After the excitement of the holidays comes always a letdown in spirits; and it seems that just about everyone could use a lift. Well, count on Nora Roberts to provide just that as going in, you know you’re in for a “happy-ever-after” treat.

At sixteen in rural England at the start of the 1960s, Laurel Nicolson hides in their tree house to avoid the family outing in celebration of her baby brother’s second birthday.  From there she witnesses a horrible act that involves her mother.  Innocently, she attests to the fact that her mother’s response was to protect her two-year-old child and herself. Years later in 2011, Laurel, an acclaimed actress now in her sixties, visits her ninety-year-old mother in the hospital in Suffolk, England, where Laurel and […]

Coincidence Is God’s Way of Remaining Anonymous is Gloria Loring’s way of validating God in her life. When her son was diagnosed with diabetes, she joined JDF (Juvenile Diabetes Foundation). Attempting to offer her support to JDF, she came up with the idea of compiling a cookbook made up of recipes contributed by her fellow cast members of Days of Our Lives—where she at the time played Liz Chandler—as a way to raise money.

Kate Morton’s second novel, THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN (copyright 2008), is a beautiful mystery “. . . of unknown parentage, family intrigue and generational secrets that keeps the reader turning pages into the wee hours of the night.”

Told from the points of view of two sisters, A Gift for My Sister by Ann Pearlman is a novel of love and loss, conflict and triumph. The narration alternates between Sky, the older sister, and Tara, some years younger and the child of her mother’s second marriage after Sky’s father dies at the age of thirty-four.

Modelland Book CoverTookie De La Crème, AKA Forgetta-Girl, who aspires to become a Rememba-Girl, is the main character of Modelland, Tyra Banks’s first novel. It is set in the make-believe world of Modelland in Metopia. Tookie is a fifteen-year-old girl who longs to be noticed by anyone. One way she attempts to get attention is by lying down in the hallways of her school (B3), just hoping someone would step on her, proof she existed.

Lately it seems I have a run on unsympathetic characters. Two books I’ve read recently—one fiction and one non-fiction—have main characters that deserve pitying for their less than honest personalities.

Very well written and captivating from beginning to end, this novel has it all—sex, politics, exploitation under the guise of conservation . . . comedy (the limits and amounts of money Vin Haven and Walter go to to preserve the cerulean warbler) . . . tragedy . . .. Suspenseful to the very touching, heartwarming end!

Handle with Care, Jodi Picoult’s 2009 bestseller, is the heart-wrenching story of a family’s attempt to survive when their second child, Willow, is born with OI, osteogenesis imperfecta, a collagen defect that causes bones so brittle they might break with a stumble, a twist, a sneeze.

The book is at times very touching and engrossing, at times humorous and will leave you in stitches; but you will leave with a renewed faith in your own religion. Albom makes no distinction between religions, but his nonfiction work attests to a deep respect for one’s personal choice.