Buckeye, for the most part, takes place in the small town of Bonhomie, Ohio and focuses on six interrelated characters. Cal and Becky are married and have a son, Cal Jr, nicknamed Skip. Margaret and Felix are married and have a son, Tom. Their lives are connected by proximity, passion, secrets and eventually friendship.

I started to read Buckeye because I was drawn to the title, but once I started the novel, I couldn’t put it down. Its characters are interesting and complex, and the plot is fast paced and easy to follow. I highly recommend Buckeye. It’s a winner!!

Jessica Francis Kane has taken a real person and a true situation and embellished them. In 1952 the future author Penelope Fitzgerald leaves London with her six year old son, leaving behind her alcoholic husband and her two year old daughter. Her destination is Fonesca, Mexico where she hopes her son will inherit money from two elderly, unmarried sisters who are distantly related to her family. When she and her son arrive at the sisters’ villa, she learns there are others vying for the money.

Kane artistically weaves fact and fiction throughout Fonesca. Some may find it confusing that some characters, events and locations are fictitious and some are not. The more I read Fonesca, the more I enjoyed it and look forward to reading a few novels by Penelope Fitzgerald.

Olio Hercules is a Ukrainian woman who authors cookbooks with recipes from her homeland while living in London. When the Russians attacked Ukraine in February of 2022, she felt it was important to learn more about her family and the country she left. Part of the tradition of any country is the food one brings to the table, so while Hercules describes four generations of family members, she also writes of the country’s native dishes as well as Ukraine’s tumultuous history.

Olia Hercules is an excellent writer. Her descriptions are so vivid. I knew very little about Ukraine and it’s difficulties, not just recently, and was glad to learn what its people have endured for almost a hundred years. For readers who have a hard time with foreign names Strong Roots has lots!

Noah Cassidy, a lawyer, his wife, Lorelei Shaw, an AI expert and their three children are in a self driving car headed towards North Carolina. Charlie, age seventeen, is behind the wheel when suddenly his sister Alice screams. Charlie grabs the wheel, gives it a sharp turn, and crashes into a car going in the opposite direction. After that moment, the Cassidy-Shaw’s life is never the same.

Culpability begins with an interesting premise. Who or what is responsible for the accident? And although it is a good, relevant read, I feel Culpability tries to cover to many themes and problems in too little time.

Hai is an intelligent, twenty-one year old druggie whose family immigrated from Viet Nam. He has dropped out of college but has his mother believing that he is in medical school in Boston when he is really only a few miles away from her in East Gladness, Connecticut. One night he is seriously contemplating suicide by jumping off a bridge into a fast flowing river when a voice calls out for him to stop. The voice belongs to Grazina, and elderly woman with dementia who escaped from Lithuania during World War II. Hai ends up living and taking care of Grazina while working at HomeMarket, a fast food restaurant specializing in Thanksgiving fare. The workers at HomeMarket are quirky and sad but they care about each other as well as the restaurant.

Ocean Vuong writes beautifully and I appreciated The Emperor of Gladness, but it is not an easy read. All of the characters are weighed down by what life has offered them. There is very little that is uplifting or positive in any of the characters’ lives. The Emperor of Gladness is not a beach read!

My “summer classic” last year was David Copperfield. I enjoyed it so much I decided to read another Dickens’ novel this summer. Bleak House was a big mistake. It is a criticism of the British legal system during the mid 1800’s. Dispersed within this indictment is a huge cast of characters, most having long, weird names and pathetic tales of woe. It was only after I had read over half of the book that I knew who was who, and even then I was unable to feel for their plights. In Dickens’ time, Bleak House was read in installments, and I can’t imagine how any reader then could keep the characters and the experiences straight. My advice: If you have the urge to read some Dickens, don’t read Bleak Street. It’s a chore with very little pleasure.

Sybil Van Antwerp has been writing letters all her life, so it seems only natural that a novel where she is the main character is written in letters to and from her. Sybil is 77 years old, divorced, mother of three but one son died. She was adopted when she was a year old, is going blind, lives alone, has two elderly men pursuing her and is very set in her ways.

This epistolary novel is fun, engaging, charming and delightful. It is an easy, quick read with a dynamic, complex, sympathetic main character. The Correspondent is a “woman’s novel,” and women over sixty will be able to relate to Sybil.

The controversial author of American Dirt has written a new novel that takes place in New York, St. Louis and Puerto Rico. It follows a family from 1968 to 2023, beginning with the childhood of Rafaela Acuna y Daubon, a beauty born into a wealthy Puerto Rican family. Rafaela marries a man from the mainland and leaves her homeland for St. Louis. Speak to Me of Home describes her life as well as the lives of Rafaela’s children and grandchildren.

Speak to Me of Home is a nice summer read, but it lacks the tension, drama and unforgettable characters of American Dirt. The characters are rather bland and when the family encounters tragedy and crises, I felt far removed from their experiences. Lastly, each chapter takes place in a different city in a different year, but it is not chronological. I can’t imagine why Jeanine Cummins decided to present the novel this way.

Susan Choi’s novel is told in alternating chapters focusing on several characters. The main characters are Anne, Serk, Louisa and Tobias. Anne and Serk are married and Louisa is their child. Tobias is Anne’s son from an earlier relationship. Serk was born in Korea, spent most of his childhood in Japan and moved to The United States when he was a young adult. Anne, Serk and Louisa move to Japan when the college Serk is teaching at practically forces him to take a teaching assignment there. One night Serk and Louisa are walking along the beach in Japan gazing at the stars. Serk slip and falls into the sea. His body is never recovered and he is presumed dead.

My summary of Flashlight does not do it justice. This very fine novel is part history lesson, part family tale and part mystery and much more. Flashlight is one of the best works of fiction I have read this year. Also, I always appreciate books with simple titles that are really not so simple.

I have been a Mark Twain fan for years. I have a bookshelf devoted to his works and a few of his biographies, so I was eager to read Chernow’s opus. Because Twain was an avid letter writer and most of the individuals close to him were too, there is lots of information in Mark Twain. Chernow presents all sides of the author and lecturer-his genius, his humor, his need for revenge and his lack of business sense. The word unique is often thrown around too easily and/or incorrectly, but Mark Twain was and still is a truly unique figure in American history. After 1033 pages, I was sad to say goodby to a man I got to know so well.