Anthony Marra is no stranger to good reviews, but until I read Mercury Pictures Presents, his latest novel, I was a stranger to his work. But, if Mercury Pictures Presents introduced me to anything, it was to a cast of characters richly developed, prose, especially dialogue, that sparkles and crackles, and to a slice of WWII history that resonates today as it threatens to repeat itself. It also insists that I have some Anthony Marra catching up to do.
The novel captures the big picture through the lens of a Leica camera’s prints and movie studio films. It focuses on the idea of imposed boundaries and restricted opportunities for marginalized people: women, refugees, the ethically profiled, and those caught in the sticky web of politics. It is a time capsule of the 1930’s-40’s, but a capsule with unusual artifacts from very different places – the artificial world of Hollywood, California, and the surreal world of Fascist Italy.
The Feldman brothers, twins around whom the novel circles, thrive on a love-hate relationship as they run a B level Hollywood film studio, Mercury Pictures. Artie and Ned have different visions for the future of Mercury Pictures which lead them to follow different trajectories. They may be twins, but they couldn’t be more different temperamentally. The characters who revolve around them include actors, artists, technicians, financiers, producers and secretaries with larger ambitions than the typing pool. Many of them are immigrants fleeing the war in Europe and hoping for new opportunities in America. Hollywood film studios are a mecca for this fantasy. Two women stand out, one Italian and one German. Each is an emigre from the chaos of Fascist Europe. Each is fleeing personal demons. Each is able to use her skill set to manipulate the American dream.
Thematically, the novel is a constant reminder that appearance and reality are rarely the same thing. The internal and external worlds of the novel are saturated with propaganda – lies to instill patriotism, lies to instill fear, lies to tell oneself, lies to tell the world, lies to bury in the past to make the present more livable.
While the novel balances on a world at war, the characters within the novel each battle their own private wars. They navigate a world where one set of restrictions can become another set of restrictions, where survival often dictates betrayal, and family ties both hold and break. It is a novel of big ideas and big personalities.
It is also a novel imbued with wit, delicious descriptions, intricate plot lines that could complicate but instead elucidate, and surprising historical revelations. In short, Mercury Pictures Presents deserves top billing on everyone’s current reading (or even re-reading) list.

The Gifts by Liz Hyder is clearly a labor of love. It has, from the subtext of the title, "It will take something extraordinary to show four women who they truly are," the idea that these characters are bound by the manifestation of some great force beyond their control. The problem is that there are too many characters, the extraordinary feels contrived, and developing the themes of love, ambition, obsession, the empowerment of women, among others, weighs down the narrative. All four of the women have talent ,passion, personal conflicts and dreams. They are very different in background but are thrown together in one novel with too many stories to tell. There is arguably enough material in their lives for four separate novels. By juxtaposing them in one overall narrative, they become superficial. They are held hostage to the great mystery at the heart of the novel. Unfortunately, that extraordinary mystery remains just that, a mystery with no explanation.
There are some wonderfully evocative descriptive passages, flashes of believable dialogue and relationships that pull the reader forward. But the novel can't seem to decide if it is YA or adult fiction. The extremely short chapters become distracting to an adult reader. The illustrations are charming, but unnecessary, except for the chapter heading icons that signify the character under discussion.
In terms of discovering who they really are and pursuing their destinies in a world dominated by men, only Mary, the journalist, seems to have a chance… even if she sometimes is forced to masquerade as a man to do so. Etta, the naturalist and Annie, the artist, remain mere hobbyists. Natalia, the storyteller, is forced to find an alternative lifestyle with Etta.
I really wanted to like this novel based on the promotional material. I love historical fiction and there is enough historical flavor in The Gifts to satisfy. The problem for me is that I could not buy into the premise of the novel. As the narrator states on page three, "It is impossible. It cannot be." Those words ring true all the way through the hefty 423 pages of the book. If I want to read about believable angels, I will stick with Neil Gaimon.
I cannot recommend this book as an example of any particular genre. Is it historical fiction? Is it fantasy fiction? Is it YA? Is it an adult novel? Because it can't seem to decide where it fits, I found it unsettling. I certainly recognized the author's passion and hard work, but not enough to pass the novel along to my book club or other adult friends.

Reading Marika Helfer's novel Last House Before the Mountain is like allowing your mind to wander among memories… one bit of the past conjuring another, imagination filling in the gaps that time has created. Points of view change without warning as the memories switch from one character to another. The primary narrator speaks in the first person as she recalls stories of her extended family told to her by relatives as she searches through their lives to discover the truth of her own history.

The house in the title is the home of Maria and Josef – a couple who inspire curiosity, jealousy, suspicion, lust and envy in the villagers from whom the family are set apart. Maria is too beautiful. Josef is too introspective and volatile. Their children are a clan that seems not to need anyone but themselves. As a family, they are referred to at The Bagage, the riff-raff, mostly because of their self- isolation on their remote farm.

The setting is rural Austria. The primary time frame is the period of WWI. The war plays out in the background once Josef is conscripted, although he returns on leave several times. He places his too-beautiful wife under the protection of the town mayor, and here lies the seed that grows into the primary line of the plot. The narrator, the daughter of the one child born when Josef is away at the front, the one he refuses to acknowledge in any way, is on a quest to discover the truth about her mother.

Based on the author's own family history, the novel pieces the stories of all the characters into a narrative that slips effortlessly through time and remembrance. However, the novel is also rich in character development as the children grow into adults. There are the various men who lust after and worship the beautiful Maria, including the emotionally tortured Josef who returns from war a victim although he survives the physical battles. And there is Maria who, above all, wants only to love and protect her family.

The novel explores the idea that beauty, trust, love and faith are fragile and that family is the one place where they must coexist. In doing so, it draws the reader in and holds on to the last page.

For a debut novel, Costanza Casatis's Clytemnestra is admirably professional. With skillful character development, fastidious research and an eye to a great story with ancient roots, Ms. Casatsis taps into a trendy feminist spin on the difficulty of being a strong and ambitious woman in a man's world.

Daughter of a king, wife of two kings, trained as a warrior, helpless as a mother to save the ones she loves, and remembered as a usurper and murderess, Clytemnestra begs for a thoughtfully told revisionist look at who she may have been if she could have told her own story. Thousands of years ago, great Classical writers of ancient Greece, all men, left a blood-soaked image of Clytemnestra, the wife and assassin of Agamemnon, the hero of the Trojan War. Casatis shines a modern light on the woman behind the legend and weaves a page-turning novel that introduces or reintroduces readers to myths and legends we may have been taking at face value for eons.

I am pleased to have been chosen as an early reader of this fascinating novel.

Kaitlyn Greenidge’s novel Libertie is many things: a coming of age story, a glimpse into post Civil War America, a picture of a free black community in 19th Century Brooklyn, an exploration of the rich culture and religion of Haiti. It is a novel which explores, above all, the nature of freedom. It asks the reader to consider the struggles of slaves who escape bondage only to be unable to adapt to freedom.

It introduces free-born characters who are unable to detach themselves from the shackles of personal relationships. The title character, Libertie, is a beautiful dark-skinned negress who never seems able to free herself from the demands and expectations of her successful mother, an emotionally distant doctor who is unable or unwilling to show Libertie the love she craves. The fact that her mother is iconic for her time, a free black female doctor is more than intimidating. Fearing disappointing her mother’s expectations for her, Libertie impulsively marries a handsome young Haitian doctor. He carries Libertie off to a new life in Haiti which is seductive and difficult, emotionally challenging and eye-opening.

Life in this new environment with a complicated new family is not easy for Libertie, but it is in Haiti that she begins to understand who she aspires to be. Freedom is many things in the novel; it is singing and suicide, education and embracing pagan gods. It is a form of lying to oneself and others. It is offered as love and support. For Libertie, freedom is defined in the challenge she throws out to her husband when she says, “You have freedom to define yourself, and I do not have any.” Self-definition is at the heart of the narrative. It propels Libertie on every path she chooses moving toward and away from the others in her life. The novel is rich in historical and descriptive detail which adds to its appeal.

Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu is a treasure, and I am honored to have read an advance copy to review for BookBrowse. The novel traces not only the history of a family but the history of a country. The turmoil of one reflects the turmoil of the other. One understands in this novel that history is a very personal thing, that history evolves day by day, experience by experience, person by person. History is sights, sounds, food, and above all, stories. I know too little about the history of China,but reading Ms. Fu's novel inspires me to learn and understand more. The characters develop smoothly in spite of the rough road they travel. Tracking their lives as they suffer through war and flee mainland China, navigate uncertain new lives in Taiwan, and ultimately find roots in America shines a light on the insecurities of the immigrant experience and the resiliency of the human spirit. The novel explores the power of love and respect, of family loyalty, of responsibility and self- determination as well as the difficulty and beauty of biracial identity. It reflects the perils of political currents and the jeopardy of ordinary people caught in the cross currents. The bond between Meilin and her son Renshu anchors the first half of the novel. It is a powerful bond of sacrifice and courage. The second half of the novel focuses on the need to acknowledge the stories of one's past to ensure the links to the future. Some find the past too painful; others find not knowing the past too perplexing. In both cases, the power of stories is central. Ms. Fu writes in the opening short chapter: "To tell a story is to plant a seed and let it grow." Peach Blossom Spring does just that from the first page to the last.

Viet Nam is a country that knows too well about the subjugation of foreign powers and war. The French, Japanese, and Americans, as well as political factions within their own borders have all taken a toll on the Vietnamese people. The novel The Mountains Sing by Nguyan Phan Que Mai looks at all of these conflicts on a human scale. The novel traces the effects on one family of Japanese and French subjugation, the Viet Nam War, the Land Reform initiated by the Communists and the famine known as The Great Hunger. It lovingly illustrates the relationship between a grandmother and her granddaughter , the love between parents and children, between siblings and young lovers. The background is exotic and fragrant, tumultuous and often violent. The trials and tribulations of the Lan family are a testament to determination, courage, family, friendship and an homage to the importance of a common humanity. Early in the novel, the narrator, Huang, sees a downed American pilot being paraded and attacked as a POW. Her thoughts reflect the tone of the novel. “As the crowd followed him, shouting and screaming, I shuddered, wondering what would happen to my parents if they faced their enemy.” All of the characters, without exception, face hard choices and extreme consequences. Somehow, they manage to hold on to their humanity and hope. Not everyone is rewarded for their sacrifices and moral compass. However, for those who are, sharing their journeys makes the novel not only satisfying but educational and uplifting. Based on stories of her own family, the author reminds us, “If our stories survive, we will not die.”

Alex George spins a fast moving narrative in The Paris Hours as he weaves together the lives of four very different characters. Camille has a secret she is desperate to protect. Souren has escaped the brutal Armenian genocide but not the memories. Guillaume is an artist whose love life and career are aspirational. Jean Paul is a journalist with an aching heart. Each of them has lost someone or something precious, and the novel criss-crosses their lives like the strands of an intricate French braid. A cast of luminaries including Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Josephine Baker add narrative flavor as the characters live out one meaningful day in 1927 Paris. It is a novel that looks at the power of love, of loss, of hope and of memory. It reminds us that time and timing are powerful forces. Fitting together the disparate pieces of these characters’ lives gives the reader a sense of satisfaction, but up to the very last page there are unexpected surprises.

Ellie and the Harpmaker is a valiant, well-crafted first novel with a whimsically romantic story line and a setting that intrigues. However, the novel doesn't quite meet expectations, although the ending is predictable early on. Balancing the plot on the points of view of Ellie (the Exmoor Housewife) and Dan (the harpmaker) is an effective technique; however, Dan's voice is confusing. Is he mentally challenged or simply socially backward? His vocabulary and perspective are often childlike and then suddenly sophisticated. And one wonders why it is emphasized that he is devilishly good looking when his character is so much more interesting than his profile. Ellie, a woman who is painfully in search of herself, is clearly unhappy in her marriage to volatile, hard-drinking Clive, and with good reason. They seem to have no common interests. She, however, because of her own needs, really does get too involved in other people's lives and too many people allow her to do so. The consequences are nearly lethal. The secondary characters are almost stereotypes and seem to be there to allow Ellie and Dan a life outside of the fairy tale aura of the harp barn. Exmoor, a truly magical part of England, should have been more of a factor, a character even, in the novel's development rather than simply a backdrop, and the addition of Phineas, the pheasant, seems contrived, although not in an unpleasant way. Ultimately, this novel surely has an audience in those looking for a good read with a happy ending, but for me, that wasn't enough.