Print Book Reviews

I hope you enjoy the reviews of print books that follow on this page.  The titles are some of the most checked-out books for the past few years and are favorites of librarians and patrons.  These are the books we talk about at the water cooler in the library.   Make sure you check out the book reviews on the Audio Book page, as all of the books there are equally as wonderful in print.

This book was published a year ago, and it took me a while to decide if it would be my kind of story.  However, I did decide to request the title, and six months later, I finally had a copy arrive for me.  I'm not sure I had a clear picture of what the story was about, but I loved it, and read it in a week.  Since I work full-time, it often takes me a while to finish a book in print, but I could not put this one down.  It is just a very fun and quirky romantic comedy that keeps you wondering if and how it can possible end well.

Phoebe and her husband Matt, both college professors, have been struggling for the past few years with their marriage.  They have tried to conceive a child with several IVF procedures without success.  They are in a stagnant situation, and one day Matt comes home to say he is leaving the marriage and in love with Phoebe's best friend Mia.  A year after the divorce, Phoebe decides she is going to take her dream vacation to Newport, Rhode Island, and she books a very expensive hotel room just for herself.  Here is where we learn of her decision:

"But that morning, before Phoebe got on the plane, Phoebe woke and knew she was no longer normal.  Yet, she made toast.  Took a shower.  Dried her hair.  Gathered her lecture notes for her second day of fall semester.  Opened her closet and looked at all the clothes she once bought simply because they looked like shirts a professor should wear to work.  Rows of solid-colored blouses, the female version of things her husband wore.  She pulled out a gray one, held it up  in front of the mirror, but could not bring herself to put it on.  Could not go to work and stand at the office printer and hold her face in a steady expression of interest while her colleague talked at length aout the surprising importance of cheese in medieval theology.

Instead, she slipped on the emerald dress."

And this is how Phoebe gets on a plane to Rhode Island.  When she arrives at the hotel, she notices that all the people in the lobby appear to be arriving for a wedding.  She ends up in the elevator and the bride jumps in at the last minute.  When she can't picture which family Phoebe belongs to, the bride becomes very upset that someone outside of the group has a room in the hotel.  Wait till Phoebe tells her why she plans on only being there one night.  And, somehow, this is the beginning of an unusual friendship between the two.  Twenty-eight year old Lila is about to marry a 39 year-old man, who she is unsure she loves enough, and wonders if she can get over his "oldness."  As well, he is a widow with an eleven year-old daughter who is not thrilled about her future step-mother. . . As well, at three in the morning that night, Phoebe meets a handsome man in the hot tub and is instantly smitten.  The next day she is introduced to him -- he is Gary, the groom.

Phoebe winds up staying for the week on the bride's dime.  Lila is so frantic about having the perfect wedding, that she sends Phoebe off with Gary to complete several last-minute tasks.  Their banter and chemistry is fun and natural, and even Gary's daughter becomes smitten with her.  You can see where this is going.  A crazy batchelorette party, mishaps at the rehearsal dinner, and we are all wondering how this will end.  It ends perfectly, and happily for everyone.  I thought this book was very entertaining and funny and the romantic twists were creative and even realistic.  I can see why so many people have requests in for this title.  I highly recommend it. -- Tracy

I loved this book.  However, there are quite a few deaths that occur, a few which which are horrible, and some which are coincidental.  The book may be triggering for people who have been victims of sexual abuse or have experienced the affects of suicide or alcoholism in their lives.  Most of the dark stuff happens at the beginning, and I will say that this book was extremely funny and very sweet and sentimental.  In order to get there, we have to pass through some bad incidents.  Our story begins in Pondville, Massachusetts, on outer Cape Cod, where the cranberry bogs are a part of this particular location, and the story. Chapter one begins:

"Things were falling apart at the nursing home in Pondville, a small town in the armpit of Massachusetts.  There was a leak in the roof of the left wing, and water came down the walls when it rained.  The food was terrible, but that wasn't new.  The staff kept quitting.  The pay was shit.  People were dying, all the time, but that was to be expected in this line of work.  And just that morning, Dr. Gust found the resident nursing home cat in his office, curled up on the keyboard like a fat loaf of bread. "Shoo,"  Gust said, but the cat would not budge.  "I'm fifty-seven," he told Pancakes.  Pancakes was the hospital's therapy cat.  He was supposed to be in one of the rooms of the nursing home residents, comforting them.   That was his job.  To comfort people at their end."

So, Dr. Gust decides it is time to take the cat to a shelter, since the residents have become uneasy that people seem to die after the cat visits them.  I won't tell you what happens to Dr. Gust.  The cat escapes the shelter and happens upon our main character, PJ Halliday, 63 years old, 3-time heart attack survivor, can't drive for too many DUIs, and a winner of 1.5 million dollars in the lottery.  PJ is also an alcoholic, and has no real purpose in life.  Every morning he walks down the street to have breakfast with his ex-wife Ivy, and her boyfriend, Fred. But they are heading to Alaska for a month, and PJ is filled with anxiety about it.

Enter the most difficult part of the book.  Unbeknownst to PJ, his brother's grandchildren, Luna and Ollie, both aged 10, and less than 12 months apart in age, have just become victims of their parents' murder/suicide.  The mother, knowing about PJ, has left the kids to him.  When the social worker finally tracks him down, he agrees to take them in.  Unfortunately, his home is a hoarding nightmare, so he gives the social worker his ex-wife's address, and they happily settle in at her lovely house.  However, PJ has just discovered that his high-school sweetheart has become a widow and he hopes to rekindle their love.  But she is in Arizona!  

In addition to PJ's search, Luna is convince that a famous soap actor is her real father.  She found evidence in her mother's old diary, and begs to also go to Texas to confront him at a big soap star event there.  So, taking Fred's old Volvo wagon, and asking his twentysomething daughter to drive, PJ and his family members, including Pancakes, set out on a trip across the country.  What happens next is unbelievable and crazy and funny and a bit horrific.  Again, the cat likes to visit people just before their demise.  But, somehow, we love all five of these damaged beings, and we just root for them, and can't wait to see how it all ends.  This book is a dark comedy, very quirky, has a talking cat and a hat that talks directly to PJ when on his head.  The ending is a tiny bit sad, and brillantly good, and I loved it!  I highly recommend this one. -- Tracy

This is another wonderful Maid Mystery by Nita Prose.  I do suggest that  you read the first two novels in order, The Maid, and the The Mystery Guest, and then the short novella The Mistletoe Mystery.  Our main character Molly Gray's life stories are consecutive, and you will be confused if you do not read them in order.  The first two books are actual murder mysteries, the novella is a short personal story of Molly and her boyfriend Juan Manuel, and this next book is a mystery about a missing heirloom worth millions.  

Our novel starts with a big day happening at the upscale hotel where Molly and Juan Manuel work.  This is the exciting event coming to their doors:

"We were poised for a huge day at the Regency Grand, where Juan and I both work - he as a chef and I as a maid.  Brown and Beagle, the famous appraising couple known for identifying antiquities and long-lost works of art, were bringing their road show to the hotel's Grand Tearoom.  It's a shame Gran never got to see their popular reality TV series Hidden Treasures, which debuted two years ago.  She would have loved the hosts, owners of the eponymous high-end art auction house, two middle-aged, married men who shared a passion for art and antiquities, designer clothes, and each other.  The Bees, as they are affectionately known by their legions of adoring fans, delight audiences nationwide with their witty repartee and their historical know-how, all while appraising items brought to the show by everyday collectors spanning the globe."

Of course, the owner of the most highly appraised item is Molly herself.  She has brought in a Faberge egg that she inherited from her grandmother, which turns out to be worth millions.  However, when the Bees come back to do the auction at the hotel, the lights go out, and the egg disappears from its case.  A new mystery now needs to be solved.

While Molly and her family and friends are trying to solve this crime, we have alternating chapters of Gran, who passed away a few years ago, telling her life story.  I must say, this story is so emotional and sad and wonderful and heartbreaking.  I truly loved learning about Gran's life, and what made her such a terrific role model for Molly.  We know these stories are coming from Gran's diary and that Molly has a key that opens something.  Closer to the end of the story, her grandfather presents her with the diary, which of course has all the clues Molly needs to solve the mystery of the stolen egg.  This is another sweet and surprising story.  The Maid Novels are just a great series of books to brighten your day.  I highly recommend them. -- Tracy

For those of you who loved "This is Happiness" by the same author, you will also be very happy with this sequel.  Focusing on one Christmas season in Faha, Ireland, we learn more about Doctor Jack Troy and his daughter Ronnie (Veronica,) who lives with him and assists in his practice.  It is 1962, four years since we left Faha, and it is still raining almost all of the time.  And it's damp.  Read my reiview of "This is Happiness" from January 26, 2020.  You  will need to scroll quite a way down on this page, to understand the  cold, rainy, dampness of this town in Ireland.

This novel is mostly a deep dive into the heart and soul of the town doctor.  We see Jack Troy described in the first few pages:

" Seven days of the week the doctor was never seen out of an ironed white shirt, navy tie and charcoal suit that, though corrugated at the knees and elbows, still retained an air of the formal, or what passed for that in the parish.  On top of this, in winter he wore what Faha called his German coat, gunmetal grey to the shins, broad wings of lapels, and the strip of dark fur on the inside of the collar.  A compact man, it lent him a commander's air, which, in the packed church, gave licence to the black felt hat that took up its own berth on the pew alongside him.

He was not yet sixty but felt like a hundred.  Silver-haired, grey-eyed, he still had the same handsomeness that compensated for the shortness of all the black-and-white film stars, but he awoke each morning inside a cloud of melancholy, and now believed that nothing in his life could burst it."

Dr. Troy has patients at his home all day, is called out at any time of night, and makes house-calls on weekends.  On one sunday, he visits the Crowe family.  In our original novel, Noel Crowe is our narrator and is a boy who is in love with Ronnie.  Dr. Troy has realized his transgression in trying to keep them apart, and now Noel lives in America.  But that won't stop the doctor from trying to get him to come back to his daughter.  I'll tell you now that his interference opens an entire can of worms.

The main event in our story does not happen until page 126!  A twelve-year-old boy we learn about early on; a warden for his alcholic father, and the one who brings him home every night, finds a baby and brings her to the doctor's house.  Of course, Ronnie falls in love with the girl and names her Noelle.  The problem at this time in Ireland is that the church would take the baby and only allow adoption into a two parent home.  So, the doctor and the daughter attempt as long as possible to keep the secret.  Of course, Jack Troy falls in love with the baby too, and recollects on his own days as a young father of three girls.

Once the truth is exposed, the town comes to the rescue, and envelops Ronnie and baby Noelle with gifts and love and support.  We really don't know what will happen to them after that.  There is another scheme in the works that would keep the baby with Ronnie.  We leave the novel hoping that all will be well.  Niall Williams is a master with the written word.  Beautiful descriptions and precise character development are marks of his creative talents.  I loved all the details about Jack Troy's awakening and his discoveries about himself.  I could write pages about him.  You will have to read the book yourself, and enjoy this town and the people within it.  I highly recommend this one. -- Tracy

I must begin by saying that I loved this epic novel that takes place in 1857, and brings us on a rather intriguing and perilous journey across America's heartland, and finally to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Carrie Balentyne is a nurse midwife in New York, when she is asked by a family friend to travel to Santa Fe to assist a doctor in need for his many patients, as well as for his wife who is expecting a baby.

Travelling west by train at first, the second leg of the journey takes place on a riverboat called the Annabelle and sails south on the Missouri river.  This trip will provide Carrie with future friends also traveling to Santa Fe, as well as her love interest name Eli Ibarra.  When the boat excursion ends, the group will now join a caravan of covered wagons, and a stagecoach, with armed guards who will make the slow journey to New Mexico.  A few days into their journey, a group of three men, and Eli Ibarra, come galloping up to their camp and declare an emergency.

Because Dr. Markham's wife in Santa Fe is due with her baby in only a couple of weeks, the men have been sent to accompany Carrie to her desitination on horseback.  She is actually quite pleased that she will leave the stagecoach and make her way in a more free and timely manner.  Her employer did demand that she was an excellent horsewoman, as the job would require she travel to homes to assist women, often at a distance.  Of course, this part of the journey brings excitement and peril and a blooming romance between the nurse and the rancher, Eli Ibarra.

An entire new story with more excitement and shock persues after they arrive in Santa Fe.  It appears the doctor's wife has already had her baby.  However, there is a surprise on Carrie's part when she realizes his wife is holding a doll, and that the baby died.  The couple did have a surviving child named Lulu, who appears to be lost in all the chaos, but who is well loved by people around her.  In a shocking and strange turn of events, both Dr. and Mrs. Markham die weeks apart.  Carrie is in posession of Mrs. Markham's will with details of how she wants her daughter Lulu to be taken care of. But then...

A terrible woman who Carrie had met on the wagon train shows up in town saying that she is Mrs. Markham's half sister, and that she wants the child and the estate.  Well, we will see about that!  Detective work is done, Lulu does a great job of hiding herself when necessary, meetings are had, and the judge comes to town.  I'm sure you can guess the outcome.  In the meantime, Carrie has delivered dozens of babies throughout the territory, and continues to fulfill her duties as a nurse midwife.  

Throughout the book, Carrie also writes letters home to her sister and we learn of her family, and a sad story of another sister lost to a difficult life choice.  Her final letter from her mother talks about the anti-slavery movement and the liklihood of a war.  This book did a wonderful job of portaying a part of the country that had many different races and mixed races and even a hierarchy that at times had to be condemned.  A true learning experience, this book had many layers, but also kept me on my toes and entertained.  I have already given two copies as gifts.  With almost 800 pages, it is an excercise in determination to keep going, but I highly recommend doing it.  -- Tracy

This lovely novella is certainly worth reading if you are fans of the Molly Mystery series including The Maid and The Mystery Guest.  Prose's 3rd Maid Novel is coming out in April of 2025, and our little novella will update you on the personal life of Molly Gray, and her live-in chef boyfriend Juan Manuel.

As we have learned in former stories, Molly is the Head Maid at the Regency Grand Hotel, and her boyfriend is a chef there.  They are now enjoying their relationship, and getting ready for Christmas activities coming up at the hotel.  The employee Secret Santa event is causing Molly some anxiety, as it did not go well for her in years past, and her boyfriend is acting very suspicious.  He appears to be working extra hours and has been seen coming out of guest rooms at the hotel.  This is highly unlikely for a chef!

Molly has a hard time reading people's true characters and emotions and often doubts herself.  This holiday season, she is sure Juan Manuel is not really in love with her, and is getting ready to end things.  However, the reader can see where the story is headed, and a happy ending is in store for all.  If you have not read the first two mysteries, I highly recommend getting to know the quirks of our loveable Molly, who is quite the detective.  This short story will get you ready for the new novel, The Maid's Secret, which will be coming in a few short months! -- Tracy

This is a book that only fans of Lief Enger could love.  I say this because it takes place in the near distant future and things are pretty bleak.  I would highly recommend you read Peace Like a River, and Virgil Wander, first, so that you can fall in love with the amazing use of language, and the poetry of Enger's style. There is also a mention of a character from each of those books, which makes the reader feel like a member of a secret club.  Enger is also a master story teller, only this time there is quite a mix between joy and love and despair and peril, which keep the reader's emotions high.  The story is about a man who sails the dangerous waters of Lake Michigan in search of his wife's spirit, after she is senselessly murdered by a drug cartel.

Our book opens with an introduction to Rainy, a rather big guy, who plays the guitar in a band at the local pub.  He is blissfully married to Lark.  She is loved by the entire community, is often on trips to buy old tomes to fill her used book store, and is obsessed with an author named Molly Thorn.  One night a traveler winds up at their door looking for a room.  Rainy is suspicious, and this only grows when the boy tells stories of his nightmare life on the medicine ship.  A ship he escaped from.  And ... he offers to Lark an old, very worn,  galley copy of Molly Thorn's "I Cheerfully Refuse," her personal favorite.  Here is how this transpires:

"I said, "You seem pleased about this boarder.  Somebody we know?

"It's not who he is.  It's what he brought."  And she reached in the bag and pulled out – slowly, with glittering eyes – a book, or rather a bound galley, an advance copy produced for reviewers.  It was beat-up and wavy with ancient humidity, blue cardstock cover flaking badly.  Printed in fading black was its title : "I Cheerfully Refuse."

"You can't be serious."

Lark laughed. It was her habit when delighted to rise lightly on tiptoe as if forgotten by gravity.  "I Cheerfully Refuse" was the personal grail of my bookseller wife, the nearly but never published final offering of the poet, farmer, and some said eremite Molly Thorn, a woman of the middle twentieth.  Molly lived many lives.  Essayist, throwback deviser of rhyming verse, chronicler of vanished songbirds, author of a single incendiary novel in which the outlaw protagonist speaks in couplets and occasional quatrains.  Lark said she was a cult author before they became the only kind."

This adored book will cause the demise of Lark. The boarder, Kellan,  has stolen very valuable drugs from the ship he escaped from, the bad guys know where he is, the book belonged to the baddest guy of them all, and he tracks it down. And after Rainy discovers his house in disarray, and his wife murdered, he sets out on a voyage on her sailboat, to connect with her spiritually, and perhaps find her out there on the water.

His travels are filled with peril, and danger, and hunger.  However, every once in a while, there is a town with good and kind people, who nourish him and send him back on his way with food and water and fuel.  Eventually he rescues a 9-year-old girl from an abusive situation, and they grow fond of each other.  This story line is even more poignant because of the fact that Rainy and Lark could never have children, and they wanted them very badly.  The two sailors find themselves in a very dangerous and scary situation, and the reader cannot imagine how they will survive.  Spoiler alert – they do!  I was a little confused by the very end, but everyone is well.  It is worth reading this book to perhaps become a little more scared about climate change, and to make some personal adjustments.  I was petrified at times.  The underlying theme was that there was still good in the world, even during these dark times.  Enger is a master at character names, descriptions, language and the stirring of emotions.  I loved it for my adoration of the author's talent.  Beware it has some terryfying moments.  -- Tracy

The premise of our story is how a formerly married, professional, tries keep herself afloat, after she has opened a bookshop in Seoul, South Korea.  We learn early on in our novel that Jeongju has left her marriage and her former career, and opened a bookshop in the hopes of finding fulfillment in doing something she loves.  Our novel revolves around several regulars who frequent the shop, as well as Jeongju's continuing desire to build the store up, by adding book clubs, and writing classes, and a coffee shop.

There are several characters who begin to enter the story.  We learn all about Minjun, a young man who has trouble finding a job after university.  His parents are very demanding, as are Jeongju's, and a cultural trend is noticed that children and parents often have conflicting ideas about success.  Minjun becomes the coffee barista at the store, and begins to learn all about how to make the perfect cup via Jimi, the local bean roaster.  Here is a passage when he discusses the difficulty finding work after university with his best friend:

"In high school, my mum used to say that if the first button is done up properly, the rest of the buttons will line up neatly, and just like that, life will be smooth sailing.  The first button, she said, is getting into a good university.  I was so relieved when I got my acceptance letter.  If I continued at this pace, it seemed that I could easily do up the second, third and the rest of the buttons too.  Was I foolish to think so?  No.  I'm good at studying.  I'm smart.  What's more, I work super hard.  How dare society turn its back on me?

Recently, I've been starting to think that we spent all our energies making the buttons, but there's something we forgot.

There were no holes in the first place.  Imagine a shirt lined with expensive and beautiful buttons on one side.  But there are no holes.  Why?  Because nobody cut them open for us.  What a ridiculous sight - a shirt with only the first button fastened and a row of dangling buttons."

Another intersting character will be a woman named Jungsuh.  She comes in to the bookshop to knit, and of course she will order the appropriate amount of coffee to make her stay not a nuisance to the establishment.  Eventually, we will learn that she has taken a break from her work.  She and Jimi and Jeongju will become close friends and meet outside of the shop for dinners and talking.

There are several more characters, and a lot of philosophyzing between them.  The main question being if it is okay to do something that makes you happy, but not necessarily provides financial success?  If you love book stores or libraries, you will relate to the characters here, who find comfort and joy among the stacks of books and like-minded people.  This is a book with short chapters, and is very easy to read regardless of the British English translation.  The most challenging part of the book is trying to pronounce the Korean names of people, and keeping characters straight in your mind.  I read this book in a week, because I could not wait to see how things turned out for all our characters.  I highly recommend this one. -- Tracy

This is another book highly recommended to me by a patron.  A retired teacher who now has more time to read, she might take home half a dozen books each week.  She told me that this book affected her to the extent that she bought a copy, to underline and highlight, and to return to whenever she wanted.  The premise of "No Two Persons" relates to a phrase which states that no two persons read the same book.  I did really enjoy this book, but will not buy it to write in, though I will recommend it to patrons and friends.  The premise of this book is brilliant, however, as it follows several different people who were inspired or affected by a book written by a young author.  Some people are individuals with no ties to other chapters, and others bring us back to the author or to each other. 

The best way to get a feeling for this book is to start at the first chapter.  It's called The Writer:

"The story on Alice's computer screen had been finding its way into words for more than five years, or maybe forever.  Over that time, it had grown, changed, creaked, flown, gone silent, and then gained its voice again, its plot taking unexpected paths, its characters turning into people she hadn't thought they would be, just as she had.  This glowing screen, the one constant.  This story, in all its iterations.  Now awaiting the last step.  Someone to say yes.

She was young for a writer, barely twenty-five, but in some ways Alice had always been old.  Always been watching, learning, searching for the things that people were not saying.  Truth lies below the table; she knew this even as a child.  If given the choice, she would have taken her dinner plate down into the cool, dark space beneath the tablecloth, where she could watch her mother's fingers tighten along with the conversation.  Watch her older brother's shoes point toward the exit even as their father interrogated him about his latest swim meet.  Medals he did or didn't get, effort he did or didn't expend.

Children, of course, did not eat under the table, so for Alice, a tendency toward napkin-dropping had to suffice.

"Why can't she keep that thing on her lap?" her father would say to her mother."

Alice's book does get published, and will be titled "Theo."  We will meet several people who are affected by her book, from an actor who can no longer be on screen due to Vitiligo, who takes up audio book narration, to a widower who takes an unusual job in a reclusive area, and is snowed in with limited food and only a book to read, to a book store clerk who is obsessed with the author, who happens to live nearby.  We even have an artist who never reads the book her mother sent her, but, instead, makes the pages into wings for a sculpture she creates.  Our story comes full circle at the end, visiting Alice several years later, surprizing us with some connections to other characters in the story.  How will you feel about this book?  I can guarantee your impressions will differ from mine, but I hope it will be a positive and enjoyable experience. -- Tracy

From the same author who wrote "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe," this is a lovely southern story which just happens to culminate on Christmas day.  Although it is wonderful to read during the holiday season, I recommend this story at any time of year.  I just loved all the characters and the witty and sentimental tone of the book.  I know this book is nearly twenty years old, but it was strongly recommended by a co-librarian, so I did a little dive into the past for this one.

We begin with our main character, Oswald T. Campbell, making a trip to a new doctor's office, after a typical Chicago snow storm, and arriving in wet shoes, and then when finding out he has to fill out paperwork, he is beyond frustrated.  Sadly, his years of smoking and drinking have taken a toll on his health and his new doctor gives him a dire prognosis and suggest he live out his possible remaining year in a warm climate.  As a man of little means, living off a disability payment, the doctor hands him a pamphlet his father used to give to patients.  It is information about an idilyc hotel in a place called Lost River, Alabama.

Oswald decides that perhaps the doctor is right, and when he contacts directory assistance, there is no record of a hotel in Lost River.  Finally being given a number for the community hall, Oswald reaches a woman named Frances Cleverdon, who will take him under her wing and arrange for lodging during his visit.  Needless to say, this move down south with change Oswald's life in so many ways.

We will meet all the major characters of Lost River.  Frances is determined to find Oswald a partner, perhaps her sister Mildred!  The grocery store owner will come upon a wounded red bird who will become an important part of the community, hopping around inside the store with an injured wing.  The townspeople will take a little girl with no family in, and do everything possible to care for her and mend her physical and emotional wounds.  The river will become a  place of solace for our main character, and he will even take up nature painting.  As his health improves, he will grow more and more fond of Lost River.  The ending is too hopeful and happy for words.  You will need to read the story yourself.  I highly reccomend this book for those who like Elizabeth Berg and Rachel Joyce, and it will undoubtedly be the ticket to a few laughs and happy tears. -- Tracy

"In the forest, the canopy grows thicker.  Shield and ostrich ferns overgrow the spring ephemerals.  Ruby-throated hummingbirds fly in from the south.  Swallowtails and wood satyrs flit between the dogwoods, and the songbirds find their mates and settle down to nest.  In the mornings, in the forest, she can hear the caterpillars eating.  Queen Anne's lace begins to sprout up in the orchard, beneath the fruiting apples, while the young deer stare hungrily beyond the fence."

This brilliant book by Daniel Mason takes readers through several centuries of life in one small location in western Massachusetts.  We will experience life surrounding a yellow house in an orchard, that changes over time with not only human inhabitants, but also with the effects of mother nature on the wooded landscape.  This story is intense, and filled with interesting characters, beautiful descriptions of the New England forests, unpredictable weather, and finally, the occasional ghost(s.)  I must admit, it might be more than an occasional thing.  I would say that you need to prepare yourself for some gasps from supernatural surprises within this book.

Our novel is made up of short chapters which focus on certain people who are in possession of our yellow house in the woods.  The first couple of young lovers escape their early colonial village and run off together to the North Woods.  At some point, the young man realizes that they are no longer being followed and he lays the first stone which will be the cornerstone of the house.  Our next chapter reads similar to the story of Hannah Dustin, with Indian raids, and the capture of a young mother and baby.  When they both become ill with fever, they are taken to the same house and left with an English woman who has taken on Indian ways and dress.  She saves their lives, but evil will approach the cabin, and the women will do what is necessary to save their lives.

We are constantly moving ahead to future inhabitants.  Our next owner is fixated on having an apple orchard and finds one with the most delectable fruit, which happens to surround our little house.  His twin daughters will grow up to become caretakers of the property, but trouble is brewing with sibling jealousy, and by the next chapter we will find the two haunting an intruder who will wish he had never taken on this mission.  (An evil one.)  And this pattern continues with complicated family stories and more ghosts adding up, and all of a sudden, we are in the 20th century.  Entire species of trees die as time passes, and the fragility of nature is evident.  It seems there is always something to learn along the way about the nature of our world including the plant world, as well as the human one.

Each story is connected to the next.  The book seemed very realistic to me, and though there was darkness and sadness, there is also the hope of the next generation.  The end of the book has brilliant surprises, but an ending that stunned me in its finality.  I look forward to discussing this book with someone who might be willing to take it on.  It's quite the journey.  It reminded me of the book "Inland" by Tea Obreht.  Though her book took place in the west, the descriptions and details make the time and place a character in itself.  Also, that book had a lot of ghosts .  If you want to walk this journey through centuries of history, in one little corner of Massachusetts, I highly recommend North Woods. -- Tracy

A beautiful completion to the trilogy which began with The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry,  and gave us next The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy,  Maureen tells the story of Harold's wife, ten  years after his fateful walk to northern England.  It is the lovely story of a woman who is very rigid, and stuck in her ways, trying to find her long lost son for a final time, in Queenie's garden.

Our story begins with Maureen waking early to start her trip north:

"It was too early for birdsong.  Harold lay beside her, his hands neat on his chest, looking so peaceful she wondered where he traveled in his sleep.  Certainly not the places she went: if she closed her eyes, she saw roadworks.  Dear God, she thought.  This is no good.  She got up in the pitch-black, took off her nightdress and put on her best blue blouse with a pair of comfortable slacks and a cardigan.  "Harold?" she called.  "Are you awake?" But he didn't stir.  She picked up her shoes and shut the bedroom door without a sound.  If she didn't go now, she never would."

So, Maureen sets out in icy conditions with a map, and the hopes of getting to northern England as quickly as possible.  She gets lost a few times and there is always a kind stranger to get her on her way again.  When she finally arrives at her destination, she climbs the treacherous winter terrain to make it to Queenie's garden on a hill.  She makes a lot of discoveries, but is still in search of her son's legacy via a sculpture created just for him.  Sadly, she lost her son several decades earlier, and Queenie was a good friend and support to him before he died.

Maureen is forced to take refuge overnight at the home of one of Harold's friends from his own journey named Kate.  Kate lives in a trailer park with other women and you can imagine that Maureen is mortified by her lodgings.  Of course, Kate will become a dear friend, by the end of the adventure.  Maureen will evolve and get her answers, but I think the most important part of our story is the enduring love between Maureen and Harold, even through the most trying of times.  This was a wonderful way to wrap up the journeys of Harold and Queenie and Maureen. -- Tracy

Hadley Vlahos is a hospice nurse who decided to put some of her most memorable patient cases in a book, mainly to show some of the more spiritual and positive aspects of the death experience.  This book may be difficult for anyone who has had an uncomfortable or negative experience with the loss of a loved-one.  This book may also be difficult for those who are facing an upcoming loss.  For me it was a beautiful telling of stories that had pieces of what I experienced with the passing of each of my parents.  It was reassuring and lovely, but also, I shed a few tears with the emotional aspects of each story.

Our author, Hadley,  had no intentions in her college years of becoming a nurse, nevermind a hospice nurse.  She leads us through her journey as a college student who gets unexpectedly pregnant, moves home to have her son, and then decides to attend nursing school as a way to have a career that could support a single mother and child.  As a manager at a nursing home, Hadley had an opportunity to see the comfort and importance of hospice nurses who came in to her facility.  She simply expressed interest to one of them, and the rest is history.  At the age of 24, she became one of the youngest persons within her agency to have such a difficult and challenging job.  

Our book is made up of 12 chapters, each telling the story of a different patient.  All the stories are emotional and heartbreaking, as well as hopeful and positive.  Hadley not only has incredible patience and compassion, she knows when she needs help or advice.  One instance provides us a glimse into the care of an end-stage dementia patient.  This particular woman is convinced that her bedroom is on fire.  When Hadley calls a senior nurse with 20 years of experience for advice, it is suggested that she move the patient's bed to another room.  That was all it took to calm her patient.  Within this same story, it is what happens next that is shocking and surprising, but you will need to read the book to see what that is.

Hadley admits to us that others don't always understand why she would choose this job or enjoy the job.  Here is an excerpt of something her father relayed to her.  His feelings were quite surprising to me:

"Strangers weren't the only people who were confused by my job.  Some of my friends and family were too, even when I explained how much the work meant to me.  In one particularly painful conversation, my dad asked when I planned on going back to being a "real nurse."  When I protested that I was a real nurse, he replied, "Well, a nurse that actually does stuff to save lives instead of just letting patients die."

Throughout this book we see the struggles and we see the joys and we see the divine at work.  You can follow the author on Instagram where she gives daily lessons or reenactments of situations as a hospice nurse.  She is a loving and caring person, as the job requires.  I highly recommend this book for those who have an interest in hearing remarkable end-of-life stories, as well as an incredible success story of a young woman who was once at a crossroads. -- Tracy 

I'm still processing this book, but since it is an Oprah's Book Club selection, I have to assume there is more to it than I think I saw and felt and read.  The book sleeve says it is an homage to Alcott's Little Women, but aside from there being four sisters and one boy, I'm not so sure you can compare the two.  For one, the mother is this book is no Marme.  I can say that the plot seemed to be very well thought out, and brilliantly wrapped up at the end.  It is difficult to write a complete review without giving too much away, but here is my go at it.

We meet the boy, named William Waters, who is born into a family who experiences the loss of his three year-old sister soon after he arrives.  Apparently, since his parents are so devastated, they never look him in the eye or form a loving bond with him.  I'm not so sure this would be the norm.  I almost feel that his parents are unusually cold and distant.  Would they both walk away from this other chance at being loving parents?  I have a friend who lost her first daughter just after she was born, and she went on to have four more children and was a grateful parent and now grandparent.  I know that I do not have enough experience with this kind of loss, but I had doubts about it being realistic that they would resent him.

William enters college at Northwestern in 1978 and meets Julia Padavano, the first person who truly loves and adores him.  Yes, she has three sisters who are all very close to each other.  Her mother is a strict catholic, and her father has a bit of a drinking problem, but they appear to be the family William has always hoped for.  With Julia's urging, the two get married right after graduation, and she persuades her husband to enter a graduate program in history education.  And also, she convinces him to have a baby right away.

Well, William was a basketball player until injury deadlined his career, and he finds himself depressed and missing classes and eventually having a mental health crisis.  He asks Julia for a divorce and gives up all rights to his daughter and she thinks that's just fine.  She doesn't fight with him about it.  She is angry that he quit his graduate program, she seems to be completely lacking sympathy and any concern for her child losing a father.   I didn't buy this part of the story either.  My own experience tells me that children should have relationships with their parents if at all possible, and I found Julia's lack of compassion unrealistic.  When her daughter is 5, Julia tells her that her father died.  Really?  By the way, he is not dead.

Well, that's just the beginning of the story.  I don't want to tell you what happens within the rest of the family that causes a rift between the siblings for 20 years!  The end of the book focuses around a sad event, but at least the author does a good job at repairing the relationships within the family.  They do come together.  There is a lot of forgiveness, which is good.  I did like this book and did want to find out what happens in the end.  I only wish I could have found realistic details surrounding some of the behaviors of our characters.  Hey!  Oprah loved it! -- Tracy

I consider this to be a brilliant Irish novel, not vearing too far off from the usual darkness, dampness, family drama, trying to make ends meet, people dying and others surviving kind of Irish novel I have read before.  What stands out for me as being brilliant, is how within the novels I have read in this local ethnic genre, there is always an incredible talent for beautiful language and the creation of characters who are full-bodied, speak with blatent honesty, and are gifted with unusual talents or intellects or sarcasm, which make the reader root for them.  I felt so strongly about the four generations of Aylward women, living in a cottage in Nenagh, Tipperary, that I could not put this book down, as I hoped for each of them to find a happy and satisfying life.

At the beginning of our novel, Mary Aylward is the family's matriarch and though widowed, has three adult sons, but by the end of our story, only one remains.  Mary is probably the strongest of the women in our story.  She amazes me with her quick wit, but even more with her teachable moments, and her ability to remember everything.  You will laugh as much as cry at the things she says.  Here is an example of something that stuck with her about worrying over past events:

"Whatever about the future, she said one day, worrying about the past is the hollowest of all things.  She said she saw a programme one time about that scientist fella with the moustache and the funny hair, and how he declared that you could travel through time but only forward.  And you had to travel nearly as fast as a ray of sunlight to break free of the clock.  There's no way back for man or God or any creature that ever lived.  We can only go back in our minds and even then we're going back to something that doesn't exist except the way a dream exists.  So we can forget changing the past and all we can do is look after our present moment, planting good seeds in it so that our next moments might be fruitful."

After Mary, or "Nana" has a stroke, she comes to live with her daughter-in-law Eileen, and her granddaughter Saoirse, and leaves her son Chris to tend to their farm down the road.  There is a lot of yelling between the two mothers, but a lot of love and respect, as well.  They both know hardship, and more continues in our story, and not only with greedy and misguided male family members, but for one of their own.  As a young teenager, Saoirse is surprised to find herself pregnant - you will understand why, and her own daughter named Pearl will join the cottage.  As she grows into adulthood, Saoirse will find herself entangled in a messy romance, and to most of us we understand her desire to be loved that way, and the choices she makes.

Although the story seems to be a roller coaster of happy and sad moments, we are sure that in the end it must come to some kind of uplifting conclusion for our Aylward women.  I had no idea how Ryan was going to bring this around, but I loved the ending of our story and the hope for the future.  Our last chapter, on two pages, is filled with love and pretty words and joy.  -- Tracy

Most readers will know Jeanette Walls for her "book to movie" biography "The Glass Castle."  However, the author is also an accomplished fiction writer, and this recent book is quite an accomplishment.  The setting is 1920's Virginia, and our story reminds me a bit of another southern novel which is a favorite of many readers.  That book is "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns.  This novel takes place in a small town during the Prohibition years, when many poor folks made their living bootlegging whiskey, and getting away with it. One rich white man runs the town and all the businesses around.  What Duke Kincaid says is the law, and everyone knows to bow down when he is in their presence.

Our novel starts when one of his children, 8 year-old Sallie Kincaid, takes her younger half-brother Eddie on a secret ride on her new go-cart.  Things go awry, they crash, Eddie gets injured, and her step-mother bans her from the home.  The Duke sends her off to her deceased mother's sister's home, and promises he will return for her soon.  Nine years later, upon the death of her step-mother, Duke sends a family friend to pick her up and return her to the home.

Of course, the Duke has an ulterior motive regarding the return of his daughter.  She needs to become Eddie's new teacher and his female figure in the home.  The problem is that Eddie is very depressed over the loss of his mother, and he is so much smarter than Sallie, their study sessions turn into Eddie teaching Sallie about all kinds of things.  Of course, the Duke does not do well without a wife, and soon after the funeral, he brings home wife number four.  She is a very likeable woman named Kat.  Eddie takes to her, and soon Sallie will be convincing her father to bring her into the business.  Here is what she thinks after she has started working for her father, mainly driving around the county to collect rents:

"Back in Hatfield, watching farmers trying to coax a crop out of thin soil only to see it washed away in a heavy rain, I used to think what a fine thing it would be to have a paycheck job - you show up, work your hours, and at the end of the month, doesn't matter what the weather is, you get your money.  Now, that I have one of those jobs, I see it's not the rain that's your worry, but the whims of the boss man.  Some of the times, the things you're asked to do are foolish.  Leaves you rolling your eyes, but it can be done.  It's when the boss asks you to do something you know to be wrong and you do it anyways. That sort of work whittles away at the soul."

Not so soon after Sallie starts her new job, tragedy strikes, and the entire town is turned upside down.  Family members try to take over the businesses, two specific family members try to bring an end to bootlegging, (bad idea,) and Sallie finds herself heading up a huge illegal whisky running ring in the county.  There is romance, danger, a lynching, several secrets to be told, and many messes to be cleaned up.  Feuds between families become war-like, and I could not even believe some of the events that took place.  However, when reading the "Acknowledgments," the most outlandish events turned out to have come from historical records.  Walls's research for this novel was thorough and eye-opening.  In all, we are just hoping for a happy ending for Sallie, and some of our other favorite characters, and the book wraps our story up in a pretty tidy bow.  Sallie portrays a tough woman who did her best in what was truly a man's world.  I highly recommend this one. -- Tracy

I guess I would type this novel as a psychological study of a friendship.  But more so, a study of one of those all-consuming friendships of childhood, when one of the friends is dominant, and even a little dangerous, and the other is in awe and willing to follow the other's lead.  It is the story of two young girls in post-WWII France, in a small rural town, where young women die in childbirth, and former soldiers die of grief.  But... it is not all dark and full of doom and gloom.  One of the girls has made it out, and to America, and recollects in her writing, the story of their youth.

Our book begins in 1966 in Pennsylvania, where Agnes now lives with her husband and her many animals, including her favorites, two Toulouse geese.  A letter arrives from her mother telling her that her childhood friend Fabienne has died in childbirth.  How strange that all these years later, in 1966, she would die the same way that her sister died in 1946.  Agnes's husband cannot give her children, and though she would love this to happen, her love of Earl is great, and she confesses that she would never leave him.  Her garden and animals keep her busy, but this revelation from home instigates an urge to write the story of her childhood, and of her friend, who had such an enormous impact on her life.  Agnes begins her story in post-war Saint Remy, France, where the 13 year-old girls' ideas about god are discussed:

" Fabienne loved making nonsense about god.  She claimed she believed in god, though what she meant, I thought, was that she believed in a god that was always available for her to mock.  I did not know if I believed in god - my father was an atheist and my mother was the opposite of an atheist.  If I had been closer to one or the other, it would be easier for me to choose.  But I was close only to Fabienne.  Perturbatrice of god, she called herself, and said I was one, too, because I was always on her side.  In that sense we were not atheists.  You had to believe that god existed so you could make mischief and upend his plans."

This is a very rich and sometimes uncomfortable book.  Agnes follows Fabienne's every move, and does everything she asks of her.  Fabienne has quite a dark side.  When the local postmaster's wife dies, Fabienne derives a plan to seduce him into befriending them, and to help them publish a book which Fabienne creates, and Agnes writes.  Of course, Fabienne insists that her involvement is kept secret, and Agnes is to be known as the sole author.  When the man agrees to edit and oversee the story, Agnes is discovered, lauded, sent to Paris for the publication events, and even to a fancy boarding school in England, with an eccentric headmistress, who does bring some comic relief to the story.  In this foreign place, happiness is abscent for Agnes, and she begs to return home, to her dear one - Fabienne.

Although it is Agnes's dream that the two run away to Paris to live there forever, we know from the first chapter of our book that the two stray.  We will learn how and why this happens.  Some of us might relate to having this type of friend in childhood, one who controls us and even scares us.  I had one at the age of nine, who thankfully, was only in our school as a new kid for a year.  Those moments with her are vivid in my memory.  But our author helps us to understand why Fabienne, a brilliant girl, forced to work on the family farm and not allowed to go to school, is frustrated and angry.  Her limited life only provides a dark place for her.  Agnes, equally bright and intelligent, is somehow able to move on to a new life, and is able to accept those things she cannot have, and to be content with the world - as unfair as it might be.

The situations of both protagonists are sympathetic.  They each experienced poverty, loss of siblings, lack of affection from parents, and the unexpected consequences of their actions.  It is a sad tale for one, and a resurection for the other.  I loved the beautiful writing, and I believed every word.  It is not a book for everyone - perhaps a bit dark and sad.  But, for me, it is a shining example of a piece of literature that has been carved out to the perfect shape, evoking admiration and emotions that amaze.  I loved this book.  -- Tracy

Our story opens with one of our three main characters; each having recently suffered a tragic loss of a loved-one.  For seventy-something Chuck Ayers, it is his wife who became ill and died much sooner than either of them could have ever imagined:

"When Chuck Ayers thinks about Cat, he thinks about the faded yelow-and-white-striped towel that lately he has veen wearing around his neck like a wrestler.

That damn towel.

She used it for every bath, the towel hanging over the linen closet door to dry afterward, the smell of her pink soap as he walked by.  And when they drove those hundreds of miles to Hilton Head every winter, she took the towel along, and it became her beach towel.  Even as she got older, there was something alluring about the way she draped that towel around her body, or shook it out over one of the loung chairs at the pool in South Carolina."

Chuck is clearly depressed and spends most days wondering about if he should go to Hilton Head this winter by himself.  He has wonderful neighbors and friends named Sal and Marguerite and their dog Cocoa.  Sal is a bit of a nuisance and pops in unexpectedly, all the time.  But, it is good of him to check on his friend.  Of course, Chuck has a hard time sleeping since his wife's passing, and is often up at 5AM, with a light on in his living room, just waiting for the day to start.

Ella Burke is a young woman who has experienced the worse tragedy that any mother can ever imagine having.  Her estranged husband has kidnapped their five-year-old daughter and there have been no leads for months now.  To make ends meet, she delivers papers during the early morning hours, and works in a bridal salon in the afternoons.  Every morning at 5AM, she sees Chuck in his living room, and wonders about him and why he is up so early.  Eventually, a fall on his icy walkway will bring the two together.

Our third protagonist is another young woman named Kirsten Bonato.  She is struggling with the fact that her father was murdered by a robber at a gas station.  She imagines her wonderful Dad trying to difuse the situation, when the criminal simply shoots him dead.  She is living with her mother and finds solace in her job working at an animal shelter.  She was applying to Vet School when her father was killed, and has given up on that dream.  She thinks she has a crush on her single-father boss David, who seems to be the perfect man, but starts a relationship with her co-worker hunk-of-a-guy Grayson.  She meets Chuck one day when he decides he might need a pup for companionship, and falls in love with a pig instead.  

All three characters will make decisions that alter the courses of their lives.  They will also become more connected within the story.  It reminds me a bit of The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg.  If you liked that book, you will like this one.  I have one complaint about the story that deals with Emma's husband, that I truly find to be an unrealistic event. However, since the story ends happily, I will try to get over it.  It's a story we can all understand, if we have had to move on from grief or loss in our lives.  Hopefully, like these characters, you will relate to the positive outcomes of each of their stories.  Sweet, entertaining and enjoyable. -- Tracy

Having seen this book cross  the circulation desk, if briefly, to be tagged for the next person on the waiting list, one would think that this cover suggests a flirty woman looking for the right guy she might have a spark with.  But seriously, folks, this is a book about serious stuff.  Our story takes place in the 1950s and early 1960s.  Our protagonist, Elizabeth Zott, is a female chemist in a male dominated field, and faces mysogyny every day. In a NYT article from November 16, 2022, by Sadie Stein, the author admits, "Despite its candy shell, the book is “not sweet,” said the elegant and soft-spoken Garmus, 65, in an interview during a whirlwind November trip to New York from London, where she lives with her husband." So, hold on to your seats.

I must admit that I almost stopped reading the novel early on, due to a violent event that seemed unrealistic to me.  It was very difficult to read and digest.  However, having heard so many glowing reviews, I kept on going, and soon found myself reading the entire book in one weekend.  So... keep going.  

I'm not saying that this novel does not have humor and romance, it does - but predominantly, it is a chronicle about the life of women in mid-century America.  And, it's not a very appealing life.  We begin in 1961, where single mother Elizabeth Zott is packing her daughter's lunch for kindergarten and leaving notes for her like, "Play sports at recess but do not automatically let the boys win." Her daughter Madeline is only 4, but her mother forged her birth certificate to get her in.  Of course, she is the brightest kid in school, and even smarter than her awful teacher Mrs. Mudford.  Awful woman!  Here is a conversation Elizabeth has with Madeline's teacher:

"Madeline wants to do things that are more suited to little boys," Mudford had said. "It's not right.  You obviously believe a woman's place is in the home, what with your"-- she coughed slightly -- "television show.  So talk to her.  She wanted to be on safety patrol this week."

"Why is that a problem?"

"Because only boys are on safety patrol.  Boys protect girls.  Because they're bigger."

"But, Madeline is the tallest one in your class."

"Which is another problem," Mudford said. "Her height is making the boys feel bad."

Our story will go back to the 1950s, when Elizabeth is treated horribly in the lab by her associates and managers.  Horrible is not a strong enough word.  She later finds herself at Hastings Laboratories where she meets another chemist named Calvin Evans.  Somewhat of a loner and snob, he is  world-renowned in his field, and takes an interest in Elizabeth.  His attraction is mainly to her tenacity, but he also realizes that her research could benefit from their partnership.  They fall in love, and though she is clear that marriage and children are out of the question, the two move in together, and after a horrible accident, Elizabeth finds herself pregnant and alone.  When she is fired from her job for being and unwed mother-to-be, she turns her kitchen into a lab and continues to work at home.  Unable to make ends meet, she is offered a cooking show at the local tv station which will be chemistry based, and will be feminist forward.  She really shakes things up.  The show is a big hit, but sadly, she isn't satisfied with not pursuing her life's purpose as a scientist.

Our story is lightened by a dog named Six-Thirty who was adopted by the couple, knows hundreds of words due to Elizabeth's teachings, and talks to us about his feelings throughout the book.  He is a wonderful character.  By the end of our story there are discoveries about Calvin's unknown family (he was raised in a Dickensian boy's home,) and if you don't shed a tear, you are not human.  Thank goodness this is a story with a happy ending, as there are a lot of reasons to be pissed off at the human race throughout.  It is clear why there are still hundreds of patrons on the waiting list to read this one.  Well-developed characters who we love, bring the past to life, and give us hope that there are always people willing to fight for a new way.  Get on the waiting list now! -- Tracy

This is quite the amazing and touching story of a young 14 year-old named Kitty Tait, who had a sudden onset of depression and anxiety, and became housebound and completely unable to function in her existing world.  Prior to this event, she was an exceptional student, popular and athletic, and seemed to be on track to do all the other things teens would do in their high school years.  In her small English town of Watlington, her parents both had good jobs, and her older brother and sister were continuing to pursue their higher educations.  In this memoir/cookbook, we hear from Kitty and her father Al for the first half of the book about how they overcame this traumatic time.  The second half of our book contains recipes and photos of the baked goods the two would learn to create together.  Here is Kitty's description of what came over her:

"It's so hard to explain, but as I entered year 9, I constantly asked Mum how long education went on for.  I panicked that I was trapped in this funnel that might go on for years and, while everyone else seemed to totally get it, I found it harder to understand what the point of all of it was.  Slowly, I started to remove myself.  I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I wanted to stay at home.  I started to have panic attacks, but I didn't want to tell anyone.  Dementors moved into my brain with heavy iron suitcases and the weight of them pinned me down.

I remember so little of those early days of summer.  Leaving school was almost the easy bit.  I just drifted away.  There were days and days of feeling lost and incomplete and not wanting to exist."

Well, her parents decided that her father Al would be the one to stay at home with Kitty.  The family members tried to think of all kids of diversions or activities that would help her, but nothing seemed to work.  Until... one day her father decided to make some bread.  This is something he had done before, and he, with some sort of instinct, or as a result of boredom, made some bread.  After a few days, Al describes Kitty's reaction:

"I can't tell you what time of day it was, what we'd been doing that morning or how it cropped up in conversation.  There was nothing planned about it.  I just asked Kitty if she wanted to have a go herself.  There was no hallelujah chorus or a blinding flash of light.  What I do remember, though, was that she actually looked interested when we pulled the loaf from the oven - and that hadn't happened in a long time.  I had no idea just how important that moment was, and I still didn't when Kitty asked to bake that bread again."

The story gets more and more remarkable, as Kitty has found her fix, her passion, her raison d-etre.  We will watch as the two stumble through making a great sourdough starter.  Kitty will begin contacting, and eventually visiting other bakeries to learn the trade.  New ovens are purchased, and at first, a lot of bread is given away.  However, they manage to open a storefront, and by the end of the book they have a completely successful business.  Now 18, Kitty travels the world to learn new methods and to share her Kitty's kits, which are small bread mixes to teach young people the joy of baking.  Follow her and her story on Instagram at kittytaitbaker and her store at the_orangebakery.  This book is a wonderful gift - I bought 3 for holiday presents!  -- Tracy

What a beautiful story this is!  Told by an octupus named Marcellus in a Pacific Northwest aquarium during his captivity there, we come to love him right away.  His character is truly remarkable , intelligent and sympathetic.  Alternating chapters explore our other two main characters; Tova, who is a seventysomething widow who works as the night janitor at the aquarium, and Cameron, a young man of thirty who is having a very difficult time finding his identity and his birth father.  It is expected that these three will form a connection, but the surprise is in just how deeply connected all three of them are.

Marcellus gives us some insight into his thoughts early in the novel:

"I am very good at keeping secrets.

You might say I have no choice.  Whom might I tell?  My options are scant.

To the extent I am able to communicate with the other prisoners, those dull conversations are rarely worth the effort.  Blunt minds, rudimentary neural systems.  They are wired for survival, and perhaps expert at that function, but no other creature here possesses intelligence like mine.

It is lonely.  Perhaps it would be less so if I had someone with whom to share my secrets.

Secrets are everywhere.  Some humans are crammed full of them.  How do they not explode?  It seems to be a hallmark of the human species: abysmal communication skills.  Not that any other species are much better, mind you, but even a herring can tell which way the school it belongs to is turning and follow accordingly.  Why can humans not use their millions of words to simply tell one another what they desire?

The sea, too, is very good at keeping secrets.

One in particular, from the bottom of the sea, I carry with me still."

Tova is not only grieving the recent death of her husband from cancer, but she has been grieving the death of her son Erik for the past 30 years.  Apparently her son did not come home one night after work when he was 18, and it is assumed he went out on a boat and had an accident and drowned.  Her job at the aquarium gives her purpose, and although her body is beginning to fail her, she insists she can continue to work.  One night she finds Marcellus stuck in some cords in the corner of the break room and saves his life.  This is when she learns that he likes to escape his tank and go on adventures.  Let's just say that after this incident, they form a very close bond.

We are introduced next to a young man of 30 years named Cameron.  This man is having such a difficult time finding himself.  He can't keep a job or a girlfriend.  We learn that his mother had an issue with drugs and that he was raised mostly by his aunt.  After his most recent breakup and firing, he decides to head to Sowell Bay to find the man he believes is his father.  He will coincidentally obtain a job at the aquarium while Tova is recovering from a fall.  She sneaks in though, and they will become friends, and Marcellus will notice something very interesting about the two of them.

The ending of our story is also remarkable.  The pieces of the puzzle are completed.  Marcellus has a remarkable adventure.  Tova and Cameron figure out their lives.  All is well.  Many wonderful surprises await the reader.  I suggest a great documentary to watch when you finish the book is My Octopus Teacher on Netflix.  I have also added the book The Soul of an Octopus to my future reads.  Highly recommended. -- Tracy

One of the first friends who I met in the library world when I began 18 years ago, has not only remained a wonderful friend to me all these years, but we recently found out that we share the same 8th great grandfather.  We are so close and have such a special friendship, that we were not surprised.  She recommended this book, and I can see why.  There is a special bond that these two protagonists form, that seems to the reader, to be as special as two friends can possibly experience.  

Our story takes place in the 1960s and begins with a letter written by 27 year old Joan Bergstrom, sent to 59 year old Imogen Fortier.  Joan, who is a budding foodie in Los Angeles, has written to Imogen praising the articles she writes about rustic cooking and life on an island off the coast of Seattle.  Within the letter Joan includes some saffron and a recipe which includes the spice in broth cooked with muscles.  Well, this is just the beginning of some wonderful letters between the two women who share recipes and life experiences with each other.

Immy (Imogen's nickname) lives with her husband who has had some difficulty adjusting and coping after the war.  However, when Joan begins to send recipes and spices, Francis finds a calling in the kitchen, and sees some new purpose to his life.  Here is Immy's letter to Joan when she discovers her husband in the kitchen one day:

"Pardon me for jumping around.  Yes, it's my nature, but today I have the added excuse that I'm still giddy.  There I was in the cabin on Saturday morning, lying in bed with a cold cloth over my forehead, when I smelled something enticing.  I got up , put on my robe, and crept to the kitchen door.  I wouldn't have been more surprised to find Sasquatch juggling crab claws.  Francis was standing at the stove wearing my periwinkle hostess apron with yellow primroses embroidered on it.  He had a Chesterfield in one hand and my spatula in the other.  The image is as vivid in my mind as a Matisse.  In fact, I have named it, "Husband with Saffron."  Oh, Joan, Francis was cooking!"

In California, Joan has met a Mexican man who becomes a very close friend and they begin to explore all kinds of ethnic foods in the Los Angeles area.  She becomes most intrigued and engrossed by Mexican cuisine, and has a wonderful time tasting the authentic food and sending recipes along to Immy.  Having graduated from college, it is her dream to write a food column and to introduce Americans to the wonders of Mexican cooking.

The two women end up sharing some very deep and personal secrets.  They truly help each other through some extremely difficult and challenging events.  The ending of the book might bring you to tears, as it did me.  I very much enjoyed reading the author's afterward to see how she based this story on real people in her life.  It was even more amazing to read about the actual real-life friendships.  This is a book you will share with all the women who are important to you.  It is a short little book that you can read over a weekend, but the sentiments and stories are rich and personal and will stay with you much longer.  I highly recommend this book. -- Tracy

Similar to Searle's last book, "In Five Years," One Italian Summer has a bit of the surreal woven into our story.  Katy is a 30 year-old woman who has lost her mother suddenly to cancer at the age of 60.  Katy and her mother were best friends and this untimely death has soured Katy's desire to take the trip they planned together to Positano, Italy.  Having a difficult time with all her life's decisions since the funeral, Katy decides to leave her husband behind, and to explore Italy as her mother did 30 years ago, alone and able to evaluate her feelings and ponder her future.

Upon arrival in Positano, Katy is simply in awe of all the sights and smells and the wonderful people at her hotel who treat her like family.  The food is described in detail and makes our mouths water continuously.  Early on she meets a handsome man named Adam who she often shares breakfast with, or explores the countryside with, but she  tries fervently to keep the relationship platonic.  A day or so into her trip she sees a woman who looks exactly like a younger version of her mother.  When someone calls out her name, "Carol," Katy cannot believe that she is seeing her 30 year-old mother. Here is what she is thinking the next day:

"Right now, this morning, all I can think about is her.  I'm anxious to see her tonight, anxious to know if she'll show up, anxious to discover whether yesterday was all a lucid dream, just a little too real around the edges.  I feel the caffeine hit my system, but instead of making me jittery, it seems to make me more alert, like I've just put on glasses.  And I know, in the way only certainty can present, that it really was her, that she's here.  That somehow I have stumbled into some kind of magic reality where we get to be together.  That time here does not only move slower but in fact doubles back on itself."

Well, Katy and her mother have some wonderful times together, and her mother has no idea that Katy is her daughter.  One day, at Carol's apartment, Katy will make a discovery that changes everything about her feelings and understanding of her mother; her best friend, her most trusted companion for these past 30 years.  It is difficult to imagine how this will work itself out.

I can't really tell you how the novel ends, because it will give away too much about how Katy was able to experience this time with her young mother in Italy.  I do have a bit of an issue with the development of Katy's relationship with Adam, the handsome man who is also trying to buy the hotel.  I guess I would say that things seem to wrap up nicely at the end.  I think there are some mixed emotions that all readers will grapple with.  Overall, the fantasy for anyone to know their mother as a younger version is appealing.  The food and sights in Italy are described in a visceral and pleasurable way.  This was a fun, quick read that I believe most readers will find satisfying. -- Tracy

The most sought after novel in libraries at this moment (perhaps with the exception of Amor Towles' The Lincoln Higway - see review in audiobooks) is this fun and funny, and a bit tense book about Molly Gray, an extremely professional maid in a high-end luxery hotel, somewhere, we assume, in the United States.  I say this because there is mention of American cities, and the language used is American English, but several characters often refer to having a "cuppa."  Drinking tea is prominent, and the British word "cuppa" is often refered to how they drink it.  Regardless of what city we may be in, the most important thing to note is that Molly loves her job, does it better than anyone else, and tends to see the world in black and white, without the ability to read people's true intentions.  Since her grandmother has recently died, Molly must try to remember her voice of reason, and the many lessons she taught her during her lifetime.  Sadly, with her guide departed, Molly will get into a bit of trouble.  Well, actually she will get into a mountain of trouble.

To clearly get a picture of how much Molly loves her job, here she describes her cleaning cart:

"There's nothing quite like a perfectly stocked maid's trolley early in the morning.  It is, in my humble opinion, a cornucopia of bounty and beauty.  The crisp little packages of delicately wrapped soaps that smell of orange blossom, the tiny Crabtree & Evelyn shampoo bottles, the squat tissue boxes, the toilet-paper rolls wrapped in hygenic film, the bleached white towels in three sizes - bath, hand, and washcloth - and the stacks of doilies for the tea-and-coffee service tray.  And last but not least, the cleaning kit, which includes a feather duster, lemon furniture polish, lightly scented antiseptic garbage bags, as well as an impressive array of spray bottles of solvents and disinfectants, all lined up and ready to combat any stain, be it coffee rings, vomit - or even blood.  A well-stocked housekeeping trolley is a portable sanitation miracle; it is a clean machine on wheels.  And as I said, it is beautiful."

Because Molly is exceptional at her job, she has several clients who repeat visit the hotel and request her services.  One such client couple is Mr. Charles Black and his second wife Giselle.  Most likely, it is Giselle who asks for Molly, as they have developed a friendship during the times she is in residence.  One day, Molly enters to find Giselle crying in the bathroom, and puffy-eyed and irratible when she finally comes out.  They do not interact, so Molly returns later to finish cleaning and to check on her friend.  When she enters the bedroom suite, she finds Mr. Black dead on the bed.  What ensues after this event is truly unbelievable.

Due to a series of truly unfortunate events and mis-deads by our dear, trusting Molly, she finds herself accused of the murder of Charles Black!  It is the kind of book where the reader yells at the main character to wake up and see certain people for who they truly are!  Characters who become integral in our murder mystery are Rodney the bartender who Molly thinks is her boyfriend, but is truly a drug-dealing thug, Juan Manuel the cook, who is having troubles securing his work visa, Mr. Preston the doorman, and his lawyer daughter Charlotte, who come to her aid.

A plan is devised to trap the true killer, but is this person the actual culprit?  Every good murder mystery has a shocking ending, right?  I would say that for someone who sees life in such a black and white way, Molly makes some decisions that I might find morally questionable.  Do we, as readers, really believe she could have completed this plan to trap the criminal?  Do we believe she would have acted as she does at the very, very end of our story?  I read this book in a few days, because I found Molly to be such a sympathetic character, and I needed to know the outcome for her.  I think that this story will make a great book club selection, as there are a lot of questions about the viability of story lines, and Molly's true character.  I would say that I was "mostly" satisfied with the ending of the book, but I won't say why, as that would be too much of a spoiler.  I loved Molly, and appreciated this first-time author's success at writing a true page-turner. -- Tracy

I was very much looking forward to reading this new novel which I had seen reviewed in several magazines and on reading websites.  You know when you read a memoir that is so exciting, or the truth within its pages feels stranger than fiction, and you tell all your friends that it reads like a novel?  Well, the best way to describe this book is to say that it is a novel that reads more like a memoir.  Spoken in the first person, it is the story of a thirtysomething Chinese American woman, who is the head of an ICU ward at a New York City hospital.  It takes place from the fall of 2019 through the spring of 2020.  It is not a very exciting story, or one that you will find yourself gasping at the end of each chapter.  I would say it is an interesting character study of a woman torn between two cultures and trying to find her purpose and identity.

The best way to describe Joan is in her own words, on page one.  This gives us insight into what she probably deals with on a daily basis:

" When I think about people, I think about space, how much space a person takes up and how much use that person provides.  I am just under five feet tall and just under a hundred pounds.  Briefly I thought I would exceed five feet, and while that would've been fine, I also didn't need the extra height.  To stay just under something gives me a sense of comfort, as when it rains and I can open an umbrella over my head."  

"Today someone said that I looked like a mouse.  Five six and 290 pounds, he, in a backless gown with nonslip tube socks, said that my looking like a mouse made him wary.  He asked how old I was.  What schools had I gone to, and were they prestigious?  Then where were my degrees from these presigious schools?  "My degrees are large and framed, I said.  I don't carry them around."

Joan has grown some friendships among her colleagues, but she is basically someone who we used to call "a loner."  In today's better-understood psychological environment, we would say that Joan suffers from social anxiety disorder.  Her work schedule is two weeks on and two weeks off, and often her boss has to force the off-time, as she would rather fill-in for coworkers than be home.  When a new neighbor moves in across the hall, he starts bringing her things to fill her apartment, as he has a bit of a home-shopping problem, and she has a minimalist living space.  At first, this annoys her, but in the end she learns to love having the television he gave her, and she becomes quite fond of the comfort it provides.

Raised by their parents in the United States, Joan and her brother Fang have essentially lived in the U.S. without them since they secured admissions to Ivy League Universities.  After their parents decided that their work was done, they happily moved back to China.  A main part of our story is that after their father dies of a sudden stroke, their mother is coerced by Fang to come stay at his home in Connecticut for a while.  We get to experience a developing relationship between Joan and her mother, and learn even more about each of them.  Joan spends a great deal of time thinking about her father and her relationship with him, and if she had been a good daughter.  But my favorite part of this book is that Joan gives us lessons in Chinese culture as well as in the Chinese language and symbols.  I found these bits to be eye-opening and fascinating.

Our novel does not wrap itself up in a pretty bow.  In fact, it ends as the pandemic is in its early days, and is picking up momentum in March of 2020.  I had a very difficult time with my own memories of how afraid we were back then, and how horrible the hospital situation was with short supplies of beds, ventilators and staff.  As well, Joan being a Chinese woman, lives with other fears living in New York when violent attacks against Asians start to increase.  Going back in time may trigger other readers, as well.  On a positive note, I must say that I think by the end of our story, Joan comes to terms with her own life as a daughter and as a doctor.  I also enjoyed learning a great deal about Chinese culture and language.  -- Tracy

Our story is based on a real person named James Miranda Barry who became Jonathan Mirandus Perry in our fictional story.  Barry was actually born Margaret Anne Bulkley around 1789, in Cork and sailed to London most likely in 1809.  This historical fiction novel does a great job of including what we know as fact about our protagonist at the end of the book.  We begin with our character as a young girl who lives in Ireland with her younger sister, mother, merchant father, and self-interested and unmotivated brother.  She tells us very early on:

"She died, so I might live, but isn't that the lot of women?  To sacrifice, as our Lord was said to have done.  Few speak of Mary's sacrifice, of course; that, we are to assume, was unexceptional.  To martyr oneself for others is the expected lot of mothers and daughters.  It's rarer in sons, except in war.  So naturally, given the choice, I chose to be a son.  Given the choice, who would not?"

Margaret spends the summer visiting her uncle and his friend General Mirandus.  Letting slip some of her knowledge of Latin, she makes quite an impression on his friend.  At the end of the summer, though her uncle has been very distant with her, not spending too much time getting to know her, she will say:

 "Although in time my uncle would prove my greatest benefactor - giving me my name, my very life.  It's tempting to say that this was the moment that set me on my course to the Cape, to becoming a surgeon, a soldier, a scandal, to meeting Lord Somerton, to all that would follow.  But is there ever such a moment?  What makes a man, a life?  How much is name and parentage, education or the accident of birth?  How much is choice?  How much of our lives' making is in our hands and how much is forged by fate, the intersection of trajectories as mysterious as electricity's conduction once seemed?  I's easy to look back now and say, That was the meeting that changed all that followed, that would end Margaret's life and give rise to Jonathan's."

Mother and daughter soon return to Ireland for a while, where they find that the men in the family  have made risky decisions with the family home and finances.  After they are thrown out of their own home in Ireland, they decide to sail back to London, to ask their Uncle for help once more.  Upon arrival, Uncle Jonathan has died, and Mirandus is cataloging his home for a record of his belongings.  He makes a deal for Margaret to live with him, and to become educated.  For three years she reads many books in his library until he feels she is ready to apply to medical school in Scottland as Jonathan Mirandus Perry.  It is 1809 and Mirandus convinces Margaret's mother that this is the only way.

Jonathan makes his way to medical school in Scotland and his brilliance allows for excellent learning and success with academics, but the harder things to develop come with practicing what it is like to me a man, to have opinions, and feel entitled to express them.  The most difficult aspects of impersonating a man will come with women who have crushes on him, and his constant turning down of advances.  After medical school, our young doctor joins the military and becomes stationed in Cape Town South Africa.  There always exists a fear of being found out.  She tells us:

"It was illegal to be female in so many circumstances - a doctor, a soldier, a university student.  Judging by the law, it would seem the female sex was monstrously powerful, in danger of overtaking men at every turn, posing a dire threat - a fearsome force, to necessitate such constraints.  One might have thought we were a greater danger to the civic good than opium or gunpowder or the Enclosure Acts combined."

It would be unfair to give away all the exciting and dangerous things that happen to this doctor on her life journey.  Let me just say that it is almost impossible to believe that this woman was able to impersonate a male physician for her entire life.  At the end of our novel, we learn what parts of our story are true, and it will astound you.  Beautifully written, and powerfully feminist in every way, I cannot imagine any woman who would not admire, and also feel such pain for what was lost with Margaret as a young girl when her life changed forever.  -- Tracy

For what is known on the real  Dr. Barry, take what you can from his Wikipedia page:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Barry_(surgeon)

This story is quite similar to several others that I have read lately.  All about a quirky protagonist who is saved by a secondary character, often a very cute and unique child, and they live happily ever after.  Well, we can assume and hope that this is how things wind up for Amy, but at the beginning of our story, we are dealing with a woman who has some big problems and a very big secret.  Amy Ashton, aged 39, lives alone in her "house of things" in a London neighborhood, and she never lets anyone inside.  You see, Amy is a hoarder of wine bottles and newspapers and cookbooks , and especially pretty ceramics, specifically, statuettes of birds.  Here is how she came about her favorite item:

"Amy kept as many of her birds out as she could.  It seemed cruel to have them cooped up in darkness when they loved the sunlight, but Amy couldn't make space for them all to be free at once.  She'd kept the sofa mostly clear to give herself a rather indulgent place to sit, and she'd also made sure she had a thin walkway to the window.  She traversed her miniature ravine, then turned back to admire the room.  

Hundreds of little china eyes peered back at her.  She'd quite a collection in her aviary, as she liked to call it.  Inquisitive blue tits, exotic parakeets, diving swifts, angry jays, proud kingfishers.  Perched on shelves, on boxes, on the windowsill.  

Exquisite.

She felt she shouldn't have favorites, but she couldn't help herself.  She approached the windowsill and placed a gentle hand on Scarlett's back.  Amy still remembered the moment she'd found her in the bargain bin of Amy's charity shop.  The china body of a robin, her breast bright red and her eyes gleaming.  Full of hope."

Ten years after Amy's boyfriend and best friend disappeared on the same day, never to be heard from again, Amy is still looking for an answer to why it happened.  She can't believe that they ran off to be together, as everyone else assumes had happened.  Every time Amy finds a new clue, she rushes to her friend's former boyfriend, who is also a cop, hoping he will reopen the case.  He isn't too helpful.  If she could only find the shoebox of old mementos that she is sure will give her the answers she needs.  Unfortunately, she knows that it is in the guest bedroom somewhere.  Sadly, it is the messiest and most cluttered room in her house, and she has failed miserably to find it, until Richard offers to help her.  

Richard is the new dad who has moved in next door with his two sons, Charles and Daniel, and his nasty girlfriend Nina, who does not last very long in the role of mother to two boys and neighbor to Amy.  The three-man family takes quite a shining to Amy, and without any desire or effort on her part, become a significant support system for her.  Richard is even trying to help her solve the case of the missing loved ones.  There will be a strange and rather dark twist to the story, which temporarily wreaks havoc on the reader.  But let's just say that by the end of our book, Amy has found the answers she was looking for, and she just might be ready to accept some help from others.  She moves on with a bright future ahead, loving some people, instead of just her bird collection.  I'm not sure the author needed to pull in the dangerous and uneasy chapter close to the end of the book, but alas, it is her creation.  Getting to know Amy and Richard and his boys is well worth the short-lived moments of doom. -- Tracy

For those of you with a love for all things Shakespeare, you may have read Bill Bryson's famous book on the subject called, "Shakespeare, The World as Stage."  Something that stood out for me from his research was that people did not write personal journals at that time, (most people could not even read or write,) and that what we know of Shakespeare comes strictly from the period of history and record keeping.  We will never know his personal feelings on his career or his family or his life events.  Keep in mind that what is true in this story is that Will's son Hamnet died at age eleven of unknown causes.  He had a twin named Judith, and an older sister named Susanna who was born 6 months after 18 year-old Will married 26 year-old Anne (or Agnes) in a rushed marriage, by that day's standards.  That being said, this historical fiction novel is very beautifully written, and delves deeply into the human conditions of love and loss and all the complications of family life. It is an imagining of how Hamnet may have died and the affects on each family member thereafter.

Our story begins as Hamnet is searching for family members in his own home, and rushing through town searching for the doctor, as his twin sister Judith has suddenly become very ill with fever, and what we later learn is the plague.  After describing his frustrating and exhaustive search, the author writes a later reflection from his mother Agnes:

"EVERY LIFE HAS ITS KERNEL, ITS HUB, ITS EPICENTRE, FROM WHICH everything flows out, to which everything returns.  This moment is the abscent mother's: the boy, the empty house, the deserted house, the deserted yard, the unheard cry.  Him standing here, at the back of the house, calling for the people who had fed him, swaddled him, rocked him to sleep, held his hand as he took his first steps, taught him to use a spoon, to blow on broth before he ate it, to take care crossing the street, to let sleeping dogs lie, to swill out a cup before drinking, to stay away from deep water.  It will lie at her very core for the rest of her life."

Alternating with the events of how Will met his wife as a young man, we learn about Agnes (a name often interchanged with Anne,) and her abilities as a psychic, physick, botanist and herbalist.  When her mother dies in childbirth, her father remarries an awful woman and has many more children, and then dies himself.  She is searching for love from that moment on.

We experience the relationships between family members as Will and Agnes live in a home attached to his parents and siblings.  His father is abusive, his mother is a snob, and Agnes struggles to fit in.  When Will falls into a deep depression, she is the one who arranges for him to go to London to find himself.  Life is hard for her when he is gone, and she bears the responsibility of caring for the family.  After Hamnet dies, the author is able to describe each person's  grief in a poignant and heartfelt way.  It is painful to read, but very true to the emotions of loss.  The ending of our story is unexpected and perfect.  The writing is beautiful and every word is deliberate and unique.  I highly recommend this book. -- Tracy

This is a short and sweet story about a couple who found love as teenagers, were separated throughout their lives, and reunite 50 years later.  Taking place in England, at a seaside town, and later in London, the author does a wonderful job of placing the reader in both settings.  Elizabeth and Tom find themselves immediately attracted to each other when they are 17 and 18, and share their complicated family dynamics and learn of unusual connections between their own parents.  Needing to hide their relationship, they sneak out to meet each other.  Early on whe read of their time together:

"Following the picnic that evening, they sat in the old lookout, drinking tea from a shared cup, and he asked her about painting, and she asked about his family.  He never liked to talk all that much about them, content, it seemed to listen to her instead.  And what she came to realize in those stolen moments was that she could have spent a whole lifetime sitting in that lookout station telling him about herself, and still there wouldn't have been time enough to tell him everything she wanted him to know."  

You will soon learn why Tom leaves the village, and although the two young lovers marry other people, with each raising a daughter, somehow Tom sneaks back to his hometown of Porthsennen each year to leave a wish and some flowers at the doorstep of Elizabeth's house.

"And while his absence remained a lifelong void that she could never fill, it was eased by his annual return to Porthsennen, when he came to leave a blue crocus on her doorstep, a wish attached to the pot with a length of garden string.  It was a day when everything felt right, when she felt truly like herself, in a way that for the remaining 364 days she did not.  And when Elizabeth knew, what made her heart beat each time she saw that little blue flower, was that to go to such effort, to never once fail in all that time, meant that they loved each other just the same now as they had done on the day they first kissed."  

On the 50th year of this ritual, Tom's gift does not arrive, and Elizabeth knows something is wrong.  With some urging of her best friend, she sets off to London to find him.  With spouses long out of their lives, they rekindle their romance, only to deal with some devastating news.  This is a sad and happy story at the same time.  A long-held secret comes to be known, with some mixed feelings among the characters, which fortunately resolve themselves by the end of the story.  Reminiscent of The Unlikely Pilgramage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce, our story explores how feelings between two people can last a lifetime.  This was an enjoyable, if sad, little book to read on a weekend.  After finishing, I might watch a happy movie. -- Tracy

As I describe this book, it might seem to you that it has quite a simple theme.  You might find the premise of a wandering racehorse who befriends a German Short-Haired Pointer, a crow, 2 ducks, and a rat to seem childish and lacking excitement.  But, I absolutely promise each and every one of you, that this story is not simple or boring or childish.  However, I am confident that a child would enjoy it as well, because this book is full of adventure and sweetness.  There are several of Mr. Rogers' "helpers," a young boy, a very old lady, and one very scary gendarme who is trying to ruin everything!

At the beginning of our story, Perestroika, or Paras, as most people call her, has just won a race and is in a stall at the racecourse, waiting to be taken home.  But, it gets later and later, and no one ever comes for her.  When she leans against the stall door it opens, and she emerges to a large patch of green grass that she starts to enjoy.  One thing leads to another, and her wanderings take her farther and farther away to the middle of Paris and the Champs de Mars.  The first friend she makes is Frida, the German Short-Haired Pointer, who has become sad and lonely since her owner has disappeared (he died.)  Frida will become indispensable in teaching Paras the ways of life in a public garden and in the city.  An entire cast of characters will become friends including Raoul the Crow,  Sid and Nancy, a pair of Mallards, and Kurt the rat (who lives with our little boy Etienne at his house.)  Here is a little passage about how Paras perceives of Frida, and dogs in general:

"Frida sighed.  Paras suspected that she was thinking sad thoughts -- she had come to understand that many of Frida's thoughts were sad, that there had been that human who had mysteriously disappeard, that without a human a dog was a little ill-at-ease in a way that a horse was not.  Dogs, evidently, saw humans as friends, whereas horses saw them as co-workers.  "Well," said Paras, with her newfound sense that everything would work out, "at the moment, I'm tired and full, so I'll sleep, and then we'll see."

The reason why Paras is full is because she roams at night and has made friends with Anais the baker, who always has a bowlful of oats and seeds and fruit, just for her.  Frida makes a daily trip to the vegetable stand where she buys (yes, buys) some vegetables and fruits, and Jacques the owner goes next door to get her a bone from the butcher.  (Butchers do not like dogs in their stores.) She brings the food back daily for her various animal friends, and there is always something for everyone.  Paras's wanderings will eventually lead her to the house of the little boy and his great grandmother.  Frida will join, Raoul comes along, and a new friend Kurt the rat will join the group.  

There are a few problems to solve, especially relating to who will eventually care for Paras and Frida and Etienne.  The gendarme is closing in on the boy and his house, and may find out that his great grandmother is blind and nearly deaf and cannot take sufficient care of him.  The book is certainly one which creates some angst in the reader - will everything turn out well for all these characters whom we have come to love?  Beautifully written, creatively crafted with realistic personalities for each of our animals, it is a joy to experience.  I will be giving this one as a gift to many of my reader friends. -- Tracy

The reason that I chose to read an older novel, this one published in 2016, is threefold.  I had recently listened to Jiles most recent book, Simon the Fiddler, on audio, and was immediately enamored with her language, storytelling, and sympathetic characters.  Many people asked if I had ever read News of the World, and they highly recommended it.  Thirdly, I began to notice on a daily basis that the trailer for the movie, starring Tom Hanks, was appearing on my social media pages, and I took it as a sign that this was the time to dive in.  Well, another miniature-sized novel has packed a complicated and historical story into its mere 213 pages with enough excitement and detail to keep the reader mezmerised from the first page to the last.

Our story begins in Wichita Falls, Texas, in the winter of 1870.  Captain Kidd, a man of about 70, being widowed and a survivor of three wars during his lifetime, travels the towns of northern Texas, stopping to read the news of the world for the cost of one dime per admission.  On one particular evening, a group of men who are acquaintances of Kidd show up for his reading.  Here is what happens afterwards when they approach the Captain:

"Yes sir, Captain Kidd, would you come with me?  Britt straightened and lifted his hat to his head and so did Dennis and Paint.  Britt said, I got a problem in my wagon.  She seemed to be about ten years old, dressed in the horse Indians' manner in a deerskin shift with four rows of elk teeth sewn across the front.  A thick blanket was pulled over her shoulders.  Her hair was the color of maple sugar and in it she wore two down puffs bound onto a lock of her hair by their minute spines and also bound with a thin thread was a wing-feather from a golden eagle slanting between them.  She sat perfectly composed, wearing the feather and a necklace of glass beads as if they were costly adornments.  Her eyes were blue and her skin that odd bright color that occurs when fair skin has been burned and weathered by the sun.  She had not more expression than an egg." 

Kidd takes on the assignment of delivering this young girl to her next of kin.  We learn that she was taken and raised by the Kiowa natives at the age of 6, after they murdered her entire family.  Her tribe has sold her back to the authorities, and she is now to be transported to an aunt and uncle in San Antonio.  The trip that the two make is filled with adventure and a fair amount of peril.  The Captain names the girl Johanna, and after a time, the two begin to work as a team, learn to communicate, and form a unique bond.  The girl is returned, but what happens after that needs to remain a secret until you get to the end of the novel.  There are important historical facts about these types of abductions and returns of children by Native American tribes, which will make you weep.  It is a worthwhile read, especially before watching the film, which should be arriving on demand soon. -- Tracy  Postcript:  The movie was very good, but missing or changing some very important details of the book.

In this lovely British novel about an octogenarian who has decided that she has had enough of living, and is ready to die, there will obviously be a twist.  Similar to A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, a family with a young daughter takes interest in their neighbor, and will affect our protagonist in the most loving of ways.  Alternating time lines taking us back to Eudora's life as a young girl in war-torn London, and later into her life as a young adult, will essentially show us how her sacrifices for others, led to a solitary life, and one without much love.  Early on we learn that her most caring relationship was with her father.  As the two are coming out of a bunker after an air-raid, he has told Eudora that he is leaving to help in the war effort:

"So, will you look after Mummy and the baby for me? Please? She gazed up at him.  She thought she saw the reflection of a tear but decided it was a trick of the light.  "Of course, Daddy. I'll look after them until you get home and then we can do it together."  Her father nodded before hurrying them to their feet.  "Good girl, Dora.  I knew I could rely on you."  As they emerged, blinking, into the light, Eudora stared up and down the street.  Everything looked exactly as it had an hour previously.  She could see two women through the window of the tea shop, sitting at the table where she and her father had sat earlier, drinking tea and eating sandwiches as if nothing had happened... In contrast, as she walked along Piccadilly hand in hand with her father, it was as if every cell of Eudora's being had changed. It wasn't until adulthood that she recognized this as the moment her childhood ended."

Everything that happens after that moment will help us to learn about Eudora's development into a bit of a cranky old lady who keeps to herself.  Enter Rose, a very energetic young girl who has moved in next door, with her very pregnant mother Maggie and a doting and loving father.  Rose likes to wake Eudora from her chair naps by yelling into the mail slot at the top of her lungs.  Along with a penchant for very brightly and mismatched articles of clothing, Rose is a sensitive soul who has always had trouble making friends with kids her own age, and is drawn to our protagonist as well as a recent widower named Stanley, who also lives in the neighborhood.  Soon, the three become a trio in friendship, and go on several adventures together.

As Rose continues to consider a clinic in Switzerland that assists with right to die measures, we wonder throughout our story if she will go ahead with the measure to depart the world "on her own terms."  As the pages to the book dwindled, I don't think that I could have ever imagined a more perfect ending to our story.  You may shed a tear or two, but I know, as a reader, you will be satisfied.  It was more than rewarding to see this character find people who loved her, as well as people she could love in her last years. If you are sensitive to stories about dying, this one might not be for you.  I found it to be sweet and sensitive and a poignant tribute to love. -- Tracy

I must admit that the only chapter book I remember reading as a child was Heidi, which I read over and over again.  When I was fortunate enought to have 2 daughters of my own, and begin my library career while they were still young, it became a ritual for me to read out loud to them every evening.  Many of their best childhood memories are related to these reading times.  After they grew, I continued to grab those stand-out children's books, ones that were award winners, or ones that were recommended by the Children's Librarian where I work.  Echo Mountain is the newest book that I was fervently advised to read.  Several staff members, and even one patron, told me that I must read this book.  What a joy!  I have already passed it on to a friend, and am sure that it will be a Christmas gift for many family members this year.

Echo Mountain is the story of a family during the depression years, and mainly a daughter named Ellie, who is tenacious and strong and kind, who hopes to find a cure to wake her father from a post-accident coma.  Although her little brother is mainly to blame for the accident, Ellie has shouldered the burden of being the person her family believes caused his injury.  The family, who had a wonderful life in the city, was forced to sell their home and move to the mountains of Maine.  With their father unable to labor and make a living, times are even more difficult for them.

In search of "the hag," a witch with healing potions, who is known to live high up in the mountain, Ellie will find herself on many adventures, and will eventually try to save the old woman's life.   She will find a true and wonderful friendship with her grandson, Larkin, and they will join forces to find a way to cure her.  Keeping all this from her mother, we know that eventually it will all come to be known, and the family will work together to help Cate, the old woman, and Ellie's father Samuel.  Our protagonist has an incredible relationship and feeling for nature and the world around her.  Here she describes one of her favorite places:

"And before long I came to the spot where I did my best thinking.  It was an old place, left behind by people who'd come long before us, built a cabin, and abandoned it, so now nothing remained but a big hole lined with granite blocks and boulders, a caved-in well, and wood rotten and pocked by bugs and birds, weather and wear.  When I put my hand on those boulders, I could feel how much they missed the steady weight of a cabin above them.  The idea that they had been of use.  And when I touched the soft timbers that had once stood firm against blizzards and hail, I could feel them dreaming of the time when they were stronger than storms.  That place made me sad and lonely, but when I climbed down to sit in the bowl of that ruined home, cupped in the granite hand, sheltered by the trees growing up in it, I felt strong and able, too.  A mountain girl.  Smart.  Quick.  On my way to wise."

This beautifully poetic book tells the story of the strength of a girl, and the fortitude and perseverance of a family, and will leave any reader in tears of relief and joy.  Did I mention that there is also a litter of puppies, and their role is not insignificant.  I cannot imagine any reader anywhere who would be disappointed with this perfect story.  If you like this book, the author has two other award-winning novels which are also moving and poignent in theme.  On the resources page within this site I have included a link to a list of 10 other books written for children but worthy of any adult's time.  Enjoy the story, and "you're welcome." -- Tracy

A hint that a book has something special to offer is when you hear that immediately upon its release, it has been chosen by Good Morning America for their book club read.  Shortly after that, it was announced that the book was picked up by HBO for a future television series.  I am already imagining who will play the dual role of our main characters, a set of twins, who grew up in an unusual Lousianna town in the 1950s.  

The history of our story begins in the 19th century, when a light-skinned black man comes to Mallard, Louisianna with the intention of building a community where the black population will only get lighter with time.  A century later, enter the Vigne twins, Desiree and Stella, who are very beautiful and very fair.  After witnessing the brutal lynching of their father, and being forced to quit school to support their family, the twins decide to run away at the age of sixteen.  They will find work as laborors, and eventually separate in their endeavors.  Stella will disappear one night and run off to marry her white boss, and Desiree will wind up in Chicago with a black husband who becomes physically abusive, and forces her to return to her home town.

Our book will explore the sadness that results when the twins are separated from each other for decades.  Stella, passing as white in an exclusive neighborhood in Los Angeles, has a blond daughter named Kennedy, and a loving husband.  However, she lives her entire life in fear of being discovered.  When a black family moves in across the street, we see her fear escalate as she believes that once they see her, they will surely know she is black.  Desiree will return home to Mallard with her young daughter Jude, who has very dark skin, and life will be complicated for her out-of-place child, and for her, as she puts her dreams on hold to take care of her mother.

When Jude comes of age, she moves to California for college, and falls in love with a kind and generous transgender man, who has his own challenges to face.  In an unusual series of events, Stella's daughter Kennedy and Desiree's daughter Jude will discover each other, and form an unusual bond as cousins and friends.   Jude's response to her carefree, actress cousin is as follows:

"The girl was maddening sometimes, but maybe this was who Jude would have been if her mother hadn't married a dark man.  In this other life, the twins passed over together.   Her mother married a white man and now she slipped out of mink coats at fancy parties, not waited tables in a country diner.  In this reality, Jude was fair and beautiful, driving a red Camaro around Brentwood, her hand trailing out the window.  Each night, she strutted onstage, beaming, tossing back her golden hair while the world applauded."

The story is about race, and all the complications and biases that are experienced by our characters due to their blackness.  This is a book that keeps you thinking and learning, and though entertaining, it has a great deal of struggle, not only for the characters to experience, but for the reader to evaluate and examine.  Our eyes are opened as Jude struggles with her dark skin, while growing up in a light-skinned town.  And you can imagine the denial when Kennedy finds out her mother is actually black.  The good news is that in the end, it seems that everyone has someone to love them and accept them for who they are.  It is a beautiful, but haunting story that should affect every reader who lets the poetic words of Brit Bennett sink in. -- Tracy

I didn't really mean to read two sad books in a row... The difference between the last book and this one, is that the grief here is in a memoir, is relating to someone I knew about in my professional life, and I cried a lot more.  Many of you who are familiar with the children's author Amy Krouse Rosenthal, will remember her beautiful letter that was published in the New York Times in March of 2017.  In it, she easily sold the attributes of her husband Jason, and why she hoped he would find a new wife after she passed.  She died of ovarian cancer ten days later.

Jason's book is part recollection of their love story from the time they met and married soon after, to their time as parents, leading into their time during the journey of Amy's illness, and afterwards.  However, the second half of the book, though very sad at times with the author's grief experience, also brings us great relief with his progress coming out of the total darkness of loss.  With the support of friends who take him (a self-proclaimed travel and music junkie) to concerts and events they know he will love, he begins to feel some joy in living again.  He writes:

"Experiencing music had been so important to my life with Amy, but rather than feel sadness when I was at shows without her, it felt like I was reconnecting with her, like perhaps I was starting to understand my blank space for the first time, to undestand what she'd wanted for me, and what living my best life might actually look like.

Additionally, I made new memories for myself, and rediscovered the joy of seeing the kind of live music I really loved. Live music had always been something I felt deep passion for.  Seeing a good band perform live made my sould feel deeply, made my body move to the beat, and allowed me to get lost and separate from the depths of grief, except when I trended toward those feelings, to deeply emote in a way only live music allows you to do."

Jason tells us that he only survived the extreme grief he had early on because his middle child, Miles, moved in with him.  It is a lovely experience seeing how these two family members can help each other through the loss of wife and mother.  We slowly see more happy times filter through, and learn of one special woman who actually picques our widower's interest.  You will need to read the acknowledements to see if that relationship kept going.  This book is not for everyone as it is almost too sad to bear.  Jason's wife was loved by many, and truly the soul mate of her husband.  There is hope here, and if you loved Amy for the many gifts she gave to the world, you will love her husband's tribute to her. -- Tracy

This little book by Julia Alvarez covers a lot of topics and hooks us in to one of many relatable themes.  The current day story is about 4 sexagenarian sisters, who came to the United States from the Dominican Republic as young children.  The complicated personalities and life experiences of the four women are specific and intertwined, and their abilities to help and support each other sometimes produce successes, and other times failures.  

Antonia Vega is the primary character in our story, and has just retired as a university English professor when her husband dies in an acccident.  Trying deperately to get through each day, Antonia is wondering how she fits within a world in which wife and teacher are no longer her monikers.  She often imagines how her husband Sam would handle a situation and imagines his responses. Her life in a small Vermont town is rather humdrum until "things happen in threes," which is usually not a good thing.

The first thing that happens is obvious, in that her husband dies unexpectedly.  We read early on about her struggling and trying to figure her feelings out.  This is what she tells a friend:

"I'm overwhelmed, didn't sleep last night or the night before or the night before. No, it's not just grief, it's me.  She read the book her therapist recommended, "The Highly Sensitive Person." She found it in the college's science library, which gave the book a certain legitimacy, not just a feel-good self-help flash in the social-science pan. The author outlined how certain organisms are highly reactive, get easily overwhelmed, require a different ecosystem to thrive.  Not a pathology, a type.  It was reasuring to read the book.  An earlier patron had marked it up, inked notes int he margins, passages underlined, highlighted - in a library book, imagine! A highly sensitive person overreacting." (Never do this!)

While Antonia is trying to mourn her loss, a local immigrant who is being housed nearby as a worker of all trades, is doing repairs on her house and announces that he has a girlfriend already  in the country.  He (Mario) is trying to help her to make her way to Vermont, via a mysterious travel system where you pay a lot of money to a "coyote" to bring your undocumented loved one to where you are.  As Antonia struggles to "not get involved," another crisis arrises within her family.  The third black cloud will have to do with trying to save one of her sisters from a dangerous situation, which is the result of a devastating mental illness.  

As she and her three sisters work together to help the fourth, a return trip home finds Mario's betrothed on her doorstep, in tears and reeling from his rejection.  This is a sad and complicated book, as it deals with a great deal of love loss.  The immigration story will find you reassured that there are good and kind helpers in the world.  Though devastating events occur, Antonia seems to get her groove back by the very end of the book.  I am always amazed by these "little" novels that can feel rich, full, and satisfying.  Well written and worth the time. -- Tracy

The only reason why I did not give this book a Best Book distinction is because I feel that a story about the wife of Jesus may not appeal to some Christians, and will limit its audience.  This is not to say that many practicing Christians, like myself, will not love the book.  I thought it was brilliant.  If one can think of the story as being about a woman's life and point of view during the time of Jesus, it can be very satisfying.  I do feel it is necessary to express from the very beginning of my review that this is not the story we were taught in Sunday school.  Well, some of it is.

Our story is told by a young girl of 14 named Ana, who is living a life of luxury as the daughter of the head scribe and counselor to their tetrarch, Herod Antipas.  We learn in the first pages that her adopted brother, who is on the run, is Judas.  We know how that story ends.  Because she is naturally gifted and begs her father to let her read the Torah and have a tutor, Ana soon becomes fluent in Hebrew and Greek.  She learns to make her own inks, so that she can spend her time writing on the papyrus her father provides.  Here is Ana's impression of what her father thought of her:

"A child as awkward as I required an explanation.  My father suggested that while God was busy knitting me together in my mother's womb, he'd become distracted and mistakenly endowed me with gifts destined for some poor baby boy.  I don't know if he realized how affronting this must have been to God, at whose feet he laid the blunder."

Her mother's opinion was even more harsh and insulting:

"My mother believed the fault lay with Lilith, a demon with the talons of an owl and the wings of a carrion bird who searched for newborn babies to murder, or in my instance, to defile with unnatural tendencies.  I'd arrived in the world during a savage winter rain.  The old women who delivered the babies refused to venture out even though my high-ranking father had sent for them.  My distraught mother sat on her birthing chair with no one to relieve her pain or protect us from Lilith with the proper prayers and amulets, so it was left to her servant Shipra to bathe me in wine, water, salt, and olive oil, wrap me in swaddling bands, and tuck me into a cradle for Lilith to find."

"My parents' stories found their way into the flesh of my flesh and the bone of my bones.  It had not occurred to me that my abilities had been intended, that God had "meant" to bestow these blessings on me.  Oh Ana, a girl with turbulent black curls and eyes the color of rainclouds."

What saves Ana is an incredibly brave and loving aunt named Yaltha, who protects her and stands by her throughout her life.  On the same day that Ana is introduced to her future old and fat and evil husband, she meets Jesus in the marketplace.  Without detailing all the awful stuff that happens before she marries Jesus and afterwards, I would say that Ana is a survivor and she is an exceptionally strong and ambitious woman.  With a drive to write and leave lessons and stories for the world to come, she holds fast to her own dream and a never-ending devotion to her husband.  

I would describe the story as a historical walk through the difficult and often horrific life for  women in the first century.  What keeps the reader going is the poetic writing of the author, and our sympathetic relationship to Ana.  I asked many questions while reading this book as to why the story was told the way it was, and all were answered in a detailed and informative Author's Notes section.  I loved that part of the book as much as the story.  Highly recommended. -- Tracy

Another fortunate "grab" as I was heading out the door of the library into the abyss that we now know as "stay-at-home," was this rich and layered novel by Lily King.  Until I started discussing the book with a fellow librarian, I did not know much about this author, and her previous, award winning novel, Euphoria.  I mention it now in case you loved that one and might be intrigued to read this one, as well.  And... that librarian friend has sent me a copy of Euphoria, so that I can experience that one too!  I really liked Writers and Lovers, and read it with an urgency that came from an immediate sympathy for our main character, and a desire to know that all is well with her by the end of the book.

Our story takes place in Boston in 1997, where 31 year-old Casey Peabody is working as a waitress in a high-end restaurant on the top floor of the Harvard social club.  She rides her old banana bike to work, as she has fallen on hard times, but the more we learn about her, we see that her life has been a long series of hard times.  She is a serious writer, having completed a Masters degree in creative writing, and finds herself six years in to her attempt to complete her first novel. She describes the struggle:

"The hardest thing about writing is getting in every day, and breaking through the membrane.  The second-hardest thing is getting out.  Sometimes I sink down too deep and come up too fast.  Afterward I feel wide open and skinless."

Adding to the obvious emotional stress of novel writing, waitressing, and living in poverty, is the fact that Casey's 58 year-old mother has recently and unexpectedly died.  She went on a trip, got sick, and passed away while there.  Casey is struggling with the loss, and has trouble even getting to work each day without breaking out in tears on the way.  A brief relationship with a man she meets at writing camp seems flawed and destined for failure, but the glue that keeps her together is the family of friends she has made at the restaurant.  And then, she meets Silas and Oscar at a writing event, and our Jane Austen-esque theme takes over.  How does a poor, beautiful damsel choose between the equally poor, but breathtakingly sexy young writer like herself, or the older, rich and famous widowed father of two adorable boys, and super-successful author, who is all in and ready for her to move in.  Here is some insight from our protagonist regarding the famous one:

"Oscar is studying me.  He's making decisions already.  I can feel this.  Between our call and today he talked himself out of me, and now he is coming back around.  I squat there and think about how you get trained early on as a woman to perceive how others are perceiving you, at the great expense of what you yourself are feeling about them.  Sometimes you mix the two up in a terrible tangle that's hard to unravel."

Obviously things get more and more and more complicated.  But, let's just say our story ends, actually, like a Jane Austen novel, but a new one that you don't already know the ending to.  The author convinced me that it was a good ending, and the way it should have been.  At first, I felt that a quick set of fortunate events didn't seem realistic.  But thinking about real life, sometimes the pendulum can swing down and get stuck there for quite a long time, and suddenly, it swings back up and knocks you over.  I guess that is what we are all hoping for right now.  This story was a bit of an emotional roller coaster, but well worth the read.  And, I very much enjoyed the local setting and the nostalgic memories of the 1990s. -- Tracy

During a crisis like our present pandemic, and being quarantined at home, the book to have on your bedside table is Glennon Doyle's "Untamed."  I don't know how I got so lucky to be first on the list for this one, as it is the usual case for a patron or two to be ahead of me.  I like to think of it as divine intervention.  During the most difficult times in my life,  inspirational authors have crossed my desk for the first time, egging me on to read the book sleeve, and eventually saving me in one way or another from those feelings of doom and gloom and loss of control.  Going all the way back to my twenties, some of those authors have been Leo Buscaglia, Anne Lamott, Kate Braestrup, Katrina Kenison and Brene Brown.  Today I have a new friend in Glennon, with the added gift of her Instagram page which provides daily inspirational meetings to help us feel loved and cared for.

As soon as I finish this review, and pull out all my post-it tabs, I am dropping this book off at my best friend's house.  I described it to her as an autobiography with inspirational and helpful tips to live a better life.  Keeping in mind that "living a better life" is a relative term.  I should say, it is about finding your true self and living according to your own mission statement, and not by one that was written for you by someone else; society, your parents, generations of men, generations of women and the person who likes to chime in on your social media post about how you should behave.

One of the most significant themes Glennon talks about in this book is finding your "Knowing."  To me, this is similar to saying, "What is your gut telling you?"  She writes about the fact that we are bombarded with "memos" during our life, those social edicts which not only tell us how we should look and act, but also might not be valid and truthful to the individual.  In this passage she tells us about how her traditional religious beliefs transformed:

"I wrote myself a new memo about what it means to have strong faith.  To me, faith is not a public allegiance to a set of outer beliefs, but a private surrender to the inner Knowing.  I stopped believing in middlemen or hierarchy between me and God.  I went from certain and defensive to curious, wide-eyed, and awed; from closed fists to open arms; from the shallow to the deep end.  For me, living in faith means allowing to burn all that separates me from the Knowing so that one day I can say: I and the Mother are one."

We learn early on in our story that Glennon had a difficult youth (still young at 44, things have settled a bit.)  In her tween and teen years she struggled with bulimia, which eventually led her to an alcohol addiction as a young adult.  At 25, hungover, and with a positive pregnant test in her hand, she decided to pull herself together, get sober, and become a mother.  At the time, she was an elementary school teacher.  She confides in us what helped her at this time in her life:

"While I attempt to both become a human and grow a human at the exact same ridiculous time, I am also teaching third grade.  By noon each day, I am dizzy with several sicknesses at once: morning sickness, withdrawal sickness, and the sickness of living without a daily escape plan.  Each day at noon, I walk my class the long way to lunch so I can peek into my friend Josie's classroom and see the sign hung above her window, which says in big black block letters: WE CAN DO HARD THINGS. "

And we learn that reciting this affirmation when things got difficult, was how she got through that time, and challenges that would come.  Acknowledging that being human is hard, that we will need to just do hard things to get through difficult times and events in life, without any fault or blame on ourselves, becomes a revelation for her and for the reader.   The author of our story has had to face some demons in life, make personal choices that she knew would come with challenging results, and she had to find a way to live her truth and strive to be a good person to the best of her abilities each day.  This is a challenging time in which we are doing some very hard things, but with Glennon offering support, and cheering us on, we can do them.  -- Tracy

One of the first books that I read during the beginning of my library career was Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune.  It is a fabulous, epic, historical fiction book that takes place mid-nineteenth century as our protagonist travels from Chile to San Francisco as a stowaway.  It includes love stories and cultural revelations and complicated relationships, with a perfectly wrapped-up ending.  Allende's newest book begins with the Spanish Civil War and will follow the life of the Dalmau family from Spain to Chile.  This story is also a love story, with many twists and turns.  Historical coops and a famous poet are integral characters, and again, Allende weaves the lifelong histories of a complicated set of characters with detailed and often excruciating events to lead us to a satisfying last page.  

The two main characters in our story are Roser and Victor Delmau.  At the beginning of our story Roser is a young girl from an impoverished family, discovered by a wealthy philanthropist, and taken under his wing as a piano student.  Here is a description of her as a young girl:

"Roser spent the rest of her childhood in the Guzman mansion, officially adopted and taken in as the mistress’s personal servant, but also as the professor’s pupil. In exchange for helping the maids and bringing the Gentle Lunatic solace, she was given board and an education. The historian shared a good part of his library with her, taught her more than she would have learned in any school, and let her practice on the grand piano once played by his wife, who now could no longer recall what on earth this huge black monster was for.  Roser, who during the first seven years of her life had heard no music at all apart from the drunkards’ accordions on Saint John’s Eve, turned out to have an extraordinary good ear. There was an old cylinder phonograph in the house, but as soon as Don Santiago realized his protégée could play tunes on the piano after listening to them only once, he ordered a modern gramophone from Madrid, together with a collection of records. Within a short time Roser Brugera, whose feet still didn’t reach the pedals, could play the music from the records with her eyes closed. "

We first meet Victor Dalmau, a surgeon on the front lines of the war, treating very young boys, and watching many of them succumb to their wounds.   After Franco wins the war, anyone from the opposition is forced to flee Spain, and Victor and his pregnant, widowed, sister-in-law, Roser, make their way to France.  In an interesting twist, Pablo Neruda becomes the key benefactor in helping these two get passage to Chile, a country accepting refugees.  However, they must marry for convenience, in order to secure their passage.  We learn some interesting things about the poet within the lines of our story:

"That evening the Salon had a special guest:  Pablo Neruda, who at the age of thirty-four was considered the best poet of his generation, which was some feat as in Chile poets flourished like weeds.  Some of his "Twenty Love Poems" had already become part of Chilean folklore, and even those who couldn't read or write recited them.  Neruda was a man of the south, from rain and timber, the son of a railway worker, who recited his verses in a booming voice and described himself as having a hard nose and minimal eyes.  A polemical figure because of his fame and his left-wing sympathies, especially for the Communist party, in which he would later become a militant, he had been a consul in Argentina, Burma, Ceylon, Spain, and most recently France, because, according to his political and literary enemies, the successive governments in Chile preferred to keep him as far away as possible."

Allende's novels always teach us historical tidbits in an exciting way, however, her mastery of developing rich characters with such relative emotions and life struggles is what is most appealing in her books.  Additionally, her writing is poetic and flows with a natural beauty.  You name a topic, and it will exist in any and all of her novels; love, sex, family strife, war,  politics, social injustice, death, perseverance, heartache, loss, and always the element of surprise.  I will admit that I listened to this book in audio format, but would only recommend it to someone who is fluent in Spanish, and able to pick up the distinct accents and very quick dialog of this particular reader. (Edoardo Ballernini.)  I highly recommend this book as another gripping and emotional ride from this legendary author. -- Tracy

Our novel is set sometime in the mid-20th century in the small parish of Faha, Ireland, in County Clare.  As anyone can attest to, reading a novel that is set in a place you have been, or lived in, or traveled to, can illicit an internal conversation of, "yes, I know this place." with every description of the scenes that unfold.  I was in this part of Ireland, at the tender age of 20, thumbing around with a few other American students.  It is the one part of Ireland I know, and I felt that sense of awe and understanding, not only with the place, but with the characters, and found myself channeling the spirit of my ancestors, and reading silently with an Irish brogue.  

Chapter 1 begins and ends with this:

"It had stopped raining."

And that is the main event that brings so many changes to this town and each of the people in it.  Our narrator is a man, now seventy-eight years old, named Noel (Noe) Crowe, who is looking back to this particular Easter season in Faha when he was seventeen.  After having lost his faith and failed as a seminary student, he comes to live with his grandparents.  He is in limbo about the direction of his life, wandering aimlessly around town, when one day the rain stops and the sun comes out.  Our author's brilliant descriptive writing begins immediately as we start Chapter 2:

"Nobody in Faha could remember when it started.  Rain there on the western seaboard was a condition of living.  It came straight-down and sideways, frontwards, backwards and any other wards God could think of.  It came in sweeps, in waves, sometimes in veils.  It came dressed as drizzle, as mizzle, as mist, as showers, frequent and widespread, as a wet fog, as a damp day, a drop, a dreeping, and an out-and-out downpour.  It came the fine day, the bright day, and the day promised dry.  It came at any time of the day and night, and in all seasons, regardless of calendar and forecast, until in Faha your clothes were rain and your skin was rain and your house was rain with a fireplace."

So, when the rain goes away for days on end, and the sun beats down, and the heat comes along, and the townspeople are reddened with sunburns, things start to feel out of sorts.  On the first day of sunshine, a stranger comes to town named Christy, who carries a 50 year old burden which he is hoping to release.  His story is one of love, and so is the story of Noe, who like any teenage boy, falls in love with more than one girl, actually the three daughters of the local doctor, and learns about affairs of the heart with each of them.  Here is Noe talking about his reactions to his first experience of "love" with one of the daughters, who he seeks out at church:

"She stepped out along the pew and I fairly jumped forward.  At least everything inside me did.  Boom, just like that.  It's a thing that can't be told rightly, because in the turbulence of life we have to cling to the notion that human behaviour is governed by reason, but when you feel a force like this, a thing that just picks you up and throws you over here, takes the whole of your intelligence, judgement and logic, balls it up and says none of that matters right now because, despite the voice, loud enough too, saying "this is impossible " and "don't be an idiot," despite all the wise and winning arguments to the contrary, you've already jumped the barricades of propriety and embarrassment and ceded to something compelling which can be nothing more than mystery, and the mystery of another."

Our story is about love of home, of family, of friends and of lovers.  It is about relationships that form out of unusual circumstances, and how they can be brief, but can affect one's life forever.  It is a story about the changing world, and the fear of that change, in this case with the coming of electricity to Faha.  Could the sunlight be a metaphor for the foreign brightness that electricity will bring to the people and places of this tiny town?  Perhaps some folks are accustomed to the dimness, and have a fear about what the light will expose.  

Noe will provide the reader with many answers to what happens in the future to our characters and our seaside community, but we will not learn about the 61 years of his life that takes place between this mystical year and his telling of the story.  Perhaps the author will save Noe's life story for a future novel.  We can only hope.

I know this is a long review, but would you believe that I only chose three passages from the thirty three that I marked for reference?  While reading this book, I laughed and sighed and cried often.  I cannot wait to read Niall Williams' other novels, as his written words are astoundingly unique and poetic.  The  sentiments expressed by his characters are familiar and piercing, and the wrapping and unwrapping of the way everyone and every event is done and undone is perfection.  This book was simply remarkable and a pure joy to experience. -- Tracy