Everyone Brave is Forgiven

Everyone Brave is Forgiven is a novel written as another wonderful character study by Chris Cleave. In his previous book, Little Bee, the reader was taken into the world of the poverty of Nigeria and the upscale life in London, England.  It is about the relationship between Little Bee, an illegal Nigerian refugee and a London widow.  You are captured by their lives and Cleave can make you see the story from each person's perspective at the same time.

Cleave has accomplished this task again in Everyone Brave is Forgiven.  Once again taking the Second World War and placing the reader directly in the line of attack, he skillfully describes the war for both a soldier at the front and those left in London during the Blitz.  He puts the reader inside the minds and thoughts of the characters as they live through a day fighting the enemy and those trying to live their normal lives through the attacks.  Cleave so wonderfully captures the feelings of each character, Tom who has stayed behind while his best friend, Alistair enlists.  Mary, who feels guilty about her position of wealth and wants to escape her life as a gentry and help the war effort.  Her friend Hilda who is looking to marry a man in uniform.  Their lives all intersect as the fighting in both London and on the island of Malta intensifies.

This is of course a novel based on fact and true events that happened during World War II.  It is also a story of romance and coping with the feelings war brings out between people and its affect on their relationships.  As these characters are struggling with the war and their place in society, they are trying to maintain friendships and create love affairs.  The war seems so unfair that it is interfering in their lives.  What is love each of them wonders, how do you know when it is real?  At one point when Alistair returns from a leave where he has met Mary and Hilda he is not sure.  He has strong feelings for Mary but Hilda was his date and he is not sure if he should pursue her.  "He would reply to Hilda's letter, and he supposed it would be the start of things between them.  Perhaps this was what love was like after all - not the lurch of going over a humpback bridge, and not the incandescence of fireworks, just the quiet understanding that one should take a kind hand when it was offered, before all light was gone from the sky."  Such a beautiful sentiment about love before finding the one true real love of your life, when you do have fireworks and passion.

But this book is also about learning that real love is not about uniforms and glory but about real caring, even in the face of ugliness and injury.  It is about caring about others without prejudice and hate.  Mary fights for the underdog, and rejects the life of privilege she was born into.  She feels everyone is equal and should be treated fairly even during war time.

Cleave has again given us a story of the human dilemma.  The difference between classes in England and the idea that underneath we are all human beings that should be treated equally.   We follow our five main characters as they each experience the war.  We are given the view of the war and what it is like to live during this time by seeing the war from each of these characters viewpoint.  Two young women, who live a wealthy society life, little affected by the war around them, but they choose to get involved and experience the war close up.  Two young men, one of whom enlists and sees the war first hand fighting in France and the island of Malta.  His friend who stays behind and how he feels not being in uniform and on the front lines of war.   Lastly, a young boy of color whose life experience is extremely different than the adults he comes in contact with.  We see life and war from the child's perspective.

The Improbability of Love

The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothchild is such a wonderful and creative way to tell a story.
Told, for the most part, in the third person by the invisible narrator this is a story about the relationships.  But then, magically, there are chapters of the story that reveal parts of the story yet unknown to the characters.  The reader is now privy to more information than the characters, and this is achieved by hearing the story from the point of view of the famous painting itself, "The Improbability of Love".

Maybe as is suggested by one character with a slight slip up in repeating the name of the painting it could be called the "Impossibility of Love".   There are so many characters in the beginning it was hard to keep them all straight, but as the story develops the relationships all start to intertwine and the reader can see how they all will start to interact.  So as a story of intrigue and European history are uncovered, at the time a story of love blossoms.

Annie McDee is a young woman who has struck out at love and is trying to create a new life for herself in London.  She has a new job as chef and has come into possession of a small but compelling painting.  She discovers the idea of using the feelings of art and food to create elaborate parties for very wealthy clients. Just as she feels her career is taking off, she is thrown into the middle of a battle for the painting, having been discovered to be a long lost masterpiece, that will send her on an unexpectedly dangerous journey uncovering an unscrupulous history and possibly love.

The painting plays an integral role in this novel filling the reader in on art history and on the thinking and passion of the artist himself.  This book while a wonderful story of suspense also dabbles in the world of auction houses and how famous masterpieces were painted, how their value was increased over time and how they were authenticated and put up for auction.  Listening to the painting itself tell his side of the story is very creatively done.  In the beginning we are introduced to the painting with his quick wit and sassy tongue, "My future depends on people believing I am worth something and need protecting.  Art only survives by striking a chord in someone's heart and offering solace and reassurance.  .... Right now, I am worth less than 100 lire, my absolute nadir.  The some of total admirers is two. And one of them, the old drunk, smeared my foliage in butter and animal fats.  ....
I need prosperity; my best chance of seeing out another century is wealth."

The character development in this novel was wonderfully colorful.  The reader can see the vivid colors and personalities of the different kinds of people who are caught up in the search for happiness, love and success as they try to get their hands on this illusive work of art.

Florence Gordon

Florence Gordon, written by Brian Morton is a story of family dynamics and relationships.  I looked back a few times while reading this book to make sure I was really reading a novel about so many female characters and their relationships really written by man.  It is interesting how easily Brian Morton seems to have been able to enter the minds of Florence, the feminist icon and matriarch of the family, Janine her fawning, insecure daughter in law and Emily, her granddaughter.

Florence Gordon has reached the pinnacle of her career and is beginning to face old age.  She has put aside personal relationships to further her life dream as a feminist leader.  She has a hard cantankerous shell, but is finding herself a bit lonely and unsure of the choices she has made over the years.  Her granddaughter has come to New York from Seattle for the summer.  They are coming together over the writing of Florence's memoir.  Emily is doing research for her grandmother and learning how passionate and successful she has been over the years.

All the members of this family have so much trouble communicating with each other.  Daniel cannot talk to his mother and really tell her how he feels.  He and his wife, Janine are having trouble talking to each other, as their marriage flounders.  Emily is going through the emotional roller coaster of young adulthood without anyone to confide in.  They are all frustrated, angry and scared and don't know how to reach out to each other.

Emily and her father, Daniel are walking to the train station where Emily travel onto Boston to meet up with an old boyfriend.  She wants to talk to her father and cannot start the conversation.  Daniel wants to connect with his daughter and walks her to the train and buys her ticket, but cannot start a conversation that will give her the space to talk to him.  She asks if he has any life lessons he wants to share, he replies that he cannot think of any he needs to teach her at this point.  Emily thinks, "When she came back she'd be someone different from who she was now.  And he would be someone different too.  He wouldn't be the father of the same girl he was the father of now.  he would be the father of a girl who was older and more worldly and sneakier and more cynical, and he wouldn't even know."

As a reader you are thinking just talk, just say what you are thinking, you can work this out.   Each of the characters is this novel are flawed.  Each of the characters need help and want to work together but just don't know who to reach out and ask for what they need.  It can be aggravating as an outsider looking in to see how dysfunctional this family is.  It is sad also that they are having so much trouble. It is a chance for the reader to look at themselves and see if they can learn to be more open with the people around them, so as not to fall into similar traps.

The Dead Key

A complex exciting mystery novel.  The Dead Key,  by author, D.M. Pulley has a complicated plot that spans twenty years, traveling back and forth between 1978 and 1998.  In 1978 two women from the secretary pool at the large Cleveland bank are trying to bring down a scam being implemented by the leaders of the bank.  Beatrice Baker is a young woman, new to the big city and assigned as a secretary to one of the bank managers.  As she makes friends with the other "girls" she becomes involved in a mystery.  Beatrice and her friend are risking their lives when everything is closed down.

Twenty years later Iris is assigned to create blue prints for an engineering company that wants to buy the building and renovate it for its new owner.  As she starts to measure the rooms and layout the floor plan, she finds a questionable situation.  Her investigation brings her into dangerous, scary circumstances.  A well woven story line that ties up all the loose ends neatly at the end.

Using the modern day company coming in to clean out a long deserted building as the background for this story of intrigue and adding in a new young girl fresh out of school at her first job, along with a bit of possible romance with a few young fellas and you have the right amount of suspense that keeps you reading to the end. As Iris Latch is making her blue prints she starts investigating some of the unusual things she is finding in the building.  The descriptions of the bank, both past and present, are haunting.  You feel like you are in the building exploring with Iris and like you are there back in the secretarial pool with Beatrice Baker as she is trying to save herself and reveal the secrets and dishonesty that is being carried out at the bank. There are some interesting twists along the way and also the possibility that there could be a sequel.

The Dream Lover

The subject matter is very interesting and that kept me reading through till the end.  I always love learning something while reading historical fiction.  This is the story of George Sand, the how and whys of her life as a writer and a woman.  She was a modern, liberated woman before society was ready to accept a liberated woman.  She defied society's conventions and lived her life the way she wanted.  She socialized with some many of the writers, composers and poets that today are thought of as famous classical masters.   She led quite a fascinating life.

The reader will recognize many of the names of characters in this story from history.  It keeps a steady pace through the book.  It is really a character study and explanation of Sand's life and not a plot driven story.  The author , Elizabeth Berg does a good job of recreating the world that Sand was living in and making the facts readable.  This novel seems like it could almost be a memoir.


Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dudevant, née Dupin, grew up the daughter of an aristocratic father who also defied convention and married a courtesan.  Aurore Dupin later givers up a life of wealth and certainty, a unsupportive husband and her children for a life in Paris surrounded by artists and writers. She changes her name to George Sands and dresses as man both professionally and personally. Sands though possibly the most famous writer of her day, never quite escapes the stereotype of the female role in society.  She takes a lover, who in the beginning is supportive of her choices. As she becomes well known and published,  his masculinity is threatened and he also deserts her.

George Sand was a woman who created her own rules to live by despite her personal risks and loses that accompanied the choices she made.

Stealing Mona Lisa

What a fun delightful story of mystery. intrigue and romance.  This is a novel based on the story of the theft of Leonardo da Vinci's Portrait of Mona Lisa from the Louvre Museum in Paris in 1911.  Author, Carson Morton, has taken the facts of the news story and created what might have happened in his imagination.

Using the facts from a story published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1925 that was supposed to be an interview with Eduardo de Valfierno, a self confessed con artist who purported to be the mastermind behind the theft of the Mona Lisa and the forgery of the original work of art.  Also arrested in connection with the theft of the painting was an Italian, Vincenzo Peruggia, who tried to return the work of art to Italy, claiming that he was bringing it home to its right owners.

Known in France as La Joconde and in Italy as La Gioconda, The Portrait of the Mona Lisa  has always been surrounded in mystery.  Morton has created a wonderful story of art forgery and intrigue that makes the reader wonder how many of the famous original pieces of art that adorn the museum walls could possible be incredible copies.  In this novel Valfierno is the mastermind who leads a band of co conspirators from the art forger, to the thieves who help convince the buyers that they are getting the original paintings stolen from the museum, to the actual sale to the rich unsuspecting buyer, who then hides the famous painting away in his home.

To flesh out the story Morton played fast and loose with the great Paris flood of 1910 moving it to help build the drama around the theft of the painting.  He also builds into the story some romance and a few extra assistants who all live together in Madame Charneau's boarding house in Paris. This is also a story of selfishness, greed and love.  Choosing love and relationships over ownership of artwork.  Which are more important in life, material objects and money or love?  When it is a matter of life and death, which should you choose?  Valfierno is caught up when the water floods the streets of Paris, he holding a valise with thousands of dollars and the woman he may love is slipping away in the rushing water.   "He had to do something quickly.  He looked at the valise.  It held no small fortune.  He turned back to Ellen and he knew in an instant the terrible truth:  He couldn't possibly hope to save both of them...."

This will be the group's final and most ambitious caper.  The twists and turns keep the reader guessing all the way to the end.

The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem

This is a very interesting novel written originally in Hebrew by Sarit Yishai-Levi, and translated into English by Anthony Berris.  This book found acclaim in Israel and now is receiving popularity in the United States and other countries.

I found that I was learning a new perspective on the history of the relationships between Arabs and Jews under British rule in the 1940s.  Also I found quite surprising the animosity between Sephardi Jews and Ashkanazi Jews in Palestine.  So from a historical perspective this is a very interesting novel.  the only thing I found difficult in the book was remembering all the names and relationships. It might have been helpful to have a family tree that the reader could refer to every once in a while.

The story line of the novel is about the Ermosa family.  Starting with Great Grandmother Mercada who is married to a man who does not love her, the family curse begins.  In each generation women are married to men who do not love them.  The story is revealed by Grandma Rose and Aunt Rachel finally to Gabriela who is trying to figure out her own life and marriage.  In each generation the mothers have loveless marriages which make them cold and harsh to their daughters.  Each mother has forced their sons into unhappy relationships to keep the family within its tight community.  The mother daughter relationships are hostile and emotionally distant.  It has been a long held secret that is now finally being exposed, as Gabriele hopes to end the chain of unhappy marriages and unhappy mother, daughter rejection.  Gabriele's mother Luna was considered one of the most beautiful women in Jerusalem but her husband is in love with another and she cannot win his love no matter how she tries.  It has been the family curse for generations.  The mothers can be emotionally attached and involved with their sons but not with their daughters.  The fathers love their children but not their wives.

Yishi-Levi has created a fascinating love story of family betrayal, conflict and misunderstanding that intertwines with the history of Israel's beginning. The family members are part of the Haganah, Atzel, and Lehi organizations.   All these organizations played a part in the British control of Palestine and how the area was divided between the Arabs and the Jews.  the author shows how the Sephardim kept to themselves in an insular world where they can maintain their identity by following precise customs, eating certain foods and speaking a language that keeps out Ashkenazi Jews and all others.

Sarit Yishi-Levi has written a beautifully descriptive novel that spans the time from the scary world of World War II to the Golden Age of Hollywood to the 1970s.  She covers the history of the times from the British rule to the birth of the State of Israel with interesting clarity.  You can picture the streets of Jerusalem as you are reading.