Tag: Fiction
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“One Big Happy Family” by Jamie Day
The setting of ‘One Big Happy Family’ is a unique luxury hotel on the shores of Maine, a place that immediately brought to mind the iconic Burgh Island Hotel off the coasts of Devon – the setting of Agatha Christie’s renowned novels. “The Precipice” is family-owned, with themed rooms where the Bishop’s three sisters spend…
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“A Refiner’s Fire” by Donna Leon
In her 33rd installment of the series, Donna Leon once again transports us to the enchanting city of Venice, guiding us through the labyrinthine streets alongside Commissario Brunetti. While I may have missed a few of the series’ novels, my fondness for them remains steadfast, a testament to Leon’s captivating world. This time, the story…
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“Role Play” by Clara Drummond
Vivian, the protagonist of Clara Drummond’s short novel Role Play, is a young woman from a wealthy family who lives in Rio de Janeiro and works as a curator at an art gallery. The story is written as an inner monologue, commenting on the events Vivian witnesses, the most dramatic of which is a case…
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“Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice” by Elle Cosimano
Two bodies in a hotel room, a lost Aston Martin, some bad guys, and Kevin Bacon, who is not who you think he is, make for one crazy ride. Once more, Finlay, a divorced mother of two young children, and Vero, Finlay’s children’s snarky nanny, get into trouble. This time, they take a road trip…
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“The Second Sword: A Tale from the Merry Month of May, and My Day in the Other Land: A Tale of Demons” by Peter Handke
The two novellas of Peter Handke – “The Second Sword” and “My Day in the Other Land” are connected by the motive of a journey. In “The Second Sword,” the same man who was a protagonist of another Handke’s novel, “The Fruit Thief,” once more decides to leave his home –as usual, he leaves the…
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“Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect” by Benjamin Stevenson
Train travels are romantic. Sure, there are overcrowded trains people board through the open window, as there is no way to fight the crowds of passengers trying to enter using the doorway, and those can hardly be called “romantic.” But there are other trains, seen in luxury travel ads, with people sipping champagne and contemplating…
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“Baumgartner” by Paul Auster
Saying that Sy Baumgartner, an about-to-retire Princeton professor, doesn’t have a good day is an understatement: first, he burns his hand leaving a pot on the stove, then falls down the stairs showing, completely unnecessary, the way to a meter reading technician. I expected that things would get worse, but no, there were no broken…
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“The Premonition” by Banana Yoshimoto
“The Premonition” by Banana Yoshimoto was written in 1988 but has only been translated into English by Asa Yoneda. It’s a short novel, a coming-of-age story of nineteen-year-old Yayoi, who has a premonition that something significant happened in her childhood. She feels her loving parents may not be her biological parents and is strangely drawn…
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“The Future Future” by Adam Thirlwell
In Adam Thirlwell’s “The Future Future” we meet Celine, a 19-year-old, wealthy, married girl living in pre-revolution Paris when she finds herself in a problematic situation; someone is distributing pornographic pamphlets with her image, describing her habits and life. The accusations are false, but the series becomes popular, and soon, Celine is on everybody’s lips…
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“Finders Keepers” by Natalie Barelli
Rose, the 23-year-old protagonist of “Finders Keepers,” is one of those female characters that I instinctively like. She’s a mixture of vulnerability, a survivor of a challenging childhood, and a girl who blames herself to the point of believing she might be a psychopath. Judging from her recollection of the past, a reader must be…
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