The productions were similar because each one uses multiple readers to portray the various characters narrating the story.  The stories are similar because they are both set in the South and each portrays a time when racism was much more openly accepted than it is today.

At the end of the 1780's Lavinia comes to the United States on a ship from Ireland, but tragically, her parents die on the voyage.  At the docking, the ship captain, who is also a plantation owner, takes Lavinia in as a bond servant to pay off her passage. 

When they arrive at Tall Oaks, seven year old Lavinia is given to the slaves who work the plantation as an extra hand.  She meets Mama Mae who runs the big house, the twins Fanny and Beattie who become like her sisters, and Belle who manages the kitchen house and they all become her adopted family.

 
She grows to love them and yet as she gets older, it becomes more and more apparent that she will always be different from them because she is white.

In an era where slavery was common practice and the races were deeply divided, this tender story of family and loyalty will draw you in and make you indignant on behalf of many of the characters.  The author successfully combines suspense and tragedy with love and friendship in an unforgettable story.

In Alice Hoffman's book The Dovekeepers, she introduces us to four remarkable women who tell the story of the siege of Madasa in the year 72.  Built in the Judean desert as a fortress by Herod the Great, Masada was later occupied by a group of Jewish zealots rebelling against the onslaught of Rome.

Each in her own words, these women relate the events on Masada as well as how she came to be living on top of a mountain.  First is red-haired Yael, whose father cannot forgive her for surviving her own birth.  Next is Revka, the wife of a baker killed in Jerusalem, who is now raising her mute grandsons alone.  Then, Aziza, the warrior girl who takes her gentle brother's place in war.  And, finally, Shirah, known as the Witch of Moab, whose one choice shaped her life and that of her children's.  The women unite over their work in the dovecote and become a family bonded by mutual loss, rather than by blood.

As the events race to a foregone conclusion, the strategies, jealousies, and dramas continue, as does the relentless ramp-building of the Roman 10th Legion.

 
History is cloudy on exactly what happened when the Roman battering rams finally broke through the walls of the fortress, so whether Hoffman's tale is more history or more fiction is impossible to say.  However, her ability to bring alive these fascinating women and their sometimes horrific struggles is all too true.  A fascinating and compelling story.

Napoleon's Pyramids by William Dietrich

In Napoleon's Pyramids Jonathan Gage begins by telling the reader that his problems started when he was lucky in gambling.   When a captain he's beaten in gambling offers a medallion in return for money to continue betting, Gage expresses little interest.  However, when a renowned count tries to outbid him for it, he decides it must be worth having.

Within twenty-four hours of acquiring the medallion and winning the money back Gage is nearly beaten to death by intruders in his house.  Not only do they physically attack him, but they also tear up his apartment leaving it in shambles.  Meanwhile when he returns to the woman he slept with the night before he finds her murdered in her bed.  Before he knows what's hit him he's framed for the murder.

Gage narrowly escapes out her bedroom window before the police can detain him and seeks out a local journalist who is part of his Free Masons group.  With the journalist's assistance he escapes the city of Paris and ends up accompanying the renowned general Napoleon on his journey to Egypt.  Napoleon shows great interest in Gage's medallion also.

Gage's journey to Egypt involves him in violent battle, with mysterious generals, and a beautiful woman.  But will it be the death of him to search out the mystery behind the medallion?  For a well-researched journey into French and Egyptian history join Gage as he struggles to survive while searching for the mystique of his medallion hidden in Egypt's antiquities.

But Lenox' powers of observation quickly lead him to believe otherwise.  Prue indeed died of poisoning, but not by the arsenic in the bottle next to her bedside.  Instead, she ingested the rare bella indigo, or the "beautiful blue," a form of deadly nightshade.  Ably assisted by his doctor friend, Thomas McConnell, and his butler, Graham, Lenox begins to investigate the circumstances around Prue's death, although he must be discreet - Scotland Yard is officially in charge. 

Despite a raft of suspects and the discovery that Prue had several romantic entanglements, Lenox is unable to determine a motive for her killing. He learns that the employer, the director of the mint, had been secretly storing the mint's gold in his mansion - did Prue find out? When another body turns up at a society ball, the plot once again thickens and Lenox must reassess his suspicions.   

Full of period detail from the Victorian age, contrasting the lives of the upper class and those who serve them, this novel will have great appeal to historical mystery lovers.  The characters are vividly drawn; Graham, not only an impeccable servant, but also an accomplished sleuth and sidekick, reminded me of Wimsey's Bunter. Lady Jane, the beautiful, intelligent, and sympathetic widow, may prove to be the romantic interest that will entice Lenox from his state of bachelorhood.  Read on to find out more: the fifth and latest in the series, A Burial at Sea, was released in November 2011.

It is 1889 and struggling actress Bea Wilkes believes she may finally become the lead player in her acting company.   At the age of almost thirty, she knows that her chances of stardom are dwindling and at last she is offered the part of a lifetime, written by a brilliant new playwright.

Enter Geneva Langley, the spoiled, ambitious daughter of a mining company owner, who was banished from Chicago in hopes that her husband and the dreary social scene of Seattle would calm her down.  Little does Ginny know that her husband has a plot to get her committed to an asylum so he can control her money and meanwhile she has a plot to steal Bea's big part and tread the boards herself.

Just as fun and melodramatic as the plays Beatrice acts in, City of Ash speeds along with some improbable plot twists and some recognizable characters, especially after the fire when the two women team up to drive Ginny's husband insane.   But the fact that these characters get so caught up in their own melodrama is very believable indeed.

Chance does a great job of describing the fledgling city and its provincial society as well as the filthy, gritty aftermath of a fire that burned great swaths of the city.

In A Spark Of Death, the first Professor Bradshaw mystery, we meet the UW professor leaving his classroom aftera student exam. On his way out of the building, a sudden dimming of the lights alerts him of a power surge in the electric lab, home of the newElectric Machine. There he discovers the lifeless body of his colleague, Professor Oglethorpe, who appears to have been electrocuted. Complicating matters is the fact thatOglethorpe and Bradshaw were adversaries, and police immediately suspect him of foul play.

In an effort to clear his name and discover the true culprit, the ever-organized Bradshaw decides to chart the movements and possible motives of all the potential suspects. Could it be his friend Henry, who suddenly left town for Alaska the day of the murder? Orwas ita plot by anarchists, connected to the upcoming visit of President McKinley the next day? Or perhaps, a student seeking revenge against a professor known for his unfair treatment of his pupils?

Interwoven with the mystery plot, we learn of Bradshaw's family life,and the tragic event that made him a single parent.We meet Bradshaw's young son, Justin, his tough but soft-hearted Irish housekeeper, Mrs. Prouty,and Henry's free-spirited niece, Missouri, who appears on his doorstep seeking refuge. As the professor digs deeper into the mystery of Oglethorpe's death, another death occurs that may be related. An electrical fire destroys a building in Seattle, and Bradshaw soon begins to see similarities among these crimes.Then, in an ominous turn of events, he finds his own life endangered on avisit to Snoqualmie Falls.Someone is out to stop him fromfinding the truth.

As a Seattleite and a science buff, I appreciated the attention tolocalhistory and to the development of electricityin Pajer'sdebut novel. Ilook forward to reading thesecond Bradshaw mystery, Fatal Induction, due out in May 2012.

The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark

I always enjoy reading about people put into different cultures and how they assimilate, or not. In The Sandalwood Tree I got two for one! In 1947 Evie Mitchell and her son accompany her husband to India as he "officially" observes the changeover from the British Raj (another favorite storyline of mine) to independence. There are problems, Evie's husband Martin has not recovered from what he had seen and done in Germany during the war; so they are very far apart emotionally--Evie hopes living in India will draw them closer together. Because of his issues, she has become a little obsessive about cleaning. While she is scrubbing a brick wall she finds hidden fragments of letters from 1856. The letters are from two women, who were living in India before and during the Sepoy Rebellion. Evie decides to find out all she can about the two Englishwomen. The Sandalwood Tree goes back in time to Adela and Felicity's lives; they were childhood friends who had a love of India, they were happy to go to India, not to find husbands as their families had planned, but to live there forever and perhaps to marry someone who felt the same.

The eras, the beliefs, and culture shocks are contrasted and compared so smoothly in the novel, it made me stop and think, always a good thing, don't ya agree? The ole platitude - the more things change the more they stay the same comes into play here too. India is so vast and diverse, it really can chew a person up and spit her out a completely changed person, or worse make her even smaller than when she arrived--guess too many pieces where chewed off. There is romance, friendship, hardship, and war in the Sandalwood Tree. I enjoyed this book and I believe if you like history and culture in your stories, you certainly will find a great deal of enjoyment in The Sandalwood Tree. Also available to listen to on cd.

In The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton, Nell grows up not knowing the mystery of her early childhood, until Hughreveals the secreton her twenty-first birthday. Nell is devastated and feels as if her entire life has been a lie. Yet she has no clue to finding out about her past. It's not until Hugh's death many years later, that she discovers the little suitcase she was carrying in 1913.One of the clues inside is a book of fairy tales written in 1913 by Eliza Makepeace, and illustrated by Nathaniel Walker.Could this book contain the secrets to help unlock the mystery of Nell's childhood?

Nell's search for her childhood roots extends across two generations, as her granddaughter Cassandra seeks for the truth after Nell's death in 2005. Cassandra was taken in by her grandmother at age ten when her mother dropped her off and never returned. Cassandrais surprised to find that Nellhas lefther a cottage in England as her inheritance.When she journeys to Blackhurst Manor in Cornwall, once the home of the Mountrachet family, she begins toput together the puzzleof her grandmother's life. She also discovers her long lost love of painting, a talent she gave up when tragedy struck in her life several years ago.

Multiple stories are interwoven in the novel, which takes us back and forth in time from Eliza'slife of cruel poverty in London, to Rose Mountrachet's childhood at Blackhurst, to Nell'slife in Brisbane, and to Cassandra'sjourneys to untangle the web of mysteries in her past. It'sa tale full ofmystery and magic, poverty and grandeur,loss and discovery. British author Kate Mortonhas also written the bestseller The House at Riverton.

Josef a medical student and Lenka an art student were married in Prague in 1939. World War II separated them immediately and they never saw each other again until the year 2000 at the marriage of his grandson to her granddaughter in New York City. They each had heard that the other had died: Josef in a shipwreck and Lenka at Auschwitz. The Lost Wife tells of their lives apart. Josef did not die in the shipwreck; he came to the states and became an obstetrician. Lenka worked at Terezin, a ghetto controlled by the Nazis in Czechoslovakia, as an artist for the Germans making postcards and pretty pictures for them to buy. Later she was sent to Auschwitz and was rescued by the Allied Forces.

The Lost Wife is a wonderful love story; love of family, love of spouses, love of friends. It is a story of great loss; family, lifestyle, ideals and loss of love. Even though the ghetto and Auschwitz are shown in their true awfulness and show people who have lost their humanity, this story remains tender and loving--okay I am overusing that word, but it is true.

What is also true is the artist's working for the Nazis in Terezin. The Jewish artists were able to paint and draw what really was going on in the ghetto, some of the art was secreted out during the war, but other paintings were buried on site and dug up after the war and are now on display in Holocaust museums in the Czech Republic and Washington D.C. The author got her idea for this story when she was in a hair salon and overheard two gals talking about a wedding where two of the grandparents who hadn't met before the ceremony, realized that they had been married to each other sixty years ago. That gave Ms Richman the start and the finish of her love story.