GEMINI (Carol Cassella)

Where is the line between quality of life and mere physical survival?  When Jane Doe arrives in a Seattle ICU in a deep coma, Dr. Charlotte Reese is torn between trying to keep her patient alive, at least until she is identified, and letting her go as her condition deteriorates.  Cassella alternates between the story of Raney, a young girl struggling through life with her eccentric, loving grandfather and her strange friend Bo, and Jane's struggle for life in the ICU.  Charlotte is in a serious relationship with Eric, a man with secrets in his past that color all of his decisions about his future with Charlotte.
I have to admit that I had mixed feelings about this novel.  Maybe I'm obtuse, but I couldn't connect the separate stories until I was well into the story.  I felt like I was reading two different books.  Now that I've learned the outcome (which I won't reveal here), I have a better appreciation of Casella's ability to weave two storylines together into a cohesive conclusion.  A few more connections along the way would have made it a little easier, though.  I have to give the author credit, though, for not falling into a typical happy ending.  I won't say anymore because I'll ruin it for you!

BERTIE AND THE SEVEN BODIES (Peter Lovesey)

Lovesey's main character, Bertie, aka Albert, Prince of Wales and King Edward VII, is as egotistical and entitled as you might expect the heir to the British throne to be.  He is also disarmingly clueless when it comes to his own talent (or lack thereof) as a detective  After Bertie and Princess Alexandra arrive at a hunt and house party at the country home of the lovely widow Lady Amelia Hammond, guests begin expiring at an alarming rate.  Actress Queenie Chimes is the first victim, collapsing face down in a plate of pudding with a single clue, a piece of paper with the word MONDAY, tucked under her plate.  When Queenie's companion is discovered dead in a field the following day with a scrap of paper marked TUESDAY in his pocket,  Bertie begins to suspect a pattern to the deaths.  Alix points out a that the words accompanying the bodies match a children's nursery rhyme, an idea that her husband appropriates as his own .  Bertie, with his healthy libido and over-inflated sense of his own brilliance, is a hilarious sleuth.  The period details of the hunt, the elaborate meals, and the morals of Edwardian society, including musical bedrooms, all combine into a delightful little mystery.  Reading more is definitely in MY future!

THE AVALON LADIES SCRAPBOOKING SOCIETY (Darien Gee)

Women friends!  There's nothing like a novel that focuses on women who support and care about each other.  The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society brings together a disparate group: an embittered widow, a grieving unwed mother, an female plumber with a mysterious past, and an older eccentric in the early stages of dementia.  Realistic?  I don't know, but Gee manages to make us care about each and every one of them.


Isabel Kidd has let her house and her life fall apart since her dentist husband left her for his assistant 4 years ago, only to die in a car accident before their divorce was finalized.  He left his new love, Ava, pregnant and lonely, never having had the chance to tell him that he was finally to become a father after years of fertility struggles with Isabel. Frances and her husband are preparing to adopt a baby girl from China to complete their family when they receive the news that their soon-to-be-adoptive daughter has serious health problems. Isabel's next-door neighbor, Bettie Shelton, believes that everyone should scrapbook to preserve their memories and to heal their souls.  Bettie eventually recruits all of the women, some reluctantly, to her scrapbooking society.


When Bettie starts exhibiting strange and sometimes dangerous behavior, relationships and priorities shift for all of the women.  New bonds are formed and old grudges are gradually forgotten and priorities change in each of their lives.  If you enjoyed Lorna Landvik's Angry Housewives eating BonBons or Kate Jacobs' Friday Night Knitting Club, run to the library right now and check this out!

BITCHES OF BROOKLYN (Rosemary Harris)

I was very interested to see what Rosemary Harris would do with women's fiction, since my experience is with her mysteries.  I was very happy to discover that Bitches of Brooklyn is a great mix of female friendship, love relationships, chick-lit, and a little mystery thrown in.  The premise is that 5 longtime friends, Rachel, Claire, Jane, Tina, and Abby, all originally from the Brooklyn area, meet on Cape Cod for a girl's weekend each year.  This time Abby doesn't show up. Instead, she sends a fruit basket and a note saying simply, "I've run off with one of your men."  Each of the women question their relationships, secretly wondering if Abby has stolen her husband or lover, and when a dead body of a woman is discovered at the local train station they fear the worst.

Harris does a terrific job of revealing the evolution of each woman's romantic entanglements and the history of their friendship, with all of its ebbs and flows.  The dialogue is entertaining, the characters are interesting, and the flow of the novel  includes a lot of twists and turns and revelations about 5 women and their years of friendship.  Try it!