On Wings of the Morning

by Marie Bostwick

Good.  It’s a slightly complicated story to tell in a few brief sentences....  Morgan is a boy when we meet him in 1933, a boy who loves airplanes and wants to fly.  Time goes by and he becomes a pilot, then joins the service to fly for the Army during WWII. 

Georgia is about the same age when we meet her, a girl who takes care of herself because her mother is off chasing men.  Georgia also loves airplanes and wants to fly.  She also becomes a pilot and a WASP, but only after she marries and becomes a widow. 

Morgan and Georgia eventually meet but it’s not smooth sailing immediately....

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The Second Sister

by Marie Bostwick

Lucy works as a political campaigner, devoting most of her time to her work and little time to herself.  Alice, her sister is almost two years older than her and has a brain injury that makes her seem younger than her 38 years.  Alice wants Lucy to return to their small town in Wisconsin but Lucy wants nothing to do with returning to the town with bad memories.  Then Alice dies and the terms of her will include Lucy spending 8 weeks in their hometown before she can inherit their childhood home.  I enjoyed this book a lot.

Quotes

Chapter 9, beginning on p. 57, offers great insight to our experience of having a loved-one die.  It’s too long to include as a quote.

Alice’s friend Rinda recounts being new in town, looking for inexpensive fabric for the back of a quilt at a quilt shop, and having Alice follow her around “talking a blue streak.”  Rinda was being careful about money, pulled out a bolt of yellow-green fabric that she thought might be okay for backing.  “So Alice sees this stuff and says, ‘That’s the ugliest fabric I ever saw in my life.  Why would you buy that?’  I told her it might be ugly, but it was only two dollars a yard.’
  “Rinda’s eyes crinkled at the corners.  ‘And then Alice puts her hand on my arm and looks at me all serious and says, ‘Rinda, it is possible to pay too little for fabric.’”    p. 193-194

  “‘All these people who piece their tops but hire somebody else to do the finishing. . .  Hmph.  They’re not quilters.  They’re toppers!’ she declared, curling her lip in a way that made it sound almost like a dirty word.”
    p. 254  ¶5

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The Promise Girls

by Marie Bostwick

The book opens with the Promise girls (Joanie, about 16; Meg, about 14; and Avery, about 5) and their mom, Minerva, on the set of a TV talk show.  Minerva explains that she chose three sperm donors of outstanding quality with characteristics she wanted her daughters to have and had in vitro fertilization.  She has groomed her daughters as prodigies, driven them to success, and presented them as exceptional.  Joanie is the pianist; Meg, the artist; and Avery, the writer/story teller. 

Joanie is tired of it all and purposefully flubs the piece on live TV.  Minerva explodes and the daughters are removed from her care.  The story picks up 20 years later with Joanie sewing re-enactment costumes for a living, Meg working as a bookkeeper and secretary for her husband’s business, and Avery working in a coffee shop and sidelining as a mermaid.  They have little contact with Minerva, but lots to learn about their situation, their past, and their parents.

The author says this is one book with which she is completely happy.  Me, too.

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