Need a Literary Way to Unwind During the Holidays?

By Aimee Zuccarini

Outlander by Diana Gabaldom

It’s 1945 and oh to be British ex-field nurse, Claire Beauchamps Randall!

Standing in her sensible shoes on a Scottish highland hill dotted with ancient stones and lush healing herbs in the time of Beltane; (that ancient Celtic fire festival of witches and druids, flowers and fertility), she is suddenly witness to the unexplainable: Straight from the cleft of one stone comes a painful cacophony of terrifying screams.

Claire, who was sensibly raised by an unorthodox archaeologist uncle, is alarmed but curiosity and a very strong will draw her in. Besides, phenomena can always be explained; precise methodology applied to any situation – even the inability to conceive a child. Certainly Claire’s scholarly, mild-mannered husband, Frank, would attest to that.

But Claire is no longer sure as some supreme metaphysical force hurtles her backward through the chasm of time to the eighteenth century. There she is partisan first and pawn second to a bloody Jacobite uprising, clan intrigue, and Highlander fealty.

As well, she is an Outlander – a stranger or Sassanach, and she will come to endure suspicion and brutal punishment for espionage, witchcraft and more. But when the opportunity to return to her present-day life miraculously arrives, will she leave?

Can she leave?

For here, against all scientific rationale, Claire has also found warrior outlaw, James Fraser—the man destined to share her soul through all eternity.

Outlander is intense, immediate, panoramic and passionate – that the reader has spent more than seven hundred pages in the eighteenth century will never occur – until it’s time to come up for air!

Matilda Savitch by Victor Lodato

Once upon a time she was “The Angel of the World” to her family, but since the tragic death of her beautiful, albeit troubled-to-the-max older sister, Mathilda Savitch, in her hilariously skewed take on life, has become to both her grieving parents the horrific “Vampire of Questions”.

And there are no answers to be found – because nothing is as it was in the little blue house where Mathilda’s happiest memories were born. Her beautiful father can no longer look at her, and Ma has taken to drinking and moving with the speed of a “wooly mammoth trying to pull itself out of a tar pit.”

The whole purpose, Mathilda realizes with acute pain masked in prickly cynicism, is to obliterate her existence right along with the memory of her sister.

That’s when fight or flight kicks in, and fourteen-year-old guerilla warfare, complete with shaved head and hobnail boots becomes the order of the day. Mathilda morphs into Lufwa; (that’s awful spelled backwards). Her mission: Do every conceivable awful, terrible, horrible thing in her terrorist’s repertoire to wake up her parents.

In Mathilda Savitch, poet Victor Lodato has eloquently created a tender young being in search of a painless universe. Lovely.

The Confessions of Edward Day by Valerie Martin

“When an actor doesn’t have a part his life is looking for one”. So says Edward Day, a narcissistic, self-loathing twenty-something actor in Valerie Martin’s novel, set in both the sparkly seventies and the eighties, when “an actor was in the White House and all was well with the world”.

Never true to anyone – not even himself, Edward is frustrated by his inability to shine on stage – but comes close when a beautiful Stella Adleresque actress-teacher connects his “hot and cold” temperament with the dark, complicated – and coveted secrets of his childhood.

But that is only part of this intriguing and textured plot: On a Long Island summer weekend, Edward is saved from drowning by his enigmatic nemesis, fellow actor and sexy, though creepy competitor, Guy Margate.

Of course, Edward is now indebted, but saying anymore will spoil the end for sure.

Suffice it to say, Valerie Martin writes a smart strip-teasing tale, idling with gracefully interjected anecdotes about the acting gene: The brash, young Richard Burton ridiculing – on TV – the venerable Sir John Gielgud, the significance of Joel Grey’s sly gender-bender performance in Cabaret, and an eerie note about eye-color on stage and the inability of dark-eyed actors to chill an audience – except for the young Marlon Brando.

A small, perfect novel.

And finally, need a literary way to unwind for the holidays?

Here are a few suggestions sure to do just that --

Pink Slip by Rita Ciresi – Naughty Catholic girl/slash writer, Lisa Diodetti finds her uptight Jewish boss so delectable she decides to make him the object of her lust-filled novel about inter-office shenanigans – deft writing with a surprisingly poignant sub plot.

The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch by Marsha Moyer – with a voice as lilting as a Dolly Parton song, sudden young widow Lucy Hatch is about to get a second chance at something she has little knowledge of: love – and mindless passion -- in Marsha Moyer’s wise debut novel set in the teeny tiny busy body town of Mooney, Texas.

Kissing Your Ex by Brook Stevens – Stevens hones the chick lit genre with this page-turning tale about Maddie Green, whose skewed perception of committment and intimacy after the first time around has led her to a man she may not love at all – especially when her ex reappears, forcing her to re-examine her true role in their doomed marriage.

And lastly, a small tale to make us all reflect this holiday season – Days before Christmas, in the grip of a punishing nor'easter, a failing Connecticut Red Lobster is hours away from closing its doors forever and flinging its small staff to their individual fates. Yet conscientious Manny DeLeon, the Lobster's long-time manager, continues to believe in the hope that something good will happen to save his restaurant; a hope that may not be any brighter than the light in the old lobster tank by the bar. Still, this raison d'etre is precisely what makes Last Night At The Lobster by Stuart O’Nan so special.