'Playing with Fire' is Gerritsen's latest

A novel often is the best way of presenting the emotional content of historical events. By fictionalizing a tragedy, a time or a way of life, an author invests them with human drama. Loss, love, spirit are transferred to the reader's mind within the realm of history.

So it is with Tess Gerritsen's "Playing with Fire," a novel in which she weaves the story of a star-crossed World War II-era couple with a modern contemporary mystery. The two stories are linked by sheet music, the mysterious, passionate "Incendio" which violinist Julia Ansdell purchases in a Roman antique shops during a visit to Italy. She brings it home to Boston and begins to practice its odd, minor chords and lightning-quick arpeggios.

But Ansdell's 3-year-old daughter displays uncharacteristically violent behavior linked to the music. Once she has clearly identified music as the source of her child's outbursts, she finds no one will believe her. Leaving the U.S., Julia searches for the music's history, tracking the music to its roots. While this may seem improbable, it is the framework of a nice little mystery: one that will bring its protagonist into seriously threatening circumstances as she digs into a murderous history that a family no longer wants to see brought to light.

Within the sub-plot, there is a sampling of the cruel depravity German soldiers visited on Jewish prisoners during the war, drawing readers deeper into the plight of the original composer, Lorenzo's, ill-fated life. The terror that he experiences in a concentration camp becomes part of the plot but also becomes the genesis of "Incendio," as Lorenzo grapples with horror and fury as he's forced to play as loud as he can to mask the screams of dying Jews. It is horrific, and Gerritsen's straightforward recounting of the situation is riveting, as well as scarring to one's soul.

Allowing Julia to ferret out such details as she digs into a lost life is that much more arresting, and Gerritsen does it well. She also creates a murder mystery that leaves Julia in a frightening situation far from home, attempting to bring justice to the memory of the violinist-composer.

All of this is recounted skillfully—the book is not at all confusing, and Gerritsen's skillful writing makes the action both fluid and exciting.

The world of "Poldark" and other club selections

It's unlikely I would have read Winston Graham's "Poldark" without having seen the series opener on Masterpiece Theater this year (admittedly, having the handsome Aidan Turner in the title role helps draw viewers). I purchased the first book, in what I've happily noted is a long series, and read it insatiably in early August. Then I read the second, "Demelza." The third, "Jeremy" sits on my shelves while I consider whether to read it ahead of season two.

Will I go the distance, reading all 12 books? I doubt it. Rarely do I plunge into a series, given that I read for this column and a blog, author profiles, my book club, my own

choices and books about the writing craft. I don't have the kind of time I did when I devoured Nancy Drew, as a kid left to her own resources. I've never taken the time to re-read "Gone With the Wind" or the Tolkien trilogy, though I want to. I've read the first "Outlander," the first Evanovich, Ken Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth," but not "World Without End." Etcetera.

In fiction reading, I tend to return more often to a specific author, rather than a series. Ivan Doig, Annie Proulx, Louise Erdrich, T.C. Boyle, Colum McCann, Chris Bohjalian, Kate Atkisson, Kristin Hannah, and many of the classics. People do love series, however, and readers often remain absorbed in a favorite author from book one onward. That's what passionate reading is all about. There's also a huge following for historical non-fiction series writers: Bernard Cornwell, Phillippa Gregory, the late Leon Uris, Ken Follett.

"Masterpiece Theater" prodded me to read Henning Mankell's series of Wallander books, one or two Sherlock Holmes mysteries, and now, "Poldark." The entire series is slated for BBC, six seasons in all. It was first popularized in an earlier version, around 1975-76.

"Poldark" is a rich narrative, full of the wild sea and constant winds in Cornwall, draped around the class advantages of the rich amid the everyday difficulties of impoverished lives in 18th century England. Poldark, despite a privileged background, champions the common man. But he has his flaws. I'm absorbed in the love, the greed, the cruelty and the rich characterization it offers. Graham isn't around today to enjoy a second draught of fame, but the stories remain classic for this age as well.

Many of these books make excellent book group fodder, though tackling a series is impossible. Best you can do is focus on one or two of the best ones, hoping members will pursue the others on their own.

Area authors

R.A. Salvatore, a Leominster-based fantasy writer whose best-sellers include many series, "The Dark Elf Trilogy" and "The Demon Wars Saga" among them, will be guest author at the 7:30 p.m. Sept. 9 "A Conversation with R.A. Salvatore," at the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut. Tickets are $25, available from the museum.

Salvatore has written more than 40 books, selling more than 10 million copies in a dozen languages. During 2012, he received the prestigious Chandler Award of Merit from Thayer Memorial Library in Lancaster.

Worcester resident and artist Karla Cinquanta, marketing and creative content manager at Bancroft School, recently received an Indie Book Award of 2015 for "The Tiny Portrait," a story and picture book for children or adults. Indies recognize the best books from self-published authors an small publishers. The book has also received a Mom's Choice 2015 Gold Award. Cinquanta's story centers on two siblings who discover a tintype portrait of an unknown ancestor in a family heirloom trunk and embark on an adventure as they seek her identity. The children also explore their own connection to the past by creating a family tree. Cinquant's photo illustrations make the book unique. It is available through Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com.

Joseph W. Bebo of Hudson has applied a master's in computer science from Boston University to his latest techno-thriller, "Lamp of the Gods." This self-published work follows a journalist's search for missing astrophysicist Benjamin Teller—pursued by the FBI, police, the White House and those greedy to profit from Dr. Teller's time-exploration discovery. Bebo has written a number of sci-fi novels and two fictionalized histories, "The Charbonneau Letter" and "Of Lake, Land and Liberty: The Battle of Plattsburgh in the War of 1812." The books are available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble.

Organizing your "reads"

Anna Ford, a young book club member in Philadelphia, has created a free book club organizing site—dreamed up with her boyfriend when she wanted to keep better track of selections, member information and popular books. You can also send invites and gather RSVP responses there. She invites book club members to check it out at https://www.bookclubz.com. I did, and thought it interesting to see what other clubs have most liked lately ("The Goldfinch," "Just Kids," "Madame Bovary," "The Magic of Ordinary Days" and "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.")

Book group selections

Friday Morning Book Club in Northborough, meets Sept. 11, to discuss "Andersonville," the Pulitzer Prize-winning story of the Civil War prison. The group meets at 10 a.m. in the library.

Food is the topic at Worcester Public Library's September meeting, says Morgan Manzella, reference librarian. She encourages participants to bring in a favorite recipe as the group discusses local harvests. Call the library for times, or email mmanzella@worcpublib.org.

"We decided to take on another of Sue Monk Kidd’s novels for our September book," says Joan Killough-Miller of the NOW Women's Issues Book group, Worcester. "Most of us liked 'The Secret Life of Bees' very much. Perhaps Kidd is a better novelist than she is memoirist. So the book for Sept. 14 will be 'The Invention of Wings,' a novel set in slavery times, inspired in part by the historic figure of Sarah Grimké." This group meets at 7 p.m. in Barnes & Noble, 541 Lincoln St., Worcester.

Off-Track Bookies in Lancaster is reading JoJo Moyes' touching "Me Before You" for its Sept. 10 meeting.

Full Court Press of Sutton is reading "The Beast in the Garden" by David Baron. Selections are chosen by the month, and recently included: "All the Light We Cannot See;" "The Girl on the Train" and "Orphan Train."

The next meeting of the Douglas Library Book Group will consider "Isaac's Storm" by Eric Larson. The group meets at 6:30 p.m., Sept. 8, marking the 115^th anniversary of a hurricane that killed over 6,000 people in Galveston, Texas.

Brown Bag Book Group is reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali's "Infidel" for its Sept. 3 meeting, and "The Girls of Atomic City" by Denise Kiernan for its Oct. 1 meeting. Contact Leominster Public Library for times.

The book club at Fitchburg Public Library meets at 1:30 and 6:30 p.m. for each selection. Next meetings are Sept. 9 and the book is "Signora da Vinci" by Robin Maxwell.

Merrick Public Library's Bannister Book Group, Brookfield, will meet Sept. 29 at 7 p.m. to discuss Cathy Luchetti's "Women of the West," a myth-shattering look at the women who really settled the West, told through their own words and illustrated with period photographs.

The Southbridge book group meets the first Monday of the month at Jacob Edwards Library. Next selection is Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and the meeting is at 6:30 p.m., Sept. 14.

At Thayer Memorial Library in Lancaster, the Adult Book Group has chosen "Enon" by Paul Harding, slated for 6:30 p.m., Sept. 29. All readers welcome. To reserve a copy, call the library.

Anne Young of Heywood Library, Gardner, says the 4:30 p.m., Sept. 30 meeting will revolve around Isabel Allende's "My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile."

The Contemporary Book Club at Gale Free Library in Holden meets at 10:30 a.m., Tuesday, Sept. 8, to discuss "A Tale for the Time Being" by Ruth Ozeki. Books are available through the library. Coming up in October: "Black River" by S.M. Hulse.

The Pearle L. Crawford Memorial Library Book Group will meet at 6 p.m., Thursday (Sept. 3) to discuss "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" by Rachel Joyce. Library Director Karen Wall says the group explores a variety of genres in fiction and nonfiction throughout the year, normally meeting the first Thursday of the month. The Oct. 1 selection is Erik Larson's history, "Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania."

Ann Connery Frantz writes about books and book clubs at www.readitandreeap.blogspot.com (sorry for the two e's). Send news or comments to ann.frantz@gmail.com

'The Ladies of Managua' author considers generations, cultures in collision

There's a bit of magic in Eleni Gage's life. She's willing to follow her instincts, and those of trusted others—so much so that she picked a wedding date a year ahead of time, before even meeting her eventual husband.

Oh, yes, she did. They married on 10-10-10. More about that later.

Gage has pursued a busy freelance and full-time career at magazines and is now executive editor of Martha Stewart Weddings, mother of two small children, and an author. In May, St. Martin's Press published "The Ladies of Managua," her second novel, third book.

Born in Greece, she grew up in Athens and North Grafton (where her parents, Nicholas and Jane Gage, still live). She is named after her grandmother, Eleni Gatzoyiannis—executed by Communist forces for whisking her children out of Greece to keep them out of Communist "training" camps. The children settled in the Worcester area, and one of them, Nicholas, became a New York Times reporter who researched his mother's death before writing an award-winning book, "Eleni." That book became a movie starring John Malkovich and Kate Nelligan in 1985.

With creative parents (Jane has turned to photography and art), and her brother Christos a screenwriter, she may have been destined to write as well, but she didn't plan it that way.

"I wanted to be a teacher. I saw my parents writing, and from the perspective of a child it looks fairly boring—you sit at the computer a lot. But it was a way of looking at things and observing things. Mom's not Greek, and she was always pointing out to me, 'Look at that ritual or celebration," "Isn't it interesting the way this is cooked or this holiday is celebrated?' So when I went to college, I studied folklore and mythology, because I became so interested in ritual and cultures—in what makes up a person's identity." That is what she has written about in her books and many of her travel articles.

After graduating from Harvard, she landed a role as editorial assistant (later associate editor) at "Allure" magazine. She moved on to "Elle" and "InStyle," later becoming beauty editor at "People." But with a solid career—still not teaching—she wanted to do more.

On a visit to Greece, she began writing a travel memoir, "North of Ithaka." She credits the elder residents of her grandmother's small village, Lia, who sat outside for part of each day and shared stories, for the memories and traditions that fed into her writing. "We were there overseeing the rebuilding of my grandmother's house, which had fallen into ruin after the Greek civil war," she said.

The memoir drew fans, but presented her with another problem. "A lot of people loved it, but I also got, from relatives, why did or didn't you do this?" She began to think writing fiction might be better.

One doesn't just sit down and become a novelist, however.

She pursued an MFA (Master's degree in fine arts) from Columbia University and achieved another goal: "I taught while I was getting it." She also wrote the draft of a novel. Later, she re-entered the freelance world, successfully publishing articles in travel and lifestyle magazines. (She has also contributed to The New York Times, Parade, and The American Scholar.)

She was researching a novel, when an Indian astrologer predicted her marriage to "a soft-hearted businessman" on 10-10-10, she chose that date for her wedding. She did, indeed, meet that businessman, a Nicaraguan coffee trader named Emilio Baltadano. "Other Waters" is about an Indian-American psychiatrist convinced her family is cursed. Its themes revolve around multi-cultural identity and conflict. The novel was released to good reviews in early 2012.

It was through her husband that seeds were sown for "The Ladies of Managua." The couple brought their first child to meet her Nicaraguan family. "We lived there for seven months between 2012 and 2013, in Grenada. He told me about his grandmother, who had gone to convent school in New Orleans during the late 1940s to '50s." His grandmother's own star-crossed romance as an adolescent led Gage to imagine one of the three characters who narrate the latest novel—her favorite, as it turns out. Her first draft took shape.

"I learned about the things girls learned in these schools: how to set a nice table, how to get into a cab properly." This set the character of Isabella in the novel, mother to the revolutionary Ninexin and grandmother to Maria Vazquez, who returns to Nicaragua for her grandfather's funeral. "I loved writing about her (Isabella); I feel like, as women we're always trying to figure out the rules of the world around us. We're raised to listen to the rules of society, as opposed to men, and I sort of realized by the time you figure out the rules, they've all changed. Older women carry so many worlds inside them—both the societies that don't exist anymore, and themselves at a younger age. I like how they (older women) are kind of uncensored. People of that age stop worrying about what others think."

She studied the revolution from the writings of a prominent Nicaraguan writer-revolutionary, Gioconda Belli. "I read a lot of books and articles by her; she wrote about coming across her daughter's college entrance essay (her daughter was raised in the United States, as is the character Maria). In it, her daughter wrote that she wished her mother had been around more. Belli felt badly when she read the essay, but her daughter told her it was alright, saying, 'You couldn't have been a good revolutionary and a good mother.' That inspired me for the conflict between daughter and mother. Guilt is hard to escape, especially for women. You're expected to do certain things. Raise your kids a certain way. Ninexin wanted to change society and was a little more fearless in that way, but the judgments of the people she loved weighed on her. She had this secret about Manuel (Maria's father) that she couldn't reveal because he was a national hero, and was a hero in his daughter's mind."

Their secrets, and their passage across years of disappointment and misunderstanding to find each other again, is what makes "The Ladies of Managua" a deeply satisfying novel. "They're all intelligent and I think they're all pretty passionate about things—but the difference comes in that they're all passionate about different things."

She wrote the novel in three voices, as "a way of exploring how much we can misunderstand even the people closest to us. Often, they don't know what we're thinking. So that was a really fun exercise."

She read a lot about women in Nicaragua and the revolution, while there. "There are not many novels written about that period of history in Nicaragua. But if you think of World War II, and about our own Civil War—how many books have been written about that?"

In September 2013, she became executive editor at Martha Stewart Weddings, living in New York City. "I have a great day job for a writer. You are exercising the skills that you use in writing; I'm writing and editing all day long, so that is really nice, and I enjoy the people I work with, but I do feel like there's never enough time in the world to do the things I want to do."

She finished working on "The Ladies of Managua" over the course of 18 free Fridays. With kids you have to plan carefully. She did a brief  book tour during maternity leave for her four-month-old. "It's a little crazy bringing the kids, but a lot of that is done digitally these days. You can blog or Skype with book clubs, or things like that. I try to fit in events when I'm going to places anyway. I was in Miami for my husband's work, and I did a reading there."

She hopes to do another book, when time allows, setting it in Greece again. But at present, she's enjoying the release of her newest, busy mothering her 4-year and 4-month-old children, and working full-time. She has learned to write whenever she can, wherever she is. "If you've got 20 minutes, sit down and write. You can edit it later. You can't wait for those magical moments when you'll have all the time in the world.

The author blogs at theliminalstage.com. There, she writes about themes of identity, family and cultural differences.