On Chesil Beach

This small short book by Ian McEwan is set in 1962 on the Dorset coast in England and takes place in the space of an afternoon. It’s a snapshot of the time period and the social classes young, newly-married couple Florence and Edward belong to, right down to the description of their honeymoon supper. Sadly, although the two seem to have a lot in common, their shared interests are not enough to sustain their new relationship. Spoiler alert: This is the honeymoon from hell.--Barb P.

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Napoleon's Pyramids

William Dietrich grounds this adventure tale with real historic detail. In post-revolutionary France an American expat is wrested from his dilettante life by a mysterious Egyptian medallion he wins in a card game. Forced to flee Paris, Ethan Gage joins Napoleon Bonaparte's 1798 army-cum-scientific expedition to Egypt. His reluctant quest to find the meaning of the medallion will pitch him against harrowing battles, cruel villains, unlikely allies, and, towering above them all, the ancient pyramids. Gage, resourceful but out of his depth, makes for an appealing hero and the historical characters are well-observed. Dietrich succeeds by keeping things believable, avoiding anachronistic dialogue and wildly implausible ancient technology. -- János

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The Tenderness of Wolves

First-time novelist Stef Penney won the 2006 Costa Award (successor to the Whitbread) for this chilly adventure. It is 1867 in Canada's Northern Territory and the Hudson Bay Company's fur trading posts are the going concern. When a murder happens in the tiny settlement of Dove River, it is men from the Company who come to investigate. Woven into this murder is a love story and an avalanche of history.

Readalikes: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje and The Master Butchers Singing Club and Louise Erdrich. --Jenny H.

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The Terror

It's 1848 and the ships Terror and Erebus are entering a second year frozen in the ice near the magnetic north pole. The extreme cold, along with isolation and poorly preserved food is starting to takes its toll on the crews of the ships. As if that were not bad enough, they are being stalked by some sort of creature from the ice that is brutally killing the men one-by-one.

The story that ensues is chilling in every respect, and plays out as a sort of mash-up of the Shackleton story, the classic horror films "The Thing" and "Alien," and a Herman Melville or Patrick O'Brian novel, mixing terrific historical details with horror with Eskimo mythology. The Arctic provides an appropriate setting to put man in conflict with his fellow man and with nature, even as the future comes into conflict with past.

The story is based on the real-life Franklin Expedition to find the Northwest Passage (you can read more about the expedition on Wikipedia and VictorianWeb). -- John L.

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Want a second opinion? János also reviewed this book.

Saga: A Novel of Medieval Iceland

First-time Canadian novelist Jeff Janoda brings to life 10th century Iceland, where the protections of law and hospitality evolved to buffer families against marginal conditions and scheming neighbors. The novel adapts a portion of the Eyrbyggja Saga, one of the many epic stories passed down from the time of the island's settlement and later written in the 13th century. The story concerns the rivalry between two chieftains as it escalates into a deadly feud, and the choices of their followers that alternately help and hinder the chieftains' plots. There is definite crossover appeal to fans of westerns, with its depiction of frontier life, and of fantasy, with its matter-of-fact treatment of supernatural elements. -- János

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The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes

A great many modern authors have written Sherlock Holmes novels, but perhaps the most unexpected is this one by Jamyang Norbu. When Sherlock Holmes returned from his apparent death in Arthur Conan Doyle's 1893 short story "The Empty House," the detective mentions having spent some of his years in hiding in India and Tibet. Jamyang, a prominent Tibetan writer, imagines these missing years as only an insider could. In place of Watson the narrator is Huree Chunder Mookherjee, a character from Rudyard Kipling's Kim. A few fantastical elements may rub some Holmes fans the wrong way, but this is overall one of the most energetic and original Sherlock pastiches yet. The first U.S. edition was published as Sherlock Holmes, The Missing Years. -- János

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The Dragon

Alfred Coppel's The Dragon is a political-action thriller set in the Cold War, when a clique of top Soviet military leaders conspire against their ailing premier and plan a preemptive strike against Red China timed to coincide with a visit to Moscow by the President of the US. Lasers, nukes, rogue IRA provo assassins, and more all figure into the action, as does one of my favorite characters, grizzled Red Army veteran Marshal Pavel Lyudin. By the author of both Thirty-Four East and The Burning Mountain. -- GAK @ HH

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The Alchemist

Donna Boyd's The Alchemist expertly takes readers from present day New York to ancient Egypt and back again in an epic work of magic, immortality, longing, and suspense. After confessing to murder to psychiatrist Dr. Anne Kramer in contemporary Manhattan, Randolf Sontime relates his tale as a boy named Han in ancient Egypt. At the House of Ra, a temple where he is chosen to train in the discipline of alchemy, Han befriends fellow students Akan and Nefar. Together these two boys and girl realize that in union, they wield a wondrous power that is unparalleled in the physical realm. Yet as time passes, the festering temptation to give in to the dark arts proves to be too much and their alliance is damned forever. The Alchemist is a hypnotic novel of passion and mystery, sure to please readers of various genres. -- Elizabeth H.

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The Terror

The genre-bending Dan Simmons combines historical fiction and horror in The Terror. He retells the tragedy of Sir John Franklin's 1845 expedition, which disappeared without explanation while traversing the Northwest Passage. While the tale has been fictionalized before (The Broken Lands by Robert Edric is one example), this time the perils of Arctic exploration are ratcheted up with the presence of a fearsome monster stalking the doomed sailors aboard the ships Erebus and Terror. Simmons stuffs his lengthy tale full of historical details, evocative descriptions of the cold and ice, Inuit mythology, and details gleaned from archaeologists' grisly discoveries along the frozen shores of the Canadian Arctic. -- János.

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Baker Towers

By Jennifer Haigh. Follow the sorrows and joys of the Novak family, living in a Pennsylvania mining town just after World War II. The ironies of life for the “Greatest Generation” are brought out in vivid detail. Haigh has an amazing skill for zooming from a single person’s thoughts to depicting the fate of an entire town without giving the reader vertigo. They may be details we’ve heard in other stories—the Polish and Italian families, the plight of the miners during a strike—but Haigh sews it all together into a larger vision. --Jenny H.

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