White Dog Fell from the Sky
Eleanor Morse, 2013
Viking Adult
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780670026401
Summary
An extraordinary novel of love, friendship, and betrayal for admirers of Abraham Verghese and Edwidge Danticat
Eleanor Morse’s rich and intimate portrait of Botswana, and of three people whose intertwined lives are at once tragic and remarkable, is an absorbing and deeply moving story.
In apartheid South Africa in 1976, medical student Isaac Muthethe is forced to flee his country after witnessing a friend murdered by white members of the South African Defense Force. He is smuggled into Botswana, where he is hired as a gardener by a young American woman, Alice Mendelssohn, who has abandoned her Ph.D. studies to follow her husband to Africa. When Isaac goes missing and Alice goes searching for him, what she finds will change her life and inextricably bind her to this sunburned, beautiful land.
Like the African terrain that Alice loves, Morse’s novel is alternately austere and lush, spare and lyrical. She is a writer of great and wide-ranging gifts. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—late 1940s-early 50s
• Raised—various places in the Northeast
and Midwest U.S.
• Education—B.A., Swarthmore College; M.F.A.,
Vermont College
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives near Portland, Maine
Eleanor Morse, a graduate of Swarthmore College, spent a number of years living in Botswana in the 1970s. She earned an M.F.A. in creative writing from Vermont College.
Her novel An Unexpected Forest (2007), published by Down East Books, won the Independent Publisher's Gold Medalist Award for Best Regional Fiction in the Northeast U.S. and was also selected as the Winner of Best Published Fiction by the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance at the 2008 Maine Literary Awards.
Morse has taught in adult education programs, in prisons, and in university systems, both in Maine and in southern Africa. She currently works as an adjunct faculty member with Spalding University's MFA Writing program in Louisville, Kentucky. She lives on Peaks Island, Maine. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Eleanor Morse captures the magic of the African landscape and the terror and degradation of life under apartheid…[She] channels her fascination with the factious regions into her courageous characters, whose story roars along and arrives, finally, at hope.
Louise Ermelino - Oprah Magazine
There are not enough adjectives to describe the strength of this story. Eleanor Morse has written a character driven novel with character. White Dog Fell From the Sky has a life of its own that blends reality, insight, observation, and nuance with such ease and grace you forget you are reading.... A powerful story of love—love of a person, a people, a land and living with purpose.... Emotionally riveting, heartbreaking, and at times unbearable, while simultaneously embracing hope, insight, and a sense of perpetual mystery. Each sentence is more beuatiful than the last.
Gabriel Constans - New York Journal of Books
Morse’s third novel (after Chopin’s Garden) is both brutal and beautiful. ... Medical student Isaac Muthethe flees South Africa after white police murder his friend.... [H]e’s adopted by a persistent white dog and ... and is hired as a gardener by Alice, an American woman in a shell of a marriage.... Botswana, South Africa, and the loyal White Dog are characters as important and well-drawn as Alice and Isaac. Morse’s unflinching portrayals of extremes of loyalty and cruelty make for an especially memorable novel.
Publishers Weekly
Big issues of ecology, politics, borders, race relations, art, and history.
Booklist
As an educated black man, promising medical student, Isaac's life is in increasing danger in South Africa, so he leaves his family, his schooling and his fiancee to flee across the border to neighboring Botswana, where blacks and whites live in relative harmony. He is immediately and irrevocably adopted by the stray, overtly metaphoric dog of the title..... Morse brings the natural world of Botswana to vivid life, but her idealization of Isaac and all the black Africans as noble victims does them a disservice by making them two-dimensional in contrast to the three-dimensional whites.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The White Dog is a constant presence throughout the book—an important part of the novel but not in the forefront of the action. What does the White Dog mean to you?
2. What did you think of the way the story was told from varying points of view, alternating between chapters? Was this an effective way to tell this story?
3. In talking about Amen, Isaac says he understands why a woman could love him, "He'd mastered fear. He knew what his life was being lived for " (p. 47). Discuss the different forms of masculinity evidenced by the characters of Amen, Isaac, Lawrence, Hasse and Ian.
4. Isaac says, "Every person alive thinks they are the center of the universe, that they are everything, when in fact each of us is less than nothing" (p. 48). Do you agree?
5. Discuss the role of marriage and marital fidelity among the characters in this novel. What types of marriages and unions are forged and tested in the novel?
6. Isaac is a refugee, displaced from his home and family by necessity. Alice is an expatriate, living far from her native Cincinnati by choice. They both miss their homes. How does living as outsiders affect Alice and Isaac?
7. Alice is a part of a community of white Americans and Europeans working in southern Africa. Are they helping or hurting the native people?
8. Isaac has a great sense of duty and obligation to his family back in South Africa. He holds himself to high standards of integrity and is committed to providing a better life for his family. How does his sense of duty compare with those of the young men and women in this culture?
9. Ian has never been able to imagine a conventionally domestic life for himself. If his story hadn't ended as it did, do you believe that he and Alice would have been able to create a life together?
10. How much did you know about apartheid, the African National Congress and the political situation in South Africa before reading this novel? What did you learn from Isaac's story?
11. When Alice and Ian head off together for their time in the Tsodilo Hills, he shows her his journal in which he has recorded a story of creation from the San Bushmen: "The San people say this is where the world began...." (p. 173). What similarities does this creation story have to others you know?
12. Do you have hope for Isaac at the end of the novel?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Thread
Victoria Hislop, 2012
HarperCollins
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062135582
Summary
From the internationally acclaimed author of The Island and The Return comes a sweeping and unforgettable story of love and friendship and the choices that must be made when loyalties are challenged.
Thessaloniki, Greece, 1917: As Dimitri Komninos is born, a fire sweeps through the thriving multicultural city where Christians, Jews, and Muslims live side by side. It is the first of many catastrophic events that will forever change this place and its people.
Five years later, as the Turkish army pushes west through Asia Minor, young Katerina loses her mother in the crowd of refugees clambering for boats to Greece. Landing in Thessaloniki's harbor, she is at the mercy of strangers in an unknown city. For the next eighty years, the lives of Dimitri and Katerina will be entwined with each other and—through Nazi occupation, civil war, persecution, and economic collapse—with the story of their homeland.
Thessaloniki, Greece, 2007: A young Anglo-Greek hears his grandparents' remarkable story for the first time and understands he has a decision to make. For decades, Dimitri and Katerina have looked after the treasures of those who have been forced from their beloved city. Should he stay and become their new custodian? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1959
• Where—Bromley, Kent, England, UK
• Raised—Tonbridge, England
• Education—B.A., Oxford University
• Currently—lives in Sissinghurst, England
Victoria Hislop writes travel features for The Sunday Telegraph and The Mail on Sunday, along with celebrity profiles for Woman & Home. She lives in Kent, England, with her husband and their two children. (From the publisher.)
More
Born in Bromley (Kent), Victoria Hislop (nee Hamson) grew up in Tonbridge. She read English at St Hilda's College, Oxford, and worked in publishing and as a journalist before becoming an author.
In 1988 she married Private Eye editor Ian Hislop in Oxford. They have two children, Emily Helen and William David, and live in Sissinghurst.
Hislop's first novel, The Island (2005), which the Sunday Express hailed as "the new Captain Corelli's Mandolin" was a Number 1 Bestseller in the UK, selling more than 1 million copies. According to her website, she rejected a Hollywood film offer (worth £300,000) for the novel. Instead, she offered the rights to Mega, a Greek television channel, for a fraction of the fee. Her desire was "to preserve the integrity of the book and to give something back to the Mediterranean island on which it is based."
The Return, her second novel, a sequel set in Spain, has also been a success and was followed by The Thread in 2012.
In 2009, she donated the short story "Aflame in Athens" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project—four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Her story was published in the Fire collection. ("More" adapted from Wikipedia and the author's website.)
Book Reviews
A brilliant page turner and destined to become a reading group staple, The Thread is rich with drama and historical detail.
Glamour (UK)
Hislop’s vivid storytelling makes a fascinating, turbulent place and time spring to life.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
When Turkish troops force the people of Smyrna from their homes in 1922, a young girl named Katerina becomes separated from her mother amid the chaos. Taken in by a fellow refugee with two daughters of her own, Katerina and her surrogate family make a new life together in the Greek city of Thessaloniki. Katerina soon meets Dimitri, the young son of a wealthy businessman, who is living nearby while his mother remodels their mansion on the sea. The novel takes place over the course of their lifetimes, and tracks the crossing of their paths as they struggle to survive and nurture a love indifferent to dogma and national conflict in a city beleaguered by political, social, and emotional turbulence, including Nazi occupation, Communist backlash, civil war, and poverty. . Hislop (The Island) is a clever storyteller who deftly manages to flesh out Katerina and Dimitri’s personal lives, while never abandoning the collective for the sake of the individual—20th-century Greece and her citizens are brought vividly to life. Striking an excellent balance between historicity and impassioned drama, Hislop’s newest should not be missed.
Publishers Weekly
Combining a keen eye for detail with her usual fluid writing style, Hislop presents an engrossing excursion to Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest metropolis.... This fastmoving, touching saga about tragedy, recovery, and the real meaning of family is full of dramatic incidents demonstrating their city’s transformation and resilience.
Booklist
Hislop writes in rich, vivid detail about the city by the sea, bringing its diverse population to life.... Sweeping in scope yet intimate in detail, The Thread is a love letter to Greece and a testament to the courage and adaptability of its people.
Shelf Awareness
Discussion Questions
1. What enables Eugenia and Katerina to survive in Thessaloniki after the burning of Smyrna?
2. How is the Greece Communist party portrayed in The Thread? To what extent does this differ from any prior knowledge about the party that you may have had?
3. In what ways is threading prominent throughout the novel? How does threading become important during the political crisis?
4. How are class and cultural distinctions portrayed? How do the people of Greece regard these differences and how do their attitudes change?
5. How is family represented in The Thread? How does the political situation challenge and shape these family structures?
6. How do Katerina and Dimitri's lives intertwine throughout the novel and how do their initial encounters shape their relationship?
7. Why is Olga Kominos unable to leave her home and how does her agoraphobia develop?
8. How does the country of Greece change both politically and economically throughout The Thread? To what extent does this differ from any prior knowledge about Greece's history that you may have had?
9. Compare the different marriages depicted. What were the various incentives for marriage? How were women treated during marriage? What were the expectations of a wife? How did the political situation effect women and did women have any power over political outcomes?
10. How does the ending of the novel echo its themes and motifs? What type of future does this ending represent?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Vampires in the Lemon Grove: Stories
Karen Russell, 2013
Knopf Doubleday
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307957238
Summary
From the author of the New York Times best seller Swamplandia!—a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize—a magical new collection of stories that showcases Karen Russell’s gifts at their inimitable best.
A dejected teenager discovers that the universe is communicating with him through talismanic objects left behind in a seagull’s nest. A community of girls held captive in a silk factory slowly transmute into human silkworms, spinning delicate threads from their own bellies, and escape by seizing the means of production for their own revolutionary ends. A massage therapist discovers she has the power to heal by manipulating the tattoos on a war veteran’s lower torso.
When a group of boys stumble upon a mutilated scarecrow bearing an uncanny resemblance to the missing classmate they used to torment, an ordinary tale of high school bullying becomes a sinister fantasy of guilt and atonement. In a family’s disastrous quest for land in the American West, the monster is the human hunger for acquisition, and the victim is all we hold dear. And in the collection’s marvelous title story—an unforgettable parable of addiction and appetite, mortal terror and mortal love—two vampires in a sun-drenched lemon grove try helplessly to slake their thirst for blood.
Karen Russell is one of today’s most celebrated and vital writers—honored in The New Yorker’s list of the twenty best writers under the age of forty, Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists, and the National Book Foundation’s five best writers under the age of thirty-five. Her wondrous new work displays a young writer of superlative originality and invention coming into the full range and scale of her powers . (From the publisher.)
About the Author
• Birth—July 10, 1981
• Where—Miami, Florida, USA
• Education—B.A., Northwestern University
M.F.A. Columbia University
• Awards & Recognition—New Yorker's 20 Under 40;
Granta's Best Young American Novelists; National Book
Foundation's 5 Under 35; Mary Ellen von der Heyden
Berlin Prize
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Karen Russell attended Northwestern University, where she earned her B.A. in 2003. She is a 2006 graduate of the Columbia University MFA program.
She was Margaret Bundy Scott Visiting Professor of English at Williams College.
Her stories have been featured in The Best American Short Stories, Conjunctions, Granta, The New Yorker, Oxford American, and Zoetrope.
She was named a National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" young writer honoree at a November 2009 ceremony, for her first book of short stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. Her second book, first novel Swamplandia! (2011), about a shabby amusement park set in the Everglades, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and long-listed for the Orange Prize.
In 2013, she released another short story collection to excellent reviews: Vampires in the Lemon Grove.
She is the recipient of the Mary Ellen von der Heyden Berlin Prize and was a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin for Spring 2012. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
…Ms. Russell deftly combines elements of the weird and supernatural with acute psychological realism; elements of the gothic with dry, contemporary humor. From apparent influences as disparate as George Saunders, Saki, Stephen King, Carson McCullers and Joy Williams, she has fashioned a quirky, textured voice that is thoroughly her own: by turns lyrical and funny, fantastical and meditative. Vampires in the Lemon Grove shows Ms. Russell more in control of her craft than ever…In these tales [she] combines careful research (into, say, a legend, a historical episode or a tradecraft) with minutely imagined details and a wonderfully vital sleight of hand to create narratives that possess both the resonance of myth and the immediacy of something new.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
Russell is no coy or mannered mistress of the freaky. Much of the pleasure in reading her comes from the wily freshness of her language and the breezy nastiness of her observations…A grim, stupendous, unfavorable magic is at work in these stories.
Joy Williams - New York Times Book Review
Vampires in the Lemon Grove should cement [Russell's] reputation as one of the most remarkable fantasists writing today…Two of these tales are among the best and most chilling I've read in years…[the] exquisite precision and conflation of the commonplace with the marvelous is a hallmark of Russell's prose style, infusing her work with a sense of the uncanny that keeps a reader off balance right until the last sentence.
Elizabeth Hand - Washington Post
Exquisitely peculiar…Vampires trades in the mythological waters of the Florida Everglades for eight new, but still darkly fantastical and dangerous worlds that constantly remind the reader that monsters and violence are always around the corner, and in ourselves.
Wall Street Journal
Russell returns to the story form with renewed daring, leading us again into uncharted terrain, though as fantastic as the predicaments she imagines are, the emotions couldn’t be truer to life.... Mind-blowing, mythic, macabre, hilarious.
Booklist
There are only eight stories in Russell’s new collection, but as readers of Swamplandia! know, Russell doesn’t work small. She’s a world builder, and the stranger the better. Not that she writes fantasy, exactly: the worlds she creates live within the one we know—but sometimes they operate by different rules.... Russell’s great gift—along with her antic imagination—who else would give us a barn full of ex-presidents reincarnated as horses?—is her ability to create whole landscapes and lifetimes of strangeness within the confines of a short story.
Publishers Weekly
The New Yorker's 20 Under 40. Granta's Best Young American Novelists. The National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35. Russell surely has had a stellar career, straight out of the gate. Her new collection echoes the witty lusciousness of her first novel, Pulitzer finalist Swamplandia! .... [T]he title piece features two vampires whose 100-year-old marriage is on the skids because one has developed a fear of flying. A few stories, like those about abandoned children, lose the wit and lusciousness and go all dark.
Library Journal
A consistently arresting, frequently stunning collection of eight stories. Though Russell enjoyed her breakthrough--both popular and critical--with her debut novel (Swamplandia!, 2011), she had earlier attracted notice with her short stories (St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, 2006). Here, she returns to that format with startling effect, reinforcing the uniqueness of her fiction, employing situations that are implausible, even outlandish, to illuminate the human condition..... Even more impressive than Russell's critically acclaimed novel.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the relationship between Clyde and Magreb, the two vampires in the title story whose hundred-year marriage is tested when one of them develops a fear of flying. Do you think the author believes they have a good marriage? What is the impact of Clyde’s inability to transmute? Consider this quote from the beginning of the story: “I once pictured time as a black magnifying glass and myself as a microscopic flightless insect trapped in that circle of night. But then Magreb came along, and eternity ceased to frighten me.” What is the author saying here about mortal—and immortal—love?
2. How might “Vampires in the Lemon Grove” be read as a parable of appetite and addiction? Note the linguistic forms in which the author couches references to the vampires’ need for blood.
3. “I blinked down at a little blond child and then saw that my two hands were shaking violently, soundlessly, like old friends wishing not to burden me with their troubles. I dropped the candies into the children’s bags, thinking: You small mortals don’t realize the power of your stories” (p. 13). What is the author saying here about the nature of truth, the power of myth, and the role of storytelling in shaping identity?
4. In “Reeling for the Empire,” Tooka asks, “Are we monsters now?” (p. 31) In the title story, Clyde reflects, “Magreb was the first and only other vampire I’d ever met. We bared our fangs over a tombstone and recognized each other. There is a loneliness that must be particular to monsters, I think, the feeling that each is the only child of a species. And now that loneliness was over.” (p. 9) How are Clyde and Magreb similar to the reelers? What do these two stories have in common thematically? What do you think the author might be trying to say here about exile and community, shape-shifting and transformation?
5. Look at the passage in “Reeling for the Empire” where Kitsune describes the phenomenon of the thread: “Here is the final miracle, I say: our silk comes out of us in colors. There is no longer any need to dye it. There is no other silk like it on the world market, boasts the Agent.…Nobody has ever guessed her own color correctly—Hoshi predicted hers would be peach and it was blue; Nishi thought pink, got hazel. I would bet my entire five-yen advance that mine would be light gray, like my cat’s fur. But then I woke and pushed the swollen webbing of my thumb and a sprig of green came out. On my day zero, in the middle of my terror, I was surprised into a laugh: here was a translucent green I swore I’d never seen before anywhere in nature, and yet I knew it as my own on sight” (pp. 31–32). How do you account for the joyfulness of this discovery? What do you think the author is trying to communicate about the nature of identity, and of our essential selves?
6. Discuss Kitsune’s transformation [PE1] on p. 39. What does it mean that her thread changes from green to black?
7. “Reeling” ends with a violent, dramatic twist. What happens? How did this make you feel? Is this a happy ending or a sad one?
8. What do the seagulls represent to Nal in “The Seagull Army descends on Strong Beach, 1979,” and how does their symbolism change throughout the story? Initially Nal takes them for his conscience—later, for omens. Discuss Nal’s nightmare, and how the seagulls relate to Nal’s understanding of the past, present, and future. Why does he consider the seagulls “cosmic scavengers” (p. 75), and what do you think that means?
9. Many of the stories in Russell’s collection pivot on fantasies: Beverly’s fantasy of magically healing Sgt. Derek Zeiger in “The New Veterans”; Dougbert’s faith in Team Krill in “Dougbert Shackleton’s Rules for Antarctic Tailgating,” and a commitment to rooting for the underdog that destroys his marriage and causes him to run the risk of botulism, cannibalism, and frostbite; the Zegner family’s dream of proving up on their claim and becoming homesteaders even if it kills them; the dead presidents’ fantasies of running for reelection and their inability to relinquish their dreams of power despite being reincarnated as horses in “The Barn at the End of Our Term.” In what way might these fantasies be considered uniquely American?
10. A number of the stories in this collection orbit the themes of regret and atonement, and how to deal with wrongdoing and events that evoke anguish and guilt: Kitsune, Larry Rubio, and Sgt. Derek Zeiger are all grappling, to varying degrees, with issues of culpability. In all of these cases, memory plays a vital role in the rituals of atonement. Discuss.
11. In “The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis,” a group of boys stumble on a mutilated scarecrow bearing an uncanny resemblance to the missing classmate they used to torment. There are powerfully sinister undertones here, and it could certainly be read as Karen Russell’s first horror story. But there are also themes of expiation and redemption in “Eric Mutis.” In what ways can it be read as a hopeful story?
12. Many of the stories in Vampires in the Lemon Grove are intensely comic, with absurd and magical predicaments—vampires in love; post-presidential horses; talismanic objects; miraculous tattoos that can transform the past; girls that turn into silkworms. Yet as readers we can see ourselves in each of these stories. No matter how outlandish the situation, the emotionand the vulnerability that Russell captures is recognizably our own. Which stories moved you most, or spoke to you most powerfully? Why?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Three Sisters (Blackberry Island, 2)
Susan Mallery, 2013
Harlequin: Mira
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780778314349
Summary
After Andi Gordon is jilted at the altar, she makes the most impetuous decision of her life—buying one of the famed Three Sisters Queen Anne houses on Blackberry Island. Now the proud-ish owner of the ugly duckling of the trio, she plans to open her own pediatric office on the first floor, just as soon as her hunky contractor completes the work. Andi's new future may be coming together, but the truth is she's just as badly in need of a major renovation as her house.
When Deanna Phillips confronts her husband about a suspected affair, she opens up a Pandora's box of unhappiness. And he claims that she is the problem. The terrible thing is, he's right. In her quest to be the perfect woman, she's lost herself, and she's in danger of losing her entire family if things don't change.
Next door, artist Boston King thought she and her college sweetheart would be married forever. Their passion for one another has always seemed indestructible. But after tragedy tears them apart, she's not so sure. Now it's time for them to move forward, with or without one another.
Thrown together by fate and geography, and bound by the strongest of friendships, these three women will discover what they're really made of: laughter, tears, love and all. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
With more than 25 million books sold worldwide, New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery is known for creating characters who feel as real as the folks next door, and for putting them into emotional, often funny situations readers recognize from their own lives. Susan’s books have made Booklist’s Top 10 Romances list in four out of five consecutive years. RT Book Reviews says, “When it comes to heartfelt contemporary romance, Mallery is in a class by herself.” With her popular, ongoing Fool’s Gold series, Susan has reached new heights on the bestsellers lists and has won the hearts of countless new fans.
Susan grew up in southern California, moved so many times that her friends stopped writing her address in pen, and now has settled in Seattle with her husband and the most delightfully spoiled little dog who ever lived. (Bio courtesy of the author. Visit Susan Mallery online. Also, if your group is reading Three Sisters, she's happy to chat by phone. Her assistant's email is
Book Reviews
Susan Mallery gives us a candid, honest look into the turmoil of family life when tragedies and personal crisis' occur. Welcome back to Blackberry Island. So nice to meet these newest additions to this lovely tourist town and visit with some old friends. Mallery never disappoints her readers and Three Sisters is no exception. It's a winner and should be on everyone's short list of must reads.
FreshFiction.com
The second installment in Mallery's Blackberry Island series (after Barefoot Season), Three Sisters gives equal weight and prominence to each of these plotlines as it sensitively delves into the emotional landscapes of characters grappling to overcome personal crises.
Kathleen Gerard - Reading Between the Lines.com (found on Shelf Awareness)
Discussion Questions
1. The Three Sisters in the book are the three houses atop the highest hill on Blackberry Island. In what way does each house reflect its owner? Would you like to live in a Victorian home that is more than 100 years old? Why or why not? Which house would you want to live in and why?
2. Andi was left at the altar by a man she’d dated for more than ten years. How do you think you would’ve reacted if this had happened to you? What do you think of Andi’s decision to move to Blackberry Island, where she had no support structure in place because she knew no one?
3. With which of the three women did you empathize most strongly? Why? Did your feelings change as the story progressed? What did the women have in common besides geography?
4. Which character changed the most? In what way?
5. A lot of women have control issues like Deanna, though not to the same extreme. Do you think she knew she had a problem before Colin confronted her with his unhappiness? Why or why not? Deanna’s need for control stemmed from her childhood as the abused and neglected daughter of an alcoholic mother. When do you feel that Deanna truly began trying to change, rather than going through the motions?
6. Many couples split up after the death of a child because they grow apart while learning to accept their new reality. How did Boston and Zeke react differently to their son’s death? Did you feel that one of them dealt with the loss more appropriately than the other? Why or why not? Why did Boston continue to draw black and white portraits of Liam?
7. Wade was angry when Andi didn’t defend him to her mother. Andi felt Wade was using the moment as an excuse to avoid commitment. Who do you think was right, and why?
8. Susan Mallery is known for tapping into the humor of even the most emotional situations. Which scenes in Three Sisters made you laugh?
9. Female friendship is at the heart of this story, and yet for the first half of the book, the women really didn’t interact much. Deanna’s breakdown in Boston’s kitchen was a major turning point in their relationship. How do you think this single moment changed the women’s understanding of each other? How do you think their friendship changed each woman from that point forward?
10. Overall, do you feel this was a sad book or a happy book? Why? Did you like the way Three Sisters ended for each of the characters? Why or why not?
(Questions from author's website: Visit Susan Mallery online.)
Barefoot Season (Blackberry Island, 1)
Susan Mallery, 2012
Harlequin: Mira
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780778313380
Summary
Michelle Sanderson may appear to be a strong, independent woman, but on the inside, she's still the wounded girl who fled home years ago. A young army vet, Michelle returns to the quaint Blackberry Island Inn to claim her inheritance and recover from the perils of war. Instead, she finds the owner's suite occupied by the last person she wants to see.
Carly Williams and Michelle were once inseparable, until a shocking betrayal destroyed their friendship. And now Carly is implicated in the financial disaster lurking behind the inn's cheerful veneer.
Single mother Carly has weathered rumors, lies and secrets for a lifetime, and is finally starting to move forward with love and life. But if the Blackberry Island Inn goes under, Carly and her daughter will go with it.
To save their livelihoods, Carly and Michelle will undertake a turbulent truce. It'll take more than a successful season to move beyond their devastating past, but with a little luck and a beautiful summer, they may just rediscover the friendship of a lifetime. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
With more than 25 million books sold worldwide, New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery is known for creating characters who feel as real as the folks next door, and for putting them into emotional, often funny situations readers recognize from their own lives. Susan’s books have made Booklist’s Top 10 Romances list in four out of five consecutive years. RT Book Reviews says, “When it comes to heartfelt contemporary romance, Mallery is in a class by herself.” With her popular, ongoing Fool’s Gold series, Susan has reached new heights on the bestsellers lists and has won the hearts of countless new fans.
Susan grew up in southern California, moved so many times that her friends stopped writing her address in pen, and now has settled in Seattle with her husband and the most delightfully spoiled little dog who ever lived. (Bio courtesy of the author. Visit Susan Mallery online. Also, if your group is reading Barefoot Season, she's happy to chat by phone. Her assistant's email is
Book Reviews
A character-driven tale of complex relationships, the costs of forgiveness, and the abiding security we can find, lose and rediscover within the complexity of feminine friendships.... With strong characters, a vivid sense of place and intricate relational dynamics Barefoot Season will hold its own against best-selling women's fiction titles and please fans of mainstream romance as well. The first book in Susan Mallery's new Blackberry Island series, Barefoot Season is a well-written story of healing, letting go, and making room in your heart for hope.
USA Today
With a compelling twist on the wounded war hero story and an intense exploration of what makes up a family, Mallery has set the bar high for the books to follow in her new Blackberry Island series. The characters—both furry and human—come to life in their small-town setting and will touch readers' hearts and funny bones.
RT Book Reviews
Gritty and magical, angst-ridden and sweet, this coming-home story by bestseller Mallery (Only His) pulls no punches. Veteran Michelle Sanderson has survived multiple deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, but she’s never forgotten the little island inn on Puget Sound where three generations of her family have welcomed visitors. After Michelle’s mother dies, onetime friend Carly Williams—whom Michelle betrayed by sleeping with her fiance—is left to manage the inn until Michelle returns. Michelle wants nothing more than to fire Carly and reclaim the family legacy, but with a shotup hip, PTSD, and an unforgiving bank loan, she has no choice but to make their uneasy reunion work. This is only the beginning; Mallery adds layer upon layer to the women’s history, while revealing the raw core of each with expert pacing guaranteed to keep a reader up way past bedtime to see how it all works out. There’s a touch of romance, too, but it’s secondary. This first installment in the Blackberry Island series is about the journey from girlhood to womanhood to sisterhood, and the simple power of an honest apology.
Publishers Weekly
The close childhood bond of Michelle Sanderson and Carly Williams suffered shocking blows that sent Michelle running to join the army, leaving Carly behind... [until Michelle returns to her newly inherited bed-and-breakfast on Blackberry Island.... [The two] must work together to bring the inn out of financial ruin. Verdict: With this debut volume in her new series, best-selling author Mallery (Already Home) skillfully reveals insights into each woman’s life to create a poignant tale of forgiveness, friendship renewed, and family. For Mallery and Debbie Macomber fans.‚ Joy Gunn, Henderson Libs., NV
Library Journal
Barefoot Season will appeal to book clubs (great discussion topics abound!) and fans of Barbara Delinsky and Jodi Picoult. Susan Mallery weaves a tale of broken friendship with enough twists and turns to keep even the most seasoned reader of commercial women’s fiction guessing about where the story will lead.
Book Reporter
Discussion Questions
1. What are the major themes of this story? How does the title support those themes? Explain your thoughts.
2. What story events caused the characters to change and grow? Who changed the most? Explain.
3. Author Susan Mallery is widely lauded for evoking strong reader emotions with her books. Which moments in Barefoot Season triggered the strongest emotions in you? Did the ending satisfy you, or do you wish the story would have had a different ending?
4. Did you relate most to Carly or Michelle? Why?
5. Why do you think Michelle was so angry with Carly when she first returned? According to Carly, she was the one who had the right to be angry. Do you agree? Why or why not?
6. Carly’s past haunted her. Why do you think Carly stayed on Blackberry Island? Would you have moved to a different town? Why or why not? How have you changed since high school?
7. Michelle was damaged by the war, both physically and emotionally. Do you think her emotional damage would have been reduced if she hadn’t also been injured physically? Why or why not? Do you think she would have healed faster? Why or why not? Do you know someone who has been to war? Did he or she come back a different person?
8. What did you think of Damaris when she first appeared in Barefoot Season? How did your feelings about her change as the story progressed? How did you feel about Michelle’s decision about what to do about Damaris?
9. Have you ever stayed at a private inn or B&B? Did you like it more or less than staying at a hotel chain? Why?
10. What did you think of Chance and Mr. Whiskers? Have you ever known a dog and cat that became friends? Have you rescued an animal?
(From the author's website: Visit Susan Mallery online. )