T. C. Greene's The Headmaster's Wife fulfills every author's dream to write a really good book. Not once in this book was there any predictable section that would make a reader shelve the read and forget about it.

Certainly, Greene's novel grips the reader as a vise page after page with with a multitude of experiences. As a reader I could not imagine where the next pages would maneuver me so I read on. Each character, Arthur and Betsy, displays abilities and inabilities for survival. What, indeed, really drives us to act and react as we do?

Toward the end of the book, Arthur and Betsy look out into the winter night. Far below "is the river, timeless and uncaring. It moves to the sea as if they were not there at all." So, too, for us in our day to day or ending phases of life's triumphs, foibles, or confusions, life moves in a timeless, uncaring manner except for those with whom we literally or figuratively hold hands! As we age we ponder to what end will our journey take us? And, Greene answers: Real courage lies in going on living when you know death is an eventuality! The book serves to give us an opportunity to see how someone else overcomes a tragedy.

Bratt cleverly titled novel fills the reader with images of refuse, dirt, and stench. How could any reader be lured into choosing this book which seemingly promises pages of depressive, downtrodden characters ambling from one overwhelming hopelessness to another? But, a closer examination of the word scavenger provides the reader with an aura of saving something destined to be trash and transforming it into a valuable object. And, because I was "word enticed," I was richly rewarded by this read!

A short prologue (1967) portrays a teenage Benfu languishing in prison in the most deplorable of conditions. The time is set in the aftermath of Maoist China filled with inexplicable inhumanity. Benfu is given his chance of escape by another young man he doesn't even know. He runs and runs to freedom and collapses only to awaken to a beautiful girl later introduced as Calli who hovers above him and becomes a lifetime companion some time later.

Fast forward to 2010 in Wuxi, China where the reader is introduced to 60 year old Benfu who is on his daily scavenger hunt to collect rubbish to be sorted and recycled so he can use monies to provide for his ever growing family of abandoned girls. Once again he comes upon a cardboard box with another almost dead little girl. He rushes home with this newest addition to his household where "twenty-three flowers have been saved from death throughout the years.

The story proceeds as each day's expedition becomes more and more difficult because of his declining health. As the pages go on, the reader is introduced to the eldest daughter, Linnea, who lives at home and realizes that it now is her responsibility to provide for that which Benfu can no longer manage. Linnea and her boyfriend, a member of a family of the now governing class, fulfill for the family not only food but little treats of tradition to make life more bearable. When Benfu discovers Jet's background, he emphatically forbids his daughter to continue her growing friendship and fondness with the young man. The reader is griped by the struggles of the heart and the absolute obedience required in the Chinese family. Bratt gives no clues about the outcome of the novel, but the reader is richly rewarded by the heart rendering actions. Benfu struggles more and more with his seemingly fatal health issues and silently prays each day for just one more day and "one more butterfly kiss from each of his daughters." The reader can only hope that it will be!

Joanna Bradley in The Woman at the Light introduces us to an aged Emily Lowery as she tends five graves: two deceased husbands, a sister, beloved Gran, and the only man she ever loved. The reader begins a powerful journey from New Orleans, Key West to Wreckers' Cay. The story is gripping, happy, sad, breathtaking, hopeful, etc.; all part of Emily's struggles of growing.

Certainly, life is the dominated slave of time and, yet, we observe that only love can bring euphoria to life. Emily is an immature romantic, a disappointed newlywed, a mother, a widow, a lighthouse keeper, again in another unfulfilled marriage, another death, and a forbidden love that becomes the ultimate love of her life!

Even though Emily lives in a society where men prevail, women can't vote or take charge, she proves that she can prevail albeit with multiple struggles and deaths. She proclaims, "happiness comes but once and then only if we are very lucky." Indeed, she finally attains a happiness that takes the reader by surprise and slowly the mysterious turn in her life is revealed.

In All Woman and Springtime, Jones easily envelopes the reader from page one into the lives of his two main characters and the journey they take from an orphanage in North Korea to South Korea and finally to Seattle. They become sex workers and suffer one indignity after another. This novel is not for a reader who suffers from
"acute cerebral prudery" because Jones explicitly describes the physical, psychological, and sexual abuses heaped upon each girl. Certainly, this is a timeless theme! The girls display the pains of what the atrocities of asocial ignorance, coupled with immaturity and ingrained fear can do to destroy them. Yet, the book's title subtly hints at a potential metamorphosis and perhaps all will somehow be righted so that the girls can be productive and develop self-worth.

Early on a weakish character, Gi, slowly but methodically displays tiny glimmers of survival and coping with her escapes into numbers and calculations. Therein is the hope! To be sure, man's inhumanity to man still exists. But, Gi persists with her retreats into the mathematical world and sustains herself. She proves that somehow the human spirit can overcome these inequities and human interactions, trust, and chance opportunities eventually can create an all woman and springtime - a being to herald a time of rebirth in mind, body, and soul!