WITH LOVE FROM LONDON
readers who love a good queer May-December romance, but the novel is too long on detail in many places and frustratingly short in others; the fraught relationship between the locals on Eleutheria and the crew members is hinted at but never fully fleshed out. Much of the novel’s momentum stalls in Willa’s long-winded, retrospective narration. A sprawling debut with an urgent message about the danger of climate change that unfortunately gets lost in the clutter.
Jio, Sarah Ballantine (400 pp.) $17.00 paper | Feb. 8, 2022 978-1-101-88508-6
A 35-year-old Seattle woman whose British mother took off for London when she was a child learns that her mother has died and left everything to her. A few minutes after she finds out that her husband, Nick, a lawyer, is leaving her—to be with a 23-year-old paralegal at his firm—Valentina Baker discovers that her mother, Eloise, has died. Unsure of how to move forward, Valentina puts one foot in front of the other and simply…does. She moves to London and finds out that her mother adored books as much as she does and that—after a happy career as a librarian and book Instagrammer—she is now the owner of a beloved neighborhood bookstore in Primrose Hill. This is a charming tale: Valentina discovers who her mother was—and rediscovers herself after the end of her marriage—as she works to raise enough money to pay the inheritance taxes on the bookstore. Author Jio has taken a well-worn trope—American woman inherits property and a life in London—and made it her own, full of warmth, love, happiness, and books. Two storylines unwind as readers follow Valentina’s efforts to save the bookstore and explore dating and Eloise’s life as a young woman who falls in love, becomes a mother, returns to London despite her unwavering love for her daughter, and opens the bookstore she’s been dreaming of her entire life. A cozy bit of escapism that will leave many readers dreaming of true love and the bookstores they might one day open.
THE WIND WHISTLING IN THE CRANES
Jorge, Lídia Trans. by Margaret Jull Costa & Annie McDermott Liveright/Norton (528 pp.) $30.00 | Feb. 8, 2022 978-1-63149-759-9
The fates and fortunes of two Portuguese families become entwined during the later years of the 20th century. The lonely death of Dona Regina, the matriarch of the influential Leandro family, prompts her granddaughter Milene to investigate its circumstances so she can explain them to the rest of her extended family, all of whom are out of reach on vacation at the time. Milene, an opaque and guileless sort, revisits the site of her grandmother’s demise, the family’s former cannery on the Portuguese coast. Her futile investigative efforts bring her into the orbit of the Mata family, the current tenants of the cannery, who have turned it into their family compound. The welcome extended to her by the Matas, working-class 22
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1 february 2022
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fiction
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kirkus.com
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