Becoming Fiction

Let's face it we are all works in progress as these novels suggest. We are striving to become our ideal selves, or reflecting on how someone became the person they grew to be or maybe just consciously decide to become someone new. Not only do these titles have this kind or growth or transformation in common, but they are also all written by women. I don't see a Becoming Homer Humphries in the bunch. Are men born fully formed? Discuss amongst yourselves....

Becoming Finola (M)
by Suzanne Strempek Shea

"In the latest novel from the award-winning author of Around Again, an American takes an unexpected trip to Ireland and finds the woman she was meant to become. A job offer accepted on a whim lands her in the village's craft shop, and in the position once held by Finola O'Flynn, a woman who'd swiftly left town a few years before. Sophie takes on Finola's job of creating beaded bracelets, but also takes over Finola's abandoned home, then Finola's left-behind wardrobe, and finally, after her own episode of lost love, Finola's discarded man, charismatic shop owner Liam. But could Sophie -- or anyone -- ever take over the legendary place that her predecessor still holds in the hearts of Booley" publisher

Becoming George Sand (M)
by Rosalind Brackenbury

"Maria Jameson is having an affair - a passionate, life changing affair. She asks: Is it possible to love two men at once? Must this new romance mean an end to love with her husband? For answers, she reaches across the centuries to George Sand, the maverick French novelist who took many lovers. Immersing herself in the life of this revolutionary woman, Maria struggles with the choices women make and wonders if women in the nineteenth century might have been more free, in some ways, than their twenty-first-century counterparts." publisher

Becoming Olivia (M)
by Roxanne Henke

"Roxanne Henke's first book in the Coming Home to Brewster series, After Anne, received great reviews and enthusiastic sales, appearing on the Crossings Book Club bestseller list.  The second book in the series, Finding Ruth, was also a huge success, as more readers fell in love with small-town Brewster and its people. In this third novel, Roxanne returns to the life of Olivia Libby Marsden, the main character in After Anne. Libby has the perfect life...good kids, a wonderful husband, and a strong Christian faith.  Why then is she increasingly depressed?  Libby discovers that sometimes God works through the most unexpected circumstances to help us become who were meant to be, as readers will discover in this touching novel." publisher

Becoming Madame Mao (M) 
by Anchee Min

"This novel tells the story of Madame Mao Zedong, the woman almost universally known as the "white-boned demon," whom many hold directly responsible for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. Bringing her lush psychological insight to bear on the facts of history, Min penetrates the myth surrounding this woman and provides a "convincing nuanced portrait of a damaged personality" (Entertainment Weekly) driven by ambition, betrayal, and a never-to-be-fulfilled need to be loved." Back cover

Becoming Marie Antoinette (M)
by Juliet Grey

"Raised alongside her numerous brothers and sisters by the formidable empress of Austria, ten-year-old Maria Antonia knew that her idyllic existence would one day be sacrificed to her mother’s political ambitions. What she never anticipated was that the day in question would come so soon. Before she can journey from sunlit picnics with her sisters in Vienna to the glitter, glamour, and gossip of Versailles, Antonia must change everything about herself in order to be accepted as Dauphine of France and the wife of the awkward teenage boy who will one day be Louis XVI. Yet nothing can prepare her for the ingenuity and influence it will take to become queen.  Filled with smart history, treacherous rivalries, lavish clothes, and sparkling jewels, Becoming Marie Antoinette will utterly captivate fiction and history lovers alike." publisher