Top 10 Books of 2020: Number 5

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Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson

While a lot of the books on my 2020 list were released last year (a natural result of having a book club that reads new releases), this is not one of them. Our book club read Simonson’s other book The Summer Before the War back in 2019, and loved it. So, I picked up Major Pettigrew, and we read that collectively this past spring. While Summer was very good, I enjoyed Pettigrew much, much better. There are books that I pass on to friends because I read them and they’re interested in them, and there are books that I pass on because I thought they were that good and feel the need to evangelize them. This was the latter.

This book is about an older gentleman, Major Ernest Pettigrew, living a quiet and comfortable life in the English countryside. His brother dies, and Pettigrew’s comfortable life becomes upended. He’s forced to deal not only with his own mortality, but the time honored tradition of fighting over your loved one’s belongings and – dare I say it – falls in love.

Major Pettigrew is witty in that blustery old Englishman way that I think you’ll either love or find incredibly dull. Obviously for me, it was the former. The story also deals with family traditions – when to dig in your heels, and when to let go – as well as tackling racism. Yet, while discussing these somewhat weighty issues, the book is humorous and light, and won’t keep you up at night worrying about the world.

For being a cute, delightful, and yet thoughtful novel, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand earns a blustery spot on my top 10 list.

The Emberstrike Legacy

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Here is another throwback piece of fan fiction for fun. Enjoy!

Alright, so, I’ve been having a lot of fun writing swtor fan fic about my Sith Warrior. So I decided that I would take a stab at writing something coherent, a little more fleshed out. I figure, it’s a good way to dabble my way back into working on projects, and if I decide to abandon it for an actual project, there’s no harm.

Karone Emberstrike was the heir to a great Sith legacy. The force had been flowing through her veins for several centuries now, making her family’s legacy one of the oldest surviving. Both of her parents were Sith, having met at the academy when they were young. She was pale skinned, tall, and undeniably human. The deep red skin and golden eyes of the “true Sith” had long since died out in her bloodline. For that reason, while the Emberstrike legacy was ancient, they were not as revered as those who still bore the genetic markers of their heritage.

She had grown up traveling the galaxy with her parents and oftentimes, their companions. The hum of a ship, deep conversation, and peels of laughter were the sounds that lulled her to sleep as a child. She was schooled by her parents in practical matters as well as academia, and she grew to be a strong, resourceful young woman. But there was one topic that she heard her parents speak of only after everyone else was fast asleep. Their soft voices became strained as they conveyed their passion in hushed tones.

“She is our legacy,” her mother hissed. “Her place at the academy has been assured since birth. With her talents, she is bound to become the apprentice to a great Lord.”

“Elana, no. The academy is not what it was when we were there. They are gearing up for more conflict with the Republic. They are recruiting anyone with even a speck of force potential. You know that there is far less prestige to be had – they are far more concerned with churning out bloodthirsty killers.”

“Would you deny my heir her chance for greatness?”

“She can be great without a lightsaber.”

Karone heard her mother scoff.

“You don’t think that she can handle herself, do you?”

“She is our daughter – of course she could.”

“Then why do you stop her?”

“I do not like what the Sith are becoming. They have embraced the darkness too fully. There is much to learn from the light.”

“Bite your tongue!”

“Quiet, Elana.”

Her mother’s voice dropped. Karone had to take a few steps further down the hall in order to hear. Even then, she strained to hear over her heartbeat.

“…In thousands of years! If others knew…”

“Suppressing these ideas is why the sides are so far apart now. There was once a time when the Sith and the Jedi were not so different.”

Karone couldn’t help but smile. Her father, the scholar.

“Your daughter will…”

Karone felt a hand clap down on her shoulder. She silently wheeled around. Kahuk, her father’s long time Mandalorian friend, held a finger to his lips. He released her shoulder and pointed back down the corridor, towards her quarters. Karone shook her head. Kahuk tilted his chin down – he towered over even her. The dim light caught the silver flecks of his hair. He shook his head slowly, then pointed.

She knew that this was not an argument she could win. It was the only way to avoid being exposed, so she walked back to her quarters, pondering her fate as sleep washed over her.

It was not normal to see such division between her parents. They had always presented a united front. She now wondered what pains they had taken to make this appearance possible.

Fortunately, she did not have to wonder about her future for long. They docked at an Imperial port on Tattooine a day later, and rather than the excavation trip that had been planned, they found themselves faced with a Sith Lord. The look on her father’s face was pure outrage. He knew, as Karone guessed, that her mother had decided to take matters into her own hands. She wondered whether her father would make a scene, but it was all handled calmly.

Lord Varek feigned surprise at seeing her mother, and she at him. He then glanced over at Karone. She had met Sith friends of her parents before, but never one with red eyes. It was intriguing and yet, she looked away. She had thought herself braver than this.

Varek asked about Karone – was she doing well in her studies? Then, the question that changed everything. Had her Force potential been evaluated? Her mother responded that no, it hadn’t. Her tone was so smooth, she made it sound as trivial as if she had forgotten to pick up eggs. She must be evaluated! Why, Lord Varek just happened to have the time. How fortunate, her mother responded. Karone was then whisked away to confirm what every Force sensitive person could tell from half a planet away – she was very strong in the Force.

Top Ten Books of 2020: Number 6

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American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

American Dirt generated a lot of controversy, even before being released last January. If you want to look into that, be my guest. What I would like to focus on is the book itself, which I ended up thoroughly enjoying.

After the brutal murder of her husband and family (except for her son), Lydia finds herself fleeing from a Mexican cartel, giving up a life she loved in order to find safety in the unwelcoming arms of the United States.
Beyond that, I don’t want to spoil what is an incredibly interesting and nuanced plot – far more than I was expecting.

While the book is a fictional story, many of the situations that Lydia and her son find themselves in are ones that immigrants face every day. Whether it’s questioning whom she can trust, jumping onto a train, crossing the desert on minimal supplies, or dealing with lecherous attention, there are endless perils that I don’t believe most of us think about when we think about immigrants. While Lydia and her son are running from a cartel, there are other stories highlighted in other characters throughout the book – a woman who was kicked out of the US and is trying to get back to her naturalized son, workers who jump back and forth across the border seasonally for work, and those who really do view the US as a land of opportunity and a last hope for a fresh start.

I found the story gripping – at no point did I take it for granted that Lydia and her son would actually make it across the border. In fact, you meet enough characters along the way who don’t make it that the end of the book feels like nothing short of a miracle.

Moreover, the book feels like an empathy builder. Immigration has been a tense topic in America for the last several years, and while I think that just about everyone has an opinion, the vast majority of us have no experience with the subject. It’s so easy to advocate for keeping people in cages at the border when you forget that they are actual people and there but for the grace of God, you might be there too. We have a relative security in this country that a lot of people in Mexico do not have. While we certainly have our own share of problems in America, at no point do I anticipate having to flee on foot on Canada, not daring to access any electronics, knowing that there are people actively seeking to kill me.
American Dirt will take you out of your bubble and introduce you to other ideas and the fact that there’s a lot more nuance than we’d like to consider. Immigration isn’t a black and white issue. There’s a lot of shades and colors and lives in-between. That, simply put, is why the book comes in at number six on my top ten list. (Perhaps it should have been higher. I don’t know if I have such thought out justifications for other choices!)