ALL OF US & EVERYTHING (Bridget Asher)

If your family is on the dysfunctional side, take heart!  The Rockwells will make you feel like you grew up in a 60's sitcom.  Eccentric Augusta Rockwell raised her daughters, Esme, Liv, and Ru, in her ancestral home on Asbury Avenue in Ocean City, New Jersey during the 1980's.  All  she has told her daughters (presumably facetiously) about their absent father is that he was a spy.  The rest was left up to their imaginations until the grown sisters return to their childhood home on Asbury Avenue after Hurricane Sandy.

Oldest daughter Esme married Doug Toomey and eventually they had a daughter, Atty (Atticus), who is a bullied teenager.  Doug, a teacher, was on a class field trip to Paris when Esme received the news (via a school official) that he had left her for his dentist.  Esme had mostly married Doug because he seemed safe after the mysterious disappearance of her college love, Darwin Webber.

Liv has suffered a breakdown after the demise of her third marriage.  Liv is a cherry-picker, targeting rich men in the New York Times engagement page and marrying them, but over the course of the years this strategy has proven less than successful as a means to finding lasting love and Liv has turned increasingly to medication to help herself cope, eventually landing in an expensive rehab facility.  As a girl Liv had fallen in love with a young man named Teddy Whistler and their story seems suspiciously like the plot of younger sister's Ru's best-selling novel, Trust Teddy Wilmer.  When Liv sees Ru's surprise engagement announcement in the Times, her first thought is that her sister's fiance, Cliff, is a perfect cherry-picking target.

Meanwhile, baby sister Ru (short for Ruby) is in Vietnam, living in a tent with a large local family in order to avoid (1) acknowledging her recent engagement and (2) writing the second novel that the world eagerly awaits.

As for Augusta, Hurricane Sandy has reminded her that life is short, so she begins to wonder about whether it's time to tell the girls the truth about their father and perhaps bring some closure to her own love story.  Thus begins an entertaining journey through the lives of the Rockwells, a family badly in need of therapy.  Will family secrets finally revealed destroy the family or create new connections?  Read it and find out!

THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD (Agatha Christie)

This wonderful novel has been called one of Agatha Christie's best, criticized by some for too many twists and turns and dead ends and hailed by others for the same thing.  The British Crime Writers' Association named it the best mystery of all time in 2012.

Hercule Poirot has retired to the little village of King's Abbot, settling in next door to Dr. James Sheppard and his overly inquisitive, but surprisingly perceptive, older sister, Caroline.  When Dr. Sheppard's good friend, Roger Ackroyd, is found dead in his study, suspects and motives abound.  The prime suspect is Roger's mysteriously absent step-son, Ralph Paton, a good-looking dilettante who has recently become engaged to Flora Ackroyd, Roger's niece, and stands to inherit the Ackroyd fortune.  But, could the nervous butler, Parker, have had reason to dispose of his employer?  What about efficient secretary (and lover of horse races), Geoffrey Raymond, or Miss Russell, the older, but still attractive, housekeeper who asks Dr. Sheppard about various poisons?  Someone was being blackmailed, but is there a connection to the murder?

Dr. Sheppard becomes Hercule's right-hand man as they investigate the crime, following the clues to the surprising conclusion.  Mystery lovers will find the twists and turns, dead ends, and puzzling clues an intriguing experience.  This is Agatha Christie at her best. No wonder her work remains so popular today!

MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON (Elizabeth Strout)

Narrator Lucy Barton grew up in rural Amgash, IL, isolated, abused, and yearning to become a writer.  But what would someone who was raised without television, friends, or love write about?  When we talk about people "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps" or escaping poverty to make something of themselves, sometimes we forget to consider the social foundation that many of us take for granted, that allows is to "fit in" and pursue our goals.  Lucy is fortunate that she has talent and has built a family and a life in Manhattan, far from her childhood environment.  She has a supportive spouse (with German roots that Lucy's war-scarred father cannot abide) to help her realize her dreams and to help her put her "one story" into words.

Lucy is hospitalized for 9 weeks with an unexplained post-surgical infection.  Missing her husband and two girls, she is shocked to awaken one day to find her mother sitting in a chair in her hospital room.  For 5 days her mother, who has never said "I love you" or shown any interest in Lucy's dreams and aspirations, talks with Lucy about random people from their past and about her family, but never about her own feelings or the reasons for Lucy's emotionally confused childhood. But it is the sound of her mother's voice rather than what she says that brings joy to Lucy's heart, easing her isolation and connecting her again with the family that she has left behind.

Lucy's story is told in retrospect, and we learn much more about her during the course of the novel, about the deficiencies of her childhood, the important relationships that have formed her character and her writing career, and of the strength of her marriage.  Strout's novel is simple, yet powerful.  I am not really sure I understood the true theme of My Name Is Lucy Barton, but I believe it is about family and connections and the fact that all of us are the sum of our experiences and relationships.  We are never truly alone.

A WINDOW OPENS (Elisabeth Egan)

We've all faced difficult times.  For suburban mother and part-time magazine editor Alice Pearse, everything seems to be falling apart at once.  He attorney husband decides to leave his prestigious law firm and strike out on his own, burning his bridges behind him and soothing himself with alcohol.  Her beloved father suffers a recurrence of the throat cancer that robbed him of his voice ten years before.  Alice accepts what sounds like a dream job to shore up the family finances while her husband builds his new law practice, but her dream gradually turns into a nightmare of juggling family obligations, work responsibilities, and some questionable ethical issues.  Soon Alice is exhausted and missing her role as hands-on mother.

This isn't traditional "chick lit."  There are no shopping emergencies or blossoming romances.  A Window Opens is about a woman in danger of losing sight of what's really important in life while she struggles to be everything to everyone.  I don't mean to sound like this novel is depressing, either.  It's a wonderful story about human beings dealing with what life dishes out, supporting each other in good times and bad, maintaining friendships, doing what's right, and recognizing that love is the most important component in a life well lived.

Just one more note:  I'm wondering if the name of the main character, Alice Pearse, is a subtle homage to Allison Pearson, the author of I Don't Know How She Does It, another excellent novel about the problems and pitfalls of working motherhood?

A SUMMER AT SEA (Katie Fforde)

Katie Fforde always makes me smile.  She transports her readers to a different world (unless you live in the UK, in which case things might not be so different!) in each novel and subtly introduces us to an insider's view of a variety of professions.  In A Summer at Sea (which, by the way, is not yet available in the U.S. as far as I know - hooray for Amazon.com used books!) we learn about both midwifery and running summer cruises in Scotland and, of course, there is a happily ever after for all (which makes this a romance).  The thing about Fforde's romances is that they don't involve any bodice-ripping or sinking into each other's eyes.  The characters, especially the women, are always involved in interesting pursuits and tend to be quite practical and self-sufficient.

Emily Bailey is a nurse-midwife in need of a short break.  Conflicts with doctors and husbands who believe that germ-filled hospitals are the best alternative for giving birth have exhausted her, so when her friend Rebecca calls for a favor, Emily requests a leave, packs up, and commits herself to spending the summer in the islands west of Scotland, cooking for guests on a "puffer" steamboat owned by Rebecca and her husband, James.  Rebecca, who usually does the cooking on the boat, is in the last trimester of pregnancy (so we suspect what's going to happen here!).  Emily comes to love both Scotland and James' taciturn brother Alasdair, the local GP, but when an almost-too-good-to-be-true offer to run the new birthing center at the hospital back home comes up, what will she decide to do?  Will Emily stay in England pursuing her new career, or will her heart take her back to Scotland and the people she has come to love?

As soon as this book is available in the US we will be adding it to our library collection.  If you're a Katie Fforde fan who just can't wait, check out Amazon for a used copy.  You'll be glad you read it!