“The Fountains of Silence” by Ruta Sepetys

I really appreciated this revealing and well-written book by the author of “Salt to the Sea” (another favorite), as it explores the results of silence, of losing freedom of speech during the Spanish Civil War and the oppressive dictatorship of Francisco Franco lasting from 1939 to 1975.  The fictional story of Anna, a young, Spanish maid working in an American hotel, who becomes involved with Daniel, the son of a rich American visiting Spain to make an oil deal with Franco, is alternated with excerpts from US political thought of the times, gleaned from well-documented archives, and both fiction and nonfiction illuminate the ways that silence during a repressive regime has a devastating effect on communities, culture, children, teens, and families, (especially those whose parents fought for the other side). REVIEW: 5 Stars (Great story)

“The Dictionary of Lost Words” by Pip Williams

If you love words, this look at a girl’s dedication to finding, understanding, and defining words for the Oxford English Dictionary (which took 71 years to complete), is a fascinating study of how words give us a framework for thought, helping us define ourselves and our reality, and take on deeper meanings as life unfolds; yet the story also shows the meticulous work of the linguists who chose and defined words for the dictionary, painstakingly researching how each word was used in society, but sadly, heedless of the effect of their own biases on gender roles and class distinction. The story starts in 1887 and ends in 1989 which covers a lot of ground, and while there are places where the story bogs down and moved too slowly for my taste,  it is nonetheless a fascinating look at the power of linguistics through the eyes of Esme, raised by her father, who from an early age spends all her time at the Scriptorium, with a team working to define the “A” words, and who herself begins to “collect” words, a habit that continues as she attends school, explores the suffragette movement, , experiences heartache, falls in love, deepens a friendship, lives through WWI, and learns the joy found in helping others.    REVIEW: 4 Stars

“True Biz” by Sara Novic

In an interesting perspective that immerses the reader in deaf culture, the story revolves around: February, a hearing woman of deaf parents, headmistress at a deaf school, who is struggling both with the relationship with her gay spouse, and her responsibilities to the students, Charlie, a teenage girl with a cochlear implant that never functioned correctly, whose parents battle in court over allowing her to attend a deaf school, and Austin, a deaf boy whose influential deaf parents suddenly give birth to a hearing child. While the author’s biases about deaf education and cochlear implants are strikingly obvious, still the storyline was compelling enough to keep my interest for most of the book until the abrupt and slightly ludicrous ending fraught with an implausible action that no teacher or responsible adult would make. 3.5 Stars (Liked the book; hated the ending.)

“The Beautiful Mystery” by Louise Penny

I’m still working my way through the Inspector Gamache series and in Book 8 he investigates the murder of a monk at a forgotten and remote monastery in the wilds of Quebec that suddenly becomes known for its remarkable and deeply spiritual Gregorian chants.  The author has a knack for not only telling a great mystery but delving into the psyches and motivations of her characters, revealing struggles and thoughts that few people admit to or understand, and in this novel Gamache again confronts his own demons when facing his adversary from the Sûreté du Québec who is preying on Gamache’s beloved assistant, Jean Guy Beuvoir. 4 Stars (I always love Penny’s books!)

“The Lions of Fifth Avenue” by Fiona Davis

While I liked the premise of this novel: a 1913 family residing in the NYC library suspected of stealing rare books, and a 1993 parallel story of an ancestor dealing with similar thefts, midway through the book several characters suddenly acted in ways that didn’t seem believable, and as the story took on a darker tone revealing the disintegration of the family, the plot rushed quickly to an ending that too neatly tied up some loose ends and left others hanging. In 1913, Laura Lyons lived in an apartment in the library with her children and her husband, an esteemed library superintendent perplexed by manuscripts gone missing, but Laura longs to be a journalist esteemed in her own right, and becomes deeply affected by the burgeoning women’s rights movement, while in the parallel story in 1993, her granddaughter Sadie, now an archivist in the same library, is dealing with similar thefts and personal problems. 3 Stars (an okay read).

“A Sunlit Weapon: A Novel (Maisie Dobbs, 17)” by Jacqueline Winspear

In this seventeenth book in the series featuring Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator, it is now 1942, and a female airline pilot asks for Maisie’s help in an investigation that not only brings her face to face with a plot against Eleanor Roosevelt, but also raises issues of racial prejudice that are mirrored in Maisie’s personal life. Pilot Jo Hardy, believes her Spitfire was shot at from the ground, but when she searches the area, she finds her friend, a black, American serviceman, in deep trouble, and another soldier missing and presumed dead, so she enlists Maisie’s help to discover the culprit, and break through prejudice to reveal the truth. 4 Stars (I love this series.)