What do you do when a family member has a secret that is so terrible it changes the way you’ve experienced reality for the first 30 or so years of your life? This is but one of the dilemmas facing the narrator of Megan Collins’ latest novel.

Since she was a child, Sylvie O’Leary’s life has been darkened by her sister’s murder. Persephone—who was aptly named—was strangled on the one night that Sylvie, then age 14, refused to leave their bedroom window cracked open so Persephone could sneak into the house after an assignation with Ben Emory, the son of their town’s mayor. Their mother, Annie, forbade Persephone to date, even though she was already 18. And Annie definitely didn’t want Persephone running around with Ben. Too proud to ring the front doorbell, Persephone ran back to Ben’s car and was never seen alive by her family again.

The catastrophe causes Sylvie to skip town as soon as she’s able, leaving her feckless mother—unhinged from alcoholism and grief and recently diagnosed with esophageal cancer—in the care of Annie’s sister, Jill. When Jill must attend to her own daughter, who is about to give birth, Sylvie is forced to return not only to dying, bitter Annie but also to the town that was the scene of her sister’s murder. The case has been cold for the better part of two decades, but Sylvie is determined to get to the bottom of it. What she finds is more devastating than she even imagined.

With its focus on the grim-dark aspects of the female experience, The Winter Sister calls to mind works like Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects or the film The Tale. This twisty-turny story reminds the reader of the fickle nature of the truth, and that impossible things happen more often than you think.

BookPage starred review, February 2019

Decades and continents apart, two young girls are each unexpectedly gifted a piano. In the Soviet Union during the 1960s, Katya’s piano comes to her from the mysterious German tenant who lives down the hall. In 1990s California, Clara receives hers as a surprise from her father. Katya excels at playing the piano, to which she feels extremely attached, and she centers her education and her self-expression on her musical talent. Clara is similarly attached to hers—not for her talent (of which there is little) but because she received it shortly before her father and mother died in a mysterious house fire. 

When Clara, now in her mid-20s, decides to sell the piano, she realizes that she isn’t ready to part with her past. But she has already found a buyer, and he is extremely determined. The twisting mysteries of Chris Cander’s third novel are set into motion, and the result is a charming, puzzling plot that gets more exciting and addictive the deeper you sink into it.

The Weight of a Piano ruminates on the gravity held by the objects in our lives. Both Katya and Clara are heavily fixated on their pianos; they feel that it is an extension of themselves in certain ways. For Katya, losing the piano means losing everything, but Clara has a chance to come to terms with her painful attachment through a series of unraveling secrets.

Short chapters help the braided plot to avoid becoming overwhelming, and the novel is well-researched, from the Cyrillic script to the exquisitely bleak “sailing stones” in Death Valley. This reviewer just happened to be, in a past life, a piano tuner, and Cander’s unadorned prose composes some truly beautiful descriptions of the joy of music.

This article was originally published in the February 2019 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

If marriage is the prize, you’d better be skilled in the art of “grabbing it,” it being an eligible bachelor. In her Pride and Prejudice adaptation, Soniah Kamal transports Jane Austen’s narrative to early-2000s Pakistan, imbuing the often-reimagined story with a fresh lexicon. Unmarriageable proves the timelessness of Austen and how her centuries-old plotline finds a home in many cultures.

The Binat family has fallen far, deceived out of their fortunes by Mr. Binat’s own brother, and have been making due with reduced circumstances for more than a decade. To Mrs. Binat’s chagrin, her two oldest daughters must work, finding employment as teachers at the local school. All five Binat girls—Jena, Alys, Mari, Qitty and Lady—await their (mother’s) longed-for fate of a good marriage.

Though her prose lacks Austen’s sardonic bite and subtlety, Kamal paints endearing relationships between Jena and Alys, and between Alys and her best friend, Sherry Looclus. Due to the lack of well-developed chemistry, love matches between Alys and Valentine Darsee, and Jena and Fahad “Bungles” Bingla, unfortunately fall flat, but the real spark to Kamal’s writing comes whenever Mrs. Binat opens her mouth. The mother’s hysterics over appearances and the father’s frequent retreat to his garden (plants can’t talk, after all) provide much of the comic relief. Kamal skewers Pakistani society over their obsessions and hypocrisies much in the same way Austen did hers. Alys, told at one point by the condescending Beena dey Bagh that it must be hard for her mother to have two 30-year-old daughters unmarried, retorts that it “seems to be even harder on absolute strangers.”

As an admirer of Austen’s work, I appreciate how others want to emulate her. It is a truth universally acknowledged, however, that it is quite the undertaking. Altogether, Unmarriageable is light and entertaining. Meddling mothers, conniving sisters, arrogant men and a marriage-minded society provide plenty of fodder, and in the end, class clashes and societal expectations transcend the ages as well as geography.

This article was originally published in the January 2019 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The Tranquillum House seems like the ideal place for rest, relaxation and repair. Owned by Masha, a former high-powered executive who switched careers after a heart attack, the bucolic wellness center is a refuge for broken souls with deep pockets.

There’s Frances, the semifamous romance novelist who is hitting a midcareer slump; Jessica and Ben, lottery winners whose good fortune is ruining their marriage; the Marconi family, reeling from the loss of their son; and Carmel, a mother of four daughters whose husband left her for a younger woman. They’ve all gathered for 10 massage- and hike-filled days at the center.

But Masha is toying with introducing a new protocol to her strictly regimented program. It’s risky, but if it yields the results she expects, it’ll put Tranquillum House—and her—on the map. If it fails, it could put her guests in danger. As the guests start to suspect they’re getting more than they paid for, they must decide how much they’re willing to do in the name of wellness.

Liane Moriarty is simply unparalleled at infusing flawed characters with humor and heartbreak. Her singular brand of storytelling was most recently showcased when her bestselling novel Big Little Lies was made into an Emmy-winning HBO miniseries. Nine Perfect Strangers is a worthy follow-up, offering an irresistible take on our wellness-obsessed culture, where the weirder the treatment, the better.

This article was originally published in the November 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Following her incisive novel Small Great Things (2016), which delved into the white supremacist movement, Jodi Picoult takes on the explosive topic of abortion rights in A Spark of Light.

Picoult sets her story in Jackson, Mississippi—all the action taking place over one long day at the Center, a women’s clinic for those who had “run out of time and had run out of choices.” Picoult begins her riveting saga at the end of the story, when George Goddard—a distraught, anti-abortion father whose teenage daughter recently had an abortion at the Center—storms inside, fires several shots and takes an unknown number of hostages. Hostage negotiator Hugh McElroy has been called to the scene to confront George.

With her latest novel, Jodi Picoult takes on another explosive, timely issue: abortion rights in America.

Picoult then moves backward in time, hour by hour, gradually filling in the details of those who came to the Center that day and why they came. She approaches this divisive issue from all sides—not blaming or condoning, but shining a perceptive light into the lives of those now hoping to survive the hostage situation.

Izzy, a nurse, struggles with the dilemma of whether or not to tell her boyfriend about her newly discovered pregnancy. She’s risen from a childhood of poverty and doesn’t want to rely on him, “the prince from the entitled family.” After the shooting, Izzy tends to the leg wound suffered by Dr. Ward, whose own mother died from an illegal abortion. Dr. Ward regularly travels between four states to provide abortions for women living where almost all such clinics have closed.

Joy completed her abortion before the shooting starts—and although she wanted the procedure, she’s still in mourning for what she’s lost. She lived in foster care for 10 years and didn’t want another child to go through the same miserable experience.

Janine is at the Center faking a pregnancy—she’s an anti-abortion activist trying to prove the clinic doesn’t offer prenatal care. She lives with the guilt of her own abortion after she was raped at a fraternity party. In Picoult’s words, Janine has “white-washed the stain with years of pro-life activism.”

Also inside the Center that morning are Hugh’s teenage daughter, Wren, and his older sister, Bex, who has helped raise Wren since Hugh’s wife left them years ago. Wren is there for a prescription for birth control pills, and she asked Bex to accompany her so she wouldn’t have to walk alone past the line of protesters.

Interspersed with these stories of how each character came to be at the Center are the ongoing negotiations between Hugh and George, heightening the tension throughout the novel, even though most of the denouement occurs in the opening chapter.

A Spark of Light is another winner for Picoult—a provocative exploration of an issue that is in the spotlight now more ever before.

This article was originally published in the October 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

With nearly 40 years under her belt and a recently failed marriage to her name, Sarah Mackey has finally found the love of her life. During her annual pilgrimage home to England to visit her parents, Sarah meets Eddie, who is chatting with an escaped sheep on the village green. Although Sarah is definitely on the rebound—or so says an app on her phone, downloaded by a friend with the best of intentions—and in no fit state to start a relationship, the chemistry between the two is instantaneous and undeniable.

Sarah falls hard, and after a week holed up together in Eddie’s cottage, she’s sure he has, too. So when Eddie leaves for his previously planned holiday in Spain and she doesn’t immediately hear from him, she is puzzled but not overly concerned. However, with every unanswered text and voicemail, Sarah’s unease mounts until she becomes convinced that a great catastrophe has befallen Eddie. Her best friends counsel her to let it go and accept that she’s been ghosted, but Sarah is haunted by Eddie and the promise of what their week together signified. Despite her friends’ warnings, Sarah begins an obsessive search for her one-that-got-away, determined to uncover what went awry, even if it means finally facing her painful past and her family’s trauma, which she’s been running from for nearly two decades.

Following four previously published books written under the pseudonym Lucy Robinson, Ghosted is the debut of novelist Rosie Walsh writing as herself. A cleverly plotted romantic thriller filled with scandalous twists and turns and a juicy central mystery, Ghosted proves impossible to put down as readers race to seek the closure and resolution (and perhaps the happy ending) that Walsh’s heroine so desperately desires.

Deliciously addictive, surprising and sentimental, Ghosted is a must-read for fans of Liane Moriarty and Jojo Moyes, or any reader who knows that the course of true love never did run smooth.

Considering that author Louise Miller (The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living) is a Boston-based pastry chef, it should come as no surprise that her second novel, The Late Bloomers’ Club, includes a recipe for Burnt Sugar Cake with Maple Icing.

The heroine of Miller’s second novel, Nora, the owner of the Miss Guthrie Diner, makes her living serving up comfort food to locals and visitors alike in a small town in rural Vermont that finds itself at the crossroads of preserving tradition and embracing economic development. Peppered with a cast of characters that includes Nora’s younger sister Kit, Kit’s significant other (both aspiring filmmakers) and an assortment of working-class heroes, the novel unfolds after the town’s beloved “cake lady,” Peggy Johnson, dies in a car crash. Peggy, whose property is targeted for a big-box development, has left behind a will designating Nora as the beneficiary of her estate—a gesture that proves both a boon and a burden to the cash-strapped Nora, who soon finds herself torn between loyalty to the residents of Guthrie and the prospect of financial freedom.

As Nora navigates between searching for Peggy’s lost dog, Freckles, who fled after the crash, and sidestepping her ex-husband’s overtures and dalliances, she finds herself alternately attracted to and angered by none other than the big-box developer, Elliot.

Readers with a sweet tooth and a passion for dogs are sure to enjoy The Late Bloomers’ Club. It’s a charming tale of life in a small town populated by good people struggling to make ends meet and refusing to relinquish the pastoral beauty of their rural hometown.

This article was originally published in the August 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

BookPage Top Pick in Fiction, August 2018

Florence isn’t sure what she would do without her lifelong best friend, Elsie. They’ve known each other since childhood, and now Elsie keeps 84-year-old Florence company at Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly.

But right this moment Florence is alone. She’s fallen in her flat, and she’s waiting for someone to notice. While she waits, Florence reflects on her friend and their latest shenanigans.

In Three Things About Elsie, Joanna Cannon (The Trouble with Goats and Sheep) intersperses Florence’s moments alone on her floor with recent Cherry Tree adventures and her recollections of days long gone. A new resident has moved into the home, and Florence is convinced he’s the man who killed Elsie’s sister 60 years earlier—but he also appears to be the man whose burial they watched many years ago after he drowned. The ladies and a fellow resident, Jack, set out on a mission to uncover the man’s true identity. Their adventures are amusing and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. But there are serious moments, too. As the friends examine their pasts, Florence begins to recall moments she had forgotten—or perhaps blocked out. But her friends stand beside her through it.

“You can’t define yourself by a single moment,” Jack reminds Florence. “That moment doesn’t make you who you are.”

“Then what does?” Florence asks.

“Oh, Florence. Everything else,” he says. “Everything else.”

Cannon’s novel is a heartwarming meditation on friendship and the way people we love shape us for the rest of our days.

This article was originally published in the August 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Deceptively simple prose is like a child with an adorable smile: They can both get away with a lot. In a career that began with 1964’s If Morning Ever Comes, Anne Tyler has created one deceptively simple novel after another. Her specialty is the depiction of quiet lives that may seem ordinary at first glance. Upon closer inspection, each book is a subtle analysis of American married life, its joys as well as its darker elements.

Tyler offers yet another astute portrait in Clock Dance. In 1967 Pennsylvania, 11-year-old Willa is the elder daughter of a mild-mannered father and a mother prone to disappearances and bursts of violence. The action then shifts to 1977, when college junior Willa flies home so that her boyfriend, Derek, can meet her parents. After a section set in 1997, in which Derek, now her husband, dies in a car accident, the second half of the book shifts to 2017. Willa is living in Arizona and married to retired lawyer Peter. One day, she gets a call from a stranger in Baltimore, who tells her that Denise, a former girlfriend of her elder son, has been shot in the leg. The woman, Denise’s neighbor, asks Willa to fly out to care for the victim’s 9-year-old daughter, Cheryl, whom the neighbor mistakenly thinks is Willa’s granddaughter.

Tyler fans won’t be surprised to learn that kind-hearted Willa agrees to the request. Her experiences with Denise and Cheryl make up much of the book’s drama. If the concluding pages are more circuitous than necessary, Tyler’s touch is as light and sure as ever. Clock Dance is a tender portrait of everyday people dealing with loss and regret, the need to feel useful and the desire for independence.

This article was originally published in the July 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.