By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult ...five stars plus

 

I admit that when I read the description of this book, I was afraid that it wasn’t for me. I’ve followed Jodi Picoult for years and have watched as she’s transitioned from her fascinating fiction to forays into live theater. I worried that this book would be so focused on “behind the scenes” that I wouldn’t find it interesting.

I was wrong!

 By Any Other Name is a split narrative novel, with the narrators being Melina Green, in 2024, and Emilia Bassano, 1582 to her death in 1645. Both women are playwrights, though neither are recognized for it. The difference is, though slim, Melina can legally and morally be a playwright, while Emilia cannot. Women simply do not have agency or rights in Elizabethan England.

But as writers know, when called to write, there is no option. So, despite her inability to get her plays produced, Melina continues to write. She stumbles upon an ancestor who published one of the first books of poetry by a woman author, Emilia Bassano. The more she learns about Emilia, the more she is convinced that Emilia found a way to get her own plays produced, by selling them to a man who had access to the theater, when she did not. The man? William Shakespeare.

The more we learn about Emilia, through Melina’s (i.e. Jodi’s!) research the more we are also convinced. Any woman today who’s ever had a man take credit for her work will understand. We do it because it is the way things are done. The young lawyer asked to write an opinion letter for her boss to sign understands. The medical professional who is granted a sub byline on the paper she has spent all her time researching yields to the doctor in charge. The TA who spends her time in the classroom and her free time making discoveries for her “mentor” understands. It is common, and there is no reason not to accept that it happened in the 1500s either.

Jodi Picoult is an amazing writer, and she brings these characters, and all the people they interact with, to life. Those characters are diverse: from the gay roommate, also an undiscovered talent, to her neurodivergent critic who opens his mind.

I love this book. I wanted to rush through it to publish this review on the publication day, but found myself too engaged, to invested in the text to rush. The author’s note and acknowledgements are fascinating and not to be missed as well.

I always feel more informed when I read a Jodi Picoult book, as she doesn’t shy from the controversial issues of the day. I suspect there will be controversy over this too, though it won’t make journalistic headlines. Nor will the theories and conclusions she’s reached disappear from the minds of those who read it. This is fiction, and historical fiction, at its finest.

The book was released on August 20, 2024, by Random House/Ballantine. Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.

We Burn Daylight by Bret Anthony Johnston.

We Burn Daylight

Bret Anthony Johnston is an author whose work leaves me breathless. Taking on difficult—impossible—human experiences and tragedies, he narrows perspective to one or two people. In We Burn Daylight, those perspectives come from two teenagers experiencing a Branch Davidian-like charismatic leader, law enforcement and the inevitable destruction of what each represents.

Roy is the second son of the small-town sheriff father and hospice nurse mother. There older son is in Iraq, first as a marine, but after his deployment, as a contractor. Roy is close to each of his family members, in the realistic way a teenage boy has. They don’t shelter him, but his parents and grandparents clearly cherish him. Jaye, a teenage girl who wants to be desired by her peers, is ripped from her California home when her mother, perhaps in a midlife crisis of her own, wants to be closer to Perry, also known as the Lamb.

 

Through the two of them, we meet townspeople and followers of The Lamb. We go to prayer meetings and gun shows and abandoned malls. Life in rural Texas in the early 90’s, before cell phones and iPad and social media, is engagingly depicted, and our imperfectly perfect characters, ultimately wanting mostly to be loved. In Johnston’s words, “Love is equally dyed in faith and fear. One life is always another life, another thousand lives.”

Along with the engaging story, Johnston’s writing is exquisite.

While I wanted to put the book down at the halfway point, where the downward spiral accelerates and leaves the reader believing there is only one end, as there was in Waco 1992. I admit to reading the author’s note before I went any further, where it was clarified that this was in fact fiction, though reliant on many of the details of reality. So, I kept reading, and found myself speeding through to find out what happened, I won’t spoil it, but I encourage you not only read the book, but by all means, to finish it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the review copy. We Burn Daylight was published on July 30, 2024.

 

The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville

 

I really wanted to be one of the cool kids who “get” China Miéville’s style, and was intrigued with the partnership with Keanu Reeves, who has been able to get me out of my comfort zone with splendid movies. I wanted to love this adventure. But ultimately, I’m a fiction lover who needs to understand what’s going on, and I just didn’t. Violence, disjointed narrative and a world I can’t quite picture. Maybe if Keanu stars in the movie, I will become a fan. With the book, just not. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Ballantine for the advance readers copy. The Book of Elsewhere was published July 23, 2024.

The Mirror by Nora Roberts

 

The Mirror is the second book in Roberts’ Lost Bride Trilogy, and it was as exciting as the first book, Inheritance. Sonya and Cleo continue to thrive in their respective creative fields, Sonya as a graphic designer and Cleo as an illustrator. The people of Poole’s Bay, where the haunted mansion Sonya has inherited, begin to embrace them both, included the families of Trey and Owen, the love interests.

The most fun and fascinating parts come from the ghosts though. It seems there are swarms of them “living” in the mansion, but only one evil one. To be convinced when the living characters develop fond relationships with spirits who’ve passed centuries before takes true talent, which Nora Roberts has in spades. I’m eager to read the third book and sad that I have to wait so long.

The Mirror is published by St. Martin’s Press and will be released November 19, 2024. Thanks to NetGalley and the pub

The Summer Club by Hannah McKinnon

 

Delighted to affirm that this book has met all the hype! Great beach read, but more, as the Birch and Creevy-Crenshaw families are unveiled, McKinnon treats us to the kind of family dynamics we don’t expect at the posh Mayhaven Country Club.

The story centers around Darcy and Flick, the teenage children of each family. Darcy has lived in their quiet suburban town all her life and learned to excel and love golf, until she doesn’t. Flick is a displaced teen from Queens, whose mother marries the Dry Cleaning King and hopes to provide him more opportunity and a better life in the country.

To say that there are personality clashes and teenage angst would be minimalizing this smartly plotted novel.

The Summer Club was released on July 23, 2024. Thanks to NetGalley and Atria/Emily Bestler Books for the opportunity to read and review. Can’t wait to read more from Hannah McKinnon!