Novels Now

The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton
Contemporary Fiction
2008 Ballantine Books
Finished on 5/28/08
Rating: 3.5 (Good)
ARC - Due out on June 17

When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.

~Robert Frost

Product Description

Friendship, loyalty, and love lie at the heart of Meg Waite Clayton’s beautifully written, poignant, and sweeping novel of five women who, over the course of four decades, come to redefine what it means to be family.

For thirty-five years, Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett, and Ally have met every Wednesday at the park near their homes in Palo Alto, California. Defined when they first meet by what their husbands do, the young homemakers and mothers are far removed from the Summer of Love that has enveloped most of the Bay Area in 1967. These “Wednesday Sisters” seem to have little in common: Frankie is a timid transplant from Chicago, brutally blunt Linda is a remarkable athlete, Kath is a Kentucky debutante, quiet Ally has a secret, and quirky, ultra-intelligent Brett wears little white gloves with her miniskirts. But they are bonded by a shared love of both literature – Fitzgerald, Eliot, Austen, du Maurier, Plath, and Dickens – and the Miss America Pageant, which they watch together every year.

As the years roll on and their children grow, the quintet forms a writers circle to express their hopes and dreams through poems, stories, and, eventually, books. Along the way, they experience history in the making: Vietnam, the race for the moon, and a women’s movement that challenges everything they have ever thought about themselves, while at the same time supporting one another through changes in their personal lives brought on by infidelity, longing, illness, failure, and success.

Humorous and moving, The Wednesday Sisters is a literary feast for book lovers that earns a place among those popular works that honor the joyful, mysterious, unbreakable bonds between friends.

I was chatting with my next door neighbor last weekend and she mentioned that when her children were little, she and several other mothers in the neighborhood would get together for coffee every morning. The woman who lived in our house back in those days would hang a quilt (decorated with a coffee cup) out on the front porch to invite the other mothers to stop by for coffee and a visit. Oh, how I would’ve loved to have had a group of friends to get together with when I was a young mother. I was a single mom, working and going to school, so we missed out on the whole playgroup thing. It wasn’t until my daughter was in 3rd grade that I became a stay-at-home mom, but by that time we were living on an acreage, far removed from a neighborhood full of other young families. I was always a bit envious of those moms who got together on a regular basis, sharing advice on teething, potty-training, and how to deal with a picky eater. However, I did have a couple of very good friends to whom I could turn with my questions, as well as offering my own helpful suggestions when asked. I don’t know how any young mother can survive those early years without the love and support of at least one good friend.

Over the years, I’ve learned that friends come and go, especially when one moves around as much as I have. However, I still keep in touch (though not as often as in years past) with maybe a half-dozen friends that I knew from school. I have about the same number of very good friends who live nearby. Each is the kind of friend who would drop everything and rush to my aid if I needed them - even in the middle of the night. I also have several close friends that I’ve come to know from online book groups (we now go back more than 10 years!), as well as all the wonderful people I’ve met since I began blogging two years ago. In many ways, these online groups are much like the gatherings of my neighbor’s era. We chat about the weather and what we’re reading, share tidbits of news about our children (and grandchildren), discuss our aches and pains and illnesses (our own and those of our loved-ones), and offer up virtual hugs and comfort when one of our pets, children or parents dies. So, between my face-to-face friends and my Internet friends, my life is richer than ever before, even in the absence of a front-porch coffee gathering occasioned by the hanging of a signal quilt.

Meg Waite Clayton offers a story of friendship and loyalty, set against the backdrop of the women’s movement. I could easily have been a six-year-old daughter of one of the characters. I have a vague recollection of segregated want-ads and 18-year-olds gaining the right to vote, yet there is probably a lot about the women’s movement that I take for granted. Clayton’s passion for research is apparent, as she incorporates pop culture and historical facts throughout the narrative, and I enjoyed learning about how it felt to be a young woman and mother during the late Sixties and early Seventies.

I was a little put off by the cliché of yet another friendship book in which one woman has marital problems, another struggles to have a baby, and another faces a serious health issue. However, it was this particular character’s illness that drew me deeper into the book, making me care just a little more than I had up to that point.

Recent “friendship books” have centered around book groups, so it was refreshing to read about a group of aspiring writers, thus getting a glimpse into the unfamiliar world of would-be novelists rather than the more familiar world of readers. I have never felt inspired to try my hand at writing a novel (no NaNoWriMo for me!), but I’ve always been intrigued by the way in which a novel comes to be. Like a beautiful painting, it almost seems like it’s been magically created, rather than being the result of long, hard days of solitude and hard work performed under the omnipresent threat of (sometimes brutal) rejection.

The women in The Wednesday Sisters had an annual tradition of watching the Miss America Pageant, something I’ve never been a fan of and I can honestly say I’ve never watched it more than once (and don’t have any lasting memory of any of it!). However, over the years, I’ve watched many hours of the Johnny Carson show, so it didn’t surprise me that my favorite scene from the book was when the women got to attend one of his shows. I won’t spoil the book with an explanation of why they were there, but it was definitely a highlight!

I know I’ve said it in other reviews, but I have to say once again that timing is everything. It’s at times like this that I really hate rating a book. I should know by now that late May is not a good time for me to read anything of substance. I should either re-read an old favorite or continue with some lightweight mystery series. I should also know that sitting in a hospital waiting area or a room in ICU is not conducive to quality reading. Having said that, I believe this book has the potential to be a popular choice among reading groups, as well as one that friends will want to share with one another. It reminds us of the value of true friendship, without resorting to sappy sentimentality and stereotypes. Don’t be put off by my middle-of-the-road rating. Lesa has written a lovely review that I encourage everyone to read. And honestly, how can anyone not like a book that includes the following epigram (from one of my favorite authors and book):

Where there is great love,
there are always miracles.
— Willa Cather,
Death Comes for the Archbishop

Be sure to check out Meg’s website! Someone’s put a lot of effort into it and I enjoyed it both before and after reading the book.

Summer Blowout by Claire Cook
Contemporary Fiction
2008 Voice (Hyperion)
Finished on 5/2/08
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)
ARC - Due out on June 3rd

Book Description

Bella Shaughnessy is addicted to lipstick with names like My Chihuahua Bites and Kiss My Lips, an occupational hazard, since she works as a stylist and makeup artist for her family’s small chain of beauty salons in Marshbury, Massachusetts, along with her four half-brothers and -sisters. The owner is her father, Lucky Shaughnessy, a gregarious, three-times-divorced charmer with Donald Trump hair, who is obsessed with all things Italian and still carries a torch for his first wife, Bella’s mother. After Bella’s own marriage flames out spectacularly when her half-sister runs off with her husband, Bella decides she has seen enough of the damage love can do. She makes a vow: no more men.

Then Bella meets a cute entrepreneur at a college fair, and despite their bickering, they can’t seem to stay away from each other. He also gives her a brilliant business idea, one that just might allow her to share her makeup expertise with the world. A small, well-tressed dog finds her way into her life, and her heart, and she decides to chance that, too. When the whole clan heads to Atlanta for a big Southern wedding, sparks fly–in a summer blowout no one will ever forget.

This hilarious, rambunctious novel is pure Claire Cook: full of juicy conflict and unconditional love.

One of my co-workers just got back from a week in Cabo. She and her husband had a great time and she looks well-rested, in spite of her sunburn! I asked what all they did while there and she said they pretty much just soaked up the rays, reading by the pool. Actually, she read every day. Her husband, on the other hand, finished his book (The Ruins) the first day they were there. She said he didn’t want to get another book and was perfectly content to just relax in the sun. Boy, not me! I’d find the nearest store and buy at least two more books (not that I’d ever go on vacation without a wide assortment of potential reads).

Anyhow, talking to my friend about her trip brought back memories of a vacation my husband and I took back before we were married. We spent 9 days at a lovely resort in Puerto Vallarta. 9 days was probably a bit too long, as there wasn’t a whole lot to do once we’d toured the town and surrounding areas. But this was 1987 and we got a great deal on a hotel/air package as long as we stayed for two weekends. The dollar was certainly worth a lot more than it is twenty years later! (I think the exchange rate was 2,000 pesos to the dollar!) We stayed in a very nice hotel right on the beach, ate lots of lobster, soaked up the rays by the pool, and read lots of books. Looking through my photos, I see that I was in my Danielle Steel phase. (I was young. What can I say?) My husband finished The Tommyknockers (Stephen King), passed it on to me, and headed to the hotel gift shop for something else to read. He settled on Gary Jennings’ tome, Aztec. Weighing in at over a thousand pages, it was certain to keep him happy for the remainder of the vacation! (Great book, by the way. I read it at a later date and loved it!)

I’ve been thinking about vacations and reading. It takes a certain type of trip that allows me the time and setting to read as much as I anticipate. Last summer, I packed far too many books for our cruise through the San Juan Islands. As it happened, I didn’t even read an entire book in the two weeks we were gone! I was having far too good of a time snapping pictures of the scenery and wildlife to be bothered with reading. Even when it was too rainy or foggy to head out for our next location, I simply sat in the pilot house gazing out at the water or watching the other boaters in the marina. I didn’t want to miss a thing and knew I could always read at home.

The same thing happens when we’re visiting family. When we were in Depoe Bay this past fall, I did manage to get a bit more reading in, but for the most part, we played tourists while visiting with my parents. I fell into my normal routine of reading in bed just like I do at home. I certainly didn’t need all the books I packed for that visit, either!

Yet summer and reading seem to go hand-in-hand. We have several “Summer Reading” displays at work, and Bookreporter.com is getting reading to kick off their summer-long Summer Beach Bag of Books promotion. Personally, I think I read more in the winter. I love the long, hot days of summer and find that I spend far more time outside (kayaking, gardening, walking, entertaining friends on our deck) than I do during the winter. Even floating at our favorite pool is too distracting for a good read.

Having said that, I know many of you (especially students and teachers) look forward to three months of reading and relaxation. Do you prefer to use this time to catch-up on some of the heavier tomes such as Moby Dick, War and Peace, or Les Miserables, or is this a time for fluffy brain-candy? If you choose the latter, I’ve got just the book. Summer Blowout is light & fluffy and thoroughly enjoyable. I laughed out loud just as I did when I read Cook’s hugely successful, Must Love Dogs. Throw in a few cute dog antics and you’re guaranteed several chortles and snorts.

I won’t spoil the book for those of you who want to read it, but here are a couple of amusing passages:

The door to the Olde Marshbury Taverne opened, and the father of the bride emerged. He was holding Precious straight out in front of him, and he had a pile of money tucked between one hand and the dog. He walked right over to me and said something about the Board of Health. Or possibly it was the Whore of Wealth.

And then he gave me Precious, still in her cornflower blue taffeta dress with the broach. “Sleep it,” he said.

Or maybe it was, “Keep it.”

and

After that, we just checked each other out for a while. I had no idea what kind of dog she was, since I knew nothing about dogs. She looked kind of like a flying squirrel, except for the ears. She had the ears of a fruit bat. I wonder what she was thinking about me. Maybe she thought I had ears like a fruit bat, too.

and

I rifled through my lipstick drawer, looking for something strong, confident, and hydrating. Beeswax, shea butter, jojoba, and almond oil are all great moisturizing ingredients. I found a tube of Tarte Inside Out Vitamin Lipstick in a deep rose called Revive. It had jojoba, vitamins A, C, E, and K, plus acai, green tea, and lychee extract, so I figured I was covering pretty much all the bases. Maybe if I ate the whole thing like a Popsicle, I wouldn’t have to take my vitamins for a couple of months.

This is a fun read that sucked me in from the first page. I’d say it’s perfect airplane material or a good one for a few hours out by the pool. Even the cover’s cute. How can you possibly resist that adorable little face?

I’m heading to the beach later this summer (Hampton, VA) and plan to pack Cook’s Life’s a Beach in my bag. Maybe this trip I’ll actually read a book!

First Sentence: Dust flecked with blood, shards of debris and bone, smoke so thick he can’t breathe or see or maybe he’s gone blind; the noise, horrific a moment ago, leveling out to a dull thump, thump, thump in his eardrums until it dissolves into an absence of sound as if the world had exploded and he is the lone survivor.

I seem to be unable to read Jonathan Santlofer’s books in order. It is my own fault, of course. Fortunately, The Murder Notebook, the second book featuring police sketch artist, Nate Rodriguez, stands well on its own. Having read Colorblind by the same author several years ago, I had kept meaning to read something else by him, however, the time was never right. When this novel was offered on Library Thing’s Early Reviewer Program, how could I resist the opportunity? From the start, I could tell I was in for a wild ride.

Asked to help reconstruct the face of a murder victim that had been burned in an effort to cover up a murder, Nate Rodriguez could not be more eager to put his forensic anthropology skills to the test. However, the recent unsolved murder of a college student has the New York Police Department in a noose that is growing tighter and tighter as the media and public demand resolution. Nate, having assisted the homicide unit in solving a major case not too long ago, is pulled into the current investigation. Both he and his girlfriend, Terri Russo, the leader of the task force to catch the murderer, are reluctant about working together at first, but as events unfold, the two prove to be well matched.

With another man brutally murdered, the stakes grow even higher. The pieces of the puzzle do not seem to fit. With the threat of the FBI getting involved, Terri knows she must search out the answers and fast. The victims seem to have nothing in common and when their killers begin dying as well, the puzzle only grows more complicated.

Nate Rodriguez is settling into himself. He is struggling with guilt and the role he believes he played in his father’s death. He is on the outside, never quite fitting in with the other homicide cops. Nate is stubborn, a characteristic which plays into the fact that he does not give up easily, especially when walls are thrown up to thwart his efforts. Terri Russo has worked hard to earn her position as lead of the task force. She knows her position is precarious in a male dominated field. She takes her lumps and does the best she knows how.

Both characters are complex, and the author appears to have taken great care in making them as authentic as possible. The attention to detail and the descriptions of facial expressions give away the author’s artistic nature. In addition, the artwork throughout the book adds an extra dimension to the novel as a whole as well as to Nate’s character, some of the sketches helping the story along more than others.

Jonathan Santlofer creates an edgy and thought provoking novel. While at times it seems unbelievable, the story is not so far off reality as we may want to believe. The author combines careful research with and an entertaining fictional story. The Murder Notebook lived up to my expectations. It definitely was one wild ride.

Rating: 3 Stars (Good)

There’s rarely a sole cause for the separation of lives. It’s a sequence of events, an inexorable chain reaction where each small link is fundamental, like a snake of upended dominoes. -From The Sister, page 5-

Poppy Adam’s debut novel, The Sister, begins with an elderly woman waiting for her sister to arrive home after a 50 year absence. Ginny has lived her entire life in the family house - a broken down, monolith tucked into the countryside of England. She is a recluse who peers from behind her windows at the neighbors and lives an obsessively ordered existence bordering on paranoia. Vivi, on the other hand, is socially outgoing - an older woman who looks ten years younger. Years earlier,Vivi separated herself from her family and appeared to never look back. But now she has returned and this event will become the catalyst which allows Ginny’s long repressed grievances to emerge.

The novel occurs over a four day period and is narrated from Ginny’s point of view. As Ginny remembers her childhood with Vivi, the reader begins to understand the source of her neuroses. Ginny’s father, Clive, was a famous lepidopterist and Ginny assisted him with his obsessive study of moths. The moths become another character in the book, which in my opinion elevated the novel from a so-so gothic tale to an exceptional first work.

The Sister is about mental illness, addiction and the dynamics of family, but it is also about nature vs. nurture and whether or not it is choice or biology which dictates our behavior. Adams uses the moth as a symbol to underline these concepts.

I can mimic the scent of a flower so that a moth will direct itself towards the scent, and kills itself. Each time each moth will kill itself. It is this constancy that makes them a scientific delight - you do not need to factor in a rogue element of individuality. - From The Sister, page 55-

The Sister is a spellbinding work, one which immerses the reader completely in the story and builds to a relentless and shocking end. Adams’ development of Ginny’s character is like a slow train gathering speed and momentum. The sense of doom, of things unraveling provides the tension for the novel.

Readers who like all loose ends tied up may struggle with this book. Adams allows for reader interpretation of certain events, and Ginny’s reliability as a narrator is questionable. The Sister will appeal to readers who like to work their way through a web of information, untangling it as they go. It is a thoughtful novel which explores the darker side of human nature.

Highly recommended; rated 4.5/5. (more…)

Arthur: How can you tell a cannibal?
Vivi: Well, they’re the only ones left, silly.
Arthur: No, before they’ve eaten the others.
Vivi: Oh, that. They’ve just got a look about them.

I received this arc from the Barnes and Noble First Look Book Club. It is so wonderful to be a part of this program because the authors are also on the message boards and will answer questions from readers. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed reading Poppy Adams’ responses to the questions posed. I will definitely be reading more of her work when it comes out. The Sister is her first novel.

Originally titled The Time of Emergence, and called The Behaviour of Moths in the UK, The Sister is a book where, after reaching the end, the reader may be left with more questions unanswered than answered. There are multiple interpretations that could be made about several different occurrences in the book. For me, that’s what makes this story so fascinating. I know that may be more of a frustration to some, though.

Vivien (Vivi) and Virginia (Ginny) are two sisters who grew up in a countryside mansion with lepidopterist ancestors. Their maternal grandfather and father were both lepidopterists, and Ginny becomes a lepidopterist. What is a lepidopterist? It’s a person who studies moths and butterflies. There is much discussion of the behavior of moths in this book, but it is an essential aspect of the story. While reading and after finishing the book, I realized many parallels between the behavior of moths and the behavior of the characters in the novel. This is a book I’ll probably re-read at some point to catch all the connections between the two.

Vivi and Ginny have been separated for decades, and the reasons why become apparent as the story unfolds. Very different from each other, Vivi is outgoing and leaves home for London at a young age, while Ginny is an introvert and a homebody. In fact, as the novel opens, we get the sense that Ginny hasn’t left her home for many, many years. Vivien decides to come back to the house, stating to Ginny that as sisters, they should spend their old age together. The entire novel only takes place over a few days, but as each day unfolds, we are also given glimpses from the past and why they have been separated for so long. All of this is told from Ginny’s perspective, though, and as Ginny and Vivi discuss their history together, they both realize that they saw their childhood in distinctly different ways. These differences are crucial to figuring out what is going on in the story.

What is going on in the story? I don’t want to tell you much, because it has a really good, creepy, gothic, Hitchcock feel to it that is better left to finding out by reading the story. If you don’t mind not having everything wrapped up in the end, and if you like having multiple interpretations of a storyline, you’ll love this book. I really enjoyed it, and the more I think about it, the more I love it.

2008, 275 pp.
Rating: 4.5/5

In her debut novel, The Sister, former BBC producer Poppy Adams used her photographer’s eye and mind to conjure up a unique tale of two sisters, Ginny and Viv, and their lifetime of secrets that tore their family apart. The story opened with Ginny, in her seventies, waiting for the arrival of her sister, Vivien, who she has not seen in almost fifty years. Once Vivien arrived, the reader must decipher between a past and present story line that unravels the disastrous family secrets – and keeps the reader wondering which sister is in the right until the last few chapters.

The Hitchcock-weird feeling of the characters can be downright bone chilling. Ginny narrated the story, and throughout her tale, little idiosyncrasies cropped up about Ginny, like her wearing of two wristwatches – one standard and one digital – that she meticulously checked for accuracy against her bedroom alarm clock. Or the drawer full of cannabis tea bags that she maintained to help her with arthritic pain but never liked to use because it caused a lack of symmetry in the drawer. Adams “spoon fed” Ginny’s personality quarks to the reader throughout The Sister, resulting in the nagging hunch that Ginny may not be a reliable narrator.

Then Adams, through Ginny’s narration, drew a picture of Vivien that was equally unsettling. Vivien was selfish and attention seeking, often manipulating her relationship with Ginny for her own gains. Ginny had a major inferiority complex with her sister, and the way Vivien was depicted, one could see why: smart, beautiful and full of creative ideas. You never get the sense though that Viv was a good person (through Ginny’s eyes), but the reader cannot doubt the love between them.

The Sister has the making of a great novel, especially for readers of Gothic literature: an old house, eccentric characters and a secret to be discovered. However, it has an obvious flaw – The Moths. The sisters’ father, Clive, was an expert in moths and taught his craft to Ginny when she was a teenager. Throughout the first half of the novel, The Moths are major characters. The reader learned about different types of moths, their importance to scientific research, how one caught them, how to kill them, how they transform from a caterpillar into a moth and what’s inside the cocoon during the transformation process.

All of this scientific knowledge took up pages of the story. While it was well written, it bogged the story down. When the reader finished, you can see how and why moths were important to The Sister’s plot, but perhaps Adams could have arrived at this point in different way. I almost abandoned The Sister because of the darned moths – and though I am glad I did not, I still have to shake my head about why they took up such a prominent place during the first half of the novel.

Once you get past The Moths, the suspense and mystery built masterfully into a real page-turner. I would recommend The Sister to readers with that disclaimer: have patience during the first half of the book and then prepare to be awed during the second. Adams made a promising debut, and I look forward to her future stories. (3.5/5)