The Goodbye Year by Kaira Rouda

The Goodbye Year by Kaira Rouda
Published by Spark Press ISBN 9781940716336
Trade paperback, $17, 312 pages

Many of my friends (myself included) have hit the crossroads of life called "empty nest". Our children have grown up and gone away to college to leave us all wondering how we deal with the fact that we are no longer needed in the same way.

Kaira Rouda addresses this situation through her novel The Goodbye Year. In it we meet a group of families who live in a well-to-do beach town in Southern California. There are several couples who are on the cusp of empty nest, including power couple plastic surgeon Jud and his perfectly put together (partially through plastic surgery) wife Sarah, who have the perfect daughter Ashley.

Ashley is a great girl, a hard-working student, beautiful, president of everything. She is dating a football player, but becomes friendly with Collin, the son of two recent Ohio transplants. His mom Melanie works hard to make sure every post on her Facebook page represents the kind of family she wants everyone to believe she has.

Collin is musically gifted but not academically motivated like his older brother Seth, which drives Melanie crazy. She can't understand why he doesn't try harder in school. It caused much friction between them.

Will works as a building inspector for the town, and his wife is the uber-organized principal of the middle school. She has her entire family's lives on a color-coordinated schedule, with nothing left to chance or circumstance. Will is tired of being scheduled to death and is having an affair with the mother of one of the students in his daughter's class.

Rouda takes us through the senior year of high school, alternating narration from the adults and their children. I liked the differing perspectives we get from this, not only what the parents are dealing with, but also the pressures of being a high school senior with everyone coming at you about your future. It is much different than when I was in school.

The one thing I took away from this is that you never know what the person next to you is dealing with. Someone may look so together on the outside, but on the inside they may be just as conflicted or lonely or scared as the next person. Maybe it will make someone reading this feel not so alone with their own issues.

The Goodbye Year can be a little Desperate Housewives-like, with the scandals and affairs and secret lives, but it also makes you think as well as entertain you. And if empty nest is sneaking up on you, reading this may make you feel like you can handle whatever comes your way.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Kaira Rouda's tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Kaira Rouda’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Thursday, September 1st: The Baking Bookworm

Friday, September 2nd: FictionZeal

Tuesday, September 6th: Thoughts on This ‘n That

Wednesday, September 7th: Palmer’s Page Turners

Thursday, September 8th: A Chick Who Reads

Friday, September 9th: Bookmark Lit

Monday, September 12th: Write Read Life

Tuesday, September 13th: Books and Bindings

Wednesday, September 14th: Dreaming Big – author Q&A

Thursday, September 15th: Bookchickdi

Friday, September 16th: Brooklyn Berry Designs

Monday, September 19th: Kritter’s Ramblings

Tuesday, September 20th: 5 Minutes for Books

Wednesday, September 21st: Lavish Bookshelf

Thursday, September 22nd: Diary of a Stay at Home Mom

Friday, September 23rd: Patricia’s Wisdom

Monday, September 26th: Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews

Tuesday, September 27th: Good Girl Gone Redneck

Wednesday, September 28th: Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers

Thursday, September 29th: Laura’s Review

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Published by Harper ISBN 978-0-06249179-4
Hardcover, $27.99, 336 pages

I can vividly remember reading Ann Patchett's novel Bel Canto on my front porch one summer. I was mesmerized by her stunning story of a hostage situation in an unnamed South American country, and how I just fell into the book and didn't come out until the end.

Her last novel, State of Wonder, about a research scientist who goes to the Amazon to search for her missing mentor, also brought me into a completely new world, one I wouldn't know that much about or even dream I would be interested in.

Her newest novel is set closer to her own home. Commonwealth is the story of a blended family- a man with four young children leaves his wife and marries a woman with two children. (This happened to Patchett's family.) How that comes about, and the repercussions of the man kissing a woman who is not his wife at a neighborhood party, makes for a story that may be more relatable to most people.

Albert is a district attorney in Southern California in the 1960's. He goes to a christening party for the daughter of Fix, a police officer he doesn't know well, and becomes enchanted with Fix's beautiful wife Bev. He kisses Bev and soon leaves his wife and children and takes Bev and her two daughters to Virginia to live.

The opening scene of the party is brilliantly done. Fix the cop describes DA's as "the guys who smoked your cigarettes because they were trying to quit." Soon Albert is not only smoking Fix's cigarettes, he has stolen Fix's wife Bev.

Years later, Fix tells his adult daughter Franny that Bev "didn't have her own character. She turned into whoever she was sitting next to. When she was sitting next to Miss Free Love then free love sounded like a great idea."

The story spans five decades, and we see the children grow from six children thrown together in summers in Virginia to adults, all bearing the scars of a childhood that included a tragedy most of them never got over.

Franny, the baby at the christening, grew up and met Leo Posen, a famous novelist who falls in love with her. She tells Leo her family's tale and he turns it into his comeback novel titled 'Commonwealth'. Franny is staying with Leo at the home of a wealthy actress in the Hamptons, and ends up acting as servant to the many people who decide to descend uninvited, including her younger stepbrother Albie, who comes to confront her about the book.

There are many characters in this moving story, and Patchett excels at crystalizing each one in a few scenes. A book that covers five decades of a family could easily clock in at over 600 pages, but Patchett manages to create this world in just over 300 pages.

Fix was my favorite character in the book, an honorable man who loves his children and even shows great kindness to Albert's first wife when she needed it. I also loved that Albert's first wife picked herself up and got a great job to support her family when her husband left her.

Commonwealth is based on Patchett's family, and Franny is her doppleganger. Patchett has said in interviews about the book that she spoke to all of her siblings about the book, getting their blessing to tell the story. I'm not sure how many families would be OK with that. As I read the book I kept thinking, "what would a book about your childhood look like?"

I think perhaps she felt the time was right to write this intensely personal book, one so close to home. At one point Frannie and her sister Caroline are riding in the car with their ailing father and Frannie thinks of Fix:

"All the stories go with you, Frannie thought, closing her eyes. All the things I didn't listen to, won't remember, never got right, wasn't around for."

I think that line sums up Patchett's place in her life, one that many middle-aged people are dealing with as well. You get to a certain point in life and you contemplate how you got to where you are, and how your family played such a big role in that.

Commonwealth is not a story that you race through to finish. It's one to savor and ponder, and upon reflection I liked it much more a week or so after I finished it than when when I closed the book. I highly recommend it.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Ann Patchett's tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Tour Stops

Tuesday, September 13th: BookNAround

Wednesday, September 14th: Books and Bindings

Thursday, September 15th: Vox Libris

Friday, September 16th: Art @ Home

Friday, September 16th: 5 Minutes For Books

Monday, September 19th: A Bookish Way of Life

Tuesday, September 20th: Books on the Table

Wednesday, September 21st: A Chick Who Reads

Thursday, September 22nd: Luxury Reading

Thursday, September 22nd: Tina Says…

Monday, September 26th: bookchickdi

Wednesday, September 28th: Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World

Thursday, September 29th: West Metro Mommy

Monday, October 3rd: Fictionophile

Tuesday, October 4th: Literary Quicksand

Wednesday, October 5th: Much Madness is Divinest Sense

Thursday, October 6th: Lit and Life

Friday, October 7th: The Well-Read Redhead

Ann Patchett's website is here.

Weekend Cooking- Sweet Corn Zucchini Pie

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

Although it's back to school and Labor Day the unofficial end to summer has passed, it's still 90 degrees outside here in NYC. I like fall because it means a return to cooking hardy dinners, but that will have to wait until it cools down.

I'm always looking for a way to get more vegetables in our diet, and with the abundance of sweet corn and zucchini this time of year, I found a recipe on Pinterest for Sweet Corn Zucchini Pie that looked appetizing.

The recipe comes from A Pinch of Yum, and I liked this one because it is a crustless pie, which means no extra calories. It also has mushrooms in it and I am a big mushroom fan.

The recipe calls for cutting the corn off two cobs. I found a trick for doing this the easy way. Pull out a big, deep bowl (I use a mixing bowl). Place an overturned small cereal bowl inside the big bowl, place the ear of corn on top of the smaller bowl and slice the corn off the cob. The corn falls into the large bowl, and when you are done, pull the small bowl out of the large bowl and voila, the corn is inside the large bowl and ready to use. I wish I knew where I found this trick so I could give proper credit.

Saute onion, mushroom and zucchini, add the corn and saute some more. Add a mixture of cheese, eggs and herbs and blend with the sauteed vegetables. Put the mixture in a pie pan, bake in the oven and there you have it.

My tasty zucchini pie

My sweet corn zucchini pie turned out fabulous. My sons loved it, and my husband even had it as leftovers the next night. If you are looking for a way to use up some of the end of season vegetables, I recommend this recipe. You can find the full recipe from A Pinch of Yum here.

If you have any end-of-summer recipes you'd like to share, please post it in comments.

The Perfect Girl by Gilly MacMillan

The Perfect Girl by Gilly Macmillan
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks ISBN 9780062476760
Trade paperback, $15.99, 464 pages

Author Gilly Macmillan follows up her 2015 gripping debut novel What She Knew, about a mom whose eight-year-old son vanishes, with another tense and topical suspense thriller, The Perfect Girl.

The Perfect Girl opens with 17-year-old Zoe Maisey and her stepbrother Lucas ready to perform a piano recital. Zoe's mom Maria and Lucas' dad Chris sit proudly in the front row, ready to hear their talented children play. Zoe then tells us that six hours later her mother will be dead.

Now that the author has your attention, we shift narrators to Sam, a solicitor whom we find is having an affair with Zoe's Aunt Tessa. Sam and Tessa met a few years prior, when Sam was Zoe's lawyer. When Zoe was 14 years-old, she was involved in a car accident that took the lives of three of her classmates, and Sam relates that part of the story to us.

We also get Tessa's point of view. Tessa loves her niece Zoe and sister Maria fiercely. She is having trouble in her marriage; she and her husband have been trying for years to conceive a child, and her husband has slid into alcoholism and depression.

The timeline shifts back and forth, but it is never confusing. The title refers to not only Zoe- who is trying her best to be the perfect girl her mother wants, but to Tessa, who has always been the perfect girl in her family, and Maria, a former wild child who, after Zoe's accident, has worked hard to be the perfect wife to Chris.

But what is the cost of trying for perfection? When Zoe was fourteen, she went to a party, had what she thought was one drink, hoping to get the attention of Jack, the guy every girl wanted. She thought she was using good judgement, but in trying to impress Jack a terrible tragedy occurs.

Maria changed her life when she married Chris. Her marriage to Zoe's husband broke up after Zoe's accident, and Maria rebuilt her life with Chris and his son Lucas. She designed the perfect life for her husband- they had the perfect house, she had a beautiful kitchen where she created wonderful meals for her husband. The cost of attempting perfection, especially for women, can be too much to pay.

So how did Maria end up dead? That is the ultimate mystery here, and you'll fly through the pages to find out the answer.

Reading The Perfect Girl put me in mind of HBO's series, The Night Of. A seemingly good kid makes a few bad decisions that leads to more trouble. There's also a lawyer's point of view, as in the HBO series. Fans of The Night Of will want to follow-up with The Perfect Girl. 

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Gilly Macmillan's tour. The rest of the stops are here:

Tour Stops

Tuesday, September 6th: Mama Reads Hazel Sleeps

Wednesday, September 7th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Thursday, September 8th: bookchickdi

Friday, September 9th: Ms. Nose in a Book

Monday, September 12th: Tina Says…

Tuesday, September 13th: Kahakai Kitchen

Wednesday, September 14th: Peeking Between the Pages

Thursday, September 15th: West Metro Mommy

Monday, September 19th: she treads softly

Tuesday, September 20th: A Bookworm’s World

Wednesday, September 21st: Comfy Reading

Thursday, September 22nd: Book Hooked Blog

Monday, September 26th: I Brought a Book

Tuesday, September 27th: Bibliotica

Wednesday, September 28th: Vox Libris

Thursday, September 29th: What Will She Read Next

New in Paperback- The Total Package by Stephanie Evanovich

The Total Package by Stephanie Evanovich
Published by William Morrow ISBN 978-0-06223486-2
Trade paperback, $15.99, 256 pages

A few years ago I read a debut novel by author Stephanie Evanovich, Big Girl Panties, and beyond loving the title, I really enjoyed the book about Logan Montgomery, a hot trainer who brings Holly, a young widow, out of her shell. I finished the book and wanted to read more about two secondary characters, baseball superstar Chase and his sassy wife Amanda.

When The Sweet Spot was published the following year, I was so excited that we got to find out how Chase and Amanda got together, and I loved it even more than Big Girl Panties. 

Evanovich just published her third book, The Total Package, about a big shot quarterback, Tyson Palmer, who trashes his career. When Palmer hits bottom, the owner of the Austin Mavericks picks him up and makes him the cornerstone of his team, hoping to win the Super Bowl.

Palmer digs in and works to make himself one of the league's best quarterbacks. When hot young wide receiver Marcus LaRue joins the Mavericks, he hopes that he and Palmer can be a dream team. LaRue's only request is that the team hire a young reporter, Dani Carr, to be his media person. He will only allow Carr to interview him, no one else.

Carr leaves her young son behind in Philadelphia with her supportive family- Mom, Dad and brothers- to take advantage of this possible career-building opportunity. She concentrates on the work, and hopes that no one discovers her secret.

Tyson is attracted to Carr but finds it hard to break through her shell. LaRue too is very secretive. He doesn't party like a rock star and he is never seen in the company of the many young ladies who seek his attention. And for some reason LaRue keeps pushing for Tyson and Dani to get together.

The Total Package is Evanovich's best book yet. Her characters feel like people you would know, especially Dani's close-knit Italian family. They are the family we all want to have. It's nice to read a book where the characters are kind to each other and support each other, even when they make mistakes.

I'm more of a baseball fan than football fan, but that didn't stop me from loving everything about this book. And I cried tears of joy when old friends Logan and Holly and Chase and Amanda made an appearance in the book. It was so much fun to see Chase and Amanda's wedding from a different perspective.

Evanovich's writing is sharp in this book, and you will find yourself racing through it to finish it. Like her first two books, it is sexy (oh, those sex scenes!) and sassy and this one has such a sweetness to it it is heartwarming.

Now I am hoping that the next book will tell us more about Marcus LaRue's story (and not just because Marcus and I share a surname). He may be Evanovich's most intriguing character yet and I want to find out more about where he came from and where he is going.

The Total Package is a great book to give your best girlfriend and you may want to read the steamier scenes out loud to your significant other, you know for inspiration. It's like Fifty Shades of Grey, except much better written and with a lot more heart. I give it my highest recommendation.

Stephanie Evanovich's website is here.

Finding Libbie by Deanna Lynn Sletten

Finding Libbie by Deanna Lynn Sletten
Published by Lake Union Publishing ISBN 9781503937154
Trade paperback, $14.95, 352 pages

I was intrigued by the premise of Deanna Lynn Sletten's novel, Finding Libbie. Emily is helping her grandmother pack up the family farm when she finds a hatbox filled with old photos of her father as young man. Her grandmother tells Emily that they are photos of Emily's father Jack with his first wife Libbie.

His first wife? Emily had no idea that her father was married before. Her own mother died last year, and Emily knew how much her parents loved each other and how devastated her father was when she died.

The story of Libbie, a beautiful young woman from one of the town's most prominent families, and Jack, the hardworking son of a cabinet maker who lived on a farm, is related through flashbacks. Jack was head-over-heels in love with Libbie when he swept her off her feet in high school.

Libbie's mother was openly hostile to Jack and Libbie's relationship, looking down on Jack as just a lowly mechanic, someone who couldn't possibly make her daughter happy. But Libbie was in love, and Jack's family treated with kindness and respect, unlike her mother and older sister Gwen.

We see how Jack wooed Libbie with romantic gestures, and was thrilled when she agreed to marry him, over her mother's strenuous objections. They lived in a little cottage on a small lake, and Jack worked as a mechanic. Life was good.

Libbie tried hard to be a good wife, keeping house and cooking meals she learned from Jack's mother, but she soon grew bored. She began to drink, and her moods swung wildly. She feared that she was becoming more like her mother, who increasingly began to spend her entire day in her dark bedroom, drunk and taking pills.

Jack was distraught; he did everything he could to help make life easier for Libbie, but when her father bought them a big house, Jack had to work more hours just to keep up with the bills, and so he spent more time away from home. The isolation that Libbie felt only made matters worse.

Eventually we discover what happened to Libbie and Jack, and Emily sets out to try and find Libbie. In her journey to find Libbie, Emily discovers some things about her own life. She has been living with and supporting her boyfriend while he goes to school, and she has to decide if this is the life she is willing to settle for.

I loved Finding Libbie, and it's not the genre of book I usually enjoy. I found myself so caught up in Jack and Libbie's story, and Emily's journey too. I read it in two sittings, and it even kept me on the treadmill longer, the sign of a truly good book.

Sletten handled the topic of addiction and mental illness with sensitivity, and I daresay that anyone who has experienced that for themselves will probably appreciate this beautiful story even more deeply. Since the story takes place in the late 1960's/early 1970's, people didn't understand as much about these issues as we do now, and so didn't know how to handle them.

Everything in this story- the well-drawn characters, the plot and the Minnesota setting during the Vietnam War-worked for me.  I admit to tearing up at the end of the story, and if you liked Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook, this book is for you. I liked it even better than The Notebook. I highly recommend Finding Libbie.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Deanna Lynn Sletten's tour. The rest of her tour stops are here:

Deanna Lynn Sletten’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Tuesday, September 6th: Bookchickdi

Thursday, September 8th: Reading Reality

Wednesday, September 14th: From the TBR Pile

Thursday, September 15th: Back Porchervations

Friday, September 16th: A Chick Who Reads

Monday, September 19th: Ms. Nose in a Book

Wednesday, September 21st: Mama Vicky Says

Monday, September 26th: All Roads Lead to the Kitchen

Tuesday, October 4th: Kahakai Kitchen

Wednesday, October 5th: Books and Bindings

Thursday, October 6th: Patricia’s Wisdom

Friday, October 7th: View from the Birdhouse

Monday, October 10th: Snowdrop Dreams of Books

Wednesday, October 12th: Write Read Life

Weekend Cooking- Indigenous in Sarasota

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

When we visit our vacation home near Sarasota in Florida, our friends always have a new restaurant for us to try. There are so many great restaurants down there, foodies are in heaven.

On our most recent trip, we visited Indigenous, located in the downtown Towles Court area. It's located in a big old house, in a mixed residential, small business area. There are tables on the big front porch, with billowing white awnings overhead, and tables along the side of the house.

We sat inside, where there appeared to be a dozen or so tables of various sizes which overlook the open kitchen. It is a little dark inside, and it was raining hard that night, so you may need to use your phone flashlight app to read the menu.

The menu is not extensive, but everything we tried was fantastic. I always check out Yelp and Trip Advisor reviews before we go to a restaurant to see what people recommend, and this time I went with two appetizers as my meal.

Three of us ordered the Wild Mushroom Bisque, which was phenomenal. It was very rich, and the crispy rye croutons added just the right crunch. I convinced the table to order the Parmesan Beignets, which were served on a honey, pear and thyme sauce. We went crazy over these, trying to be polite over who would get the last tasty, fluffy beignet morsel. (My husband and I split it.)

Parmesan Beignets

I had the Pork Belly appetizer as my entree. It was such a mouth-watering burst of flavors, served over a charred corn tortilla salad, with salsa verde and salsa roja, bacon and queso fresco. The entire dish was just perfectly blended.

Pork Belly

Indigenous is known for its Hook to Fork, a daily fish special featuring the freshest local sustainable ingredients in creative dishes. One of our friends had the Hook to Fork special, a cobia dish. You can't get much fresher or more beautiful than this.

Cobia- Hook to Fork 

The service was terrific and the ambience and food were wonderful. We will return to Indigenous again, and next time I'm not sharing the Parmesan Beignets.


Indigenous' website is here.

Carry On by Lisa Fenn

Carry On by Lisa Fenn
Published by Harper Wave ISBN 978-0062427830
Hardcover, $25.99, 256 pages

Every once in a while, I read a book that affects me so deeply, when I finish the book I feel the need to run and tell everyone I see "You must read this book!" Lisa Fenn's Carry On is one such book.

Fenn grew up in Cleveland, and became a producer for ESPN. On a visit home, her father showed her a newspaper story about two high school wrestlers from a high school in a poor section of the city. One of the young men was blind, the other had lost his legs in a tragic train accident.

She became intrigued, and convinced her boss at ESPN to film a short documentary piece on the young men by giving him a visual- "The one who cannot walk being carried by the one who cannot see." What came out of that piece changed Fenn's life forever.

Fenn got to know the young men- Dartanyon, a big guy who got shuffled from place to place, who always carried a duffel bag of his belongings with him because he didn't know where he would be sleeping that night, and Leroy, who lost his legs in a train accident when he was eleven and was living with his grandmother.

Both young men grew up in poverty in addition to their physical challenges. They became best friends. Dartanyon would literally carry Leroy on his back into wrestling matches, and he would frequently be found at Leroy's grandmother's home where he got a decent meal.

Their bond was unbreakable, and it took Fenn a long time to break through the defenses they had to get them to open up to her. They were suspicious of Fenn, of her motives for doing the documentary. She spent many hours watching them play video games in Leroy's grandmother's basement, eventually gaining their trust.

The resulting documentary was so moving that many viewers responded by asking how they could help these courageous young men. Fenn helped set up a fund for the young men to get them into colleges, a dream they couldn't even begin to comprehend.

She found people willing to help and through sheer force of will she got them to take the SATs and both of them were able to go to college. But Dartanyon and Leroy were completely unprepared for college life, and it became Fenn's full-time job to keep these guys on track.

Carry On is a book that looks at the bigger problem of  race, privilege, class and poverty through the prism of these two young men. For everyone who says, why can't people just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and succeed, the complications of that type of thinking is in here.

Fenn is a woman of faith, and I enjoyed that aspect of the book. She believed that she couldn't just walk away from these young men, that she could make a difference even when most people would give up.

Carry On will appeal to anyone who loves a good story about sports and the difference we can make in other people's lives. I cried throughout the book several times, and it reminded me of  Jeff Hobbs' brilliant book, The Life and Tragic Death of Robert Peace. Both books do a fantastic job of showing us a way of life most of us are unfamiliar with.

If you are the kind of person who only reads one book a year, make it Carry On. I would love to see this become a book read in high schools, colleges and in city reads program. It is the best non-fiction book I have read this year, hands-down.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Lisa Fenn's tour. The rest of Lisa's stops are here:

Tour Stops

Tuesday, August 16th: Emerald City Book Review

Thursday, August 18th: Becklist

Friday, August 19th: Dreaming Big

Monday, August 22nd: Mother’s Circle

Tuesday, August 23rd: bookchickdi

Wednesday, August 24th: Tina Says…

Thursday, August 25th: Literary Quicksand

Monday, August 29th: Helen’s Book Blog

Tuesday, August 30th: Cait’s Cozy Corner

Wednesday, August 31st: Book by Book

Thursday, September 1st: Many Hats

Wednesday, September 7th: Back Porchervations

Thursday, September 8th: Rebecca Radish

Monday, September 12th: Reading Reality

Tuesday, September 13th: The Paperback Pilgrim

Monday, September 19th: Reading is My Super Power

Book Report- Three Novels About Romantic Relationships

Reprinted from auburnpub.com 

This month’s Book Report tackles the topic of romantic relationships. Two of the novels, “This Must Be The Place” and “The Hopefuls” deal with the ups and downs of marriage and identity, and the third, “The Hating Game”, reveals a relationship as it blossoms from hate to love.

Sally Thorne takes on workplace romantic relationships in “The Hating Game”.  Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman sit across from each other in their respective positions as assistants to co-CEOs of a publishing company. When the companies merged, Lucy and Joshua were forced to work in close quarters, much their displeasure. 

Lucy’s Bexley team are lovers of literature, people who believed that literature is art, as necessary to people’s lives as air is to breathe. Joshua’s Gamin team is more analytical; they believe in “key performance indicator targets” and that books are units to be sold.

Each team needs the other to survive in today’s competitive market. Joshua thinks Lucy is too soft on her staff, letting them shirk their responsibilities so that she has to pick up their slack. Lucy thinks Josh is a jerk, and the macho posturing of his team annoys her.

Though they claim to hate each other, events conspire to throw them together and the course of true love never runs smooth. The fact that they are up for the same promotion makes their rivalry even more personal and intense.

“The Hating Game” is a terrific workplace romance novel, and the reader roots for Lucy and Joshua to realize their feelings for each other. Thorne writes some hot and steamy sex scenes. Her first book is so well done, it felt like it was written by someone who has been doing this awhile. I loved the characters and hope to see them again sometime.

Jennifer Close’s third novel, “The Hopefuls” is publishing at just the right time. Matt and Beth’s story takes place in Washington DC, where Matt hopes his work as legal counsel in the Obama administration will help him land a position that he can leverage into running for political office himself. 

Beth reluctantly follows her husband from New York City to DC, hoping to find her place there as well. She doesn’t like politics, and in a company town like DC, it’s hard to meet anyone who doesn’t identify themselves by their security clearance level.

When they meet golden boy Jimmy and his wife Ash, Beth finally feels like she has a friend. Matt is envious of Jimmy’s position and his easy way with people. Everything seems to fall in Jimmy’s lap.

“The Hopefuls” reveals Matt and Beth’s marriage through the prism of politics, and how difficult it is to be married to someone who is so totally consumed by his career when the other person’s  career is less satisfying. Matt and Beth compare themselves to Jimmy and Ash, and when they follow them to Texas to help Jimmy run for office, the problems in their marriage become magnified. Close gets the details of marriage so right in this book, investing the reader in their marriage.

She excels in her character development. The scenes with Matt’s family, his overbearing mother who makes the in-laws sit at a separate dinner table from their spouses, are so perfectly written that we know these characters well even though they are only around for a little while.

Maggie O’Farrell’s “This Must Be The Place” weaves together the story of Daniel, an American who while on a trip to Ireland to pick up the ashes of his dead grandfather, meets Claudette, a famous actress who ran away from her director husband and stardom with her young son to live in seclusion. 

Daniel is upset about the dissolution of his marriage and the fact that his ex-wife refuses to allow him to see his children. He falls in love with Claudette and Ari, her son. He stays in Ireland, they marry and have two children of their own.

Claudette is a difficult woman, she prefers to stay on her secluded property, homeschooling her children. Daniel works as a professor of linguistics and loves his wife dearly. 

Daniel has to face an event from 20 years ago that forces him to look at just the kind of man he really is, is he the good man he thinks himself to be?

O’Farrell brilliantly weaves together Daniel and Claudette’s story, using perspective from others along the way. Her theme of the redemptive quality of love is one worth contemplating in this moving story.

“The Hating Game” by Sally Thorne- A

Published by William Morrow Paperbacks

Trade paperback, $14.99, 384 pages

“The Hopefuls” by Jennifer Close- A-

Published by Alfred A. Knopf

Hardcover, $25.95, 320 pages

“This Must Be The Place” by Maggie O’Farrell-A

Published by Alfred A. Knopf

Hardcover, $26.95, 382 pages

Lowcountry Stranger by Ashley Farley

Lowcountry Stranger by Ashley Farley
Published by Leisure Time Publishing
Ebook, $3.99

Lowcountry Stranger is Ashley Farley's second novel in her Sweeney Sister series, first introduced in Her Sister's Shoes. I didn't read the first novel, and when I started Lowcountry Stranger I feared that I would be lost. I admit it took me a few pages to get adjusted, but once I did, I was hooked by this intriguing family's story.

As the book opens, Faith is celebrating her marriage to Dr. Mike in her hometown of Prospect, South Carolina. This is Faith's second marriage, her first was to an abusive man who is now in prison. Faith's seven-year-old daughter Bitsy hasn't spoken a word since the incident that put her father away.

Faith's oldest sister Jackie spends her week working as a decorator in Charleston, coming home on the weekend to her twin high school senior sons and her doctor husband. Jackie is feeling restless, wanting to further her career, and troubled by her husband's infidelity last year.

Middle sister Sam is a single mom who raised her college-aged son Jamie on her own. Sam manages the family seafood market, a Prospect mainstay. Sam is dating Eli, a town policeman who loves and wants to marry her, but Sam says that marriage is not for her.

When a bedraggled teenage girl Annie shows up at the wedding, the Sweeney sisters reluctantly take her in after she tells them she was traveling with a family she was working for when they abandoned her and took off.

Bitsy takes a shine to Annie and she speaks her first words to Annie. Faith is so moved by this, she asks Annie to care for Bitsy while she works. But although something seems not quite right with Annie, the Sweeneys open their homes to Annie.

Life has it's ups and downs for the Sweeneys. Faith is very protective of Bitsy, and when they all took Annie in so quickly, I thought maybe it was a little too fast. They really knew nothing about her, and let her care for a traumatized young girl. Eventually we find out Annie's true story, and how it affects the entire Sweeney family.

I got caught up in the Sweeney Sisters story very quickly, and loved the setting of the small town in the Lowcountry. And as someone who once owned a small fast food restaurant, the family seafood market business was fascinating to me.

There a lot of characters to follow in the book, but I was fully invested in each of their stories. I loved the sisters' relationships, and the cousins' strong connections to each other. Sometimes in novels of this genre, the male characters tend to be somewhat one-dimensional, but here the men were full partners in the story and fully fleshed out.

After reading Lowcountry Stranger, I am going to read Her Sister's Shoes to see what I missed, and I am waiting not-so-patiently for the next installment. If you like family stories, especially sister stories, you'll love Lowcountry Stranger.

Ashley Farley is giving away a $50 Amazon gift card to celebrate the publication of Low Country Stranger. To enter follow the instructions here:

Purchase Links

Amazon†| iTunes†| Barnes & Noble | Kobo

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ashley Farley has a really fun website with some cool information graphics about the Sweeney sisters, including music playlists for each sister. 

Visit her website at†http://www.ashleyfarley.net.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Ashley Farley's tour. The rest of the stops are here:

Tour Stops

Monday, August 1st: Mama Reads Hazel Sleeps

Wednesday, August 3rd: bookchickdi

Thursday, August 4th: Tina Says…

Thursday, August 11th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Friday, August 12th: Art @ Home

Tuesday, August 16th: Peeking Between the Pages

Monday, August 22nd: Comfy Reading

Wednesday, August 24th: I Brought a Book

Saturday, August 27th: Ms. Nose in a Book

Wednesday, September 7th: Bibliotica

Thursday, September 8th: I’d Rather Be At The Beach

Monday, September 12th: Reading is My Super Power

Home Field by Hannah Gersen

Home Field by Hannah Gersen
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks ISBN 9780062413741
Trade paperback, $14.99, 432 pages

Hannah Gersen's debut novel Home Field is billed as a combination of Friday Night Lights and My So-Called Life. That's quite a high bar to set, and Gersen clears it with room to spare.

Dean is a successful high school football coach in a small Maryland town. He runs a terrific program, and is known and respected throughout the town. Years ago he married a young widow, Nicole, whose husband was a high school football hero. Nicole and her husband were high school sweethearts and had a young daughter, Stephanie, when he was diagnosed and died.

Nicole suffers from depression, perhaps she never got over the loss of the love of her life. Dean was smitten with her and young Stephanie, and they married and had two boys of their own, Robbie and Bryan.

As the story opens, Nicole commits suicide and is found by her eleven-year-old son Robbie. Stephanie is set to go away to college, and struggles with leaving her brothers and father to go so far from home. Robbie begins cutting class and acting out, and finally finds salvation by participating in the high school play.

Bryan has spending more time with Nicole's sister and her family, devoutly religious people. Bryan finds solace in religion, much to Dean's concern. He feels that his sister-in-law is unduly influencing his young son.

Coaching a successful high school football program is a time-consuming profession, and Dean comes to the conclusion that he needs to step down for the sake of his children. He also becomes involved with Robbie's school counselor, a woman he knew when she was a substitute teacher at his school.

Stephanie is trying to find her way in the world, and Gersen really nails the feelings of a young woman adrift. She is grieving the loss of a mother she loved, feeling angry that her mother abandoned them all, and sad that her mother was suffering so. She also feels guilty that she has left her brothers behind.

Reading this part of the story took me back to my own time going away to college, so vivid is the connection between Stephanie's experiences and most young women. Bravo to Ms. Gersen.

Just when Dean thinks he is losing it all, an opportunity to temporarily coach the girls cross country track team falls in his lap. He misses football, and he forms a connection with the girls that gives him a sense of control and accomplishment he is lacking in his personal life.

Gersen does a wonderful job with the setting and characters of her story. She has the small town atmosphere just right, and we care deeply about these people, even as we see them making mistakes. Dean in particular needs to learn the importance of verbal communication with his children. They need to talk about what happened to them, and he, like many men, has trouble with that.

Home Field is an emotional, moving book that touched my heart. Gersen's ability to write so beautifully and realistically in the voices of Dean, Stephanie and Robbie is quite an accomplishment. I recommend Home Field to anyone who loves a good family story.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Hannah Gersen's tour. The rest of the stops are here:

Tour Stops

Tuesday, July 26th: BookNAround

Thursday, July 28th: A Bookish Way of Life

Friday, July 29th: Broken Teepee

Monday, August 1st: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Tuesday, August 2nd: Lesa’s Book Critiques

Wednesday, August 3rd: bookchickdi

Thursday, August 4th: A Bookish Affair

Monday, August 8th: Bibliotica

Tuesday, August 9th: From the TBR Pile

Wednesday, August 10th: Sweet Southern Home

TBD: A Tattered Copy

Hannah Gersen's website is here.

They May Not Mean To, But They Do by Cathleen Schine

They May Not Mean To, But They Do by Cathleen Schine
Published by Sarah Crichton Books ISBN 9780062277022
Hardcover, $26, 304 pages

Cathleen Schine's newest novel, They May Not Mean To, But They Do is a gem. It tells the story of a family who are at the stage of life where they must deal with aging parents.

The mother Joy is described by her adult daughter Molly as thus:

"They found Joy disconcerting, and they were right. She was so intimate and so remote, as remote as a faraway, nameless planet sometimes; sometimes soft and sympathetic. She was talkative, yet she heard everything you said or thought you might say. She was wise and she was deep, intuitive, the kind of person to whom people confided their darkest secrets; she was scatterbrained and easily distractible and often forgot people's darkest secrets, which, as she always said, was just as well."

Joy lives with her husband, Aaron, who is suffering from Alzheimer's, in the apartment they have had for many years on the Upper West Side in New York City. Joy is caring for Aaron at home, while also still working part-time cataloguing items at a museum. The museum would like to see Joy retire, but Joy needs the job both for the money and her sanity.

Molly divorced her husband and now lives with her female partner in California. She likes her life in California, and flies home a few times a year to help organize her parents bills and medical issues. Daniel is married and lives in lower Manhattan with his wife and two pre-teen daughters. He works hard, and his responsibilities to his own family mean that he doesn't see his parents as often as Joy would like.

As Aaron seems to be getting worse, Joy has a hard time keeping up. It is too difficult to take Aaron out for walks, and they subsist almost completely on takeout food delivered from the local coffee shop. Piles of papers start to build up, and the apartment is getting too cluttered. Even the part-time housekeeper isn't helping.

Schine's moving novel deals with issues that most families will have to face- aging parents. She is empathetic to Joy's plight, and in her creates an indelible character many people will relate to. We can see how difficult it is for Joy to watch her husband failing, and to know that very soon she won't be able to care for him alone.

Molly and Daniel have their own lives to handle, and all the emotions they feel about what is happening to their parents- the guilt, anger, sadness, and frustration- are universal to adult children everywhere.

Schine gets all the details right too. You can feel the claustrophobia of Joy and Aaron's apartment, and smell the food cooking for their Thanksgiving dinner. This is a truly sensory book.

I've read some of Schine's other novels- The New Yorkers, The Three Weismanns of Westport, and Fin & Lady- and They May Not Mean To, But They Do is her best book yet.  For someone as young as she is to put herself so completely into the character of Joy is a brilliant achievement. Anyone who has older parents will do well to read this book, if only to get a glimpse of what they are going through. I highly recommend it.