Another Nantucket version of Three Sisters, with three orphaned unmarried daughters living in the same old to-be inherited house. The sombre, fat, defensive A.B.D., teaching English at a Community College is writing a book about May Alcott – no, not Louisa May just May Alcott, her neglected younger sister. The Very Pretty T.V. personnage Arden is looking to charm some old wealthy Islanders to Simplify their homes for her House and Garden show. And Justine, the computer geek who is blamed with taking away the now dead stepfather is lucky in money, lucky in personality, lucky in turning up on the right block in the right family with the right mindset eating the right thing and wearing sunscreen…
Jodi Thomas Welcome to Harmony Narrated by Julia Gibson
“Look, Preacher, I don’t need saving; I’m not interested in dating, and I’d just as soon not be your friend. So why don’t you go peddle ‘let’s be friends’ somewhere else,” she tells Noah when he tries talking to her at lunchtime at school.
We have the perfect subject of the unconscious: a 15 year old orphan, a little tough, a little charming, a little liar with a heavy need for home. “Regan Truman” walks into old Jeremiah’s life as though she belongs there, makes a deal, and stays. Harmony is a town that happens when she makes the town her home.
Lisa Gardner, Touch & Go
Lisa Gardner is a genius at thesis statements. My favorite is: “a family is a system” (Hide). Or maybe: “A computer is a portal, you know, an entry point into your home.” (The Neighbor)
This book’s thesis statement is: “Pain has a flavor.” And like all good thesis statements, it tells you what the book is about.
And like all of Gardner’s books, Touch & Go bubbles and boils and troubles in all the right ways. Yeppers, this is a thriller. But does it have to give such an ugly picture of the family, of fatherhood, of wealth? Must you listen to another 5 hours of human beings torturing, humiliating, or degrading other human beings. This isn’t the evening news.
If you find yourself skipping one track, then another, and another, just turn off the audio. Isn’t that better?
A Quilter’s Holiday by Jennifer Chiaverini read by Christina Moore
Do you really want to spend a half an hour of your time listening to a blow by blow account of how Diane, an Elm Creek Quilter, who never remembers to charge her cell phone, gets stuck in a snow storm with only 8% of her battery left to make… 1 call? Not an iphone, for sure. Her call goes unanswered, and she leaves a message on an answering machine about needing a rescue squad. Oh, drama! An incoming call from her husband has this verbally aggressive mother of two suddenly mute, unable to tell her husband that she and her car and her thanksgiving spirit are stuck halfway down an embankment….
The charming Elm Creek Quilt theme is there somewhere underneath the heavy Thanksgiving Hallmark card, but not charming enough.
The Day the Rabbi Resigned by Harry Kemelman read by George Guidall
The last of the Rabbi Small series narrated with an annoying over-aggressive punkishness by Guidall — to intimate, perhaps, the intellectual aggression of Rabbi Small, the clever not-to-be socialized puzzle solver and prayer leader of the Conservative Jews of Barnard’s Crossing Massachusetts. The characters are at least as alive as the Jews next door and just as argumentative and recognizable and relevant. Best read from the book, but worth hearing too.
A Ghost for Maggie by Emily Carmichael read by Cristine McMurdo-Wallis
Two sisters convert a 19th Century whorehouse into a Bed and Breakfast for Arizona’s tourists, helped by their grandmother’s Ghost – the long dead madame of the House. A fun bed and breakfast fantasy.
Out of Order by Bonnie MacDougal read by Barbara Rosenblat
Campbell Smith wants only to lie behind the S of Mrs Douglas Alexander, soon to be Senator from the great state of Delaware, a place where Washingtonians go to hide. But a woman who is hiding does not make a good political wife, and Campbell soon takes to gardening and disappointment. Alas. A good but over-plotted story.
The Roots of the Olive Tree by Courtney Miller read by Karen White
It is not enough to attach 5 generations of women to a tree or a patch of trees to give them character. Yes, one is very old, and one is a felon, and one was a stewardess, and one slept with a dozen different men each time she wanted to get pregnant. But these women remain rootless metalogically, as symbols or devices or even glosses of each other.
A Case of Bad Taste by Lori Copeland read by McMurdo-Wallis, Cristine
Author of 41 books of Christian fiction (and never a best seller) gets used to living with her annoying mother-in-law and her hapless daughter while she complains about her life to God. It is not at all evident that God is interested.
Twisted Creek (& the Harmony series) by Jodi Thomas read by Scott Sowers & Julia Gibson
Imagine a little fishing village with a general store somewhere in Texas where it rains. There is lots of kindness, and lots of very quirky individuals who don’t mesh, but aggregate. Mostly around a lake. Old maids, young maids, poor beaten women, big burly men, volunteer firefighters, sheriffs, and brutes. Mostly poor, but there is also a very wealthy ex-wife and widow of seven or eight husbands. She runs a Bed and Breakfast, and has facelifts in Dallas, collects lawyers, and establishes the pecking order. In Twisted Creek, however, everybody is poor. Especially Lucky Ali and Grandma who wake up one day to find themselves the beneficiaries of an empty General Store but not much else. They move in and clean and get to know the regulars. The mailman leaves a sack of mail for them to sort and put to rest.