Review: The Perfect Score Project by Debbie Stier

If I wasn't already anxious about my child(ren) taking the SAT, this book would have made me nervous. I was already nervous though, which was, of course, why I chose to read the book in the first place. And it was a very worthwhile, interesting, and fascinating read, even if it did amp up my anxiety about the kid taking his first SAT this coming June.

Debbie Stier is a single mom with two kids. Knowing that her underachieving son was going to have to get financial aid to go to college and that he was unlikely to get any based on his grades, she determined that his best shot was by scoring really well on the SATs. Unlike other parents who just pay for tutoring and hope for the best though, Stier decided that she was going to figure out the best course of action for him in a far different way.  She decided to take the SAT herself, all seven times it was offered in one calendar year, to go through the various tutoring options, and to take the test at a variety of different testing sites to see what resulted in the best scores. As her project mushroomed into the enormous multileveled undertaking it finally became, she not only challenged herself to find the best options for her son, but she also set the goal of getting a perfect score for herself.

Stier chronicles her journey through the world of standardized testing and the industry that has sprung up around it to help improve your child's scores and chances of being accepted to the college of his or her choice as well as offering tips she learned through her year, some of the history of the test, and the changes that have been made to it over the years. Having taken the test long ago in high school herself, Stier knew that there were changes and that her experience then was not likely to be even close to her son's experience now. Back in the day, we all took the test without any preparation and while some people took it more than once or twice, mostly our initial test scores stood. Now the world of college admissions, in the guise of standardized testing, is far different. Almost everyone takes test prep classes. They determine ahead of time what they need score-wise to be considered at their school(s) or choice and they study and practice in order to hit that magic number. They learn the tricks and probabilities behind choosing a correct answer even when they don't know how to do the math problem, the concept behind the question, or the vocabulary. In many ways, these tests have become a show of who has the best test preparedness and strategies and Stier wanted to make sure that her son had the best.

As Stier progresses through her year of SAT testing, she tries everything and comes to certain conclusions about the usefulness of much of what is on offer out there. And yes, she shares her discoveries throughout the book, but her biggest and most important discovery was how to connect and engage with her kids. She learned how to motivate her son and how to share her enthusiasm about her project without making her kids feel pressured by it. She faces her own failings as a parent and her frustration with her classic underachiever son and in the course of the year, while she chases that elusive perfect score, she finds a way to be just the parent her son needs, even if sometimes she still goes a little overboard and off the rails.

Stier's honesty about herself, her over the top solution to helping her son, and the ways in which it works and doesn't work, is refreshing. She knows that she's a bit of a crazy woman for cooking up this plan and she acknowledges the pressure it put on her son but she also has successes and achievements that are nothing to sneeze at when parenting teenagers. The personal was nicely balanced with the more general information. The test taking tips were definitely helpful if I can get my own son to heed them and the background on the test was incredibly interesting for a nerd girl like me. I loved hearing that I can add 50 points to my verbal score from forever ago in order to bring it in line with today's re-normed scoring. This means I can gloat to my kids that I'm even smarter than I thought I was.  Maybe I'll hold off on that until after they've finished up with their own testing though. And in the meantime, my anxiety about their future performance on the test will likely not abate although this book has made me a little bit wiser about the test and results than I was before.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

Falling For You by Julie Ortolon
Bread and Butter by Michelle Wildgen
Encounters With Animals by Gerald Durrell

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Quiet by Susan Cain
When the Cypress Whispers by Yvette Manessis Corporon
Wash by Margaret Wrinkle

Reviews posted this week:

The First True Lie by Marina Mander
Vintage by Susan Gloss
The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating by Carole Radziwill

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Perfect Score Project by Debbie Stier
Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler
The Girl Most Likely To by Susan Donovan
The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman
Falling For You by Julie Ortolon
Bread and Butter by Michelle Wildgen
Encounters With Animals by Gerald Durrell

Monday Mailbox

Only one book in the mailbox this week but since my daughter has had two dance weekends in a row and my reading has been almost nonexistent, that's for the best. This week's mailbox arrival:

The People in the Photo by Helene Gestern came from Meryl Zegarek Public Relations.

In an attempt to learn more about her mother, an archivist strikes up a correspondence with the son of a man who is pictured with her mother. This sounds like a fantastic and fascinating epistolary novel.

If you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Review: The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating by Carole Radziwill

When you say the word widow, what comes to mind? Probably an elderly woman toddling along on her walker, or maybe some slightly less stereotypical version of an older woman, right? Well, in Carole Radziwill's novel, The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating, this is not the case at all. Her widow is nothing like these preconceived societal pictures of widows at all.

Claire Byrne is only in her thirties when her famous sexologist husband Charlie dies. Claire is away in Texas interviewing a professor for a magazine article when she receives the call that her husband is dead. He had been walking to a meeting with his agent after a tryst with his most recent lover (Charlie, adamant that love and sex could never exist in the same relationship, was incorrigibly and unapologetically unfaithful) when a large bronze Giacometti statue dangling from a crane broke its cables, plummeted downward and crushed Charlie. The realization of what Charlie's death means for her own life is slow to hit Claire.

Because she is suddenly single as a young widow, Claire is not certain how she is supposed to grieve or how and when she is expected to reenter the dating world. As she navigates the world unattached, she learns about herself, her role in her marriage, and how to reconcile what the world expects of her with what she wants to do. She endures dinner parties where she is suddenly seen as a potential threat to the wives there. She sees several therapists. She visits a psychic. She consults a botanomanist. She follows a griot on storytelling walks through New York City. She dates a variety of men and even has an on again, off again casual sexual relationship with famous actor Jack Huxley. Because she is supposed to be finishing Charlie's unfinished book about the charismatic actor, it's like her dead husband chose Huxley just for her. But when she really starts examining her life with Charlie, she discovers that she might not have been as happy as she could have been and his death has given her a second chance to find someone with whom to have that elusive combination of sex and love.  Is that Jack or is it someone else?

Radziwill tells this story with dark humor. Certainly her own experiences played into the story, making Claire's feelings of dislocation and confusion over her new state very realistic. The fact that Claire is a wealthy widow, one who doesn't have to worry about finding work or taking care of a family allows the story to focus solely on her quest for reinvention and a comfortable but new identity. The foreshadowing here is a bit obvious and may be even more so for those who know of Radziwill and her own personal life. But in general, this is a cute and amusing tale even if Claire is, at times, strangely obsessed with having sex again, losing her "widow virginity." It has some moments of nice introspection and poignancy but generally maintains a fairly light air.  Unfortunately, the ending is completely predictable and rushed, as if Claire finding the balance she hopes for in life isn't nearly as entertaining as the search is. A quick and easy read, this would be one to tuck into your spring break bag for reading on the beach.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

Driving Lessons by Zoe Fishman. The book is being released by William Morrow Paperbacks on April 8, 2014.

Amazon says this about the book: Sometimes life's most fulfilling journeys begin without a map

An executive at a New York cosmetics firm, Sarah has had her fill of the interminable hustle of the big city. When her husband, Josh, is offered a new job in suburban Virginia, it feels like the perfect chance to shift gears.

While Josh quickly adapts to their new life, Sarah discovers that having time on her hands is a mixed blessing. Without her everyday urban struggles, who is she? And how can she explain to Josh, who assumes they are on the same page, her ambivalence about starting a family?

It doesn't help that the idea of getting behind the wheel—an absolute necessity of her new life—makes it hard for Sarah to breathe. It's been almost twenty years since she's driven, and just the thought of merging is enough to make her teeth chatter with anxiety. When she signs up for lessons, she begins to feel a bit more like her old self again, but she's still unsure of where she wants to go.

Then a crisis involving her best friend lands Sarah back in New York—a trip to the past filled with unexpected truths about herself, her dear friend, and her seemingly perfect sister-in-law . . . and an astonishing surprise that will help her see the way ahead.

Review: Vintage by Susan Gloss

Have you ever wondered about the stories behind old things? Vintage furniture, cars, clothing? Anything that had owners before you?  I certainly have.  But it's more than just things that have past stories. People do too. And they carry those stories, good, bad, or neutral, with them forward into the future. Susan Gloss's new heart warming women's fiction novel, Vintage, shows this quite clearly.

Violet owns a vintage clothing store in funky Madison, Wisconsin. She is living her dream, working and owning Hourglass Vintage. She has built her store up to be successful and she is generally happy with her life, even if she sometimes wants just a little more, like the family her best friend now has. When the story opens, a teenager comes in to try and return a wedding dress she bought at the store. When Violet tells her that she doesn't accept returns, the girl leaves the dress and disappears before Violet can speak more to her.  Then an older Indian woman comes in to sell some of her saris and jewelry, items for which her Americanized daughter has no need or want. As Violet is consulting with this customer, a man comes in to serve her eviction papers.  Her landlord wants to sell the building to a developer. Violet has first right of refusal but there's no way she can raise the funds to buy the building. Determined to keep running her shop and not think about what moving would entail, both the teenager with the unneeded wedding dress and the older Indian woman come back into Violet's store and then her life as friends.

April is all alone since her mother's death several months prior. She is only eighteen and she's pregnant.  Her college senior fiancé has called off their wedding and dumped her. She is quite smart and has a scholarship to college in the fall if she can figure out how to juggle the coming baby with school. When she meets with Betsy Barrett, one of the women in charge of the scholarship and tells Betsy about her situation, Betsy promises to try and find an internship for April until school starts. As a wealthy philanthropist and an advocate for women, Betsy lights on Violet's store as the perfect place for April to gain some real world working experience. Violet is uncertain about letting anyone touch her beloved store despite needing help with bookkeeping and organization. But when Betsy tells her April's story and she discovers that April is the girl who returned the wedding dress, Violet takes her on. When April helps Violet come up with an idea that could help save the store, lovely Amithi, the older Indian woman, who has continued to sell off the things that her husband has given her over the years, is enlisted as a master seamstress.

Each of the three main characters has unhappiness and difficulty in her life but they all stand on the threshold of something new. And as they each face the different challenges that life has thrown their way, an unplanned pregnancy, long term infidelity, the death of a parent, the search for love, and a growing desire for a child, they do so stronger for the relationship and support they've built amongst themselves. Each of the women is very different and has a distinctive voice. And Gloss has described the feel of Madison as a small but vibrant city beautifully.  The chapters all start with the description of a vintage piece from the store and the tie in between the article and the action of the chapter is well done.  While the resolution of this sweet novel isn't hard to figure out and may be a little too easy, the loving way that Gloss celebrates female empowerment through these women's choices and the value of what has typically been considered "women's work" or solely the prerogative of women and the domestic sphere, like sewing and clothing and fashion, is definitely appealing.  A light and charming read, this take on unexpected friendship and the ways in which women support each other to grow and change is engaging and inviting.

For more information about Susan Gloss and the book, check out her website, her Facebook page, follow her on Twitter or check out her Pinterest boards. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

Review: The First True Lie by Marina Mander

A child wakes up one morning to find that his mother has died during the night and he determines to hide her death. This sounds like a terribly depressing premise for a novel, doesn't it? This is in fact the premise of Marina Mander's novel, The First True Lie. Make no mistake, it is a depressing novel, a heartbreaking read, but it is also very well written and captivating to be inside the head of a child as he creates the façade of the life he wishes he were still leading.

Luca is ten years old and he lives in an apartment with his silent and depressed mother and their cat, Blue. His father disappeared long ago and although Luca's mother brings home "trial dads," none of them last. In fact, Luca's mother seems to have no one save her young son and one friend who leaves on holiday just as the story begins. So when Luca realizes that his mother has not in fact woken up one morning, and, in fact, will never again wake-up, he has no one to confide in, no one to rescue him, no one to help him. Fearing that if his mother's death was to be known he would be sent to an orphanage and his precious cat taken from him, he resolves to go about life as usual, closing the door on his mother's corpse and only dwelling on it when he can't escape the thoughts.

Told entirely from Luca's point of view, the reader is privy to all his thoughts and feelings. And while his mother's death and the inevitable decline of her body in the next bedroom is a horrific undertone to the novel, Luca is very much an imaginative and wonderful child. He likes testing out some pretty impressive swear words. He's got the beginnings of a crush on a girl in his class. And he loves and cares for himself and his cat as only the child of an adult who is frequently incapacitated can do. It is heart rending to watch him reason with himself that he needs to bathe and to brush his teeth so that no one notices anything amiss with him and looks into the situation. His care and concern for his little cat is touching and poignant. Yet it is slightly macabre to see him reason out how he can possibly have a friend over to work on homework without having to explain his mother's absence and how to dismiss his friend's suggestion that the apartment smells a little badly. Luca has long been fairly self-sufficient and his coping skills in the face of this terrible event are impressive but it is sad to see that a child his age is as capable of denial as any fully grown adult is.

Mander's Luca is both older than ten and younger than ten in his reactions and response to his mother's death. His thoughts can be quite mature but then he will do or think something that reminds the reader that he is in fact still a child, a precocious child, but a child none the less. The novel is slight but compelling reading and the unfinished nature of the ending really works in the context of the story, leaving Luca's fate undetermined, his fears neither confronted nor dismissed. The First True Lie will stay with you for a long time after you turn the last page.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler
The Girl Most Likely To by Susan Donovan
Vintage by Susan Gloss
The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Quiet by Susan Cain
Encounters With Animals by Gerald Durrell

Reviews posted this week:

Ajax Penumbra 1969 by Robin Sloan
Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen
Romance Is My Day Job by Patience Bloom

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating by Carole Radziwill
The Perfect Score Project by Debbie Stier
Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler
The Girl Most Likely To by Susan Donovan
Vintage by Susan Gloss
The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

Monday Mailbox

A pair of very different from each other books but still equally enticing joined my shelves this week. This week's mailbox arrival:

Queen Elizabeth's Daughter by Anne Clinard Barnhill came from St. Martin's Griffin.

Elizabeth I is fascinating and this tale of her ward, a young woman she loves like a daughter, who dares to disobey her should be thrilling.

Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid came from Grove Press.

A modernization of a Jane Austen novel by a huge name author? How delectable!

If you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Review: Romance Is My Day Job by Patience Bloom

Who better to understand real life romance, love, and marriage than a romance editor at Harlequin, right? Well, yes and no. Romance cannot be forced. It will appear, or not, in its own time. Patience Bloom's new memoir, Romance is My Day Job, details her own search for happily ever after outside the pages of a book.

Bloom has been a romance reader for most of her life. She devoured the books, watched the tv shows and movies, and fantasized about when her own Mr. Right would come into her life. Her romantic life has ups and downs from her high school years through college, early career, and into adulthood even as much of the rest of her life unfolds along the path she wants live. Bloom has humorously captured modern dating life and the number of Mr. Wrongs you have to kiss before you find "the One." Bloom deftly portrays high school crushes, the intensity of college loves, the awkwardness of online dating, and the uncertainty of finding love after a certain age. She is honest and forthright about her myriad of disappointing relationships, the destructiveness of fighting for the wrong relationship, the desire to take a break from the pressure of dating, and the wariness that comes from long experience. But she's also honest about the sweetness of a remembered kindness, the glow of a potential relationship, and finally the unexplainable giddiness and joy of finding the right person.

The structure of the book is charming as she breaks down the chapters of her life based on the men present in them, comparing them to the heroes in the books she edits, to characters in the shows she watched, and to the stereotypes so prevalent in all forms of the fictional world. Bloom has had some whoppers of bad experiences in her dating life but she's had some pretty universal experiences too and her continued optimism is a nice change from the usual cynical stance about finding love and companionship. While the memoir focuses in large part on her romantic explorations, it also lays bare her relationships, both good and bad beyond repair, with family, her brother, her mother and stepfather, and her father and his wife. All of this adds up to a funny and quick reading book. It is perfect for those who love their happily ever afters in romances but sometimes despair over the lack of realism. A book with the subtitle A Memoir of Finding Love at Last must surely promise the best of both worlds and Bloom does deliver.

Review: Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen

Often in life, our memories of a place are intimately connected to how we felt when we were there. We love places where we were happiest and dislike places where we were unhappy or disappointed. This is especially true if the feelings were particularly vivid. In Sarah Addison Allen's newest novel, Lost Lake, the magical, rural Georgia, lakeside resort of Lost Lake is a place that holds the happiest of memories and the power to heal for a whole cast of characters.

Kate lost her husband in a freak accident a year ago. She has been frozen in grief since then, sleepwalking through her life and unable to be present even for her seven year old daughter Devin. Her indomitable mother-in-law Cricket has stepped in and managed Kate's life when she couldn't do it herself but she has also imposed new, unwelcome rules. While Kate appreciates the help, she wakes up, literally and figuratively, on the morning that she and Devin are moving out of their house and into Cricket's and takes stock of everything. Realizing that she needs to make amends to her daughter for the difficult past year and for allowing Cricket to bulldoze them, she stumbles across a postcard from her great aunt Eby and decides that she and Devin will go and visit Eby and Lost Lake, a place that holds wonderful, warm memories for Kate and that she hasn't visited in many years.

But Kate could be too late. Eby has decided to finally sell Lost Lake to the developer who has been trying to get his hands on the property for years. She and her late husband, George, bought Lost Lake decades before and they loved and cared for the resort and the eccentric cast of characters who came there to spend their summers, a couple of whom descend on Eby for this final summer despite her insistence that she is selling the place and that it's not open. When Kate and Devin drive up the neglected track to the lake, Kate knows nothing of this.  She just wants to recreate the happy childhood summer she remembers for her daughter and to reconnect with the great aunt she always liked.

Kate learns new things about her own family, about Eby and George's long love story, and about the magic behind Lost Lake as she and Devin settle into the neglected resort. They are not alone, joined by Lisette, a mute French woman who has lived as the cook and Eby's closest friend at Lost Lake for decades; Bulahdeen, an elderly woman who counts on Lost Lake every summer; Selma, the man-eating enchantress who is Bulahdeen's friend and thorn in her side; and Jack, the quiet man who has long harbored unspoken feelings for Lisette. And when Kate ventures into town, she runs into Wes, the boy she was falling in love with so many long summers ago. But as much as none of them want Eby to sell, she has agreed and so she spends her days deciding what she can part with and saying her goodbyes in each corner of the resort. The town isn't quite ready to say goodbye to Eby though either now that it's imminent. Having depended on her good sense and kindness for years, they organize a huge farewell party to celebrate her and Lost Lake.

Lost Lake, the novel, is a feel good read about second chances, overcoming loss, healing, and learning to live again.  There is a lot of grief and sadness in the lives of its characters but it is still a hopeful and optimistic tale.  It is about family and love and finding the right life for yourself. Like Addison Allen's previous books, it has elements of magic running through it that easily point to the expected resolution of the plot. And while it is necessary to the plot, one magical aspect is a bit over the top. If you can suspend disbelief for this though, the story is a sweet one. The characters are well drawn and entertainingly offbeat, even endearingly kooky. They end up exactly where they should be at the end of the novel and even though there aren't really any surprises in the plot, getting to the end is over all pretty delightful.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

Up at Butternut Lake by Mary McNear. The book is being released by William Morrow Paperbacks on April 8, 2014.

Amazon says this about the book: In the tradition of Kristin Hannah and Susan Wiggs, Mary McNear introduces readers to the town of Butternut Lake and to the unforgettable people who call it home.

It's summer, and after ten years away, Allie Beckett has returned to her family's cabin beside tranquil Butternut Lake, where as a teenager she spent so many carefree days. She's promised her five-year-old son, Wyatt, they will be happy there. She's promised herself this is the place to begin again after her husband's death in Afghanistan. The cabin holds so many wonderful memories, but from the moment she crosses its threshold Allie is seized with doubts. Has she done the right thing uprooting her little boy from the only home he's ever known?

Allie and her son are embraced by the townsfolk, and her reunions with old acquaintances—her friend Jax, now a young mother of three with one more on the way, and Caroline, the owner of the local coffee shop—are joyous ones. And then there are newcomers like Walker Ford, who mostly keeps to himself—until he takes a shine to Wyatt . . . and to Allie.

Everyone knows that moving forward is never easy, and as the long, lazy days of summer take hold, Allie must learn to unlock the hidden longings of her heart, and to accept that in order to face the future she must also confront—and understand—what has come before.

Review: Ajax Penumbra 1969 by Robin Sloan

I completely and unexpectedly enjoyed the heck out of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. So when I saw that there was a short prequel introducing the mysterious and appealing Ajax Penumbra's back story, I could hardly help myself. Robin Sloan's Ajax Penumbra 1969 is a tasty little morsel of a short story for anyone who thrilled to the tale in the longer book and wants a chance to return to the odd, narrow, and tall bookstore in San Francisco.

The short prequel tells how Ajax Penumbra ends up at the bookstore that will come to bear his name and of his introduction to the mysterious society behind the store. A young Penumbra, working for the college he recently attended, is searching for a rare book, now lost, that was last known to be in San Francisco more than a century ago. He is doing this at the behest of a professor of Occult Lit, a secret series of classes he stumbled into because he very intentionally signed up for a class on sentence diagramming. But once in the course, he finds the work fascinating and continues plumbing the mysteries in it until after graduation he lands the job in the school's library that sends him on his literary quest to San Francisco.

In California, he meets several people who will figure prominently in Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and the reader has a chance to see what his relationships with everyone were from the beginning. Penumbra also maintains a connection with his old roommate at tiny Galvanic College, Claude Novak, a science fiction fanatic and computer programmer in the nascent computer industry in Silicon Valley. With the help of his new friends and his old friend Claude, he will dig into history helped by cutting edge technology and his journey into the mysteries of the 24-hour bookshop will commence.

Definitely written for those who have already enjoyed the longer novel, this is a fun addition to the world Sloan has created. It is interesting to see how Mr. Penumbra got his start in San Francisco and what drove him as a young man. As a tale, it is enigmatic enough that it probably doesn't stand up too well without prior knowledge of the novel but as an additional treat to tack onto the magic of the novel, it is worth a read.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating by Carole Radziwill
The Perfect Score Project by Debbie Stier

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Quiet by Susan Cain
Encounters With Animals by Gerald Durrell
Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler

Reviews posted this week:

Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening by Carol Wall
Two Sisters by Mary Hogan
The Pleasures of Autumn by Evie Hunter
Mrs. Coverlet's Magicians by Mary Nash

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen
Romance Is My Day Job by Patience Bloom
The First True Lie by Marina Mander
The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating by Carole Radziwill
The Perfect Score Project by Debbie Stier

Monday Mailbox

Only one this week but it looks delectable. This week's mailbox arrival:

Chop Chop by Simon Wroe came from The Penguin Press.

A novel about a guy with an English lit degree who must take a job in a ruthless, fast-paced restaurant kitchen in order to pay his rent, this sounds hilarious and crazy in a treacherous sort of way.

If you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Sunday Salon: Funerals and deaths in books

Handy hints I learned just this past week for dealing with funerals or memorial services:

1. If you are going to be an emotional wreck like me, you should have more than one tissue. Not because you'll cry that much (you will) but because wiping your running nose and your leaking eyes with the same one is just gross. Realizing during the service that you've just smeared snot into your eyes will not strike you as funny and help to stop the weeping and rudely loud snuffling. In fact, it might make you cry harder because you are now sad *and* disgusting.

2. Trying to cater a memorial service from four hours away is not the best of ideas, especially when lemon bars are one of the requested items. Cookies will break en route and the Tupperware they are in is guaranteed to slide off the seat, landing on the already oozing lemon bars, denting them and making them stick to the plastic wrap or tin foil with which you've covered them. Good thing no one expects pretty looking food from me.

3. Don't look to the left or right as you walk into the sanctuary after the rest of the people have already been seated. If you didn't like being the center of attention as the bride (I didn't), you definitely won't like being the center of attention as the splotchy, red-faced, nose and eyes leaking, inside of the cheek biting family member of the deceased. Looking left or right will land your gaze on a sympathetic face and you'll have a harder time holding it together than you already are. So eyes forward. Chanting "walk, walk, walk" under your breath should also help distract you.

4. Let your mind wander during the entire thing. Examine the wood grain in the pews. Focus on the stained glass above the altar. Continually try to pass tissues to your weeping children. Remember that you haven't silenced your phone and do so now, slowly. Take the time to mark all of the hymns in the hymnal. But don't, I repeat, don't listen to any of the words unless you want to be wracked with paroxysms of grief. You already know the general gist of the whole thing anyway.

5. Leave your purse at home. You look like an idiot walking down the aisle with it. Unless, of course, digging in it during the service is a welcome distraction. Then suck up the idiocy and keep it with you.

6. When you live four hours away and you know that you aren't leaving your home until the morning of the service, don't, and I really mean don't, put on your Spanx until you've arrived. Riding in a car in Spanx is interminable if you just have to go downtown. When you have to go two states away and then sit through a memorial service, stand at the reception afterwards, and sit at the dinner following that, you will feel like you are being sliced in half slowly using dental floss. And the indents in your flesh may never come out. Note that this constant discomfort doesn't help distract you either. You're crying and you're in pain. Not ideal.

7. And finally, don't feel guilty after the service when you can't remember the names of people offering their condolences to you. Chances are they don't have a clue who you are either or they'll guess wrong and call you by your sister's name. Don't correct them, just smile (if you can, weep if you can't) and nod and escape to the kid table as soon as possible on the assumption that they might need supervision (they don't) and that they'll be having more fun than the rest of you (they are).

As you might guess, I had to endure my grandmother's memorial service this past week. I'm not good at funerals. I could make a good living as a mourner if anyone needs loud weeping and wailing. I don't have enough good clothes to do the rending of garments thing but it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility. Seriously, I am a mess. Oddly enough, having faced a death in my own family, many of the books I've read recently have also had deaths in them. I had to work hard to find books on my shelves that didn't in recent weeks. It's almost like the universe has been conspiring to help me grieve as much as possible. Gee, thanks. Not.

The House of Memories by Monica McInerney, Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening by Carol Wall, Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen, Clever Girl by Tessa Hadley, The First True Lie by Marina Mander, Two Sisters by Mary Hogan and The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating by Carole Radziwill. All of them have deaths as major plot points in them, reminding me over and over again of my own loss even when they have no resemblance whatsoever. And so the book I deliberately chose to read next was The Perfect Score Project by Debbie Stier. No death in that one. But since it is about SAT testing and I have a junior and a sophomore in high school, it has caused me some major anxiety. Grief or anxiety, anxiety or grief. Can't really say which I'd rather face but I think I need something that will wind me up not at all next. Any suggestions?

Review: Mrs. Coverlet's Magicians by Mary Nash

I really don't like to read books out of order, but when it's an out of print children's book like Mary Nash's Mrs. Coverlet's Magicians, I didn't have much of a choice. While there were a few instances where it was clear that I was missing backstory, mostly this cute tale stood on its own.

Mrs. Coverlet is housekeeper, nanny, and cook extraordinaire. Her three charges, Malcolm, Molly, and the Toad Persever can be a bit of a handful, the Toad especially. After a delicious dessert of chocolate chip bread pudding one night that came about by accident, Molly enters Mrs. Coverlet's recipe into a cooking contest without her knowledge. At the same time, the Toad has found a forbidden horror comic and has clearly sent away for something off the back cover. When it turns out that Mrs. Coverlet has won the contest and a trip to New York, she won't leave the children home alone (their father is off on a business trip). It's only after the three agree that they will behave and accept their nosy, persnickety neighbor Miss Eva as a temporary babysitter, that she relents, accepts her prize and hies off to New York for a whirlwind publicity tour.

None of the three Persever children much likes Miss Eva but the Toad, in particular, loathes her. She makes them eat vegetables and do all sorts of other unpleasant non-kid-friendly things. So when she starts acting strangely and takes to her bed for no apparent reason, Molly and Malcolm know that the Toad is up to something.  Could it have something to do with the package the Toad got in the mail just after Miss Eva moved in?  But with Miss Eva safely ensconced in her bedroom, the children have no responsible adult looking after them. And when they discover that their father will be delayed well past Christmas and that Mrs. Coverlet's publicity tour will also run over the holiday, they set out to still make Christmas happen for the Toad.

This is a heartwarming little story with a delightful character in the Toad. The older siblings feel responsibility for the Toad and can come across as condescending to him but that just adds to the realistic feel of this actually unrealistic and magical tale, and the story itself is endearing. It definitely has the feel of a book from the past, a little sweet, a little old-fashioned. There are humorous situations and small worries but there's never any doubt that everything will come out right in the end. Perfect for a kid's story. Children who like the Penderwicks or Pippi Longstocking will appreciate Mrs. Coverlet's charges.

Review: The Pleasures of Autumn by Evie Hunter

Erotica is not my thing. You can be forgiven for not believing me since every now and again there is a review for an erotic romance on here. But seriously, it's really not my thing. And unfortunately Evie Hunter's latest, The Pleasures of Autumn, didn't convert me either.

Lottie LeBlanc is a wildly popular and successful burlesque dancer. But she's not a real person. Sinead Sullivan, the woman behind the teasing, sensual fantasy performer, Lottie, is ready to hang up her corset, drain her bubble bath, and titillate audiences of men for the last time. She's been working as Lottie in order to finance her degree but now she's finished with school and ready to start her new position as curator at the prestigious Rheinbeck Museum in Geneva. Almost as soon as the prim and staid Sinead, opposite in every way from her stage persona, takes her job though, she is accused of stealing the Fire of Autumn, an enormous ruby on loan to the museum. Worse yet, there's footage of Sinead on the security camera taking the priceless jewel. And yet, even in the face of almost incontrovertible evidence, she still maintains her innocence.

Niall Moore is a security expert and investigator. He's large, intimidating, and good looking. He's been hired both by the Rheinbeck Museum to retrieve the stolen jewel from Sinead and by Sinead's very wealthy uncle to keep an eye on her so he doesn't lose the money he paid for her bail. Although the jobs might seem to be incompatible, Niall rationalizes that they are actually complimentary and he moves into Sinead's apartment with her in order to try and suss out the location of the jewel and to make sure she doesn't do the expected runner, costing her uncle an awful lot of money. In addition to his job, Niall is also a frequent admirer of Lottie LeBlanc's show and, coincidentally, the starring act in Sinead's fantasies.

The two have only met briefly before and yet somehow they end up in bed together almost immediately in an explosively sexual morning awakening. Thanks to their intimacy, Niall is convinced that the stunning Sinead, who camouflages her beauty easily under a frumpy ensemble, is actually innocent, until he sees the damning security footage. When he tells Sinead what he's viewed, she pieces this information together with the fact that people keep asking her about when her next show is, despite the fact that no one has ever connected Sinead with Lottie aside from the very few people she's entrusted with her secret, and realizes with a shock that her identical twin sister, whose existence no one else in the family seems to believe, is the one who has committed the crime. She's determined to find Roisin and prove her own innocence. She manages to give Niall a slip and heads to Paris, where she discovers that Roisin is apparently very well know as a Dom in the hardcore BDSM world. It doesn't take Niall long to catch up to Sinead and together they plunge not only into Roisin's world but into their own sensual, charged, sexual relationship as they search for the mythical sister and the jewel before time runs out on Sinead.

The situations and sexual chemistry in this novel are completely over the top. The idea that identical twin sisters who have lost touch after the death of their mother, one sister disappearing with their father while the other is brought into and raised by her wealthy maternal family, both of them finding their way into the adult entertainment industry, both becoming very successful, and yet never coming across each other or having people mention that there are two redheaded spit-fires working in the industry is a bit far-fetched. Even more far-fetched is the idea that Sinead, who has previously found it hard, if not impossible, to have an orgasm can magically and immediately have multiple orgasms with Niall. Both main characters' back stories are vitally important to the tale but they are dealt with scantily in the novel. Niall is presented as a top notch investigator who has all sorts of resources at his fingertips and yet he doesn't connect Sinead and Lottie, nor can he or his connections find anything on the existence of Roisin, making it a little difficult to believe that he's as good at his job as the reader is supposed to accept. And when he does find out about the Sinead/Lottie connection, he is so horrified he can't even be around her and yet later, he is completely sanguine about Sinead bringing Lottie out of retirement for a brief time. It just doesn't add up.  It was hard to suspend belief over and over for the most unlikely situations and out of character actions. Add in that personally BDSM is not my schtick so those scenes didn't appeal to me and it's easy to see why this didn't work for me. For the right audience, this might be a great, if still outlandish romp but I'm just not that audience.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.

Review: Two Sisters by Mary Hogan

Sisters can be the best of friends or the worst of enemies. I know because I have a sister. As complicated as the sibling relationship can be all on its own, what happens when a parent complicates it? When the older sister is clearly the favorite and the younger sister was unwanted from the start and never allowed to forget that she was superfluous to a family that already had the perfect daughter for the mother and a son for the father? Mary Hogan tackles the complicated family dynamics and sibling relationships that result in such a situation in her new novel, Two Sisters.

Muriel has always been the chubby, unstylish sister lost in the golden glow of her perfect, golden, beautiful, older sister Pia. Even into adulthood, she is marginalized in her family, only noticed for her faults, real or perceived. She passively avoids dealing with the toxicity of her mother and the cold perfection of her sister by living in Manhattan on her own and making any excuse she can to stay there away from them. But when her sister calls her and insists on lunch, she can't come up with a good enough excuse to skip, and that lunch will change everything. Pia doesn't act like herself at all and, at the end of the day, she drops a bombshell on Muriel that makes Muriel reconsider her relationship with her sister, how it actually was, how she wished it had been, and how she wants it to be in the future.

Alternating with Muriel's grappling with Pia's devastating secret, is the story of their parents' courtship and marriage. Lidia and Owen have never been particularly compatible in Muriel's memory and as a child she witnessed things that she shouldn't have. She has always kept her shocking secrets to herself though, despite her mother's poisonous behavior towards her and her father's complete indifference to both his daughters. The tale of Owen and Lidia's lives coming together in a whirlwind and the circumstances that led to their marriage explains a lot about their dissatisfaction, remoteness, and the separate lives they have led since Muriel was a young girl, if not about their different treatment of each of their children.

This family is incredibly dysfunctional. With parents who barely acknowledge each other, a mother who actively dislikes her, an older sister who treats her hatefully, a father who is emotionally absent, and a silent older brother who passes through her life with no more substance than a shadow, it is no wonder that Muriel feels unloved and desperately craves kindness. She is vulnerable and needy but the reader can't help feeling sorry for the terrible lack in her childhood. Lidia Sullivant is reprehensible in her treatment of her youngest daughter and Pia is complicit in the ugliness. And yet Muriel is resilient enough, inherently good enough, to offer them both forgiveness, even as their behavior doesn't substantially change throughout the book nor do they show much, if any, remorse about the way that they treated her growing up.

The novel's plot really hinges on Muriel's relationships with her mother and sister and the enormous secrets she carries for both of them. Her father and brother figure into the family dynamic very little and aside from making Muriel feel left out or abandoned, just as Lidia and Pia's closeness does, their impact on her in any other substantive way is negligible. It is hard to care about any of the characters besides Muriel and that makes it tough to read about the regrets Muriel carries with her. Not one of her family deserves an inch of emotion spent on them, especially not from her. Aside from Muriel, none of the characters was particularly complex or nuanced and the almost complete absence of her brother and father from the narrative felt like an oversight, even though she was as good as invisible to them, especially given a pivotal scene with her brother, the only scene with Logan, later in the book. The secrets are rather predictable and the ending is far too redemptive for the story that precedes it even as the reader roots for Muriel to be able to find the love she needs from her family. This dysfunctional drama is ultimately a quick and easy read about family, forgiveness, and the relationships we want versus the relationships we have with those closest to us.

For more information about Mary Hogan and the book, check out her website, her Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

And the Dark Sacred Night by Julia Glass. The book is being released by Pantheon on April 1, 2014.

Amazon says this about the book: The award-winning author on her best subject—family secrets—in the story of a middle-aged man who searches for his father, upending relationships beyond his own and changing forever the way he fits into the world he thought he knew so well.

Kit Noonan’s life is stalled: unemployed, twins to help support, a mortgage to pay—and a frustrated wife, who is certain that more than anything else, Kit needs to solve the mystery of his father’s identity. He begins with a visit to his former stepfather, Jasper, a take-no-prisoners Vermont outdoorsman. But it is another person who has kept the secret: Lucinda Burns, wife of a revered senior statesman and mother of Malachy (the journalist who died of AIDS in Glass’s first novel, Three Junes). She and her husband are the only ones who know the full story of an accident whose repercussions spread even further when Jasper introduces Lucinda to Kit. Immersing readers in a panorama that stretches from Vermont to the tip of Cape Cod, Glass weaves together the lives of Kit, Jasper, Lucinda and ultimately, Fenno McLeod, the beloved protagonist of Three Junes (now in his sixties). An unforgettable novel about the youthful choices that steer our destinies, the necessity of forgiveness, and the surprisingly mutable meaning of family.

Review: Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening by Carol Wall

I do not have the greenest of thumbs. When I bought some of the broccoli, spinach, and lettuce plants that the high school horticulture class had babied along from seed, I brought them home and placed them in the sunniest spot I could find in the house as I figured it was too cold to put these tender little things outside. Two weeks later, they were still alive but crawling with aphids. I painstakingly pinched every tiny aphid and egg I could find every other day while cursing my original impulse to buy them. My daughter mentioned my struggles to the horticulture teacher who told her that they're winter plants and should be planted outside. I breathed a sigh of relief and did that. They promptly died. Clearly I'm cursed. And I don't think I'm meant to garden. So I was intrigued by Carol Wall's memoir, Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening, about her own gardening shortfalls that were turned around by the wonderful man she hired to bring order and beauty into her neglected, overgrown yard.

Carol Wall hated flowers. They symbolized death to her and so when she hired her neighbor's new gardener, Mr. Owita, to tackle her own yard, one of the first things that she asks of him is that he pull out the gaudy azalea bushes a former owner had planted. He quietly ignores this particular instruction as he starts to transform Wall's yard. As Mr. Owita makes inroads in the yard, he and Wall start to develop a tentative friendship as well, sharing little tidbits about their lives and families. Soon the tentative friendship blossoms into a much deeper friendship with each of them confiding some of their hopes and fears in each other. He is consoling as she walks the difficult path of caring for and eventually losing aging, ill parents and grapples with her own scary diagnosis. She wants to help him and his wife bring their daughter over from Kenya to join the family they've made in the US.

As she tells of the blessing of friendship with Mr. Owita, Wall also reflects on the many things he's taught her: gardening, certainly and an appreciation for flowers and their ephemerality but also equanimity in the face of obstacles, an acceptance of the cycle of life, simple gratitude, courage, and the importance of kindness and forgiveness for all. Through her assumptions about this poor Kenyan immigrant, who in actual fact holds a doctorate, she must face her own prejudices, horrified to find that she has any at all. She witnesses his caring interest in his fellow human beings, his tranquility, his contented joy in life, and his simple but important and powerful acts of nurturing both people and plants. She sees the contrast in his approach to life and her own rage against circumstances that she cannot change and the ways that it hurts her and those she loves.  From him, she learns to dig in the dirt and to envision future beauty.

A very personal and moving memoir, this is very definitely a love letter to a remarkable friend. It is a lovely and engrossing read that will enchant memoir readers looking for more than just another dysfunctional life story. Although there's not perfection here, in either Wall's or Mr. Owita's lives, and there are seemingly insurmountable obstacles to overcome, there isn't the dysfunction so common in the genre. Wall looks honestly at her own past and the battles she has fought. She doesn't shy away from detailing the times when she thought Mr. Owita's advice was wrong or too hard, only to discover that his advice was in fact the thing that she most needed to hear. He turned around more than her yard; he helped her to change how she views the world and her place in it. And he helped her see the beauty in her azaleas.

Thanks to LibraryThing Early Reviewers for sending me a copy of the book for review.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

Romance Is My Day Job by Patience Bloom
Clever Girl by Tessa Hadley
The First True Lie by Marina Mander
Two Sisters by Mary Hogan

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Quiet by Susan Cain
Encounters With Animals by Gerald Durrell

Reviews posted this week:

The House of Memories by Monica McInerney
Clever Girl by Tessa Hadley
Eyestone by Dr. R. MacDonald

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening by Carol Wall
The Pleasures of Autumn by Evie Hunter
Mrs. Coverlet's Magicians by Mary Nash
Ajax Penumbra 1969 by Robin Sloan
Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen
Romance Is My Day Job by Patience Bloom
The First True Lie by Marina Mander
Two Sisters by Mary Hogan

Monday Mailbox

This week's mailbox arrival:

"Til the Well Runs Dry by Lauren Francis-Sharma came from Henry Holt and LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

A family and love story set in Trinidad, this sounds exotic and familiar at the same time (a combination that should make for a fantastic read).

If you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Review: Eyestone by D. R. MacDonald

A friend recently asked me what book I had on my shelves that had been there unread the longest. As I went hunting to find out, (Henry James' Wings of the Dove, incidentally), I came across this Pushcart Prize winning collection. Published in 1988, I have owned it for almost as long. And so with a promise to James that I would come back to him, I pulled this one off the shelf, curious to see what had intrigued my high school self to buy it and yet never to read it. I can't begin to guess what it was that drew me to it so many years ago, especially since short stories have never been my favorites. In this case, though, the short story is the perfect form, offering just enough and yet not so much pervading sadness and despair to overwhelm the reader.

All of the stories are set in the rugged and rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, an area populated by the descendants of the Scots, overlaid with the soft sounds of Gaelic and the muted plaids of kilts. Each of the stories in the collection offers a spare sense of place and feels washed in sepia tones, capturing the aging population, fading culture, and the economic depression of the time and place. There is a mournful nostalgia, a harkening back to the past, and a sense of life having long since passed by both the place and the people. The main characters are mostly aging protagonists, an old woman drinking alone in memory of her newly deceased brother, an artist whose wife has left him living cheek by jowl with an elderly widow he wants to evict, a laborer saying goodbye to his lifelong working and drinking buddy who has had a stroke, a fisherman shocked by the sudden, violent death of the local minister killed while on vacation in the old country, a nephew taking his elderly uncle back to the old homestead only to discover it has been vandalized, a brother lamenting his tough older brother's life, an uncle who presents his nephew with the symbol of uselessness, despair, and futility embodied in a Chinese rifle from the Korean War and then in the twilight of his life gets the rifle back, an old handyman checking in on a blind widow living alone and isolated, and an old sailor easing into death as his son remembers his father's tales. Woven throughout the whole collection is a fading, a melting into the gloaming. The landscape is vast but the lives left to the people in these stories are small and drifting towards their finish. A slight book, this must be read slowly and deliberately, just as the stories seem to have been written.

Review: Clever Girl by Tessa Hadley

Domestic set novels have long been disparaged. They are said to not have enough excitement or not to deal with large enough themes. And yet they frequently deal with the same themes that more wide ranging novels do, just in a more concentrated and subtle form. People have the potential to learn and grow in their everyday life just as much as they do when on a quest, on an adventure, or facing the unknown. The best domestic novelists prove this fact easily. Tessa Hadley is a beautiful writer and she knows the perfect pitch for a novel centered tightly around one woman, her life, and the small and large choices that determine her trajectory and yet, despite this, her new novel, Clever Girl, somehow just misses the mark.

Written in a series of chapters structured as short stories or vignettes, Stella is a child when the novel opens. She lives with her mother in a tiny flat in Bristol. She's been told that her father is dead but eventually learns that he left when she was a toddler. Stella is a curious and clever child, content to live simply with her mother and spend a lot of time with her nearby grandmother. The novel takes the reader through Stella's childhood, her becoming a teen mom and dropping out of school, living in a commune of sorts, depending on unlikely friends, going back to school as a mature adult, and eventually into her settled and somehow unsatisfactory feeling middle age. Although Stella shows promise when she's young, she makes bad decision after bad decision. Her life seems to be undirected but in fact she makes deliberate choices that lead her to each stage in her life. And after each choice, she is lucky enough to have an extended network step in and support her in moving forward.

Although a novel, the story is told entirely in Stella's voice looking back in time, making it feel like a reflective memoir. And despite it being told chronologically, there are some disconcertingly large gaps in the narrative. These gaps may not have changed Stella's character but because they are missing, some of the links between her stages in life feel like they are missing vital information as well. Stella's narration comes across as disconnected and emotionally detached. This could be because she is telling the story in hindsight but it makes it hard to feel in the moment with her and makes her life seem mundane despite events that should have added excitement. The novel's pacing is slow moving and so no matter how much I wanted to like this clearly well written novel, I just never warmed to it or to its main character who never seemed to change or develop. The bigger themes are missing here and without them, the story just meanders. As much as I loved Hadley's Married Love, set in similar situations to those that Stella finds herself in, I just didn't feel the same tug of recognition and emotional truth that was present in that collection.

Tessa Hadley has written several other books, including Accidents in the Home, which was long-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

Sedition by Katharine Grant. The book is being released by Henry Holt and Co. on April 1, 2014.

Amazon says this about the book: An unforgettable historical tale of piano playing, passions, and female power

The setting of Sedition by Katharine Grant: London, 1794.

The problem: Four nouveau rich fathers with five marriageable daughters.

The plan: The young women will learn to play the piano, give a concert for young Englishmen who have titles but no fortunes, and will marry very well indeed.

The complications: The lascivious (and French) piano teacher; the piano maker’s jealous (and musically gifted) daughter; the one of these marriageable daughters with a mating plan of her own.

While it might be a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a title and no money must be in want of a fortune, what does a sexually awakened young woman want? In her wickedly alluring romp through the late-Georgian London, Italian piano making, and tightly-fitted Polonaise gowns, Katharine Grant has written a startling and provocative debut.

Review: The House of Memories by Monica McInerney

How do you go on living when your whole world has collapsed? And how do you go on living amongst the people who you blame for your world's collapse, even if they are the people you love most? In Monica McInerney's newest novel, The House of Memories, Ella O'Hanlon thinks that she can't but that there's no peace or healing until you find a way to offer forgiveness.

Ella is completely and understandably gutted by the death of her small son Felix. She is angry, furious really, and she runs away from her beloved husband Aidan, going from town to town throughout Australia, finding jobs, and then fleeing again. She does her best not to think, not to remember, not to feel, not to accept the pain. In her desire to escape, physically and mentally from those she blames for Felix's death and from her own guilt and self-loathing, she finally runs to her uncle Lucas Fox's large, dilapidated, messy house in London. Ella's uncle has long been a safe haven for her, through her parents' divorce, her mother's remarriage, and the arrival of half sister Jess who seems to have hung the moon in Ella's mother and stepfather's eyes. Although Lucas lived thousands of miles away, he was always there for Ella, offering gentle advice and providing her with a much needed outlet. So it's not much of a surprise that she would eventually run to him in the wake of this overwhelming loss.

But things are different this time around. Ella is an adult and although she's found comfort at Lucas' house before, now she also has to contend with the memories she has of meeting her husband there several years prior and the golden time they spent together, memories that lead her back to her precious toddler and the unimaginable loss of him. As Ella settles into Lucas' house, she cooks and cleans for him and the student tutors living with him. She also agrees to investigate the current tutors since Lucas has gotten some calls from his clients, all incredibly rich and some very famous, that pricey things have gone missing in their homes.  It gives her a sense of purpose, even if she's not entirely certain how to go about it, and it also gives her another avenue through which to avoid facing her feelings over Felix's death.

There's only one other family member Ella hasn't cut off in her grief, her stepbrother Charlie, a wonderful, funny man who lives in the US with his wife and children. He and Ella immediately hit it off when their parents married, quickly becoming a united front. When their half sister Jess was born later, there wasn't room for her demanding, center stage personality in their relationship. Although Charlie is a world away from Ella now, they have maintained their closeness, but Ella can no longer read Charlie's funny weekly family update emails, shunting them unread into a folder on her computer.  She is unready to witness family happiness when her own small family has been destroyed.  Neither Lucas nor Charlie can convince Ella to speak to Aidan or to Jess and her relationship with her mother and stepfather, which has been strained since Jess' birth and their clear favoritism for her, is even more distant than it once was.

As Ella tries to sleepwalk through her life in London, Jess, an actress, is also making her way from Australia to London in hopes of getting her big break in the West End. Because of the longtime animosity and antagonism between the two, no one wants to tell Ella that Jess is there as well, afraid that the information will send her fleeing again. As Ella lives in the house containing so many good memories of her courtship with Aidan, she starts to face her grief and all of the feelings of blame she has been harboring for more than a year and a half. And in facing her feelings, she comes to understand that family is imperfect and we all have resentments from the past that color our present but that sometimes family is all we have. And only they can help her try to move forward and live again despite the Felix shaped hole forever seared into her heart.

Told mainly from Ella's perspective, it is easy to feel her insecurity over her place growing up in her blended family and how that affected all of her interactions over the years, even before Felix was born, lived his short, happy life, and died. But in order to get a little bit of perspective as well, the narrative also includes Charlie's hilarious emails about life in the trenches with a successful wife and four entertaining children, Jess' chirpily cheerful diary entries, and Aidan's heartbreaking letters to Felix. All of them, as well as the rest of the family, grieve the loss of this sunny little boy but they all take different paths and because Ella's grief and sense of loss is so enormous and overwhelming, she can't see that she is only alone because she determinedly and intentionally has closed everyone else out.

Despite the balance that the other narratives offer, the characters still come across as true to the way that Ella sees them. Jess, whatever her pain, is the spoiled favorite, never having had to stand on her own two feet. Lucas is caring and stalwart and capable of tough love if need be. His girlfriend is unpleasant, abrasive, and unsympathetic, a character you can't help but dislike and whose appeal to Lucas remains unfathomable. Charlie is funny and kind and always able to understand Ella, even if he can't reach her in her deepest pain. Aidan is more elusive because Ella works so hard to forget what she loved about him. And Ella's mother is rather distant and wrapped up in Jess without ever acknowledging Ella's feelings of exclusion. Because Ella's strong opinions of each character form the reader's view of each of them, it is difficult (and in some cases, impossible) to temper those views even after the whole truth of Felix's death and its effect on each of the adults comes clear. This will always be a family that grapples with all of the hurts and blame and heartbreak of the past but they just might be able to find peace and happiness again as well.  Our past will always be with us in large and small ways, happy and sad, but the lesson is in moving forward and in forgiving and acknowledging that we all do the best we can as we live, love, and make mistakes. A sad but hopeful novel about grief and love and family, this is an engrossing read.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

With the start of tennis season for me and dance competition season for my daughter, my reading will take a real hit for a while. But being active is good, right? This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

Mrs. Coverlet's Magicians by Mary Nash
Ajax Penumbra 1969 by Robin Sloan
Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Quiet by Susan Cain
Clever Girl by Tessa Hadley
Encounters With Animals by Gerald Durrell
Romance Is My Day Job by Patience Bloom

Reviews posted this week:

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The House of Memories by Monica McInerney
Eyestone by Dr. R. MacDonald
Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening by Carol Wall
The Pleasures of Autumn by Evie Hunter
Mrs. Coverlet's Magicians by Mary Nash
Ajax Penumbra 1969 by Robin Sloan
Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen

Monday Mailbox

This week's mailbox arrivals:

Casebook by Mona Simpson came from Alfred A. Knopf and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.

About a boy who eavesdrops and investigates his family's inner, private life as his parents decide to separate, this novel of life-altering secrets uncovered sounds fantastic.

The Moon Sisters by Therese Walsh came from Crown Publishers.

A book about sisters, one of whom is a synesthete, and their quest to travel to the location of their late mother's unfinished novel, this sounds great.

Delicious by Ruth Reichl came from Random House and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.

I've drooled over her memoirs so I am anxious to see what she does with a novel.

If you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.