The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

June 4, 2025

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Sybil is a lifelong letter writer, even in the modern age of email. She is divorced, a mother and grandmother, and a retired lawyer. She has a disease that she is hiding from her children, that is causing her to lose her eyesight. Sybil is enjoying her retirement until she is asked to speak at the funeral of her former law partner. Following the funeral, she begins receiving anonymous hate mail from a disgruntled litigant.

I loved this! It is definitely the best book I’ve read so far this year. It’s literary fiction and completely written in the form of letters. Sybil and I would have gotten along well since I’ve read all the books that she mentions in her letters. Blindness seems to be a metaphor for a lot that is going on in the novel. Will appeal to readers who enjoy Ann Patchett and Fredrik Backman. Highly recommended. 

Booth by Karen Joy Fowler

April 7, 2022

Booth by Karen Joy Fowler

In 1822, the Booth family (yes, the parents and siblings of John Wilkes Booth) moved to a farm in a remote area of Maryland. There would eventually be ten children. Father Junius was a renowned Shakespearean actor who traveled frequently for his work, and has both a remarkable talent and terrifying instability. As the country draws closer to war, the Booth family side with the Union, which makes Wilkes' radical politics all the more disturbing (he was called Wilkes by his family and friends). When Wilkes executes his deadly conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, his mother and siblings are left to deal with the aftermath.

The Booth acting dynasty was forever tarnished by John Wilkes Booth's actions, completely overshadowing their contributions to American theater. The storyline is about the Booth family and told by them, rather than about Wilkes himself, and narrative is ultimately about family, even with that family is left to pick up the pieces after a national tragedy.

Junius Booth and his son Edwin

Sunflower Sisters by Martha Hall Kelly

July 15, 2021

Sunflower Sisters by Martha Hall Kelly

A girl from a wealthy Northern family isn't content to sit home and knit socks for the Union soldiers, so she finagles her way into a nursing program. She finds out that nurses are treated like shit by the doctors and orderlies at the Army hospitals. She ends up starting her own nursing program. Meanwhile, a slave escapes from a brutally cruel owner and winds up hiding out at the rich girl's fmily's house up north. The owner sends a bounty hunter to recapture the slave while the rich family does their best to help.

The story is told from three POV's: the plantation owner, the slave, and the nurse.

Nothing new here - inhumanly cruel plantation owner with absolutely NO redeeming qualities whips and tortures her slaves. Female slave is brutally abused and escapes when she gets the chance. Plantation owner will stop at nothing to find the slave and drag her back to the plantation. Pretty typical depictions of both slave and plantation owner.

The stark descriptions of Army hospitals and the way nurses were treated were more interesting than the rest of the book. This is the third book in the author's Woolsey-Ferriday series, following the women from an actual family. It was WAY too long - at over 500 pages, it needed a good editor to chop out about 200 pages. Not nearly as good as the previous two books.