International Fiction Book Reviews

This debut novel by Andrew Esposito is the fictionalized story of historical events of the late nineteenth century Hawaii. Loss of habitat due to a proliferation of coffee and sugar plantations, as well as the introduction of non-native species, are speeding the extinction of many of the birds native to the Hawaiian islands. Two rival museums are completing with astonishing greed and ruthlessness to collect specimens of these birds before they are gone forever.

Underneath the basic events are deeper questions of the benefits and potential harms of collecting. This adds texture and depth to the book. The personalities of […]

Behind the Sun by Sherrie Todd-Beshore is an ambitious book that is just shy of 600 pages. At the crux of the story is a mystery about an ancient people who captivated Dr. Guy Williams, an archaeologist, after Williams uncovers a key piece of documentation. A captain’s log surfaces after a ship sank two hundred years before. Williams is fascinated by the ancient culture and wants to secure the funds to unearth more about them since many questioned that they ever existed. However, he is unable to get the money needed and he’s never able to fulfill his dream. Years […]

Bangalore Baloney written by Thomas Itty is a story that spans several decades and takes place in several countries. At its core, though, the book is the intimate journey of three young men. Given how personal it feels, one gets the feeling that the author lived many of these experiences.

Swami, George and Venu form a trio called the Scrimshankers They become best of friends at an all-boys middle school in Bangalore, India when the book begins and when the book ends, the now thirty-something Scrimshankers’ relationship is just as strong.

Swami is our middle ground; an upper-middle class, brown-skinned […]

The Spark, by Norwegian novelist O. H. Robsson, is a love story. It’s a slow, relaxing, rambling tale of a man who rediscovers his one true love after thinking she was lost to him forever. The first three-quarters of the book are mostly devoid of tension; any complications that do arise are relatively minor and are quickly put right. This wasn’t a problem at all for me. I kept turning pages in this book, not because of cliff-hanger chapter endings, and not because I was dying to learn how it all turned out, but because this story is just […]

As I started reading this book, I was struck by two things.  One, this book has the look and feel of a James A. Michener novel; broad, sweeping, long, intricate, descriptive and not intended to be gobbled up in a few days.  The second was the feeling of Roots in in its themes and content.  I was taken back in time to before the black man was taken from Africa as slaves to a new land, through the process of slavery and adaptation and then to the present time.  But this is no Roots, because this is not America.[…]