In 1775, three young indentured servants cross the Atlantic into a land bracing for revolution.
They find brief sanctuary along the Hudson River, as new loyalties form amid forbidden love and the first sparks of war. But after a death at sea follows them ashore, accusations shatter their peace, forcing them to make impossible choices between survival and truth.
As the revolution spreads, quiet acts of courage and a love that defies the rules of the age offer them a chance at redemption. But at what price?
A richly atmospheric, suspenseful adventure set in the American Revolutionary War, Constance Emmett’s BOUND is a story of love lived in the shadows, and the cost of claiming one’s own life when the surrounding world denies it.
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Mrs. Ellie Endicott, long settled in a loveless marriage, lives in the comfort of an English village with rounds of church work and gardening. One evening in 1938 her husband announces that Ellie must leave to make room for a young and pregnant future Mrs. Endicott. Stunned, Ellie soon makes the first decision in her new life – to go to the south of France despite the threat of war.
She then decides two more things – to negotiate a lucrative divorce settlement and take two wounded friends with her: Mavis, her housekeeper and victim of domestic abuse; and the formidable Dora, an elderly neighbor begging to go despite a terminal illness. Audaciously, she steals her husband’s Bentley to drive them all to Provence. The car breaks down in a small fishing village in the middle of the beautiful Calanques where they settle.
The novel is indeed a splendid adventure as the three women blossom and enjoy the beautiful setting of their new lives, vividly described. The storyline of a troubled pregnant girl, whom Ellie rescues, disrupts the flow and leads nowhere. As the story moves into 1942-1944, the adventure becomes less splendid and more hair-raising, especially after German troops move into the village. The tone changes appropriately, particularly in the descriptions of the villagers’ interactions with the Germans and with each other as their hardships deepen, causing betrayals and retaliations. However, the epilogue reads as a hasty afterthought, one in which the main characters seem without trauma from their war experiences or memory of those loved who perished, which does not serve the novel well.
In 1967 small-town Alabama, Katia Daniels directs a care home for Black boys, removed from or abandoned by their often drug-addicted parents. Recently back at her job after a hysterectomy, she cares deeply for the traumatized boys. The surgery ended her dream of having her own children, but aside from her job, it also removed her agency. Katia is constantly in tears, flowing, flooding and streaming, as are many of the other characters. She and her mother, and brother Marcus, just back from duty in Vietnam, deal with his PTSD and brother Aaron’s MIA status as told from Katia’s point of view.
But throughout, the reader is told the plot; even when a scene contains extreme tension or danger, it is told to us in a phone call or to Katia as she remains outside the action. The effect for the reader is diminished by this telling of a moving story set in an interesting time and place, since rather than taking us into the scenes, those scenes are dodged. The loss of agency by the protagonist may be reflected in the title, but the novel would be much stronger if we were shown the drama and raw reactions provoked by the extreme circumstances the characters face.
A fictionalized family saga, or in the author’s preferred term, a biomythography, Coleman Hill travels through several generations of the Coleman family, beginning in the American Deep South of the 1910s and ending in 1989 New Jersey, with a short junket to Brooklyn. It is a new history of ordinary Black Americans, one with the power that only fine fiction can wield, about Black sharecroppers who moved to the Northern suburbs alongside the Great Migration moving north to the great cities. People who left lynchings and total segregation behind to find their Northern lives a dead-end, the women working as domestics, the men as low-paid factory workers, the children’s aspirations less fulfilled than their Southern cousins’. Generational trauma and pain are palpable in the abuse and violence some of the elders show one another and their children, but so is the intergenerational love and resilience, as this Coleman family member, the author, records their humanity.
Kim Coleman Foote writes so bravely and naturally about the lives of people who happen to be her ancestors and relatives, the reader never questions the truth of this fiction, as this historical novel draws the reader in on the first page and does not let go. Coleman Hill teaches as much as it touches the heart, and after reading it once, the desire to reread this amazing work follows.
1666 is a story that needs to be told, one of relentless brutality, but also one of hope. It is hope fulfilled, too, since the author is a member of the Patawomeck Indian Tribe of Virginia, nearly wiped out by English settlers in 1666. The English kill the men and boys, sell the women and girls into slavery, and steal the tribe’s land. The Patawomeck women join African women on board the ship bound for Barbados. Their humanity is peeled away, layer by layer, as they are stripped of their clothing and names, branded, prodded, and thrown into a filthy hold for the long journey, during which many are raped repeatedly.
The two protagonists—Ah’ Sawei and Xo, close friends each with a daughter—take turns showing us the story, as they are sold to different plantations in Barbados. Escape and return to their homeland is never far from their thoughts, and each woman plots to somehow return to Virginia with her daughter. Xo’s daughter voices the last chapter to tell the reader the end of the story, which would have been better served by showing the dramatic end to this gripping, well-researched tale. Chilton includes glossaries and sufficient clues to help the alert reader recognize the native words and many given names throughout.
1935 St. Louis is the setting for a brief prologue in which family matriarch Eileen lies dying, but the story turns quickly to 1867 Cork, Ireland, and to Eileen as a girl. Dreaming of becoming a teacher, sixteen-year-old Eileen loves the books she borrows from her employer’s library at the manor house. Her mother and older brother Martin have other ideas, however, and Eileen is sold in marriage to a middle-aged alcoholic farmer, John Sullivan. She is miserable with her life until she delivers a beautiful son; the child lifts her spirits and improves her husband’s behavior, although he remains unloved by Eileen. Meanwhile, her favorite brother Michael, member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood fighting for Irish independence, falls afoul of dangerous local leader John MacDonogh. Michael flees to London and then America, where he falls in with a St. Louis gangster and IRB sympathizer, one who promises to fund the cause. After a threatening visit from MacDonogh looking for Michael, Eileen persuades Sullivan to follow Michael and emigrate to America.
The section of the novel describing their ocean passage in steerage and a heartbreaking event is well-researched and written with great skill. Eventually settling in St. Louis, Eileen’s and Michael’s stories conclude with soft focus on fairytale love matches (including one sex scene that should have been edited for cliche). Many secondary characters are introduced and discarded, but a focus on the inner lives and struggles of the core characters up to the conclusion would have produced a richer novel. Irish language-speaking is indicated only rarely, but Cork was Irish-speaking in the 19th century, English the exception, its use reserved for authorities. Unfortunately, the dialogue sometimes falls into a stage version of Irish English. Still, many readers, especially Americans of Irish descent, will enjoy this often-rewarding novel.
Near the end of this outstanding historical novel, an outsider says, “…amazing…the way you take care of each other.” On the Rooftop is, above all, about how one family, one community, takes care of each other. Set in the Fillmore District of San Francisco in the 1950s, then a self-sufficient Black neighborhood, this superbly written novel of love and caring centers on a family of women: matriarch Vivian and her three daughters, Ruth, Esther, and Chloe.
Stage mother Vivian has turned her girls into an accomplished singing act, The Salvations, who with great professionalism perform the jazz and pop tunes of the day. When not practicing on the rooftop, the young women perform at local nightclubs and at their version of a pop-up supper club in their basement. Vivian makes clear her aspirations for The Salvations and pushes hard to achieve them, ignoring her daughters’ desires.
The four women work ceaselessly, but beneath the constant motion, rebellious thoughts grow. The two older sisters veer off their mother’s path, Ruth by choosing family life with her boyfriend, Esther by choosing to work as an activist songwriter organizing demonstrations against the buyout of all the homes and businesses by the groups of middle-aged white men, suddenly seen everywhere. Chloe, the youngest, is secretly choosing a different life also, but one that includes singing.
Sexton creates the place and era, with its sights, tastes and sounds, and writes the feelings and thoughts the four women have versus their behavior with brilliant insight and perfect pitch. Everything between the family members and within the community comes to a head, but the love and the caring remain, as all four women find their own voices.
Inspired by the true story of the women’s combat unit of the Soviet Air Force during World War II, Kelman’s version centers on two relationships: Luca and Tasha, childhood lovers; and Tasha and her unhappily married older sister, Nadia. When Stalin’s call to defend the homeland against the Nazi invasion is extended to women, a female unit of flyers is created, one which becomes known as “The Night Witches.” Tasha joins immediately, mostly in the hopes of seeing Luca, already enlisted in the regular air force. After Nadia’s dour husband is called up, she joins also, and there Tasha resumes her competitive relationship with her older sister.
Life within the unit, the training, and the aircraft is mostly well-researched, as the reader follows the maturing of these young people. Flying elderly and ill-equipped crop-dusters is life-threatening during their nightly combat missions, during which the deaths of comrades and friends mount. This same basic story was very well-served by Kate Quinn’s excellent historical novel, The Huntress, which does not contain the distracting writing sometimes found in We Fly Beneath the Stars. Here, characters fall into American modern turns of phrase, such as “make it happen,” or “have your back”; an overabundance of stomach-clenching and tightening, whether in romantic or combat situations; and the use of Hollywood movie-speak in their declarations of love, even during bombing runs. In addition, Tasha improbably gropes her young man, whether impossibly in a two-seater biplane, or during what should have been a moving farewell in public. However, the many fans of Kelman’s romantic historical fiction will not be disappointed by We Fly Beneath the Stars, and its tale of love and sacrifice.
Writing through thick and thin is not easy. Every writer’s life has thin stretches which overwhelm the importance of writing. Illness, death of a loved one, financial disaster, and now in climate change, weather related disasters: all overwhelm. All terrible, all distracting. Life has thick stretches too, joyous events such as marriage, childbirth, raising happy and healthy children—all great, all distracting. But writing must be a consistent habit for a writer to grow, to produce, to succeed. So how can we write through thick and thin?
Write Every Day
Habits, good and bad, are hard to break. Establishing a daily writing habit will help you write through thick and thin. Name as many good habits as you can, the ones you keep. Don’t go for difficult habits like exercise or being grateful (unless you practice both daily), but something easier, more routine. For instance, you may not get 8 hours of sleep every single night, even if you set it as a goal. If you don’t set it as a goal, however, you will never get enough sleep. Think of writing as being in the same habit genre. I may not be able to write for 6 or 4 hours every day, or even 2 hours, but if I don’t sit down and write for however long I can every day, I’ll never link those short spurts with longer ones until hey presto! the novel’s first draft is complete. Writing each day will develop your muscle memory for the activity. The consistency will not only produce completed works but will allow you the time to grow as a writer.
Honor Your Reality
Founder and instigator of DIYMFA.com Gabriel Pereira related to our P2P class that as a writer she learned to “honor her reality,” https://diymfa.com/writing/honor-your-reality/. What does that mean? It means that as a human with obligations, sometimes you must recognize the situation you are in and act accordingly. In fact, you must recognize the situation and give yourself over to it: you just can’t write through thick and thin. Thin times require honoring your reality. Your child/partner/parent or you are sick—all these situations require you to leave your desk and take care of someone, including yourself. But thick times require a reality check too. If your sister is getting married and asks for your participation, you will have to plan the hen party. You will have to honor that reality and plan to write around it.
It Comes Down to Planning
Many things in life can’t be planned, but your writing time should not be one of them. Once the habit of daily writing takes hold, you can afford to lose writing hours to the care of yourself and others. It comes down to planning. The plan should hold for thick or thin, since whether you are leaving the desk for a brisk walk or spending days as a patient due to an illness, you are caring for yourself, and that is absolutely necessary. You need the care or your family does, and there’s no getting around it. You may be juggling family, your job, and writing. Everyone may be fine but there’s a lot to handle. Most situations, thick or thin, can be handled in as relaxed a way as possible with planning. Find a time of the day when routinely there are fewer demands upon you—early in the morning or late at night or when the kids are in school—and set that as your writing time. Try to make that time inviolable. If you are consistent, time can be given to honoring your reality when you need to, and you still will make progress with your writing.
Easy, Huh?
Even with planning and habit making, writing consistently won’t be easy. There are extremes in life that make it impossible to write through thick and thin. Death in the family, divorce and grave illness define thin times. But in routine times, you work, cook meals, go on hikes, play music, garden—things you must do, things you like to do. You must give time to all those activities to have a healthy and happy life. In the humdrum of daily regular life, the days when everyone is blessedly well and things are smooth, even dull, it is easy to plan the time to write, to give your writing the importance it deserves. Don’t forget to include the space where this habit can form. A place that will be available, quiet, and comfortable during those hours you plan to write. A room of one’s own, if possible, but at least a solid surface in a quiet corner.
Your Brain Needs Time in PJs
If you start when life is sort of rolling along, the daily writing habit will quickly become just that. A full life requires doing the things that you like, that fill your soul, but also doing the things that make your life function. Walking the dog in the woods but also grocery shopping, cooking good meals but also doing the dishes…you get it. And in fact, the brain needs some time not writing but sitting around in pajamas to create. I am always surprised by how a thorny plot problem resolution comes to mind while folding the laundry. I’d be happy to tell you that giving your brain some time in pajamas, while essential, counts as writing time, and it does, but only sort-of, sorry. The hard graft of writing is just that: putting words on paper or editing the words you’ve put there already. The more time you consistently give to that act, the more you will accomplish, that much is simple. Good habits are hard to form but take the first steps now: stake your writing space and plan your writing time. Show up and write! Good writing!
Constance Emmett was born in Brooklyn, New York where her mother’s family landed after leaving Belfast, Northern Ireland. Constance’s debut novel, Heroine of Her Own Life (2019) and sequel, Everything Will Be All Right (2022), books 1 and 2 in the Finding Their Way Home series, were published by Next Chapter. A Massachusetts Hilltown dweller, she is writing book 3 in the series and a novel set in 18th c. New York.
