WHILE MY PRETTY ONE KNITS (Anne Canadeo)

Initially, I had a little bit of trouble remembering who was who as I read this entertaining cozy knitting mystery, but I quickly straightened out the cast of characters in my mind.  Lucy, Suzanne, Maggie, Dana, and Phoebe are a group of woman at different stages of life who share a love of knitting and a close friendship.  They meet on a regular basis to knit and socialize at each other's homes or at the Black Sheep.  Maggie Messina, a widow and the owner of the Black Sheep knitting shop, is the mother-figure of the group.  She is also the prime suspect when Amanda Goran, who runs a rival knitting shop in Plum Harbor, MA, is murdered in her store.  When the murder weapon is found in Maggie's shop among the stock that she purchased from Amanda's estranged husband, Peter, the police close in, ready to close the case and arrest Maggie.  I did figure out who the murderer was early on in the book, but this was probably a function of my keen eye for detection rather than a problem with the plot! :) There are a couple of VERY likely suspects here!  I thoroughly enjoyed Canadeo's first knitting mystery.  This is truly a cozy, complete with small town charm, an unlikable victim, an amateur sleuth who is thrust by necessity into the role, and a perfect setting that evokes warmth and friendship.  I certainly plan to read the next installment in this series!

BRAVA VALENTINE (Adriana Trigiani)

Sometimes it bothers me to return to quickly to the same characters and at other times I can't wait to find out what happens in their lives.  "Brava Valentine" is one of the ones I couldn't wait to read.  Valentine Roncalli is probably one of the most true-to-life literary characters that I have encountered.  She is driven yet vulnerable, uncertain and confident at the same time.  She loves her family deeply, yet doesn't always like them.  In her mid-thrities, she has yet to discover what she really wants out of life.  Her career path is certain: she is a cobbler, a creator of custom wedding shoes, the carrier of the family torch.  Her personal life, however, is in chaos as she is torn between two countries and just beginning to consider her biological clock.  She is the unwilling keeper of secrets and the solver of past mysteries.

Trigiani has a knack for mixing humor with pathos, joy with sorrow.  The Angelini/Roncalli family is SO typical, yet so unique, laced with humor, stress, marital angst, and money worries.  They have evolved and become more human since the first installment in Valentine's story and I like them even more now.  Adriana Trigiani excels at writing about love among family members, friends, lovers, and generations linked and unlinked by decisions of the past.  She also provides detailed glimpses into the world of fine shoe manufacturing that are fascinating enough to make me want to know more about the whole process.  I can recommend this novel on so many levels, so I will.  Read it, but read Very Valentine first, if you haven't yet.

EGGS IN PURGATORY (Laura Childs)

Laura Childs' new Cackleberry Club series lives up nicely to her two others.  The Cackleberry Club is a restaurant devoted primarily to egg dishes, but the business also includes knitting and book nooks, so readers can look forward to future mysteries focusing on book clubs and yarn crafts as well as eggs!  The business is run by a recent widow, Suzanne, along with Toni, who has a sort of "reputation' in town and is in the process of divorcing her husband, and Petra, whose husband suffers from Alzheimers.  Suzanne Deitz's physician husband died recently as a result of pancreatic cancer, and now he may be linked to an illegal kickback scheme that could be related to 2 recent murders that hit way to close to home for Suzanne's comfort. Childs throws in a cult complete with a messainic leader, lots of quirky local characters, and some great down-home cooking that all combine into an entertaining and very promising new series.

THE FINISHING TOUCHES (Hester Browne)

One the day of Charles and Diana's wedding, a baby girl is left on the steps of the Phillamore Academy, an exclusive finishing school in London.  Adopted by Lord and Lady Phillamore, the foundling, named Betsy, lives for the day when she, too, can become a Phillamore girl.  Her world is turned upside down when her adoptive parents advise against her attending the academy because she is not the sort of girl who would fit in there.  Instead they suggest that she hone her mathematical skills at university.  She sadly accepts the fact that she is not seen as good enough for high society.  She excels at school but, unfortunately, her career hits a snag and she becomes a shoe store manager while leading her family to believe that she is a successful management consultant.  When Betsy returns home for Lady Frances Phillimore's memorial service she is dismayed to see that the academy is in disrepair and that the classes being taught are hopelessly outdated.  At Lord Phillimore's request she agrees to hire on as a consultant to find ways to improve the school and, hopefully, at the same time find her birth mother.  With the help of her dilettante best friend, Liv, and Liv's brother, on whom Betsy has an unrequited crush, Betsy plans a series of new trial classes and an Open Day to attract new students, all the while fighting against the horrible headmistress and the gold-digging widow with her sights set on Lord Phillimore as her next husband.

Like Hester Browne's other novels, The Finishing Touches is hilarious, heartwarming, and a significant cut above many of the single-girl novels that are popular today.  Her heroines have both a heart and a brain and quickly endear themselves to the reader.  I can't wait for the next one!

THE LONG WAY HOME (Robin Pilcher)

Claire Barclay is a young girl when her widowed mother, Daphne, meets Leo Harrison, a Scottish plant expert who captures her heart.  Leo and Daphne marry and the new family settles in at Leo's estate in Alloa, Scotland.  Leo's two nasty children make Claire feel like an outsider, and Jonas Fairweather, the son of Leo's tenant farmer/mechanic, becomes her only friend.  As the two mature their relationship becomes closer, but when Claire finally declares her love for Jonas she is summarily rejected and flees Alloa to see the world and get over her heartbreak.  In New York she meets restaurant owner Art Barringer and quickly falls in love.

Years later, Claire's mother dies and Claire and Art discover that Leo has developed the beginnings of dementia.  In an effort to help him, they plan to purchase the estate and convert it into a conference center that will include a home for Leo and access to his beloved greenhouses.  They are dismayed to learn that Jonas, who has been helping Leo to manage his finances, also has plans for the property and they come to question his apparent devotion to Leo.

Robin Pilcher has crafted a fine novel, a combination of romance, financial intrigue, mystery, and complicated family dynamics, with a very satisfying conclusion that could easily have been written by one of today's many popular mystery novelists.  This one is a winner.  I miss Rosamund Pilcher's novels, but I'm glad that her son is continuing in her fine tradition!

GIRL IN A BLUE DRESS (Gaynor Arnold)

....A novel Inspired by the Life and Marriage of Charles Dickens.
Young Dorothea (Dodo) Millar is mesmerized by the wit and humor of the brilliant actor / writer Alfred Gibson, a protege of her father, and she contrives, with the help of a becomingly altered blue dress, to win his admiration and his heart.  During her marriage to "The One and Only", a marriage revolving almost exclusively around her increasingly successful husband's wants and needs, Dodo strives to support her husband's career.  Her own problems and desires are lost in the demands of his rising popularity as eight pregnancies deplete her strength and attractiveness.  Eventually Alfred turns Dodo out of their home, publishing a very public and humiliating (to Dorothea) message suggesting that her inadequacies as a wife and mother made it impossible for him, a loving and caring father, to continue with the marriage.

Girl in a Blue Dress is a heartbreaking novel.  It provides us with a very non-idealized view of Dickens the man and with first-hand insight into how his talent and life experience propelled him into becoming the most celebrated and revered writer of the Victorian era.  Dickens spent part of his youth in the workhouse and began working to support his family at the tender age of eight, and many of his experiences from childhood and beyond found their way into his novels.  His talent was indisputable but, if Arnold's interpretation of his life is accurate, he was a megalomaniac whose ego demanded constant stroking.  He had magic, though, and something akin to the celebrity that surrounds today's top athletes and movie stars.  Even his cruelty and his self-serving use of his wife and children did not in any way diminish the public's or Dorothea's love and admiration.

I found the first half of this 414 page book to be somewhat plodding.  Dorothea's depression and inability to cope with Alfred's increasing lack of interest in her, her lack of spunk (she left her six living children behind and regretted that they never came to see her in ten years, never venturing to look at the separation from their point of view!), and her tireless devotion to the man who had cast her out of his life and never looked back, all combine into a portrait of a rather tiresome woman.  I won't even comment on her nickname, "Dodo"!  What makes this novel interesting is Ms. Arnold's detailed portrayal of Gibson /Dickens and the way in which Dorothea begins to come to life and into her own after her husband's death at the age of 58, 10 years after their separation.  After reading this, I want very much to learn more about the literary phenomenon that was Charles Dickens and about his marriage to Catherine Dickens, the real-life Dodo.