The 13th Gift A True Story of a Christmas Miracle

The 13th Gift: A True Story of a Christmas Miracle by Joanne Huist Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I first picked up this book, a friend was currently reading it. I didn't realize until we talked that it was based on the author's true loss of her husband several months before Christmas. The Smith family was falling apart and becoming disconnected from grief, when an anonymous donor dropped the first gift of Christmas, a poinsettia, on their front stoop. At first the author is irritated with the gift, thinking it as an intrusion, but then the next day a second gift arrives and the mystery of the gift giver is questioned - Joanne and her children begin to look forward to each day and what it brings.

A book of anguish and grief that takes a 180 turn for hope...

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The Lemon Orchard

The Lemon Orchard by Luanne Rice
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Grief and heartache bring people together as in the unexpected romance between two unlikely people. One - an immigrant that has crossed the USA/Mexican border illegally, at the cost of his young daughter, Rosa, and the other, an anthropologist who lost both her husband and 16 year old daughter in a car accident. They meet in a seaside, lush lemon orchard in the beautiful Santa Monica mountains owned by Julia's aunt and uncle. Julia is there to house-sit with her beloved Bonnie Blue, a seven-year-old border collie when she meets Roberto, manager and caretaker of the orchard whose quiet, strong ways reach across Julia's barriers and draw her in. As Julia learns more of Roberto's past, she feels the need to redeem her loss by solving the clues that surround the missing Rosa.

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The Why of Things

The Why of Things: A Novel by Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Winthrop pens a well written fictional story of a daughter's suicide and her family's loss, grief, and return to hope centered around their summer home and a nearby deep, dark quarry. Like the quarry, a gaping hole has been left in the Jacobs' family and each member has their own way of dealing with the heart-wrenching aftermath and the sometimes non-answer of why bad things happen.

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Like a Watered Garden

Like a Watered Garden by Patti Hill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Mibby Garrett, a garden designer, is trying to crawl back from the brink of depression - her beloved husband recently passed away in a bicycle accident. She can't even help her thirteen year old son, Ky, deal with his own grief or feed the poor child, much to her shame. Each day holds "whammies of grief" or terrible reminders of the way life used to be. Thanks to her neighbor, Louise - a well dressed debutante some thirty-something years past, Mibby is kept in home baked sweets and prayers. As page 16 says: "Louise came to make sure my boat was still tied to the dock, that the knot hadn't loosened and set me adrift. She tightened the knot with love, southern style - indulgent and usually fattening." Then there is Blink, the family's black Lab, who appears to read Mibby's mind and comforts her every day. Much to Mibby's surprise and outrage, a young woman appears on her doorstep claiming to be related through Mibby's late husband - will this be the final straw to send her over the edge?

One of the best fictional, humorous books on the slow, painful process and recovery from grief that I've read in a long time - the author's writings remind me a wee bit of Erma Bombeck - a real, feel-good read.

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The Tiger's Wife

The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Read on my Kindle Fire, The Tiger's Wife is such a lovely story, set in the Balkans years after the war, with almost a ethereal, old world feel - Natalia Stefanovic, a young doctor, traveling across the border with a co-worker/doctor and meds to help an orphanage, has just found out that her beloved grandfather, also a doctor and her mentor, has died. As she tries to piece together the last moments of his life and deal with her grief, Natalia remembers all the stories her grandfather has passed on to her - mystical stories of his childhood in a lonely village outpost in the mountains where he met a tiger and the tiger's wife, stories of meeting Death's nephew - the Deathless Man - not once, but three times, stories that connected them and helped her understand why he carried The Jungle Book in his coat pocket and visited Shere Khan in the nearby zoo. Magical....

Several favorite quotes:
"He sat up, pushed his chair away from the table and rubbed his knees. 'When men die, they die in fear,' he said. 'They take everything they need from you, and as a doctor it is your job to give it, to comfort them, to hold their hand. But children die how they have been living--in hope. They don't know what's happening, so they expect nothing, they don't ask you to hold their hand--but you end up needing them to hold yours. With children, you're on your own. Do you understand?'"

“When your fight has purpose—to free you from something, to interfere on the behalf of an innocent—it has a hope of finality. When the fight is about unraveling—when it is about your name, the places to which your blood is anchored, the attachment of your name to some landmark or event—there is nothing but hate, and the long, slow progression of people who feed on it and are fed it, meticulously, by the ones who come before them. Then the fight is endless, and comes in waves and waves, but always retains its capacity to surprise those who hope against it.”


I love the connection between Natalia and her grandfather - I had a wonderful, loving relationship with my paternal grandfather and dearly miss him to this day...and I remember many of the stories he told me of his childhood years on the farm...



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Solomon's Oak

Solomon's Oak by Jo-Ann Mapson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Solomon's Oak - the words alone invoke strength and character...photographers come from miles away to capture the beauty of the lovely, huge White oak that sits on Solomon's farm in California, where White Oaks should never grow. Glory Solomon, now a widow, owns the farm where once her and her beloved husband took in foster boys and taught them to be kind, responsible men. Now alone with only her horses and dogs, Glory is faced with the dilemma of possibly losing the farm. On top of all this worry and grief, she is ask to foster a teenage girl, angry, broken 14 year old Juniper McGuire with her own passel of problems and Glory has trouble, even under the circumstances, saying no. When a couple approaches her with a crazy idea of hosting a pirate wedding under the famous oak, Glory runs with it - baking, preparing food, and decorating the small chapel her husband had built - all with a pirate theme. Unlucky for a her, a former policeman (with a body and a mind full of pain), Joseph happens to arrive when the "pirates" are at their worst - with guns and swords drawn! On the other hand, lucky for Glory, he also has his camera and is willing to take photos for Glory of the fun, wild wedding. Will Solomon's Oak shelter and mend all three heartbroken souls?

Real life characters with real, gritty life problems. You will cry with Glory, Juniper, and Joseph, but laugh with Glory's zany friend, store owner Lorna.

You may wonder at the beginning to this novel, but loose threads will be tied in the end.



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The Book of Tomorrow

The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Tamara Goodwin, 16, lived in a 7,000-square-foot, six-bedroom mansion, complete with a swimming pool, tennis court, a private beach in Killiney, Ireland. That is, she did live there until her father committed suicide and Tamara and her mom discovered they were bankrupt. Needing a home, they moved to the middle of nowhere with Tamara's aunt, Rosaleen and uncle, Arthur - the Deliverance Duo - as Tamara calls them. Her mom, once settled in, seems to go into a dark depression and barely stirs from her bed, while her aunt is acting rather strange and seems to be hiding something. The house they live in is the gatehouse that once protected the side entrance to Kilsaney Castle, built sometime between 1100 and 1200. Tamara is drawn to the rundown castle and the secrets it hides.

When a traveling library stops at the gatehouse one day, by mistake, she unconcernedly hops aboard and finds a leather-bound book and takes it back to the gatehouse. After prying open the lock, Tamara, sees her own handwriting - but dated for the next day. Can she change the series of events, happening around the castle, before they unfold?



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