NO ONE COULD HAVE GUESSED THE WEATHER (Anne-Marie Casey)

I can't say that this is a typical novel about a group of 40ish women whose lives are in transition, because it has an odd, but not unpleasing, edge to it.  Lucy and her husband have moved to New York after his job loss in he UK and she has trouble adjusting to the crowds and the incessant noise of the city. Successful television writer Julia is separated from her husband and children and trying to find herself after a near nervous breakdown. Christy is already married to a much older, wealthy man and the mother of 6-year-old twins when she realizes what her life could have been if she waited for the right man.  Robyn is the outsider, an unhappy woman trapped in a marriage to a "creative spirit," the main support of her family and unfulfilled as a wife and mother, which may be why she has slept with the husbands of two of the other women.

While not overly emotional or inspiring, Casey's novel is enjoyable.  Each woman eventually travels her own path and finds fulfillment in her chosen relationships.  This is not truly a novel of women's bonding, but it will satisfy those who enjoy that type of novel (like me)!

THE DEAD IN THEIR VAULTED ARCHES (Alan Bradley)

Oh, Flavia De Luce, you just get better and better!  At the end of Bradley's last novel in this wonderful series, Flavia's father announced that her mother, Harriet, who had disappeared in the Himalayas 10 years earlier, had been found.  Of course we have all been waiting breathlessly for this next installment!  Bradley has made the wise (but a little sad) decision that life must go on, and it appears that Flavia will not always remain the amazing 11-year-old detective and chemist that we have come to know and love.  She will soon be 12 and life is becoming a more serious proposition, especially now that Harriet has been found.  When cousin Lena descends on Buckshaw, the crumbling family estate, with her precocious (and weird) daughter Undine, it appears that Flavia may have acquired an apprentice in her sleuthing.  Time will tell!

As the family waits at the station for the train bearing Harriet back to Bishop's Lacey, a stranger whispers a message in Flavia's ear.  Moments later he mysteriously falls under a train and is killed.  Was he pushed or was it an accident?  What did his cryptic message mean?  Flavia is intrigued when she discovers and restores an old home film in which her mother appears to be saying "pheasant sandwiches," the same phrase whispered to her by the dead man.  And why was Winston Churchill there to welcome Harriet home?  For the answers to all of these questions, read this book!  Bradley has written another winner here.  The intrigue, the characters, and the atmosphere get better and better with each novel.  I can't wait for the next one!

THE NINTH DAUGHTER (Barbara Hamilton)

Abigail Adams as sleuth is an intriguing idea.  What I enjoyed most about The Ninth Daughter, though, was Hamilton's minute attention to historical detail.  The author manages to create a seemingly authentic panorama of life in 1773 while treating the reader to charming insights into the married life of John and Abigail.  The cast of characters also includes the rabble-rousing Sam Adams and Paul Revere.  The crime, the murder of the wife of a prominent local man and the related disappearance of one of Abigail's friends, the estranged wife of an older man who is being manipulated by his self-serving children, is interesting.  I was most intrigued, however, by the life of the women of the  era and Abigail's constant concern about her neglected family and household chores!  I would definitely recommend this series to any lover of historical fiction.  Hamilton, who writes fantasy as Barbara Hambly, has done a wonderful job here.  I loved it!

CITY OF LIGHT (Lauren Belfer)

History, intrigue, romance, civil rights - Belfer's wonderful novel has it all.  It has taken me an unusually long time to read this 500+ page novel, partially because of personal obligations, but also because it is so dense with characters, real and fictional, and historical detail that it was hard to keep track of everyone and everything going on. The setting is Buffalo, NY in 1901.  The great Pan American exhibition (where President McKinley would be shot) is in it's final stages of development, giant power stations are producing electricity from Niagara Falls, and the working class are being exploited at every turn.

Beautiful spinster Louisa Barrett is the headmistress of  prestigious girl's school and godmother to troubled 9-year-old Grace Sinclair.  Grace's late adoptive mother was Louisa's best friend, and her father, Tom Sinclair, is the manager of the hydro-electric power plants at Niagara Falls, zealously protecting his project from those who fear that the plants will harm or dissipate the falls.  When a key figure in the project is found dead after an argument with Tom, Louisa begins to question her loyalties while desperately trying to reconcile secrets from her own past.  Excellent book, a BIG novel wonderfully crafted.