Two Books: Mrs. Benedict Arnold and The Storm

 Peggy Shippen Arnold has received all sorts of calumny for her role as the wife of the notorious traitor of the American Patriot cause during the Revolutionary War. Very little hard evidence survives of her views and actions, which is a thorny problem for historical novelists. Allison Pataki published The Traitor's Wife in 2014. I tried to read it earlier this year, but gave up after 50 pages because of the way Peggy Shippen was portrayed. She was simply not a believable character. Headstrong, high-spirited, wanton, with all of these characteristics portrayed to such excess. So I gave it up.

 Emma Parry's newly released Mrs. Benedict Arnold was an entirely different experience. It was evident from the beginning that Parry had done a tremendous amount of research into the period, especially the intensely bruising conflict between Americans who were Loyalists and those who were Patriots. Some of the dialogue was tedious, as each character voiced at length their complicated political views, but overall I'm glad I read it. It's clear that Benedict Arnold, although a brilliant general in the early years of the war, was intensely flawed and narcissistic. He was 40 when he married Peggy Shippen in 1777, who was barely 18 at the time. 

For my long drives to Glens Falls (shopping, medical appts., vet, library) I was able to borrow from the library the audiobook edition of The Storm by Rachel Hawkins, published in January of this year. It's set in the fictional Alabama Gulf seaside town of St. Medard's Bay, which suffered from several direct hits from hurricanes since 1954. Right off the bat the main pivot of the book is revealed: Did teenaged beauty Lo (Gloria) Bailey murder her 34-year-old lover Landon Fitzroy, the son of the Alabama governor, during the height of a hurricane? 

 

The story moves well from long past to present, and I found I was absorbed, and moved, by all the voices of the characters past and present. A deeply satisfying tale, on many levels, but I'm so glad I had the audio version, which had a large cast of top-notch narrators. I don't think I would have enjoyed the print version anywhere near as much. Have you ever listened to an audiobook of a novel where you have felt the same? Please share if one pops to mind!

 

   

The Ending Writes Itself and Other Recent Reads

 

This past weekend I devoured the acclaimed new mystery The Ending Writes Itself  by Evelyn Clarke. (The author’s name is a pseudonym for the noted writers V.E. Schwab and Cat Clark.) I can, without reservation, proclaim that this was a fun read. I loved the premise—6 authors invited to the Scottish island home of the famed mystery author Arthur Fletch. (The only thing missing from the setting was a blockbuster snowstorm.) Some dull spots three-quarters of the way through, however, but a brilliant epilogue woke me up. As mentioned, I enjoyed it, but I don’t believe it was as superlative a mystery as some of the reviewers have exclaimed. I think that one of the reasons this whodunit caused such a buzz was its full-blown satirical treatment of the current state of the publishing industry and the way it treats authors. I admired this aspect of the mystery, and thought it was well done and properly skewered the powers that be in publishing. The novel received a glowing review in the New York Times, and a starred review from Library Journal, and I believe Publisher’s Weekly.

I also gulped down another mystery last week. Over the last 8-9 years, I've been a fan of the Lake District Mysteries by Martin Edwards. I recently realized that my last dip into this series was in 2022, and I've not read another one since. So! My Nook held within its clutches the sixth in the series, The Frozen Shroud, which I hadn't read. So off I went. 

Frankly, I thought the mystery itself was perfectly fine. But, (and this is a very big but), Daniel Kind, the lead series character who is a historian, and DCI Hannah Scarlett, although they're on the scene, do NOT figure prominently in this case. Not at all! In fact, Daniel Kind, who has been a wonderful character all through the series, has no more than a shadow role. A disappointment. Two more books are in the series, and I hope Daniel and Hannah appear more robustly because they are wonderful characters.   

Have you read anything by Martin Edwards? 

Much more has been on my reading plate, but I will need another post to describe all of that. 

  

  

The Lake House by Kate Morton and the Hawthorne/Horowitz Mystery Series

 I’ve had a wonderful week in reading. I’ve also been struggling to downsize my overflowing abundance of books, sending box after box to the library for their upcoming book sale. In the course of searching for books “to dispose of” (how my blood curdles to utter that deathly phrase!), I have discovered some books I’m so eager to read. Who knew that they were there? This is the tale of a librarian totally out of touch with her collection.

I excavated a beautiful hardcover copy of The Lake House by Kate Morton, a book published and purchased in 2015. How well I remember how busy I was that year. No wonder I bought it, hoping for calmer times and a coming respite, which did not come, not that year or the next, which explains how it became forgotten until now. 

 Kate Morton is one of my favorite authors. Although she lives in Brisbane, Australia, many of her books are set in England. She also sets a number of her books in Australia. Her first book was The House at Riverton, published in 2007. I finally read it in 2022, and agree that Morton’s later books are better, more multi-faceted, more layered, with sweeping, enchanting plots. The Secret Keeper held me in thrall from start to finish, and my current reading of The Lake House has been just the same. Set in Cornwall and London, mostly between the years 1911 to 2003, the story revolves around the life, circumstances, and tragedies of a family, mostly focusing on three sisters and their mother. What makes this plot different is that a detective constable, Sadie Sparrow, revives a cold case involving the family. She is on leave from the police, due to her faulty judgement on a recent case. But this is only one part of this spell-binding novel. 

I’m also reading The Word is Murder (2018), the first in the Hawthorne/Horowitz series by Anthony Horowitz. When I learned last Tuesday that the 6^th book in the series has just been published, I investigated and discovered that Horowitz the author makes himself the “Watson” character to the Holmesian member of the duo,  Daniel Hawthorne. I'm sure that some mystery writer has done this sort of thing before, but this is the first time I've seen it done, and I'm intrigued by that aspect. I’ve noticed on Goodreads that the ratings for each book in the series increase(s) with each book. The only reason I’m giving this series a try is that I loved Horowitz’s The Marble Hall Murders. I really didn’t know much about Anthony Horowitz’s books before that, and didn’t know that he was the creative force behind Foyle’s War (public television series). Have you read anything by Horowitz? 

 

The Rest of Our Lives and Other Titles on Booker 2025 Short List

This past week I read The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits. It was short-listed for The Booker Prize in 2025. It’s fairly short as novels go these days, just 229 pages. The main character, Tom Layward, is in his mid-50s and at a crossroads in his life, though for the first half of the book he doesn’t realize it. After driving his daughter to college for her first year away from home, he suddenly finds himself embarking on a road trip cross-country with no prior planning, visiting people who once were important in his life, pondering their connections with his current life. He’s confused about his relationship with his wife, which appears to be unraveling, but Tom is not a complainer, not a whiner, nor does he over-analyze. That’s for the reader to do!  He’s not into angst per se. He’s exploring the past and himself as he is now, and as he was growing up, in his 20s, and after his marriage. The novel is conversational, with plenty of dialogue, but more than that, Tom is in continual dialogue with himself, or is trying to be. 

I found this a compelling read, especially so given the riveting conclusion, and blessedly brief, which makes it sound as though I didn’t enjoy it. I did enjoy it, but Markovits’s approach to the novel could not have borne 400 pages, and it’s a much better book for its brevity.  

I did not choose it because it was on the Booker Shortlist; in fact, I didn’t know it was until I opened the box. Oddly, I’ve now read three books that were on that shortlist; the other two being Audition by Katie Kitamura and The Land in Winter by the British writer Andrew Miller. I’ll be frank—I did not “get” Audition. It did not resonate with me on any level whatsoever. It, too, is a short novel. Have you read it? I would love to hear other opinions.

I was attracted to The Land in Winter because it is set in England during the historic harsh winter of 1962-1963. That aspect of the novel intrigued me, when the setting becomes an important character and catalyst in the novel. I was interested in the characters, two couples, very different from each other, living in the rural West of England. Because they live on adjoining landed properties, the brutal winter makes them interact, and forces them to be closer than they otherwise would have been—yet they have little in common. I enjoyed reading it, but towards the end, the events that unfolded were very strange, to the point of being downright bizarre. The plot then steers back on course—very different.   

Books of the Week

 It's going to take me awhile to get back into the groove of book blogging, as evidenced by the generic header for this post. 

Over a week ago I finished reading The Searcher by Tana French, the first book in the Cal Hooper series,  published in 2020. Cal Hooper, the former Chicago police officer and a newcomer to a small Irish village in the west of the country, is a wonderful, multi-dimensional character. I very much enjoyed the reading--it swept me away in a good way. But in many ways, it was a hard and sad story, despite the well-drawn characters. I do heartily recommend it, and the writing is brilliant. 

I listened to Snow in April, a short Rosamunde Pilcher novel. This easily could have been a much longer book, and I think it would have benefited greatly from the typically lengthy Pilcher treatment. I enjoyed every minute, especially the misadventure of siblings Caroline and Jody to Scotland. If you enjoy Pilcher, you will like this--It was published in 1972, and is an earlier book than many of hers that I have liked.  

I'm currently reading a historical novel by Beatriz Williams. Our Woman in Moscow has a dual timeline, and I don't feel it's effectively managed.  The chapters for each timeline do not dovetail well, and at times the entries seem pointless because they don't move the plot forward at all. A frustrating read, but I discovered all of this too late, so will plow through to the end. The setting's era is 1940-1952, and is set in Rome, Paris, New York, and Moscow. Twin sisters, each very different, but they, too, are not well-drawn. I just don't believe in them. Sigh. I've enjoyed others of Beatriz Williams's books, but this is not one of them. 

I have a new laptop computer and it will take me more time than I have right now to add images and links. I will be back! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Books I Loved Reading in 2025

 So far in 2026, I’ve finished only two books! (I'll post about them later.) The problem is simple: I’ve not set aside time in each day, or in each week to read. Work has been unusually busy-frantic this year. My colleagues and I agree this status is at least partly due to the severity of the winter, with many people staying indoors digging into their genealogy, leading them to urgently seek help.

In 2025 I had a wonderful reading summer. I worked, but also had plenty of time to read. My favorite book of the year I read in July. Fox by Joyce Carol Oates weighs in at 652 pages, and I had no problem finishing it in ten days. I’d never read Oates before, had no inkling what a roller-coaster explosion of an experience it would be. It’s a tale of a fascinating sociopath, and what amazed me most is how Oates takes the reader inside the head of such a man—his dizzying, relentless stream of thoughts, the way he “manages” all the people around him—in fact, how exhausting it must be to be a sociopath! The other characters more than share their weight with him--they are all so unique and astutely drawn. And Oates is in her 80s! This novel proves her to be at the height of her powers. 

In August, I read the new mystery by John Banville, The Drowned, the fourth of his Strafford & Quirke novels written under his own name. Prior to the most recent four, he wrote Quirke novels using the pen name Benjamin Black. The best thing about reading Banville is his agility with language. All a description needs is one or two sentences and the reader sees and knows everything. The setting is Dublin and environs, sometimes hopping south to Wicklow, and the time is a noirish 1950s. His take on Irish culture at the time is so illuminating—the tension of being a minority “Prod” (Protestant) in the Republic of Ireland. Because Banville’s characters are both Prods and Catholics, even though the conflict between them is never stated, it hangs on every word of dialogue. Banville has sympathy for his Prod characters, of whom Strafford is the most notable--He opens up a view of Irish life that I hadn’t encountered before. Prods are the descendants of the English who ran the country before 1922, and their descendants have been in sharp decline as far as status and wealth are concerned ever since. I’m so glad I bought the book because it is definitely worth a re-read.

Another top read of 2025 I read in February or March last year. Bernhard Schlink, one of my favorite authors, had a new book The Granddaughter, which is, I think, definitely his best, if not one of his best. Schlink is most well-known for his novel The Reader, which was made into a top-rated film. Not one of my favorites of his, however.

Other favorites of 2025—All published in 2025 except for Elizabeth George’s mystery. Have you read any of these? 

The Wild, Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

The Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

A Banquet of Consequences by Elizabeth George

 

Small Rain by Garth Greenwell and Other April Reading!

I've been working long and hard this month, but I've managed to make time for my reading adventures. I've had to face it: It's essential for my mental health, the care of my brain, and my mood in these terrible times.

Earlier this month, Garth Greenwell won the PEN/Faulkner Award for his novel Small Rain. I was lucky--I checked in with my fabulous library in Glens Falls--Crandall Library, and they had a copy. It has been a good read for me emotionally. 

Like the narrator, I am completely leery of doctors and their interventions. But when the narrator develops a life-threatening condition that leaves him hospitalized in the ICU for 2 weeks, he mentally scrambles to find a way to accomodate what's happening. He's only in his 40s, completely unprepared for such a venture, and feels an incapacity to handle what usually occurs only in people of poor health in their 60s and 70s. Yet he hustles, as we all do, to find ways to let his mind escape what's happening. Unwittingly he focuses on recent, past traumas, but also on the many wonderful relationships in his life. For me, as a hospital-phobe, due largely to a life-threatening condition that happened to me in 2012 and was not handled well, to say the least, I totally resonated with the narrator's experience and his all-too-real, understandable anxieties. A great novel! I know, it sounds too grim, but I highly recommend it for its veracity to human experience.

 

I am also nearing the end of The Distant Hours by the Australian author Kate Morton. It's 563 pages, and frankly, would have been improved by some tightening, to say the least. However, I have enjoyed it. Gosh--I only paid $1.99 for the ebook, so that's something. It's set in England, mostly during the early years of World War II, but also bounces forward in time so that the daughter of a very young evacuee can visit the "Castle" and the people who offered her mother shelter during the Blitz. A complex family saga, much more complex a story than I've described here. Although overly long, it is compelling. I recommend it!

 

Really Reading Now, As Much as I Can

Yes, another long time away from this blog. But these days I need to read and share with others, like I need to breathe. 

I've been immersed in the Australian writer Charlotte McConaghy's recently published The Wild, Dark Shore. Without knowing what I was doing, I chose it as an Audible book. If I knew then what I know now, I think I would have chosen to read it as a book rather than an audiobook. The writing is beautiful, and because I am not a stellar listener, I feel I'm missing some of its beauty. 

 

I'm still wrapped up in it, nevertheless, and am near the end now. Powerful writing! The novel is set on Shearwater Island in the Antarctic. A friend asked if it's set in the future, and I would say yes, a bit in the future. Shearwater Island is about to become uninhabitable because the ocean is overtaking it, yet one family remains there, though only for a matter of weeks, at which time they plan/hope to be picked up by a ship and taken back to Australia. Wonderful nature writing, yet this novel is a nail-biter as well, and yes, a harbinger of climate disaster. 

I'm only 10 pages from finishing Homecoming by Bernhard Schlink, translated and first published in English in 2008. I just came off being tremendously moved by Schlink's most recent novel, The Granddaughter, and decided, as a project, I would read all of his novels (many of them for the second time). I did read Homecoming back around 2009-2010. But this second reading has been nothing like the first; it has been much, much more startling. 

I reached the ending, and I saw what was coming, though I swear I don't remember. But some part of me remembers, because for a long time, I could not finish the last 30 pages. I did read much of it today, but all of it is so prescient, so unbelievably, incredibly timely that it is horrifying to me. No, nobody dies. No extreme tragedy ensues. But this ending is about our current status--now. A charismatic professor, a person at the helm, leading his students into danger for his own theories and purposes. And in the ADIRONDACKS, no less!! I kid you not!

 So, to rest the mind (!), I'm also reading a Kate Morton novel, The Distant Hours. Have you read that one? It's a very long one, set in England, during WWII to decades later, moving back and forth in time.

A Brief Check-In of Sorts!

 It has been so enormously long since I last posted. I've been happily consumed by satisfying work, and the research for an article I'm writing about the "Hard Winter," 1779-1780, during the Revolutionary War. I'm just barely grabbing moments for non-work reading these days.

A question for any reader out there: Did you ever read a novel set during the American Revolutionary War that you enjoyed, or that you remember reading? I can't recall a single one, other than The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, which I really appreciated. 

I'm in the mood for Revolutionary-War era fiction, given my recent research. We're well into the 250th anniversary of the Revolution, and I hope fiction and non-fiction will be appearing, but thus far, given that I have heard nothing about any new historical fiction on this topic, I fear there will be nothing. 

Right now I'm reading the 2024 translation of the acclaimed German author Bernhard Schlink's The Granddaughter. It's so thought-provoking, so fascinating, I'm riveted, but then again, it's not easy reading, emotionally speaking. It's emotionally hard, as are all his novels. Very worthwhile, however. A young woman brought up in the GDR (East Germany) weds a young man from the FDR (West Germany). Lots going on. It all runs so deep. So deep.

I read The Sequel recently, the thriller-mystery novel by Jean Korelitz, and the sequel of her bestseller The Plot. This one was stupendously clever, I grant you, but the characters are colder than ice and worse than that. So if you need a novel to sustain you in harrowing times, this one is not it. 

I really enjoyed Nancy Thayer's audiobook, The Summer We Started Over. Family fiction, set on Nantucket, and I thought it extremely well done. I highly recommend it for these times. Very soul-satisfying. 

I'm sorry I have not provided links to any of these books. If I have time tomorrow or later, I will. I hope you will be able to find them if you are interested.