Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. So we asked them, and all Denver Post readers, to share their mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer? Email bellis@denverpost.com. – Barbara Ellis
‘Caucasia,’ by Danzy Senna (Riverhead, 1998)
‘Caucasia,’ by Danzy Senna (Riverhead, 1998)
One for Black History Month: Like her young protagonist, Birdie, author Senna grew up between Black and white cultures. Birdie’s life splits apart when her parents separate, her father taking Birdie’s beloved sister and her mother going on the run with Birdie. From the first page, I was impressed with Senna’s writing; it is eloquent and captivating. This debut novel should be on everyone’s radar for its mature style and universal themes of coming-of-age and finding one’s place. I loved it. — 4 stars (out of 4); Neva Gronert, Parker
‘Held,’ by Anne Michaels (Knopf, 2024)
Michaels shifts back and forth in time from pre-World War I to the present, connecting pairs of lovers whose stories interlock like puzzle pieces. I admit I had to take notes to help keep track, but it was worth it. A soldier lies wounded on a battlefield in France; a photographer sees something unexpected come into focus in the darkroom; mothers and daughters who are doctors try to save lives in bloody war zones. We move from a border station to a seance to a beach to a concert hall. The plot is question-driven more than character-driven, and we only spend a small amount of time with each character, but we grow to know them thanks to the author’s use of telling details. The experience made me think of the image that Michaels draws of how the brain makes its own connections, where “the purpose of synapses is the space between them; meaning is in that gap.” It is a spare, poetic, wise and haunting novel that asks questions we all wish we could answer. (Shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize.) — 3½ stars (out of 4); Michelle Nelson, Littleton
‘The Seascraper,’ by Benjamin Wood (Scribner, 2025)
SEASCRAPER
By Benjamin Wood
Scribner. 163 pp. $26.
This short novel has been praised as “radiant” and “atmospheric,” evoking the salty sea air as well as both the beauty and dangers of an ever-changing seascape. The story arcs over 24 hours, punctuated by the tidal rhythms. Potential tropes of the outsider, a glimpse into a different sort of life, a dream-like crisis and the protagonist’s realization of his talents are handled with such care that they feel true. Wood captures the harshness and limits of mid-20th-century working-class life on the coast of the Irish Sea with an exacting eye for quotidian details, as he depicts the life of a young man barely eking out a living by “scraping” the sea (or drag-netting for shrimp) at low tide. (Longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize; shortlisted for the 2025 Nero Book Prize.) — 4 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
‘The River Knows Your Name,’ by Kelly Mustian (Sourcebooks Landmark, 2025)
Set in the Mississippi Delta, the dual storyline moves between the early 1930s and 1971. The transition is easy to read due to the author’s use of the character name and year on each chapter cover page. Becca is the young, widowed mother of daughter Evie and struggling to survive during the Depression. Nell is forty-two years old in 1971 and seeking to find out more about her mother, Hazel, who was secretive and abruptly moved she and her sister Evie from home to home. Becca flees her home to escape her evil stepmother but receives support and friendship from several individuals before Evie mysteriously disappears in 1934. These same individuals are instrumental in assisting Nell in explaining her mother’s behavior and a mysterious birth certificate for Evie found in a copy of Jane Eyre in their mother’s bookcase. Each Mississippi setting describes the river and its relationship with the characters. — 3½ stars (out of 4); Diana Doner, Lafayette
‘The Land in Winter,’ by Andrew Miller (Europa Editions, 2025)
A richly layered story of relationships set in the early 1960s in a rural English village and focused largely on two neighboring couples. The wives are each pregnant for the first time and though they have little else in common, they bond over this shared experience. When severe winter weather strikes, leaving everyone stranded, the papered-over fissures in each couple’s marriage widen, shifting their relationships dramatically. Will they, can they “keep calm and carry on”? (Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, winner of the 2025 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the 2025 Winston Graham Historical Prize for Fiction.) — 3 1/2 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
