The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins was a compulsive airport purchase and it hooked me from the start and was my constant companion for a plane, two trains, and a bus ride. Narrated by the title character, Frannie is a clear and honest storyteller. Laying out her life in full for her attorney as she is currently on trial for murder, she pulls you into her early years on a Jamaican plantation through to her life in London. Collins doesn’t flinch from the reality of British history that so many other historical fiction authors (and historians) like to avoid: the active role of the British in the use and trade of enslaved people. This is a novel that covers class, race, sexuality, and gender which is a long and large list of themes to manage when your characters are also nuanced and well developed but Collins does it all. This is the kind of book you think about for years after you put it down. (Later in the trip I found the book with a different cover at a used bookstore and realized even if I hadn’t bought it at the airport, I clearly was going to cross paths with this book.) 

Walking Pepys’s London by Jacky Colliss Harvey was another impulse purchase when we had an unexpectedly free afternoon in London and although the tours are very long (Pepys was a serious walker) it allowed us to uncover a tiny incredibly old church hidden amongst a bunch of law offices and a tiny pub down a truly hidden alleyway. Even as Harvey shows you how much of the city has changed, she has also put together a little historical treasure map of London.

The Likeness by Tana French is another stellar mystery novel. What always impresses me about French is how individual each story is. She constantly changes narrators but each of her narrators is so singular it’s hard to imagine they are all coming from the same writer’s pen. When Cassie Maddox, an only child who lost her parents at a young age, is given the chance to step into a murder victim’s life she struggles not to fall into the fantasy of a closely knit group of university friends. This should be a crazy plot idea but French makes it work.

Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse was a £1.00 used bookstore purchase for a few quiet days in the lake district. It’s an interesting concept, being locked in a hotel that used to be a sanatorium and then people start to be murdered! I sped through it, mostly because I wanted to know the ending, but I didn’t love it. The main character had too many personal life distractions that very much took away from the central mystery. Work problems, family problems, childhood friend problems, PTSD from childhood, and relationship problems in addition to a complicated murder plot is too much to keep a reader engaged.

Aftermath by Rhidian Brook is a snapshot of a moment in history often overlooked. World War II is over, but the hatred and suffering remain. Lewis Morgan is assigned to oversee the British post-war efforts in Germany and agrees to allow a German man and his daughter to remain in the house requisitioned from them for his own family’s use. There’s a lot to appreciate about Brook’s story. Some of the characters heal together because of shared trauma, some characters leave you with the impression they will never recover. There is an unevenness to the story – some of the plotlines and characters seem to belong to a different novel with a different purpose – but overall I appreciated the glimpse into the complicated immediate post-war era.

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo started out strong. Li Lan’s struggle to avoid the ghost of her should-have-been husband was tense and engaging. But this book perhaps should have been a series because there is such a thing as too much plot and too much ground to cover. Characters can be introduced too late; resolutions can take too long to be achieved. 200 pages in I was just over halfway through, and I had to let the novel go. I loved the story and the lore, but I lost my connection with Li Lan amongst the constant change in characters and setting and so this one was returned to the library unfinished.