I really liked this one -- in fact, several of us said we wish we'd had more discussion of it at book club (maybe we should have a second meeting to actually discuss the book
) This was a re-read for me and I wasn't sure if it would strike me the same way the second time -- but it did.It's such a complex storyline in some ways, I'm going to c & p from Amazon...
In this ambitious novel, Payne ( Gravesend Light, 2000) intertwines two troubled marriages--one contemporary and one from the 1860s--for a blend of history and suspense that deals with racism, slavery, miscegenation, incest, and voodoolike practices, as foreboding builds until the two stories intersect. At 45, former rock star Ransom "Ran" Hill, bipolar and off his meds, returns to his wife, Claire Delay, who took their children and left him five months earlier for her family home of Wando Passo, a former plantation south of Charleston. Although Ran desperately loves his wife of 19 years, Claire is making a new life with a new love, a story mirrored by the account of her ancestors that resurfaces when two skeletons are found on her property. Alternating chapters tell of Harlan Delay, who married Adie Huger to save himself from the sorrow and pain that ensued after his father brought home a black Cuban woman whom he loved but kept enslaved. Despite an occasional inconsistency or unanswered question, Payne handles this novel of love, loss, and betrayal deftly.
435 pages
The Moor by Laurie R. King
Another in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series. This one returns to the scene of an actual Holmes story -- The Hound of the Baskervilles. I keep enjoying them. 297 pages.
Oxygen by Carol Cassella
This was good stuff -- I kept stopping to say to DH "This is a really good book". part of it, for me, was just the fact that it centers on a career I (and I think many people) know little about -- anesthesiology. Main character is an anesthesiologist in Seattle when something goes wrong in a surgery. That is the main plot, but her relationships with her sister and aging father are also involved. Yep, really really interesting stuff -- heartbreaking at times-- and I feel like I know a bit more about what it would be like to be an anesthesiologist. 288 pages.
Buffy in Denver
2 comments:
oh yes. i remember reading that book. very interesting that it struck you the same way the second time around. i definitely liked it and was glad that you recommended it.
Yeah, I just loved it -- so when it was my turn to choose the book club pick, I chose it -- and was glad that others liked it, too...
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