We Could Be Beautiful: A Novel

 We Could Be Beautiful: A Novel by Swan Huntley.

                                             Doubleday, 2016. Adult fiction.


Reading this book is like eating a beautiful chocolate éclair. It's gorgeous and it tastes good, but you wonder if it's really worth all the calories!


Catherine West is almost too good to be true: beautiful, wealthy, successful in Manhattan. Her big flaw seems to be that she has not found the right man with whom to share a family. (WHAT??) Then, she meets William Stockton who has to be too good to be true: handsome, wealthy, successful (Get the trend here?) and who vows to love Catherine forever and they plan to marry. But, wait, he has known Catherine's family in the past and remembers intimate details of both her parents and her sister, Caroline, and Catherine as a child. Catherine's mother is now living with Alzheimer's and has flashes of distinctly not liking William. Something is wrong here, but readers will keep going to find out just what it is. Gorgeous details of life in the fast lane and reads smoothly, but is it worth the time? If you want a tale of deception, greed, love, and family, put this one in your beach bag.

Natural Color by Sasha Duerr

 Natural Color: Vibrant Plant Dye Projects for Your Home and Wardrobe by Sasha Duerr. Photography by Aya Brackett. Watson-Guptill Publications, 2016. Nonfiction.


     Both a coffee table book and a textbook, this gorgeous work will enhance the work of all home textile creators. Projects include useful items like table runners, pillowcases, curtains, hats, napkins, mittens and such. Arranged by the seasons, the projects and many plants are beautifully illustrated in full color, full page illustrations. The book is filled with information about dyeing, mordants, common plants that yield unexpectedly beautiful colors. A bibliography, index, and glossary are helpful additions. Duerr has great passion for her topic and writes in a clear manner. I received this book from  Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

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Falling: A Daughter, A Father, and a Journey Back by Elisha Cooper

 Falling:  A Daughter, A Father, and a Journey Back by Elisha Cooper.  Pantheon Books (Penguin Random House), 2016. Memoir.


I have known the gorgeous work of Elisha Cooper for some years now. His illustrated picture books for children, Farm, Beach, and Train are masterpieces about their respective topics. Full of colorful details, they seem the work of a careful, but happy, person. His prior memoir, Crawling: A Father's First Year is full of happy new fatherhood and the wonder of being a parent and describing the uncertainty of who really learns more during that time, the baby or the parent. A Year in New York is a thick, but small book full of intrigues in the city. The man can both write AND illustrate.


This 2016 book, however, brings new depth to Elisha Cooper's work. While he is holding his four-year-old daughter at a baseball game at Wrigley Field, he notices a small bump under her ribs. It turns out to be a pediatric kidney cancer called Wilms' tumor. Imagine: one day the sky is blue, your child is healthy and the next moment you have a child with cancer. The bottom has literally fallen out, but you must go on. That is the journey that Cooper takes readers on for the next three years of the family's lives.


This sounds like such an awful topic. It sounds like a depressing topic. It sounds like a terrible topic for a book. But, Cooper's writing is eloquent and upbeat while realistic and joyful. He runs the gamut of emotions and continues to love both his daughters and his wife and write other books that show none of this (or maybe they do, but it's so subtle that most readers miss it...I can't wait to reread his whole body of work).


The little family moves back to New York City as they had planned. The descriptions will make readers think they could live there, too. Cooper tells of his high school and college days when he played football. He tells of surviving minefields in the Golan Heights. Nothing is as tough as knowing his child has cancer. Yet, he describes the wonders of working with wood. The family's trip to Florence, Italy makes us long to go there. There is happiness and joy in their daily lives. But, always, there are trips to the hospital for tests and Dr. Lee, who comes off like the doctor we would all want in the lives of our children. Ultimately, and finally, the three year tests are all fine. The cancer is gone.


Can anyone learn to live with cancer? Can cancer be "cured"? Elisha Cooper gives new hope for resounding, positive answers to both. Here's to many more years of great health for him and his family and for many more of those wondrous picture books. I only hope to meet him at a library conference some day and give the man a hug. Better yet, to be in the audience when he accepts a Caldecott Medal one of these years!

The Children by Ann Leary.

 The Children by Ann Leary. St. Martin's Press, 2016.
                                          Adult fiction.






Charlotte and Sally are the grown daughters of Joan and their now deceased stepfather, Whit. Whit's family also includes two grown sons, Perry and Spin. While the boys have attended the exclusive prep school near "Lakeside" and will inherit all the family money and property, the girls and their mother are allowed to live there. Then, in one memorable summer, Spin brings his fiancé, the beautiful Laurel, to meet them all and life is changed forever.


The faded glory of the house and grounds, the attempts to keep everyone "nice", and the slow reveals of resentments and rivalries tie ribbons around all the characters and events of this drama. Charlotte narrates, but she rarely leaves the house. Her "mommy blog" is totally fiction, but earns money from a diaper company. Sally, musically gifted, suffers from mental problems. Others have equally interesting backgrounds. 


My over riding take on this blended family tale is that everyone should have a will. This is sort of like what the "We Were Liars" characters might have been like as adults. Put this one in the beach bag and enjoy.

Arrowood: A Novel

 Arrowood: A Novel by Laura McHugh. Spiegel & Grau (Penguin Random House), 2016. Adult fiction.


The little town of Keokuk, Iowa and the historic Arrowood house are almost as important as the human characters in this twisty tale of mystery. Arden Arrowood has returned to her childhood home to find it much the same as she remembered it when she was a child. The overriding event in her family's lives was the disappearance of her toddler twin sisters when Arden was eight and supposed to be watching them. Can Arden figure out what really happened? Can she ever get over her guilt? With the help of her first love, Ben Ferris (now the town dentist!) and a new friend, Josh, whose website about unsolved mysteries may shed some clues on the case, Arden struggles to move forward with her life. Life on the Mississippi makes for a great read indeed!

Georgia, A Novel of Georgia O'Keefe

 Georgia, A Novel of Georgia O'Keefe by Dawn Tripp. Random House, 2016. Adult fiction.


Most people are familiar with the gorgeous artwork of Georgia O'Keefe. Her birth in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin and later teaching in Canyon, Texas provide a rich canvas for this fictional account of her life as a young teacher. A friend sends some of her work to NYC art dealer and photographer Alfred Stieglitz who becomes her mentor, her husband, and the dominant force in her life for many years. But, Georgia longs for independence to practice her art. She wants to control what is said about her work and keep her personal life out of it.


Tripp provides imaginative details to flesh out the biographical outline that moves O'Keefe eventually into life in New Mexico as an elderly woman. Her siblings, her friends, and her husband all help shape her life and form the legendary artist. But, it is Georgia, alone, who dominates in spirit and in independence, and crafts her own life. Tripp has honored her with this thoughtful tale.

The Forgetting Time, A Novel by Sharon Guskin

 The Forgetting Time, A Novel by Sharon Guskin. Flatiron Books (Macmillan), 2016. Adult fiction.


What would you do if your small child kept asking for his "other mother" and wanting to go to his other home? This is what happens to Janie and her son in this unsettling story. Noah is terrified of many things, has nightmares, and can't stay in the same preschools. Dr. Jerome Anderson, a psychiatrist, has spent much of his career on what appears to be a wild goose chase documenting children who seem to have lived other lives and then seem to grow up and forget those lives. Dr. Anderson is dying and would like to know for sure if his research proves what he thinks it will. What if they can find Noah's "other mother" if she really exists?


By far, the most riveting parts of the book  are the mother and child relationship. Can Janie help her child? Chapters are often preceded by essays by Dr. Jim Tucker's Life Before Life which is nonfiction and tells of international families with some of the same quandaries as Janie and Noah. While the story ends, readers will have far more questions about this intriguing research.

The After Party, A Novel by Anton Disclafani.

  The After Party, A Novel by Anton Disclafani. Riverhead Books
(Penguin Random House), 2016. Adult fiction.


By far, this fictional tale has been my favorite guilty pleasure this summer! Set in 1950's Houston, it details life of several high society women and the secrets they keep. The liquor flows, the diamonds sparkle, and in the midst is beautiful and rich Joan Fortier. Her faithful sidekick, Cece Buchanan, thinks she know Joan well. Alternating between their time at Lamar High and just afterward to 1957 when Cece is married and has a small son, the tale winds through the River Oaks' debutantes with chauffeurs and maids to do their bidding.


The author has obviously done her homework. From the description of the diving boards at the now gone Shamrock Hotel to the delicacies served in the homes, the details ring true. It's interesting that the main characters share a first name with Joan Robinson Hill, the real Houston socialite whose life and death were the subjects of Tommy Thompson's Blood and Money, a Houston classic. The writing is smooth and, although clues are dropped along the way, even readers who suspect the ending will be happy with the way things are neatly tied up by the end.

What Was Mine by Helen Klein Ross

 What Was Mine: A Novel by Helen Klein Ross. Gallery Books (Simon & Schuster, 2016) Adult fiction.


When Lucy and her husband cannot have their own child, Lucy's marriage falls apart and she is stressed out to the max. One day at IKEA, she sees a four month old girl alone in the store and Lucy picks her up and just walks out with her. The whole novel is how Lucy takes care of Mia, eludes the press, the police, and the baby's parents.  Only when Mia is grown does she learn what happened to her and seeks to reconcile her emotions and learn how to become part of the families who love her.


Told from the perspectives of Lucy, her husband Warren, the birth mother Marilyn, Lucy's sister Cheryl, the birth father Grant, Wendy the Chinese nanny, neighbors, coworkers, and Mia herself, the story moves forward engagingly. Each character lends an important view and details that ring true. At times, it seems a little implausible that Lucy could actually navigate medical, educational, and social situations with lies and creative thinking, but she does. The differences between Marilyn and Grant's children and their family and the life Mia has lived is almost jarring. Mia really has two mothers who love her dearly and would do almost anything to secure her happy future. But how can anyone over come the kidnapping and its long aftermath?  Ross will keep readers wondering until the very end.

The Graces by Laure Eve

  The Graces by Laure Eve. Amulet Books (Abrams), 2016. Young Adult. Fiction.


When River Page begins high school in a new town, she meets the intriguing Grace teens. Rumors abound about the wealthy, rather distant, beautiful twins Fenrin and Thalia and their younger sister Summer. Are they really witches? When someone disappears, they all need all the magic they can get!


The book is filled with typical teen angst and the quest to make friends and to fit in with others. River hints at her own "otherness", but it's sometimes hard to tell what's real and what's just in her head. At times, the story is a little like We Were Liars (beautiful, rich kids with another teen who wants to be part of their family) with some magic woven through it. Eve does weave a powerful tale that teens who like witchy and vampirey topics will find appealing.