I'll Be Your Blue Sky by Marisa de los Santos

I'll Be Your Blue Skyby Marisa de los Santos
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062431936
Hardcover, $26.99, 320 pages

What first attracts you to Marisa de los Santos's novel I'll Be Your Blue Sky is the gorgeous cover- a red butterfly against a blue sky backdrop, with a green plant on the bottom left corner; it's striking.

The story opens in June of 1950 on Edith and Joseph's wedding day, as they enter their beautiful home. De los Santos reveals the home in loving detail, and you can close your eyes and picture each room as Edith describes it, and even smell "the sawdust and lemon oil and reckless salt wind."

The home is in a beach town in Delaware, a busy place in the summer, but dreary and desolate in the winter. They have a happy life together, canoeing, photographing wildlife, and enjoying each other's company.

Flash forward to the current day, Clare Hobbes' wedding day. Clare is marrying Zach, a man who appears to be her perfect match. But something is not quite right, and after Clare encounters an elderly Edith on a bench at the wedding venue, she realizes she cannot marry Zach, which at first confuses, then enrages, him.

A few weeks later, Clare gets a letter from a lawyer- Edith has passed away and left her large home to Clare. Why did this happen? Clare only spoke to Edith briefly. Since she at odds, and getting away from her life might be good for her, Clare goes to the house, called Blue Sky House.

Clare learns that Edith used to run a bed and breakfast at Blue Sky, but abruptly left in 1956 after a murder occured in the town. Did Edith have anything to do with the murder? When Clare finds two sets of ledgers hidden in a cupboard, she enlists her childhood best friend Dev to help her investigate.

At first glance, I'll Be Your Blue Sky seems like a typical chick-lit book, two women in different times telling their stories, but it is so much more. De los Santos surprised me with Edith's story, and I found it engrossing and couldn't turn the pages fast enough.

I loved Edith's strength and courage, and her relationship with the town's sheriff was touching. I admit to be a little lost with Clare's family story, there seemed to be so many people to keep track of that I was confused. When I discovered that they were all introduced in de los Santos' previous two books, You Belong to Me and Love Walked In, I immediately went to my Goodreads page to put them on my Want to Read list.

I hope that de los Santos gives us another book with more of Edith's backstory, she is truly one of the more fascinating characters that I have encountered in awhile. If you like novels like Christina Baker Kline's The Orphan Train, give I'll Be Your Blue Sky a try. I recommend it.

Here is my review of another Marisa de los Santos book, The Precious One.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Marisa de los Santos' tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Tour Stops

Tuesday, March 6th: Openly Bookish

Wednesday, March 7th: Time 2 Read

Thursday, March 8th: bookchickdi

Friday, March 9th: The Sketchy Reader

Monday, March 12th: BookNAround

Tuesday, March 13th: Mother’s Circle

Wednesday, March 14th: Kahakai Kitchen

Thursday, March 15th: G. Jacks Writes

Monday, March 19th: Literary Quicksand

Tuesday, March 20th: Broken Teepee

Wednesday, March 21st: Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World

Thursday, March 22nd: A Bookish Way of Life

Friday, March 23rd: Into the Hall of Books

New in Paperback- The Precious One by Marisa de los Santos

The Precious One by Marisa de los Santos
Published by William Morrow ISBN 978006167091X
Trade paperback, $15.99, 384 pages

As Marisa de los Santos' The Precious One opens, Taisy Cleary receives a phone out of the blue from her estranged father Wilson, the man who left her mother, twin brother Marcus and her to marry a young sculptor. After not hearing from the man in ages, he calls her to inform her that he had a heart attack two weeks ago and summons her to his home to discuss an important matter.
Marcus tells Taisy she is crazy to go see the man, but Taisy cannot say no. When she arrives, she finds that her father- a brilliant professor, inventor and self-made millionaire- wants her to help him write his memoir. Or rather, he will dictate it to Taisy and she can interview the many people who think he is brilliant too.

Taisy says yes, even though she has to stay in the poolhouse. (You wouldn't expect her to be allowed to stay in her father's house with his wife and brilliant and beautiful golden child Willow, would you?)

The only thing Willow knows about her half sister is that Taisy committed some horrible act when she was a teenager that made Wilson infuriated and lose all respect for her. Now Taisy is in their lives and Willow feels she must protect her father from her.

The story is told from the alternating perspectives of Taisy and Willow. Taisy is curious about her father and his other family and slowly comes to care for Willow and her mother. Willow has been isolated from most other people, being homeschooled and smothered by her father's attention.

As Taisy and Willow get to know each other, they come to understand and even like each other. Taisy helps Willow join the outside world, teaching her the things she needs to know.

As I read this book, I felt like Taisy could be a character in an Adriana Trigiani novel. She is a hardworking woman with a good sense of humor, and an even more developed sense of right and wrong.  There's even a crazy family dinner scene that reminded me of the Roncalli family ones from Trigiani's Valentine series.

The ladies in the book club all agreed that we liked Taisy, she might even make a great addition to our book club. Her growing affection for Willow and Willow's mother was touching and sweet. One of our members has twins, so she especially enjoyed the relationship between Taisy and Marcus.

We did not like Wilson, he was pompous and self-righteous, although Taisy's discovery of his past helped to mitigate that feeling somewhat (OK, just a little bit).

This was the first book I have read of de los Santos, and I would like to read more of them. I like her style of writing, and the way she was able to write in the voices of two distinct characters.

If you're looking for a good family story, The Precious One is an excellent choice.

The Beach Club Book Club Annual Meeting

Every year the Beach Club Book Club holds an annual meeting at the beach. We meet periodically during the year, but the beach club meeting is our favorite one, where we review many of the books we read during the year.

This year's meeting took place on a perfect summer day. The sky was bright blue, and the sun was shining. We grabbed our beach chairs, ate our delicious deli sandwiches and tasty Italian cookies and got down to business.

The Beach Club Book Club Annual Meeting

The books we talked about were:

• Marisa de los Santos' The Precious One
• Robin Antalek's The Grown Ups
• Jane Shemilt's The Daughter
• Ellen Herrick's The Sparrow Sisters
• Laura Lippman's Every Secret Thing
• Dorothea Benton Frank's The Hurricane Sisters

We noticed a theme here- many of the books were about sisters. The Sparrow Sisters was enjoyable for many of us because we have sisters whom we are close to, like in the book, and many of us grew up in a small town like the setting of the book. 

We understood the closeness of the sisters and the blessings and curses of living in a town where everyone knows everything about you. There were comments about how quickly the town was to turn on Patience when a tragic event occurs. It was noted that the men in the town turned against her more quickly. The women in the town supported her. 

Some of us felt that the doctor, Patience's new boyfriend and newcomer to the town, was little wimpy. He claimed to love Patience, but when she needed him most, he was more than willing to allow her sisters to care for her while he stayed away.

One character we liked was Charlotte, who could have been a stock wealthy, self-involved woman out to keep a rival away from her husband, but she had a lot of depth to her and was very supportive of her husband.

The Precious One also revolved around sisters- Taisy, writer whose father deserted the family when she was teenager, and Willow, her father's teenage daughter with the woman her left his family for years ago.

Taisy and Willow get to know each warily, and we liked both characters, feeling that Taisy could be a character in one of Adriana Trigiani's books. One of our group has twins- a boy and a girl- and she loved the fact that Taisy has a twin brother whom she is close to.

Dorothea Benton Frank's The Hurricane Sisters was another good read. We like Frank's writing style, especially the sense of humor she injects into her stories. There is a more serious side to this story, with a young woman dating an older man who is very controlling, and this sparked some conversation in the group about women we know in a similar situation. 

Every Secret Thing sparked a lot of conversation. Alice and Ronnie were young girls when they are accused of kidnapping a baby from a porch. The girls went to prison and when they were 18, they were released. Soon another child disappears and the girls are again suspect.

We enjoyed Lippman's way with the story, we felt that she kept the suspense all the way through. She develops her characters so well, and throws in a lot of red herrings that kept us guessing what would happen, even beyond the ending of the story.

There was one character we didn't particularly like, and that was the high-priced lawyer recruited to help. Some felt that she was weird and not fleshed out as a character. The female detective assigned to the new missing child case, Nancy, was an intriguing character. She had a connection to the original case, and Lippman had us wondering what her real story is.

We also talked about reading in general. We all love to browse in book stores and card stores. All of us have ereaders, so we compared reading on ereaders versus reading print books. There is a tendency to download many books on the ereaders that don't necessarily get read. 

Print books that we own we tend to read more. Maybe it's a case of "out of sight, out of mind"; we don't see our ebooks, but we do see our print books, beckoning us from our bookshelves.

It was also felt that we tend to skim books more on the ereaders, and we read print books more thoroughly.

We see many people reading actual books on the train, and we agreed that we like to give kids print books as gifts.

It was a terrific day and the Beach Club Book Club looks forward to meeting in the city to see the holiday displays and talk more bookish things.

Thanks to The Book Club Girl Book Club for providing books.

The Beach Club Book Club Reads The Precious One

The Precious One by Marisa de los Santos
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062323804
Hardcover, $25.99, 368 pages

As Marisa de los Santos' The Precious One opens, Taisy Cleary receives a phone out of the blue from her estranged father Wilson, the man who left her mother, twin brother Marcus and her to marry a young sculptor. After not hearing from the man in ages, he calls her to inform her that he had a heart attack two weeks ago and summons her to his home to discuss an important matter.

Marcus tells Taisy she is crazy to go see the man, but Taisy cannot say no. When she arrives, she finds that her father- a brilliant professor, inventor and self-made millionaire- wants her to help him write his memoir. Or rather, he will dictate it to Taisy and she can interview the many people who think he is brilliant too.

Taisy says yes, even though she has to stay in the poolhouse. (You wouldn't expect her to be allowed to stay in her father's house with his wife and brilliant and beautiful golden child Willow, would you?)

The only thing Willow knows about her half sister is that Taisy committed some horrible act when she was a teenager that made Wilson infuriated and lose all respect for her. Now Taisy is in their lives and Willow feels she must protect her father from her.

The story is told from the alternating perspectives of Taisy and Willow. Taisy is curious about her father and his other family and slowly comes to care for Willow and her mother. Willow has been isolated from most other people, being homeschooled and smothered by her father's attention.

As Taisy and Willow get to know each other, they come to understand and even like each other. Taisy helps Willow join the outside world, teaching her the things she needs to know.

As I read this book, I felt like Taisy could be a character in an Adriana Trigiani novel. She is a hardworking woman with a good sense of humor, and an even more developed sense of right and wrong.  There's even a crazy family dinner scene that reminded me of the Roncalli family ones from Trigiani's Valentine series.

The ladies in the book club all agreed that we liked Taisy, she might even make a great addition to our book club. Her growing affection for Willow and Willow's mother was touching and sweet. One of our members has twins, so she especially enjoyed the relationship between Taisy and Marcus.

We did not like Wilson, he was pompous and self-righteous, although Taisy's discovery of his past helped to mitigate that feeling somewhat (OK, just a little bit).

This was the first book I have read of de los Santos, and I would like to read more of them. I like her style of writing, and the way she was able to write in the voices of two distinct characters.

If you're looking for a good family story, The Precious One is an excellent choice.