THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt

THE GOLDFINCH was great until it wasn't.

I have mixed feelings about The Goldfinch.  On one hand I loved this can't-put-it-down novel.  As with the other works by Ms. Tartt, it's  wonderfully written and a compelling read, despite a few too many madcap and drug-induced escapades by the protagonist and his Russian sidekick.  On the other, after investing my time in this 700 plus page novel, it was more than a little disappointing when the story line fell off a cliff.

When it morphed into a lecture on art history, I stopped recommending it to my friends.  Too bad, because Ms. Tartt is a fine writer, but in this case it seems like she just didn't know where or how to stop.

ISBN:  978-0316055437
Pub. Date:  October 2013
775 pages
Available in Hardcover, Paperback and eBook

DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION

by Carolyn Cooke - to be released June 2011

Goddard (God) Byrd is the philandering headmaster of the all-male Goode School, a financially struggling prep school.  Despite tradition and God's personal aversion to coeducation, Carole Faust, a brilliant, young and rebellious black woman has been admitted as a scholarship student through a clerical oversight.

The lives of Lil Hellman, a young widow, and her small child EV are interwoven with God's and Carole's in this coming of age story that richly encompasses the changing times, from the Kennedy assassination through civil unrest and the sexual revolution. 

Surrounded by young people, especially young women, who are embracing newly forged freedoms, God's unwillingness or inability to accept the shifting dynamics of the world around him deftly mirrors the struggles of the era. 

While reading DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION, I was in awe of the author's ability to bring her characters to such vivid life amid the backdrop of the political and social turbulence of the '60s through the early '80s.  Ms. Cooke's achingly beautiful and intelligent prose makes DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION a delightful and powerful literary gem.

ISBN 978-0-307-59473-0
192 pages