Daughter of Moloka’I, by Alan Brennert. St. Martin’s Press, 2019
We first meet Ruth in an orphanage on Oahu, the half Japanese, half Hawaiian daughter of occupants of the Moloka’I leper colony. Over the course of 54 years, from 1926 to 1970, we follow her life as she is adopted by a Japanese family who move to California to farm. Of course, come ( Read more... )

The Latecomers, by Helen Klein Ross. Little, Brown and Company, 2018

‘The Latecomers’ is a big family saga that encompasses both the rich Hollingworths and their poor servant Bridey - although *that* fact isn’t widely known. While the book starts with 9/11, the story itself starts much earlier, when Bridey and her fiancé board a ship in Ireland ( Read more... )

House of Gold, by Natasha Solomons. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2018
The House of Gold is the Goldbaum dynasty, who own and run an international banking company. Probably the richest family is the world at the time of the novel (pre- and through WW 1), they keep it in the family by marrying cousins. Thus Greta Goldbaum of the Viennese branch of the family ( Read more... )

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, by Leslye Walton. Candlewick Press, 2014Ava Lavender’s family had a history of heartbreaking love. Men who ran away, men who died, a father who married another and left her mother pregnant, an aunt who turned into a bird; it’s just not a cheerful family. To add to it, the dead haunt the living. So ( Read more... )

An Unofficial Rose, by Iris Murdoch. Viking Press, 1962 ‘An Unofficial Rose’ is a family story- a very dysfunctional family. The matriarch has just died, and the day of her funeral starts the book. With Fanny dead, Hugh Peronett is now free to rekindle an old relationship with Emma. His son, Randall, wants to be free of his wife, Ann, so that he ( Read more... )

The Accursed, by Joyce Carol Oates. Harper Collins, 2013 I’m a big fan of Joyce Carol Oates, so when I discovered she had a new book out, I was excited. I was even happier when I found that it was another volume in the gothic family saga series she started many years ago with ‘Bellefleur’, which is one of my favorite books. The 660 page length ( Read more... )