Oleanna, Darkness into Light, and what’s coming next…

I have completed Oleanna and Darkness into Light. I am holding myself back from writing a full review for Oleanna right now, due to the fact that I am reviewing this for the HNS and it is our policy not to post reviews on our personal blogs until after the issue has come out. I plan on adding a link to the HNS review, which is limited to 300 words, as well as elaborating on my comments here, in August. To summarize my thoughts on Oleanna, however, I found it to be a gently told tale with quiet depth, atmospherically stark yet richly detailed (how can that be? I will explain in the review), like the culture and the people of Norway herself. Quite beautiful.

For Sam Baty’s post-WW2 thriller, Darkness into Light, which continues the adventures of Jennifer and Otto (survivors from the first adventure during the war), I would write exactly the same review for this book as I had for the first installment. Thus, the problem with reviewing books in a series. In order to avoid useless repetition, I will simply direct you to the first review, HERE.

Next up: Eucalyptus and Green Parrots (Lori Eaton) 

THEN: Vivaldi’s Muse (Sarah Bruce Kelly), Spirit of Lost Angels (Liza Perrat), The Concubine’s Gift (K. Ford K), Saving Gerda (Lilian Darcy–with its beautiful cover–I really wish this wasn’t only an e-book!), and The Other Alexander (Alexander Levkoff). That should take us into the winter, and I am trying to read faster so that I can also fit in a few other e-book  titles before the new year.

The Summer Line Up

I will soon be completing Helen Hollick’s Sea Witch, and will post a review as soon as I am able. The line up for the next few months is as follows:

May review:The Duke Don’t Dance by Richard Sharp  (All summaries from Amazon.com):

Compressed between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boom were those who became known to some by the ill-chosen name of the Silent Generation. They were those born too late to share in the triumph of the great victory, too early to know only the privilege of the American empire and in too few numbers to assure themselves a proper identity and proper legacy. Despite those attributes, they invented rock and roll, filled the streets in the struggle for racial equality, bled in the heated precipitates of the cold war and opened the doors to the sexual revolution and feminism, her serious-minded sister. Their triumph lay not in their completion of these transitions, but in their survival through them. The Duke Don’t Dance follows the adult lives of men and women who made that journey.

This book may not fall under the category of historical fiction exactly, but it comes close.

June review: The second in Sam Baty’s thriller series, Darkness into Light:

Even though the ferocious battles of World War II have concluded, the world is unfortunately not a safer place. The iron curtain has dropped in front of Eastern Europe, Josef Stalin is focused on world domination, and United States Army nurse Jennifer Haraldsson is on a mission to find her former patient and foe, German POW Otto Bruner. Once attracted to Otto until wartime secrets divided them, Jennifer must know the truth. Does she love him or not? After Otto is transferred to a detention camp in West Germany, he remains devastated by the loss of Jennifer and witnessing the post-war destruction of his beloved Germany only makes it worse. Desperate to win Jennifer back, Otto summons his friend Ernst Peiper to help, but they soon discover they are being targeted by a group of Nazi extremists and must be transferred to another camp. But Otto is ready to risk everything for love and escapes off the transporter truck into the dark of the night. In a last-ditch effort to rendezvous, Otto and Jennifer throw caution to the wind and cross into the other’s territory, never realizing that their unsettled world is much more complicated than they ever imagined.

July review: Eucalyptus and Green Parrots by Lori Eaton:

Virginia Reed has followed her husband, Clem, to Argentina, trading in her mother’s Texas poultry factory for an apartment in Buenos Aires and a cocktail-bright social life among American expatriates. But it is 1943. The Nazis have overrun Europe, Japan dominates the Pacific, and Allied and Axis agents are fighting a secret war for control of Argentina. When Clem’s clandestine activities put her family at risk, Virginia is shaken from her comfortable life and forced to take control of her family’s destiny. As Virginia navigates the political undercurrents of a country struggling to remain neutral in a war that is consuming the world, she finds friends in unlikely places and enemies frighteningly close to home. In the face of conflicting loyalties and desires, Virginia uncovers a hidden strength and a dormant thirst for independence.

I’d like to review Sarah Bruce Kelly’s Vivaldi’s Muse at some point, as it looks like a splendid read, as well as Before the Fall by Orna Ross and The Silk Weaver’s Daughter by Elizabeth Kales. For the August edition of the HNS Indie Reviews, I will be reviewing Oleanna by Julie K. Rose (and will also post comments about the book here). What a wonderful summer of reading ahead!!

 

Upcoming reviews

I have begun reading Burning Silk by Destiny Kinal in its entirety and will be writing a review for it in the near future.  Although I am only on page 40, I am struck that Kinal’s writing is that of an experienced, not first-time, novelist–very impressive. I had previously read the first few chapters as HNRO editor and relied on my reviewer’s opinion to recommend this book as my pick for Stephanie Barko’s interview, and it is about time that I read it in its entirety.

First, however, I will post a review of Sam Baty’s Footsteps to Forever, a copy of which was kindly (and quickly) sent to me by the author. I am three-quarters of the way through and hope to have a review up in the next two weeks.