The Lost Husband

The Lost Husband by Katherine Center
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Libby Moran has been struggling after the horrible car accident that killed her husband; she and her two young children have lost their home and moved in with her pharisaical mother, who harps on poor Libby about everything. It’s so bad that when Libby’s Aunt Jean (the aunt she’s never met) offers her the chance to move in with her, Libby jumps at the chance, packs up immediately, and burns rubber leaving town before her mother returns from her date. Once they reach Atwater, Texas and Jean’s goat farm, Libby and her kids fall in love with the goats, the farmhouse, Aunt Jean, and the quiet beauty of the hill country. In fact, they sleep better than they have in years, perhaps from the daily chores and lack of electronic devices including the television. Libby’s job is to help run the farm, milk the goats, make the cheese, and offer their wares at farmer’s markets under the tutelage of O’Connor, the very hairy but likeable farm manager who croons to goats. Libby begins to wonder what the man looks like under all that fur but she soon learns that O’Connor has his own tragic past and issues to overcome.

A wonderful book about overcoming tragedy and bullies and yes, finding love again - you’ll fall for Libby’s adorable kids, sweet Aunt Jean, and all those cute goats named after famous people. Written in first person, you’ll also crack up over some of Libby’s helicopter parenting thoughts about her kids and O’Connor.


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Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea

Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea by Morgan Callan Rogers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Twelve years old and on the edge of puberty, Florine is looking forward to her teen years, when her young, lively mother disappears on her annual getaway. Florine and her father are left to flounder along in the small fishing village in Maine. Even with her stalwart Grand across the road with her comforting arms and her small, close knot of friends, Florine becomes more and more depressed - especially when her father's old flame comes around, full of sympathy and toting delicious meals. When another great loss happens, Florine begins to sink beneath the waves of loneliness and depression.

Florine is such a vulnerable character - that you'll fall in love with her and feel her losses and happiness. The other characters, especially Grand, are so real, the setting of coastal Maine described so beautifully, and you'll understand that life is not neat and tidy - and not always tied up with a bow.

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Those We Love Most

Those We Love Most by Lee Woodruff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three normal but flawed generations of family, who are already close to splintering, are broken when one of the youngest is involved in a fatal accident. Can love and loyalty overcome even the deepest hurt?

Two favorite quotes:

"People always came out of the woodwork at a time like this, for good and bad. There was some need in human nature to insert yourself immediately, to take action, even if you knew the person only tangentially. The proximity to tragedy and sorrow caused an immediate evaluation of your own relative good fortune. The people who really understood, though, would hang back until the right moment, knowing that the real work began when all of the cars had left the driveway."

"Trust took such a long time to earn. And yet it could all come unmoored in an instant. She was smart enough to know at least that. People kept secrets. People built walls. It didn't mean they couldn't and didn't love with all their hearts. And so this was what she would have to make peace with: this was what she would have to hold close. Like the cross section of a tree, the bad period would be marked in interior rings, the years of drought, the blunt force trauma to the heart, all of it only visible after death. Maybe silence was a price we sometimes paid for loving so completely, the price we sometimes paid to protect those we loved most."

Lee Woodruff's main characters are well fleshed out and you will feel their families' gamut of emotions as heartbreaking events unfold.


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This Bright River

This Bright River: A Novel by Patrick Somerville
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ben Hanson has made a few mistakes - well maybe more than a few - so he hesitantly takes the offer to head home to St. Helens, Wisconsin (where everyone has come up with their own story of why Ben went to jail)and clean up his favorite uncle Denny and cousin, Wayne's house, recently vandalized, to put on the market. Lauren Shehan, an classmate of Ben's, has headed home to St. Helens as well - hiding from the many tragic events in her past. When the two finally meet up again, Ben is trying to solve the mystery surrounding his cousin, Wayne's death - they are slowly, awkwardly, drawn to each other in their loneliness and need for love and understanding.

Right of the start the prologue pulled me in - there are places where the author rambles and weaves a bit before getting back on track and a few bogs, but overall you'll find yourself rooting for the two protagonists, hoping they work through their own private misery and move toward each other. A deep, moving story with many layers..

Favorite quote: "I hadn't seen her in almost five years. Such an extremely sad number, thinking it, and there was a time when such gaps within the family would have been impossible. Yet it happened, and I imagine it happens to a lot of families. You look up and half a decade is gone. The people you loved - not just that, but the people who were the first objects of your love, the people through whom you learned love - are no longer a part of your life."

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falling together

Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first day of college is always a wee bit traumatic. Finding and connecting with a new friend is great and bonding with two is even better! So when fate brought Pen, Cat, and Will together in a small bathroom, their friendship was obviously meant to be and the threesome stays rock strong until adult reality hits - Cat gets married and Pen and Will are just an uncomfortable twosome. Vowing never to contact each other again, the three stay apart until many years later - Cat summons them both with an out-of-the-blue email. Suddenly Pen and Will are jetting across the country and heading to the Philippines in search of the elusive, tiny Cat.

A wonderful, anytime read, I have only read two books by this author and loved them both! Her characters, who talk hilariously to themselves, are so interesting and deep that you would want to friend them for life! This is a story of loss, love and deep friendship that turns into love...

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Clay's Quilt

Clay's Quilt by Silas House

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Such a gritty, beautiful novel of tragedy and the sweet, uplifting love of family and friends, set in the coal mining towns and deep, lovely hollows of Kentucky. Brought up in a coal mining town in Western Maryland - I'm always eager to read of books that share my own area's geological features. This book has been on my "want to read" list for many months.

Young coal-miner Clay Sizemore is surrounded by family - there's the indomitable, faith filled Aunt Easter who raised him, Great-Uncle Paul the quilt-maker and his tiny wife Sophie, and his cousin Dreama who lives right next door with her daddy, Uncle Gabe. But it's his own mother that Clay yearns for - the ethereal, full of life Anneth, shot right in front of Clay when he was only four years old. Clay wishes he could piece together the story of his mother's life - like his Uncle Paul pieced his quilts together and when Aunt Easter finds a box on her back porch, some of those pieces start stitching themselves together.


Complete with a conversation with Silas House, the author, and a Reader's Guide at the end.



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Home Front

Home Front by Kristin Hannah

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Hannah has written another gripping, emotional, honest book - this time about a family on the edge of losing itself when mom/wife/National Guard chopper pilot, Jolene, is deployed to the the Iraqi war zone. Left at home, is dad/husband/defense attorney Michael, who finds himself fighting for a young soldier with PTSD, raising two upset, bewildered daughters without Jolene, the anchor of their home, and making an about right face in his perception of the war and his wife's feelings of duty and honor. Tragedy eventually strikes in Iraq and Michael has to learn to handle the multitude of changes that abruptly arise.

I learned an amazing amount of information about PTSD, how we need to provide more resources for our courageous men and women who come home from the front and their families, who are left to pick up the pieces.

Kristin Hannah - one of my top 10 authors.



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The Touch

The Touch by Randall Wallace

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Jones has an amazing gift - he has the touch - hands for surgery and saving people. He also has fallen in love with Faith, a woman who lives up to her name and who inspires Jones. When both are involved in a tragic accident on the way to their clinic in the mountains - Jones hangs up his own personal surgical instruments and teaches his fellow doctors to use their hands instead. At the same time a young woman named Lara Blair, who owns a biomedical engineering company, has been searching for a surgeon to operate the special tool she has designed to save lives. Jones, when discovered by Lara's team, wants nothing to do with surgery again and instead shows Lara the clinic in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the people who desperately need doctoring. When Jones also tells of Faith's anonymous acts of love, Lara begins to understand and believe in the selflessness and freedom of such an action.

An amazing novel of faith, belief, and the inner goodness of men. This author/producer/director is also the screenwriter of Braveheart and We Were Soldiers.



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The Christmas Note

The Christmas Note by Donna VanLiere

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Another Christmas gem! Loved, loved, loved this book as I do with everything I've read by Donna VanLiere. Small and around 200 pages, it's a quick read and honestly I hated to put it down. (My two dogs were dancing, needing to go outside and just couldn't be put off any longer or I would have read it in one bite...) Written from voice of two very different women who happen to become neighbors, loner Melissa, who still suffers from reliving a very terrible childhood and Gretchen, who suffers from a recent tragedy and has moved with her children to be near her mother. You'll discover a mystery and laugh and cry with both of them as they learn to reach out to each other and the other cast of characters in this little town.



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The Best of Me

The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Dawson & Amanda, two-star crossed sweethearts from high school, reunite when Tuck, an old friend to both passes away leaving instructions for them to carry out his funeral wishes.



As teens their love was doomed, opposites from the beginning - Dawson, poor, with only a renegade father and cousins and Amanda, from a wealthy, snobby family. Drawn together, they form an unbroken bond. But, as Amanda nears college, Dawson is wrongly accused of vehicular manslaughter, spending years behind prison bars. Fleeing the area upon release, he works on an oil rig down the coast. When they meet up almost 30 years later for Tuck’s funeral, sparks fly and memories are revived, even though Amanda is married with children. But, in the background still lurking are Dawson’s sadistic family of criminals bent on destroying both he and Amanda.



This review was difficult for me to write. Although I’ve always loved his writing style, I’m ambivalent on this particular Nicholas Spark novel. I can see that things are becoming a bit cliché even for me and it surprised me to see more violent characters thrown into the soup. Most of Spark’s novels are worth a reread, but not this one for me.





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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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One Summer

One Summer by David Baldacci

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


David Baldacci does a 180 and writes the story of the Armstrong family - Jack, who is dying of a rare form of cancer and only wants to live through Christmas, his devoted wife Lizzie, who is caring for him at home, teenage daughter Mikki, who can't deal with Jack's illness, 12 year old son Cory, and Jack Jr. - still a toddler and unaware of his dad's impending death. As Jack's body continues to weaken, Christmas Eve arrives - but with more tragedy. Lizzie, on a last minute trip in her van to the pharmacy for Jack's meds, is hit and killed when she runs a red light - broadsided by a snowplow. In despair, Jack prepares to die and allows Bonnie, Lizzie's mom, to take his three children and farm them out to different family members. Alone in a hospice unit all Jack has left is his memories, but then the unthinkable happens - a miracle for Jack. He begins to slowly regain his strength. Although the doctors advise Jack that it's just temporary - no one recovers from the unnamed illness - Jack struggles to recover his life and begins by reclaiming his children and moving back to the beloved childhood home of Lizzie's on the ocean.


Labeled sappy by some readers, One Summer is still a good read - an emotional roller coaster and you will cheer for Jack, a veteran of Afghanistan an Iraq. Fans of Nicholas Sparks and Richard Paul Evans will enjoy this novel. Devoted, die hard fans of his Camel Club mystery thrillers may not be so thrilled....



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Learning

Learning by Karen Kingsbury

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The second book in the Bailey Flanigan series, Learning is an another inspirational read. Again, the series continues with the two main characters, Bailey and Cody, moving on and falling in love with others - but still thinking of what might have been. During the course of dancing on Broadway a tragic event happens and Bailey blames herself for not sharing her faith with a cast member. Cody continues the job of teaching his football team to be more of a family and they make great strides on the field. For Cody and Bailey, it is a season of learning.



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His Other Wife

His Other Wife by Deborah Bedford

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Left alone to raise her son Seth, Hilary is still trying to terms with sharing him with her ex-husband Eric, his new wife, Pam and their children. Even though Hilary has raised a very mature young man, she has leaned on him heavily through the years, maybe too much. Now at Seth's graduation, the "new family" all want to appear and share in the fun. When tragedy occurs at a senior party, both families have to learn to work together to help Seth and themselves.



I really enjoyed Bedford's writing style - inspirational, but not too heavy and preachy. Her characters struggle with their faith in God when bad things happen and easily blame each other for the mistakes that have happened, although in the end they realize what they need is to help each other. A very real-life story of today and the world we live in.



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Once Upon a Time, There was You

Once Upon a Time, There Was You by Elizabeth Berg

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Irene and John, never should have gotten married. Now divorced, the only thing they have in common is their beloved 18 year old daughter, Sadie, who is on the verge of going away to college. Living for the most part in California, with a few weeks spent in Minnesota with her Dad, Sadie tells a lie about going rock climbing with friends to her over protective mother - but instead has plans to spend a few days with her boyfriend, Ron. When Ron doesn't arrive on time at the rendezvous spot, Sadie makes a huge mistake and catches a lift with a older, handsome man. In the meantime, Irene has been plagued with doubts about letting Sadie go on her trip, but is told over and over that she has been smothering her daughter. Days later, after filing a missing person report, even the local police station racks it up as just a teenage prank. When Sadie still doesn't come home, Irene finally sounds the alarm and reaches out to John for help.



Elizabeth Berg has a way of reaching into our lives and putting into words how we think and feel. Although this is not my favorite read of hers, I still enjoyed the characters and trying to figure out why John and Irene were married in the first place, with such a cold and tragic background between their childhood lives. I also enjoyed the thoughts of Irene and Sadie as they were both trying to loosen the smothering bond between them.











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The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted

The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted by Bridget Asher

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A lovely little book that tugs on your heartstrings and pulls you into the characters and setting...



A young widow, Heidi, with a son, Abbott, can not move forward after her husband's tragic car accident. Her mother and sister thrust her into as what they describe as a "needed lost summer" at their homeplace in Provence, France in hopes that the magical stone house and countryside will bring her back to life. Heidi also takes her niece, misunderstood 16 year old Charlotte, along with her. The lovely mountains and fresh air surround the threesome with peace and a childhood friend of Heidi's arrives, bringing with him a restlessness for more than just friendship. But, when Abbott disappears and fear returns, Heidi is ready to go back to the US and the continued life of mourning.



I love the characters and the depth of their emotions. Abbott is a smart, sweet character with obsessive compulsive tendencies, that have appeared after his father's death. Heidi is very patient and loving in dealing with this, knowing that Abbott is part of her beloved husband. You feel for Heidi as she tries to paste on a smile and act normal around her friends and family. Don't think this book is all about sadness, because there is a lot of laughter thrown in and romance that lightens up the heavy sadness that permeates the first part of the novel. Oh my goodness, I haven't talked about the descriptions of the delicious food and pastries that is cooked and served....



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The Silver Boat

The Silver Boat: A Novel by Luanne Rice

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Dar McCarthy, the only sister still living on Martha's Vineyard, has gathered her two younger sisters home, Delia and Rory, to close up Daggett's Way, the old beloved family beach house. Desperately trying to hang onto the 15 acre property, all three sisters fly off to Cork, Ireland, remembering their father's insistent story of a land grant given to the McCarthys. Their father had sailed for the emerald isles, many years before on a lovely ship he had built himself, the Irish Darling, promising to return with such evidence. Instead, finally after a safe arrival, the family had never heard from him again. Dar, especially, has always had problems with the abandonment and uses the pain she feels in her illustrating her graphic novels. In the end, after learning the truth about their father, the sisters find that they're really not on the same page about Daggett's Way - they cut the thread that held them together and Dar feels abandoned again, dropping into a deep depression.

Luanne Rice is one of my favorite writers of fiction. She has a way of writing about family relationships, weaving in the same joys and losses that we, the readers, feel in our own lives. To lighten things up a wee bit, there always seems to be a quirky character or two involved.




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Miles to Go

Miles to Go by Richard Paul Evans

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The continuation of The Walk by Richard Paul Evans. In this small novel Alan wakes up in a hospital in Spokane, Washington with three knife wounds to his stomach, inflicted by a gang. He has only walked 318 of the 3,500 miles in his journey from Seattle to Key West, Florida. Alan has lost everything important in his life and walks, with only the bare necessities on his back, to get through the pain - well he did, until he was jumped by the gang outside Spokane. Now, lying in a hospital bed regaining his strength, Alan wonders how he will get through the day, let alone the upcoming months of recuperation. A good samaritan, by the name of Angel, offers to take him home and care for him until he's back on his feet and able to travel again. Can Angel and Alan help each other heal from their own personal tragedies?

My 18 year old daughter read the first in this emotional series and eagerly awaited Miles to Go. Two nights of staying up until 3am and it was finished - she said she couldn't put it down.



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Night Road

Night Road by Kristin Hannah

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Everyone knows that they better have an entire box of tissues nearby as Kristin Hannah's books are read. Another book I couldn't put down - although from the beginning I knew something of great tragedy was about to happen. Every mom fears when their children get their license and approach senior year in high school. I remember thinking and feeling the same things when my own children were beginning to drive and closing in on graduation.

Jude Farraday is a wonderful mom but is a helicopter parent. Her own childhood was not happy and she promised herself that she will do anything to make sure her two twins, Mia and Zach are happy and on track for college. When Lexi, a lonely teen, makes best friends with Mia, Jude is thrilled, as Mia is the opposite of Zach, quiet and into drama, versus he is popular and athletic. The further along the senior year goes, the parties intensify and Jude is wracked with fear. When the worst happens, Jude is so angry, that instead of offering forgiveness - she can only spiral down into depression, guilt, and hatred.



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