Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 (Book Two)

The same calm, clear and trustworthy writing continues in book two of 1Q84, and the story gets much darker and more fantastical. We learn of the whole lives of the protagonists, Tengo and Aomame their childhoods and their inner thoughts. Book two is uncomfortable reading in places and builds tension. 

March, Geraldine Brooks

I really liked this, it's an easy read and is compelling, though maybe not the most original of stories, maybe because of all the stories that have come out of the American civil car. 

The protagonist is Mr March, the father of the March sisters from Little Women and the story tells of what happens to him as a chaplain in the army on the same timeline as Little Women, with flashbacks to his past as a young man, his meeting of Mrs March and the way they lost their fortune.

It is well written and researched, the most imporbable part of it, that Mr March knew Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson turns out to be true of Louise May Alcott's own father. Mr March is a saintlike figure in Little Women but while the book is maybe a little soft, it portrays him as a flawed and therefore interesting and if not relatable then human, character.