Philippa's parents work on a cruise ship. She helps them with their jobs. A new captain and his son are coming aboard for this trip. A Duchess and her nephews also are on this cruise. Philippa does not trust them especially as she notices how much they all watch her. She also likes mysteries. So she decides she will find out about them and about the captain's son who is a mass of contradictions.

I enjoyed this story. Philippa is very determined to solve the mystery even if it means she runs afoul of the cruise director and the captain. I wanted to slap the Duchess and her nephews. They were pains in the behind. I liked Philip but I wanted to know his story as much as Philippa did. We do find out in the end what it is.

This is a good story for 8-12 years old. The mystery is enough to keep one engaged and rooting for Philippa.

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It’s 1968, the year following the Summer of Love. “There’s a whole generation with a new explanation.” Anna Rossi is one of them, a twenty-three-year-old woman from a middle-class family who describes her life as “a set of random chromosomes adrift in a meaningless life. Useless, weak, a creature of clashing impulses.”

Anna is also conflicted. She’s Jewish, though loath to reveal or accept it, the anti-Semitic incidences in her life leaving her feeling “isolated, insecure, and vulnerable.”

After college, her parents pay for a summer in Europe. She heads for the continent with a friend, but when her friend bails on her in Greece, Anna has a decision to make: head home or continue on by herself.

A young man suggests they hitchhike together and her decision is made. A few days later, when they’re offered a ride by Max, a charming, attractive German with obviously more means than her backpacking partner, she decides he would make a more suitable traveling companion. Besides, Max is heading to Yugoslavia, and the Balkans have always intrigued Anna.

Though affable and unthreatening, Max has an agenda other than playing guide to an American tourist. He reveals he’s a smuggler and that his contraband is the Mercedes he’s driving. Anna will make a good foil when dealing with suspicious border officials if she’s willing. Without hesitation, or consideration of the consequences, Anna agrees. Traveling with Max through Yugoslavia, she’s introduced to Spiro and a cabal of associates and soon finds herself seduced by the rich culture and passionate people of this chaotic region of Europe.

As she tries to reconcile her own identity and understand that of Spiro's, her lover, she becomes embroiled in the intrigue and violence spawned by ethnicity, politics, personal jealousy, and centuries of tortured history.

Despite the author Michele Levy, digging deep into the dark machinations of the land and its people, I was not able to understand why Anna was so interested, especially considering the anti-Semitic undertones and her anxiety about being Jewish. Characters in the novel are well-drawn through dialogue and action. In the case of the protagonist, it isn’t flattering. The reader comes to know a young woman who lacks initiative and is passive, impressionable, irresponsible, and incredibly naïve for her age. Living in the countryside with Spiro, Anna readily takes on the subservient role of his peasant wife doing domestic chores and gardening, but I got the impression once she tired of it, which she no doubt would, she’d simply buy a ticket and fly back to her privileged life in America. Unfortunately, events overtake her before boredom does.

Anna’s Dance: A Balkan Odyssey is an ambitious undertaking. It’s part tragic love story, part history lesson, and part travelogue with well-written descriptive passages evoking a simple people living in rustic villages amidst brooding mountains. Rich with drama and passion, it’s a poignant story of love and misadventure, the clash of culture and attitudes, and how, as much as we’d like to think otherwise, we’re all captives of our personal and collective history.

- Review for City Book Review

If you want a mindless, name-dropping, romp through 1880's New York City, this book is perfect. If you want something to whittle away the hours while watching the snow fall, this book is perfect. Will this book get you through the two days you are stuck indoors with your children while they temperatures drop to a feels like of -65 degree, no. For that you need wine. Lots of wine. And a book with substance.

Fortunately for me, I have dozens and dozens of books to get me through the next two days. My wine supply? Well, I might need some higher being interference.

Anyway, this book wasn't awful but it really wasn't great. The mystery gets lost in all of the names. The author clearly wants to impress the reader with his knowledge of America's new status as an industrial powerhouse. We are quickly introduced to people like J.P. Morgan, Thomas Edison, and Nicola Tesla. Somewhere in the middle of all the squabblings of the smart and the rich, there's a mystery where Miss Mary Handley has to prove she's just as good as the men. Mary does all of the things you would expect from a heroine trying to break down gender barriers. However, I will admit to be a little surprised by the mystery's outcome

Will I give the next book in the series a try? Probably. Only because it seems I'm going to have time on my hands. I'm also curious to see how many other names the author can drop into 300 pages. 

I'm starting to wonder if this is a novel or just a who's who of 1880's New York City. So far we've met Edison, Tesla, J.P. Morgan, and the Pemberton's. I've heard about electricity, wine with cocaine, and pop (Soda from those of you outside of Minnesota who use the wrong word.) At this point there's more commercials than the Super Bowl. 

Part of me wants to take the time to do the research to figure out if all of these people were actually in New York for the blizzard of '88. The other part of me wants to keep reading and see if Mary actually gets to solve a mystery or not.