Susana Aikin

The Weight of the Heart is a beautifully written story of three sisters, their domineering father and the house in Madrid where the girls came of age. The novel is told from the point of view of the youngest sister, Anna and within a unique situation that makes the story fascinating.

The story of the three sisters is expressed with clarity, as Susana Aikin carefully explores their relationships with each other, with their lovers, and most importantly, with their overbearing father. But that said, there is also another soul that is explored, the soul of a house.

The time has come for the sisters to sell the home they inherited. They put the house on the market after their father has been gone for a couple of years, but they don't find a buyer. All three of the women believe this failure is due to the fall-out from the conflicts and tragedies that occurred within those walls. Julia, the middle child, finds someone she believes can solve this issue.

“This time, though, Julia has gone over the top. She’s been hammering me [Anna] about bringing in this woman to cleanse our haunted house. And insisting that this person whom she calls a santera, an energy healer of sorts, and whom, mark you, she is picking up from a nursing home this morning, has supernatural powers capable of overcoming today’s conked-out real estate market and propitiating a sale. What word did she use? A limpieza?”

Anna, Julia, and the oldest sister, Marion, meet at the house with Delia, the santera, and her assistant, Constantine. Delia and Constantine begin the process of cleansing, while the sisters are left to ponder the memories the house contains. The most important of these are the ways their father affected their lives.

“His love was in his fight to provide for us: food, a beautiful house, a bountiful education. His gifts, money and things money could buy. But his passion could only be channeled through jealousy, through possession. And loving him back was difficult, a balancing act between standoffish devotion and a terror of disappointing him. Even as girls we knew that we had a wounded animal for a father.”

Although The Weight of the Heart explores Anna's dysfunctional family in a captivating manner, there is more to Susana Aikin's novel. The calm, dedication of Delia, the santera, to her spiritual mission is riveting. So are the relationships of the sisters with their lovers, each unique, yet sharing a common tragedy. And, as with Aikin's first novel, We Shall See the Sky Sparkling, her poetic prose is a joy to read.… (más)

Susana Aikin’s novel, We Shall See the Sky Sparkling, starts out as a story of Lilly, a young woman born in 1880, who chose to leave her family in Manchester, England, to take her chances as an actress in the London theater scene. She was seventeen when she left home and she did NOT have her father’s approval.

The book takes a major turn when Lilly decides to leave England for an opportunity in St. Petersburg. She had achieved major professional success in London, but her personal life was in turmoil. Lilly was excited about what was going on with Russian theater and hoped to meet people such as the actor and producer Konstantin Stanislavski and the playwright Anton Chekhov, but she didn’t count on the political problems in Russia.

I loved the details in this fine historical fiction, especially the descriptions of the London theater scene, but what I found most interesting were the problems faced by a strong willed woman living in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The men in Lilly’s life had power over her and most of them did not treat her fairly. I liked the way Aikin approached their personalities. They ranged from brutal to loving and kind, but also included men who were caring, yet self absorbed. Minor characters often treated Lilly as if she were a child, sometimes with the best of intentions yet without the respect she deserved.

Overall, I found We Shall See the Sky Sparkling to be an outstanding read. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys historical fiction.… (más)

Lily Throop leaves her father's home to pursue her passion for the stage. She apprentices under a passionate actor, but when he betrays her, Lily flees with a theater troop to St. Petersburg. Life is not easier in Russia; in fact, it becomes increasingly dangerous for Lily.

The main thing I enjoyed about this book was the historical detail. The era came to life, and I especially appreciated that Russia was the focus of the last half of the book.

I found it difficult to sympathize with Lily. It felt as though she made a bad decision after bad decision and then cried about the consequences.

The pace seemed to go in spurts. It would slow well and then slow to almost being almost unbearably slow.

Overall, it was an ok read. I appreciated that it did not go into detail with the sex scenes. I would recommend this to readers who are looking for a turn of the century with an unconventional lead.

I received a free copy from Netgalley for reviewing purposes.… (más)

All families have black sheep in their lines—those people who flout society's expectations and live life on their own terms. During my genealogical research, I have found several ancestors whom would be classified as black sheep; however, I doubt that any of our kin lived their lives with as much determination and passion as Susana Aikin’s heroine in her novel, We Shall See the Sun Sparkling. rel="nofollow" target="_top"> ...more… (más)