Brenda Janowitz’s latest novel called out to me on so many levels: a story of mothers and daughters, of love and loss, a structure that goes back and forth through time, and an exquisite handmade wedding gown. I’ve displayed the book here with my own collection of antique wedding photographs. The Grace Kelly Dress is…

Deftly shifting between the 1950s and current day, Karma Brown’s Recipe for a Perfect Wife illuminates how some wives felt confined decades ago—and the book asks the question: How far have wives come? This story is about women who’ve faced challenges, who’ve learned from their mistakes (whether in the workplace or in their relationships), and…

Colleen Oakley’s You Were There Too grabbed me from the opening pages and kept me guessing throughout, which I love. The premise alone gave me goosebumps: A happily married woman has had dreams of a man she’s never met … and then one day they meet and it turns out he dreams of her too.…

I first met author Lynn Cullen at FoxTale Book Shoppe outside of Atlanta when she was on tour for Mrs. Poe. By the end of her signing, we were off to have dinner. Turned out both of us had grown up in Indiana. Lynn’s latest book, The Sisters of Summit Avenue is about two sisters,…

Oh my gosh. I’ve made it through nine of the 12 books I outlined for the first half of the year (and many more which appeared along the way). I WILL catch up on the three I missed! It’s also time to tackle my target list for the second half of 2019—some I’ve been waiting…

Here are some books I can’t wait to read in the first half of 2019. Problem is, I’m sure I’ll think of more, the minute I post this blog. Click the links to learn more. What’s on your reading list so far this year? The Wartime Sisters: A Novel by Lynda Cohen Loigman. It’s on…

Much is made of a novel’s first five pages. I love to be hooked by page five, myself—if not by page one, paragraph one, or even sentence one. I’ve assembled five of many books that riveted me from the start. With these, I knew in the opening that I’d have read to the end. These…

Browse any bookstore and you’re sure to find enticing covers with “summer” in the titles. Hard to resist, aren’t they? Reading by the pool while listening to the birds sing is one of my favorite things to do on a weekend. I just finished The Summer I Met Jack by Michelle Gable, and oh my…

What makes a fictional mother memorable to me? It may be a woman who has survived a great tragedy, or one who’s made great sacrifice. It may be a mother who has faced unspeakable choices, struggled with a decision, and then lived with the consequences. It may be a mother who has made mistakes, or one…

One of my favorite author discoveries in recent years is J. Courtney Sullivan. Her literary novels go back and forth through the decades of this century and the last, and the stories go deep into the hearts of loving but troubled families—often Irish-Catholic families. Whether it’s the family matriarch who’s riddled with guilt or a…