Review_FICTION
46 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ JANUARY 27, 2020
Review_FICTION
bullying by neighborhood boys, torments
that Delia, his fiercely protective com-
panion, keeps secret at his insistence. Eli
is healthy, handsome, and reckless by the
time the cousins reach adolescence in the
1970s, and they gradually realize they are
attracted to each other. Pulling back from
emotions they know are taboo, they attend
separate colleges. Through letters and on
visits to Eli’s squalid off-campus house,
Delia watches helplessly as Eli’s life spirals
out of control from drug use. The novel’s
sensitive but grounded voice seamlessly
integrates Gothic elements, the cousins’
emotional arcs, and the shifting cultural
landscape. Insightful and assured,
Zurenda’s haunting coming-of-age story
should appeal to fans of nuanced and
atmospheric Southern fiction. Agent: Marly
Rusoff, Marly Rusoff Literary Agency. (Mar.)brother’s superfluous assurances that
Karina wasn’t at fault for his death.
There’s a lot of potential here, but too
much of it is unmet. (Mar.)Bells for Eli
Susan Beckham Zurenda. Mercer Univ., $25
(272p) 978-0-88146-737-6
In Zurenda’s beautifully crafted debut,
a young woman unexpectedly withdraws
from her senior year of college in 1978
and returns to her hometown in South
Carolina. The reasons Delia Green has
“exiled herself at home” in Green Branch,
S.C., come to light through details about
her childhood spent growing up across the
street from her first cousin, Eli Winfield.
The cousins are both three when, in
1959, Eli swallows lye his father has left
unattended. Returning from a long hospi-
talization, he becomes the target of brutalsolace by returning to her Hindu religious
roots. Karina’s father, Keith, a Lutheran-
raised Philadelphian, buries himself in
high-pressured financial work. Karina
turns her misery inward, finding release
in cutting herself and obsessing over
school. While Gowda’s handling of teen
self-esteem issues tracks a well-trodden
path, a parallel between Jaya’s sudden
dedication to an Indian guru and Karina’s
involvement with a utopian commune
after she goes off to college adds texture.
Descriptions of the adversity faced by the
children at school for being “mixed” are
also done well. In chapters alternating
among Karin, Jaya, and Keith, Gowda
skillfully unpacks the family’s tension
and trauma, though the conclusion
comes too quickly, and mawkish entries
narrated by Prem are a major drawback.
No one but the reader hears the deadFor Love and Country
Candace Waters. Atria, $16.99 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-5011-
8061-3
Waters’s fast-paced and insightful debut follows the life-
changing experiences of a woman serving in the Navy after
the bombing of Pearl Harbor. After seeing a Navy ad in a
movie newsreel for women volunteers, Lottie Palmer, a
Detroit auto manufacturer heiress, abandons her fiancé on
their wedding day, when “flowers were
the one thing they weren’t rationing,” to
join the Navy women’s reserve. Using
skills she honed at her father’s factory,
Lottie trains as a mechanic in San Diego,
under the command of Capt. Luke
Woodward, who “seemed to go out of his
way to find something wrong with what-
ever she was doing.” Woodward is again
Lottie’s commander when she is assigned to Pearl Harbor,
undaunted by the surprise attack on the base a few years earlier.
There, Luke reveals that he was hard on her so that no one
would suspect his attraction to her, and Lottie realizes she is
drawn to him as well. After Luke ships out aboard a carrier,
having placed Lottie as second-in-command of their shop, she
ably leads the men until hearing Luke is missing in action.
Waters explores Lottie’s desire for self-determination through
a convincing portrait of the era’s strict rules about social
class and gender. Those who can’t get enough of WWII fiction
featuring strong women characters will definitely want to take
a look. (Mar.)Hannah’s War
Jan Eliasberg. Back Bay, $16.99 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-316-
53744-5
Eliasberg’s fast-paced, insightful debut explores one woman’s
anxiety about helping to create the world’s first nuclear
weapon. Dr. Hannah Weiss, a Jew who escaped Nazi
Germany, works with the Americans on the atom bomb in
1945 Los Alamos, N.Mex., where, thanks to her exceptional
talent and stable personality, she fends
off men’s flirtations and chauvinistic
assumptions. Hannah is alternately
excited by the work and sobered by its
implications, feeling a “frisson of energy
and enormity up and down her arms and
neck” while testing a reactor. Meanwhile,
Hannah’s colleagues circulate a petition
about their concerns over the dangerous
weapon, causing military intelligence to open an investigation
into possible subversives on the team. The lead investigator,
Maj. Jack Delaney, wants to know whether Hannah is actually
spying for a Nazi physicist, but Jack’s attraction to
Hannah’s “starchy self-determination” distracts him from
the interrogation process as Hannah gains the upper hand,
and suspicions, second-guessing, and simmering desire
ensue between them. Clever phrasing and keenly developed
characters add substance to the intrigue. Eliasberg’s triumphant
tale of Hannah transcending anti-Semitism and the pitfalls
of workplace romance will satisfy readers. Agent: Adriann
Zurhellen, Foundry Literary + Media. (Mar.)Women in WWII
Two debuts place fearless women at the center of their fields during wartime.