The Witches of New York is an entertaining read, about two witches who take a third, young yet powerful witch under their wing in 1880s New York. Adelaide Thom (Moth from McKay’s earlier book The Virgin Cure) and Eleanor St. Clair operate a tea shop that doubles as an apothecary and fortune telling space. It’s 200 years after the Salem witch trials, but religious fervour forces them to keep their powers under wraps. Chance, destiny and a touch of magic conspire to bring Beatrice Dunn to their door seeking employment, and the novel goes on to chronicle her development as a witch and the three women’s conflict with a rather obsessive evangelist on a killing spree.

The book reminded me somewhat of the TV show Charmed, when Rose McGowan joins the cast as a new Halliwell sister, completing the gap eldest sister Prue’s death left in the Power of Three. Similar to Rose McGowan’s role, Beatrice’s arrival appears to complete the circle of power among Adelaide and Eleanor, and I can easily imagine a long-running series of their adventures.

Also similar to Charmed, Witches of New York has a lighthearted feel. Despite the terrible things being done by the villain, there isn’t too much of a sense of danger throughout. We just know these kick-ass women will win at the end; the only question is how. There are also ghosts who mostly want to help them (one ghost, who haunts the tea shop, is presented as a nuisance but I thought she was actually a really sad figure) and fairies called Dearlies who send portentous dreams at night (they had their purpose but were a bit much for me). There is also romance, and that subplot was actually my favourite as I thought it was really sweet.

Overall, this is a fun, quick read whose style reminds me somewhat of Charmed and Practical Magic. If the idea of historical fiction about kick-ass women with magical powers appeals to you, you’ll likely enjoy this book. And if you enjoy reading books in a series, the ending leaves some plot threads still loose, so a sequel is likely in the works.

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Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Curious Minds is a mystery-adventure caper featuring a pair of quirky and seemingly incompatible leads that I think may work better on the screen rather than as a book. Without charismatic actors to bring Knight and Moon to life, they just came off as trying a bit too hard to be funny but instead are being a jerk (Knight) or simply annoying (Moon). I’m sure I must’ve read Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels before. I seem to remember enjoying them, and I know humour is one of the trademarks of her mysteries, but the humour in Curious Minds just fell flat for me. While the mystery aspect was interesting, it also seemed more set up for a caper type adventure for the leads than an actual puzzle to solve, which makes the characters and the humour much more important to get right.

Curious Minds stars the unlikely duo of Emerson Knight, an introverted, eccentric and handsome billionaire, and Riley Moon, a feisty financial analyst assigned essentially to babysit Emerson when he makes the unusual request to withdraw all his gold from the bank. Riley is highly educated and supposed to be brilliant and super talented, but is surprisingly naive about a lot of things, which I gather is meant to make her cute and endearing. Emerson is rude and condescending, but really does care for Riley in his way, so then sexual tension develops. Bad guys want to keep Emerson from his gold, so Emerson needs Riley’s help. And so on and so forth. There are even Batman-type gadgets thrown into the mix.

A book that follows a standard formula isn’t necessarily a bad thing for me, but this just didn’t quite work. That being said, it was an entertaining story to read, and I think I may have enjoyed it more as a buddy comedy on TV. I’m afraid I haven’t read a Stephanie Plum novel in a while, so apart from a vague memory that I did enjoy that series, I’m not sure how this compares and how Evanovich fans will respond to this. I may pick up a future Stephanie Plum novel, but I think I’ll give this series a pass.

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Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Here I Am is such a complex, textured, immense story that it took me a while to formulate this review. My Goodreads review admits needing to sit with my feelings for a while, as I wasn’t quite sure how to do justice to the reading experience. That’s an idea of the impact this book had on me while I read, and until now, I’m still not sure I completely understand why. Here I Am is a doorstop of a book, 576 pages that feels longer because the author has packed so much in. It’s sprawling in scope in that it contextualizes protagonist Jacob Bloch’s wrestling with his Jewish identity within the framework of a war in the Middle East, yet it’s also intimate in focus in that the significance of world events are pulled back into the deterioration of the Bloch family.

Here I Am is a book that begs to be teased apart, one that compels the reader to confront the very real questions of identity, family and legacy that Jacob is facing. It’s a hefty volume that explores its issues explicitly, with extensive conversations between characters, yet that offers no easy answers. It’s a story to dive right into, yet not quite to lose oneself in.

What does it mean to be Jewish in North America? Jacob Bloch isn’t particularly devout, but being Jewish plays a big part in his concept of family, as something that spans generations from his father Isaac through him and his wife Julia and to their children. So it’s a big deal when their eldest son Sam decides he doesn’t want a bar mitzvah. Worse, Jacob feels his marriage to Julia deteriorating. In one scene, the narrator recounts almost two full pages of dialogue between the couple, each line revealing restrained affection and love, yet prefaces it with the phrase “if they’d said what they were thinking.” The scene ends thus:

But he didn’t say anything and neither did she. Not because the words were deliberately withheld but because the pipeline between them was too occluded for such bravery. Too many small accumulations, wrong words, absences of words… [p. 59]

I love this because I expected a big dramatic moment, yet a marriage declining because of a series of kind words left unspoken feels more real.

There’s enough drama within the family that I first wondered if including a subplot about conflict in the Middle East was even necessary. But then I realized that this subplot was key in highlighting how conflicted Jacob felt about how he expresses his Jewish identity. His life of comfort in America is contrasted with his cousin Tamir’s military service in Israel:

[Tamir had] grown up while Jacob had just grown in. He’d fought for his homeland, while Jacob spent entire nights debating whether that stupid New Yorker poster where New York is bigger than everything else would look better on this wall or that one. He tried not to get killed, while Jacob tried not to die of boredom. [p. 224]

Jacob is forced to confront this comparison when Tamir and his family come for a visit. At one point, Jacob says that Tamir and his family’s personality traits are “not their Israeliness… it’s just them,” but he clearly ascribes something to their “Israeliness,” a rather amorphous sense that they are more Jewish than he. I’m not Jewish, so I can’t say how this will resonate with Jewish readers, but it does resonate with me as an immigrant. How Filipino am I still now that I’ve become Canadian, and am I any less Filipino for having moved away? If I ever have children, how Filipino will they be, and in this era of globalization, how much does that even matter? These are questions I wonder about, and while I don’t know how other readers will respond, I do think there’s something in Jacob’s struggle that feels universal. The Middle Eastern conflict in Here I Am prompts Jacob to confront his comfortable lifestyle and ask himself how Jewish he can actually consider himself to be.

The title Here I Am comes from the story of Abraham, which is told in some variation across the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam). God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, when God comes looking for Abraham and his sacrifice, Abraham responds “Here I am.” As a Catholic, I learned that this story is about Abraham’s willingness to obey God, no matter the cost. According to Wikipedia (and, I believe, mentioned in the novel as well), many Jewish scholars teach that the story is about God testing Abraham’s loyalty, and that Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son is him passing the test. In Here I Am, Israel calls for aid and Jacob faces his own test.

Here I Am is a thought-provoking, beautifully written novel that I recommend savouring. This is Foer’s first novel in eleven years, and well worth the wait.

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Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for an advance reading copy in exchange for an honest review.