Cutting for Stone

Cutting for Stone

Author: Abraham Verghese

Publisher: Knopf (2009)

ISBN: 0375414495

pages: 541

genre: historical fiction

4.5 (out of 5) STARS

Annotation: Twin brothers born from a secret love affair between an Indian nun and a British surgeon in Addis Ababa, Marion and Shiva Stone come of age in an Ethiopia on the brink of revolution, where their love for the same woman drives them apart.

Summary: Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics—their passion for the same woman—that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him—nearly destroying him—Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him. (www.goodreads.com)

Evaluation: Cutting for Stone is a wonderful book. I believe it fits the genre of historical fiction but it also seems like contemporary fiction. This is the type of book I have the most experience reading. I enjoy reading about "normal," real people and the difficult experiences and situations they encounter in life. This book was a great example of these things.

Read-a-likes:

Caucasia by Danzy Senna

Desirable Daughters by Bharati Mukherjee

Beneath the Lion's Gaze by Maaza Mengiste

The Many Lives & Secret Sorrow of Josephine B

The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.

Author: Sandra Gulland

Publisher: Touchstone (1995)

ISBN: 0684856069

pages: 448

genre: historical fiction

4.5 (out of 5) STARS

Annotation: The diary of a Creole beauty from Martinique who became Napoleon's wife. It traces her adjustment to French high society, her love affairs in order to survive the revolution--her husband is guillotined--and her romance with Napoleon.

Summary: Young Josephine Bonaparte shines at the center of a new, sweeping, romantic work of historical fiction by Sandra Gulland: detailed and exhaustively researched, compelling and powerful, The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. is the first in a trilogy of fictional novels tracing the actual rise of a young European noblewoman who would one day stand next to Napoleon. From the heartbreak of lost loves to the horror of revolution to the hope of new days, it's an intimate epic any romance lover will love. (www.goodreads.com)

Evaluation: I read this book as a read-a-like to The Coral Thief by Rebecca Stott. Although both books are historical fiction and during the same general time period, the feel of both books was quite different. I enjoyed this book more. I knew very little about Josephine Bonaparte and was quite intriqued. I hope to read the other two books in the trilogy soon.

Josephine B trilogy:

1- The Many Lives & Secret Sorrow of Josephine B

2-Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe

3- The Last Great Dance on Earth

The Coral Thief

The Coral Thief by Rebecca Stott

In The Time of Butterflies

In the Time of Butterflies

Author: Julia Alvarez

Publisher: Penguin Books (1994)

ISBN: 0452274427

pages: 321

genre: historical fiction

3 (out of 5) STARS

Annotation: Follows the lives of the four Mirabel sisters as they work with the underground movement in Domincan Republic to depose dictator Rafael Trujillo.

Summary: From the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents comes this tale of courage and sisterhood set in the Dominican Republic during the rise of the Trujillo dictatorship. A skillful blend of fact and fiction, In the Time of the Butterflies is inspired by the true story of the three Mirabal sisters who, in 1960, were murdered for their part in an underground plot to overthrow the government. Alvarez breathes life into these historical figures--known as "las mariposas," or "the butterflies," in the underground--as she imagines their teenage years, their gradual involvement with the revolution, and their terror as their dissentience is uncovered.

Alvarez's controlled writing perfectly captures the mounting tension as "the butterflies" near their horrific end. The novel begins with the recollections of Dede, the fourth and surviving sister, who fears abandoning her routines and her husband to join the movement. Alvarez also offers the perspectives of the other sisters: brave and outspoken Minerva, the family's political ringleader; pious Patria, who forsakes her faith to join her sisters after witnessing the atrocities of the tyranny; and the baby sister, sensitive Maria Teresa, who, in a series of diaries, chronicles her allegiance to Minerva and the physical and spiritual anguish of prison life. (www.goodreads.com)

Evaluation: In the Time of Butterflies is a wonderful historical fiction novel. I have found that historical fiction books tend to be very dense with detail and this book was no exception. A times it got a bit slow for my liking but overall it was an enjoyable read.

Read-a-likes:

Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

They Forged the Signature of God by Viriato Sencion

The Coral Thief

The Coral Thief
Author: Rebecca Stott
Publisher: Random House (2009)
ISBN: 9780385531467
pages: 278

Genre: historical fiction
subgenre:

4 (out of 5) STARS

Annotation: In 1815 France, a young medical student discovers that the beauty who shared his coach has stolen the rare coral specimens he carried and soon he encounters a ring of philosopher thieves determined to sabotage pre-Darwinian theories of evolution.

Summary: Paris, 1815. Napoleon has just surrendered at Waterloo and is on his way to the island of St. Helena to begin his exile. Meanwhile, Daniel Connor, a young medical student from Edinburgh, has just arrived in Paris to study anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes–only to realize that his letters of introduction and a gift of precious coral specimens, on which his tenure with the legendary Dr. Cuvier depends, have been stolen by the beautiful woman with whom he shared a stagecoach.

In the fervor and tumult of post revolutionary Paris, nothing is quite as it seems. In trying to recover his lost valuables, Daniel discovers that his beautiful adversary is in fact a philosopher-thief who lives in a shadowy world of outlaws and émigrés. Daniel’s fall into this underworld is also a flight, for as he falls in love with the mysterious coral thief and she draws him into an audacious plot that will leave him with a future very different from the one he has envisioned for himself, Daniel discovers a radical theory of evolution and mutability that irrevocably changes his conception of the world in which he lives. (www.goodreads.com)

Evaluation: The Coral Thief was our selection for the historical fiction book group. I enjoyed this book though I am not sure it was the best selection of historical fiction available. Some general complaints from our book group members were that they did not like the characters, particularly the main character, the book dragged in some places, and it did not hold their interest. I found the book to be soothing and relaxing but maybe not the most amazing book written.

Read-a-likes:
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Rhett Butler's People by Donald McCraig
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
The Forgery of Venus: A Novel by Michael Gruber