Violeta, the Chilean narrator, is a hundred years old. She is relating her life to Camilo, her grandson, at the end of her life. Violeta’s life spans two pandemics. She has lovers, husbands, two children and a loyal extended family. Her history parallels the history of the world-wars, politics and natural disasters. Violeta is the tale of an independent, strong-willed woman who refuses to let traumas and crisis stop her from living a very full life.

Isabel Allende’s books are always entertaining, but Violeta is not one of her best. I found the main character unbelievable and the structure of the novel (Violeta telling her life story) sometimes awkward and stilted.

Colleen Hubbard’s debut novel is the story of Del, a young woman from a small town in New England who thought her past was no longer a part of her life. However, when she learns that her greedy cousins want to put a housing development of the land her deceased parents had left her, she decides to disassemble her childhood home piece by piece. In three months, almost single-handedly during a harsh winter, she moves every inch of the house to a new location.

This description of Housebreaking sounds tedious, but trust me, it’s not. The novel has tension-will Del meet the deadline her cousins have set and will she receive the money the cousins promised her. It also has well-drawn characters with Del, a quirky, defiant, strong-willed young woman in every scene.

Mungo Hamilton is sixteen years old. He lives with his alcoholic mother, Maureen, his gang leader brother, Hamish and his bright, motivated sister, Jodie, in a tenement building in Glasgow. When there is talk that Mungo has gay tendencies, his mother sends him with two men she has just met at an AA meeting for a weekend of fishing and camping. Her convoluted thinking is that this weekend away will make a man of Mungo. Instead it becomes three horror-filled days.

In many ways Young Mungo is similar to Stuart’s debut novel, The Man Booker Prize winner Shuggie Bain. They both have a young, gay main character living in the slums of Glasgow with an alcoholic mother. Both novels are heart breaking, vividly descriptive, achingly uncomfortable with a very sympathetic main character. If you appreciated Shuggie Bain, you will want to read Young Mungo.

The first sentence of Ocean State reads, “When I was in eighth grade my sister killed another girl.” Set for the most part in 2009 in a town in Rhode Island, the novel tells what leads up to and what happens after the murder from four women’s experiences-the murderer, Angel, the sister of the murderer, Marie, the mother of the murderer, Carol and the murdered girl, Birdy. As we get a clearer picture of each of these characters, we feel anger, shame and empathy for all of them.

This is the perfect book for readers who want to instantly become involved in a book. Although this is not a “typical” O’Nan novel, like most of his works, Ocean State has clear, concise prose, relatable characters and a very well-constructed plot.

Pulitzer Prize winner Kathryn Schulz has written a memoir that is divided into three parts. The first section “Lost” describes her reaction to the death of her father as well as how the concept of loss and grief is experienced historically and psychologically. “Found” zeroes in on Kathryn finding love, how it affects her and some others’ experiences of discovery. The third part is titled “and.” It not only describes Schulz’s life now but also the history of the ampersand and other interesting anecdotes.

This memoir is not for everyone, but I found it fascinating, hugely informative and extremely well-written. Schulz is such a good writer that I would probably read anything she has written, even if the subject didn’t interest me.

Although John Wilkes Booth is the most well-known member of the Booth family today, some of his relatives were more famous in their day. Karen Joy Fowler writes of his sisters(Rosalie and Asia) and his brothers (June, Edwin and Joe) as well as his parents (Mary and Junius). Rosalie was a spinster while Asia was the feisty and outgoing sister. Junius and Edwin were famous actors, while June, Joe and John’s acting abilities were second rate. Booth delves into the events and psyche of each family member. All were flawed but they cared deeply for each other. Fowler begins each section with a short interlude about Abraham Lincoln that describes his life in comparison to the Booths at that time. The deeper I read into Booth the more I became engrossed with all the members of the Booth family. It takes a while to get the gist of each character, but keep reading. You will not be disappointed. Booth is a great work of historical fiction.

Phyllis lives a conventional life in England in the 70’s. She is almost forty years old, and has a successful husband and two children. Her husband has invited the son of an old acquaintance to dinner, and in a very short time, Phyllis’s life is changed forever. She moves in with the twenty year old “dinner guest,” and renounces her old values and priorities as she takes on new ones.

At first I thought Free Love would be a typical and predictable love story. However, about a third of the way into the novel, there are several twists and turns that make Tessa Hadley’s work a worthwhile read.

Julie Otsuka’s third novel begins with a cast of characters swimming, for a variety of reasons, in an underground pool. When a crack in the pool’s foundation appears, all of the swimmers are disturbed and react in various ways. The Swimmers then focuses on one swimmer, Alice, and her nameless daughter who is the novel’s narrator. Alice has dementia, and when she can no longer swim, her grasp of reality becomes more pronounced.

Like her others works of fiction, Otsuka’s The Swimmers is slim yet emotionally charged. It is a fine read, however, the shift from the activity at the swimming pool to Alice’s decline was too abrupt.

Having lived through Watergate, I was interested in learning what new information was discovered. Happily, I was not disappointed. Graff’s most recent work of nonfiction is easy to read, informative and well-documented. Although I knew the outcome and the main characters, I couldn’t put down Watergate. With all that his been released since Watergate occurred, Nixon and his gang come off even worse than they did in the 70’s. Although this is a lengthy book, it is in no way a tedious read. Also, be sure to read the footnotes at the bottom of most pages-they are some of the most interesting parts of Graff’s research.

Ansel Packer is a murderer awaiting his execution which is to take place in 12 hours. Through the experiences of three women, his mother, his sister-in-law, and a childhood acquaintance who is a police officer, we learn who Ansel Packer is, who they are, and how he has impacted their lives.

Notes on an Execution is not a mystery. Rather it is a well-written exploration of how murder lives on long after the victim dies. In her introduction, Danya Kukafka said she wrote this novel because she was sick of our obsession with serial killers and wanted more focus on the women affected by them. Unfortunately, of the four main characters in Notes on an Execution, Ansel Packer is the most interesting.