On Women’s Day, celebrating women writers

Happy International Women’s Day!

To celebrate, I thought I would play homage to some of my favorite female authors. Of course, there are my perennial favorites – Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters and Edith Wharton.

But I decided to celebrate some of my favorite contemporary authors, by including some of the book reviews I’ve written over the past year.

Recently, I enjoyed reading Emily Giffin’s All We Ever Wanted, a complicated story of two families in Memphis, Tennessee whose lives are brought together after a drunken teenage party and a photo shared on social media that will profoundly affect all involved.

I loved reading what – very sadly – turned out to be Anita Shreve’s last novel, The Stars are Fire. The novel opens in coastal Maine in the summer of 1947, when wild fires tear across the state and Grace Holland, a young mother of two toddlers, must fight to save her family . This is a beautiful depiction of one woman’s love, strength, courage, and enduring hope.

I also enjoyed Claire Messud’s latest novel, The Burning Girl. Set in small-town Massachusetts, this novel follows the lives and friendship of Julia Robinson and Cassie Burns. This is a quiet story, but Messud manages to expertly capture adolescent anger and disillusion in these pages, an engaging, disturbing and well-written coming-of-age story.

And what about you, readers? Any novels you’ve read recently by women writers you’d like to recommend on this Women’s Day? A happy celebration to all!