SERENDIPITOUS INTROS/TEASERS: KEEPSAKE — JULY 17

 

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

Just grab your book and share the opening lines; then find another excerpt that “teases” the reader.

I’m sharing today from Keepsake, by Kristina Riggle.

Synopsis:  From the critically acclaimed author of Real Life & Liars and Things We Didn’t Say comes a timely and provocative novel that asks: What happens when the things we own become more important than the people we love?

Trish isn’t perfect. She’s divorced and raising two kids—so of course her house isn’t pristine. But she’s got all the important things right and she’s convinced herself that she has it all under control. That is, until the day her youngest son gets hurt and Child Protective Services comes calling. It’s at that moment when Trish is forced to consider the one thing she’s always hoped wasn’t true: that she’s living out her mother’s life as a compulsive hoarder.

The last person Trish ever wanted to turn to for help is her sister, Mary—meticulous, perfect Mary, whose house is always spotless . . . and who moved away from their mother to live somewhere else, just like Trish’s oldest child has. But now, working together to get Trish’s disaster of a home into livable shape, two very different sisters are about to uncover more than just piles of junk, as years of secrets, resentments, obsessions, and pain are finally brought into the light.

***

Intro:  The stranger gave me an empty smile.  It was flat and mechanical:  the forced grin of someone who delivers bad news all day long.  She was holding out a business card, and I was refusing to take it.

Ayana Reese, the card said.  What kind of name is Ayana?  On her left hand, which was clutching her notepad, I saw no wedding ring.  I could bet every shingle on my roof that this girl was barely out of college and had no children.  She would have a pamphlet and a workbook and seminars, but she’d never pushed a child into the world and felt what I felt both times I did it:  that our bond was powerful and perfect and would not be broken.  By anyone.

***

Teaser:  If Ayana was disgusted by my messy house, she didn’t show it.  She probably dealt all the time with meth heads and gangbangers who had loaded guns on the coffee table and shit on the walls. (1%)

***

Are you intrigued? I know that I am…and I feel as though I’ve had a birdseye view of this world from the side of the “stranger,” due to my three decades in social work.

Now I can’t wait to see what the rest of you are excerpting today!

WAS IT SERENDIPITY OR A FLUKE? — A REVIEW

Anne Blythe is the kind of woman who believes in love. She wants the whole fairytale thing, even though, so far, none of her relationships have worked out. Something always goes wrong.

Meanwhile, she does have so many other good things in her life: a great job as a writer at a magazine; a potential book deal; and really good friends.

So why can’t she have it all? When her best friend Sarah announces her engagement, Anne does something completely out of character. She calls an agency that she believes to be a dating service and makes an appointment. But imagine her surprise when she discovers that the agency arranges marriages.

Who in this modern age would fall for something like that? But since nothing else has worked, why not?

Fast forward a few months. After doing some research, taking psychological tests, and undergoing the requisite counseling, Anne finds herself at a Mexican resort meeting her match, Jack H. Surprisingly, even though he isn’t her usual type, she finds herself drawn to him. He, too, is a writer and has gone through several unsuccessful relationships. And isn’t she trying to change her type? Isn’t this bold experiment all about finding a compatible friend?

The two are married and return to Manhattan to begin their lives: moving in together, finding their rhythm, and falling in love. Or so Anne believes.

But then something blindsides Anne when she discovers Jack’s secret work-in-progress.

What mysteries lie within the pages of Jack’s manuscript that turn her world upside down? What does she do next? And how will she go on after this bitter betrayal?

From this point until the end, this unique tale turns a bit predictable. However, Arranged: A Novel was one of those books that I had to keep reading, just because I wasn’t completely sure how it would end. And because I had really connected with the characters. Anne is the kind of woman often portrayed in books and movies: successful, attractive, and hoping to find love. The kind of character that could be a friend or family member. Jack is also the kind of character that attracts female readers with his mix of sensitivity and masculinity. And because her characters are so real, McKenzie kept my interest until the final page. Four stars.

COMING FULL CIRCLE: A TALE OF TIME TRAVEL — A REVIEW

One October day in Salem, Massachusetts, a widow named Annie McBride finds a naked toddler in the cemetery. With no sign of anyone about, and intuiting that she is needed, Annie takes the child home.

The child whom she names Margaret (Maggie) becomes a comfort to Annie, but since she didn’t turn the child in to the officials, the two of them spend the next several years moving from place to place.

When Annie dies several years later, Maggie is an adult living in LA and working as a psychic to assist the police in profiling criminals.

Annie’s unique legacy of a home in Salem, Massachusetts, takes Maggie full circle, where her life begins anew in a place to which she feels strangely connected. Some of her new neighbors also seem like people she has “known” before–and some of the familiar people are not good ones.

Soon a woman named Susannah Davies, who comes to Maggie’s home where she has created a shop to sell natural remedies, begins to teach her spinning lessons. She also seems like someone to whom Maggie can share her thoughts and feelings, especially when she is plagued by alarming dreams.

What odd dreams seemingly take Maggie back to a parallel universe 400 years earlier, and why do these dreams seem like memories? What, if any, connection exists between Maggie and Susannah, and why does an eerie woman living nearby set off alarms for Maggie? What does a child’s disappearance have to do with earlier events in Salem?

Weaving the tale between the past and the present, the author shows the reader how events unfolded. There is no big surprise that time travel and witch trials are a big piece of the puzzle. The tale is somewhat predictable, but I enjoyed seeing how Maggie came to realize how she is connected to those events. Witch Woman did hold my interest despite these issues, but I’m awarding a 3.5 rating. I would recommend it for those who enjoy a time travel story with interesting characters. Maggie in the present day was my favorite, but I also enjoyed Abigail’s struggles in Seventeenth Century Salem.

---

WOW — FIRST, BEST & ONLY — JAN. 11

 

Welcome to another edition of Waiting on Wednesday, our wonderful bookish event hosted by Jill, at Breaking the Spine.

To join, just click on the the logo and add your blog direct link to the list.  Celebrate with your own upcoming releases and visit everyone else, too.

Today I’ve decided to talk about Barbara Delinsky’s newest book, due out on 3/1/12:  First, Best & Only.

A passionate tale of love, tragedy and forgiveness by a best-selling author – Marni Lange was just seventeen when she fell passionately in love with the irresistibly sexy Brian Webster. Then a tragic accident tore them apart. Fourteen years later, Marni is now a successful businesswoman, about to appear on the cover of a national magazine – and come face-to-face with the world-famous photographer profiling her . . . Brian Webster. As Marni struggles with her attraction to the man who haunts her past, is she now brave enough to follow her heart and fight for what matters most?

***

When the accidental events in our lives separate us from our loved ones, is there hope for a reunion?  Or is it serendipity when the loved ones find each other again?  Whatever is happening, isn’t it great to read such a story?

I hope you’ll stop by and share your own exciting books today.

BROKEN TRUST & A SURREAL FAIRYTALE WORLD — A REVIEW

Judy McFarland has believed in the beauty of fairytales since her long-ago childhood in Germany, when books and images instilled in her an existence wrought with beauty and danger.

So it is not surprising that she would find herself teaching kindergarten in a special kind of school based on the principles of Rudolph Steiner. In this excerpt, we see a glimpse of the backdrop for this story:

“The passion I felt for the stories, the methods, the esoteric philosophies of Rudolf Steiner was all-enveloping; I threw myself into it with all the devotion a new convert has to offer. The Kingdom of Childhood, as Steiner called it, was like a magical forest we guarded with a human chain, in which young spirits unfolded like cabbage roses and children could explore with absolutely no fear.”

Even the classrooms seem magically wrapped in fantasy images. Yet all of it contrasts sharply with snippets we slowly see from Judy’s past, from her childhood in Germany where she immersed herself in the fantasies of fairytales to the shocking moments that first nurtured the person she would become later in her life.

A tepid, totally dissatisfying marriage is another piece of the puzzle that becomes Judy’s life, with the shocking choices that unfold that year in Sylvania, Maryland. In the country surrounding the characters, the scandal of President Clinton is also revealing itself to the public, creating a kind of surreal backdrop for what transpires between Judy and a sixteen-year-old boy named Zach Patterson. As a mentor, she quickly moves from the nurturing one to a predator.

But when we look at the events from Judy’s point of view, we see nothing like that. It’s almost as if she has somehow blurred the boundaries in her mind and is reliving some kind of unresolved fantasy from her past.

When we see Zach’s point of view, we also have to question how he figures into this scenario: did his mother’s affair with a younger man somehow confuse many issues for him?

Weaving together the past and the present, along with the varying points of view, we also notice many themes of fire and its dangers, set alongside the fairytale images, replete with monsters.

What factors in the family lives of these characters led to their choices? How did a proper young schoolteacher somehow veer off course in such a dramatic way? And why did none of the adults surrounding the two participants do anything to set things right?

Surprisingly, the twists and turns of The Kingdom of Childhood did not lead the reader to the expected outcome. I know that I was expecting one chain of events, but how it all played out hit me like a sucker punch. As a retired social worker, with experiences with these kinds of inappropriate relationships, I expected to feel more disgusted with Judy’s behavior. Imagine my surprise to find myself understanding her behavior, realizing instead the twists of her psyche that had set her up. Almost as if she, too, were a victim in the piece. Five stars and highly recommended for students of human behavior.

THE COST OF FAMILY SECRETS — A REVIEW

Loss presents itself in its many forms throughout this portrait of a family: the Ryries, who live in Nyack, NY, and seemingly live ordinary lives.

When their third child is born anencephalic, his death is a certainty. In fact, he lives for fifty-seven hours.

Then the family shifts into everyday life, with scarcely a blink, and their separate grief unfolds in symptomatic ways that reveal the testing of the bonds that connect them.

The Grief of Others is narrated in alternating perspectives, moving back and forth between the past and present. In the beginning, we see the ten-year-old daughter Biscuit struggling with her own ritualistic way of dealing with what has happened.

Paul, the thirteen-year-old, is silently suffering while being brutally bullied by classmates.

And John and Ricky, the parents, move along parallel pathways, seldom connecting at all, until it is soon apparent that the events of loss were not the trigger for their disintegrating marriage, but the instrument that casts a spotlight upon what is wrong in their relationship. Secrets, betrayals, and lies are all gradually revealed as the reader turns the pages.

A wild card in this tragic family portrait is Jess, John’s daughter from a youthful relationship; her unexpected appearance could tip the fragile balance between them all. She is in her early twenties and has only spent time with the Ryries once before, on a vacation to the family cabin when she was in her early teens.

Will Jess’s needs somehow breathe life into the disintegrating family? Will her presence somehow bring the family together? Or will her individual set of lies and secrets cast the final stone on the funeral pyre that seemingly defines the family group?

This story was beautifully crafted and the characterizations were rich and multilayered, lending an authenticity to the drama as it played out, showing the reader that families are often comprised of individuals living parallel existences until something or someone helps shift the balance to bring about a kind of catharsis.

I recommend this story for anyone who wants to understand the nature of grief, and its effect on individuals and on the family. Four stars. I deducted a star for one missing ingredient: emotion.