SUMMER COTTAGE (Viola Shipman)

When I reached page 300 of this novel I decided it was time to read the author biography in the back.  I was shocked to find that Viola Shipman was actually a man, Wade Rouse!  I'm still reeling from that one!

Adie Lou's college professor husband is a male chauvinist pig whose ongoing affair with a coed named Fuschia is the last straw.  The couple is divorcing and Adie's husband tries to strong-arm her into selling her family's boat and their beloved Cozy Cottage in Saugatuck on Lake Michigan despite the fact that he has no rights to either.  Instead, Adie decides at the last minute to reject the prospective buyer, restore the boat, and turn the cottage into a B&B with the help of her best friend, a lawyer, her college student son, and an old childhood friend who has returned home and taken over his father's business in Saugatuck.

This is a heart-warming story of a middle-aged woman starting a new chapter in her life, learning along the way that history and family are more important than money or  social status and that sometimes second chances turn out better than anyone could have imagined.

THE GIRL WHO WROTE IN SILK (Kelli Estes)

This was a lovely, lovely book.  You'll find your heart breaking more often than not.

Inara Erickson, whose very successful father has been pushing her to accept a corporate position at Starbucks, unexpectedly inherits her maternal aunt's estate on Orcas Island, off the Washington coast.  The island holds both great joy and sorrow for the Erikson family.  It was here that they spent many happy summers, but also here that Inara's mother lost her life in a tragic auto accident.  Inara decides to spend some time in her aunt's house, now hers, and eventually decides to develop the estate into a boutique hotel.  Her father agrees reluctantly to finance her venture.  When she finds a piece of elaborately and expertly embroidered silk under a stair tread Inara is intrigued and intent on discovering its origins.

The reader also becomes enmeshed with the story of Mei Lein, a young woman whose Chinese family is expelled from Seattle in the 1880s under the Chinese Exclusion Act.  The novel begins with Mei Lein's father pushing her off the rail of an ocean liner into Puget sound, and act that is ultimately revealed to be life-saving and motivated by love.

Little by little the author develops the connections between Mei Lien, the story embroidered on the piece of silk, and Inara's modern-day family.  As she works with Chinese historian Daniel Chin, Inara also discovers a deep and, she believes, important relationship that may be shattered when the true story of the silk and Inara's ancestors is revealed.

This was a wonderful debut novel that is apropos in this era of anti-immigration.  Aside from that, it will have your fascinated, incensed, and crying at the same time.  Highly recommended!

THE SHORTEST WAY HOME (Miriam Parker)

This was an interesting book, a little different in its focus from my usual reading.  The main character, Hannah Greene, is a 30-year-old recent MBA who is set to become engaged to her staid, organized, and wealthy boyfriend, Ethan, and start a coveted new job in finance at Goldman Saks in Manhattan.  When she and Ethan visit a winery in Sonoma, California just before graduation, she finds that her goals in life seem to have transformed overnight.  She is drawn to both to the geographical area and to the winery itself and when she is offered a summer job marketing the struggling winery she changes her plans and plans to stay in California, much to Ethan's shock and dismay. 

This is not a romance, but more of an adult coming-of-age story on several levels.  Hannah has issues (a bit annoying at times) with communication.  She hides rather than confronting her problems, as evidenced in her relationship with her mother back in Iowa.  I found it appalling that Hannah never returned her mother's phone calls despite the fact that there had never been a nasty break or falling out between them.  Hannah simply didn't want to deal with her mother due to issues in her childhood.  She also avoided contact with Ethan after he moved back to NY even though they had left their relationship status up in the air.

This is also a novel about wine and wineries, which I found fascinating.  In fact, I can still almost taste the wine described in the novel

I would recommend this novel as a lighter, but also thought-provoking, summer read about the nature of relationships and the choices that we make in life.  Every character at some point has reached a point where they have to choose - Linda and Everett (their marriage), William (his aspiring film-making career), Celeste (her marriage), Linda and Jackson (their relationship), and more.  Whenever I actually remember a story once I finish the last page, I consider it an accomplishment.  When I'm still tasting the wine that I haven't actually sampled, it seems like a book is a little special!

QUEEN BEE (Dorothea Benton Frank)

Dorothea Benton Frank's latest novel is a perfect, hilarious escape for a summer weekend.  I wasn't sure at first because Holly McNee, the main character, seemed a bit Cinderella-like and immature and her mother, the title character, kept bringing Howard Wolowicz's mother to mind!  Holly is a beekeeper who talks to her bees.  She is nearly a slave to her critical mother and has an unrequited crush on the widower next door.  She is, though, kind and creative and full of love just ready to brim over for the right person.  In the meantime, she lavishes time and attention on Tyler and Hunter, the adorable young sons of Archie, the college professor next door.

When Holly's very dramatic older sister (and Mom's favorite), Leslie, leaves her husband and moves back home from Ohio to North Carolina, the Queen Bee blossoms and life takes on a sudden new excitement for Holly.  As her relationship with handsome Archie tanks and Leslie reveals the truth about her husband, Charlie, the family pulls together and embarks on what can only be described as a roller coaster ride of new energy, new experiences, and new hope for the future.  I think what I loved most about this book, once I got past the somewhat depressing beginning, was the teamwork and mutual support that developed among the McNee women and their loved ones.  Forgiveness, acceptance, and self-awareness are themes that run throughout the novel.  I would highly recommend it, but not if you are looking for a quiet, unassuming little novel.  You won't find that here!

THE MOTHER-IN-LAW (Sally Hepworth)

I will admit that I found the concept of this novel intriguing.  Doesn't every married woman feel, deep down inside, that she can never measure up to her mother-in-law's expectations and doesn't every daughter-in-law at some point wish that she could kill her mother-in-law?  However, this is not my favorite Sally Hepworth novel, although I enjoyed it immensely.  One of the negatives was that there was virtually no likable character aside from Tom, the father-in-law.  Tom was a self-made man of great wealth who loved unconditionally and joyfully.  He was the one person who seemed to understand Diana, the mother-in-law.

When Lucy met Diana she had high hopes for a wonderful relationship, but neither she nor her mother-in-law has the communication skills nor the temperament to form a warm and mutually satisfying bond.  Their inability to share their true selves with each other creates a wall of misunderstanding between them.  For example, in Diana's family, each time a new baby is born the grandmother gives a raw chicken to the new mother, so this is what she does at the birth of each of Lucy and Ollie's 3 babies.  Unfortunately, Diane doesn't try to explain (or even understand) this tradition and Lucy, who each time is struggling with a colicky infant, is infuriated by her mother-in-law's failure to actually COOK the chicken for the family.  However, she never asks why.

This is actually a mystery revolving around Diana's death, which appears at first glance to be a suicide.  But was it?  Ollie's sister Nettie and her husband Patrick, plagued by infertility, have spent their life savings on unsuccessful fertility treatments and Nettie is heartbroken that her widowed mother refuses to finance more treatments.  Patrick has been spotted with other women.  Lucy once pushed her mother-in-law in anger, resulting in a concussion.  Ollie's poor business decisions have left the family on the brink of financial ruin.  Could Diana have been murdered for her money?  Running through the story are references to Diana as a pregnant teenager, an intriguing mystery related to Diana's great philanthropy towards unwed mothers.

There is a lot to like in this novel aside from the unlikable characters.  I would highly recommend it.