Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. So we asked them, and all Denver Post readers, to share their mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer? Email bellis@denverpost.com. – Barbara Ellis
“The Tokyo Suite,” by Giovanna Madalosso (Europa Editions, 2025)
An exploration of the meaning of family, motherhood, identity and, ultimately, the moral life. An immigrant is offered a boatload of money and a freshly renovated suite (called “the Tokyo suite”) by a rich, two-career family in São Paulo, Brazil, to become a live-in nanny for the couple’s young daughter. The woman accepts the position, but she ends up losing her marriage and her own chance for motherhood. Her desperation leads her to make a series of disastrous choices, and to even further loss. But in the end, her sensibility wins out. A moving story, compassionately told. — 3 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
“By Any Other Name,” by Jodi Picoult (Ballantine, 2024)
Told in dual timelines, “By Any Other Name” suggests that much of Shakespeare’s work was actually written by a female playwright and others who could not be taken seriously because of their gender or other problematic reputations. Emilia desperately wants to have her writings published, unheard of at a time when women were meant only for the pleasure of men, or the rigors of keeping a home and raising a family. In addition to her duties as a courtesan, she writes elaborate love sonnets and carries on a secret, passionate affair with the earl of Southampton. The current-day Melina, a rather unsuccessful playwright, decides to offer her gay friend the chance to experience a taste of success by presenting her own writings as his. Interestingly, not much is said about the very different consequences each woman would face should their ruse be discovered. — 3 stars (out of 4); Karen Goldie Hartman, Westminster
“The Persian,” by David McCloskey (W.W. Norton & Company, 2025)
An Iranian Jew in exile in Sweden is recruited by Mossad and returns undercover to Tehran. The ensuing story is related through his coerced confession in an Iranian prison. A modern spy tale, laced with high-tech wizardry, nail-biting suspense, ruthless killings and cold-blooded revenge. Yet, it is also a story of survival, morality and, in the end, love. McCloskey is a worthy successor to Le Carre, the master of espionage fiction. — 3 1/2 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
“Bees in June,” by Elizabeth Bass Parman (Harper Muse, 2025)
Set in Tennessee in 1969, “Bees in June” takes us to a small town as America anticipates the moon landing. Rennie is a young woman trying to recover from a
loss and strengthen her marriage to a difficult man nicknamed Tiny. She’s supported by a feisty cousin and a wise and loving uncle/surrogate father who just happens to converse with bees. Parman’s writing is competent, although I found the chapter introductions in the “voices” of the bees to be annoying. It was gratifying to see Rennie strengthen her backbone, although much of the outcome is predictable. Still, this is a sweet, comforting read. — 2 stars (out of 4); Neva Gronert, Parker
“Wanderers: A History of Women Walking,” by Kerri Andrews (Reaktion Books, 2021)
This is a heavily researched account featuring 10 female walkers in history, from Dorothy Wordsworth to Virginia Woolf to Cheryl Strayed. Andrews documents the overt connections between these authors’ walking and their writing, such as noting that Virginia Woolf came up with her novel “To the Lighthouse” entirely during a walk. Andrews focuses on the dearth of documentation of female walkers, due to male-dominated history and to the constraints women faced both in terms of personal danger and restrictive household duties and expectations. — 2 stars (out of 4); Jo Calhoun, Denver
