Three Books I Highly Recommend

Me for You by Lolly Winston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rudy lives in Silicon Valley. Since being downsized from his job, he works part-time playing the piano at a fancy department store. He enjoys taking care of his wife Bethany, cooking her nice meals, planning surprises, while she continues to work to get her full pension. Then they are going to relax and travel together.

That was the plan, until the horrible morning that he woke to find that she had passed away suddenly during the night. As the book tells Rudy’s story, we share his grief. He misses being married. And in a way, he is still married to his dead wife.

Rudy remarks on the solace of seeing another person’s shoes by the door. I agree- I am always happy to see my loved one’s shoes all helter-skelter by my back door.

At the urging of his stern, practically perfect, yet loving daughter CeCe, Rudy tries internet dating. But it is the friendship he made at Nordstom’s that begins to guide him to peace. Sasha from Hungary, who works in Fine Watches and loves Rudy’s piano playing has her own sad story. “They were each afraid that their grief would seep into the other’s psyche…”

The moment that Rudy and Sasha call each other “Comrade” is endearing.

Author Lolly Winston writes in a beguiling way, alternating unexpected humor with poignant musing. However, it is the author’s skill that made this a difficult book for me to read. The characters in the book use the term “trigger warning”, and for some readers this book may have grief triggers. I was quite overcome with the character’s sadness. However, this is a book that I recommend. I read it straight through and was glad I did.

I received this ARC digital copy from Netgalley. Thanks also to Touchstone Gallery Books. This is my honest review.

View all my reviews
Adorable Fat Girl by Bernice Bloom
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh, excuse me for laughing out loud! I don’t know how Author Bernice Bloom does it, how she can craft such magical feel-good stories, but I’m thrilled that she can and that I have discovered (finally) this fantastic writer.

From the thoughtful- “I guess I put enormous pressure on myself to be perfect, and every time things go wrong I turn to food. That’s what we all do, isn’t it? As you get older more things go wrong so you eat more..”

-“Every fat girl has cried in a changing room.”

…to the hilarious- “Before too long, the only exercise that will be available to me is rolling.”

-“Let’s eat hash cake.”

To the thoughtful AND hilarious -“do you see how complicated this all is? It’s hard being fat. Don’t get fat. It’s a pain…”

…Mary Brown is my hero who keeps on keeping on. She will entertain and delight you with her honest and open approach to life. You will cheer for her and at times cringe for her, but readers, you will always love her.

I first discovered Mary Brown, aka the Adorable Fat Girl when I read and reviewed a book about her that was much further along in the series, so I made it a bucket list item for me to go back and read the whole series. You can now get the first 3 books in one ebook, so this is a perfect way to get to know Mary.

In the first book, Mary goes to what she calls Fat Club and begins to learn about herself. She makes good friends, including a sweetheart named Ted. Mary has many adventures including a wild trip to Amsterdam, and some sad and funny scenes with her gorgeous neighbor Dave. It takes her until book 3 to really see some hard won progress.

Thanks to the author’s warm, witty and perceptive writing, Mary is awesome. She is real. She has a heart. Readers, I hope you will love these books as much as I do. Whether you are fat, skinny, or beautiful, you are still a person who needs love, hope and understanding. And a few laughs with the Adorable Fat Girl. Highly recommend.

“Nobody needs to lose weight for someone to love them.”

View all my reviews

The Forgotten Secret: A heartbreaking and gripping historical novel for fans of Kate Morton by Kathleen McGurl
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“You can research ancestry all you like, but how people actually felt and what they thought is lost in the mists of time.”

This quote from The Forgotten Secret is why I enjoy reading historical fiction. Fictional stories let us part the curtain to the past, to a past that is more than dates and monuments, to show us a time filled with real people trying to live their real lives. Author Kathleen McGurl succeeds in giving us two different women, living at two different touchpoint times in their lives.

Clare is our modern-day guide. She is about to turn fifty and hopes that “being 50 will be the start of a wonderful new phase in my life.” When she inherits her Uncle Padraig’s dilapidated farmstead in Ireland, a desire awakens in her to live in the place in Ireland. Her adult son encourages her to leave her home in England. He quotes W.B. Yeats to her, “I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there.”

Arise and go now becomes Clare’s mantra. And she has good reason to leave- her husband of twenty-five hears has become increasingly controlling. Many changes await Clare as she begins her new life, but the most interesting is that she finds a hidden secret in an old chair by the fireplace of her farm in Ireland.

And that is how we meet Ellen O’Brien, from the Ireland of about 1919. Ellen’s story is told in the third-person, and alternates chapters with Clare’s first-person accounts. Ellen has also reached an age milestone- she has recently turned eighteen. Changes await her as well, as she begins a new job as an upstairs maid and as she learns about love with her childhood friend, Jimmy. The Author uses Ellen and Jimmy to bring to life the struggles of the Irish Republicans.

Both women have fascinating stories and the author writes in an engaging and readable style, with a few twists along the way. There are helpful historical notes about the history of Ireland in a preface to the book, which helped me, as I didn’t know the details of Ireland’s history. I enjoyed this book, and if anything, I wish it had been longer, as Clare and Ellen both have complex stories, that would have been richer with a slower unfolding.

Thanks to NetGalley and Rachel’s Random Resources for a review copy. This is my honest opinion.

View all my reviews