Crossing Oceans
Gina Holmes
At the outset, Gina Holmes’ Crossing Oceans reminded me of a sappy Christmas movie. You know the ones… after several years away, beautiful young woman returns to her quaint mid American hometown where she encounters sweet, kindhearted, and inexplicably single man from her past who sweeps her off her feet and solves all her problems.
I was okay with that. Having just finished reading the memoir of an esteemed Chinese professor who lived through the horrors of the Cultural Revolution, I was ready for some fluff; some light summer reading.
Crossing Oceans surprised me. First of all, I didn’t realize that it was a Christian novel. Had I known that, I might not have picked it up. As strange as it might sound, considering the fact that I’m a committed follower of Christ, I read very few Christian novels. Although there are exceptions, too many of them are unrealistic, happy ever after romances somewhat on par with those mushy Christmas movies. While the main characters in Holmes’ novel are professing Christians, it isn’t preachy. They are far from perfect, and their problems aren’t swept away because they believe in God.
When Jenny Lucas left home, single and pregnant, she promised herself that she’d never look back. Six years later, knowing that she’s dying of cancer, Jenny returns to the sleepy North Carolina town where she grew up to decide who will raise her little girl when she is gone. Will it be her father with whom she has had a difficult relationship since the death of her own mother when she was a teen? Or will she choose Isabella’s dad who doesn’t even know that he has a daughter? Animosity between the two families adds to her dilemma. Can they put aside their differences and help both Jenny and Isabella face what lies ahead?
This is a sad story, but not a depressing one. It’s a poignant story of love and loss, but also forgiveness and healing. Jenny faces her situation with determination, courage, stoicism, and even a sense of humour. As I neared the end, I couldn’t help wondering how the story could possibly end in a satisfying manner, but without giving anything away, I’ll simply tell you that I wasn’t disappointed.
Like many children in wartime Britain, 10-year-old Agnes Crawford was sent out of London to the safety of the countryside where she lived with the well-to-do McIntyre family. Tragically orphaned by the war, she stayed on afterward as their maid and close friend of their daughter, Isobel. When tragedy strikes again, Agnes adopts her deceased friend’s identity and with it the opportunity to become a medical student at a London university. 
Not Our Kind is the story of two very different women whose lives intersect on a rainy morning in June, two years after the end of World War II. A minor traffic accident in New York City brings together Eleanor Moskowitz, a bright young teacher on her way to a job interview, and Patricia Bellamy, a socialite whose difficult thirteen-year-old daughter, Margaux, recovering from polio, needs a private tutor. When Eleanor goes to work for the Bellamys, she forms an immediate bond with Margaux, but because they live in a restricted building, she has to conceal her Jewish identity.
Until the end, when the two finally come together, this is really two completely different storylines connected only by a specific location.
In 2003, Morris, was introduced to Lale Sokolov, an elderly gentleman who “might just have a story worth telling”. As their friendship grew, Lale entrusted her with the innermost details of his life during the Holocaust. She originally wrote his story as a screenplay before reshaping it into her debut novel, The Tattooist of Auschwitz.
In The Tattooist of Auschwitz, we are introduced to Cilka, a beautiful young prisoner who is forcibly separated from the other women by Johann Schwarzhuber, camp commandant, for his exclusive use. Quickly learning that her survival depends on it, she does what she has to do to stay alive. Although both books are historical novels, Cilka, like Lale, was a real person and at one point, he credits her with saving his life.
The subtitle of this short, but intriguing memoir, My Life as a Woman Living as a Man in Afghanistan, tells much about the content of the book, but it could also be misleading to those of us living in western cultures. This is not a book about living a trans experience.
How would you like to extend your life by 7.5 years? According to Dr. Becca Levy, Yale professor and leading expert on the psychology of successful aging, you might be able to do just that!
After reading Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, a 713 page novel about life in India in the 1970s and 80s, and then Timothy Keller’s The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, I was looking for something light to read! Something frivolous and entertaining.
Rachael English is a novelist and a presenter on Ireland’s most popular radio programme, Morning Ireland. In her most recent novel, inspired by true events, the lives of three remarkable women are interwoven across time.
This month’s book was a difficult read because of the content, but at the same time, it was difficult to put down!
Following Augustine 