The Lights of Sugarberry Cove

by Heather Webber

To begin with I did not like the physical book – small font, tight spacing on the pages – and the synopsis on the flap of the cover gave me the impression of contention in a family.  So I put it aside.  Then, when I finished the previous book and didn’t have another in line to read, I went back to this one.  I’m glad I did.  I loved it!

The main characters are 26-year-old Sadie Way Scott; her sister Leala, 4 years older and married with a 2-year-old son; and their mother Susannah.  Sadie hasn’t been back to Sugarberry Cove since she was 18 when she drowned in the lake and was revived.  The girls' mother, Susannah, owns a B & B, the dream of her deceased husband and father of the girls.  Both girls return home when their mother suffers a heart attack, prompting a reunion and some healing.  Excellent.

nm

The Paris Library

by Janet Skeslien Charles

I loved this book.  I read it by default when I didn’t have another book to read after I didn’t want to finish The One Hundred Years....  This is fiction but based on truth about the American Library in Paris and the people who worked there during WWII.  Odile, the main character, was fictional but her story fit around real events and people. 

As the book opens, it’s 1939 and Odile is 20 years old.  She is excited to have been hired to work at the ALP because she loves books, though her father, especially, thinks she should not be working.  Coworkers include Bitsi who is about Odile’s age; the Directress; Boris; and Margaret, an English volunteer who is married with a young daughter and about Odile's age; plus several others.  Odile’s family includes her parents and her twin brother Rémy.   

The other main character is Lily, Odile’s teen neighbor in Montana, in the 1980s.  Odile has lived in Montana since the war but has mostly been excluded—she married a soldier the town thought would marry another girl and Odile keeps to herself.  Lily is curious about her and decides to do a report on France and interviews Odile.  They become friends.

There is so much to love about this book, and so much to be judgmental about, too, and yet it’s always good to look at one’s self before judging others.  People are not perfect.  They make mistakes.  Emotions get in the way of good judgment.  Just a really good book.

Quote

“People are awkward.  Don’t hold it against them.  You never know what’s in their hearts.”    p. 34 end     
 
nm

Midnight at the Blackbird Café

by Heather Webber

I loved it.  A little magic, a lot of love and family and friends, heartbreak and healing.  It’s a complicated story line with lots of characters.  Anna Kate Callow’s grandmother, Zee, died and left The Blackbird Café to Anna Kate in her will, but with the stipulation that Anna Kate would stay in Wicklow for several months, at which time the café would be hers.  There’s magic in the pies (people who eat them hear messages of love from those who have died).  At first, Anna Kate doesn’t know what creates the magic.  Her grandmother managed to provide all the guidance she needs.  There are blackbirds who sing at night but only if the pies contain a specific ingredient.  Characters include Jena and Bow who help in the kitchen; Summer and her father Aubin; Gideon, Zee’s attorney who lives next door; Natalie and her parents, Doc and Seelie; and plenty of others.  A second read in a few years wouldn’t go amiss.

nm