The everyday challenges faced by Rachel, a main character in Leah Franqui’s second novel, Mother Land, may resonate with anyone who has spent considerable time in a new country or even in a new community.

but definitely makes it even more enjoyable as Sawti and Rachel learn to see each other as complex people that while open to change, also need to be appreciated and respected for who they already are. Suddenly these two strong-willed women from such very different backgrounds, who see life so differently, are alone together in a home that each is determined to run in her own way—a situation that ultimately brings into question the very things in their lives that had seemed perfect and permanent . Thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollinsPublishers for an advanced ecopy in exchange for an honest, fair review.It led to the novel meandering a bit, and that’s a pity because there’s so much to delight in otherwise. Life, death, creation, destruction, past, present, future have yet to find a name; and that which has been lost is still playing out its final act. Franqui has written a beautiful novel featuring nuanced characters struggling to find their way through the landmines of the inevitable culture clashes with surprising, didn’t-see-that-coming moments that carry through to the last page.

So when Eleanor is invited to spend a summer teaching in East Germany, she and Jess leap at the chance to see what the future looks like. I enjoyed the story and the writing although the character of Rachel seemed a bit immature and whiny and not always likeable. Their culture clash is inevitable, but Franqui has made both women so complex and sympathetic that the reader cannot make easy decisions about their future and relationship. He is kind and sensitive, and I do not know if I would have ventured this far had it not been for him.I smile and nod, fighting back the urge to clasp his hand – a common enough Turkish affectation that does not meet with his approval.

The collection is heavily focused on the latter, including formal experimentation with hybridity and polyvocality, combining English and Portuguese, interrogating translation and transforming traditional repeating poetic forms.I have read a lot of multi-cultural novels where the families struggle with the cultures and beliefs. She is a playwright and the recipient of the 2013 Goldberg Playwriting Award, and also wrote a web series for which she received the Alfred Sloan Foundation Screenwriting award (aftereverafterwebseries. For the blink of an eye, he looks across the wastes of time, straight into my eyes, and we almost recognise one another. When I’d had enough of people, I yearned to build a hut and live on one of them, alone, separate and untouched by a world that, even at that age, seemed capricious and delinquent beyond reckoning.