Category: Fiction

All That Really Matters by David Weill (EXCERPT)

After writing the memoir Exhale: Hope, Healing, and A Life in Transplant, revealing the emotional rollercoaster that is the life of a transplant surgeon, David Weill returns to the operating theater with his debut novel, All That Really Matters! ~~~~~~~ Joe Bosco is an arrogant, hard-charging transplant surgeon whose ambition knows no bounds. He pursues …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/06/11/all-that-really-matters-by-david-weill-excerpt/

The Band by Christine Ma-Kellams

Reading this book was a distinctly disorienting experience, in the best way possible. Was I reading the author’s diary? Did this thus make us best friends? Obviously the answer to both questions is no, but it still felt like a weirdly intimate experience, as if a good friend was telling me all about a recent …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/21/the-band-by-christine-ma-kellams/

The Way by Swann’s by Marcel Proust

The Way by Swann's by Marcel Proust

The writing of Jozef Czapski persuaded me to read Proust, and the writing of Marcel Proust persuaded me to stop. Czapski noted that Proust wanted popular success, and that one of the first translations of Proust into Polish had made him popular in that language, in part by rendering his famously extended sentences into more …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/19/the-way-by-swanns-by-marcel-proust/

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is an absolutely furious short novel about sexism in South Korea, and while its incidents and statistics are specific to that country, it can stand in for how badly half of the world’s human population commonly treats the other half, often without even noticing. The book opens with what appears to …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/10/kim-jiyoung-born-1982-by-cho-nam-joo/

Der Tod eines Bienenzüchters by Lars Gustafsson

Der Tod eines Bienenzüchters by Lars Gustafsson

The title — The Death of a Beekeeper — lets readers know right away that this will not be an overly cheerful novel. It is a moving story, eventually a beautiful one in its slightly off-kilter way. Which is only fair because the beekeeper, one Lars Lennart Westin, often called “Wiesel,” is a slightly off-kilter …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/05/der-tod-eines-bienenzuchters-by-lars-gustafsson/

Eine blaßblaue Frauenschrift by Franz Werfel

Eine blaßblaue Frauenschrift by Franz Werfel

At the beginning of Eine blaßblaue Frauenschrift (In a Woman’s Pale Blue Hand), life is going very well for Leonidas Tachezy as he celebrates his fiftieth birthday. Thanks to a lucky break in his student days, his natural abilities and discipline have led him to a high station in Austrian society in 1936. He is …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/02/25/eine-blasblaue-frauenschrift-by-franz-werfel/

Here In Avalon by Tara Isabella Burton

A large part of me is glad that Tara Isabella Burton was not writing novels back when I was a teenager, because I would have made her books my entire life aesthetic. Her three novels to date — Social Creature, The World Cannot Give, and now Here In Avalon — revolve around women who are …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/01/23/here-in-avalon-by-tara-isabella-burton/

Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

Holly Golightly knew how to make an impression. That’s the first impression that Truman Capote wants his readers to come away with. Years after Capote’s unnamed first-person narrator last saw Holly, he drops everything to go see a bar owner who called him out of the blue after not being in contact for quite a …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/20/breakfast-at-tiffanys-by-truman-capote/

Sacrifices For Kingdoms by Patricia D’Arcy Laughlin (EXCERPT)

Read an excerpt from Sacrifices For Kingdoms, a debut contemporary romance/women’s fiction novel featuring Elizabeth, a sophisticated activist and philanthropist from Trinidad, and Michael, a socially conscious European prince, who are irresistibly drawn to one another. As their love deepens, they must navigate dangerous secrets, political intrigue, and the struggle to reconcile their opposing loyalties. …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/10/24/sacrifices-for-kingdoms-by-patricia-darcy-laughlin-excerpt/

Let The Dead Bury The Dead by Allison Epstein (EXCERPT)

Hi, readers! As we head into the weekend, let me gift you with an excerpt from Allison Epstein’s latest novel, Let The Dead Bury The Dead. The war is over – it’s 1812 and Russian forces have defeated Napoleon. Sasha, a self-made captain of the Imperial Army, is finally coming home to his lover, the …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/10/20/let-the-dead-bury-the-dead-by-allison-epstein-excerpt/