Heaven Should Fall

Heaven Should Fall
by Rebecca Coleman
Published by Harlequin MIRA
368 pages
Genre: family, literature, adult
Available Sept. 25
Thanks to edelweiss for the preview
4 / 5 cupcakes


Some of us grow up wishing we were part of a family, even if we had one. In the case of Jill Wagner, she has no one. Her mother died in a shocking accident, her father has never been in the picture, and her grandparents are dead. So when Jill meets Cade Olmstead in college, she falls hard. Not just for Cade, but for the promise of what he represents.

First, there is his charm. As Jill acknowledges, Cade is good looking, intelligent, and has a certain sheen of smoothness. It helps that his chosen career is politics. His passion for Jill runs unabated, even in the midst of dire moments for the two of them. And he is ambitious, intently focused on getting a job with a politician for whom he campaigns.

But as with all bright shiny things, if you rub away the pretty exterior, you sometimes find tarnish and rust. In Cade's case, he tries to cover it up by tanning. Yes, tanning. The boy spends copious amounts of time turning his pasty New Hampshire-bred skin into a more cosmetically desirable brown.

But Jill is in love, and even before she discovers she is pregnant, the two are engaged, with Jill envisioning the family she no longer has and Cade imagining the perfect political spouse. That pregnancy, however, changes the dynamic of their relationship. For one thing, Cade needs to get a job. When he can't find one in their Maryland college town, he reluctantly - very reluctantly - packs up Jill and takes her to stay with his family for the summer.

This is the first time she meets them, because Cade didn't bring her home with him for any previous holidays, believing that Christmas by herself on the deserted campus is better than spending it with his family. She has met his older brother Elias, recently home from an Army stint in Afghanistan.

It doesn't take long for us to see why Cade avoided bringing Jill home as long as he did. His family is, in a word, nuts. And not in a lovable, eccentric kind of way. More in a fear-for-the-gene-pool kind of way.

Cade's father, Eddy, debilitated from a series of strokes, nonetheless retains the meanness that helped drive Cade out of the state. Mother Leela appears to be accepting of her life, until Rebecca Coleman takes us into Leela's mind and we discover that there is a lot more going on here than we thought. Sister Candy is the stereotypical ignorant, silly blonde; her husband Dodge is significantly older than she is and they have three rambunctious young sons.

Then there is Elias. Clearly he struggles with post traumatic stress disorder, but he has been left largely ignored by military physicians who attempt to "fix" him by prescribing various painkillers and mood stabilizers. We learn that Elias has been in love with local girl Piper since his teens; we also learn that Cade stole her from his brother, even impregnating her. As Elias and Jill's relationship deepens and intensifies, we watch with our breaths held. Will Elias exact retribution?

Elias, you see, is the only member of the family with whom Jill forms a connection. Yes, she tries to bond with Leela, even hoping that Leela will become her mother, but it is Elias who Jill offers comfort and compassion. She may not know about Piper, but she certainly knows that Elias begins to form an attachment to her.

Tragedy strikes this family, and we see it coming. The way they react, though, surprises us. Dodge, unflinchingly presented as a wacko, manages to display some decency - that is until he senses weakness in others, which he exploits much the way he did Candy when she was a teenager.

We spend most of the book in Jill's mind, although Coleman sends us into Cade's and Leela's as well. When we spend time with Elias, it is in the third person, as if his trauma prevents even us from getting close to him. As the family deals with the aftermath of the tragedy, we become even more convinced that Cade was right: Jill is better off away from these people.

This is an intricate, heavy book, that is interesting and well written. Those of you who thought that white supremacists and right wing militias exist only in the south and midwest might be surprised to find that they rage in New England as well. Coleman uses them here to spotlight the plight of PTSD. If the Army overlooks its faithful servants, then what is there to stop subversive individuals from exploiting these people?

As for Jill, we alternately want to scream at her and protect her. She mistakes self-help mumbo jumbo for practical advice, and her desperation to be part of a family causes her to ignore some important signs of instability, both within Cade and his family.

Sometimes, Rebecca Coleman seems to say, the adage is true: be careful what you wish for.

Those We Love Most

Those We Love Most
by Lee Woodruff
Published by Voice
320 pages
Genre: adult; literature; family
Available on Amazon.com
Thanks to edelweiss for the preview
4.5 / 5 cupcakes


I will kick off this review by stating that I really liked this book, although I really did not like many of its characters.

Meet the Corrigans, a typical suburban Chicago family of five: mother Maura, father Pete, and three adorable children.

Cue foreboding music now.

One sunny morning, as Maura walks her sons to school, an accident takes the life of her oldest son, nine-year-old James. The circumstances behind this death are slowly revealed, just as the guilt Maura feels slowly attempts to undo her. How Maura and Pete react to the loss of their son is the central story of the novel. Pete disgusts his wife, whether by talking to the person ostensibly responsible for James's death or by drinking too much. But Maura has her own issues, and we are not quick to forgive her.

The other story is that of Maura's parents, Roger and Margaret. These two are a bit more stereotypical than Maura and Pete: Roger is an aging banking wizard who has enjoyed the company of a woman not his wife, largely due to Margaret's flinty personality. She is not a demonstrative woman, preferring to let her caretaking actions speak for her. Roger, on the other hand, believes he is entitled his flings, and the way in which he treats his Florida lover wins him no fans. Roger and Margaret face their own crisis, and the way in which they approach it echoes the differences between Maura and Pete.

Lee Woodruff writes with compassion, but she does not shrink away from her characters. They say and do loathsome things, and Woodruff makes no apologies for them. She lets us see what motivates them, but she does not excuse them, nor does she ask us to do so. What would you do if you lost a child? What would happen to your marriage? Pete and Maura are not held up as an example of how to deal with a tragedy, yet we do cheer for them to find their way. That is a testament to Woodruff's writing, because there are times that Pete and Maura seem to beg for unhappiness.

The same goes for Margaret and Roger. Try liking one of those two. Just try! Margaret bestows her affection with great reluctance, and Roger's inner whinging makes us think Margaret has a point. But his treatment of her is unkind at best.

I hated having to put this book down, because I got so engrossed in the stories of its characters. It is not light reading in the least, but it is good reading.

The Homecoming of Samuel Lake

The Homecoming of Samuel Lake
Jenny Wingfield
Published by Random House Trade
352 pages
Available on Amazon.com
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.
5 / 5 cupcakes


When you are accustomed to living where the Lord sends you, the last place you might expect to wind up is home, sweet home. For Samuel Lake, a preacher whose style tends to put off his flock more than bring them to the light, home is what he hopes is a temporary locale. As the adage goes, however, we plan and God laughs.

Every year, on the first Saturday in June, the Moses family holds a reunion. Of John and Calla's three children, one son died in a tragic accident, one (Toy) lives on the family's 100-acre farm with his beautiful but terrible wife Bernice, and their daughter, Willadee, lives with her husband Samuel Lake and three children in whichever community Samuel is called to work. Willadee and the children come for the reunion, with Samuel due to follow.

The fun kicks off with a death in the family and continues apace. Told from different perspectives, this book really is like a warm summer day in the south: slowly getting hotter and stifling, with brief moments of respite provided by a nice glass of iced tea. One thing leads to another, leads to another, and pretty soon, you start to think that you're a member of the Moses family yourself.

When Samuel Lake does get to his family, they are distraught over the death and their need for him - for his comfort, if not his physical presence. No one feels the latter more than Willadee, and it quickly becomes clear that these two enjoy each other in the Biblical sense, much to the dismay of Bernice. You see, Bernice had her chance with Sam, all those years ago, but she played games with him, dumped him, and as he nursed his broken heart, he met Willadee. The fact that Bernice married Toy (out of spite and revenge) does not seem to have had its desired effect on Sam, because he is devoted to Willadee and his kids.

But things do not go as smoothly as Samuel Lake would like. There is the matter of him not finding a new pulpit, for one thing, and he suspects his wife and children hide things from him. He also wonders if they have lost respect for him; when Blade, the young son of an evil neighbor (a man described as Satan's stepson) escapes to the Moses home for some respite from his abusive father, Sam sends him back, horrifying his precocious eleven-year-old daughter Swan (yes, Swan Lake).

Sam repeatedly tries to save his family and meets with repeated frustration. At one point, he howls to the heavens, begging God for help. Sometimes, he fails to see that God answered his prayers, because God does not necessarily answer them as Samuel would like or expect. Other times, God responds quite clearly and emphatically.

There are several tragedies in this book, all of them heartbreaking. What will strike you as remarkable, however, is this family's determination to survive what assaults them. They all trust God, some more than others, and their faith in the Lord and themselves is something to behold. Each of them struggles against something, whether it's loss, failure or powerlessness.

Jenny Wingfield's voice pulls you into this book, and you will not be able to put it down. You will care for this family (most of them, anyway), and you will want to be sure that they are going to be okay. And when the book is over, you will miss the Moses family.

Read this. It's a very good book.

Northwest Corner

Northwest Corner
John Burnham Schwartz
Published by Random House
304 pages
Available on Amazon.com.
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.
4 / 5 cupcakes



Are we destined to repeat our parents' mistakes?

That is a central question, if not THE central question, in Northwest Corner. The sequel to Reservation Road (which I had not read, nor did I even realize that this was a sequel until I read the interview with John Burnham Schwartz at the end of the book), Northwest Corner picks up twelve years after Dwight Arno went to prison for accidentally killing a young boy. In Dwight's case, it was the old refrain: it's not the crime, it's the cover-up. He served less than three years in prison, after which he moved from Connecticut to California.

Dwight's post-prison life is simple: he's fifty, works at a sporting goods store, lives alone, and occasionally dates Penny, a single mother. Yet for all the simplicity of that day-to-day routine, the fact remains that Dwight lives across the country from Sam, with whom he has had no contact since he turned himself in to the police a dozen years ago. We learn that he has had very sporadic contact with Ruth, Sam's mother and Dwight's ex-wife.

So imagine Dwight's surprise when Sam shows up in California. Sam, you see, is in a bit of trouble. After a disastrous outing in a college baseball game, he gets into a bar fight, hits his opponent with an aluminum bat, and sends said opponent to the hospital. He goes, then, to the one person who might understand him.

Except - and here is where this book gets a wee bit frustrating - Sam says nothing. He never talks to Dwight, never discusses anything. Not his anger at being abandoned, not his anger at his father's previous treatment of his mother, not his fear that the kid in the hospital might not recover. Not his terror that he has become his father.

Yet as we discover, that reticence is very much the man Sam Arno has become. It frustrates us - as it certainly frustrates Dwight - but John Burnham Schwartz is unrelenting with Sam's depiction. We alternately want to huge him and shake him. The same with Dwight, as a matter of fact. You want him to connect with his son, but at the same time, you are furious that his contact with his boy for twelve years consists of little more than a birthday card with a check. There were no visits east. There were no phone calls. What does Dwight expect?

The suspense of what will become of Sam's legal problems takes a secondary role to what will become of Sam and Dwight, and even Ruth, Penny and Emma, the sister of the boy Dwight killed. Can they recover? Can they survive the continual assaults on their emotional well-being? Can they be the people they want to be?

As Dwight observes:

To build a solid, lasting bridge between two people, let alone a father and son with a history like ours, is a mighty human endeavor, and to sit here and think I might be able to accomplish it alone, with no glue, a few pickup sticks, and a dollop of spit, is nothing short of hubris. And hubris, the Greeks tell us, will see you dead. The robed chorus chanting your name until, in the last act, they bury and forget you.

Not quite the picture of paternal optimism, is he?

Told from the perspectives of Dwight, Sam, Ruth, Penny and Emma, we get to see how each of them thinks and feels about what happens to them. Emma and Penny get short shrift, Penny especially. While I liked Penny and was interested in what she was going through, I either wanted more or none at all. As it is, she seems sort of thrown in there to have the point of view of someone with no connection to the crimes in Connecticut. Emma is intriguing and baffling. Her feelings about something change completely, or so we're told, yet we don't really know why. Or if they really did.

But boy is this a good book. I enjoyed it tremendously, and now I want to go read Reservation Road. All of these characters have flaws, but they all desperately want to feel safe and hopeful. You will want them to as well.

East of Denver

East of Denver
Gregory Hill
Published by Dutton Adult
320 pages
Available on Amazon.com
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.
4.5 / 5

What a quirky, fun, heartbreaking book this is.

They say you can't go home again, but when his cat dies, Stacey "Shakespeare" "Shakes" Williams decides to bring it back to his small rural hometown, somewhere - you guessed it - east of Denver. Things certainly have changed. Shakes's dad is in the throes of dementia, occasionally forgetting that his wife died some years previously. Conversations are repeated. The home is a fetid bowl of squalor. And when his father's caretaker is discovered dead in a locked bathroom (she'd been there for two weeks, but thanks to a disorder that prevents both Shakes and Emmett, his father, from being able to smell, no one noticed), Shakes realizes he needs to stick around for a little while.

He reconnects not only with Emmett, but with some friends from high school as well. First is Clarissa, an overweight anorexic with a fear of vomiting, who works in the local bank. Then there is Vaughn Atkins, a paraplegic who lives in his mother's basement. Shakes's interactions with these folks depend on what he needs from them. In the case of Clarissa, it might be feminine companionship, or, more likely, information about Mike Crutchfield, the bank's owner. Vaughn provides comic relief, as well someone more lucid to talk to than Emmett.

As his visit progresses, Shakes discovers that his father is beyond broke. He's lost most of the family's land, and he sold his Cessna to Crutchfield for a mere $20. Shakes goes to confront the bank owner, only to be double-talked and left even more confused and hopeless. What can he do to help his father? In a "you steal from me and I'll steal from you" sensibility, Shakes decides to rob the bank.

Of course his plans do not quite turn out the way he expects.

Gregory Hill does an excellent job of creating the lazy, constricted atmosphere of a small town on the edge of ruin. While it appears that Shakes is lucky because he did escape, he's back home, just as ineffectual as everyone else. It seems like nothing good will happen for him or Emmett, and that sense of futility is never greater than when a doctor tells Shakes to feed Emmett fatty foods, because a heart attack beats the slow decline of dementia any day.

But not all is bleak. Hill writes some funny stuff in here, and those moments of wit and humor keep you optimistic, even as you know that Shakes and his father face certain doom and misery. Even the dead cat can't rest in peace.

There isn't a whole lot of plot in this book. The characters and dialogue drive the story more than the story itself. We never find out what Shakes has been doing since he left home, almost as if because those years away from Dorsey were as insignificant and meaningless as if he had never left. Shakes, it can be assumed, is damned if he did and damned if he didn't.

This book won Amazon.com's Breakthrough Novel Award in 2011, and when you read it, you will discover why. It is witty, sad and uplifting.

Between You and Me

Between You and Me
Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus
Published by Atria Books
272 pages
Available on Amazon.com.
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.
4 / 5 cupcakes


Remember a few years ago when Britney Spears dumped her husband, shaved her head and lost her mind? Remember how the courts instated her father as her legal custodian, rendering her - the mother of two children - a child with no rights? Did you ever wonder what was really going on in the Spears home?

When you read Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus's engrossing book Between You and Me, you might get some answers.

Logan Wade is twenty-seven and struggling to carve out a happy life for herself in New York. She has a high pressure job, a handful of friends, and shares a shoebox of an apartment with another girl. Her boyfriend seems more interested in sex than a relationship. So when her cousin Delia asks her to come to Los Angeles to surprise another cousin, Kelsey, Logan decides to make the trip. But Kelsey isn't just some girl living in LA. She's KELSEY WADE, world famous singer and performer, and she and Logan have not spoken for over a decade.

Kelsey is tended to by Delia, as well as her parents, Andy and Michelle. As the story evolves, we learn that Andy has had substance abuse problems and that while with him, Michelle and Kelsey, Logan was in an accident, the nature and circumstances of which come to light later in the book. Neither Kelsey's parents nor Logan's are happy with Logan's visit, and Logan herself isn't sure it was a smart move. She barely sees Kelsey. In fact, the highlight of Logan's trip is meeting cute guy Finn in a bar and later rocking the headboard with him at his hotel.

But then Andy fires Delia, and Logan is there, and there is a job opening, so Kelsey makes an offer: stay here and work for me. (Later, Kelsey is offended that Logan views this as a job; Kelsey believes Logan is just "there" for her.) Almost before she realizes what she's gotten into, Logan is booking hotel rooms, securing rental cars, helping Kelsey select interview outfits, coordinating Kelsey's schedule, and even drawing her bath for her. But it's a giddy life, being so close to all of that fame, and Logan enjoys it. Sure, the paparazzi are pests, but to be a part of something like Kelsey Wade and to reconnect with her cousin - that's alluring for Logan. Meanwhile, she keeps up her correspondence with Finn, who has an interesting job himself.

What I liked about this book was, well, pretty much everything. I enjoyed seeing how difficult it is to separate yourself as a daughter versus a boss to your parents and how insulating that life is. If you want to know what a personal assistant to a major star does, this book walks you through it. When Kelsey talks about wanting romance, you feel for her. She doesn't have normal relationships, and, after a while, neither does Logan. Through Logan, we see Los Angeles for the perversion it is:

From this vantage point of relentless comparison, I've come to find L.A. disorienting in its proportions, the women having paid more than I can comprehend to look like cartoon caricatures. I wipe my spicy fingers on a cocktail napkin as the producer holding "auditions" in the white leather wing-back returns with his stack of eight-by-tens. If tonight is typical, a stream of nervous beauties will swap out in thirty-minute intervals, their vulnerability palpable. I wonder what his method is. 

At its heart, Between You and Me is about family. How do we define ourselves within our families? What happens when one relative - your best friend - becomes a superstar? What happens when it's your daughter? Should family work for family?

This book also is about finding yourself, and Logan has to undertake that quest. But - and here is where I'm going to have some spoilers, so look away, kids. If you do not want to know the spoilers, then scroll down to where you see the next it of writing. If you do, then highlight the blank spaces and you should be able to read them.

Okay. So Logan sets out to figure out what she wants out of life, but does she? How much of what happens to her is voluntary? In fact, my beef with this book is a big one: why does it take Kelsey firing Logan for Logan to get out of a very toxic (no Britney pun intended) situation? Does Logan learn nothing? Does she grow at all? I know that Kelsey paid for Logan's college tuition under the guise of a scholarship, so perhaps the intention is for Kelsey to be the wiser person in this relationship. She sees that Logan needs help, and she knows that Logan can't get out of her own way. 

This is an entertaining, engaging book. I really enjoyed Logan, up to a point, and I adored Finn. As for Kelsey, she made me think about poor old Britney Spears. Did I judge her too harshly? Were her mistakes her own, or were they the result of her trying to have some autonomy?

And now I'm going to go listen to "Lucky," a Britney song about a girl who seems to have gotten what she wanted, but did she really know what she wanted in the first place?

Brand New Human Being

Brand New Human Being
Emily Jeanne Miller
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
272 pages
Available on Amazon.com
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.
5 / 5 cupcakes


I have got to say - really, I absolutely MUST SAY - that I loved this book. Loved, loved, loved it.

Reading Brand New Human Being is kind of like watching a supermodel slip and fall on the runway, knocking out one of her teeth. You are filled with a mixture of horror, gratitude that it isn't you, and a wee tad of schadenfreude, because, let's face it, who doesn't like seeing other people miserable? So long as it isn't you, right?

Or maybe that's just me.

Here we have Logan August Pyle, whose father, Gus, died four months earlier, leaving behind a young widow (Bennie, only four years older than Logan) who got all of Gus's cash and the lake cabin. Logan was left with his boyhood home, a tract of land that other people want and are willing to pay for but which yields no monetary satisfaction for Logan, only a sense that he's safeguarding his father's legacy. Oh, and a watch he can't find - Logan was left that, too.

Logan's wife, Julie, works for a law firm, and by "works," I mean she WORKS. All the time. She's rarely home, and when she is, she is focused nearly solely on her and Logan's four-year-old son, Owen. Logan, meanwhile, was supposed to complete his dissertation and become a doctor of literature, but with Julie's pregnancy and the death of his father, well, you know how these things happen. They don't happen - that's what happens.

The real problem for Logan is that he is fast becoming a spectator in his own life.

I stand there, seemingly paralyzed, looking down. Julie's on her side, one bare shoulder uncovered, and Owen's back is pressed against her front, her arm wrapped around him and her hand tucked under his chin, and he clasps the hand with both of his, as if in prayer. Outside it's begun to rain, hard, and raindrops slide down the windows, changing the light to liquid as it passes through the panes and collects on the bed, where the two of them lie curled together in such a way that it's hard to tell where mother end and child begins. Is this hell or is it heaven? I have no idea.

Logan loves his son, and he loves his wife, but he's jealous of both of them. He's jealous of a lot of people, even if he can't see it himself. His father was destroyed by a cancer that ate him up for four years, and Logan is being consumed by a disease as well: inactivity. He can't even rake his lawn, much less work on his marriage and fatherhood.

But then one day, he catches Julie in an apparent compromising position, and he leaves. He grabs Owen and heads to the lake cottage where Bennie lives. Lest you think he heals, you would be wrong. Things go from awful to horrible. At one point, he "baptizes" both Owen and himself, believing that the two of them can be brand new. But when an adult is baptized, he accepts his shortcomings, professes faith that they can be corrected, and surges forth, determined to be a better person. In Logan's case, he believes other people need more improvement than he does.

This is a funny, sweet, sad story, and I enjoyed it so much. Logan does some awful things - so does Julie, for that matter - and there are times you want to wring his neck. But you can't help but like him, and that's a testament to Emily Jeanne Miller's writing. She creates characters who are pretty unlikeable, but she inspires us to like them anyway.

Give this book a try. It's a quick read, and worth every minute.

Haole Wood

Haole Wood
Dee DeTarsio
Published by Just Publishing
Available May 14, 2012
284 pages
Available on Amazon Kindle
Thanks to Dee DeTarisio for the preview
4 / 5 cupcakes



Those Hawaiians know how to have FUN, people. Let's all move there today. I'm sure they would be thrilled.

First, a disclaimer: I received this from Dee DeTarsio in exchange for an honest review.

Second, a caveat: I cannot stand "guardian angels" in books. And I really don't like it when authors use that hoary chestnut, "If only I had known" at the end of a chapter, just to force you to keep reading. And since a guardian angel and chapter cliffhangers show up in this book, you know my review will be honest.

So. Having said that ...

I really liked this book.

Jaswinder Park ditches her job as a San Diego TV weekend weather girl to go spend a few days in Hawaii, bailing out her paternal grandmother. She assumes that she will be back in time to hit the airwaves, with nary a ripple in the Pacific Ocean to cause her stress. Well, as those chapter cliffhangers tell us, you should never, ever think that your plan is working perfectly. Because Jaswinder's sure doesn't.

First, she discovers that Halomi is in the old grey bar hotel because she was growing - and disbursing, in her own way - the marijuana. Then Jaswinder suffers a long-distance firing from her job. She gets drunk and has hot island sex under a banyan tree with a doctor. She gets sunburned. Halomi faces a murder charge, and then - AND THEN - her guardian angel, and a rather large guardian angel at that - shows up to "help."

Got that? Good. Because it all happens in the introductory chapters.

Stuck (as if you could really be STUCK) in Hawaii, Jaswinder needs to prove her grandmother's innocence and figure out what she wants out of life. The island changes her; in fact, the island is a character in itself in this book. She connects with the locals and her Hawaiian ancestry. And she makes mistakes. Oh, my, does she screw up, but that's what I liked about her. She's real. Her mistakes aren't wearing the wrong top with the wrong skirt; they are jealousy over pretty women, presuming guilt and a healthy dose of selfishness.

In addition to being something of a mystery - who DID kill the guy Halomi is accused of murdering? - this is a romance. That dude Jaswinder rocked the banyan tree with turns out to be a dermatologist, and a hot one at that.

I didn't want to think. I just wanted to touch and feel and taste ... and bite and squeeze. Scratch and suck. I couldn't believe my own hands were reaching down and pulling up his t-shirt, over and off his head. Hubba hubba. What a body. I couldn't even remember his name but he remembered ien because he whispered it in my ear.

Now, there is not a lot of Hot Sexy Times in this book, but that's okay. It isn't one of those books, because it's more about a woman trying to come to terms with her role in her family and her role in her own life. Jaswinder suffers from Second Born Syndrome, always feeling like she matters less than she does. She likens herself to Suellen O'Hara, Scarlett's sister, who loses her boyfriend to her hotter older sister. Jaswinder, it appears, lost a love to her sister, but that thread is not developed very well. I would like to know more about what happened between the sisters. Even so, we definitely understand Jaswinder's sense of not feeling as if she counts for much in her family. Yet who has to save the day?

About that guardian angel. He turns up, and I don't really know why. Haole Wood doesn't need him, and neither does Jaswinder. He offers her some guidance and insight, but nothing she couldn't have come to on her own, or, better yet, with the aid of Halomi. Granted, Halomi doesn't appear to have a firm grasp on the English language (her main means of communicating is to say "Not that"), but it would have added some nice depth for her to help her granddaughter the way the angel does.

Even with that and the "If only I'd known" cliffhangers at the end of chapters, this is a sweet, delightful, fun book. I laughed out loud in quite a few places. Jaswinder is sassy and feisty, bless her. And her voice is so real - confused at some points, hopeful at others, snarky and sarcastic most of the time. She uses self-deprecation and snark to protect herself, and learning to lower that shield takes some time.

This is a terrific summer beach read. I mean, if you're going to read about Hawaii sun and surf, you might as well enjoy it yourself in some fashion, right?

Little Night

Little Night
Luanne Rice
Published by Pamela Dorman Books
Available June 5, 2012
336 pages
Available on Amazon.com.
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.
3 / 5 cupcakes


Let's say your sister is married to a man who hurts her. Not only does he physically abuse her, he isolates her from her sister and parents. He is hateful. And let's say that one day you go visit your sister and her two children, and one of the children says that Daddy sometimes hurts Mommy. So you beg your sister to leave - you will protect her and the children. Just as you're leaving, here comes the husband. He clamps his hand around your sister's throat and throws her against a wall. What do you do?

In the case of Clare Burke, she attacks her brother-in-law. Unfortunately, she doesn't kill him. She merely hurts him, and has to spend two years in prison for assault. When she gets out, she has Paul, the love of her life, as well as her job. For the ensuing eighteen years, she lives. Perhaps not with great joy or fulfillment, and certainly with no relationship with her sister Anne. And then one day, Anne's daughter, Grit, shows up on Clare's doorstep. Grit has her own sadnesses and secrets, and as the two women grow closer, they help each other heal from the hurts imparted by Anne. They also come to believe that Anne is in New York as well.

This is a pretty simple story of several complex characters, especially Clare, Grit and Anne. Luanne Rice keeps a good pace and creates sympathetic characters in Clare, Grit and Paul. (Oh, Paul - I love him. He's just a good guy, and you don't often come across fictional men who are purely good.) Anne is not so sympathetic, although I think we are supposed to empathize with her. But I didn't. Perhaps that is due to insufficient explanation of why she allowed her husband to cut her off from her sister and parents. And Frederik, the husband. He is almost a caricature of the Angry, Abusive Spouse.

Fortunately, though, we have Clare. There are blanks where she is concerned; she alludes to the terrors of prison life, but aside from a weight gain and poor skin, we are told nothing about it. She distances us from that experience, but perhaps that's how she survived the experience. I don't think it's an accident that Clare spends her life following birds: this is a woman who knows what it's like to be caged in and what it's like to be set free. That she wants to believe that an extinct bird continues to exist makes sense. She wants to know that her sister, extinct to Clare for twenty years, is alive and well.

Paul, who has loved her since high school, believes Clare is worth fighting for and will do anything to make her happy. But first he needs to convince Clare that she deserves to be happy.

Love and hope. For Clare they hadn't gone together in years. Her skin rippled. Paul was somewhere in the park. She knew the way an owl, gliding low over hills, senses her mate without hearing his call. He'd be doing his Urban Park Ranger duties, along the way keeping watch for the Whekau. Although he didn't believe in the bird the ay she did, he had his own reasons for wishing a vanished species could someday come back.

Luanne Rice takes some shortcuts in this book, not just with Anne and Frederik, but with Grit as well. Grit is able to pull herself together with alarming alacrity, which is frustrating because Grit, of all people, ought to need more time. In fact, the treatment of Grit is the reason I can't give this book more than three cupcakes. I feel cheated by her rapid healing.

Yet I do think Little Night is a good book. Not great, not fabulous, but good. It is a very quick read, and Clare is worth getting to know.

See You at Harry's

Middle school sucks. There is no way around that. You don't know who you are yet, and you feel like you'll never know. You want to be your own person, yet you don't want to stick out. And the worst - the worst! - is your parents. They have the power to crush you with shame and embarrassment.

Welcome to the world of Fern, named after the character in Charlotte's Web, someone destined to be a good friend. As if being saddled with the name of a girl with a pet pig isn't burden enough, Fern also has to deal with her restaurant-owning parents, particularly her father, who includes the whole family - Fern, older sister Sara (named after the girl in The Little Princess), older brother Holden (named after Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye) and younger "oops baby" brother Charlie (named after the one with the chocolate factory), plus their mom - in a commercial. The tag line of the ad, "See you at Harry's," is spoken with adorable three-year-old charm by Charlie. But Fern is appalled and embarrassed. She also feels no small measure of resentment toward Charlie. Not that she doesn't love him - she clearly does - but too often she is called upon to watch him because her mother and sister do not. Fern wants more freedom, but taking care of Charlie is a burden. Meanwhile, she finds herself developing romantic feelings toward Ran, her best friend since grade school.

Then there is Holden. He battles bullies on the bus, heathens who taunt him for being gay. Not that Holden has come out to his family yet; he's 14, and he believes his family won't understand. When Fern overhears him tell a friend that his family is clueless, she feels hurt and angry.

Not all of us are, I think. We love you. You're the one who's too clueless to notice.

The family chugs along, each fighting a private battle, until a tragedy brings them together. But the coming together is not easy, and each has to discover on his or her own that they need each other and love each other. They have to be there for each other.

What starts as a breezy story of a 12-year-old girl surviving middle school develops into a family struggling to survive disaster. There are moments of joy and happiness in this book, but there are also moments of devastation. Have a box of tissues nearby.

The characters are wonderful. Fern is so lovable and sweet that you will want to adopt her. She's also very well written; she truly is a 12-year-old girl. Holden is also richly drawn; Sara is more complex than she appears, but I did want to know more about her. Charlie and the parents jump out as well.

See You at Harry's is a lovely book, perfect for pre- and early teens. Who knows - it might help them appreciate their families a little more.

Published by Candlewick and available on Amazon.com.

Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.

Goodbye to All That

What happens when a wife decides, after 42 years of marriage, that she's had enough and wants a change? That is the focus of Judith Arnold's Good-bye to All That.

Ruth Bendel is over it. She is tired of her husband Richard leaving his beard shavings in the sink, tired of him channel surfing, and tired of taking care of other people. Her three grown children - Doug, an eye doctor married to a hot blonde wife; Jill, a work-from-home mother whose husband is a school teacher and who writes catalog copy; and Melissa, a 31-year-old single attorney dating a hairdresser - are shocked when Ruth decides to up and leave Richard. Richard is a tad nonplussed himself.

But Ruth wants freedom, and it starts with getting a job at First Rate, where she wears a red bib and operates a cash register, and where she makes a few new friends. On a night out with one of them and his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend, she has an epiphany.

It occurred to her that she might have enjoyed doing things like this - going to clubs in Boston, drinking lousy wine and dancing until she was dripping with sweat - for years. But she'd never demanded that Richard take her dancing at clubs. She'd never even asked. He would have considered ti out of character for her, and inappropriate. She'd been a suburban wife and mother, for God's sake, not someone who was fly. And so she'd never fought for what she wanted. 

That, in essence, is why Ruth leaves her husband: she wants to fight for what she wants, even if she isn't completely sure what that is.

Doug reacts the most selfishly. Who will babysit his twin daughters while he and his wife head to Nevis for a romantic getaway? He even comes to look at his wife suspiciously. Will she get bored? Will she leave him? Doug realizes that his own marriage might need a re-examination.

The middle child and the rock of the family, Jill, also struggles. She begins to wonder if she will leave her husband. Will his beard shavings get on her nerves? Will she want to wear a red bib and make new friends?

If she could misread her parents' marriage so totally, how could she trust her judgment on any other issue? If Ruth and Richard Bendel could get a divorce after all these years, why shouldn't Jill also assume that gravity didn't exist, and chocolate-chip cookies lowered your cholesterol, and Abbie didn't need a bat mitzvah, and the shantung silk scarves being peddled by Black Pearl actually felt more like sandpaper than a waterfall against one's skin?

Then there is Melissa, who cries and weeps and reacts with great emotion. Melissa, however, lives in New York, separated from her Boston-based family, and it is easier for her to wallow with self-focus. She wants to buy an apartment, she wants to figure out if things are serious with the hairdresser boyfriend, and she wants to win her latest legal case.

Lastly, we get to know Richard. He quickly realizes that steady, calm Ruth is more than just a body or a wife. She is a person, and perhaps she has a point. But does Richard come to this realization too late?

Goodbye to All That is funny, touching, and ultimately inconclusive, but that's life, isn't it? Can we really solve our problems so easily? If we want freedom and we want something new, can we figure out why we want or need that within 300 pages? Probably not, as Judith Arnold apparently agrees. The problem, though, is that while Ruth's decisions may not be tidied up, the rest of the family's are, and that rings a little false. Ruth isn't the only one with a complex set of issues, yet hers are the only ones not easily solved.


Published by Bell Bridge Books and available on Amazon.com.
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.