On Chesil Beach
Ian McEwan, 2007
Random Hosue
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307386175


Summary
Ian McEwan's emotionally charged novel follows an inexperienced young couple through their disastrous wedding night at a Dorset hotel in 1962. Very much in love, Edward and Florence are predictably nervous, but for different reasons.

He longs to consummate the marriage; she is repelled by the very idea. Locked in their inhibitions and utterly unable to discuss their fears and needs, they are victims not only of personal experience but of a distinctively British brand of repression destined to crumble in the sexual revolution.

One of McEwan's greatest skills is his ability to limn the precise, irrevocable moment in which life changes forever.

And although that moment is telegraphed within the first few pages of this rueful tale, it loses none of its tragic, devastating force when it occurs. Brief and elegiac, On Chesil Beach spotlights the talents of a literary grand master at the top of his game. (From Barnes & Noble .)

Author Bio
• Birth—June 21, 1948
• Where—Aldershot, England, UK
• Education—B.A., University of Sussex; M.A. University of East Anglia
• Awards—(see blow)
• Currently—lives in Oxford, England


Ian Russell McEwan is an English novelist. He was born in Aldershot, Hampshire, the son of David McEwan and Rose Lilian Violet (nee Moore). His father was a working class Scotsman who had worked his way up through the army to the rank of major. As a result, McEwan spent much of his childhood in East Asia (including Singapore), Germany and North Africa (including Libya), where his father was posted. His family returned to England when he was twelve.

McEwan was educated at Woolverstone Hall School; the University of Sussex, receiving his degree in English literature in 1970; and the University of East Anglia, where he was one of the first graduates of Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson's pioneering creative writing course.

Career
McEwan's first published work was a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites (1975), which won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976. He achieved notoriety in 1979 when the BBC suspended production of his play Solid Geometry because of its alleged obscenity. His second collection of short stories, In Between the Sheets, was published in 1978.

The Cement Garden (1978) and The Comfort of Strangers (1981) were his two earliest novels, both of which were adapted into films. The nature of these works caused him to be nicknamed "Ian Macabre." These were followed by The Child in Time (1987), winner of the 1987 Whitbread Novel Award; The Innocent (1990); and Black Dogs (1992). McEwan has also written two children's books, Rose Blanche (1985) and The Daydreamer (1994). His 1997 novel, Enduring Love, about the relationship between a science writer and a stalker, was popular with critics and adapted into a film in 2004.

In 1998, he won the Man Booker Prize for Amsterdam. His next novel, Atonement (2001), received considerable acclaim; Time magazine named it the best novel of 2002, and it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2007, the critically acclaimed movie Atonement, directed by Joe Wright and starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, was released in cinemas worldwide. His next work, Saturday (2005), follows an especially eventful day in the life of a successful neurosurgeon. Saturday won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 2005, and his novel On Chesil Beach (2007) was shortlisted for the 2007 Booker Prize.

McEwan has also written a number of produced screenplays, a stage play, children's fiction, an oratorio and a libretto titled For You with music composed by Michael Berkeley.

In 2008 at the Hay Festival, McEwan gave a surprise reading of his then novel-in-progress, eventually published as Solar (2010). The novel includes a scientist hoping to save the planet from the threat of climate change and got its inspiration from a 2005 Cape Farewell expedition. McEwan along with fellow artists and scientists spent several weeks aboard a ship near the north pole.

McEwan's twelfth novel, Sweet Tooth (2012), is historical in nature and set in the 1970. In an interview with the Scotsman newspaper, McEwan revealed that the impetus for writing the novel was a way for him to write a "disguised autobiography." McEwan's 13th novel, The Children Act (2014), is about a high court judge.

Controversy
In 2006 McEwan was accused of plagiarism, specifically a passage in Atonement that closely echoed one from a 2012 memoir, No Time for Romance, by Lucilla Andrews. McEwan acknowledged using the book as a source for his work; in fact, he had included a brief note at the end of the book referring to Andrews's autobiography, among several other works. Writing in the Guardian in November 2006, a month after Andrews' death, McEwan professed innocence of plagiarism while acknowledging his debt to the author.

The incident recalled critical controversy over his debut novel The Cement Garden, key plot elements that closely mirrored some of those in Our Mother's House, a 1963 novel by Julian Gloag, which had also been made into a film. McEwan denied charges of plagiarism, claiming he was unaware of the earlier work.

In 2011 McEwan caused controversy when he accepted the Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society. In the face of pressure from groups and individuals opposed to the Israeli government, specifically British Writers in Support of Palestine (BWISP), McEwan wrote a letter to the Guardian in which he said...

There are ways in which art can have a longer reach than politics, and for me the emblem in this respect is Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra—surely a beam of hope in a dark landscape, though denigrated by the Israeli religious right and Hamas. If BWISP is against this particular project, then clearly we have nothing more to say to each other.

He announced that he would donate the ten thousand dollar prize money to Combatants for Peace, an organization that brings together Israeli ex-soldiers and Palestinian ex-fighters.

Recognition
McEwan has been nominated for the Man Booker prize six times to date, winning the Prize for Amsterdam in 1998. His other nominations were for The Comfort of Strangers (1981, Shortlisted), Black Dogs (1992, Shortlisted), Atonement (2001, Shortlisted), Saturday (2005, Longlisted), and On Chesil Beach (2007, Shortlisted). McEwan also received nominations for the Man Booker International Prize in 2005 and 2007.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was awarded the Shakespeare Prize by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation, Hamburg, in 1999. He is also a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. He was awarded a CBE in 2000. In 2005, he was the first recipient of Dickinson College's Harold and Ethel L. Stellfox Visiting Scholar and Writers Program Award, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, U.S. In 2008, McEwan received an honorary degree of Doctor of Literature by University College, London, where he used to teach English literature. In 2008, The Times (of London) featured him on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

Personal
McEwan has been married twice. His 13-year marriage to spiritual healer and therapist Penny Allen ended in 1995 and was followed by a bitter custody battle over their two sons. His second wife, Annalena McAfee, was formerly the editor of the Guardian's Review section.

In 2002, McEwan discovered that he had a brother who had been given up for adoption during World War II when his mother was married to a different man. After her first husband was killed in combat, McEwan's mother married her lover, and Ian was born a few years later. The brothers are in regular contact, and McEwan has written a foreword to Sharp's memoir. (Excerpted and adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/4/2014.)

Book Reviews
The bulk of On Chesil Beach consists of a single sex scene, one played, because of the novel’s brevity and accessibility, in something like “real time.” Edward and Florence have retreated, on their wedding night, to a hotel suite overlooking Chesil Beach. Edward wants sex, Florence is sure she doesn’t. The situation is miniature and enormous, dire and pathetic, tender and irrevocable. McEwan treats it with a boundless sympathy, one that enlists the reader even as it disguises the fact that this seeming novel of manners is as fundamentally a horror novel as any McEwan’s written, one that carries with it a David Cronenberg sensitivity to what McEwan calls “the secret affair between disgust and joy.”
Jonathan Lethem - New York Times

This breathtaking novel, Ian McEwan's 11th, tells the story of that night. Like a number of his previous books—among them The Cement Garden, The Comfort of Strangers, Black Dogs and Amsterdam—On Chesil Beach is more a novella than a novel, weighing in at around 40,000 words, but like those other books it is in no important sense a miniature. Instead, it takes on subjects of universal interest—innocence and naiveté, self-delusion, desire and repression, opportunity lost or rejected—and creates a small but complete universe around them. McEwan's prose is as masterly as ever, here striking a remarkably subtle balance between detachment and sympathy, dry wit and deep compassion. It reaffirms my conviction that no one now writing in English surpasses or even matches McEwan's accomplishment.
Jonathan Yardley - Washington Post

(Audio version.) It should not come as a surprise that Florence and Edward, newlyweds who cannot discuss their previous sexual experiences (or lack thereof), do not communicate out loud with one another until all their emotions boil over at the conclusion of the first night of their honeymoon. That their lives are constructed as narratives and memories makes this novella a particularly good choice for McEwan to perform his own work. McEwan provides a deft sense of cadence, timing and emphasis. McEwan reads this poignant, sad and occasionally amusing gem with entrancing skill, precision and perfect pace. In short, McEwan's performance is mesmerizing. An excellent addition to the recording is a thoughtful interview with the author. The conversation provides insight into McEwan's choice of setting, time period (1962) and characters. McEwan reveals that he tries out his works in progress on audiences, a technique that pays off beautifully. This author-read work is outstanding.
Publishers Weekly

(Starred Review.) Conventional in construction and realistic in its representation of addled psychology, the novel is ingenious for its limited but deeply resonant focus. —Brad Hooper.
Booklist

Most critics found McEwan's vivid prose both wry and heartrending.... Some critics complained about the novel's narrow focus, unlikable characters, and explicit descriptions of the newlyweds' attempts to consummate their marriage. Others, however, appreciated McEwan's obvious compassion for the Mayhews.
Bookmarks Magazine

Discussion Questions
1. What do the novel’s opening lines tell us about Edward and Florence? How did your perceptions of them change throughout the subsequent pages? What details did you eventually know about them that they never fully revealed to one another?

2. Is Edward’s libido truly the primary reason he proposes marriage, or were other factors involved (perhaps ones he did not even admit to himself)? Are relationships harmed or helped by cultural restrictions against sex before marriage? Would this marriage have taken place if the couple had met when birth–control pills were no longer just a rumor?

3. Edward replays the words “with my body I thee worship” in his mind. What might have been the intention in including that line when this version of the marriage ceremony was written? How does it make Edward feel?

4. Ian McEwan describes the novel’s time period as an era when youth was not glorified but adulthood was. We are also told that Edward was born in 1940, while his parents contemplated possible outcomes of the war with Germany. At what point did Edward and Florence’s solemnity become viewed as old–fashioned? What contributed to that shift? What are your recollections, or those shared by relatives who lived it, of the emerging youth culture of the late 1960s and ’70s?

5. Were Florence and Edward incompatible in ways beyond sexual ones? What do their difficulties in bed say about their relationship altogether? Or is sex an isolated aspect of a marriage?

6. Chapter two describes how Florence and Edward met; the first paragraph tells us that they were too sophisticated to believe in destiny. How would you characterize the kind of love they developed? What made them believe they were perfect for one another? Are any two people perfect for one another?

7. What did Edward’s decision to go to London for college indicate about his goals? What was Florence’s dream for her future? Was marriage a greater social necessity for her, as a woman? Would her career as a classical musician necessarily have been sacrificed if she had remained with Edward?

8. Compare Edward’s upbringing to Florence’s. How did their parents affect their attitudes toward life? How did the limitations of Edward’s mother shape his feelings about responsibility and women? Was Florence drawn to her mother’s competitiveness?

9. To what extent was the financial gulf between Edward and Florence a source of trouble? How might the relationship have unfolded, particularly during this time period, if Edward, not Florence, had been the spouse with financial security?

10. Chapter four recounts the moment when Edward tells Florence he loves her because she’s “square,” not in spite of it. Are their opposing tastes the product of their temperaments or the episodes in their young lives? What is your understanding of her revulsion to sex?

11. Discuss the novel’s setting, which forms its title. What is the effect of the creaky hotel McEwan creates, and the crashing permanent waves on a beach where the temperatures are still chilly in June? What does it say about the newlyweds that this is the scene of their wedding night?

12. In the end, Edward explores various “what ifs.” Would their marriage have lasted if he had consented to her request for platonic living arrangements? What are the best ways to predict whether a couple can sustain a marriage?

13. How would Edward and Florence have fared in the twenty–first century? Has the nature of love changed as western society has evolved?

14. The author tells us that the marriage ended because Edward was callous, and that as Florence ran from him, she was at the same time desperately in love with him. Why did Edward respond the way he did? Why was it so difficult for them to be honest about their feelings? How would you have reacted that night?

15. Discuss the structure of On Chesil Beach . What is the effect of reading such a compressed storyline, weaving one night with the years before and after it? How did it shape your reading to see only Edward’s point of view in the end? What might Florence’s perspective have looked like?

16. In what ways does On Chesil Beach represent a departure for Ian McEwan? In what ways does it enhance the themes in his previous fiction.
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Sliver of Truth (Ridley Jones series #2)
Lisa Unger, 2007
Crown Publishing
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307338495

Summary
Ridley Jones is being careful about where she steps and trying to get on with her life when a seemingly mundane act—picking up a few envelopes of prints at a photo lab—puts her at the nexus of a global network of crime. A shadowy figure of a man appears in almost every picture she’s taken in the last year, lurking just far enough away to make identification impossible. Now the FBI is at her door, some serious bad guys are following her every move, and the family she once loved and relied on is more distant than ever.

The only thing Ridley knows for sure is that she has to get to the truth about herself and her past if she’s ever going to find her way home. Charged with relentless intensity and kinetic action, playing out with unnerving suspense on the streets of New York and London, and seen through the terrified but determined eyes of a young woman whose body and heart are pushed to the point of shattering, Sliver of Truth is another triumph from the New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Lies. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—April 26, 1970
• Where—New Haven, Connecticut, USA
• Reared—The Netherlands, UK, and New Jersey, USA
• Education—New School for Social Research
• Currently—lives in Florida


Lisa Unger is an award winning New York Times, USA Today and international bestselling author. Her novels have been published in over 26 countries around the world.

She was born in New Haven, Connecticut (1970) but grew up in the Netherlands, England and New Jersey. A graduate of the New School for Social Research, Lisa spent many years living and working in New York City. She then left a career in publicity to pursue her dream of becoming a full-time author. She now lives in Florida with her husband and daughter.

Her writing has been hailed as "masterful" (St. Petersburg Times), "sensational" (Publishers Weekly) and "sophisticated" (New York Daily News) with "gripping narrative and evocative, muscular prose" (Associated Press).

More
Her own words:

I have always most naturally expressed myself through writing and I have always dwelled in the land of my imagination more comfortably than in reality. There’s a jolt I get from a good story that I’m not sure can be duplicated in the real world. Perhaps this condition came about because of all the traveling my family did when I was younger. I was born in Connecticut but we moved often. By the time my family settled for once and all in New Jersey, I had already lived in Holland and in England (not to mention Brooklyn and other brief New Jersey stays) for most of my childhood. I don’t recall ever minding moving about; even then I had a sense that it was cool and unusual. But I think it was one of many things that kept me feeling separate from the things and people around me, this sense of myself as transient and on the outside, looking in. I don’t recall ever exactly fitting in anywhere. Writers are first and foremost observers … and one can’t truly observe unless she stands apart.

For a long time, I didn’t really believe that it was possible to make a living as a writer … mainly because that’s what people always told me. So, I made it a hobby. All through high school, I won awards and eventually, a partial scholarship because of my writing. In college, I was advised by teachers to pursue my talent, to get an agent, to really go for it. But there was a little voice that told me (quietly but insistently) that it wasn’t possible. I didn’t see it as a viable career option as I graduated from the New School for Social Research (I transferred there from NYU for smaller, more dynamic classes). I needed a “real job.” A real job delivers a regular pay check, right? So I entered a profession that brought me as close to my dream as possible … and paid, if not well, then at least every two weeks. I went into publishing.

When I left for Florida, I think I was at a critical level of burnout. I think that as a New Yorker, especially after a number of years, one starts to lose sight of how truly special, how textured and unique it is. The day-to-day can be brutal: the odors, the noise, the homeless, the trains, the expense. Once I had some distance though, New York City started to leak into my work and I found myself rediscovering many of the things I had always treasured about it. It came very naturally as the setting for Beautiful Lies. It is the place I know best. I know it as one can only know a place she has loved desperately and hated passionately and then come to miss terribly once she has left it behind.

But it is true that we can’t go home again. I live in Florida now with my wonderful husband, and I’m a full-time writer. There’s a lot of beauty and texture and darkness to be mined in this strange place, as well. I’m sure I’d miss it as much in different ways if I returned to New York. I guess that’s my thing … no matter where I am I wonder if I belong somewhere else. I’m always outside, observing. It’s only when I’m writing that I know I’m truly home. (Author bio from the author's website.)

Book Reviews
Bestseller Unger's sensational second thriller (after Beautiful Lies) puts her in the same league as such genre masters as Peter Straub and Peter Abrahams. From the cryptic opening section, which ends with a New York Times reporter finding her husband bleeding to death, Unger grabs the reader by the throat and doesn't let go. Meanwhile, the FBI informs Ridley Jones, a magazine writer, that her late uncle, Max Smiley (who's really her biological father), is still alive and being sought by assorted international players on all sides of the law. Rapidly finding that little in her life is what it seems, Jones is horrified to be confronted with evidence indicating that Smiley is a misogynistic monster of the first order, who may have played a role in the murder of the reporter's husband. Unger's gifts for dialogue and pacing set this far above the standard novel of suspense and will leave many anxiously awaiting her third book.
Publishers Weekly

Freelance journalist Ridley Jones stops by the photo lab to pick up her pictures and is taken in for questioning by FBI agents on her way home. It seems that a mysterious figure is hovering in the background in several of her photos, and Special Agent Dylan Grace believes that the figure is Ridley's Uncle Max, whom she thought was dead. In Unger's follow-up to Beautiful Lies, Ridley must face the fact that her beloved uncle may not only be alive but that he wasn't the man she believed him to be. The FBI wants her to lead its agents to him, but she doesn't completely trust anyone now, including her boyfriend, Jake, who informs her that Max was part of a vicious crime ring. Determined to discover the truth in the web of lies surrounding her, Ridley decides to do some investigating on her own and encounters danger and deception at every turn. A fast-paced story that readers will find difficult to put down; recommended.
Library Journal

More identity crisis for New York City journalist Ridley Jones in this murky follow-up to Unger's debut (Beautiful Lies, 2006). Just when she thought she'd figured out who her real father is, single working girl Ridley is confronted with fresh evidence that her dead Uncle Max Smiley, revealed a year ago (and in Unger's previous book) to be her biological father, might in fact still be alive, and responsible for a series of ghastly assaults on women. Max, an abused child himself, was a self-made real-estate developer and the shadowy head of the Project Rescue organization, which ostensibly saved at-risk children from abusive parents, but in some cases actually abducted children and placed them in foster homes. Ridley's adoptive parents, Ben and Grace Jones, were also involved in Project Rescue, and adopted Ridley as a child. At this point in her life, Ridley is still picking up the pieces of her identity, having been involved in the last year with Jake, a former Project Rescue baby who is still obsessed with Max's whereabouts. Meanwhile, Ridley is being trailed by FBI Special Agent Dylan Grace, who ties her to the recent disappearance of a New York Times journalist, Myra Lyall. In a development that turns these characters into paranoid, damaged people, it's revealed that Agent Grace's mother happened to have been a spy and one of Max's victims. And with everyone looking for Max, possibly at the center of a sex slave trade, the trail leads naturally to Ridley, the beloved daughter he will surely reveal himself to at the novel's 11th hour. Ridley is a character still in search of herself, and this effort offers appealing moments of first-person honesty, but could lose readers unfamiliar with Unger's first.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Of all the baffling plot twists in Sliver of Truth, which one caught you most by surprise? Why?

2. The book’s pivotal scene—where Ridley confronts Max at Potter’s Field—bookends the novel, appearing at the beginning and near the conclusion. Why do you think the author chose to structure this scene like this? What did you think of having it split in this way?

3. In chapter 2, Ridley describes her childhood habit of hiding from adults, saying, “I just got better and better at finding places to hide. Eventually I had to reveal myself or never be found” (page 21). In the context of the novel, does this statement have another meaning? If so, what?

4. What was your opinion of Dylan Grace? At first, did you think he was being honest with Ridley about his motives for finding Max?

5. “Some of us are lost and some of us are found. I think that’s really the difference Max had observed” (page 273). Who are the “lost” characters in Sliver of Truth, and who are “found”? What are the differences between these characters?

6. Talk about the relationship between Dylan and Ridley. Did you expect that he and Ridley would get together? Why do you think they were so attracted to each other?

7. “I was filled with dread and fury, and yes, the slightest glimmer of hope,” Ridley says after she finds out Max is still alive (page 283). Why hope? Does this foreshadow her ultimate encounter with Max? At any point in the novel did you believe Max was alive?

8. Ghosts and hauntings are recurrent themes in Sliver of Truth. Discuss some instances where they are prominent, and their significance. Does the author employ other symbols like these?

9. “I have a tremendous ability to compartmentalize my emotions. Some call it denial, but I think it’s a skill to be able to put unpleasant things out of your head for a little while in order to accomplish something else,” (page 98). Consider this statement of Ridley’s. What does it reveal about her personality? Do you agree with what she says?

10. Nature versus nurture is a theme Ridley frequently debates with herself: Is her true self a result of her adoptive parents’ upbringing, or is she Max’s daughter (and therefore shares his traits)? What do you think? Are we really products of our DNA, or do the people around us shape who we become?

11. Discuss Jake. Did you imagine that he was not who he claimed to be? Were you surprised to discover what his real identity actually was? Do you think Ridley suspected that Jake was lying to her?

12. If you read Beautiful Lies, did you realize that Jake lied to Ridley on the Brooklyn Bridge?

13. Why was Ridley unable to see the real Max, despite the attempts by many to inform her of his wrongdoings? For that matter, why does it seem that all the men in Ridley’s life (Dylan, Jake, her ex-boyfriend Zack, even her adoptive father, Ben) hid their true selves from her?

14. “I’m sure you were hoping for a neater package–the villain is caught and brought to justice. I live happily ever after” (page 351). What did you think of the book’s ending? When Ridley’s real intentions against Max were revealed, were you surprised?

15. What do you think the title means?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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The Murderer's Daughters
Randy Susan Meyers, 2010
St. Martin's Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312674434

Summary
A beautifully written, compulsively readable debut that deals with the aftermath of a shocking act of violence that leaves two young sisters with nothing but each other—in the tradition of White Oleander, this haunting novel is a testament to the power of family and the ties that bind us together, even as they threaten to tear us apart

Mama was “no macaroni-necklace-wearing kind of mother.” She was a lipstick and perfume-wearing mother, a flirt whose estranged husband still hungered for her. After Mama threw him out, she warned the girls to never let Daddy in the house, an admonition that tears at ten-year-old Lulu whenever she thinks about the day she opened the door for her drunken father, and watched as he killed her mother, stabbed her five-year-old sister Merry and tried to take his own life.

Effectively orphaned by their mother’s death and father’s imprisonment, Lulu and Merry, unwanted by family members and abandoned to a terrifying group home, spend their young lives carrying more than just the visible scars from the tragedy. Even as their plan to be taken in by a well-to-do foster family succeeds, they come to learn they’ll never really belong anywhere or to anyone—that all they have to hold onto is each other.

As they grow into women, Lulu holds fast to her anger, denies her father’s existence and forces Merry into a web of lies about his death that eventually ensnares her own husband and daughters. Merry, certain their safety rests on placating her needy father, dutifully visits him, seeking his approval and love at the expense of her own relationships. As they strive to carve lives of their own, the specter of their father, unrepentant and manipulative even from behind bars, haunts them. And when they learn he’s about to be paroled, the house of cards they’ve built their lives on teeters on the brink of collapse. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1952-53
• Where—Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
• Education—City College of New York (no degree)
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts


The dark drama of Randy Susan Meyers' debut novel, The Murderer's Daughters is informed by her years of work with batterers, domestic violence victims, and at-risk youth impacted by family violence.

The Murderer's Daugher was published in 2010; 2013 saw the publishing of her second, The Comfort of Lies. Meyers’ short stories have been published in the Fog City Review, Perigee: Publication for the Arts, and the Grub Street Free Press.

In her words
I was born in Brooklyn, New York, where I quickly moved from playing with dolls to incessantly reading, spending most of my time at the Kensington Branch Library. Early on I developed a penchant for books rooted in social issues, my early favorites being Karen and The Family Nobody Wanted. Shortly I moved onto Jubilee and The Diary of Anne Frank.

My dreams of justice simmered at the fantastically broadminded Camp Mikan, where I went from camper to counselor, culminating in a high point when (with the help of my strongly Brooklyn-accented singing voice), I landed the role of Adelaide in the staff production of Guys and Dolls.

Soon I was ready to change the world, starting with my protests at Tilden High and City College of New York...until I left to pursue the dream in Berkeley, California, where I supported myself by selling candy, nuts, and ice cream in Bartons of San Francisco. Then, world weary at too tender an age, I returned to New York, married, and traded demonstrations for diapers.

While raising two daughters, I tended bar, co-authored a nonfiction book on parenting (Couples with Children), ran a summer camp, and (in my all-time favorite job, other than writing) helped resurrect and run a community center. (Adapted from the author's website.)

Book Reviews
A clear-eyed, insightful story about domestic violence and survivor's guilt...an impressively executed novel, disturbing and convincing.
Diane White - Boston Globe


Your heart will go out to Lulu and Merry. The tale of their grief and struggle to find their identities is beautifully written. A great debut novel
Rochelle Olson - Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune


Unshakable truths at every turn.... Meyers, in a remarkably assured debut, details how the sisters process their grief in separate but similarly punishing ways.
Christian Toto - Denver Post


A gut-wrenchingly powerful, emotional novel that takes a very real look at how today's society handles crimes of passions and their consequences. She handles the subject with a tough-love, gloves-off approach that is both sensitive and practical, and as a result gives readers a look into a life that many live and deal with on a daily basis.
Sharon Galligar Chance - Wichita Falls Time Record News


This solid novel begins with young Lulu finding her mother dead and her sister wounded at the hands of her alcoholic father, who has failed at killing himself after attacking the family. Meyers traces the following 30 years for Lulu and her sister, Merry, as they are sent to an orphanage, where Lulu turns tough and calculating, searching for a way into an adoptive family. Eventually, Lulu becomes a doctor specializing in “the almost old,” though her secretiveness about her past causes new rifts to form in her new family. Meanwhile, Merry becomes a “victim witness advocate,” but her life is stunted; she's dependant on Lulu, drugs and alcohol, and she can't find love because she “usually want[s] whoever wants me.” In the background, their imprisoned father looms until a crisis that eerily mirrors the past forces Lulu and Merry to confront what happened years ago. Though the novel's sprawling time line and undifferentiated narrative voices—the sisters narrate in rotating first-person chapters—hinder the potential for readers to fall completely into the story, the psychologically complex characters make Meyers's debut a satisfying read.
Publishers Weekly


Lulu and Merry, ages ten and six, respectively, live with parents for whom marriage is a permanent battleground. One summer day in 1971, their father fatally stabs their mother in their Brooklyn apartment near Coney Island. Merry is also attacked but survives. When their father goes to jail, the sisters are shuffled from relatives to a group home to foster care. Lulu forever blames herself for her father's crimes, and Merry inexplicably continues to carry a torch for her father. How will they come to terms with their horrific past? Readers will follow them well into adulthood, hoping for the best. Verdict: First novelist Meyers draws on the eight years she worked at a batterer intervention program. Much like Janet Fitch's White Oleander or Jacqueline Mitchard's The Deep End of the Ocean, her book takes readers on an emotional roller-coaster ride. Readers, get out your handkerchief and prepare to care. —Keddy Ann Outlaw, Houston.
Library Journal


Meyers' empathetic, socially conscious debut considers the burdens carried and eventually shed by two sisters, survivors of domestic violence. Ten-year-old Lulu and eight-year-old Merry are caught up in adult turmoil when their father murders their mother in July 1971. Over the subsequent three decades, Lulu feels ineradicable guilt for letting him into the apartment that day and takes on the responsibility of protecting her sister. Merry, who bears literal scars (their father knifed her too), nevertheless considers it her job to keep him cheery throughout his life sentence. The children suffer relentlessly, both before the murder under the care of their neglectful mother and afterward in a miserable orphanage. A calm phase follows when the kindly Dr. and Mrs. Cohen take them home as foster children, yet both girls grow up deeply marked. Lulu is a short-tempered control freak who lies about her parents; Merry self-destructively depends on booze and unavailable men. Lulu marries successfully and has two children, but the women's lives are finally blown apart when one of the children is briefly held hostage at the courthouse where Merry works as a probation officer. Now the truth comes out, and both Lulu and Merry are liberated, to a degree. Eminently readable, despite some clunky phrasing and an excess of psychology, with affecting moments and insights.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. The book begins with the statement, "I wasn't surprised when Mama asked me to save her life." As readers, we soon learn that Lulu, the narrator of this section, is not able to get help in time to save her mother. How does this impossible failure determine the course of Lulu's life? Why do you think the author chose to begin the narrative with this statement, and how does it shape the reader’s response to the violent scene that follows? What does this statement reveal about Lulu's experience as a daughter up to the point of her mother’s murder? How does the burden of this expectation determine her choices in life?

2. The novel begins with the murder of the main characters’ mother by their father, from Lulu's perspective. The narration of the novel then moves back and forth between Merry and Lulu. How do you think this narrative structure allowed you to understand the characters motivations in their different ways of coping with the formative trauma of their childhood?

3. What was your response to Merry’s need to stay attached to her father, and even emotionally care for him, despite his violence to both herself and her mother? How does Merry’s attachment to her father compare to Lulu’s need to deny his existence?

4. Were you surprised when the Cohen family took in Merry and Lulu? Merry and Lulu have trouble adapting to their foster family, just as their foster family has trouble fully embracing Merry and Lulu. The scene of Thanksgiving was particularly difficult for everyone. What was it like for you, as the reader, to experience this family scene? Did you find yourself judging or sympathizing with anyone in particular? How did it connect to the vision of family presented throughout the novel?

5. Both Merry and Lulu choose careers that are related to their early experiences of trauma. The scenes of their respective training, Merry as a victim advocate and Lulu as a doctor, help the reader understand the visceral connection between their early trauma and their professional choices. Do you think that their work lives allow them to create meaning from their suffering, or does it hinder their ability to develop beyond their early experience?

6. Lulu considers Merry’s inability to be in a long-term romantic relationship the result of Merry’s loyalty to their father. Do you think this is accurate? Are you surprised that Merry accepts her father’s help when she returns to school? Despite Lulu’s judgment of their father, Merry feels a duty towards him. Might there be any positive aspects to her filial loyalty?

7. Lulu describes herself as a reluctant mother, and throughout the book she has trouble showing the devotion to motherhood that Drew expects of her. What do you think holds Lulu back from fully surrendering to her role as a mother? How does your understanding of Lulu as a mother change after her daughters are held hostage in the courthouse?

8. Both Merry’s clients and Lulu’s patients depend on them to make life-changing choices about their lives. Their own childhood was bleak; where do you think they found the ability to offer such compassion to others? Do you think they would have made the same types of choices, if Ann Cohen had not been their foster mother?

9. The title of the novel, The Murderer’s Daughters, defines Merry and Lulu by their father’s violence. The novel ends soon after Joey is released from jail, and has served his debt to society. Do you think that Merry and Lulu will ever be able to transcend their role as “a murderer’s daughter,” What would happen to them if they did?

10. What do you think their mother would have wanted for her daughters? Would she have been able to understand their choices about alternately denying and embracing family?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Queen by Right
Anne Easter Smith, 2011
Simon & Schuster
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781416550471


Summary
In Cecily Neville, duchess of York and ancestor of every English monarch to the present day, she has found her most engrossing character yet. History remembers Cecily of York standing on the steps of the Market Cross at Ludlow, facing an attacking army while holding the hands of her two young sons.

Queen by Right reveals how she came to step into her destiny, beginning with her marriage to Richard, duke of York, whom she meets when she is nine and he is thirteen. Raised together in her father’s household, they become a true love match and together face personal tragedies, pivotal events of history, and deadly political intrigue. All of England knows that Richard has a clear claim to the throne, and when King Henry VI becomes unfit to rule, Cecily must put aside her hopes and fears and help her husband decide what is right for their family and their country.

Queen by Right marks Anne Easter Smith’s greatest achievement, a book that every fan of sweeping, exquisitely detailed historical fiction will devour. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1950
• Raised—England, Germany, Egypt
• Currently—lives near Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Anne Easter Smith is an English-American historical novelist. She is the aunt of England rugby No. 8, Nick Easter.

Smith's novels are set during the Wars of the Roses, the period during which two branches of the House of Plantagenet, the Houses of York and Lancaster, were in contention for the throne of England. As a Ricardian, Anne Easter Smith's novels show a more sympathetic treatment of Richard III than Shakespeare's famous play — but Shakespeare was writing under the reign of the Tudors, who had taken the throne when forces under the command of the future Henry VII of England defeated Richard III's Yorkists at the Battle of Bosworth.

Easter Smith's first novel, A Rose for the Crown, has as its central theme the love story between Richard, while he was Duke of Gloucester during the reign of his brother Edward IV, and the woman who gave birth to Richard's pre-marriage illegitimate children. History tells us of these children, but never identifies who their mother was (or mothers were...). Easter Smith's well-researched novel puts the real characters in the right places at the right dates, eating the period foods, and suffering from period maladies, while inventing other characters to round out the story.

In her second novel, Easter Smith focuses on Margaret of York, Richard and Edward's sister, who, like all royals of the time, anticipates a marriage negotiated for political advantage. Margaret is wedded to Charles the Bold, ruler of the Duchy of Burgundy, the wealthiest in Europe. Daughter of York tells the story of Margaret's early life in England, her lavish wedding to Charles, and both her personal and public life in Burgundy's leading cities, which at the time included Bruges, Binche, and Mechelen, among others.

Easter Smith's third novel, The King's Grace, explores the identity of Perkin Warbeck, through the eyes of Grace Plantagenet, an illegitimate daughter of King Edward IV. Her fourth novel, Queen by Right, concerns the life of Cecily Neville, mother of Edward IV and Richard III.  (From Wikipedia.)

In her words
In my novels, I strive to serve those readers who are looking for accuracy in historical fact and yet also engage those who are looking for a good story with strong characters, a little romance and lots of period detail. A Rose for the Crown, Daughter of York, The King's Grace, and Queen by Right are for those readers who enjoy settling into a book and living with the characters for a good long time.

I spent my childhood in England, Germany and Egypt as the daughter of a British Army colonel.  At my boarding school in Surrey a teacher we called "Conky"—after William the Conqueror—inspired my passion for history.  When in my early 20s, I read Josephine Tey's A Daughter of Time, I became particularly fascinated by Shakespeare's so-called villain, Richard III.

At age 24, after living and working as a secretary in London and Paris, I came on a lark to New York with my flatmate just for a "two-year stint." Many years, two marriages, two children and five cross-country moves later I'm very definitely a permanent resident of the U.S.—but my love for English history remains.

I began writing professionally a few years after I landed in Plattsburgh, NY near the beautiful Adirondack Mountains with my first husband and daughters, Joanna and Kate. For ten years, I was the Features/Arts Editor for the daily newspaper and wrote articles on every conceivable subject that was not hard news! It proved a wonderful training ground for my foray into authoring.

It was while living in Plattsburgh that I took on another persona as a folksinger, playing in music festivals, clubs, restaurants, and on public radio. When I'm not writing, I can be found either on the local stage or weeding my garden, the latter which I hate almost as much as I do sewing!

My husband, Scott, and I love biking, canoeing, cross-country skiing and sailing, which we can do either near Boston, where we live now, or back in the Adirondacks.  I should also add that I'm a member of the Richard III Society and the Historical Novel Society.  And my daughter Kate has even got me posting to Anne Easter Smith Facebook page. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews 
Intelligent, compelling and engaging, her novel is lively, believable historical fiction with a heroine readers will take to their hearts.
Romantic Times


Familial betrayal, political scandal, savage wars, decapitations, and licentious affairs.... Fans of medieval historical fiction will undoubtedly appreciate this intimate portrayal of some of the era's key players.
Publishers Weekly


Thanks in no small part to William Shakespeare, history recognizes Richard III, the last king in the Plantagenet dynasty and last ruler of the House of York. But less well remembered is his mother, Cecily of York. An intelligent, dynamic woman unafraid of speaking her mind, she and her husband, also Richard, were a rare love match in a time of marriage as social and political contract. With her signature attention to detail, Smith fully fleshes out the life of this English lady and, through her eyes, skillfully dramatizes the thick of the Wars of the Roses. A master of historical accuracy and complex political intrigues, the author suffers one surprising downfall here; at times flat and at times awkward, the romance between Cecily and Richard works best when the lovers are apart. Verdict: Though this latest is not quite as effortlessly engaging as Smith's previous novels (e.g., The King's Grace), her fans will enjoy it. —Leigh Wright, Bridgewater, NJ
Library Journal

Discussion Questions 
1. How would you characterize the initial relationship that develops between Richard Plantagenet and Cecily Neville when Dickon joins the Neville family as a young ward? Why is their betrothal considered a great match for Cecily? How does their formal betrothal ceremony alter the dynamics of their relationship?

2. On a ride through the woods when she is eight, Cecily surprises a white deer and interprets its appearance as a holy sign. Later, at her father's death, she witnesses a white dove, and it to be a symbol that her father will be accepted into Heaven. How would you describe the trajectory of Cecily's faith over the course of her life? How does her faith guide her decisions? What events eventually bring about her disbelief?

3. How does his father's execution during Richard's childhood create a kind of social "guilt by association" that Richard must strive to overcome? How does Richard's behavior at Court bear evidence of his wish to compensate for his family's scandalous past?

4. Given her own station as the noble daughter of an esteemed English family, and the wife of the powerful and well-connected Duke of York, why does Cecily Neville feel a special kinship with Jeanne d'Arc, a young French peasant? What aspects of Jeanne's life might Cecily especially admire or envy? How does their encounter in Jeanne's cell change Cecily's life forever?

5. In the scenes involving Jeanne d'Arc, Cecily undergoes moments of intense spiritual awareness, in which she witnesses what she believes is the physical presence of the Holy Spirit. Have you ever felt a similar awareness of a divine presence or spirit? How were those experiences transformative for you? If you've never felt anything of the sort, can you imagine why such an experience might change someone's life and way of thinking? Why or why not?

6. How does the author's strategic use of flashbacks in the novel's narrative enable you as a reader to see Cecily's life through her own memories? Of the many parts of her life that Cecily reveals through her memories, which ones were most powerful or memorable for you, and why? Consider Cecily's childhood, her relationship with her husband, and the births and deaths of her many children.

7. Cecily is surrounded by women who help her navigate her life—her mother, Joan, who informs her morality; her sister-in-law, Alice Montagu, who explains carnal matters with forthrightness; her attendants, Rowena and Gresilde, who take care of all of her daily needs; and her personal physician, Constance LeMaitre, who helps deliver her children and serves as her confidante. What do these relationships reveal about the sphere inhabited by women in this era? Of the many connections Cecily has with women, which seem to influence her most profoundly?

8. How would you describe Cecily's feelings about motherhood? How do the many children she loses in infancy affect her feelings toward her surviving children? How would you characterize her role in her children's development, and how does it compare to her husband's influence?

9. How does Henry VI's mental instability contribute to volatility in the English kingdom and Europe at large? How is the fragility of his mental state foreshadowed in Queen by Right? Why does the pregnant Margaret of Anjou, Henry's French-born queen, see Richard's efforts to serve as Regent during Henry's illness as a threat to her child's future? To what extent are Margaret's fears warranted?

10. How does Cecily actively subvert the following advice from her mother: "I suppose you will learn the hard way that women will never be a man's equal in this world. We may lend an ear, we may even counsel our husbands when asked, but we are a man's property from one end of our lives to the other." To what extent does her role in her husband's decision-making suggest that her power in their marriage is far greater than meets the eye?

11. What does Cecily's behavior in departing from her embattled castle in Ludlow reveal about her true nature? Why does Henry VI show mercy in sparing her and her young children from execution? Given her frustration with her husband for his absences during other difficult moments in their life together, to what extent were you surprised that Cecily did not bear any resentment toward Richard for putting her in such a dreadful position?

12. How does Richard of York's intense military campaign against Henry VI enable Edward's political rise and eventual crowning as King Edward IV? What does Edward's public reception as a hero and sovereign reveal about the English people's attitudes toward Henry VI? How does Edward's ascent to the English throne impact Cecily Neville personally?

13. If you could relive any periods of Cecily's life, which would you choose to revisit and why? How does Cecily Neville compare to other heroines and historic figures you have encountered in literature?
(Questions issued by publisher. See http://readinggroups.simonandschuster.com/)

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