Book Tour: Daughter of Ruins by Yvette Manessis Corporon

   Book Review for TLC Book Tours

Daughter of Ruins by Yvette Manessis Corporon

• Publisher: Harper Muse (October 8, 2024)

• Paperback: 400 pages

A motherless daughter. An Italian prostitute. A mail-order bride.

 Are these (three) women brave enough to change their fates?

Description: Demitra’s mother died in America in the 1930s when Demitra was three years old. Her father took her home to the Greek island of Cephalonia, where she endures a lonely childhood and dreams her dead mother watches over her, like the goddesses she reads about in her mythology books. When Demitra comes of age, she refuses to marry the man chosen for her. Instead, she defiantly begins an affair with a forbidden man who ignites her passion for painting the goddesses she once imagined protected her.

Elena is a beautiful Italian woman who dreamed of a life away from the brothels where she was raised. But opportunities are not meant for daughters of prostitutes and Elena has no choice but to become one herself. When Italy occupies Cephalonia, Elena finds work entertaining the soldiers. Her life on the island is happy and carefree–until the Germans arrive in 1943.

Maria lives in a poor mountain village in 1921 with a loving mother and sister. When her father grows desperate to feed his family, he sends her to America as a picture bride to marry a stranger. Only eighteen years old, Maria is terrified of the journey ahead.

Daughter of Ruins is an all-encompassing tale steeped in the rich history, culture, and myths of Greece. It is a deeply moving story that follows three women as they struggle to control their destinies, fighting to become the women they were meant to be.

About the author

Yvette Manessis Corporon is a bestselling author and Emmy Award–winning producer. Her books have been translated into sixteen languages. A first generation Greek-American with  family roots on Corfu, she studied classical civilization and journalism at New York University. She lives in Brooklyn with her family 

My review:

Demitra, Elena, and Maria are the three women in this novel whose stories include a history of Greece from the 1920s to 1980. The novel includes events such as the migration of so many young Greek men to America in search of a better life, the young Greek women who were sent after them as brides, the Italian occupation of Greece during the war, followed by the Nazi invasion that was much more cruel, subsequent moves by Greeks to America, and much more.

The 20th century history of Greece, its small towns, and some of its people who left the country are laid out in this book, through the lives of the three women, in particular Demitra, whose mother had died in the USA when Demitra was only three. Her father had subsequently returned with Demitra to Greece.

This was a fascinating novel that was also the telling of the history of the island. Particularly moving was Demitra story as a child in Greece writing letters to her dead mother and then burning them before her disapproving papa could see. 

Somehow the author's skipping around in the telling of her story works. For instance, the novel starts in 1940 and 1943, moves to 1948, back to 1921, forward to 1952, then back to 1921. The latter part of the book takes place in 1970 and 1975 and then ends in 1980 in the U.S. Demitra's entire life is covered, as well as the major events in Greece during most of  this time.

I would recommend this book especially to Greek Americans and Southern Europe Americans such as the Italians, whose stories of small isolated home towns during a similar period of time, and immigration to the U.S., especially to the Bronx, might be similar.  

A very worthwhile historical novel. 

Other Reviews:

Monday, October 7th: @wendysbookclub

Tuesday, October 8th: @parismaereads

Tuesday, October 8th: @bethreneereadsbooks (feature)

Wednesday, October 9th: @libraryatcarleighs

Thursday, October 10th: The Bookish Dilettante

Monday, October 14th: Eliot’s Eats

Tuesday, October 15th: @addictedtobooks86

Wednesday, October 16th: @nobookmark_noproblem

Thursday, October 17th: @audreyoaksreadseverything

Friday, October 18th: Novels Alive

Monday, October 21st: @amys_book_addiction

Wednesday, October 23rd: @marbooks88

Thursday, October 24th: Vegan Book Blogger

Friday, October 25th: @books_old_and_new

Monday, October 28th: Sarah Can’t Stop Reading

Wednesday, October 30th: Book Bird Dog

Friday, November 1st: @page_appropriate 

Friday, November 1st: Girl Who Reads

Monday, November 4th:  @bethreneereadsbooks 

Tuesday, November 5th: The Calico Books

Wednesday, November 6th: @dana.loves.books

Disclosure:

I was sent a copy of Daughter of Ruins by the publisher for this TLC Book Tour, to provide a fair and honest review.

New Mystery Novels: Set in Karachi, Dublin, Midwest USA

                  New review books in the Mail

The Museum Detective by Maha Khan Phillips, April 1, 2025; Soho Crime

Setting: Karachi, Pakistan

Description: A portrait of a city fueled by corruption and a woman relentlessly in pursuit of justice, this engrossing crime novel builds to an unforgettable, emotional conclusion readers won’t soon forget.The Museum Detective is an exciting, gritty new crime thriller that announces a whip-smart and brilliant sleuth 

Archaeologist Dr. Gul Delani's investigation into a sensational discovery in a desert cave ( an ancient mummy in a sarcophagus) gets complicated—and personal—when it collides with her years-long search for a missing family member.

Inspired by a real-life antiquities scandal in Pakistan.

Mandatory Reporting by Jenny Wilson o'Raghallaigh, October 15, 2024; Simon & Schuster

Description: Jonah's study abroad year in Dublin isn’t going as planned—he finds himself in classes about the human mind, in therapy with an enigmatic doctor, and in a family mental health clinic working alongside a beautiful, troubled supervisor.

When someone dies, Jonah is caught in the unfamiliar web of relationships at the core of the Irish experience. Has he miscalculated, and have his mistakes caused another tragic death? Did he reveal too much to his therapist? Did the mandatory reporting enrage a violent father? As the police investigate, is Jonah the prime suspect?

Guilt and Ginataan, a kitchen mystery  by Mia P. Manansala, Nov. 12, 2024; Berkley cozy mystery

 Description: The Shady Palms Corn Festival is one of the town’s biggest moneymakers, drawing crowds  looking for delicious treats, local crafts, and of course, the second largest corn maze in Illinois. 

Lila Macapagal and her Brew-ha Cafe crew, Adeena  and Elena, make a little wager on who can make it through the corn maze the fastest—but their fun is  cut short when a body is found in the middle of the maze…and an unconscious Adeena lies next to it, clutching a bloody knife. 

Lila has to prove her friend Adeena innocent of this crime.

Ready for mysteries anyone? 

What are you reading/watching this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves  

Homeseeking by Karissa Chen; Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan

Reviewed

Homeseeking by Karissa Chen

Publication; January 7, 2025; Putnam, NetGalley

Genre: literary fiction, romance, multicultural, historical

I enjoyed learning about the international city of Shanghai during the 1930s and after, with its European concessions in the city, the subsequent Japanese occupation, the flight of the city inhabitants, and the events in Shanghai and China after Japan's surrender at the end of WWII. 

So much of history is covered during the telling of this story. I found the book to be a perfect vehicle to reveal the events in China around that time.

 The main characters, Suchi and Haiwen, grow up together in the International Settlement in Shanghai. After the Japanese leave, China is still wartorn, with  the Nationalists fighting against the Communists for control of the country. The Nationalists eventually flee with their leader, Chiang Kai Shek, to the island of Taiwan. Haiwen has to leave Suchi and his family after joining the Nationalist army and departing for Taiwan.

Suchi spends uncertain years in Hong Kong before landing up in the U.S.,  where she meets Haiwen again by chance, after sixty or more years apart. Suchi is a grandmother by then, and Haiwen a widower. They find each other in Los Angeles and make an effort to revisit Shanghai and their ailing mothers, bringing the circle of their lives to a close.

A very moving story, and an important one for another perspective and view of Shanghai and China during the war, and about two people finding home after a long and harrowing life of war and displacement. 

I only wish that the book had omitted some minor details that could be done without any harm to the story.

Currently reading

And now for something thoroughly modern and fantastical, turning a Hawaiian island with an active volcano into the setting for the outlandishly decadent wedding of extremely rich, high society members, with guests from Hong Kong, England, Europe, and other  countries. 

Not to be outdone, there is another, smaller but also lavish, wedding that takes place in Morocco in a hidden palace and in hot air balloons! The settings make the book, plus the forbidden love story.

Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan, May 21, 2024; Doubleday

Genre: romance, satire, contemporary fiction

Description

A forbidden affair erupts dramatically amid a decadent Hawaiian wedding in this hilarious, sophisticated, and thrillingly plotted story of love, money, murder, sex—and the lies we tell about them all.

 Spanning the black sand beaches of Hawaii, the red city of Marrakech, the Los Angeles bachelor pad of a billionaire playboy, and the inner sanctum of England’s oldest family estate, Lies and Weddings reveals an enthralling family saga that is as scandalous and satirical as it is full of heart.

What are you reading/watching this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves  

Han Kang: Nobel Prize in Literature 2024: The Vegetarian and Other Works

 

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2024 is awarded to South Korean author Han Kang "for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life." 

Review first posted October 6, 2017 

The Vegetarian by Han Kang (October 30, 2007) Hogarth

I think of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. Yeong-Hye stops eating meat and soon imagines herself one with the plant world, needing only sunlight. But her body remains the same, a human body needing food, even if meat-free. (publisher)

I am not sure if this book is a psychological study of extreme delusion or a study of a woman reacting to the strictures of a patriarchal world and a society with strict laws, especially when it comes to women's status. It could be both.

The story is told from three points of view - that of Yeong-Hye; of her brother-in-law who becomes obsessed with her; and of her older sister, the supposedly responsible, sane sister in the family. It's a bit disturbing, this story, but with a lot to ponder.

Book beginning:

Before my wife turned vegetarian, I'd had always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way. To be frank, the first time I met her I wasn't even attracted to her. Middling height, bobbed hair neither long nor short; jaundiced, sickly-looking skin, somewhat prominent cheekbones; her timid, sallow cheekbones told me all I needed to know. As she came up to the table where I was waiting, I couldn't help but notice her shoes - the plainest black shoes imaginable. And that walk of hers - neither fast nor slow, striding nor mincing.  

 

Her other book, Human Acts, deals with an historic event - a violent student uprising against political oppression in South Korea and the bloody putdown and massacre that ensued.   

from English Literaturen

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 · 

“After you died I could not hold a funeral,

And so my life became a funeral.”

― Han Kang, Human Acts

======================================

Another memorable author from South Korea is known for her novel, Please Look After Mom, which I reviewed May 16, 2011 

Please Look After Mom: a Novel by Kyung-Sook Shin tells us about the children of a Korean woman whose mother is missing after being separated from her husband on a visit to the big city in the crowded and unfamiliar subway. 

The mother is elderly and becoming disoriented and forgetful; her daughter has only recently realized that her mother cannot read or write. They don't know how to go about finding the mother, apart from posting newspaper notices, searching through the streets, and passing out leaflets with her picture.

During their search, the children find out more about their mother and each member of the family gradually comes to have a deeper understanding of her and the life of sacrifice she has lived.

Set in Korea, I find the novel both culturally revealing and haunting in its view of a family's dynamics and a mother's relationship with her children and husband. 

“Either a mother and daughter know each other very well or they are strangers.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, Please Look After Mom 

Kyung-Sook Shin is the first South Korean and first woman to win the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012, for 'Please Look After Mom'. 

What are you reading/watching this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves  

Dog Books: Sunday Salon

 Dog Books

I am into a few other books, nonfiction, but am not ready to post about them as yet. So here is something else to think about for now - the value of pets, notably dogs, stuffed or otherwise. 

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the following ARCs.

Description: When an unfortunate (and literal) run-in with Andrew’s lawless dog leaves Chelsea with a bum wrist, the two strike a deal: Andrew will help Chelsea rehab the injury if she’ll work with him to train his adorably uncivilized boxer.

Their typical bickering soon turns to bantering, and Chelsea finds herself inexplicably drawn to the man she thought she had nothing in common with

The Second-Smartest Dog That Ever Lived

I am a dog but I do not die at the end of this book. Who else could have written it?

Full of imagination and humor, The Second-Smartest Dog That Ever Lived is a dog book like no other, with a canine narrator who questions the value of human society, and a dog’s place within it.

Description: A stray dog leads bookseller Penelope McClure and her gumshoe ghost on a chase for a clever killer

Description: Told through the eyes of a very grumpy yet lovable mutt, a funny and touching tale of aging, death, friendship, and life that proves sometimes a dog's story is the most human of all.

Description: the title novella and three short stories, People Who Talk to Stuffed Animals Are Nice, sensitively explores gender, friendship, romance, love, human interaction and its absence, and how a misogynistic society limits women and men.

Re stuffed animals, I offered the wrong toys to my kids when they were quite young. I kept giving one stuffed toys, which he ignored. It was the other son who liked them. Who would have guessed? Which one would like cuddly stuff? I guessed wrong.  

What are you reading/watching this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves  

A Magical Mailbox: Sunday Salon

 IN THE MAILBOX

Our Winter Monster by Dennis Mahoney

Publication: January 28, 2025

Soho Press

Can you tell by the cover alone that this is a horror novel? 

It seemed to me that someone rolled themself in the snow and became an eerie snowman, but.... here's the book description.

Description: 

Chilling holiday horror about an unhappy couple, Holly and Brian, running from their problems and straight into the maw of a terrifying beast, perfect for fans of Paul Tremblay and Sara Gran.

Now Sheriff Kendra Book is getting calls about a couple in trouble—along with reports of a brutal and mysterious creature rampaging through town, leaving a trail of crushed cars, wrecked buildings, and mangled bodies in the snow.

Holly and Brian... are starting to see the past, the present, and themselves in a monstrous new light. 

This last line of the description has me curious about the monster and the couple. What do you think?

Thanks to publicist Johnny Nguyen of Soho Press for an ARC of this book

Riddle of Spirit and Bone by Carolyn Korsmeyer

Publication: February 4, 2025; Regal House Publishing

The cover made me think of another horror novel. But it seems to be a mystery with magical elements.

Here's the description:

In contemporary Buffalo, Dan's world is upended when he unearths a young woman's skeleton while replacing the gas main in a city neighborhood. He and his archaeologist friends embark on a quest to piece together the mystery of her death.

In 1851, newly widowed Madeleine Talmadge and her orphaned nieces, Jane and Lydia, seek the aid of a cunning spiritualist, Alexander Dodge Lewis. Lewis leads them on a perilous journey from one séance to the next. Layers of time peel back to reveal long-buried secrets of loss, love, and murder. Riddle of Spirit and Bone offers subtle rumination on what can be observed, what can be known, and what can be trusted.

Thanks to Wiley Saichek of Saichek Publicity for an ARC of this book

Watching Helene on TV

I've been glued  to the television watching the progress of Hurricane Helene from Mexico to Florida and up through Georgia and beyond. This was not just for entertainment, as I have relatives and friends up and down the Florida coast, and a few living near Atlanta as well. 

I was glad to find out though that damages were not serious or were near misses. One had a Jamaican ackee tree split in half and a few other trees also felled in the front yard. Others described the hurricane leaving only minor damages. What a relief!

I loved visiting Tampa, St. Peterburg and Clearwater, and thought it would be ideal to live there. But I changed my mind after seeing all three cities under water after Helene! 

Were you one of those who had to undergo Helene's wrath? 

They say that since this was such a gigantic storm, no other hurricanes will be given the same name. Helene will be unique in U.S. hurricane history.

What are you reading/watching this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves