A Dark Dividing by Sarah Rayne

This hypnotic novel tells the story of a house, Mortmain House, located in the Welsh Marches, and the people whose lives intersect with its sad history.

Mortmain, means “dead hand,” because the house was protected from taxation for its so-called charitable purposes. The house served as a workhouse and orphanage before it fell into disrepair.

When Melissa Anderson gives birth to conjoined twins in the 1980’s, the prognosis for their separation is good. Since they are only joined at the shoulder and side, doctors expect they will be able to separate them. 

Their story is intertwined with another set of conjoined twins who lived at the turn-of-the-century, Viola and Sorrel, who faced vastly different prospects. 

Hopelessly entwined, Viola and Sorrel, are sent to Mortmain, the house for unwanted children. From there they are sold to Tom Dancy’s freak show. 

The novel moves back and forth from the present to the past. Readers are given glimpses of  the the twins from the eighties, Simone and Sonia, and contrasted with their turn-of-the-century counterparts.
In one fateful moment, Simone meets her twin at Mortmain, whom she has never met before.

After the eighties twins are separated, one of the twins, Sonia, is kidnapped by a woman who feels she is “owed a child.” She has an odd reason for believing that Melissa owes her a child–and its all goes back to Mortmain House.

A thriller, a mystery, and a gothic horror story, this is an intriguing novel about the power of secrets, telepathy and ghostly occurrences.

Station Eleven

Station Eleven is about the Georgia virus, one that is even more disrupting than COVID-19. In this prescient novel, Mandel writes about a virus that ends civilization, eliminating people quickly and with them the knowledge of technology. After it hits, there’s no electricity, phone, internet, cars, law enforcement, hospitals, or government. Bands of survivors that set up settlements in abandoned restaurant, hotels, and airports.

The principal characters are all connected in some way to a King Lear production that took place shortly before the collapse in Toronto. An aging actor, Arthur, dies on stage; the actor’s childhood friend, Clark, and a child actress in the production, Kirsten, survive. 

While this is a grim scenario, Mandel cleverly knits the factions together. Jeevan, for instance, is an aspiring paramedic that rises out of the audience to try to rescue Arthur. His story interconnects with Kirsten’s and the roaming Symphony that band together for art’s sake after the collapse. 

Kirsten believes that “survival is insufficient.” In addition to survival, there must be beauty and art; thus, she continues to perform Shakespeare with the Symphony in spite of the hazards. The Symphony sometimes wander through dangerous territory and encounter sinister people such as the mysterious Prophet.

The Symphony are all armed and trained, even if they aspire to preserve beauty. Kirsten is an expert knife-thrower who can defend herself in necessary. The Prophet, in contrast, is an armed aggressor who takes what he wants, including children, as his wives. He kills without regard and proclaims himself the “Light.””

The Prophet is also connected, Clark soon learns, to his old friend Arthur. Miranda is linked to Arthur and it is her graphic novel, Station Eleven, that provides a clue to the Prophet’s origins. Everything is wonderfully knotted together, its up to the reader to unravel the connections. 

The Age of Living Machines by Susan Hockfield.

Susan Hockfield, President Emerita of MIT, discusses the beneficial convergence of biology and engineering. She describes viruses that can generate electric charges, proteins that can act as water filters, nanoparticles that can target unhealthy cells, prosthetic limbs that can work as ordinary limbs do, and data-driven crop yields.

Yesterday’s Kin by Nancy Kress

In Yesterday’s Kin members of the scientific community try to stop an airborne virus from harming earth’s population. A ship full of aliens from World have warned Earth ten months before Earth will make contact with a virus-filled cloud.

Notably, Kress wrote Yesterday’s Kin in 2014 well before the current Covid crisis. While the panic and the desperate quest for a vaccine are eerily familiar, this story focuses upon genetics and family connections.

This story revolves around Marianne Jenner and her three children, Ryan, Elizabeth, and Noah. Noah, the youngest, has always felt like an outcast–the black sheep of the Jenner family. These feelings of alienation grow worst after he learns that his family has been hiding a secret from him.

In Kress’ story, the country is divided by politics which make the crisis worst. Few trust the aliens and the joint scientific venture taking place in the Embassy. A terrorism situation creates additional heartbreak and tragedy.

Kress skillfully interweaves scientific facts about DNA and the genetic bottleneck, that occurred 70,000 years ago, with fiction.

All of Us and Everything by Bridget Asher

Quirky and off-beat, yet heart-felt, this novel will astound you. At times, its laugh-out-loud funny and other times profoundly moving. At the heart of this idiosyncratic novel are the Rockwells who lives in Ocean City, N.J. They love to tell people they bear no relation to the illustrator, Norman Rockwell.

In fact, nothing about the Rockwells is typical. They come from a long line of profiteers and though they are rich, they are not sociable. They never go to the boardwalk and mingle with others who are not like them. The girls live with their eccentric Mom who claims their absent Dad is a U.S. spy.

Hurricane Sandy, one of the worst storms in history, brings upheaval and upends their world. After the storm badly damages a house, a man arrives at their door with a box of letters reportedly belonging to their absent Dad.

All of Augusta’s secrets start coming to the surface resulting ultimately in the girl confronting the old spy. Though he has been absent, he has critically interfered in their lives which infuriates the girls. The storm brings all the sisters in to confront their Dad on this while also brings past slights and recriminations to the surface.

Liv accused Ru, who is a writer, of stealing her life for the plot of her book. Liv and Esme are at odds. Liv has always considered herself the prettiest Rockwell girl. When Esme brings her own daughter, a wise-cracking, live-tweeting adolescent into the mix, things get further out of hand.

While Nick, the absent Dad, tries to make up for lost years, the girls realize several important truths. This novel about the bonds of sisterhood and the depth of parental love would make for a great book discussion.

The History of Bees by Maja Lunde

Divided into three sections, this dystopian novel looks at beekeeping from three different vantage points–Victorian England, America circa 2007, and China circa 2098.

While ostensibly focusing on bees, the novel examines the tensions that exist between family members, especially fathers and sons. This is true for the Victorian century beekeeper, William, and his son, Edmund, and in his American descendants, George, and his son, Tom circa 2007.

The sons in each case want nothing to do with father’s dream of harvesting honey and raising bees. William Savage is not only estranged from his son but also becomes more and more alienated from his mentor, Rahm. The only child who understands William’s dream is Charlotte yet he coldly dismisses her achievements. She is the wrong gender.

In the last time period, which takes place in China, bees and other pollinators are extinct. Their absence which leaves a void in the world further alienates family members. Without bees, everyone is undernourished and forced to work long hours hand painting pollen onto flowers.

In this horrific time, parents can only see their children one day a week. Children are forced to leave school and work as pollinators at younger and younger ages. Tao and Kuan can barely speak to each other, especially after their son disappears. Tao leaves her husband and goes off into unsafe areas of Beijing in search of her child, Wei-Wen.

Tied into all three stories is The History of the Bees, a book written by Thomas Savage who is distantly related to the Victorian bee keeper. Tao read the book and insists that the leader of the Committee, Li Xiara, read it as well.

The army and Chinese government finds a new colony of bees near the site where Wei-Wen goes missing. Knowing and acknowledging the past, however, is necessary before they can move forward. Tao’s boy becomes a symbol of hope.

What is fascinating is the way Lunde compares the disappearance of bees, also known as colony collapse disorder, with the disintegration of family and natural bonds. This is a chilling speculative novel about what may happen if red flags about pollinators and the climate are ignored.

All The Light We Cannot See

Two young people’s live  intersect when American bombers head for St. Malo, the last German stronghold.

Only a rare writer can develop such nuanced characters or create such beautiful moral complexities.

Wherever he goes, Werner hears his sister Jutta’s sad question reverberating in his head: Is it right to do something only because everyone else is doing it?

Marie-Laure who is involved in the resistance with her Uncle Etienne wonders if they are the “good guys.”

Neither knows the meaning of the numbers Etienne recites into the clandestine radio transmitter.

Tension builds as both Marie-Laure and Werner become trapped. Werner is trapped under a hotel, L’Abeille, when it is hit by Allied bombs. Marie-Laure is trapped in her great Uncle Etienne’s secret room in the attic.

Sergeant Major Von Rumpel frantically searches the house for the gem, The Sea of Flames, the one Marie-Laure’s father has sworn to protect. 

Tired of hiding, Marie-Laure nearly gives herself away. Werner, who has managed to escape from his own ruin, decides to make things right in the only way he has left.

All the Light We Cannot See is a contemplative, well-researched novel.  All The Light You Cannot See won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Recently, it was adapted to film for Netflix.

The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg

A troubled girl and a widower strike up a friendship in Berg’s heart felt novel, The Story of Aruthur Truluv. Unwed and pregnant, Maddie spends a lot of her time in cemeteries where widower Arthur Truluv has lunch everyday.

Truluv has an uncanny of peering into the lives of the departed. Mostly, however, he goes to spend time with his late wife’s grave. The two of them had an unshakeable bond–one that Maddie comes to recognize as true love. Thus, she renames him “Truluv.”

In her own life, Maddie hasn’t been so lucky. Her father and her do not speak much and her mother died while she was young. Maddie’s boyfriend breaks up with her and takes no responsibility for their child.

Just when things seem hopeless, Maddie and Truluv comes up with a remarkable solution. This novel makes a solid case for the power of inter-generational friendships and communities.

In a terrific scene that shows Truluv’s devotion, Truluv defends Maddie against Anderson who comes around to pester her. Truluv nearly collapses from exhaustion but, for him, she is worth it.

Life is indeed, as Arthur points out, rather like a square dance. Many of these characters make a re-appearance in Berg’s later Mason novels, Night of Miracles, and The Confession Club.

Elmet by Fiona Mozley

This story about outlaws living in a remote part of England (Yorkshire) feels timeless. The name Elmet refers to a region that was in existence during the Middle ages. The contemporary characters live roughly in the same area and their lives are just as violent.

The novel deals with fundamental themes of sovereignty–land and home ownership–family loyalty, dark secrets and revenge.

The style is lyrical and atmospheric while describing the family’s idyllic home. John built this home by hand on the land his ex-wife used to own. This man, known for his strength and fighting abilities, faces new complications when the town’s bully, Mr. Price, terrorizes his family.

Mozley gives the right amount of foreshadowing that makes the novel’s conclusion believable. Though everyone thinks Cathy is incapable of defending herself, the scene shows that she can hold her own and defend her family.

Elmet was a 2017 Man Booker Prize Finalist.

The Metal Heart by Caroline Lea

Lea’s novel grew out of little known incident–Italian POWs were made to build barriers during World War II to protect the Orkney islands. During their time in the Orkneys, the prisoners built a beautiful chapel out of scrap metals and other left over materials.

In her version of events, the prisoners are brought to a mostly uninhabited island. Since the island has an eerie reputation, only two sisters, Con and Dot, live there. The pair have been isolating themselves to escape Kirkwall, the main island where both have suffered a terrible ordeal.

The sisters decide to work at the camp’s infirmary where Dot becomes charmed by one of the prisoners, Cesare. Though Con opposes the relationship, Dot and Cesare fall in love. Despite hardships and the cruelty of one of the guards, Angus Macleod, Cesare is granted permission to build a chapel.

The chapel plays a part in Dot and Cesare’s escape plans. While everyone is celebrating Michelmas, the POWs plan a diversion that may allow them Cesare to escape. Filled with bile, Angus, who despises Cesare, works to thwart their plans.

This is a haunting story about trauma, vengeance, sacrifice, and enduring love.

World War II – Building the Barriers – Orkney Museum (wordpress.com)