THE TEN YEAR NAP (Meg Wolitzer)

Since the feminist revolution of the 1960's, it seems like mothers have had a choice between feeling guilty over working or feeling guilty over neglecting fulfilling careers to stay home and raise their children.  Meg Wolitzer's "Ten Year Nap" is about 4 New York based women who have made the choice to give up careers, some promising, others not, to devote their lives to their families. 

Amy is a Trusts & Estates lawyer and the daughter of an ardent feminist and an economics professor.  She and her husband, Leo, met and fell in love at the law firm where they both worked.  When their now 10-year-old son, Mason, was born they decided that Amy would give up work for a couple of years to raise their baby.  Two years stretched to ten and now Amy, believing that their finances are stable, is considering volunteer work. 

Amy's friend Roberta is a failed-artist-turned-puppeteer.  She and her husband, Nathaniel, also a puppeteer, live with their two children in a family owned apartment in the city.  Karen and Wilson Yip are MIT-educated mathematicians with twin sons.  This couple is successful and financially comfortable and Karen's choice to stay at home with her two boys is applauded by both of their traditional Chinese families.  Jill, whose doctoral thesis was rejected and whose mother committed suicide while Jill was in college, welcomes the opportunity to stay at home with her adopted daughter, Nadia, instead of trying to figure out how to live up to the promise of her Vivian Swope Award, honoring her as the student in her prep school class most likely to achieve success.  Jill and her husband have moved to the suberb of Holly Hills, NY, where she feels isolated from her friends and depressed by the fact that her daughter seems "different", perhaps intellectually slow.

Throughout this novel the reader is introduced to various characters from the past and present that have helped to form the fears and values of the four women.  Chapters featuring mothers, lovers, friends, colleagues, and even Margaret Thatcher, are interspersed throughout the book, giving us insight into where these women came from and where they might choose to go next.  This novel is a story about difficult choices and the balancing act that is everyday life for parents.  I would recommend it to anyone who has ever witnessed, considered, or lived through the process of raising child while dealing with the pressures of maintaining friendships and living up to societal expectations.  I think that the title is genius!

SUMMER ON BLOSSOM STREET (Debbie Macomber)

I keep wondering why I can't stay away from Macomber's Blossom Street knitting series!  Although I don't read "romance", I like books that include some romance.  I always considered Macomber's various series too "romancey" for me, though.  I guess what appeals to me about this series is the happy endings.  The stories are not unrealistic: people have problems, including serious illnesses, broken families, and deaths, but they manage to work through their problems and find happiness.  I feel inspired by Macomber's characters to pursue life and to live it.  I'm sorry if that sounds trite or fluffy.  Sometimes I enjoy thought-provoking philisophy, historical detail, or exciting action, but sometimes I just get tired of the gore and the angst and the depression of many modern novels.  Sometimes happy endings are just what you need, and Macomber has them!  I feel happy after reading this book.

THE LADIES OF GARRISON GARDENS (Louise Shaffer)

Shaffer's sequel to the irresistable "Three Miss Margarets" is a wonderful blend of past and present, mystery and romance, Southern charm and gritty realism.  One thing on which I have to comment, however, is the incredible disconnect between the cover of this novel and its contents!  The picture on the cover shows two women in 1950's casual garb tending to a garden full of sunflowers, while the "Garrison Gardens" of the story is part of an enormous legacy (including botanical gardens, a resort, and a huge "cottage", employer to 3000 local residents) left to Laurel Selene McReady by the late Peggy Garrison, one of the Miss Margarets.  Laurel, Charles Valley's former "wild child", was a surrogate daughter to Peggy and nursed her through her final illness.  When faced with the demands of unscrupulous lawyer Stuart Lawrence, another of Peggy's legacies, Laurel is forced to evaluate her confidence in her own abilities and her idealization of the resort's responsibilities towards its employees and the community.  Eventually her values and reality clash and Laurel is forced to come to grips with Miss Peggy's life and decisions and their profound effect on her own.

While Laurel is dealing with her modern-day dilemmas, we are also treated to the parallel story of Lily and Iva Claire Rain, two mediocre vaudevillians, a mother and daughter, who tour around during the early 1930's as the Sunshine Sisters.  Throughout the novel the readers wonders about the connection between the past and the present and Shaffer does not disappoint when she eventually merges the two stories with some interesting twists.

THE LITTLE STRANGER (Sarah Waters)

Dr. Faraday is called one day to Hundreds Hall to tend to the Ayres family maid, Betty, who has been complaining of stomach pains. Despite the fact that his colleague, Dr. David Graham, is the family's physician of record, this is NOT Faraday's first visit to the Hall. Nearly 30 years before, at age 10, Dr. Faraday had attended an Empire Day festival at the beautiful mansion, where his mother had previously served as a nursery maid. It is during this current emergency visit, however, that he becomes acquainted with the eccentric Ayres family: Mrs. Ayres, now widowed and still grieving for her first-born, Susan, who died of diptheria at the age of six; Caroline, the plain, practical, daughter who will become almost an obsession in Dr. Faraday's life; and son Roderick, maimed in WWII and struggling unsuccessfully to keep the estate running and solvent.

Faraday is both appalled and fascinated by changes at the Hall and soon becomes a close friend and confidante of the Ayreses. During a dinner party at Hundreds Hall to welcome new neighbors to the area, the amiable and loving family dog, Gyp, suddenly turns on the young daughter of the guests, disfiguring her face. This is the first in a series of many disturbing occurances that eventually drive the family and the estate to near destruction, and the first hint of the "little stranger" that will alter the lives of everyone closely connected with Hundreds Hall.

Waters is a gifted historical novelist. In "The Little Stranger' she creates a rich atmosphere of decaying opulance as the Ayres family tries unsuccessfully to maintain their traditional position in the community as their home literally falls down around them. The reader can almost feel the dampness and cold and smell the mildew and soot as Waters' story unfolds and her characters' lives and sanity seem to disintegrate bit by bit. The supernatural element is introduced seamlessly into the storyline and developed so subtley that the reader continually wonders whether the events of the story are real (in the fictional sense), manufactured by someone with malevolent intent towards one or more of the family, or product of an unstable mind. I do feel that this novel would have been much better if it had been about 300 pages instead of 463. I almost stopped reading about 200 pages into the book because the story began to drag unbearably, leaving me plodding through the pages. Once the story picked up later on and it was difficult to put the book down as the ending approached.

Speaking of the ending, nothing here is cut and dried.  Those of you who enjoy a neat, well tied up finale will be disappointed by the uncertainties that remain as this novel ends.  If you enjoy a novel that keeps you wondering, even long after you close the book, this may be a good choice for you.

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES (Cecelia Ahern)

At the tender age of twenty-eight, Cecelia Ahern has been a best-selling novelist for five years.  Her first novel, P.S. I Love You, was made into a major Hollywood film, and she co-created the now canceled televsion series, Samantha Who?  What's left for her to accomplish, you might ask?  I guess we'll just need to keep reading her work to find out!

Ahern is considered a "romance" novelist in her home country of Ireland, where her father once served as prime minister, but her books are much more than boy-meets-girl-and-they-live-happily-ever-after.  This author creates real characters who charm the reader with their alternately fantastic (as in fantasy) and vulnerable personalities.  Thanks for the Memories begins on a sad note, as Joyce suffers a fall, loses her long-desired unborn child, and is the recipient of a blood transfusion.  These events have long-reaching effects on Joyce's life as her shaky marriage comes to an end and she finds herself inexplicably an expert on art, architecture, and languages.  Meanwhile, American art and architecture expert Justin Hutchinson has donated blood for the first time and inexplicably longs to know who received it.  I'm sure you can guess where this is going!  Booklist and Publishers' Weekly  both gave Ahern's latest novel mediocre reviews, describing some of the characters as "thin" and "annoying".  Personally, I disagree.  I found the concept interesting, the characters likable, and Joyce's relationships with her father and friends very appealing.  Joyce is strong and worldly and cares deeply, a trait often lacking in the protagonists of today's violent and graphic thrillers.  Take a weekend and enjoy this novel!

KNIT ONE, KILL TWO (Maggie Sefton)

Kelly Flynn is in Colorado to settle her Aunt Helen's estate, but something is amiss.  Helen, who was like a mother to Kelly, was murdered in the living room of her quaint cottage, supposedly by a vagrant caught running from the area after the crime.  There are several problems with the investigation, though:  The police have found no trace of Helen's latest knitting project, a purple sweater torn from the needles in Helen's hands during the murder, the $20,000 in cash that Helen borrowed just before the murder has disappeared without a trace, and, unbeknownst to the police, a family heirloom quilt is inexplicably missing from Helen's living room wall.  Kelly believes that the local cops are bungling the case and sets out to look for clues to the killer herself, with the help of her new group of friends at the House of Lambspun, the knitting shop located in Aunt Helen's former home across from the cottage. 

Sefton's first knitting mystery has all the elements of an excellent cozy/craft series: a likeable heroine, hints at a future love interest, long lost relatives, secret business deals gone bad, a kindly retired cop who now spins wool, supportive friends, a charming setting, and just the right amount of knitting to satisfy yarn lovers without turning off non-knitting readers.  I've already read the next couple of installments, and I highly recommend this series.

HOME REPAIR (Liz Rosenberg)

This is Rosenberg's first novel for adults.  The author reveals at the end of the book that she didn't write it in consecutive scenes, but rather bit by bit, eventually combining all of those bits into a whe novel.  I wasn't sure how I felt about this book as I was reading it as it was in some ways depressing.  Eve was a young widow when she met and married Chuck, a very handsome "younger' man.  Now, years later, Chuck walks out on the family during a garage sale, leaving Eve to pick up the pieces of her life and to raise Marcus (her 17-year-old from her first marriage) and Noni, their 9-year-old daughter, on her own.  Eve's emotional journey is depicted through references to the "Heartbreak Diet" as she sheds pounds while dealing with her grief.  Chuck is not out of the picture.  He pops back into their lives occasionally, but he remains an annoying and superficial character (why on earth did she ever marry him?).  In contrast, Eve's mother, Charlotte, Jonah Cement, who oversees the local park, Mia, Clemente, Lev, Tracey, and other quirky characters fill out the story, all of them blossoming into better, more realistic versions of themselves as Eve comes to terms with her future.  There is a lot of humor in this novel, even in the descriptions of Eve's clothing choices as she loses weight.  In the end, I was glad I read "Home Repair", and I think you will be, too.  It looks and sounds like it should be chick-lit, but for some reason it is most definitely not!

ONCE IN A BLUE MOON (Eileen Goudge)

Lindsey and Kerri Anne are ages twelve and three, respectively, when they are taken from their drug-addicted mother, Crystal McAllister, and placed in separate foster homes.  Lindsey is eventually adopted by her foster parents, an older couple who raise her in an atmosphere of love and security, willing her the somewhat dilapitated family home on Blue Moon Bay in northern California.  Kerri Anne was not so fortunate, being bounced from one foster family to another, eventually falling in love with Jeremiah, a musician who introduces her to drugs and desserts her and their daughter, Bella. When the state steps in and removes 5-year-old Bella from Kerri Anne's care it appears that the past is destined to repeat itself, but Kerri Anne decides to clean up her act in an effort to prove that she is a fit mother.  She enters rehab, attends regular AA meetings, and finally, in a desperate attempt to prove that she can provide a stable home environment for her daughter, she finds Lindsey and asks to share her home.  Lindsey has been searching for Kerri Anne for 25 years and is both thrilled and appalled to finally meet her lost sibling after all of these years.  The two sisters appear to be as opposite as any two could be in terms of life circumstances and choices, but as they get to know each other they begin to discover a shaky common ground and to develop a strong bond.

In terms of plot, this novel is somewhat predictable.  Do we expect the sisters to bond or to reject each other?  How do you suppose the story will end?  Despite some predictability, Goudge's novel is delightful.  She has crafted interesting characters who are sometimes outlandish, yet still believable.  You'll love Miss Honi Love, the former exotic dancer with a heart of gold, and dislike Grant, the boring boyfriend who loves Lindsey but takes her for granted.  Ollie is too good to be true, but you still want him to be real, and the sisters themselves, though somewhat stereotypical, have the reader rooting for their relationship.  There are a couple of very interesting sub-plots involving corporate villains and a charming best-selling author that keep the story moving beautifully.  If I were going to rate this book, I'd give it 2 thumbs up!

COMMENCEMENT (J. Courtney Sullivan)

Commencement is a complex novel about four Smith College students embarking on lives very different from what they imagined on their first day on campus.  This book has, of course, been compared to Mary McCarthy's classic, The Group, a novel that I loved when I read it years ago.  Sullivan is a Smith graduate of great talent with an exceptional eye for details.  As the novel begins, the four main characters, Sally, Bree, April, and Celia, have been assigned to live on the same corrider in King House, a residence hall at Smith.  Sally, who recently lost her mother and is coping with and emotionally absent father, is from the Boston area, as is Celia.  Sally has her sights set on medical school, while Celia is an aspiring writer who longs to live in New York and write novels.  Bree is a Southern Belle, engaged to her high school sweetheart and longing for home, while Chicago-born April is a budding feminist who eschews shaving and fashion.

At this point one would expect a reasonably typical homage to female friendship and sisterhood, but Sullivan explores the darker and often sexual side of life at Smith.  I have to admit that if I were a high school student considering attending Smith, reading this novel might make me think twice because it goes so far beyond the typical "college" experiences.  It focuses very strongly, at times, on SLUGs (Smith Lesbians Until Graduation), gender issues, and sexual experimentation, but the main focus is really the strong bond of friendship and love among the four woman during college and after graduation.  One of the most interesting threads, and one that especially makes this novel stand out from other "girlfriends" stories, is April's involvement/employment with a self-aggrandizing, radical feminist film maker who documents abuse and exploitation of women, using April callously to further her own relentless pursuit of her cause.

This is one of those books that might leave you alternately horrified, laughing, or nodding your head in agreement.  It will definitely leave you thinking, though, as you process all of the layers and levels of Sullivan's first novel.

HOT ON THE TRAIL (Jane Isenberg)

Bel Barrett, Isenberg's post-menopausal amateur detective, is trying to find the time to marry Sol, the love of her life.  When one of her elderly night school students dies in a fall from his roof, Bel is invited by the man's daughter to investigate the tragedy, delaying the wedding yet again.  At first no one except Dom's daughter Flora, another of Bel's students, supects foul play, and Bel herself is skeptical at first.  Like any amateur detective worth her salt, though, Bel changes her mind several times about who might be responsible for Dom's death and she also manages to take several foolish chances in her quest for information.  Women in their 50's and beyond will identify with the physical, mental, and emotional changes that plague Bel and her two post menopausal friends and will especially enjoy the humorous way in which Isenberg portrays women of a "certain age" as lively, competent, imaginative, and adventurous.  readers of all ages will savor the evolution of clues that eventually lead Bel to the killer and to a lifetime of happiness with her soul-mate, Sol.

KNIT THE SEASON (Kate Jacobs)

Dakota Walker is living her dream of attending culinary school.  if you haven't read "The Friday Night Knitting Club" or "Knit Two" I would recommend checking them out before reading this one.  It's not that this seasonal novel is not enjoyable as a stand-alone, but that the expereinec will be so much richer if you have already gotten to know Dakota, James, Anita, Peri, and the rest of the Friday Night Knitting Club.  This book is like getting together with old friends to enjoy some holiday cheer.

THE CASTAWAYS (Elin Hilderbrand)

First of all, I didn't finish this book.  I usually like Hilderbrand's style and characters and I love that she sets her books on Nantucket, despite that fact that I have never been there (I did spend a lot of time in Manomet, MA and on Cape Cod as a child, though).  The Castaways, however, is depressing and I just had to stop reading.

The Castaways are a group of 4 couples who live year-round on the island and vacation together: Police Chief Ed and his wife Andrea; farmer Jeffrey and his wife Delilah, who helps to manage a restaurant/club, the Blue Begonia; real estate mogul Addison and his wife Phoebe, a beautiful, fragile woman who is dependent on prescription drugs; and Greg, who sings at the Blue Begonia and Tess, who is Andrea's younger cousin.  At the beginning of the novel we hear that Tess and Greg have drowned in a boating accident on thier 12th wedding anniversary, leaving 7 year-old-twins, Chloe and Finn, behind.  This drowning sets off a series of reactions in each of the characters.  Andrea, who used to live with Jeffrey and almost married him before she met Ed, slips into depression, feeling that she is responsible for Tess's death since she failed to join the convent as she promised in a pact with God years ago when she saved Tess from drowning.  Delilah, who was on the verge of an affair with Greg, is disturbed about his supposed daliance with a provocative high school girl who claims to have been with him the night before he drowned.  Addison was having a love affair with Tess and is the executor of Tess and Greg's estate.  He uses this role as a means of combing their home for clues about Tess's real feelings for him.  Phoebe, Addison's wife, has been in a depression since her twin brother, Reed, died in 9/11, but somehow Tess and Greg's deaths cause her to finally break free of her grief just as Addison is descending into his own private Hell.

Hilderbrand's writing style is enjoyable and the characters here are reasonably well-developed, but there is just too much depression, grief, and angst.  There are nuances that there may be something suspicious about Tess and Greg's deaths, but no real hint of any sort of foul play.  I admit that I do kind of wonder what really happened, and for this reason I wouldn't discount the novel or suggest that you not read it.  If you choose to try this one, though, be prepared to feel agitated and sad.

FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE (Patricia MacDonald)

What a good thriller!   I really had no clue whatsoever about who might be guilty in this novel until almost the end. 

Graduate student Morgan Adair travels to West Briar, LI to be godmother to Drew, the infant son of her childhood friend, Claire, and her husband, Guy.  When Morgan arrives she finds Claire suffering from severe postpartum depression and Guy at his wit's end trying to help his wife hold up under the strain of caring for their new son.  A week later, as Morgan is preparing to board a plane for England, where she is planning to share research (and, hopefully, a bed) with her colleague, Simon, she receives a call from Claire telling her that she is in police custody, charged with murdering her husband and her son, and that she is guilty of the crime.  Morgan postpones her trip to come to the aid of her friend.  On arrival back in West Briar she is confronted with family, friends, and even Claire's lawyer, who seem to be unanimous in believing that Claire is guilty as charged and will spend the rest of her life in jail or, at best, confined to a mental intitution.  With the occasional help of guy's best friend, Fitz, Morgan sets out to prove that someone other than Claire is responsible for these unspeakable crimes.

MacDonald has a wonderful talent for throwing in red herrings so subtle that you see the possibilities but are never really sure if they are clues or just coincidences.  If you enjoy psychological suspense and superb old-fashioned amateur detective work, try reading this one.  There are no hacked up bodies or machine guns here.  I guess they call it "domestic suspense" because it really COULD happen in your house or your neighborhood, and that makes it even scarier than serial killers or things that go bump in the night!

BIKINI SEASON (Sheila Roberts)

I know!  I hate to be writing about a novel with this title because it is SO chick-lit/romance, but it was also good.  Erin is engaged to Adam, the "perfect" man, but for some reason she is rapidly outgrowing her wedding gown.  Best friend Angela is happily married but afraid that her husband is turned off by her expanding waistline and turned on by his svelte assistant.  Megan is an overweight lawyer in a high stress job, and Kizzie, a small-business owner, has been told by her doctor to lose weight, but her husband Lionel likes her bootie just the way it is.  The four women form a club and resolve to meet weekly to support each other by sharing low-fat recipes.  Soon everyone is losing weight except Erin, the bride-to-be.  As her wedding approaches she keeps running into Dan Rockwell, a dorky old friend of her brother's who works at the local supermarket and has blossomed into an attractive man.  I'm sure you can see where this is all leading!  That being said, Sheila Roberts writes in an easy, entertaining style and makes you care what happens to these 4 woman.  Reading this book would be a wonderful way to spend a day when you just want to enjoy a break from reality, immerse yourself in female bonding, and smile.

THE WILDWATER WALKING CLUB (Claire Cook)

I am so jealous of Noreen Kelly!  Yes, she has taken a buyout and agreed to be downsized from her newly merged athletic shoe company, but she has 18 months to enjoy full pay and benefits.  Yes, she has been betrayed by her "boyfriend", Michael, an executive her company who urges her to take the severance package and then stops taking her calls, but he is a jerk and she is better off without him.  At first Noreen is at loose ends, wondering how her career had accidentally become her whole life, but then she meets neighbors Tess, an advocate of green living and air-dried laundry, and Rosie, who runs a lavender farm.  Together the three embark on a goal of 10,000 steps per day, walking in the early morning (in walking shoes from Noreen's company) while getting to know themselves and each other.  This short book was pure pleasure, a sort of coming-of-age story set 20 years later than usual.  If you enjoy novels about female friendships, pick this one up.  You'll love every minute of it!

DEATH AT HILLIARD HIGH (Carole Shmurak)

I attended an interesting talk by author Carole Shmurak a couple of years ago where she described her method of coming up with ideas for a mystery novel, things like wondering what would happen if a body fell out of that tree you are walking past right now.  Carole is a wonderful speaker and discussion leader.  She has visited out library several times to introduce her own novels and to lead our annual "Big Read" discussions of The Maltese Falcon and To Kill a Mockingbird, and she will be here again on November 18 to give us the scoop on this, her latest Susan Lombardi novel.  In this story Susan is invited by former student Shauna Thompson, now an English teacher at exclusive Hilliard High, to help solve the mystery of who is leaving Shauna, an African-American, puzzling messages clues that are obviously racial in tone and possibly dangerous.  During the process of investigating Shauna's problem, Susan (of course) becomes involved in the discovery of a body, the wife of Shauna's fellow teacher Leo Loops.  Loops has disappeared, leaving the community to conjecture about the reason: guilt, fear, or foul play?

What I love about this series is that it is set in the Hartford area with references to local towns and roadways.  Susan Lombardi is a capable, likable woman with a happy marriage, the requisite best friend, and an intelligent, resourceful approach to solving crimes.  As with Beth Groundwater's novel, I would enjoy a bit more ambience and detailed descriptions, but that's just my personal taste.  I'm a person who loves to immerse myself in the atmosphere of whatever I'm reading.  Carole's writing is clean, straightforward, and easy to enjoy.  I am looking forward to the next Susan Lombardi mystery.  I wonder if Susan's husband, Michael (Swash) Buckler, will get tired of cooking and devote himself to vintage autos instead?

TWENTIES GIRL (Sophie Kinsella)

I'm not quite sure why I delayed reading this novel by Sophie Kinsella, one of my favorite chick-lit authors.  I think it may have been because it features a ghost and my first reaction to that was, "Oh, no!  Does EVERY author now have to start featuring the paranormal?"  Well, as it turns out it was well worth the wait.  There is always something beguiling about Kinsella's heroines.  In the hands of many other authors the same characters might be shallow and fluffy, but Sophie Kinsella brings them to life in a way that makes you laugh and cry as they develop into "real" people.

Lara Lington begins as a typical chick-lit heroine, career challenged and unlucky in love, with understanding parents, an unscrupulous business partner, an ex-boyfriend whom she is convinced is "the one" (if only she can convince him!), and a host of not-so-nice relatives.  When Lara attends the funeral of her 105-year-old great-aunt Sadie she meets Sadie's ghost, a carefree, twenty-three year old flapper who cannot rest until she recovers a lost necklace, which she expects Lara to help find against seemingly impossible odds (since Lara is the only person around who can see or hear her aside from when she SCREAMS in people's ears).  With Sadie's help and interference Lara begins to see her life and her relationships in a different light.  Comedy is one of the mainstays of Kinsella's novels and no one will be disappointed here, but there is also a strong element of pathos as Lara begins to look at Sadie's life and her years in the nursing home after a stroke.  One of the best scenes in my mind is when Lara goes to Sadie's nursing home and drops off chocolates and some CDs of music from the first half of the 20th century.  When nurse Ginny starts to play one of the CDs for the residents Lara sees their reactions and suddenly envisions them as beautiful young people dancing the Charleston.  Her sudden realization that every one of them is still a young, energetic person trapped in an aged body is sort of profound, if I may use that word.  It certainly struck o chord with me!
I would wholeheartedly recommend "Twenties Girl".  It was a delightful, uplifting, and satisfying experience!

THE HELP (Katherine Stockett)

It kind of frightens me to realize that I was alive and in elementary school while real versions of these fictional events were unfolding in Mississippi.  I remember hearing about civil rights - the marches, the riots, the speeches, the violence - and seeing the headlines in the paper.  I remember my mother commenting on Martin Luther King's shooting.  My father told us the story of getting on a bus somewhere down South during World War II and being told by a black woman that he had accidentally sat in the colored section and that this was not allowed.  In the late 60's a young black man attended our small, Catholic school for one year and our reaction was fascination and an interest in how he would feel and how he would interact, whether he would feel welcome or out of place in our primarily white (with a few hispanic students) school.  Never did I imagine the kind of everyday abuse and contempt heaped so casually on "the help" and other people of color in other parts of our country.  These events were all happening somewhere else, outside the scope of my northern world.  The Help brings a whole new perspective to the struggle for equality between the races; listening to the audio version truly brings the events and characters to life. The various dialects add so much depth to the story of Aibileen, Minny, Skeeter, Hilly, Elizabeth, and all of the other characters here. 

Stockett writes The Help in the first person, with Aibileen and Minny, who are black maids in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 60's, and Skeeter, a college-educated white woman of 23, sharing narration duties.  Skeeter is an aspiring writer who failed to catch a husband in college, to her mother's despair.  She is tall and gawky and pitied by her friends, Hilly and Elizabeth, for her lack of social success.  Aibileen works for Elizabeth, a mother without a maternal bone in her body.  Aibileen comforts Elizabeth's children, cooks her meals, cleans her house, shops for her groceries, and polishes her silver.  Short, fat Minny works for Mrs. Walters, Hilly's mother, until Hilly successfully installs her mother in a nursing home and fires Minny, telling everyone that Minny is a thief and warning them not to hire her.  She finally finds employment with a woman who has secrets.  Skeeter recruits Aibileen to help her write a home cleaning column for the local paper, but eventually they end up working on a bigger project that grows to unanticipated proportions, refecting the social changes that characterize the 1960's.

The personalities of the women of  The Help are varied.  Skeeter is at once thoughtful, sympathetic, and ambitious.  Minny is sassy, Aibileen is calm and nurturing.  The women of "the league" are like a herd of sheep, unthinkingly following their leader, but I suppose that this is what they were raised to do.  Hilly is hateful, spiteful, and power-hungry, without an ounce of compassion or generosity.  I feel like I know all of them after listening to this wonderful novel.  It is complete unto itself, but I would welocme a sequel someday!

BACK ON BLOSSOM STREET (Debbie Macomber)

I couldn't resist continuing to follow Lydia's life, now as a married woman with a step-son and an improved relationship with her sister, Margaret.  I love knowing these characters and witnessing the development of Blossom Street, which began as an urban renewal project and has now "blossomed" into a beautiful little neighborhood.  I think there are more still to come, so I will be reporting on those as well.  As I have said before. I'm a sucker for novels that feature yarn and knitting!

A REAL BASKET CASE (Beth Groundwater)

This is Beth's first published mystery and it is a pretty good one.  I was bothered by the local police and their lack of initiative in looking for a killer other than Claire's husband, Roger, but this is probably not far off the mark for any seemingly open & shut case.  Overall, I found the novel intriguing.  Claire Hanover is very appealing in her desperation to prove that someone other than her husband shot Enrique despite Roger's conviction that she has been unfaithful.  She reminds me a bit of the heroines from vintage films like "The Perils of Pauline".  She is not fearless, but she takes hilarious chances that would be stupid in the real world.  Here, however, they are part of the charm of the story.  This novel would make a GREAT comedy/mystery film.  I did look at the ending, as I sometimes tend to do, because I began to suspect who was the actual killer (I was right!), for some reason.  Maybe it was feminine intuition, because it certainly wasn't any obvious clue in the story.  There WERE subtle hints in the dialogue that, in retrospect, led me to a suspect.  This novel lacks the ambience of Diane Mott Davidson's Goldy Bear culinary series, which is also based in Colorado.  I would like to see a little more reference to the setting as well as a little more affection and connection between the ongoing characters, maybe more background to fill out their relationships.  Hopefully these will evolve as the series continues.  I do look forward to reading "To Hell in a Handbasket", and finding out what pickles Claire Hanover manages to involve herself in next!

A GOOD YARN (Debbie Macomber)

A Good Yarn continues the story of cancer survivor Lydia and her customers / knitting students.  I'm really enjoying this series!

THERE GOES THE BRIDE (M.C. Beaton)

Agatha Raisin is one of my favorite sleuths, but in this 20th entry in the series (yes, I HAVE read them all), she seems a little bit tiresome and scattered.  Agatha is a 50-something tough-as-nails retired PR executive and entrepreneur who now runs her own detective agancy in Carsley, a small village in the Cotswolds.  When Agatha's ex-husband (#11, Agatha Raisin and the Love From Hell), James Lacey, becomes engaged to a much-younger woman, Agatha is invited to the festivities.  The beautiful young bride is murdered on her wedding day and Agatha becomes a prime suspect because she is thought to have been stalking James and his fiance in Istanbul.  When the bride's mother hires Agatha to find her daughter's killer she learns that neither the bride nor her parents are what they appear to be and that James was having second thoughts about his pending nuptials.

Beaton includes all of our favorite characters in this novel, including the wealthy and amoral Charles Fraith, Mrs. Bloxby, who always provides a steadying influence and voice of reason for Agatha, Toni, Agatha's young associate, and James, the infuriating ex-love.  Beaton has created a wonderful world full of quirky characters, but I think the time has come for Agatha to find true love.  I envision her continuing to worry about her waistline and aging skin, and perhaps even skulking around behind her lover's back, but she really needs someone to love her unconditionally and to provide an anchor for her life.  Agatha will always be Agatha, but she could use a little break in the love department!

LADIES OF THE LAKE (Haywood Smith)

When the free-spirited grandmother of sisters Dahlia, Iris, Violet, and Rose dies, she leaves them her dilapidated home on Lake Clare, with the stipulation that they spend 3 months living together at the house.  All of the sisters accept the challenge, deciding to rehabilitate the property to sell at the end of the summer.  The sisters are all in their fifties.  Dahlia is a ballerina turned dance teacher, the favorite of her grandmother, Cissie, and is now divorced and desperate to hang on to her house and reunite with her 18-year-old son, who has moved to the South Pacific with his father.  She and Iris, the only non-blonde sister, have always clashed over anything and everything, and this summer is no exception.  The sisters gradually learn to overcome rivalries and find the value in each other in this comic novel.  Among the more memorable incidents in the book are the discovery and disposal of 2 mummified corpses in their grandmother's cellar, the evening that sisters decide to skinny-dip in the lake. and the discovery that Ernest Hemingway might possibly be their grandfather.

Despite being a comedy, Ladies of the Lake is a richly textured study of sibling rivalry, generational angst, class consciousness, love, and community.  Haywood Smith's novels are always entertaining, but this one is exceptionally thought-provoking as well.  I recommend it!

INTERVENTION (Robin Cook)

This book is a departure for Robin Cook, starting as a medical thriller and gradually evolving into something similar in theme to the DaVinci code. Dr. Jack Stapleton and his wife, Dr. Laurie Montgomery, both NYC Medical Examiners, are the parents of a 4 month old boy with neuroblastoma, a cancer of the nerve tissue. While waiting for additional treatments to begin, Jack and Laurie consider the possibility of alternative medicine, but when Jack autopsies a healthy woman in her 20's and discovers that her death was the result of chiropractic manipulation of her neck he begins to investigate alternative therapies and their consequences. He discovers in the course of his inquiries that many people choose chiropractic or other remedies in lieu of a general practicioner/physician because these alternative practitioners are able to provide personal, unhurried care, something that is now lacking in the medical profession.

At this point in the novel I was ready for an interesting thriller about the dangers of alternative medicine used inappropriately, but this did not come to fruition (note to Robin Cook: this would make a great theme for a future novel!). Instead, Jack becomes involved with 2 old college friends, a high-ranking cardinal, James, and an anthropologist, Shawn. While attending a conference in Egypt Shawn comes across evidence that the bones of the Virgin Mary are buried in an ossuary that has been placed near the tomb of Saint Peter in the Vatican. Shawn believes that he and his wife (conveniently an expert in DNA analysis) can retrieve the ossuary and prove that the bones belong to Mary, the mother of God, who was, according to Catholic doctrine and under the cloak of Papal infallibility, assumed bodily into Heaven after her death. Cardinal James, on the other hand, fears that this venture could destroy both his career and Catholic acceptance of Papal infallibility, the notion that the Pope is free from the possibility of error in matters of Church dogma..

The whole idea that the mother of Jesus could have had other children (as evidenced by the bones) and that her bones could actually exist somewhere is an intriguing concept. I think that overall the book is well written and adequately researched. I think that the plot concerning aleternative medicine should have been developed more fully and brought to some sort of conclusion, and I believe that the ending of the drama concerning the ossuary was a little contrived. I almost felt as if Cook had gotten tired of the whole thing and wanted to finish up and move on. Overall, though, it was worth reading. Anytime I keep thinking about a book after I am done I know that it was worth my time!

DEATH OF A DUNWOODY MATRON (Patricia Sprinkle)

This was my first Patricia Sprinkle mystery and I expect that I will be reading more of them, though probably not for a while considering the pile of "to-be-read" books sitting next to my sewing machine!

Amateur sleuth Sheila Travis unexpectedly meets dear old high school friend Walt Delacourt at a party in the upscale Dunwoody neighborhood of Atlanta. Walt is besotted with his bride, Yvonne, a beautiful young woman with a brittle edge and a young son named Forbes. When Yvonne is found murdered in the upstairs bedroom and Walt is targeted as the main suspect, Sheila goes to work investigating to prove her old friend's innocence. A plethora of neighbors with secrets to keep and images to maintain make finding the murderer an onerous task, but Sheila enlists the help of her nephew, her aunt, an aspiring reporter, and Walt's father to solve the case. In the process she discovers a series of dead husband's (Yvonne's), a couple of secret lives, and the identity of the mysterious "Crispin". The solution to this mystery is a complete surprise, but makes sense. Wit and wisdom concerning the "matrons" of Dunwoody adds a nice touch to the beginning of each chapter. Highly recommended!

THE SHOP ON BLOSSOM STREET (Debbie Macomber)

I have to admit that, despite her popularity, I never expected to read, much less enjoy, a Debbie Macomber novel. The romance paperback section in our library is filled with Debbie Macomber's books about Navy wives and streets with sweet romantic names. I enjoy a little romance in my reading as much as the next person, but the strong, handsome, mysterious stranger whose eyes meet mine, igniting unquenchable passions, has never been a theme that I found particularly appealing or even palatable.

I picked this novel because (1) I had heard a lot of good things about it, (2) it is about a group of women who knit, and (3) I thought it was time for me to expand my horizons. I didn't expect to enjoy it so much! What a wonderful surprise this novel was. If you have read any of my previous reviews, you know that I am a sucker for stories about knitting (despite the fact that I crochet). I also love novels about groups of disparate women who come together and form unlikely friendships. The Shop on Blossom Street reminded me quite a bit of Beth Patillo's The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society, which included both of these. I enjoyed it very much. If you are looking for a gentle, positive read that you can sink your teeth into, try this one!

DEATH OF A COZY WRITER (G.M. Malliett)

This is actually the first in the Arthur St. Just series and I have to reiterate my opinion that Malliett is the new Agatha Christie! She excels in creating a traditional English mystery where the suspects are confined to a mansion or castle and there is no possibility of outside influences when the crime is committed.

Millionaire mystery author Adrian Beauclerk-Fisk invites his 4 grown children to his English mansion for an important announcement, and the group comes armed with objections to his upcoming marriage. Adrian announces that the deed has already been done in Scotland and introduces his new wife, Violet, who is NOT the expected young floozy but, rather, an age-appropriate widow who has never been able to shake off suspicion that she murdered her first husband. When two murders are committed, all eyes naturally turn first to Violet. As clues and red herrings accumulate the reader is treated to a truely entertaining mystery in the tradition of Christie. St. Just is a more true to life version of Poirot. If you love Agatha Christie you will love Malliett's St. Just series!

JUST TAKE MY HEART (Mary Higgins Clark)

The quality of Mary Higgins Clark's novels has been somewhat inconsistent. She went through a period a few years ago where her thrillers were less than thrilling, but since then I have enjoyed her books. Just Take My Heart is intriguing in many ways. The main character, Emily Wallace, is a sympathetically drawn attorney who is assigned to prosecute Gregg Aldrich, a successful agent who is accused of murdering his estranged wife, actress Natalie Raines. Emily is a widow (her husband was killed in Iraq) and a survivor of major surgery. Aldrich maintains his innocence throughout his trial despite the testimony of Jimmy Easton, a small-time crook who has made a deal in exchange for testifying against him. There are some interesting twists in this story, some predictable, others, not so much. Overall, you won't be disappointed with this novel if you are looking for decent, clean (i.e. not drenched in blood, foul language, or sexual situations) suspense. The sub-plot involving Emily's neighbor adds another layer of intrigue that will leave you taking extra notice of any strange neighbors on your block!

SUMMER GARDEN MURDER (Ann Ripley)

As a mystery, this was just OK. I found the "clues" pointing to Louise as the murderer to be a little contrived. The fact that, despite her standing in the community and obvious respect for the law, the police could assume that she was guilty based on those clues was unrealistic. That said, I would not discount this novel or this series. The characters are very likable and, despite the fact that this book is mid-series, I had no trouble figuring out who was who and what realtionship they had to each other. There were a few too many characters with similar names, though, and it was a bit hard to keep track!

Louise Eldridge is a TV garden show host and amateur sleuth who was instrumental in "putting away" murderer Peter Hoffman 4 years previously. Now released from a mental hospital (he was judged "guilty by reason of insanity"), Peter shows up at a neighborhood party and approaches Louise, giving everyone the impression that they plan to meet later to work out their differences. When Peter is discovered buried in Louise's azalea beds a few weeks later, Louise is the prime suspect. She, her husband, and two daughters start investigating and soon another body turns up in Louise's garden, turning up the heat on Louise's investigation. Her family needs to find the real killer before Louise is arrested and sent to jail. Despite the too-contrived clues that all lead to Louise, the ending of this novel is a pleasant surprise. The business deals, family dynamics, wedding plans, and neighborhood coffee clatches all add up to an enjoyable read.

HOWARD DEAN'S PRESCRIPTION FOR HEALTHCARE REFORM (Howard Dean, M.D.)

You don't have to be a Democrat or an Obama supporter to appreciate the time and research that went into this short, but very informative, book on healthcare. Dean divides his book into five sections and, while he is obviously supportive of President Obama's efforts to revamp our system of health insurance/healthcare, he presents well-researched facts about what works, what doesn't, and why.

In part 1, Profile of a Crisis, Dr. Dean writes about the problems with private health insurance, including the incomprehensibility of insurance policies to the general public, the loopholes that allow insurers to drop the individually insured when they develop health problems, and the problems of balancing care with the need for bigger and bigger profits to satisfy shareholders. Small businesses, the unemployed, and the chronically ill suffer most under our current system, but there is no alternative available, no competition to help keep prices down and offer an affordable way to pay for healthcare without draining financial resources. Not enough is being done in the U.S. to maintain health. Personal responsibility needs to be in the forefront of any healthcare reform plan. Right now 2/3 of us are overweight, which leads to more problems requiring more treatment down the line.

Dr Dean discusses aspects of Obama's health care plan and the overall need for a public option in part 2, A Prescription for Healthcare Reform, including a frank discussion of costs and how to pay for the program. As governor, Howard Dean revamped the health care system in Vermont, resulting in better coverage and significant saving to individuals and businesses in that state. Part 3, Who's Been Standing in the Way, covers special-interest groups and why opposition to a public option is so strong. Private insurers, big business, pharmaceutical companies, and conservatives are often opponents of reform, along with individuals who have been erroneously led to believe that the public option will resemble the British or Candian healthcare system. Preying on irrational fears and ignoring the facts have obscured some of the real issues.

Part 4, Shattering Healthcare Myths, is especially interesting because in it Dean presents short summaries of the develpment and administration of healthcare systems currently in effect in many European countries and talks about how some of them might work or not work in the U.S.. He also addresses many of the myths about healthcare reform. Finally, in Call to Action, Dr. Dean encourages everyone to step up and acknowledge their personal stake in healthcare by educating themselves on the facts. He presents fictional scenarios of families like yours or mine and what would happen to them, given certain health or employment situations, with and without healthcare reform. They are not sensational situations, but well thought-out, realistic possibilites.

I would recommend this short (132 pages) book for anyone who has questions about affordable health care. Approach it with an open, inquiring mind. Dr. Dean provides a lot of food for thought and a facts that you can either believe or research further. It's good to have someone, Democrat or not, whose primary concern is the welfare of U.S. citizens address these issues and lay out the facts in an organized and understandable way.

THE FIXER UPPER (Mary Kay Andrews)

The big question is this delightfully light and entertaining novel is, who or what really is "the fixer upper"? Is it the obvious, Birdsong, the dilapidated old house in Guthrie, GA that Uncle Norbert Dempsey left to Mitch Killebrew, or is it something or someone else?

Dempsey Killebrew, Mitch's daughter, is a Washington lawyer and lobbyist who is suddenly fired from her public relations job in the wake of a political scandal that leaves her reputation in shreds and her chance of finding another job nonexistent. She accepts her father's offer to "fix up" Birdsong and arrives to find the house in ruins and occupied by Miss Ella Kate Timmons, Uncle Norbert's caregiver and distant relative to Dempsey. She also finds a hilarious assemblage of local characters, including Mr. Tee Berryhill, Esq. and his father, who take Dempsey under their collective wing as a friend and client.

Dempsey is very likeable and if you enjoy home remodeling you will especially love this novel. She is, in some respects a superwoman (removing all of the tiles from the kitchen floor? sanding all of those cabinets?), while in others she is uncertain, lonely, and vulnerable. She learns well from her past decisions and behavior. This novel may be one of the best illustrations ever created of the old adage "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" (well, maybe not quite as innovative as Olivia Goldsmith's "The First Wives Club", but that involved several women and a collective plan). Her gradual acceptance of Alex's betrayal and his callous disregard for the ruination of her reputation and career spur her to action in a hilarious scene involving Alex and the FBI. This laugh-out-loud novel will be a welcome respite from the endless healthcare debate and economic crisis. Andrews always provides light reading at its best: appealing characters an settings, a story you can sink your teeth into, and generally hilarious situations that you KNOW could never happen but somehow seem like maybe they could.

THE WEDDING GIRL (Madeline Wickham)

I love both Madeline Wickham and her alter-ego, Sophie Kinsella, but I still can't figure out if they are really merging into one person or if it is just coincidence that Wickham's novels have definitely moved from literary fiction (more like Joanna Trollope) to chick lit. I really can't complain, though, because Wedding Girl was a delight to read, filled with quirky, interesting characters and desperate situations.

Milly, who is the "wedding girl", is engaged to be married and the wedding is in just a few days. Milly has been playing the role of the perfect fiance for months, convinced that her fiance, Simon, expects her to be the modern man's Barbie doll, successful, intelligent, and beautiful. Simon is the son of successful entrepreneur Harry Pinnacle, who abandoned his son at a young age but became a part of his life once again when Simon's mother died 10 years before. Simon's relationship with his father is built on resentment and is constantly tetering on the brink of collapse. Milly's mother, Olivia, is a manic social-climber (think Hyacinth Bucket with a career) whose successful bed and breakfast hotel seems to take precedence over her husband, James, and her marriage. Milly's older sister Isobel is a successful language interpreter who arrives home for the wedding with a secret, and Aunt Esme, Milly's godmother, harbors secrets as well that could ruin Milly's opportunity for happiness.

In the excitement of preparing for the wedding Milly has neglected to tell her intended and her family one important thing: that she married a gay man 10 years before so he could stay in the country, and now she is not sure whether she is divorced or not. When a young photographer arrives to capture all of the wedding preparations and festivities, he and Milly recognize each other from a past brief meeting on the sidewalk after her first wedding, and eventually things begin to fall apart.

This would make a terrific romantic comedy film. It's too bad that Hugh Grant is too old to play 29-year-old Simon, because he would be perfect in the role. In the meantime, enjoy the book!

DUNE ROAD (Jane Green)

This is an interesting novel because it is so immediate, so timely. Several of the characters are immersed in personal problems that are directly connected to our current financial crisis. This is women's fiction, not a Wall Street thriller, but the author does an excellent job of creating a realistic and entertaining picture of how our failing financial system affects the affluent families who have over-extended themselves and how the culture of the rich reacts when one of their own loses everything. The novel is set in Fairfield County, CT, where Green lives, so the resident famous author, elite shops, and private schools are realistic and the characters are believable.

The main character in Dune Road in this novel is Kit, a divorced mother of two whose supposedly happy marriage succumbed to her husband's focus on his successful career in the city and subsequent neglect of his family;'s emotional needs. Kit's 2 best friends are Charlie, another Wall Street wife, and Tracy, who owns and runs a popular local yoga studio. As with any good women's fiction, everyone either has a secret or is oblivious to the fact that their world is about to come crashing down. Is there romance? Of course, but it's not the focus of the novel. Is The story realistic? Who can say. Is the ending satisfying? Yes. I enjoyed Dune Road and other fans of Jane Green, Nancy Thayer, or Elin Hiderbrand will as well.

PERFECTION: A MEMOIR OF BETRAYAL AND RENEWAL (Julie Metz)

I started reading Perfection as I was preparing to move the book from the library's workroom to our NEW area. I was immediately drawn in to Metz's story of a woman suddenly widowed, left with a young daughter and a life in turmoil. The marriage was stressful and Henry, the late husband, left behind a complicated tangle of questions and problems for Julie and Liza, her daughter, to unravel. One surprising aspect of this story for me was that it is a nonfiction memoir, a fact that for some reason totally escaped me until I reached the end of the story and realized that the main character had the same name as the author! Duh!

Anyway, despite the fact that I am unable to distinguish nonfiction from fiction (bad trait for a librarian!), I would recommend this book. Julie Metz's willingness to open herself to scrutiny and to expose her innermost feelings about herself and her marriage to the world results in a memoir that is painful to read in many ways, but also reassures that reader that life can go on, even joyfully, after grief and betrayal. Metz presents herself as a real person with flaws, one who makes mistakes and shares responsibility for the less-than-perfect marriage that ends with her husband's death. She took the high road with this memoir when she could have presented herself as the pitiable victim. She's a strong woman who has worked hard to achieve peace and tranquility in her life. I don't think I could ever open my life to this kind of intimate scrutiny, but Metz does it in a way that makes you admire her courage.

INNOCENT TRAITOR (Alison Weir)

Meticulously researched and beautifully written, this is one of Weir's 2 works of historical fiction. Innocent Traitor is the story of Lady Jane Gray, whose brief claim to the throne of Britain ended in her beheading at the tender age of 16. The novel is written from several points of view: Jane, her mother Frances, and Queen Katherine Parr, Henry VIII's last wife. Frances is an abusive mother, perpetually disappointed by her failure to produce a son and her failure to achieve the social status that she feel her family deserves. She is an embittered social climber who lacks any empathy or motherly instincts. Katherine Parr, by contrast, is a warm, loving woman whose interest and attention provide Jane with her only experience of maternal love and attention aside from her nurse, Ellen. The character of Jane is a bit troubling as she is portrayed her as unnaturally intelligent and well-spoken beyond her years. At the age of 4 she seems to have the personality of a 20-year-old!

This novel is rich in historical details, especially concerning the conduct of everyday family life and the customs of the royal court. As we all know, though, it does end badly. If you are not in the mood for a sad outcome, this might not be the book for you, but if you love attention to historical minutiae, pick this one up. You won't be able to put it down.

DESERTER: MURDER AT GETTYSBURG (Jane Langton)

Jane Langton's Homer and Mary Kelly mysteries are always delightful reading. Homer, a (now) retired professor and Mary, a librarian/scholar, married later in life and enjoy a mutual love of historical and literary research. Though somewhat advanced in years, both are active, young at heart, and always ready to tackle an interesting mystery. Homer and Mary are based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but research pursuits and personal interests often take them farther afield, affording Langton the opportunity to introduce the reader to details of various historical and cultural venues.

In this excellent novel the couple travels to Mary's family homestead in Concord, MA in pursuit of information on Mary's great-great grandfather Seth Morgan, a Harvard graduate whose mysterious disappearance during the battle of Gettysburg has piqued their interest. Their research takes them to the battlefields of Gettysburg by way of Harvard University's research libraries and memorial collections. The reader is treated to a dual storyline: while Homer and Mary follow clues hoping to shed some light on Seth's fate, we also follow the stories of Private Otis Pike, reportedly killed at Gettysburg, and of Seth's wife Ida, who travels to the battlefields in search of her husband despite her advanced pregnancy. Langton's historical research is superb and Homer and Mary are, as always, comfortable and humorous companions on our journey to the story's resolution. Langton's use of Civil War era photographs throughout the book make reading it an especially interesting and somehow more personal experience. Be prepared for a surprise at the end!

PATRIOTIC GRACE (Peggy Noonan)

Peggy Noonan is columnist for the Wall Street Journal and her essays on politics, culture, and current events have appeared in numerous popular and prestigious publications. She is a thinking conservative, a Reaganite whose appearances on various network television news and political shows usually inspire intelligent discussion and respectful debate over the pressing issues of our time.

In Patriotic Grace Noonan does a fine job of analyzing the development of our country's current political attitudes. She emphasizes our need to cast aside the superficial and work together for what is vitally important, the good of our country and the people in it. This book, made up in part of previous essays, was written during the recent presidential election campaign. The author is respectful of each of the candidates as she suggests how they should handle certain issues or deal with specific problems. She criticizes the arrogance and win-at-all-costs attitudes that have been displayed so blatantly in American politics (as well as other arenas) over the past 25 years and suggests that we need to display teamwork and caring and concern for our fellow man in order to return to the greatness embodied in our national history. Overall, her theme is that we as a nation need to get back to basics, to concentrate on again becoming one nation indivisible rather than a melange of warring factions, each out to win at all costs. Patriotic grace is the willingness to put country before self, something that has been sadly lacking in government and industry lately, to the great detriment of our country. Noonan is a thinker and she articulates well what many of the rest of us have been thinking for a long time.

STABBING IN THE STABLES (Simon Brett)

Usually I find that female characters created by male writers are not convincing, so Carole and Jude were a pleasant surprise. These friends, one new agey and plump, the other rather rigid and conventional, make a nice match and strike a realistic chord. When Jude is asked to attempt to heal a lame horse she stumbles upon a man's body in the stable yard. The body is eventually identified as Walter Fleet, retired champion equestrian, stable owner, and notorious ladies' man. Due to the victim's extra-curricular antics, a large number of suspects emerge as Carol and Jude investigate the crime. The police attribute the crime to the "Horse-Ripper", an unidentified killer whose previous crime victims have been of the equine variety, but Carol and Jude suspect that one of the locals is responsible. An interesting cast of characters and village setting make this a very pleasant read.

DEATH AND THE LIT CHICK (G.M. Malliett)

If you long for a worthy successor to Agatha Christie, G.M. Malliet just might suffice. Despite the trendy title, Lit Chick has most of the elements that made Christie the queen of her genre. Attendees at a literary convention are staying in a Scottish Castle, courtesy of Lord Easterbrook, a publisher on the verge of losing it all but for his star author, Kimberlee Kalder. Kalder is the author of a wildy successful chick lit mystery and is honored by Lord Easterbrook with a big bonus, an event that breeds contempt, jealousy, and even rage among her fellow authors. When Kimberlee is found dead in the "bottle dungeon" of the castle, almost everyone is a viable suspect. Fortunately, Detective Inspector Arthur St. Just has been invited to attend the conference as a presenter (shades of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple!), so he is present in the castle when the crime occurs and available to work with local authorites.

Malliet does an excellent job of creating a Christie-like cast of characters and of leading the reader through a complicated series of clues and diversions. St. Just sifts through the facts and eventually calls all of the supects together in the library for the final revelation, and it make sense. Looking back we can see the clues that we missed and how the puzzle fits together. St. Just is a great modern (and more attractive) version of Poirot. I predict that Malliet's St. Just series will be around for quite a while.

HOME AWAY FROM HOME (Lorna J. Cook)

Yesterday I was looking through some duplicate books from our library's collection, planning to discard the extra copies to make room for new acquisitions, when this novel caught my eye. It was short (196 pages) and it looked promising, so I started to read and found that I couldn't put it down. I don't think that this is necessarily "great" literature, but Cook effectively explores the grief and the guilt that accompany the sudden and untimely loss of a spouse. Anna Rainey is devastated when her 36-year-old husband, Dill, succumbs to a brain aneurism. After spending 17 hours at her comatose husband's bedside, Anna adjourns briefly to the ladies' room to wash her face and to apply lipstick so that the first thing her husband sees when he wakes up is not a bedraggled, unkempt wife. When she opens the restroom door she is confronted with the news that Dill has died in her absence. Unable to handle living in their home surrounded by constant reminders of what she has lost, Anna begins her journey through grief by establishing a series of temporary "homes" with friends until she can live on her own.

Some aspects of this book were jarringly unrealistic. I kept wondering if food was decaying in her refrigerator at home or if someone had cleaned it out, or how she managed to complete her taxes (Dill was self-employed), and who was paying her mortgage. Some of these questions (mundane, I know, but being a practical person I couldn't help but wonder) were answered briefly near the end of the story, thank goodness! Overall, though, I found Anna's journey through her first year of widowhood poignant and sad, with touches of humor and spirit thrown in, just like real life! As a counselor for students in a program called Upward Bound, Anna discovers that grief can come in any shape and size or at any age, and that some people are lucky enough to move on with their lives after a loss. This one is worth reading!

KNIT TWO (Kate Jacobs)

Sometimes when you read a book you come to care about the characters and wonder what might have become of them after the story ends.  You can stop wondering about these women!  Jacobs does a great job of picking up the lives of the women of the Friday Night Knitting Club 5 years after Georgia Walker's death.  It was a little difficult to remember the details of the lives of Peri, Catherine, Anita, Dakota, James, and the rest of the cast, but as the story developed it all came back to me.  Dakota is now a student at NYU despite her dreams of becoming a pastry chef.  Her father, James has higher aspirations for his daughter, hoping that she might someday join him in achitecture or perhaps find a successful career as a lawyer.  Peri is managing Walker & Daughter and designing pocketbooks, Catherine has opened a small store, Anita is still, at 78, in love with Marty, Lucie is coping badly with single motherhood and trying to care for her own aging mother, and Darwin is expecting a baby. This is a novel about the strength of women's friendships.  It has a terrific surprise ending, maybe not so realistic, but satisfying nonetheless.  If you enjoyed "The Friday Night Knitting Club" I think you might just enjoy this one even more!

GOODBYE MS. CHIPS (Dorothy Cannell)

One of the most significant details of Cannell's "Ms. Chips", a cozy mystery,  is that the murder doesn't take place until page 200, more than 2/3 of the way through the book!  Interior decorator Ellie Haskell is called back to her childhood boarding school (not a place of happy memories) to help find the missing Loverly Cup, an athletic trophy.  When Ms. Chips, the retired games mistress at St. Roberta's (and whose nose Ellie once broke with an ill-aimed lacrosse ball), is found dead under suspicious circumstances, the search for the pilfered trophy becomes secondary to discovering her murderer.  Ellie and her housekeeper, Mrs. Malloy, are an appealing team.  This is the 13th entry in this series and the reader will have no trouble keeping up with the characters since Cannell does a good job of introducing each of them.  The plot is slow-moving (page 200??), but overall the novel was not bad.

THE WAY WE WERE (Marcia Willett)

For some reason, I am never sure if I have already read each Marcia Willett novel that I pick up.  Some of them have recurring characters, so it is understandable in those cases, but after having read "The Way We Were" I am confident that I HAVEN'T read it before.  

If you've followed this blog at all you know that I like Marcia Willett,  that she is, in my mind, Rosamunde Plicher's worthy successor.  The most compelling aspect of her novels is the setting: sweeping moors, Cornish cliffs, and English cottages with Agas and old sheepdogs are irresistable as far as I am concerned.  "The Way We Were" concerns the present and the past.  Tiggy, pregnant and mourning the recent loss of her true love, travels to Cornwall in the late 70's to stay with old friends Julia and Pete (who is away at sea much of the time) Bodrugan and their 3 small children in the remote, rambling house given to them by Julia's Aunt Em.  Julia is threatened by the constant intrusions of Angela, Pete's former girlfriend, and her unappealing daughter, Cat, whose visits are designed to create discord and doubt in Julia's mind.  Years later (2004) Cat emerges as a central and equally disruptive figure in the lives of the Bodrugan family, creating turmoil and threatening to uncover secrets carefully guarded in the years since Tiggy's death, threatening to break family bonds.  

Family relationships and strong friendships are the heart and soul of Willett's novels, and this one is no exception.  In both the past and the present we see Julia as nurturing mother, vulnerable wife, and devoted niece.  As adults her children make their own mistakes, suffering doubts and conflicts and questioning decisions as their parents and Tiggy did nearly thirty years before.  Willett's characters are both believable and worthy of our sympathy and the Cornish countryside adds the perfect element of meteorological drama (the weather figures prominently in several key events in the novel).  This book would be a great choice for a rainy weekend!

STILL LIFE (Joy Fielding)

This is the second great book that I have read recently featuring a character with locked-in syndrome (see The Second Opinion by Michael Palmer). Casey Marshall is a wealthy, happily married interior designer with a problem sister, loving friends, and the perfect husband. She and Warren, her devoted spouse, have just decided to start a family when Casey is nearly killed by a hit and run driver. In the hospital after 3 weeks in a coma she starts to become aware of sounds, but is unable to move, see, or speak. Like the proverbial fly on the wall she is privy to opinions and conversations that gradually reveal some frightening truths about both her accident and her future. As time goes on her senses slowly begin to return and she regains more and more cognizance of the world around her. Her attempts to communicate with her sister, Drew, become more and more desperate as she senses that she is in danger.

Fielding's novel, told entirely from the point of view of Casey, is excellent. The reader experiences the sensations and frustrations of the locked-in patient first hand, and it is frightening. This is a great thriller. The pacing is exquisite, the characters, despite exisiting in the realm of the independently wealthy, are sympathetic and, for the most part, likeable. I had a hard time putting it down and I think you will, too!

DEAD MEN DON'T CROCHET (Betty Hechtman)

I just had to mention the second entry in Hechtman's crochet series of cozy mysteries.  As far as I am concerned, you just can't beat a good craft-based mystery!  In this one, Molly Pink, novice crocheter and events manager at a local bookstore, inadvertently gets involved when the co-owner of the local consignment shop / soup restaurant is found clobbered with a paper-weight and drowned in a bowl of tomato bisque soup.  Her friend Sheila, who was cheated by the victim, is a prime suspect, and Molly sets out to investigate despite warnings by her detective boyfriend to not get involved.  Hechtman has a knack for writing mysteries.  The crochet group is a nice backdrop and a great technique to introduce new characters.  I will have to say that I didn't suspect the actual criminal at all.  In retrospect, I'm sure that I should have, but the ending was a satisfying surprise for me.  I usually focus on characters and setting rather than trying to solve the crime, though.  I'm sure that must be why I didn't!

THE GODMOTHER (Carrie Adams)

It can be disconcerting to read a novel when you have already read the sequal.  In this case it did not distract from the enjoyment of the story (when will she meet James?), but there were a few inconsistencies in names and ages that threw me off a little.  Lainey, Martha, and Barbara  in this book become Lulu, Maddie, and Bea in The Stepmother, while Amber, who figures so prominently in the other, seems to not exist at all here.  I think Caspar aged quite rapidly from novel to novel as well!  I shouldn't be nitpicking, though. Adams is a writer who can carry off a few name-changes and inconsistencies.  I thoroughly enjoyed The Godmother.  Adams gets right into the heart and soul of a wonderful young woman who loves her godchildren with all of her heart but is tired of being on the edge of everyone else's  family and longs for a "life" of her own.  Tessa is the kind of friend everyone would like to have - level-headed in a crisis, consoling when tragedy strikes, always there when she is needed.  She DOES make mistakes in judgement, but she can be forgiven because her heart is full of love for her friends and her parents.  I hope that Adams continues with Tessa's story in the future.

THE SECOND OPINION (Michael Palmer)

Palmer's latest medical thriller has an added dimension that sets it apart from his previous novels. Dr. Thea Sperelakis returns home to Massachusetts from the Congo, where she has been working with Doctors without Borders, after she has been informed that her father, Petros, also a physician, has been critically injured in a hit and run accident. A series of disturbing events and a conversation with her quirky, but brilliant brother Dimitri soon convinces Thea that her father's accident was, in reality, a deliberate attempt to kill him. Thea herself is soon caught up in trying to protect her comatose father from further harm while figuring out who can be trusted. Even her other older brother and sister, twins and physicians as well, may not be trustworthy. Palmer has created a fresh and charming character in Thea, a doctor who is afflicted with Asperger's Syndrome. For those of you who are not familiar with this condition, Asperger's is a neurological disorder characterized by an impaired ability to interpret social clues, such as facial and verbal expressions, by intense interests, and by high sensitivity to environmental stimulation. "Aspies" are often highly intelligent and excellent at memorization. Thea's lifelong struggle with Asperger's adds an aspect to the character that sets her apart from your run of the mill "female-doctor-in-jeopary". Her literal interpretation of questions and comments, her logical approach to outfoxing her enemies, and her budding romantic relationship with security guard Dan Cotton all add to her appeal. I think that Michael Palmer has done a superb job of showing us Asperger's from the inside looking out while seamlessly incorporating the syndrome into a terrific thriller.

As an added note, there is an excellent interview about Asperger's Syndrome included at the end of this novel. Palmer's son was diagnosed with Asperger's at age 4 (I have a family member who was not diagnosed until age 20). If you have an interest in learning more about Asperger's be sure to read these pages.

COVER YOUR ASSETS (Patricia Smiley)

The cover of this mystery has a quote from Janet Evanovich describing the novel as "a real treat", and she is right! I really enjoyed sleuth Tucker Sinclair, a smart, determined management consultant with a wacky movie star mother named Pookie, a silver Boxter, and an adorable dog named Muldoon. In this entry Tucker is called upon by old friend Cissie Brice to help her clean up loose ends after the murder of Cissie's husband Evan, who also happened to be Tucker's fiance in college before she caught Cissie and Evan in flagrante delicto. Tucker is drawn into the investigation of Evan's death after she is asked by Cissie to clean out Evan's apartment, which he purportedly used to unwind from the demands of his career as a successful Hollywood agent. Tucker's natural curiosity, analytical skills, and daredevil tendencies lead her through a series of almost believable adventures, including a car chase, a mugging, and a desparate search for a lost dog. This promises to be a solid mystery series with likeable characters and very logical, well-thought out plots.

The Stepmother (Carrie Adams)

What can be better than discovering a wonderful new author? Since this is only Carrie Adams' second novel (and I haven't read the first yet!) there is the promise of great things to come in the years ahead.

First of all, to the casual observer this would seem to be chick lit. The cover art, the premise (woman decides that she loves her ex-husband and wants him back just as HE announces that he is engaged to a younger woman), and the book jacket all suggest an entertaining light read. Inside, however, the reader is quickly drawn into the lives of two very different women. One is Bea, who ended her marriage to James 4 years previously. Bea is an overweight and unhappy supermom to 14-year-old Amber, 9-year-old Lulu and 8-year-old Maddie. She has maintained a good relationship with James over the years and of late has come to the realization that things might be much better if the family reunites. Tessa King is a 38-year-old business woman who believes she has finally found the love of her life in James and is determined to win over his three daughters, especially the recalcitrant Amber, who has her father wrapped around her little finger. Over the course of the novel we witness a complex interweaving of relationships and resulting difficulties involving extended families, broken marriages, addiction, and adolesence. The unique aspect of this novel is the technique of alternating between the viewpoints of the two female protagonists in four-chapter segments in real time. While we are experiencing Bea's life, Tessa's continues on out of sight. As we rejoin Tessa she takes up at the point in time where Bea left off, and so on. I found this to be a very effective way of telling the story.

I am looking forward to reading Adams' "prequal", The Godmother, and whatever comes next!

THE GRIFT (Debra Ginsberg)

As a child, Marina Marks lives a nomadic life with her drug-dependent single mother. One day they meet an old woman, a psychic who proclaims that Marina also has “the gift”. This encounter prompts Marina’s mother to exploit her young daughter into “grifting” people who are desperate to know what the future holds for them. For years after her mother’s death Marina, who does NOT believe in psychic abilities, continues to work in Florida as an “intuitive counselor”, using her remarkable powers of observation and perception to build a lucrative career and eventually achieve her goal of settling in California. Before moving to the West coast, however, she reluctantly accepts a valuable ruby ring from one of her regular clients, Mrs. Golden, who begs her to wear the ring, claiming that this is the only way to protect her son from harm. Intending to return the ring after a few months, Marina loses touch with Mrs. Golden and is unable to do so, so she continues to wear the ring to “safeguard” Mrs. Golden’s son. In California she develops a new client base, including a woman desperate for a child, a gay man in love with a psychiatrist who in denial about his sexual orientation, and a philandering businessman. She also falls in love for the first time. Eventually, a series of frightening and enlightening events in Marina’s life lead her to question whether her psychic abilities truly are a “grift” or a gift. Her quest to find meaning in her increasingly strong and disturbing visions captures the reader’s interest, making this a novel that is hard to put down.

The Grift is a well-written and unusual novel and offers something for everyone, including love, murder, paranormal events, arson, and illicit sex. It encompasses several genres, but defies categorization in any one.

MALLETS AFORETHOUGHT (Sarah Graves)

I seem to be on mystery roll this week! This is one of Sarah Graves' "Home Repair is Homicide" series, starring Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree, a former Manhattan financial manager transplanted to Eastport, Maine. She moved to Maine to help her drug-addicted teenage son, Sam, straighten out, leaving her career and her ex-husband Victor, a brain surgeon, behind. Eventually Victor, finally accepting his son's problem, also moves to Maine and opens a state of the art hospital. Jake, in the meantime, is happily married to Wade, has Sam on the right track, and has embarked on a new career as a home renovator with her friend Ellie.

Unlike most cozy heroines. Jake is not all that innocent. Her father is a 60's radical on the lam and she apparently was involved in providing financial advice for some rather shady characters back in the Big Apple before her move to the seacoast. Some of these associations come back to haunt her in the novel, which revolves around the renovation of Harlequin House, the former home of Ellie's Great Uncle Chester. Chester disappeared years ago in disgrace, apparently responsible for the murders of three young woman and possibly linked to the disappearance of a socialite. Jake and Ellie, who is 9 months pregant, discover the socialite's body in a sealed room along with the body of an unscrupulous local businessman and soon Ellie's husband George is a prime suspect in the crime. Of course Jake manages to solve both a modern mystery and the one that has shrouded Harlequin House and Uncle Chester for decades. Fans of home repair will enjoy this one and may even learn about some new tools and techniques for spiffing up your own home. I did!

CREAM PUFF MURDER (Joanne Fluke)

There are some very good reasons for this particular entry in the Hannah Swenson series to be included in this week's top ten New York Times best sellers. I wouldn't call it classic literature, but it is definitely a great mystery and well worth reading. One word of caution, though...you REALLY have to like cookies! If you didn't at the beginning you certainly will find them appealing by the time you finish this cozy!

Fluke introduces her recurring characters in each book with enough detail to satisfy a new reader, but subtlety enough to avoid boring anyone who has read the whole series. In this particular mystery she also throws in enough convincing red herrings that the reader begins to fear that perhaps one of the "regulars" has turned to murder, and the ending, while very logical, is unexpected and satisfying. Two things that I especially enjoy about Fluke's series are Hannah's struggles with weight (how could you not if you bake cookies for a living) and with love (I think I'm seeing a glimmer of the future in this one), two problem areas that have plagued most of us at one time or another. The recipes are great, too. I haven't read a single Joanne Fluke novel that wasn't good, and this is one of her best. If you like cozies and cookies and haven't tried this series, it might be the right time now!

JANE AUSTIN RUINED MY LIFE (Beth Patillo)

This pleasant novel is by the author of The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society, but it is completely different in theme. Emma Grant is a disgraced Austen scholar who has lost her marriage, her career, and her reputation thanks to the machinations of her unfaithful husband and his new love. She flees to her cousin's house in London to pursue the lost letters of Jane Austen in hopes of resurrecting her ruined career. The letters are supposedly in the possession of Mrs. Gwendolyn Parrot, who sends Emma on a series of Austen-related adventures that ultimately teach her as much about herself and her marriage as about Jane Austen. During the course of her stay in England Emma, like Austen's heroines, finds love, but, more importantly, she rediscovers herself. The ending of this novel will be a surprise, but not a disappointment.

THE SISTERS MALLONE: UNA STORIA DI FAMIGLIA (Louise Ermelino)

This is an interesting book, a easy read in terms of style, but one that is very thought-provoking and full of glimpses into the lives and roles of women in the the 1920's and 1950's. The Mallone (pronounced "Maloney") sisters are Mary, Helen, and Gracie, Italian orphans brought up by their tough immigrant grandmother, Anona, in the Irish Hell's Kitchen area of New York City in the 1920's. Living with Anona, who is crusty, abrasive, and wierdly spiritual, in a female-centered household, the girls grow up on the streets. Mary and Helen, the older girls, roam the neighborhood dressed as boys and working as lookouts for local mobsters during the Prohibition era. As adults they continue living on the edge. Wild Mary takes up with a mobster and Helen, widowed when her Irish husband is killed under a delivery truck, frequents lesbian bars. Always, though, they protect Gracie, the youngest, whose marriage to handsome, philandering mama's-boy Frankie Merelli teeters on the brink of collapse until Helen and Mary finally take matters into their own hands.

The four female characters in this novel are united in their strength and intense sense of family. They are passionate, loving, and living on a completely different moral plane than most of us. Ermelino does a wonderful job of bringing the Italian family and the world of Hell's Kitchen to life in vivid technicolor!

CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT (Laurie Viera Rigler)

If you are hooked on Jane Austen and have imagined yourself as one of the Bennett sisters, or as Elinor Dashwood or Emma Woodhouse, this book will definitely be your cup of tea. Courtney Stone, a hip 21st century woman who has just broken off with Frank, her unfaithful fiance, awakens one morning to find herself very definitely NOT herself. Not only is she in a strange house in another country, but she has somehow been transported back to the era of her favorite author, Jane Austen, and she has literally become another person named Jane Mansfield, 30-year-old spinster daughter of a wealth British family. The problem is that everyone recognizes her as Jane and believes that she has suffered a memory loss as a result of a fall from a horse. Little by little, after numerous social mistakes, Jane/Courtney begins to appreciate her new life and discovers to her surprise that some of Jane's memories are coming back to her. Jane/Courtney's initial introduction to English society is comical. One especially enjoyable scene is when she spots Jane Austen (the REAL Jane Austen, who has been dead for almost 200 years!) in a shop and behaves in usual modern day fan fashion, gushing to an shocked Miss Austen about how wonderful her novels are (including some of the unwritten ones!) and even telling her about the films that will eventually be made from those novels.

The ending of this sweet novel will not disappoint Jane Austen fans, although it does come as sort of a surprise. This is great light reading for anyone who is tired of winter and looking for a distraction from real life.

BREAK A LEG DARLINGS (Marion Babson)

Many mystery series allow you the opportunity to read non-consecutively; each novel includes a brief introduction to the ongoing characters and their relationships as well to the community in which the action takes place. This novel, unfortunately, is not one of those. Trixie and Evangeline, the main characters in this quirky novel, are aging actresses who are looking for a play in which to star and, with this goal in mind, attend a series of 'pub theater" productions. While the novel itself is interesting enough, it would have been so much more interesting to read if one didn't have to spend nearly the whole 184 pages trying to figure out the who, what, where, and why of the main characters. I didn't realize that Martha was Trixie's daughter until about 1/3 of the way through the book and I wasn't quite sure if Trixie and Evangeline, who live together, were old friends or something more. I enjoyed the descriptions 0f the different pubs and the characters who seemed to be staples in the series, but I have to admit that the mystery left a little to be desired. Sweetums, a rival aging actress, dies tragically in the middle of the book, but it isn't until the very end that anyone even considers the possibility of murder. The reader is left out of almost all of the plotting and planning leading up to the finale and it is not clear who exactly is supposed to be the sleuth in all of this. I have read some of Marion Babson's other mysteries and I wouldn't NOT recommend this one, but I would caution the reader to just sit back and enjoy the atmosphere if you haven't read any of the previous Trixie and Evangeline mysteries. It's confusing, otherwise!

VERY VALENTINE (Adriana Trigiani)

Often when you stroll through a museum or gallery, or perhaps just flip though an art history book, some particular work will take your breath away. It might be an almost perfect interplay of light and shadow or a certain color combination that suddenly brings your senses to life. When this happens you might seek out other works by the same artist, hoping to find more of the same. This is how I feel about Adriana Trigiani's novels. Each one is different, yet they share a common sense of richness and color. Trigiani uses words as an artist uses his or her medium the express her unique view of the world. I think she will always be one of my favorites.

Very Valentine is the story of an Italian woman, the middle child and the "funny one", who left her career as a teacher to apprentice as a cobbler in the family business, the Angelini Shoe Company, creators of custom wedding shoes since 1903. Valentine's grandmother, Teodora, owns the building, on the banks of the Hudson River, that houses both the shoe company and the home that she shares with Valentine. Valentine is an observer, a philosopher, and a romantic. She provides the reader with rich and satisfying observations of the people in her life and the world around her, including the river, food, New York, and the Tuscan countryside. Don't make the mistake of thinking that this is just a romance, as the title and cover art suggest. It does include romance, though, as well as many fascinating insights into the custom shoe business, Italian custom and culture, and human relationships of all shapes and sizes. Valentine is endearing and inspiring, a heroine whose love of family and of her craft make her a memorable character and a joy to experience.

HOOKED ON MURDER (Betty Hechtman)

Oh, how I have been longing for a mystery built around crochet! Those of you who have read previous posts know that I love yarn and always enjoy a good book that features knitting, but my own passion is crochet. This is the first in Hechtman's new series. Our heroine, Molly Pink, is a widow of one year who works in the Shedd and Royal Bookstore, which hosts a crochet group that is creating an afghan for charity. When Molly stumbles upon the body of the group's leader (and her late husband's business partner), Ellen Sheridan, she becomes the chief suspect, at least in the eyes of her romantic rival, Officer Heather. Molly gets involved with crocheting as a way to learn more about the group and hopefully discover a motive for murder. This is a charming mystery with likeable characters and the requisite hint of romance with, you guessed it, a member of the local law enforcement establishment! Check this one out!

MURDER AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (Margaret Truman)

I was pleasantly surprised by Margaret Truman's capital crimes series. I have to admit that I wasn't sure what to expect, whether Truman's success as an author was due primarily to her name or to her talent. As it turns out, she is a fine mystery writer if this book is any indication. Her sleuth, Annabel Reed-Smith, is not flaky, trendy, haunted by tragedy, or looking for love as are so many of our modern mystery heroines. In fact, she is an attractive lawyer-turned-gallery owner approaching middle age and happily married to a slightly older man with knee issues. When asked to write and article for a prestigious publication's special Christopher Columbus issue, Annabel commits herself to two months of research at the Library of Congress and, naturally, a case of murder eventually interferes with her work. Truman has created believable characters and a solid mystery that holds the reader's interest. I think that the most fascinating aspect of this novel is her insider knowledge of the workings of Washington, DC and its many government and historical entities. As a librarian I was, naturally, fascinated with her fictional library staff and how she skillfully intertwines them with real people, places, and traditions connected with the Library of Congress. I looked up the Hispanic room on the Internet just to see how its appearance and descriptions compared to hers, albeit 10 years later. I think that Margaret Truman is an author worth reading. It's sad that she is no longer with us!

THE SWEETGUM KNIT LIT SOCIETY (Beth Patillo)

I don't know what it is about novels that feature knitting, but I love them, despite the fact that I crochet! This one is no exception. Patillo, a RITA Award Winner (romance), has produced a thoroughly charming story about 5 women who meet monthly in the small Tennessee town of Sweetgum to discuss novels and knitting projects.

When Eugenia, the town librarian, brings sullen 13-year-old Hannah into the group as part of her "punishment" for defacing a library book, the dynamics and relationships between the characters begin to shift and change. Each of the women has a secret: Merry is pregnant with her 4th child and afraid to tell her husband; Camille, when not caring for her dying mother, is carrying on an affair with a married man; impeccable Esther's perfect marriage is a as much of a sham as her perfectly completed knitting projects; Ruthie, Esther's sister, harbors long-standing feelings for her brother-in-law, the man she left behind 30 years ago when she joined the Peace Corps; and Eugenia, who has convinced herself that the life and career that she has forged in Sweetgum is complete and fulfilling, is forced to question herself and her motivations when someone from her past suddenly reappears in her life. Hannah serves as a catalyst for change as she struggles to learn to trust the new people in her life. Patillo successfully ties up most of the loose ends in this novel, some happily and others less so, but overall the book is satisfying and leaves the reader with a feeling of contentment and hope. There are a few unexplored issues, like Esther's long-ago baby, Alex's marriage, and the nature of Camille's mother's illness, but these are minor points and do not detract from the ending of the book.

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD (Jincy Willett)

Jincy Willett is definitely not related to Marcia Willett, if their writing styles are any indication. Winner of the National Book Award is the story of twin sisters, Abigail and Dorcas. Abby and Dorcas are polar opposites: one is a sexy (well, slutty), plump, blond sensualist, the other a dark, thin librarian who decided long ago to be celibate. This is Dorcas' story, with Abigail's memoir about the events leading up to her current trial for the murder of her abusive, misogynist husband sort of running in the background. The thing that baffled me about this book is the numerous reviewer comments about the hilarity of the story. I chose this as the third and last novel in the First Tuesday Book Club's "Funny Side of Life" theme, but I did not laugh once as I slogged through this book. There were numerous interesting literary allusions, including the final references to Joyce's Molly Bloom, but none that I would describe as funny. Maybe the real life surrounding all of us right now has become too dark to warrant immersing ourselves in black humor, or maybe I personally just enjoy a rollicking romance or a bit of harmless slapstick more. Did you ever see the movie War of the Roses, where Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner ended up falling to their deaths from the chandelier in their escalating efforts to best each other in their divorce settlement? I didn't laugh at that, either. If you want a light book that just makes you laugh, try Dairy of a Mad Bride by Laura Wolff!

SECOND TIME AROUND (Marcia Willett)

One of the greatest charms and also the biggest headache of Marcia Willett's writing is her network of interrelated characters, who tend to appear and reappear in varying levels of prominence in each of her novels. For this reason I am not sure if I have actually read this one before, but I think I have!

In this story, set in Cornwall, three distant cousins, Will, Beatrice, and Tessa, are thrown together as heirs to Mathilda Rainbird's seaside home. The three are very different in age or circumstances: Will is a retired widower, Beatrice is a spinster school matron who has recently left her job and found herself at loose ends, and Tessa is an orphaned 22 year-old-dog walker who longs for a family. Divorced and disgraced in her daughter's eyes, Isobel Stangate was Mathilda's housekeeper and continues to live in the estate cottage. The common thread in the lives of each of these four strangers is the longing for a family and a home. Willett has an admirable talent for zeroing in on the simple basics of life. In this case, the reader see clearly how the bonds that make a family are forged from love and companionship rather than close blood ties. I love the way that Willett's characters think and reason and care about one another without reservation. She has rightly been favorably compared to both Pilcher and Binchy and is, I think, becoming more popular here in the United States. She is certainly one of my favorites. In our current economic and moral climate Willett provides us with the opportunity to escape somewhere hopeful, warm, and comfortable.