The author was inspired by Salvador Dalí's visit to the Sacro Bosco in Italy in 1948. She employs a historical fiction account of Dali's renting the estate containing this garden as the setting for his project of painting a series of surrealistic works that feature the statues of the Sacro Bosco and the protagonist Julia (his model and also artist who can't remember most of her past). In addition to Dalí and Julia, the cast of characters include a handsome, other worldly owner host of the estate, Dalí's unforgettable wife Gala and several other interesting characters. It is a surrealistic, gothic mystery founded in Roman mythology with the model Julia representing Proserpina. There are a number of twists and turns which augment the mystery, and the vivid descriptions of the garden and the Dalí organized feasts further enhance the enjoyment of the story. This is an enchanting book which I highly recommend.

Leaving is a very well written book with interesting characters and events, but it has a major flaw in my opinion. The male lead is true to form in the first half of the book, but behaves in an increasingly unbelievable manner as the book progresses. The character change would have impressed Paul of Road to Damascus fame, although here we are on the Boston to NYC metropolitan areas route.

This would be a decent book club offering for discussion, because its characters are otherwise quite memorable and others might disagree with my characterization of this book's main man.

Above the Salt by Katherine Vaz is a very well researched and fascinating historical fiction novel. The characters are well developed and interesting. The plot is excellently laid out, and the historical material is very illuminating. All in all, this is a top notch read and is highly recommended.

Henri, a former Algerian gendarme who is now working for relatives in southern Spain, tails Louise, who is running from her past in London and whoever expected the money that she accidentally came into possession of while visiting the Alhambra.

The story that includes a train ride across Europe had great potential, but the relationship between Henri and Louise developed at a glacial pace and fell short of expectations. There were interesting episodes interspersed amongst the overall slowly moving story, but this was not a book that one just couldn't put down. The train ride and the book were disappointing.

The Montevideo Brief features an early nineteenth century James Bond equivalent whose adventures carry him from Europe to South America with intermixed duels, a Beethoven concert, many seafaring battles, imprisonment by pirates and later a very successful venture against them, international intrigue between England, Spain, and France, encounters with the fledgling American intelligence agency and budding navy, and a slowly developing female relationship. There was a lot of good historical data as well as some exciting scenes. However, it seemed more like a screenplay than a standard novel.

Iron Curtain is a very interesting story contrasting the freedom of an entitled daughter of a powerful Communist leader in her home country with the freedom of a very financially poor wife of a feckless poet in England. Milena, the female protagonist, grows during the story from a spoiled brat to a very strong woman. How that happens is the essence of the story. I recommend this well-written book.

The Nazi Conspiracy is an interesting story revealing many of Germany's plots during WWII to change the outcome of the war. In particular, Nazi involvement in Iran played a very large role in this novel. Nazi special forces were sensationally successful in rescuing Mussolini during a stage in the war, but they were not able to achieve the same success in Tehran due to the efforts of Soviet and British intelligence services. Overall, the book was a nice review of the course of WWII and added some lesser known facts and stories to the saga.

This was a very original take on the vampire saga, and it was well written and sensitive. Unfortunately, it moved at a glacial pace and was frequently repetitive and uninteresting. It was a challenge to make it through the entire book, and I can't recommend it.

The Lies I Tell is a fascinating story about an avenger con artist and a journalist who is also on a mission of revenge. The story is superbly told with lots of twists and turns, and it is a fast, fun read. It is one of the most enjoyable books that I have read over the past few years.

Not only is this great historical fiction, it is also a fascinating mystery/detective story. One gets a real feel for the carnage of WWI. The incredible number of dead left in the battlefields after the war ended was vividly illustrated as were the lives of the trench raiders (equivalent to the German Storm Troopers who started this feature of the war). The bravery and dogged persistence of the Englishwoman trying to find her fiance near where he was reported missing led to the steady unwinding of the mystery of his ultimate fate. There were lots of twists and surprises along the way that enhanced the enjoyment of this very entertaining and educational novel.

The Latinist was an interesting, complex story involving classical mythology, early Roman poets and their mysteries, present day grief, deceit, longing and love, and multiple surprises along the way and at the end. Set predominantly in Oxford, but also in Italy and in the English countryside, the story steadily picked up speed as it progressed. The characters were well depicted and intriguing. Several key events revolved around a knowledge of Latin, physical anthropology, and even an old article in the British medical journal, The Lancet. I was both entertained and educated by this excellent novel which I can heartily recommend.

Smalltime is an amalgamation of Italian American, western Pennsylvania, mafia, and family histories that come together in an interesting, entertaining fashion.  One really got a feel for the hardships that Italian Americans faced in being accepted into American society, and an understanding of why they not infrequently pursued a counterculture life style to get by and prosper.  The author does a good job of piecing together the story through historical research and exhaustive interviews with the major players in the Johnstown, PA mob, particularly those pertaining to his family connections.  As an historical family memoir, it fulfilled its mission and was educational and fun to read.

Set in England, this multigenerational novel focuses on the interpersonal relationships between two families that started with the military service friendship of the two patriarchal figures. The book starts slowly as the reader is introduced to the characters and their backgrounds. In addition, the short chapters and the jumping around between the characters makes it challenging to truly get into the book until one has read more than one hundred pages. After that, the characters and their interactions steadily draw you in until you feel like you have known these people most of your life. It's a bittersweet story that reminds me of the emotions experienced when reading Stoner by John Edward Williams.

The Woman before Wallis was an entertaining, escapist read about a cast of characters who were particularly prominent in the first half of the twentieth century.  The majority of these people were neither particularly likeable nor admirable in their behavior, but the story was still readily digestible. I would have liked a more detailed epilogue, but a quick visit to Wikipedia resolved that shortcoming.  If you need a vacation from all the problems of today, you might find this book to be a pleasant diversion.

Basically, Catherine House is a refuge for brilliant, but alienated youth where more time appears to be spent drinking wine, having sex and playing games than studying. Plasm studies are the pinnacle of success at Catherine, but would not pass any ethics board in the USA. Overall, the book was depressing unless you are a big fan of Sartre or Camus.

Very entertaining book with great characters. While the book makes one think a bit of Lovely Bones and Fried Green Tomatoes, it is much, much more. It could easily be converted into a great Netflix or Amazon Prime series with such a cast of lovable, interesting figures. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

As somewhat of a Francophile, I enjoyed this book very much. It is very well written and filled with interesting facts and stories about the Seine and its cities. Although I was just in Paris, it makes me want to go back in the immediate future and see more of the sites that the author described. If you are planning a trip on the Seine or to one of its cities, I think that you would particularly enjoy this book.

I had the good fortune of hearing Lara Prescott present an abbreviated synopsis of her wonderful book, The Secrets We Kept, at the University of Texas, Austin. This book of historical fiction is even better than her excellent talk.

The book is a multifaceted story centered around the dissemination of Boris Pasternak's masterpiece novel, Dr. Zhivago, initially to the west and then back into the Soviet Union. This involves the work of many parties, including an Italian working at Radio Moscow, a filthy rich Italian nouveau publisher, the CIA, Pasternak's mistress, and almost accidentally Pasternak himself.

The book goes back and forth from East to West with Pasternak and his mistress Olga (the muse for Lara in Dr. Zhivago) featured in the East and the CIA and its agents heading the activities in the West. The characters are extremely well portrayed on both sides of the Iron Curtain. There is also an interesting subplot involving two of the female CIA operatives that illustrates the difficulties faced by those who strayed from the very rigid norms of the day.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who liked Dr. Zhivago, either book or movie, and/or A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Those who are interested in the history of the Soviet Union, the cold war, and the CIA would also probably enjoy this book.