Three Outstanding Historical Novels

Reprinted from the Citizen:

Historical fiction has gained in popularity in recent years, and there are several wonderful books to savor this spring that drop the reader into a different time with interesting people. 

Kate Quinn has been writing about women who have been heroic during WWII in several wonderful books (The Alice Network, The Huntress and The Rose Code) and her latest entry is The Diamond Eye. 

Mila is a librarian working on her thesis for her advanced degree in Kiev, Ukraine (part of Russia then) during WWII. She is separated from her surgeon husband, and raising her young son with the help of her family. She joins the Russian army to help defeat the Nazis who are marching towards Russia, causing utter devastation in their wake.

Along the way, Mila shows great skill as a sniper, becoming the most successful female sniper in the Russian army with over 300 kills to her credit (she actually had many more). The Diamond Eye takes us through Mila’s service and her visit to the United States on a publicity tour where she meets and becomes friendly with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. 

Kate Quinn excels at taking the true story of Mila Palivchenko and fictionalizing her life, giving the reader insight into what it is like to be a woman in a traditionally male army. The reader feels the tension as Mila remains silent and motionless looking for her opportunity to complete her missions. The Diamond Eye continues Quinn’s masterful storytelling of women’s contributions during war.

Melissa Fu’s powerful novel, Peach Blossom Spring tells the story of a different war. Like Mila, Meilin has a young son. Meilin and Renshu are on the run in 1938 as Japan begins bombing China. Meilin’s husband is killed in war, and she and Renshu leave their home with her husband’s family to find safety.

They are refugees fleeing war, and the descriptions of people leaving everything behind, walking for days, resonates so deeply with what we see on the news today in Ukraine. Meilin will do anything to save her son and give him as normal a life as she can.

Renshu is an excellent student and receives an opportunity to study in the United States. Here the story of mother and son diverge- we see Renshu’s new life in America and Meilin building a new life for herself in Taiwan.

Fu’s story of the sacrifices a mother makes for her son, and the difficulties Renshu faces as an immigrant who looks very different from others is so beautifully told and creates such empathy in the reader for Meilin and Renshu. Peach Blossom Spring is one of the best books I have read in a long time.

Like Kate Quinn’s The Diamond Eye, Allison Pataki’s novel The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post fictionalizes the life of a woman who actually lived. Many of us have heard the name Marjorie Post, the heiress to the Post cereal fortune. Her story is an amazing one beyond just that. 

As a young child, Marjorie helped her father as he created breakfast cereal for the general public. As his only child, Marjorie inherited the company upon his death. The Post company became a conglomerate over the years, and one of the most interesting facts in this fascinating novel is that Marjorie Post brought frozen foods to the general public when she purchased a small company called Birdseye Foods. Her board of directors were against the purchase, stating that people would not want to buy frozen foods. She persisted, and that purchase solidified her company’s future as she changed the food business in this country forever.

Marjorie Post was a very wealthy woman, and while she was a brilliant businesswoman, she did not have the same prowess in her choice of husbands. She married and divorced three times. 

Continuing with our WWII theme, Marjorie Post was married to a man who became the American ambassador to Russia just before WWII. I found the descriptions of life as the wife of an ambassador so interesting, and Post bought many of the treasures the Russian government was selling off, creating one of the most impressive collections of Russian art anywhere.

As I was reading The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post, I found myself saying “she knew who?”, “she did what?” “she went where?”. The title of this book could not be more perfect, Marjorie Post lived so many magnificent lives. I highly recommend it.

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn- A

Published by William Morrow

Hardcover, $27.99, 448 pages

Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu- A+

Published by Little, Brown & Co. 

Hardcover, $28, 400 pages

The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post by Allison Pataki- A

Published by Ballantine Books

Hardcover, $28, 400 pages

Friday 5ive- March 25, 2022

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish blog post about five things that caught my attention this week. You know it's spring when the weather whipsaws from 72 one day to 42 the next.

1) I attended my first in-person book event since February of 2020 at the book launch for John Searles' fantastic novel, Her Last Affair. (My review is here.) Held at Symphony Space in NYC, the evening began with actress Amy Ryan reading from the first chapter of the book. Can I just say that I would like to request that Amy Ryan read to me every night before I go to sleep? She and John then had a fantastic discussion that included stories about the summer he traveled with his Dad (who was a cross-country trucker), the year he and his husband lived out of hotel rooms and in friends' guest bedrooms after their apartment was destroyed in a fire caused by the couple next door who constantly fought, and the importance of making sure your Skype app is turned off before your book club starts talking about the author after the session ends, among other topics. Oh yeah, and the book was discussed too, which I highly recommend. It's the story of three people who try to connect with old loves, secrets, and how Searles connects these three people is a twist that left me gasping. The setting is an abandoned drive-in movie theater which adds to the creepiness factor. We even got popcorn to take home!

John Searles and Amy Ryan

2) I finally finished my virtual Route 66 ride through Conqueror Virtual Challenge. It took me 244 days to  ride the 2280.3 miles. This one was my longest journey yet and it felt great to complete it. Doing these virtual challenges keeps me on track on my Peloton rides. My next ride is a short 500 miles along the North Coast of Scotland.

3) We had a birthday party at the Book Cellar, the used book store located in the Webster branch of the New York Public Library where I volunteer, this week. We had a lovely luncheon, with flowers, balloons and a birthday cake made by one of the volunteers. It was a delicious vanilla cake made with mandarin oranges. The festive sprinkles on top actually matched the cake plates. It feels good to celebrate birthdays once again as a group.  Here is a classic recipe for the cake.

4) I've been watching a lot of old sitcoms as you know, and I just stumbled upon one I haven't ever seen before- Reba, starring country superstar Reba McEntire. She stars in this 2001-2007 sitcom where she plays a divorced mom who lives with her three children. Her oldest daughter (played by Joanna Garcia Swisher) is 17 and finds herself pregnant by her high school boyfriend (played by Steve Howey from Shameless). They marry, have the baby, and live with Reba and her 13 year-old daughter and 8 year-old son. Reba's ex-husband (Christopher Rich) married his ditzy dental assistant (Melissa Peterman) and they all try to live and let live. Reba McEntire is a fantastic comedic actress, I had no idea! I'm really enjoying watching the early morning reruns of the show on the Hallmark Channel. 

5) I read three books, including Susan Mallery's The Summer Getaway (my full review here) about a forty-ish divorced mom who leaves her Florida home, her ex-husband, ex-boyfriend, adult children and all their issues behind to help her great-aunt in California. She meets a handsome ex-Marine and begins a hot affair only to have her entire family bring their problems to her in California. 

 

Annie Ward's The Lying Club (my review is here) is for fans of Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies. The book begins with a dead body lying on a high school gym floor, and a woman who blacked out and can't remember what happened. Throw in a wealthy community with a mom who will stop at nothing to make sure her lacrosse star daughter gets into a good college, teens running amok, a high school coach who wields too much power in the community, and you've got a suspenseful story.

 

I also read an amazing novel by Melissa Fu titled Peach Blossom Spring. The story begins in 1938 China, with Meilin and her young son Renshu on the run from Japanese bombers who are destroying their town. Meilin and Renshu do what they can to survive, and finally settle in Taiwan as refugees. (Reading this resonates so much with what is happening in the Ukraine now.)  As Renshu grows up, he is an excellent student and gets the opportunity to study in America. Here his life diverges from his mother's and we see the difficult life of an immigrant in the United States contrasted with Meilin's life working as a maid and seamstress in Taiwan. It's a heartrending story about mothers and sons, written with such empathy for the characters.  Peach Blossom Spring will be one of my top books of the year.  

Have a safe week everyone.