WHEN THE ABRICOTS Bloom by Gina Wilkinson

Kensington Books

Publishing Date February 2, 2021

Historical Novel

NetGalley arc

5.5

About

At night, in Huda's fragrant garden, a breeze sweeps in from the desert encircling Baghdad, rustling the leaves of her apricot trees and carrying warning of visitors at her gate. Huda, a secretary at the Australian embassy, lives in fear of the mukhabarat--the secret police who watch and listen for any scrap of information that can be used against America and its allies. They have ordered her to befriend Ally Wilson, the deputy ambassador's wife. Huda has no wish to be an informant, but fears for her teenaged son, who may be forced to join a deadly militia. Nor does she know that Ally has dangerous secrets of her own.

Huda's former friend, Rania, enjoyed a privileged upbringing as the daughter of a sheikh. Now her family's wealth is gone, and Rania too is battling to keep her child safe and a roof over their heads. As the women's lives intersect, their hidden pasts spill into the present. Facing possible betrayal at every turn, all three must trust in a fragile, newfound loyalty, even as they discover how much they are willing to sacrifice to protect their families.

My thoughts coming close to publishing date

THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS by Isabel Wilkerson

 

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Now available

About

The Warmth of Other Suns shows how hope can get people through the most intense situations, but action is required to make them something more than a dream. These actions will likely involve sacrifices – but they may not be in vain. Individual hopes can collectively change history.

A must read

Pulitzer Prize-winning 

ABIGAIL by Magda Szabó

 

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Hungarian Literature

fiction

Synopsis

Abigail, the story of a headstrong teenager growing up during World War II, is the most beloved of Magda Szabó’s books in her native Hungary. Gina is the only child of a general, a widower who has long been happy to spoil his bright and willful daughter. Gina is devastated when the general tells her that he must go away on a mission and that he will be sending her to boarding school in the country. She is even more aghast at the grim religious institution to which she soon finds herself consigned. She fights with her fellow students, she rebels against her teachers, finds herself completely ostracized, and runs away. Caught and brought back, there is nothing for Gina to do except entrust her fate to the legendary Abigail, as the classical statue of a woman with an urn that stands on the school’s grounds has come to be called. If you’re in trouble, it’s said, leave a message with Abigail and help will be on the way. And for Gina, who is in much deeper trouble than she could possibly suspect, a life-changing adventure is only beginning.

THE ELIGHTENMENT OF THE GREENGAGE TREE byShokoofeh Azar

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4/5

My copy

About

 Set in Iran in the decade following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, this moving, richly imagined novel is narrated by the ghost of Bahar, a 13-year-old girl whose family is compelled to flee their home in Tehran for a new life in a small village, hoping in this way to preserve both their intellectual freedom and their lives. But they soon find themselves caught up in the post-revolutionary chaos that sweeps across the country, a madness that affects both living and dead, old and young.

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree speaks of the power of imagination when confronted with cruelty, and of our human need to make sense of the world through the ritual of storytelling. Through her unforgettable characters and glittering magical realist style, Azar weaves a timely and timeless story that juxtaposes the beauty of an ancient, vibrant culture with the brutality of an oppressive political regime.

THE DEATH OF VIVEK by Akwaeke Emezi

 

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3.5/5

Penguin Riverhead

Now available

If you are looking for a "whodunit" novel, this book fits the format.

If you are looking to read an intelligent, cohesive novel with sexually fluid characters, this isn't the book.

Just a few words, I loved Freshwater, I waited with anticipation for The Death of Vivek Oji. Halfway through the novel a thought occured, perhaps the author was under pressure to write another novel. 

I continued reading still hoping to find the depth the author gave her characters in Freshwater.

Poor Vivek...dead before we open the first chapter, missing from the novel except the very few pages allowed to him. What we find are teenagers having sex, lots of graphic sex, and when not having sex, they discuss Vivek, before he died, after he died.

Vivek, could have been a great character, with much insight into his life, his choices...oh well.

I came to the end disappointed, the end was predictable, the hints were there throughout the novel.

Still I will read her next novel, I know the author has the talent to write a novel worthy of Freshwater.

ANIMAL SPIRIT by Francesca Marciano

Knopf

Available now

Loved, loved every short story in Animal Spirit. Francesca Marciano is a talented writer. This is such an elegantly written book. Joy and heartache are  handled with an unsentimental pen, and touch your senses with human understanding.  

Read it, even if short stories isn't your usual fare

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

THE MERCIES by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

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Little Brown and Company
Historical Fiction
Available Now

Description

Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vardø must fend for themselves.
Three years later, a stranger arrives on their shore. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa, who is both heady with her husband's authority and terrified by it. In Vardø, and in Maren, Ursa sees something she has never seen before: independent women. But Absalom sees only a place untouched by God, and flooded with a mighty evil. As Maren and Ursa are drawn to one another in ways that surprise them both, the island begins to close in on them, with Absalom's iron rule threatening Vardø's very existence.
Inspired by the real events of the Vardø storm and the 1621 witch trials, The Mercies is a story of love, evil, and obsession, set at the edge of civilization.

I am only half way through ...love his book...and the writing

CONJURE WOMEN by Afia Atakora

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Random House Publishing Group
Publishing date April 7, 2020


Description

Conjure Women is a sweeping story that brings the world of the South before and after the Civil War vividly to life. Spanning eras and generations, it tells of the lives of three unforgettable women: Miss May Belle, a wise healing woman; her precocious and observant daughter Rue, who is reluctant to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a midwife; and their master’s daughter Varina. The secrets and bonds among these women and their community come to a head at the beginning of a war and at the birth of an accursed child, who sets the townspeople alight with fear and a spreading superstition that threatens their newly won, tenuous freedom.
 
Magnificently written, brilliantly researched, richly imagined, Conjure Women moves back and forth in time to tell the haunting story of Rue, Varina, and May Belle, their passions and friendships, and the lengths they will go to save themselves and those they love.


Conjure Women
by
Afia Atakora
Publishing date April 7, 2020

Conjure Women describes life on a Southern Plantation starting in 1854 and ending with freedom in 1867.

Author Afia Atakora narrates the lives of slaves, their interaction,  all which builds a community all it entails.   

We meet May Belle mother to Rue, both healers...birthing healthy, strong babies, responsible for the mating of slaves to produce the strongest babies. This practice being profitable to plantation masters.

The many characters inhabiting this beauifuly written book will bring you joy and ire.

I suggeste the reader take time to read "Author's notes" characters in this novel are based on real people which I found interesting.

 "A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews"

Read this novel

Thank you Random House Publishing and NetGalley







     

THE CASTLE OF WHISPERS by Carol Martinez. 2

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This Goncourt Lyceens Award–winning novel is “a powerfully visualized magic-realist fable” of secrets, faith, and female defiance in twelfth century France (Kirkus Reviews).
 
France, 1187. On the day of her wedding, the beautiful fifteen-year-old Esclarmonde scandalizes the court when she refuses to marry the knight chosen by her father, the brutish lord of the domain of Whispers. Defying her father’s wishes, she vows to give herself to God. To punish her willfulness, her father imprisons her in a cell adjoining the castle’s chapel.
 
Instead of the peaceful solitude she sought, Esclarmonde finds in her cell the crossroads between the living and the dead. Walled in, with nothing but a single barred window connecting her to the outside world, Esclarmonde exerts a mysterious power over the kingdom. The virgin sorceress reaches a saint-like status, and men and women journey from far and wide to hear her speak. When even her own father falls under her sway, Esclarmonde persuades him to undertake an ill-fated war in the Holy Land.

APEIROGON by Colum McCann. 1

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RandomHouse
Publishing date February 25, 2020

About


Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They inhabit a world of conflict that colors every aspect of their daily lives, from the roads they are allowed to drive on, to the schools their daughters, Abir and Smadar, each attend, to the checkpoints, both physical and emotional, they must negotiate.

Their worlds shift irreparably after ten-year-old Abir is killed by a rubber bullet and thirteen-year-old Smadar becomes the victim of suicide bombers. When Bassam and Rami learn of each other’s stories, they recognize the loss that connects them and they attempt to use their grief as a weapon for peace.

McCann crafts Apeirogon out of a universe of fictional and nonfictional material. He crosses centuries and continents, stitching together time, art, history, nature, and politics in a tale both heartbreaking and hopeful. Musical, cinematic, muscular, delicate, and soaring, Apeirogon is a novel for our time.