Friday 5ive- April 17, 2020

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post about five things that caught my attention during the week. We're all still hunkered down, working from home, making dinner every.single.night.

1) People may not have been able to go to Washington, DC to see the cherry blossoms, but we had a tree in front of our apartment building that was in full bloom this week. It really stood out on the streets of New York.

2) Easter was this past Sunday, and although we couldn't have our family together, we did manage to eat dinner at the same time over Zoom. One family made steak, one had Mississippi pot roast, and I made our traditional lamb. The scalloped potatoes turned out very tasty, as did the ambrosia salad and broccoli salad. We didn't even have room for dessert. We had a wonderful time!

3) With bookstores closed, I have been trying to help by purchasing a book a week from a different local independent bookstore to send to people as a small way to help out. So far I have sent out Adrienne Martini's memoir Someone's Gotta Do It, her memoir about running for office in her small town in upstate New York in Otsego County from Astoria Bookshop, Andy Greene's The Office- the Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s, from Books Are Magic, and I preordered Curtis Sittenfeld's upcoming novel, Rodham, a fictionalized account of what if Hillary Clinton didn't marry Bill Clinton from  Bookmarks Shoppe. Her book, American Wife, was a wonderful novel based on the life of Laura Bush. 

4) Speaking of married women, this week my TV watching was all about the Mrs. I started season three of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon Prime, and it is so good to catch up with Miriam and her manager Susie, played by the fabulous Emmy winner Alex Borstein. The supporting cast is also so great, and I think I'm going to like the storyline about Joel opening up a club above an illegal gambling operation in Chinatown.

The other show I've been watching is Mrs. America on FX on Hulu, about the efforts of Phyllis Schlafly to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972. Cate Blanchett is riveting as Schlafly, and next week we will see the characters of Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne), Betty Freidan (Tracey Ullman), Bella Abzug (Margo Martindale) and Shirley Chisholm (Uzo Aduba). This one is must-see TV.

3) I read two books this week- Robyn Carr's novel, Sunrise on Half Moon Bay, about two sisters who have to face new lives after their mom dies and a marriage falls apart. My review is here.

The other book is Elizabeth Wetmore's Valentine, which is this month's Read With Jenna pick from the Today Show. Set in 1976 in hardscrabble Odessa, Texas, it reveals how the aftermath of a vicious assault of a 14 year-old Mexican girl affects the women in the town. The characters are so compelling, and the writing is brilliant. My review will follow next week. 

Stay safe, stay healthy and stay home.

Sunrise on Half Moon Bay by Robyn Carr

Sunrise on Half Moon Bay by Robyn Carr
Published by MIRA ISBN 9780778310099
Hardcover, $27.99, 304 pages

When you want to tune out the news and get lost in a good book, Robyn Carr's latest, Sunrise on Half Moon Bay, is a great place to turn.

Addie is 32 years old, and has spent the last eight years of her life caring first for her father, and then her mother, who lived four years after suffering from a stroke. Now that both of her parents have passed, Addie has to decide what to do with her own life.

Her sister Justine is twenty years older, and was out of the house before Addie was even born. Justine is a successful corporate laywer, working long hours to support her stay-at-home husband Scott and their teenage daughters Olivia and Amber.

Justine and Addie had an agreement that Justine would pay Addie to stay home and take care of their parents, and Justine would pay all of their expenses, including a small stipend for Addie.

Justine has always been a take-charge, decisive person, Addie has been more deliberate. Caring for their ailing parents and an event from Addie's college days has made her reluctant to move forward with her life. She feels stuck, but doesn't know how to move forward.

Her lifelong best friend Jake has been a shoulder to lean on, but now even he has been urging Addie to do something- go back to school, maybe even start dating. And he wouldn't mind if he was the guy she would want to date.

When Justine's husband decides that he wants out of the marriage, she is blindsided. She always thought they were happy. Scott wants half of their marital assets and spousal support, which means that Justine's financial support of Addie is in jeopardy.

Addie and Justine's lives have been turned upside down, and now they have to take a hard look at what they really want out of life and how to get there. They haven't been close as sisters, but now they must figure out a way to pull together and build a new relationship with each other.

The sister relationship is the strongest element of Sunrise on Half Moon Bay. I loved watching Addie and Justine work their way back to each other, depending on each other to get through a new phase of their lives. Justine reevaluates her career situation and has to deal with a big change in her midlife, while Addie is starting a little later than most people at finding a meaningful job.

There is so much that people can relate to here- Addie sacrificing to care for her parents, Justine working long hours at a tough job to provide financially for her family, while still coming home to make dinner, do laundry and help with her daughters' homework. Even Olivia and Amber, having their lives turned upside down by their parents' divorce, are in a situation where many people have been.

I hope that we get to revisit Addie and Justine in a future Half Moon Bay book, I feel like they have become my friends.

Thanks to Harlequin Books for putting me on Robyn Carr's tour.

Robyn Carr's website is here.