Crossings by Alex Landragin

genre: historical speculative fiction 

A bookbinder is given a manuscript to bind, but before he begins the task, the manuscript's owner is murdered.  It's not just any manuscript however, it is multiple stories tying many different threads together over many different years and where one story ends, another begins.  A German Jew hiding in Paris tells us part of this story while a passionate woman with an incredible history tells us another - and the intertwining of these two narratives is a story WITHIN the story, a tale of deception and an otherworldly talent, of sin and retribution, of mistakes and the kind of love that can last lifetimes.

I had the hardest time even trying to explain this book!  There are two ways to read it - straight through or the "baroness" sequence, which is how I chose to read it (along with a buddy who read it the other way!)  Sometimes it was hard that things jumped around a little but I loved the almost riddle-feel it gave me, as I tried to piece people and places and circumstances together.  It's solidly written, complex and intriguing.  It didn't completely blow me away and I had to work a LITTLE too hard sometimes to keep everything straight for me to give it five stars but it totally deserves four.  Unique book.