The Secret Life of Sunflowers by Marta Molnar

 Given my belief that many great things in the world were acomplished by women we never hear of, it will come as no surprise to learn that we may never have heard of Vincent Van Gogh if it weren't for the determination of his sister-in-law, Johanna van Gogh Bonger.  Johanna was married to the art dealer Theo, Vincent's brother. Both believed passionately in the genius of Vincent.  Theo is driven to illness and madness trying to protect and save his artistic brother. When Johanna loses them both she is determined to make the world embrace Vincent and his art. Of course there is a contemorary love story and a secret diary and a life changing discovery made by young Emsley Wilson whose grandmother is really the character I didn't get enough of.
Historical fiction - entertaining and enlightening although I think this story is really worthy of a much richer level of research and insight than Molnar provides.

 

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Tom Rachman

The blurb on the jacket makes this sound like a mystery but that is only because the story starts at the end and jumps around through three decades leaving blanks in the lives of the characters that are not fully colored in until the end.  We first meet Tooly as a young woman in 2011 doing her best to make no money at all in a small used bookstore in a sleepy village in Wales.  In 1988 she is ten, living with a quiet earnest man she calls Paul but is spirited away by a wild and free woman named Sarah and finally finds herself in the care of Humphrey, who appears to be a Russian intellect with great chess and ping-pong skills, and Venn, a mysterious man of the world.  In 1999, Tooly is sharing shabby digs with Humphrey but finds a useful pretend life among a nest of struggling students on the Columbia University campus.  Tooly, Humphrey and Sarah are all  waiting for Venn to re-enter their story. The unlikely events that lead to these fascinating characters sharing a life is gradually revealed as we, as readers, are invited to contemplate the nature of family, the purpose of wealth, and what choices we would make if all choices were possible.  Some of it is funny, much of the truth is hidden in pseudo-intellectual observations of the world,  at times nobody seems to be who they really are, and always there are books.  One of my favorite quotes:

"People kept their books, (Tooly) thought, not because they are likely to read them again but because these objects contained the past - the texture of being oneself at a particular place, at a particular time, each volume a piece of one's intellect, whether the work itself had been loved or despised or had introduced a snooze on page forty."

Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate

 This is based on the real disturbing history of the affect of the Dawes Act of 1887. Tribal lands were broken up and redistributed to every man, women and child on the tribal registry - even very young orphans. Disreputable scammers married 10 year old orphans to get their land once it proved to be rich with oil. In 1909, Nessa is one of those children. She and her sister were taken in by the Peele family and abused by the father. Young Olive Peele takes Nessa and runs into the woods where they meet other "elf children". Their lives become complicated and dangerous and folded into the hidded history of Oklahoma. Story number two, Valerie and her young son Charlie are hoping to start a new life in Oklahoma in 1990.  She is hired as a park ranger and faces push back from her male counterparts. When she meets a young Choctaw girl named Sydney who is concerned about her brother who is missing and her grandmother who has been sent to a home, the history and mystery combine. Leave it to historical fiction to teach me a real history I may never have known.

The Women by Kristin Hannah

 I am sure that Hannah intended this to be a way to awaken us all to the contribution made by the female nurses in the Vietnam War.  The horrific scenes of the war and the conditions medical personnel lived through clearly explain their sacrifice. But the book is really more about what happened when they, or in this case "Frankie", returned to a country hopelessly divided on the war.  Frankie comes from a privileged background full of naval heroes - an honor she cannot share in the 1960's because she is a woman. She choses nursing specifically to enter the war and prove that thinking wrong. But like many who survive the horror of war, she finds that survival does not mean peace. Most of the story is how the very young innocent Frankie falls in and out of love both in Vietnam and at home. Another big part is about the friendships she makes with fellow nurses during the war - two women who would never have been in her social circle but are essential to her growing up.  They were very interesting characters and I wish their choices had been better developed. Telling just one story from a very privileged life perspective is probably far from the harder reality of the large number of women who served. "Women" needed a bigger lens.

The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich

 In the small farming community of Tabor, North Dakota on the Red River, families work to move on from a tragedy that left two young football players dead. The truth of this accident is frequently referenced but not completely explained until near the end of the book. However, it clearly frames the interactions of the families involved. Although this sounds serious, the characters are all quirky, their decisions humorously flawed and there is a ghost - so more troublesome than serious. You aften expect some indigenous insight from Erdrich and in this story it is about farming techniques, abuse of the land and the mistaken consequences of class.  Sometimes it seems a stretch to make these bigger issues relevant to the story of loves, losses and family which are at the heart of this community. It a pretty straight forward writing style until the closing chapters when the frequent Erdrich magical realism twist enters the story.  Before that there is the economic crash of 2008 and Madame Bovary so there may be a lot for a book group to talk about.

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

 I LOVED this book! Martha Ballard was a real midwife in 18th century Maine. As a midwife and often the only medical professional available, she is well respected in the community. Her connection with the women means that she is often the listening ear to cases of rape and unintended pregnancy. This time she has been asked to attend to the body of a man hacked out of the frozen river that runs through town. None of that is part of the real Ballard story but much of this fictional tale draws from Martha's real diary (A Midwife's Tale) also available in book form. Some things are surprising like the fact that the Puritans were a pretty randy lot. Some are expected like the fact that women as a whole have no legal standing in the community - Martha having a slightly different role. There is a scene between Martha and Ephraim her husband right after they rush to get married (it's complicated) that is one of the sexiest scenes ever and they never actually have sex. Tender, suspenseful, so well written. Yep one of my favorites.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

 This memoir is on everyone's Best of 2015 list and has won numerous awards. I couldn't imagine why.  Macdonald is a writer and naturalist at Cambridge University. As a child, she became fascinated with falconry which set her apart from most of her peers.  Her father was her primary supporter for her unusual preference.  When he dies, the floor falls out of her life.  She fights her way back by training a goshawk named Mabel.  During her training she returns to a book about falconry by T.H. White (the Arthurian author) which she had read as a child.  She sees many parallels between  White's struggles with isolation and her own.  None of this is of any interest to me but I was drawn into this book by the language and the insightful connections between the two lives and the falcons.  Unusual and oddly excellent.

How to Read a Book by Monica Wood

 Harriet is a retired teacher and a widow. She fills a few of her empty hours leading a bookgroup for a group of women in a local prison. Frank is a friendly handy man at the book store where Harriet gets ideas for books to share with the group. Frank's wife Lorraine was a popular kindergarten teacher who was killed when a young women named Violet drank too much and caused the accident that killed her. Violet is in Harriet's book group. When she is released from prison early, she finds herself in the same Portland, Maine neighborhood as Frank and Harriet. Can you see where this is going? In rotating chapters, we see each character through the eyes of the others. We see the reality of each life as they reveal their own truths. I loved these characters, including all the book club members - witty, compasionate, tough, forgiving, -  and I loved the way books and book discussion provided insight for them all.  The ending is a quick summary of the decades following the core story. Normally not my favorite easy out for an author but loved it here. I guess I will have to reread the Spoon River Anthology to understand why. And someone would have to read this book to understand the SRA reference.

The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny

Once again Chief Inspector Gamache takes a walk on the dark side. A series of seemingly unrelated crimes all point to the possibility of a catastrophic event. There are quite a few references to the crises from earlier novels but all are well explained. The title of this book and one of the major themes of the story references a Native American legend. It seems that inside each of us lives the spirit of two wolves. The grey wolf is kind, generous, caring. The black wolf is vengeful, greedy, angry. As the story goes, the wolf who wins is the one we feed. Once again Gamache finds himself often unable to rely on who is actually friend and who might be foe and must wonder if this is one of the times when he must admit that he was/is wrong. My only complaint with this book is that so little of it happens in Three Pines. When the companion book, the Black Wolf comes out in 2025, I will look forward to spending more time with the rest of my Three Pine friends.

Miss Morgan's Book Brigade by Janet Skeslien Charles

 The Morgan in the title is Anne Morgan, daughter of J.P. Morgan. Towards the end of WWI, Anne helped organize and volunteered with CARD the French acronym for The American Committee for Devastated France.  In that role she hired young Jessie "Kit" Carson from the NYPL to organize a library in the devastated city of Blérancourt.  Jesse's efforts not only resulted in the first free children's libraries in France but also led to the first female librarians in that country.  Her work and the work of other CARD volunteers may have been forgotten except for the interest of NYC librarian Wendy Peterson whose work in the archives of the NYPL in 1987 sends her down a path of personal and historical discovery. An interesting piece of history that puts a slightly  different face on the Anne Morgan we met in The Personal Librarian.

The Insrumentalist by Harriet Constable

 Anna Maria della Pieta was born in 1696 to a 17 year old prostitute in Venice.  She was placed in a hole in the wall of the orphanage Ospedale della Pieta. Gathered from that hole by nuns on the other side of the wall, she would live her entire life there. But what a life. The orphanage believed in the education of the young women including music. It became famous for its figlie de coro - "daughters of the choir" - an all female orchestra. From the age of 8, Anna Maria was recognized as a musical prodigy on the violin. Experiencing what we would today term synesthesia, the colors of musical notes danced before and within her.  She was championed by the music instructor at the orphanage - Antonio Vivaldi - the Vivaldi of the Four Seasons. It is their relationship that is most explored in this story. Was he a powerful mentor or a musical thief?  It seems that there have been a lot of books written lately about women who, against all odds, have accomplished much and yet received little recognition. This is one of them. A bit overwritten but I'll take a little unknown history any time I can get it.

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

 I have been intrigued with life in the boardinghouses of the 19th and early 20th century even since I read Clara and Mr. Tiffany. Briar House is in Washington DC. The time is the 1950's McCarthy Era. It is an adequate but morbid residence until Grace Marsh rents the tiny attic room and begins creating lean but enticing meals on her hotplate every Thursday evening. Drawn out of their previously solitary rooms,  the Briar Club is formed. The book is organized around each resident's story - all drawn from real people, all with secrets. It is both historical fiction and a murder mystery but it is mostly a story of female friendship seasoned with the morality of hard times and bad luck. It is an ending that you both anticipate and probably guess wrong. And Quinn is right - don't read the suthor's notes first.