Gowda tells us a story of two cities—Mumbai, India, and San Francisco, California—and two cultures, combined in the two Drs. Thakkur. Krisnan is an Indian man who emigrated when he was 20; the other, Somer, his wife, was born and raised in the United States. They adopt a 10-month-old daughter from India. It’s also a coming-of-age novel, for both the mother and the daughter.  Asha, the daughter, feels closer to her father, but always wonders about her birth parents. Their collective and individual journeys are moving. It’s a fascinating first novel.

A memoir of a female heart surgeon, the subtitle of the book, is alternately exciting and heart-warming. No question that to be a heart surgeon requires the ability to detach one’s personal feelings for a time. However, Magliato also speaks of the need for warmth at the patient’s bedside. It’s an interesting book not only for Magliato’s story, but also for her educational push for women’s awareness of their danger of heart disease. 

Kingsolver takes us to Mexico and New England in this novel: from Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in 1929 to the House Un-American Activities Committee in the late 1950s. Harrison Shepherd is a rather lonely boy in Mexico, half-American and half-Mexican.  However, he finds a job making plaster for Diego Rivera’s huge murals in Mexico City as a teen-ager.  His contacts through Rivera included Leon Trotsky for whom he was a cook and secretary.  He kept notebooks about his life from the time he was an adolescent.  Violet Brown, later his secretary, is the one who preserved them and who comments at various points in the novel.  While the Mexican portion of the novel moved a bit slowly for me, the latter half was terrific, detailing his life in Ashville, NC.  Kingsolver again illuminates a portion of history as well as creating memorable characters.

You will probably remember Gilbert for Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert’s book about her methods of recovery from a painful divorce. This one is an interesting demonstration of her growth and change. She wants to live in the United States with her companion, Felipe, the man she met in Bali. He also has his business here. However, Homeland Security has other plans. No marriage, no companion.  Neither of them wanted to get married after painful divorces. She explores marriage across cultures as well as across history, measuring her responses against traditions. Her honesty and sense of humor added to my enjoyment of the book.

Crouch’s novel deals with lots of issues. Did Hannah Legare’s father really die in a boat accident or did he just disappear? Did her mother know her stepfather before the “accident”? How many incidents of infidelity should her husband be ready to forgive? When he has his own affair, she tries to win him back and is injured. She goes to her hometown. Should she look up the old boyfriend? Should her gay brother who is emotionally closed agree to adopt a baby with his current live-in boyfriend? In case you wonder about the dogs, her brother has a mute dog. It’s a page turner for sure.

Finally a book that ends happily! This first novel looks pretty grim at first—a 12-year-old taking care of her psychotic mother in her father’s absence. He took a traveling salesman job to get away from home. They live in a small town, so, of course, everyone knows her situation. Midway through the novel, her life does a dramatic turn-around, and she goes to live with an eccentric great-aunt in Savannah. After all the unpleasant parts of her life before, now she has good things happening. Hoffman gives us some interesting characters and situations on the way. It’s a great beach read.

Watrous’s novel follows a young woman who has followed her lover, Carolyn, to a small town in Japan where she and Carollyn are to teach English.  The cultural confusions are many, but at the beginning, gomi, what we would call trash, provides a serious cultural test—particularly which items go into which barrel.  In a small country with lots of people, that is more of a problem that we might think!  Some romance and other cultural confusions make it a quick read and one that provides both humor and pathos.

Gael has created a novel around Arthur Bell Nichols’ courting of Charlotte Bronte. For those of us who are long-time fans of the Brontes, it rings true. It is difficult, I’m sure, to create characters who are already in the public domain, but she differentiates the sisters well, and even Bromwell, the troublesome brother, seems like a human being, not a caricature. However, the romance, long in its development, is the center of the novel. Charlotte’s own development is a critical element, of course. It’s thoroughly enjoyable.

Devotion is a memoir of a spiritual search, not ended, but continuing.  Dani Shapiro explores the deep questions—the existence of God, evil in the world, loss, and death.  She is honest about her own struggles as she explores particularly Buddhism and Judaism.  She has a son who nearly died as an infant.  Her father’s family is Orthodox Jewish.  Her mother was apparently an atheist who followed her husband’s religion after marriage.  Her honesty and humility in this search, as well as her thoughtful explorations, make it a good book for anyone on a spiritual journey.

While Kwok gives us the classic immigrant story in some ways, it’s more complicated in others.  Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Shanghai, dependent on her mother’s older sister who runs a factory and employs both of them.  Fortunately Kimberly is very bright, and eventually the school personnel recognize that and see to it that she gets some opportunities.  The fact that women have more choices now changes her story from the classic one.  Does she find love in the factory or move on?  Kimberly is memorable.