From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Calamity of Souls comes David Baldacci’s newest novel, set in London in 1944, about a bereaved bookshop owner and two teenagers scarred by the Second World War, and the healing and hope they find in one another.
Fourteen-year-old Charlie Matters is up to no good, but for a very good reason. Without parents, peerage, or merit, he steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he’s old enough to enlist to fight the Germans. After barely surviving the Blitz, Charlie knows there’s no telling when a falling bomb might end his life.
Fifteen-year-old Molly Wakefield has just returned to a nearly unrecognizable London. One of millions of children to have been evacuated to the countryside Molly has been away from her home for nearly five years. Her return, however, is not the homecoming she’d hoped for as she’s confronted by a devastating reality: neither of her parents are there.
Without guardians and stability, Charlie and Molly find an unexpected ally and protector in Ignatius Oliver, and solace at his bookshop, The Book Keep. Mourning the recent loss of his wife, Ignatius forms a kinship with both children, and in each other they rediscover the spirit of family each has lost.
But Charlie’s escapades in the city have not gone unnoticed, and someone’s been following Molly since she returned to London. And Ignatius is harboring his own secrets, which could have terrible consequences for all of them.
As bombs continue to bear down on the city, Charlie, Molly, and Ignatius learn that while the perils of war rage on, their coming together and trusting one another may be the only way for them to survive.
Review
This story follows two young teenagers, Charlie and Molly. These two are from totally different backgrounds but somehow they come together to be great friends and help each other through this terrible war.
I enjoyed these two characters, especially Charlie. He is a bit of a rounder and he gets himself in a mess a time or two. Then there is Molly. She does not take no for an answer. She has some gumption, for sure!
This story is a unique take on what transpired during WWII in London. It is more about friendship and staying friends through the hard times.
The narrators, David Baldacci; Stewart Crank; Alexandra Boulton; John Lee; Nicola F. Delgado; Matthew Lloyd Davies; Joe Pitts, made a fantastic team! I love lots of narrators to a story. Just makes it more real and full of life.
Need a completely different WWII novel…THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today.
I received this novel from the publisher for a honest opinion
From the New York Times bestselling author of Mercy Street, a tense, propulsive family drama set in Shanghai, where a fractured American family faces its complicated past
Four years after their bitter divorce, Claire and Aaron Litvak get a phone call no parent is prepared for: their 22-year-old daughter Lindsey, teaching English in China during a college gap year, has been critically injured in a hit and run accident. At a Shanghai hospital they wait at her bedside, hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.
The accident unearths a deeper fissure in the family: the shocking event that ended the Litvaks’ marriage and turned Lindsey against them. Estranged from her parents, she has confided only in her younger sister, Grace, adopted as an infant from China. As Claire and Aaron struggle to get their bearings in bustling, cosmopolitan Shanghai, the newly prosperous “miracle city,” they face troubling questions about Lindsey’s life there, in which nothing is quite as it seems.
With her trademark psychological acuity, Jennifer Haigh delivers a taut, suspenseful story about family, secret lives, and the unbreakable bond between two sisters, the fabled red thread that ties them together across time and space.
“Ms. Haigh is an expertly nuanced storyteller long overdue for major attention. Her work is gripping, real, and totally immersive, akin to that of writers as different as Richard Price, Richard Ford, and Richard Russo.” ― The New York Times
Review
Four years after their bitter divorce, Claire and Aaron Litvak get a phone call no parent is prepared for: their 22-year-old daughter Lindsey, teaching English in China during a college gap year, has been critically injured in a hit and run accident. At a Shanghai hospital they wait at her bedside, hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.
I loved the unique differences between the characters. Not sure if I can describe quite what I mean. Just know that every single character is different and they have something unique that draws the reader to them. They have quirks that every one of us can relate to, especially in the time of stress. And these parents are under immense pressure.
This tale had me really wondering where it was going. There were so many directions this author could have taken this story. I love the direction she chose and the secrets that were kept…even from the reader!
I have read several books by this author and they have all been wonderful! And this one is another good one!
The narrators, Katharine Chin; Yu-Li Alice Shen, are superb!
Need a suspenseful tale full of secrets…THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today.
I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.
A lake with mysterious properties. A town haunted by urban legend. Two women whose lives intersect in terrifying ways. Welcome to Soap Lake, a town to rival Twin Peaks and Stephen King’s Castle Rock.
When Abigail agreed to move to Soap Lake, Washington for her husband’s research she expected old growth forests and craft beer, folksy neighbors and the World’s Largest Lava Lamp. Instead, after her husband jets off to Poland for a research trip, she finds herself alone, in a town surrounded by desert, and haunted by its own urban legends.
But when a young boy runs through the desert into Abigail’s arms, her life becomes entwined with his and the questions surrounding his mother Esme’s death. In Abigail’s search for answers she enlists the help of a recovering addict-turned-librarian, a grieving brother, a broken motel owner, and a mentally-shattered conspiracy theorist to unearth Esme’s tragic past, the town’s violent history, and the secret magic locked in the lake her husband was sent there to study.
As she gets closer to the answers, past and present crimes begin to collide, and Abigail finds herself gaining the unwelcome attention of the town’s unofficial mascot, the rubber-suited orchard stalker known as TreeTop, a specter who seems to be lurking in every dark shadow and around every shady corner.
A sweeping, decade-spanning mystery brimming with quirky characters, and puzzle hunt scenarios, Midnight in Soap Lake is a modern day Twin Peaks—a rich, expansive universe that readers will enter and never forget.
Author Bio:
Matthew Sullivan is the beloved author of Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, an Indie Next Pick, B&N Discover pick, a GoodReads Choice Award finalist and winner of the Colorado Book Award. He received his MFA from the University of Idaho and has been a resident writer at Yaddo, Centrum, and the Vermont Studio Center. His short stories have been awarded the Robert Olen Butler Fiction Prize and the Florida Review Editors’ Award for Fiction. His writing has been featured in the New York Times Modern Love column, The Daily Beast, and Shelf Awareness amongst others.
An animal, Abigail was certain, loping in the sagebrush: a twist of fuzz moving through the desert at the edge of her sight. The morning had already broken a hundred. Her glasses steamed and sunscreen stung her eyes—
Or maybe she hadn’t seen anything.
Yesterday, while walking along this desolate irrigation road, she’d spotted a cow skull between tumbleweeds, straight out of a tattoo parlor, but when she ran toward it, bracing to take a picture to send to Eli across the planet—proof, perhaps, that she ever left the house—she discovered it was just a white plastic grocery bag snagged on a curl of sage bark.
Somehow. Way out here.
The desert was scabby with dark basalt, bristled with the husks of flowers, and nothing was ever there.
When Eli first told her he’d landed a grant to research a rare lake in the Pacific Northwest, Abigail thought ferns and rain, ale and slugs, Sasquatch and wool.
And then they got here, to this desert where no one lived. Not a fern or slug in sight.
This had been the most turbulent year of her life.
Eleven months ago, they met.
Seven months ago, they married.
Six months ago, they moved from her carpeted condo in Denver to this sunbaked town on the shores of Soap Lake, a place where neither knew a soul.
Their honeymoon had lasted almost three months—Eli whistling in his downstairs lab, Abigail unpacking and painting upstairs—and then he kissed her at the airport, piled onto a plane, and moved across the world to work in a different lab, on a different project, at a different lake.
In Poland.
When she remembered him lately, she remembered photographs of him.
The plan had been to text all the time, daily calls, romantic flights to Warsaw, but the reality was that Eli had become too busy to chat and seemed more frazzled than ever. This week had been particularly bad because he’d been off the grid on a research trip, so every call went to voicemail, every text into the Polish abyss. And then at five o’clock this morning, her phone pinged and Abigail shot right out of a drowning sleep to grab it, as if he’d tossed her a life preserver from six thousand miles away.
And this is what he’d had to say:
sorry missed you. so much work & my research all fd up. i’ll call this weekend. xo e
As she was composing a response—her phone the only glow in their dark, empty home—he added a postscript that stabbed her in the heart like an icicle.
P.S. maybe it time since remember using time to figure out self life?
What kind of a sentence was that? And what was a “self life” anyway?
Abigail had called him right away. When he didn’t pick up she went down to the lab he’d set up in their daylight basement. She opened a few of his binders with their charts of Soap Lake, their colorful DNA diagrams, their photos of phosphorescent microbes, as cosmic as images from deep space. She breathed the papery dust of his absence and tried to imagine he’d just stepped out for a minute and would be back in a flash, her clueless brilliant husband, pen between his teeth, hair a smoky eruption, mustard stains on the plaid flannel bathrobe he wore in place of a lab coat.
From one of his gleaming refrigerators, Abigail retrieved a rack of capped glass tubes that contained the Miracle Water and the Miracle Microbes collected from the mineral lake down the hill— she sometimes wondered if her limnologist husband would be more at home on the shores of Loch Ness—and held one until a memory arose, like a visit from a friend: Eli, lifting a water sample up to the window as if he were gazing through a telescope, shaking it so it fizzed and foamed. And then he was gone again.
She hated that she did this. Came down here and caressed his equipment like a creep. Next she’d be smelling his bathrobe, collecting hairs from his brush. It was as if she felt compelled to remind herself that Eli was doing important work and, as the months of distance piled up, that he was even real.
Back when they’d first started dating, Abigail had been the busy one, the one who said yes to her boss too much and had to skim her calendar each time Eli wanted to go to dinner or a movie. Of course her job as an administrative assistant in a title insurance office had never felt like enough, but when she mentioned this restlessness to Eli, finding her path—figure out self life—had suddenly become a centerpiece of their move to Soap Lake. But they got here and nothing had happened. It wasn’t just a switch you flipped.
Abigail slid the tall tube of lake water back into its rack. Only when she let go, the tube somehow missed its slot and plunged to the floor like a bomb.
Kapow!
On the tile between her feet, a blossom of cloudy water and shattered glass.
She stood over the mess, clicking her fingernails against her teeth and imagining microbes squealing on the floor, flopping in the air like miniscule goldfish. She told herself, without conviction, it had been an accident.
And then she stepped over the spill, put the rack back in the fridge and, surprised at the immediacy of her shame, went for a walk in this scorching desert.
It stunned her, how harsh and gorgeous it was.
Loneliness: it felt sometimes like it possessed you.
She hadn’t spoken to anyone in over a month, outside of a few people in the Soap Lake service industry. There was the guy who made her a watery latte at the gas station the other morning, then penised the back of her hand with his finger when he passed it over. And the newspaper carrier, an old woman with white braids and a pink cowgirl hat, who raced through town in a windowless minivan. She told Abigail she was one DUI away from unemployment, but the weekly paper was never late. And the cute pizza delivery dude who was so high he sat in her driveway on his phone for half an hour before coming to the door with her cold cheese pizza, saying, Yes, ma’am. Thanks, ma’am, which was sweet but totally freaked her out. And the lady with the painted boomerang eyebrows in the tampon aisle at the grocery store who gave her unwanted advice on the best lube around for spicing up menopause, to which Abigail guffawed and responded too loudly, “Thanks, but I’m not even goddamned forty!”
At least she’d discovered these maintenance roads: miles and miles of gravel and dirt, no vehicles allowed, running alongside the massive irrigation canals that brought Canadian snowmelt from the Columbia River through the Grand Coulee Dam to the farms spread all over this desert. The water gushed through the main canals, thirty feet wide and twenty feet deep, and soon branched off to other, smaller canals that branched off to orchards and fields and ranches and dairies and soil and seeds and sprouts and leaves and, eventually, yummy vital food: grocery store shelves brimming with apples and milk and pizza-flavored Pringles.
Good soil. Blazing sun. Just add water and food was born.
Almost a trillion gallons a year moved through these canals. T: trillion.
All that water way out here, pouring through land so dry it crackled underfoot.
She halted on the road. Pressed her lank, brown hair behind her ear. Definitely heard something, a faint yip or caw.
She scanned the horizon for the source of the sound and there it was again, a smudge of movement in the wavering heat. Something running away.
A few times out here she’d seen coyote. Lots of quail, the occasional pheasant. Once, in a fallow field close to town, a buck with a missing antler that looked from a distance like a unicorn.
Not running away, the smudge out there. Running toward. She was nowhere near a signal yet her instinct was to touch her phone. She craned around to glimpse the vanishing point of the road behind, gauging how far she’d walked and, if things got bad, how far she’d have to run.
Three miles, minimum. Six miles, tops.
Definitely approaching.
Not something. Someone.
A human. Alone.
Running. A boy.
A little boy. Sprinting.
Abigail froze as their eyes met, and suddenly the boy exploded out of the desert, slamming into her thighs with an oof! He wore yellow pajamas and Cookie Monster slippers covered in prickly burrs.
He clung to her legs so tightly that she almost tipped over. When she registered the crusty blood on his chin and cheeks and encasing his hands like gloves, she felt herself begin to cry, scared-to-sobbing in one second flat.
Deep breath. Shirt wipe.
“Hey! Are you hurt? Look at me. Are you hurt?”
The boy wasn’t crying, but his skin was damp and he was panting hot and wouldn’t let go of her legs. She felt a hummingbird inside of his chest.
She knelt in the gravel and unfolded his arms, turning them over at the wrist. She lifted his shirt and spun him around as best she could. He had some welts and scratches from running through the brush, and the knees of his pj’s were badly scuffed, but he wasn’t cut, not anywhere serious, which meant— The blood belonged to someone else.
A group of siblings captured in an iconic beach nostalgia photo reunite on a sunny California island, where they’re forced to face the fallout of their unconventional upbringing—and the golden secret that has been simmering ever since…
“A love story to an era of sun, salt air, and freedom. I promise, you will devour this novel.”—Julie Clark, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Flight
“Doan’s latest pulls you straight to the end like a powerful riptide. Unforgettable!”—Jessica Anya Blau, bestselling author of Mary Jane
It’s 1980s California, and everyone’s dreaming of the endless summer: sun-drenched beaches, infinite waves, and most of all, beautiful, beautiful freedom. For the Merrick siblings, this idyllic vision is their reality, as they travel up and down the coast with their parents in a van year-round, surfing and swimming their days away. But when a photographer secretly snaps a stunning photo of the family with their boards in the sand, and the image ripples across the country, the only life they’ve ever known is put at risk.
Decades after, the now-distant siblings gather on a gorgeous, wild island to honor their late father. But their reunion is complicated when a journalist, eager for the truth behind the famous photo, discovers their identity and tracks them down. As the siblings reckon with the possibility that more of their lives could be shared, a revelation about their past forces them to confront long-held heartaches. Together, they’ll have to decide whether to let the same tensions rip them apart again—or if telling their story on their own terms might just be the way to recapture the family magic.
Review
The Merrick siblings, this idyllic vision is their reality, as they travel up and down the coast with their parents in a van year-round, surfing and swimming their days away. But when a photographer secretly snaps a stunning photo of the family with their boards in the sand, and the image ripples across the country, the only life they’ve ever known is put at risk.
This is truly a unique family with some crazy rules. I love how they seem separate…but cause them some problems and they circle around each other in protection.
This is told in two different time periods. I wanted a bit more distinction between the two. But, this could have been because of the format. The audiobook might have caused part of this issue for me.
But y’all…the setting of the different California beaches and riding the waves…freedom at its best.
The narrator, Ann Marie Gideon, is pretty good. She was not as emotional in some areas as I felt the story needed.
Need a family drama with a great setting…THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today!
I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.
Disguised by a name she found on a tombstone and accompanying a Vietnam vet she met in a graveyard, an unconventional young snake-handler who talks to the dead returns to the ghosts of her childhood home in 1967 Arkansas …
Fans of Delia Owens, Barbara Kingsolver, Kelly Mustian, and Quinn Connor will be captivated by this haunting Southern debut about found family, folk magic, the long shadow of trauma, the salvation of human connection, and the transcendent beauty of nature.
Genevieve Charbonneau talks to ghosts and has a special relationship with rattlesnakes. In her travels, she’s wandered throughout the South, escaping a mental hospital in Alabama, working for a Louisiana circus, and dancing at a hoochy-kootch in Texas. Now for the first time in a decade, she’s allowed her winding path to bring her to the site of her grandmother’s Arkansas farmhouse, a place hallowed in her memory.
She intends only to visit briefly—to pay respects to her buried loved ones and leave. But a chance meeting with a haunted young Vietnam vet reconnects her with the remnants of a family she thought long gone, and their union becomes a catalyst for change and salvation. An abused woman and her daughters develop the courage to fight back, a ghost finds the path away from life, and a sanctimonious predator becomes the prey. In the process, Genevieve must choose between her longing for meaningful connection after years as an outsider and her equally excruciating impulse to run.
Written by a naturalist and set on the land where her family roots stretch back two centuries, The Song of the Blue Bottle Tree is a haunting story about letting go and the things we leave behind, the power of names, and the ties that bind. It is both harrowing and triumphant, a visceral Southern debut as otherworldly and beautiful as it is unflinching and wry.
Review
Genevieve Charbonneau has wandered throughout the South, escaping a mental hospital in Alabama, working for a Louisiana circus, and dancing at a hoochy-kootch in Texas. Now she is visiting the site of her grandmother’s Arkansas farmhouse. She runs into a haunted young Vietnam vet and reconnects her with the remnants of a family. However, she soon discovers she may have to make a decision to run or fight!
Y’all, this story made me mad, sad, and yes, murderous! Trust me when I say I wanted to kill the father/preacher/abuser! The control this man had on his family…
To say this story is going to stay with me for a while is an understatement. And the way the author weaves in ghosts is brilliant. And yes there are snakes…not my favorite. But in true southern, religious fashion, this is a brilliant addition as well. Just makes the story more creepy, compelling and authentic!
There are quite a few characters, each with their own issue, and the narrators, Zura Johnson, Matt Godfrey, and Laura Jennings, are OUTSTANDING!
Need a haunting story which will have you gasping for air…THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today.
I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.
A breathtaking, joy-filled novel about the people we love, the secrets we keep, and the enduring power of family, from the bestselling author of The Unsinkable Greta James.
“A glorious novel of love in all its forms—familial, romantic, lost, and found. Jennifer E. Smith is a ray of literary sunshine.”—Jenny Jackson, author of Pineapple Street
The four Endicott siblings—Gemma, Connor, Roddy, and Jude—were once inseparable, a bond created by the absence of their dazzling, mercurial mother, who would return for a few weeks each summer to whisk them off on sprawling road trips around the country.
Decades later, the unthinkable has happened: the Endicotts haven’t spoken in years . . . until an out-of-the-blue text arrives from Jude, now a famous actress, summoning them to a small town in North Dakota. They’re each at a crossroads: Gemma, who put her own ambitions aside to raise the others, now isn’t sure if she wants to be a mother herself; Connor, a celebrated novelist, is floundering after his recent divorce and suffering from an epic case of writer’s block; and Roddy, at the tail end of a professional soccer career, is dangerously close to losing his future husband for the chance at one last season.
Jude is the only Endicott who seems to have it all together—but appearances can be deceiving. As the weekend unfolds, and the siblings wrestle with their shared past and uncertain futures, they’ll discover that Jude has been keeping three secrets . . . each of which could change everything.
A captivating journey and an ode to forgiveness that takes listeners across all fifty states, Fun for the Whole Family brims with heart and resonates long after the final word.
Review
Jude is keeping quite a lot of secrets. She has not been in touch with her family for a very long time. But now it is time to come clean…about the past and the present.
Every character in this story is flawed and captured my heart. Each one has their own story and their own issues with their childhood. I found all the characters just so real! I mean…this could have been my dysfunctional family😜. Their interactions had me smirking and grinning! But they also had my heart breaking as well!
And y’all…Jude has them all traveling to North Dakota. And they all drop what they are doing and meet her there, even if they have not talked to her in years! Don’t let this dysfunctional family fool you! It is all there! You need to read this to find out!
I have read one other book by this author, The Unsinkable Greta James. And I loved it. So, add that one to your list as well!
This story is 4.5 stars rounded up.
Need a family novel you will not soon forget…THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today.
I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.
A tasty, dishy inside look at the world of publishing. Readers will be begging for a sequel!”—Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times bestselling author of Summers at the Saint
A young romance writer makes a discovery that throws her elitist family into chaos in this sharp, witty and entirely delightful family drama for fans of Elinor Lipman and Jennifer Weiner.
Emma Page grew up the black sheep in a bookish household, raised to believe that fine literature is the only worthy type of fiction. Her parents, self-proclaimed “serious” authors who run their own vanity press, The Mighty Pages, mingle in highbrow social circles that look down on anything too popular or mainstream, while her sister, Jess, is a powerful social media influencer whose stylish reviews can make or break a novel.
Hiding her own romance manuscript from her disapproving parents, Emma finds inspiration at the family cottage among the “fluff” they despise: the juicy summer romances that belonged to her late grandmother. But a chance discovery unearthed from her Gigi’s belongings reveals a secret that has the power to ruin her parents’ business and destroy their reputation in the industry—a secret that has already fallen into the hands of an unscrupulous publishing insider with a grudge to settle. Now Emma must decide—as much as she’s dreamed of the day when her parents are forced to confront their own egos, can she really just sit back and watch The Mighty Pages be exposed and their legacy destroyed?
From the wealthy enclaves of the Hamptons to the sparkling shores of Lake Michigan, The Page Turner is a delectable glimpse inside the world of publishing, and Viola Shipman’s most glittering achievement yet!
Review
When I first started this book I thought I was about to hit a book slump. But in true Viola fashion…I was pulled into this tale.
Emma is kind of the black sheep of the Page Family. Her family has been in the book publishing business for years but Emma just can’t seem to do anything right. And when her family signs a deal to help save the family business, but Emma has first hand knowledge that this is going to blow up in their faces, she has a big decision to make.
Emma is a character that my heart went out to. She is pushed around a bit by her family….but don’t worry…she comes into her own. And yes, she discovers a secret or two or three!
I love how this author can take a dysfunctional family and create a tale that is heartwarming.
I also loved the author’s note! If you don’t read anything else…READ THAT. Especially if you have loved books your whole life, it will give you strength and acceptance.
The narrator, Katharine Chin, could not have been better. I loved her as Jess!
Need a tale about power and family…THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today.
I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.
Nestled among the cobblestone streets of Compiègne, there existed a bakery unlike any other.
Rumours were whispered through the town that its pastries offered a taste of magic, chasing away the darkest of sorrows. Just one bite of a croissant might bring luck, unlock a precious memory or reveal hidden longings.
But dark clouds were looming on the horizon…
For Edie Lane, a recipe for disaster doesn’t require that many ingredients. Take an unhealthy amount of wishful thinking and a sprinkle of desperation and that’s how Edie left everything behind in Ireland for her dream job at a bakery in Paris. Except the bakery isn’t in Paris – and neither is Edie.
This might not be where Edie intended to be but she soon realizes it’s exactly where she needs to be…
Review
For Edie Lane, a recipe for disaster doesn’t require that many ingredients. Take an unhealthy amount of wishful thinking and a sprinkle of desperation and that’s how Edie left everything behind in Ireland for her dream job at a bakery in Paris. Except the bakery isn’t in Paris – and neither is Edie.
Y’all know I am a moody reader. And to be honest, I think I have read way too many “sweet” reads lately. This one fell a bit short for me. Now, it has tons of five star reviews. So read it for yourself.
I just kept expecting this book to move faster. I enjoyed the setting of Paris (or is it Paris?) and I loved Edie and her predicaments. But, I was a bit disappointed with the pacing.
Need a sweet read set in Paris…THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today.
I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.
A haunting novel about the boundaries people will cross to keep their dreams alive.
A mysterious stranger shows up at Riccardo’s apartment with some news: his grandmother Perihan has died, and Riccardo has inherited her villa in Milan along with her famed butterfly collection.
The struggling writer is out of options. He’s hoping the change of scenery in Milan will inspire him, and maybe there will be some money to keep him afloat. But Perihan’s house isn’t as opulent as he remembers. The butterflies pinned in their glass cases seem more ominous than artful. Perihan’s group of mysterious old friends is constantly lurking. And there’s something wrong in the greenhouse.
As Riccardo explores the decrepit estate, he stumbles upon Perihan’s diary, which might hold the key to her mysterious death. Or at least give him the inspiration he needs to finish his manuscript.
But he might not survive long enough to write it.
Author Bio:
Yigit Turhan was born in Ankara, Turkey. A lifelong reader, he owes his love of horror to his grandmother and the films she shared with him. He has previously published a horror novel in Turkish. He lives in Milan, Italy, where he holds a C-suite role at a renowned fashion house. This is his English-language debut.
Perihan gazed at the opulent villas lined up like precious pearls on a necklace, feeling overwhelmed by their excessive beauty. The sight was almost terrifying, reminiscent of the antique pearls adorning her own necklace. As the dark clouds were illuminated by a sudden flash of lightning, she shook off her thoughts and quickened her pace along the deserted road. The gentle raindrops on her tired face felt like an ominous sign. The unexpected gust of wind, unusual for a mild November afternoon, added to her unease.
On her seventieth birthday, Perihan had indulged in a day of shopping at Milan’s most luxurious stores. Despite her age, she possessed a strong physique, with firm knees, agile movements, and enough strength to carry her shopping bags from the stores to her home. The kind store managers at Cartier and Valentino had offered to send the packages to her address with a courier, but she declined, insisting she could manage on her own. Though she lacked a family to celebrate with, her small group of friends had arranged to gather at the villa, refusing to let her spend the evening alone. They had asked her to leave the house and return around seven o’clock. Glancing at her watch, Perihan realized she was already half an hour late.
Oh my… Licia must have already set the table, she thought as she turned the corner onto Via Marco de Marchi, where she resided. Just then, another lightning bolt flashed across the sky, and a large monarch butterfly appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Despite the heavy rain, Perihan could hear the faint flapping of its wings. The butterfly had bright orange and black stripes, with one wing decorated with symmetric white dots. It seemed to hover in midair.
“What a miracle,” Perihan exclaimed, a smile stretching across her wrinkled face. “It’s been years since I last saw this one…and on my birthday!” Hastily shifting the heavy bags onto her shoulder, she wiped the raindrops from her eyes with her long red nails and followed the butterfly. It fluttered around in circles for a few moments, before darting straight ahead. Despite the downpour, the orange-and-black wings moved swiftly. Overwhelmed with excitement, Perihan disregarded the red light—and almost got hit by an old Ford passing by. The driver, an unattractive man with numerous moles and few teeth, leaned out of the window and cursed at her in an Italian dialect she couldn’t understand. Unfazed by his behavior, Perihan remained focused on following the butterfly, which flew rapidly and ascended into the sky.
“I wonder where it disappeared to,” she mused with a melancholic expression on her face. The rain intensified, the drainage problems in the area turning the road into a pool of water. Perihan’s bare feet were drenched as the rain seeped through the open toes of her green python slingbacks.
“You’re blocking my view.” The unexpected comment startled her. She looked at the stranger, hoping to recognize a friendly face, but it was no one she knew. She turned to notice the growing crowd of people with their faces hidden behind their phone screens. She wondered if they were filming her. Lacking an umbrella, her meticulously coiffed hair now wet, her makeup smudged, and her silk skirt ruined by the muddy street, Perihan was struck by the crowd’s indifference. They shifted slightly to the right, attempting to remove her from their line of sight, all the while continuing to record whatever had caught their attention. Curious, Perihan turned around and was terrified by what she saw. In shock, she dropped her red shopping bags, causing more muddy water to splatter onto her skirt and completely destroying her shoes.
“This can’t be happening,” she screamed to the sky at the top of her lungs. Her knees trembled uncontrollably, left her unsure about taking another five steps to cross the road. Perihan noticed the cameras turning toward her in her peripheral vision, but she paid no mind to the desperation and terror that would eventually go viral on numerous social media networks in multiple countries. Her villa loomed in front of her, concealed by high walls covered with lush green bushes—now invaded by hundreds, if not thousands, of butterflies. They hovered over the garden, flapping their wings vigorously despite the pouring rain. The entire structure, partially visible through the bushes, seemed imprisoned within a butterfly sanctuary. When Perihan realized the creatures were all monarchs, each one so exquisite and valuable, she paused. Beauty had a threshold, and beyond it, it became a captivating terror, holding people’s attention hostage to fulfill its own needs. She propelled herself into the flooded road, heading for the garden gate. With what little strength remained after the ordeal, she pushed her way through the floral Art Nouveau door.
“Licia! Where are you?” she shouted upon entering the garden. Before closing the door behind her, she turned to scream at the onlookers, “Leave! The show’s over! This is my property!” Yet, the crowd remained unaffected, mesmerized by the extraordinary natural phenomenon unfolding before them.
Licia, Perihan’s housekeeper and closest friend of nearly forty years, looked like a ghost. Her complexion was drained of color, her wet hair clung to her face in disheveled patches, and her shoes were ruined by dark mud. She trembled as she spoke. “Perihan… We did our best, but…” Licia glanced quickly at their small group of friends, who observed the scene from the kitchen window on the first floor of the house. Perihan brushed Licia aside with the back of her hand and made her way toward the large greenhouse on the left side of the garden. Orange butterflies continued to emerge rapidly through a broken pane in its ceiling, swarming through the air. Looking up at the vortex of butterflies resembling a brewing tornado, Perihan felt a wave of dizziness. Her bony hand reached for the intricately detailed metal handle of the greenhouse door, but fear gripped her body. She hesitated, afraid to enter, yet knowing she had no other choice. Slowly, she pushed the door open, entered, and closed it behind her.
Licia tried to conceal her sobbing behind her hands. Should she follow Perihan into the greenhouse or return to the house? The rain cascaded like a waterfall, obstructing not only her movements but her thoughts as well. She compelled herself to decide, but the sudden outburst from within the greenhouse froze her in place.
“No… No… No!” Perihan’s voice echoed, growing louder with each repetition—until the world fell silent, save for the raindrops tapping against any surface they encountered. The darkness beneath the swarm of butterflies gradually gave way to a dull light as they departed from the house. Licia collapsed onto her knees and allowed herself to sink into the saturated garden soil, her tears mingling with the raindrops. Once the first monarch butterfly Perihan had witnessed a few moments earlier found its way to her villa, it hovered briefly over the garden before heading in the same direction as the others. When the last of the butterflies vanished, no trace of the miraculous event remained.
A timely celebration of quilting, family, community, and history in this latest novel in the perennially popular Elm Creek Quilts series from New York Timesbestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini.
As fall paints the Pennsylvania countryside in flaming colors, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson is contemplating the future of her beloved Elm Creek Quilts. The Elm Creek Quilt Camp remains the most popular quilter’s retreat in the country, but unexpected financial difficulties have beset them and the Bergstrom family’s stately nineteenth-century manor. Now in her eighth decade, Sylvia is determined to maintain her family’s legacy, but she needs new resources—financial and emotional.
Summer Sullivan—a founding Elm Creek Quilter—arrives to discuss an antique quilt that she wants to display at the Waterford Historical Society’s quilt exhibit. When Sylvia and her sister Claudia were teenagers, they had entered a quilt in the Sears National Quilt Contest for the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair. The Bergstrom sisters’ quilt would be perfect for the Historical Society’s exhibit, Summer explains.
Sylvia is reluctant to lend out the quilt, which has been stored in the attic for decades, nearly forgotten. In keeping with the contest’s “Century of Progress” theme, the girls illustrated progress of values—scenes of the Emancipation Proclamation, woman’s suffrage, and labor unions. But although it won ribbons, the quilt also drove a wedge between the sisters.
As Sylvia reluctantly retraces her quilt’s story for Summer, she makes an unexpected discovery—one that restores some of her faith in this unique work of art, and helps shine some light on a way forward for the Elm Creek Quilts community.
Review
When Sylvia and her sister Claudia were teenagers, they had entered a quilt in the Sears National Quilt Contest for the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair. These two sisters learned a great deal about life and each other during the process.
This rotates between present day and the depression era. I enjoyed both. But learning about the Sears, Roebuck quilting contest really had me entertained. We live in such a now society, it was so interesting to read about how anxiety created such a part due to waiting on the mail. I know….weird on my part.
This is a sweet novel. Almost too sweet for me, but I enjoyed the time period and the characters. This is part of a series and I have not read a single one. I did not feel lost at all. I had no idea it was part of a series till I went to set up this post.
The narrator, Christina Moore, did a very good job. I enjoyed all her voices for all the characters.
Need a novel about the love of sisters…THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today.
I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.
reecaspieces 