Becoming Sarah by Diane Botnick

Many readers think that they don’t want to read more books about the Holocaust or World War II. There’s nothing new to tell, they say, but what if a brilliant debut novelist looked at the war and the camps slant?  What if this author imagined a baby born in 1942 and shared the story of her survival? That’s exactly what Diane Botnick does in Becoming Sarah and the reason readers will devour her first novel is because she builds the characters slowly and carefully using lyrical, yet spare language and sentences that evoke baby Sarah’s life from 1942 into the twenty-first century while showing the consequences of her beginnings.

Readers will be captured immediately:

“1942

It happened in winter, this birth, this unlikely, uncelebrated event. A winter that so efficiently branded her with its cold, she was never not cold again. So cold that of all the things she might have wished to do over, chief among them was to have been born in summer.

It happened in Auschwitz, this birth. Auschwitz. Winter. Impossible for a grown-up to wake, work, sleep, and wake again. For a newborn, miraculous.” 

Sarah’s mother died when she was born. The other women stepped in. One was no saint, but “It cost her nothing, though, to stick a pinkie into the baby’s mouth, so she did, and then miraculously, when that first nurturing soul disappeared, another stepped in. And because in night’s meat locker a baby took up little room and gave off much heat, soon there was a queue of women.

That the guards never learned of this baby’s existence was only one of the miracles at play. There was that she survived the winter of ‘42 to see another and another and another. That there were women enough who pooled their paltry resources and bartered rag and needle for thread and buttons, a bit of wire, a pair of shoes, and stood for a while in a cement-block room, holding her, rocking under a sprinkle as ephemeral as spring rain, pretending the water ran hot and clear instead of cold and murky, a chant, lu la loo-loo-loo, rising from them, these women stripped down to their mourning-dove gray. Normal babies don’t see the world in Technicolor for five months. For this one, it would be years.”

Sarah was liberated at age three and adopted at age six. In Berlin in 1961, she met a kind Russian soldier. They were together for three days. He took her to get a tattoo because she might be able to leave if she were marked as a Jew. Later Russian guards “wanted nothing to do with her” and put her on an airplane to Rome with a letter from her soldier and a child growing inside her. Sasha was born in 1962 and sailed with Sarah into New York and settled in Queens where Sarah got a job in a zipper factory. Sarah, traumatized by her early years and her inability to forge her own path in Europe, struggled as a mother. Sasha grew into an angry teenager, became pregnant, and left her daughter Malchah with Sarah who raised her as her own. Sarah and Malchah moved to Ohio where Sarah got a job at Kent State University and met Walter who valued and loved her. At age 48, Sarah gave birth to Ruth. In 2020, Ruth gave birth to a baby girl—Moll. The novel brilliantly mixes the stories of these women of different generations and points of view as it builds a narrative of women over the last 100 years. 

The novel is filled with historical details, but it’s the tapestry Botnick weaves as she shares women’s journeys to becoming themselves that makes it a winner. The glimpse of Sarah in 2045, while unexpected, allows the novel to revisit her 100 years as a survivor, if not a Survivor. 

Summing it Up: Read Becoming Sarah for a poignant tale of survival and of becoming oneself. Savor the historical details as you become involved in the lives of three generations of women influenced by a miraculous, yet perilous beginning. 

Becoming Sarah is available as an original paperback or in digital form. 

Rating: 5 Stars

Publication Date: October 28, 2025

Categories: fiction, Five Stars, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Pigeon Pie, Book Club

Author Website: https://www.dianebotnick.com/

What Others Are Saying:

Kirkus Reviews: 

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/diane-botnick/becoming-sarah/

“How does a survivor of unspeakable acts survive—and what happens to the children they raise? Botnick bravely and successfully takes on these questions with great skill, in a style that is witty and wonderfully hopeful. Becoming Sarah offers a brilliant quartet of unforgettable women who each crave a love that has been stifled but never destroyed.”—Gloria Jacobs, former executive director of The Feminist Press and executive editor of Ms. Magazine

“Becoming Sarah is a sweeping generational saga, told in oblique yet powerful prose. From Sarah’s birth in Auschwitz through many generations of daughters stretching into the future, Botnick shows us the slowly uncoiling effects of motherlessness, persecution, and displacement—and how love weaves, struggles, and sometimes triumphs through it all.”—Helen Benedict, author of The Good Deed and Wolf Season

“A prism-like gaze at the jewel of motherhood, with its sharp edges and smooth opaque surfaces, Becoming Sarah keeps churning through several generations of Jewish women, who strive to understand each other and themselves beneath the shadows of the Holocaust. Every sentence is meticulously written and not a word wasted.”—Suzzy Roche, founder of The Roches and author of The Town Crazy

The Names by Florence Knapp

This review of Florence Knapp’s impressive debut The Names will differ from most of my reviews. While I’ll still describe the novel, one that’s getting enormous buzz and is a Read with Jenna selection, my main intent is to offer a few suggestions for reading the book.

First, some background: The Names is a clever, imaginative debut that will make you and your book club ponder a plethora of questions and issues. When the book opens in 1987, Cora’s husband Gordon has reminded her to register the name of their baby son. She takes her nine-year-old daughter Maia and the baby to the registrar and along the way Maia suggests the name Bear because the baby is soft and cuddly. Gordon expects the baby to be named after him as is tradition in his family. Cora usually acquiesces to Gordon, a highly respected doctor who abuses her, but Cora loves the name Julian and would like to choose it. The first chapter shows Cora making three decisions. First, she names him Bear. After that she registers him as Julian and finally, she calls him Gordon as directed. The following chapters, appearing every seven years, show the impact of the different names. 

When Cora names the baby Gordon, their lives take one trajectory with her cowering and suffering under her husband’s abuse. When she names him Julian, the abuse is still real but has different consequences. When she selects the name Bear, things change yet again. 

This is a powerful look at abuse and resilience and it’s a compelling page-turner. However, you need to carefully juggle the three stories to see the nuances in their lives and to track what’s happening to the characters in each scenario. I suggest making a cheat sheet in the first chapter with three sections—one for each of the chosen names. Under those headings, list what the characters are doing at the time. I didn’t do this until a few chapters in and I ended up returning to the book’s beginning to keep it all straight. Once I had my sheet, I could concentrate on the brilliant plotting, the influence of abuse on others in the family, and the nuances of decision making when in an abusive relationship. I also suggest, that you note the ages of Maia and her brother in each scenario to better understand their actions and that of their parents, their grandmother, and others in the novel. This is not a book I suggest for audio. Keeping the characters straight could be more difficult on audio and hearing the scenes of abuse would have been too much for me. 

Summing it Up: The Names is a caring, cleverly plotted debut that manages to keep from being gimmicky despite the premise. It’s both a devastating read and one that’s deeply satisfying. It’s the perfect vehicle for a deep book discussion as long as you make sure the subject isn’t triggering for any participants. Some of the depictions of domestic abuse are so realistic that they can be difficult to read, so make sure your group knows each other well before selectng it. It offers rewarding insights that make it worth delving into the topic.

Rating: 4 Stars

Publication Date: May 6, 2025

Categories: Fiction, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Sweet Bean Paste, Book Club

Author Website: https://www.florenceknapp.com/

Reading Group Guide: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/768706/the-names-a-read-with-jenna-pick-by-florence-knapp/ 

What Others Are Saying:

Booklist: https://www.booklistonline.com/products/9804021

Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/florence-knapp/the-names-2/

The Observer: https://observer.co.uk/culture/books/article/the-names-florence-knapp-review

Publishers Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/9780593833902

The Times (UK): https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/the-names-florence-knapp-review-gwhfjmpgl

Measure of Devotion by Nell Joslin

Nell Joslin’s spectacular debut novel Measure of Devotion is a Civil War odyssey that follows thirty-six-year-old Susannah Shelburne from her South Carolina home to Lookout Mountain, Tennessee where her severely wounded son Francis lies. In October 1863, word reached Susannah and her husband Jacob that Francis had been injured near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Jacob was too ill to travel, so Susannah packed bandages, linens, beans, and potatoes, and servant and friend Letty’s homemade mixtures of goldenseal paste, fever-reducing tinctures, dried herbs, smoked meat, and jars of jam and pickles. Susannah sewed gold pieces into her clothing and boarded a train for her long journey. Jacob and Susannah never believed in the Confederate cause, but Francis did, so he defied his parents’ wishes and enlisted on his eighteenth birthday in September 1861. Letters had been their only contact since that day.

When Susannah arrives in Tennessee, feverish, and disoriented Francis is unhappy with his northern-sympathizing mother, whose enforced hygiene and care rescues him from the brink of death. While she nurses him, she becomes friends with Claude, a delightful young soldier assigned to help Francis. They work together to make the small farmhouse where they're staying into a cooperative venture with the assistance of enslaved Shadrach and others including the capable and kind Dr. Andreas. Every character in this brilliant novel is an original and unique being, and I'm sure I would recognize them immediately if I encountered them. 

Lincoln’s words from his Gettysburg Address form the novel’s thesis: “[F]from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.” Thus, Susannah moves through the tortured war serving everyone she meets with the full measure of her devotion. Measure of Devotion is a page-turner in that the reader is compelled to turn the pages to learn what will happen next on Susannah’s journey. However, the reader must stop to ponder the beauty of the evocative prose that makes every part of the journey come alive. 

We don't just follow her journey, we’re part of it. “Toward morning the rain stopped, and the driver pulled up near a stream to water the mules. He and Titus rolled and tied the canvas curtains, and soon the sun was rising behind us in the southeast, a gold ribbon of light beneath the remnants of clouds. To the north and west the sky emerged in mother-of-pearl, and the mountain air was still and chilly. We traveled through thick woods, with plentiful oaks and hickories amid the evergreen trees and a dense understory of laurel and rhododendron knotted over with thorny vines of smilax. Twice we passed former encampments where black circles of old cook-fires pocked the ground in a clearing of rough tree stumps and trampled underbrush. It had been raining here for weeks. Wheel ruts and hoof prints lingered in thick mud. 

Presently the driver pointed to our destination, which was still, several miles away. It was a small white farmhouse near the eastern base of massive, square-looking Lookout Mountain.”

Determined to bring Francis home, Susannah endures the privations and horrors of the war and sacrifices all within her power to ensure Francis’s recovery. Her uncanny ability to bring out the best in everyone she meets and to do what must be done to deal with those without redeeming qualities serves her well. Her story is set wholly within the Civil War, but at times it feels as if it were holding a mirror to today. “There would always be lies and the violence that was essential to perpetuate them. Yet there was still the possibility of living as though one were whole. Of standing against chaos with nothing but the force of determination to uphold a delicate civilization.” 

Summing it Up: Measure of Devotion is a debut novel that is bound to enter the canon of classic Civil War literature. That it's told from a woman’s viewpoint makes it unique. That it honors humanity during a time of inhumanity makes it a reminder of Dr. King’s words about the arc of the moral universe being long but bending toward justice. Nell Joslin’s brilliant Civil War novel reminds us to bend toward justice as we stand against chaos to preserve our delicate civilization. 

Rating: Five Stars

Publication Date: May 20, 2025

Categories: Fiction, Five Stars, Gourmet, Pigeon Pie, Super Nutrition, Book Club

What Others Are Saying:

Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/nell-joslin/measure-of-devotion/ 

Historical Novel Society:  https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/measure-of-devotion/ 

“Nell Joslin’s accomplished debut novel explores the loss and destruction of war; through her protagonist, Susannah, the reader witnesses the moral depths of what unites and holds people together as well as what tears them apart.”  — Jill McCorkle, bestselling author of Life After Life and others

“With her debut novel, Nell Joslin proves herself as fearless as her heroine, Susannah Shelburne, a Southern abolitionist whose devotion to her son, a wounded Confederate soldier, propels her directly into harm’s way. In vivid, absorbing prose, Joslin brings to life a narrator as steely and resourceful as she is spacious-hearted. Susannah’s story—compelling, unforgettable, wholly original—is a brilliant and necessary addition to American Civil War literature.”  —Kim Church, author of Byrd 

 

Kate & Frida by Kim Fay

 

Twenty-something Frida Rodriguez yearns to be a war correspondent and travels to Paris in 1991. She can’t find some of the books she wants to read there, so she writes to a Seattle bookstore requesting them.  Bookseller Kate Fair, an aspiring writer, mails Frida books and they begin corresponding. Both young women share their dreams and fears with each other as they nudge, cajole, and support one another in the coming three years. This wise epistolary novel celebrates food, friendship, and books while it acknowledges grief and suffering. 

As Kate deals with falling in love with a pessimistic fellow bookseller and writer and the health problems of her beloved grandfather, Frida’s prompts and encouragement buoy her. The books about war correspondents like Martha Gellhorn that Kate sends Frida encourage Frida to travel to Sarajevo where the war almost breaks her. 

“The fire sounded like wax paper crackling in my ears, and there were cracks like a whip. I thought it was the flames, but it was gunshots. Kate, the snipers were shooting at human beings trying to save books. I was a human being trying to save books.”

When Frida returns to Paris, she welcomes Lejla, a Bosnian Muslim woman, and Branka, a young child, from Sarajevo. Frida researches and cooks comforting foods from their homeland and begins “The Ramona Club” when they and another displaced woman stay after dinner to listen as Frida reads from the Ramona Quimby books Kate sends them. Kate and Frida help each other find their strengths. 

“The other night the universe burst into our correspondence to make a point. Lejla showed up with flowered curtains from the flea market, and I told her how her gifts make my room feel like a sanctuary, but I feel guilty enjoying it when there are children in her country who can’t even play outside without the risk of being shot. 

Get this. She got mad at me. She says that kind of thinking is self-indulgent. We owe it to people who are suffering to savor everything good and beautiful we have in our lives. Not that we should deny bad things or turn our backs on them. But if suffering is contagious then why isn’t joy? Which virus do we want to spread? We don’t help someone who’s miserable by being miserable - we only add to the world’s misery. Lejla knows her best friend’s life is in genuine danger every single second, and she does one beautiful thing for someone every day to show the bad guys they’re not winning. She lets herself feel joy so she can share joy. After all, you can’t share something you don’t have!” 

Summing it up: During this time when many feel miserable about the state of the world, this enthusiastic epistle reminds us of the power of friendship and joy. This offering by the author of the delightful Love & Saffron is just what readers need. The welcoming language enveloped me and made me feel as if I were friends with Kate and Frida as I shared their heartaches and triumphs. If you loved the classic 84, Charing Cross Road (and who didn’t), I think you’ll find similarities in this celebration of books, bookstores, food, and friendship.

Rating: Five Stars

Publication Date: March 11, 2025

Category: Fiction, Five Stars, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Super Nutrition, Book Club. 

Author Website: https://www.kimfaybooks.com/ 

Read an Excerpt: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/762939/kate-and-frida-by-kim-fay/  

What Others Are Saying: 

Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kim-fay/kate-frida/ 

Parnassus Books: https://parnassusbooks.net/book/9780593852385 

USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/booklist/booklist 

“Kim Fay’s second delightful epistolary novel after “Love & Saffron” pairs effervescent 20-something pen pals, Kate and Frida, whose letters travel from Seattle to Paris and beyond. Along with the desire to become writers, they share a passion for books and food. Their embrace of joy, especially in dark times, sends a message of hope.”   — The Christian Science Monitor

Women’s History Month: Mystery and Suspense Novels

Celebrate Women’s History Month with mystery and suspense novels by women writers. Each of these books will keep you on edge until the final page. These novels feature nuanced characters, complex plots, and clues to the reasons the characters behave as they do. It’s been a strange meteorological winter in South Suburban Chicago. In the last two weeks alone, we’ve had temperatures in the eighties, snow, heavy rains, high winds, and tornadoes felling trees on homes. When the weather forced me inside, I escaped the howling winds by falling into the suspense and intrigue of these mesmerizing stories. 

Guide Me Home: A Highway 59 Novel, Book 3, In this, the last in the stellar trilogy that began with the Edgar Award winner Bluebird, Bluebird highlighting conflicted Black Texas Ranger Darren Mathews, Darren drinks too much, quits his job, and has a fight with the woman he wants to marry. When his estranged mother shows up with a story about a Black girl, a member of an all-white college sorority, who his mother believes is missing, Darren must decide whether to trust his mother who he thinks is incapable of truth telling. While the plot is gripping, it’s Darren’s inner demons that make this special. Reading the first two in the series isn’t essential, but it will make this one richer. Attica Locke is one of America’s best fiction writers and all her novels are exceptional. GPR, BC (Publication date: 9.3.24)

The Lost House by Melissa Larsen is a chilling Nordic noir. After an accident that leaves her fighting to get off painkillers, Agnes travels to the small Icelandic town where her grandmother is believed to have been killed by Agnes’s beloved grandfather. The unsolved murder of the famous “Frozen Madonna” memorialized with her baby draws Agnes to meet with a true-crime podcast host with the hope of clearing her grandfather’s name. When she arrives, a college student has just disappeared in the snow and could be tied to the forty-year-old case. The eerie Icelandic winter landscape infuses this page-turner with atmosphere. CC (Publication date: 1.14.25)

Marcie R. Rendon is a 73-year-old, enrolled member of the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. Her Cash Blackbear series is set in the early 1970s along the Red River in South Dakota and Minnesota. Finding this series and Cash enlivened my winter.

Murder on the Red River: A Cash Blackbear Mystery, Book 1, by Marcie R. Rendon introduces Cash, a 19-year-old Ojibwe beet truck driver, drinker, and pool hustler who works unofficially with Sheriff Wheaton, who helped rescue her from foster care, in this 1970 tale. When a Native man is stabbed to death, Cash’s visions and ideas help solve the case. This debut offers insight into Native culture. While the abrupt ending surprised me, it made me want to read the next book in the series as soon as possible.  GPR/PP/SN, BC (2017)

Girl Gone Missing: A Cash Blackbear Mystery, Book 2, by Marcie R. Rendon, Sheriff Wheaton has arranged for Cash to enroll at Moorhead State College. School is easy for her and she can continue driving a beet truck at night while trying to figure out the disappearance of a girl in one of her classes. When her older brother, who she can barely remember, shows up with PTSD, she faces a new challenge. Cash, with her intuitive vision, resilience, and intelligence finds her way out of this new dilemma. She is fast becoming one of my favorite characters. Rendon brings authenticity to Cash’s story. GPR/PP/SN, BC (2019)

Sinister Graves: A Cash Blackbear Mystery, Book 3 by Marcie R. Rendon, Cash investigates the death of a Native woman in the flooding of the Red River Valley. Finding a torn piece of a hymn written in English and Ojibwe, Cash looks for clues at a rural, “speaking-in-tongues” church where two small graves lie in the cemetery. Cash connects with the Pastor’s wife and a Native woman dies after giving birth and there’s no sign of her child. Cash’s trauma from foster care and her new vulnerability with a kind caring man make a stellar tale. GPR/PP/SN, BC (2022)

Broken Fields: A Cash Blackbear Mystery: Book 4 by Marcie R. Rendon, Cash is an emotional wreck. She’s drinking too much as the emotional effects of her childhood in foster care and a recent shooting catch up with her. Her discovery of a dead man and a young Native child hiding in a tenant farmhouse leads her into new danger. Rendon compellingly illustrates racism toward Natives via a wealthy farm wife and others. Cash and Wheaton feel like family. I adore them. GPR/PP/SN, BC (Publication date: 3.4.25)

Coming out today is Mrs. Oliver’s Twist: A Quinn McFarland Mystery, Quinn returns from her honeymoon to her job in her family’s funeral home and police ask her to identify the body of her former teacher Mrs. Oliver, but the body isn’t her teacher’s. Soon Quinn gets trapped in Mrs. Oliver’s histrionics and possible criminal connections as Quinn’s husband’s concerns for her safety build. After another body connected to Mrs. Oliver shows up, tension mounts. Clever twists make this book impossible to put down. The second in this series stands alone. CC/GPR

Coming out on Tuesday, April 1 is Heartwood by Amity Gaige, a suspense-filled, literary page-turner that begins when hiker Valerie disappears just 200 miles short of her destination on the Appalachian Trail deep in the woods of Maine. As the novel follows Valerie’s struggles, it picks up the story of Beverly, the trailblazing Maine State Game Warden heading up the search-and-rescue effort, and weaves in the insights of Lena, a wheelchair-bound Connecticut retirement community resident. This novel, like Gaige’s engaging Sea Wife, explores marriage and parental relationships. As Valerie jots down her thoughts while fighting to survive, Gaige shows the healing power of nature and community. The characters’s kindness, strength, and resilience make this a rich and compelling read. GPR/SF/SN, BC