By the Rivers of Brooklyn by Trudy J. Morgan-Cole is a fascinating and ambitious novel that follows the lives of six women through most of the Twentieth Century as they travel from Newfoundland to Brooklyn and back. You need to understand -- I read this book as a PDF, mostly on the tiny, backlit screen of my iPhone. So if I was to find magic, the book had to overcome huge limitations. But find magic I did. I was enchanted by the very title of the prologue: "Items Not Found in a Trunk in Anne Parson's Attic." I was charmed that the author put the focus on what is not there. Then I met Anne herself, a girl who searches her home for hidden staircases and musty attics, and I was well and truly hooked. Always, always, it's the people. From the prologue, Rivers of Brooklyn moves back in time to three women in 1924: Rose, the proverbial black sheep of the Evans family, who cannot wait to move to New York where she can bob her hair, wear short skirts, and smoke cigarettes; Annie, the daughter who stays home, content to care for the aging Evans parents; and Ethel, who moves to New York to be with the Evans boy she's been dating forever. None of the girls get exactly what they expect. I did have one tiny gripe about the book. By the third generation, I had trouble keeping the characters straight. Each chapter is from the point of view of one of the women -- six in all. Toward the end, I'd turn to a new chapter and think to myself, "Now is Anne Claire's daughter, or Diane's? Is she the one descended from the fruit seller?" It was a little confusing. Then I turned the last page and found a family tree, which cleared everything up. If you hate spoilers, don't look at it until you reach the third generation (I didn't confuse the first two). But if you need it, it's there. And it negates the only criticism I might have made, especially since Morgan-Cole thoughtfully insisted it be in the back of the book, where it won't be seen unless the reader goes looking for spoilers. What makes this book so powerful is the characters: all the women are deeply flawed but generally good people, muddling through the best they can, just like the rest of us. They have to make terrible decisions, and then they have to live with the decisions they've made. You need to understand -- I read this book as a PDF, mostly on the tiny, backlit screen of my iPhone. So if I was to find magic, the book had to overcome huge limitations. But find magic I did. I was enchanted by the very title of the prologue: "Items Not Found in a Trunk in Anne Parson's Attic." I was charmed that the author put the focus on what is not there. Then I met Anne herself, a girl who searches her home for hidden staircases and musty attics, and I was well and truly hooked. Always, always, it's the people. From the prologue, Rivers of Brooklyn moves back in time to three women in 1924: Rose, the proverbial black sheep of the Evans family, who cannot wait to move to New York where she can bob her hair, wear short skirts, and smoke cigarettes; Annie, the daughter who stays home, content to care for the aging Evans parents; and Ethel, who moves to New York to be with the Evans boy she's been dating forever. None of the girls get exactly what they expect. I did have one tiny gripe about the book. By the third generation, I had trouble keeping the characters straight. Each chapter is from the point of view of one of the women -- six in all. Toward the end, I'd turn to a new chapter and think to myself, "Now is Anne Claire's daughter, or Diane's? Is she the one descended from the fruit seller?" It was a little confusing. Then I turned the last page and found a family tree, which cleared everything up. If you hate spoilers, don't look at it until you reach the third generation (I didn't confuse the first two). But if you need it, it's there. And it negates the only criticism I might have made, especially since Morgan-Cole thoughtfully insisted it be in the back of the book, where it won't be seen unless the reader goes looking for spoilers. What makes this book so powerful is the characters: all the women are deeply flawed but generally good people, muddling through the best they can, just like the rest of us. They have to make terrible decisions, and then they have to live with the decisions they've made.