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"The Absence of Evelyn" by Jackie Townsend is about the people we love. Their permanent going away need not take them away from our hearts. Our love can bridge the silences. Evelyn's life is a love story made clear through her survivors. Memorable is Marco, Evelyn's lover, and Olivia, her daughter, slowly and lovingly spending time in the place, Hanoi, that Evelyn loved the most. The novel is multilayered like a torte. However, not as sweet. There are shocking secrets, and there is forbidden love. Also, there are hard choices. It is a novel heavy in thought but easy to digest and regurgitate for further thought. It is one not to miss in 2017. Take time to meet Evelyn who made an important life decision during September 11, 2001. Death a huge part of life is different for each of us. Perhaps, it is all for the purpose of our continued story. This makes our calling as mothers, sisters, husbands or fathers and friends as intricate and delicate as sp

 Again Rose City Reader hosts a European Reading Challenge. It seems very simple which makes it feel welcoming. A person entering can choose any genre. There are a list of countries on her blog. No one can repeat a country or author. You can overlap with other challenges. You can use e books. Pick  your level from her blog. I have chosen Five Star Deluxe Entourage. The challenger must finish their goal by January 31, 2018.  See all information on Rose City Reader's blog.

This novel "All That Matters" by Jan Goldstein is mostly about Jennifer. The Zuckerman family are the secondary characters who help her cope with chronic depression. There is her father, Barry, her grandmother, Gabby, and her grandfather and her mother, Lili, whom we never meet. Jennifer's mother dies accidentally. The novel is heartbreaking simply because the father is really unavailable. He has a new wife and a new baby. It is also heartbreaking because there are so many losses experienced by each character. For example, there is the Holocaust family stories that Gabby has held in her heart for so long. I am learning that each Holocaust story is dramatically different in some way. Each person who has experienced it seems to come away with more new ways for their present friends and relatives to cope with life today. There are many jaunts throughout the novel. Gabby's life story takes her back to Poland. Jennifer's story begins in California. Whil

I'm picking up so many books lately which include the months of the year while focusing on a season too. I find this idea totally delightful. While I might forget for a moment that it is autumn, winter spring or summer, the books bring me back to the right time of celebration. Already this week I've read about fruits like the apple or something called a "quince."  nadelundgabel.wordpress.com/2012 Seasons are so important whether in a story, a book or in a movie. Seasons are a way God uses to celebrate His ability to create. It is His hope that these times will cause us to become more creative whether coloring a red leaf, putting sequins on a lemon or painting a mountain. Our autumn has not arrived yet. We still have a tiny bit of summer to enjoy. Already, I am looking forward to cooler mornings. I thought making an afghan using orange and burnt brown would keep my minds centered on the changing trees. One year my husband and I did have the chance to ride the Sou

"To satisfy Irina and Seth's curiosity, Alma began by telling them, with the lucidity that preserves crucial moments for us, of the first time she saw Ichimei Fukuda. She met him in the splendid garden at the Sea Cliff mansion in the spring of 1939." Alma Belasco is really an original character. She is a woman who lives by her own rules. She wears purple rings, she's a woman who disappears twice a week to an unknown place. http://thepurplebooker.com/

The thunder starts as we're saying goodbye, leaving each other for the summer holidays ahead. A loud crack echoes off the ground, making Connie jump. www.rosecityreader.com The author, B.A. Paris likens this storm to an "omen." I did think of foreshadowing. 

  "It's interesting, isn't it, how when you stay in a hotel almost anywhere all you hear are the major languages;...But they were speaking some of those languages in the hotel that weekend--wonderful, exotic languages, including one that had clicks and whistles in it. ! Kung. And it has an exclamation mark in front of it." barnesandnoble.com/w/trains-and-lovers-alexander-mccall-smith