea. This book will stick with me for a long time, and I look forward to more books by Amber Dermont.