by Molly Gloss
First published 2010
This collection brings together six complete novels from celebrated female authors. Ann Patchett's The Magician's Assistant follows a woman whose secretive partner dies, launching her into unexpected self-discovery. Jenna Blum's Those Who Save Us centers on Trudy, a German history professor who digs into her mother's wartime past and uncovers a forbidden love affair. Molly Gloss contributes The Hearts of Horses, where a gifted young woman works with wild horses and forms deep bonds with both animals and people. Nicole Mones' The Last Chinese Chef takes an American food writer to Beijing, where she learns her deceased husband may have hidden crucial parts of his life. Elizabeth Benedict's Almost shows writer Sophy Chase grappling with her almost ex-husband's possible suicide on a New England island. Maggie O'Farrell rounds out the volume with The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, a dark story of buried family truths coming to light.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century, contemporary-romance
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Beijing, Germany, New England
Period: World War II
1887 pages · Kindle Edition · Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Content warnings: war