Just like that, the first three months of the year are over. How has your year been? I hope it has been great. Reading-wise, the first quarter of the year has been very prolific. I have read over thirty books, for an average of ten books per month. I was also able to obtain a score of books. I guess I am setting myself up for failure. A part of my bookish goals and resolutions this year (and every year before this year) is to buy more and read less. Nevertheless, this March I was only able to obtain three books, a very meager number compared to the number of books I obtained last February. I hope this is how the rest of the year is going to be. Without ado, here are the three books I obtained during the month. Happy reading!

Title: The Great Divide
Author: Cristina Henríquez
Publisher: Ecco Books
Publishing Date: 2024
No. of Pages: 320

Synopsis:

It is said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more upsetting than the decision of his son, Omar, to work as a digger in the excavation zone. But for Omar, whose upbringing was quiet and lonely, this job offers a chance to finally find connection.

Ada Bunting is a bold sixteen -year-old from Barbados who arrives in Panama as a stowaway alongside thousands of other West Indians seeking work. Alone and with no resources, she is determined to find a job that will earn her enough money for her ailing sister’s surgery. When she sees a young man – Omar – who collapsed after a grueling shift, she is the only one who rushes to his aid.

John Oswald has dedicated his life to scientific research and has journeyed to Panama in singleminded pursuit of one goal: eliminating malaria. But now his wife, Marian, has fallen ill herself, and when he witnesses Ada’s bravery and compassion, he hires her on the spot as a caregiver. This fateful decision sets in motion a tale of ambition, loyalty, and sacrifice.

Searing and empathetic, The Great Divide explores the intersecting lives of activists, fishmongers, laborers, journalists, neighbors, doctors, and soothsayers – those rarely acknowledged by history even as they carved out its course.

Title: Maame
Author: Jessica George
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publishing Date: 2023
No. of Pages: 307

Synopsis: 

It’s fair to say that Maddie’s life in London is far from rewarding. With a mother who spends most of her time in Ghana (yet still manages to be overbearing), Maddie is the primary caretaker for her father, who suffers from advanced-stage Parkinson’s. At work, her boss is a nightmare, and Maddie is tired of always being the only Black person in every meeting.

So when her mum returns from her latest trip, Maddie seizes the chance to move out of the family home. A self-acknowledged late bloomer, she’s ready to experience some important “firsts”: She finds a flat share, says yes to after-work drinks, pushes for more recognition in her career, and throws herself into the bewildering world of internet dating. But when tragedy strikes, Maddie is forced to face the true nature of her unconventional family, and the perils – and rewards – of putting her heart on the line.

Smart, funny, and affecting, Maame deals with the themes of our time with humor and poignancy: from familial duty and racism to the complexity of love and the lifesaving power of friendship. Most important, it explores what it feels to be torn between two homes and cultures – and celebrates finally being able to find where you belong.

Title: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
Author: James McBride
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Publishing Date: 2023
No. of Pages: 381

Synopsis:

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new housing development, the last thing they expected to uncover was a human skeleton. Who the skeleton was and how it got buried there were just two of the long-held secrets that had been kept for decades by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side, sharing ambitions and sorrows.

Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which served the neighborhood’s quirky collection of blacks and European immigrants, helped by her husband, Moshe, a Romanian-born theater owner who integrated the town’s first dance hall. When the state came looking for a deaf black child, claiming that the by needed to be institutionalized, Chicken Hill’s residents – roused by Chona’s kindness and the courage of a local black worker named Nate Timblin – banded together to keep the boy safe.

As the novel unfolds, it becomes clear how much the people of Chicken Hill have to struggle to survive at the margins of white Christian America and how damaging bigotry, hypocrisy, and deceit can be to a community. When the truth is revealed about the skeleton, the boy, and the part the town’s establishment played in both, McBride shows that it is love and community – heaven and hearth – that ultimately sustain us.

Bringing his masterful storytelling skills and his deep faith in humanity to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride has written a novel as compassionate as Deacon King Kong and as inventive as The Good Lord Bird.