North Woods ~ Daniel Mason A yellow house in the woods of western Massachusetts is the setting for 12 connected stories. Mason tells of the inhabitants of the house, beginning with a couple of Puritan lovers and ending 400 years later. North Woods tells of these lovers, then an apple farmer, twin spinsters, a naturalist painter, a young black woman fleeing slavery and bounty hunters, a schizophrenic, a reporter of true crimes, a history buff, a beetle, and a mountain lion. The writing is so inventive and engrossing. Now, in the place that was once the belly of the man who offered the apple to the woman, one of the…

The Vaster Wilds ~ Lauren Groff Lauren Groff reread two classics to her kids, Julie of the Wolves and My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George. Reading them as an adult gave her a new perspective, and instead of seeing them as adventure stories, she saw them as chilling stories of loneliness and danger. (Side note – Has anyone read the Hatchet YA books, by Gary Paulsen? I really liked those when I read them years ago. This book is 10x better.) The Vaster Wilds is a survival story placed during the Starving Time of the Jamestown colony in 1609. The unnamed protagonist is a teenaged servant girl…

Mika in Real Life ~ Emiko Jean 35 year old Mika feels like a failure. She’s recently been fired from a dead-end job, her most recent relationship ended badly, and she doesn’t know what to do with her life. When she receives a phone call from Penny, the daughter she gave up for adoption 16 years ago, she very much wants to have a relationship with her, but doesn’t want to admit her life has turned out this way. She wants to appear successful to Penny. So she makes up a more glamorous life, with a career as an artist and a hot boyfriend. All is well so long as…

When We Believed in Mermaids ~ Barbara O’Neal Dr. Kit Bianchi, an emergency room physician living in Santa Cruz, California, happens to catch a news story on TV about a fire in New Zealand. In the background of the news story, she sees her sister, Josie. The same Josie who died in a terrorist attack 15 years ago in Paris. Kit’s mom also saw the story, and asks Kit to go to New Zealand and see what the hell is going on. In Auckland, Mari is a happily married mother of two who flips houses for a living. Her newest project is a house she wants to fix up and…

The Paris Novel ~ Ruth Reichl When Stella’s mother dies, she leaves her a strange inheritance – money and a command to buy a plane ticket to Paris. Stella and her mother had been estranged, so she ignores the command at first, but eventually she goes. In Paris, she continues to live her drab, frugal life for a while, until she happens upon an upscale consignment store with a vintage Dior gown that screams out to her. The gown sets her off on series of unlikely coincidences, and she discovers more about herself, about her mother, and about the person she wants to be. This book was full of so…

My Oxford Year ~ Julia Whelan (yes, that Julia Whelan) Ella is a young American woman who travels to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar to study for a year. At the same time, she is offered a career changing opportunity to work on a political campaign back in the states, a job she is assured she can do long distance. Oh, and she quickly falls for a sassy local, Jamie, who is teaching one of her classes. They really like each other, but she is only there for one year, so they decide to keep it light, keep it fun, keep it temporary. It’s going to be a busy year.…

Table for Two ~ Amor Towles Table for Two is comprised of 6 short stories and a novella. Without going into too much detail, because I don’t want to ruin anything for you, below are the bare outlines of the stories. The Line – Irina is a fierce believer in the Bolshevik cause, and she and her husband Pushkin leave their farm to go to Moscow in 1916. Irina is able to find work, but Pushkin cannot, and spends his days standing in line for food and other items, making friends along the way. The Ballad of Timothy Touchett – Timothy works in a rare bookshop, and follows the work…

The Life Impossible ~ Matt Haig Grace Winters is 72 years old, a retired maths teacher who is recently widowed. She has lived in a state of grief and guilt since the death of her young son decades earlier, a death she blames on herself. She is depressed and bored and full of self-hatred. One day, she learns that she has been left a house on the Spanish island of Ibiza, by a co-worker from over 30 years ago, Christina, a woman she didn’t know well, but whose life she impacted mightily. She decides to leave her home in England and go to Ibiza and check out the house, and…

Tell Me Everything ~ Elizabeth Strout Lucy Barton is a writer who has moved from New York City to a small town in Maine. She and her ex-husband went there during the pandemic, and decided to stay (in Maine, and together). Lucy’s gift is that she really listens to people. She has an understanding heart, which helps her with her writing, and to be a good friend. Olive Kitterage is a gruff 90 year old, living in a care facility in this same town. She is a retired school teacher. Bob Burgess is a lawyer, long time friend of Olive, and newer friend of Lucy. Bob’s ex wife Pam had…