Conjure Women
Afia Atakora, 2020
Random House
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780593230336
Summary
A mother and daughter with a shared talent for healing—and for the conjuring of curses—are at the heart of this dazzling first novel.
Conjure Women is a sweeping story that brings the world of the South before and after the Civil War vividly to life.
Spanning eras and generations, it tells of the lives of three unforgettable women: Miss May Belle, a wise healing woman; her precocious and observant daughter Rue, who is reluctant to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a midwife; and their master’s daughter Varina.
The secrets and bonds among these women and their community come to a head at the beginning of a war and at the birth of an accursed child, who sets the townspeople alight with fear and a spreading superstition that threatens their newly won, tenuous freedom.
Magnificently written, brilliantly researched, richly imagined, Conjure Women moves back and forth in time to tell the haunting story of Rue, Varina, and May Belle, their passions and friendships, and the lengths they will go to save themselves and those they love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Afia Atakora was born in the United Kingdom and raised in New Jersey, where she now lives. She graduated from New York University and has an MFA from Columbia University, where she was the recipient of the De Alba Fellowship. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review) [H]aunting, promising debut explores the legacy of a Southern plantation in the years leading up to and following the Civil War.… Through complex characters and bewitching prose, Atakora offers a stirring portrait of the power conferred between the enslaved women.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Deftly interwoven and emotionally involving…. Atakora effectively handles the before-during-and-after structure, enriching her story. If its center is the vibrant Rue, the entire community finally feels like the main character. Highly recommended.
Library Journal
(Starred review) Atakora paces her novel beautifully, slowly unwinding the plot in unexpected ways as she examines a relatively unexplored aspect of American history.
Booklist
(Starred review) [E]ngrossing…. Using frequent flashbacks to "slaverytime" and "wartime" and occasional jumps to the future, Atakora structures a plot with plenty of satisfying twists. Life in the immediate aftermath of slavery is powerfully rendered in this impressive first novel.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our talking points to help start a discussion for CONJURE WOMEN … then take off on your own.
1. Afia Atakora has said in an interview with her publisher (Random House) that one of the central takeaways from her novel is that "our past isn't as far back or as well buried as we want to believe." What are the ways that the past haunts the present (and the future) in Conjure Women?
2. (Follow-up to Question 2) Consider how racial issues have continually resurfaced in this country: the shooting unarmed black men, the Black Lives Matter movement, football players kneeling before the flag, or the divisiveness over Confederate statues and flags. To what extent are our own present issues tied to the very theme of a past that never dies in Conjure Women?
3. Atakora refers to Rue as "one lone person in a vast history who does not think of herself as part of history at all, who has no knowledge of the ramifications of the world changing around her." In other words, Rue lives her life, day by day. Do you, in our own life, have a sense of history all around you, of being present in a moment of time in which actions will echo down into the future?
4. Have you read other works in the genre referred to as "slave novels," which creates, as Atakora puts it, "art from a legacy of horror." Atakora wanted her story to move beyond the "legacy of whippings" to consider what the years were like after the war and before the dawn of Jim Crow. Do you think she succeeded? How does her novel differ—or does it?—from others set during the Civil War era, and after?
5. Rue is one of the figures at the center of this story. How does she learn to navigate the post-slavery world? In what way has her mother prepared her for the way the world has changed?
6. Talk about Bean? What does he represent to the community? Why does he so unnerve the townspeople?
7. Describe the relationship, post war, between Rue and Varina? How has their power relation changed? Or has it?
8. Religion figures prominently in Conjure Woman, for both slaves and their masters. How is it that they both adhere to the same religious beliefs? In other woerds, how does Christianity serve the purposes of blacks and whites?
9. What are the "haints," and how do they rule the lives of the townspeople?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State
Nadia Murad, 2017
Crown/Archetype
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781524760434
Summary
In this intimate memoir of survival, a former captive of the Islamic State tells her harrowing and ultimately inspiring story.
Nadia Murad was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in northern Iraq. A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers and sisters lived a quiet life. Nadia had dreams of becoming a history teacher or opening her own beauty salon.
On August 15th, 2014, when Nadia was just twenty-one years old, this life ended.
Islamic State militants massacred the people of her village, executing men who refused to convert to Islam and women too old to become sex slaves. Six of Nadia’s brothers were killed, and her mother soon after, their bodies swept into mass graves.
Nadia was taken to Mosul and forced, along with thousands of other Yazidi girls, into the ISIS slave trade.
Nadia would be held captive by several militants and repeatedly raped and beaten.
Finally, she managed a narrow escape through the streets of Mosul, finding shelter in the home of a Sunni Muslim family whose eldest son risked his life to smuggle her to safety.
Today, Nadia's story—as a witness to the Islamic State's brutality, a survivor of rape, a refugee, a Yazidi—has forced the world to pay attention to the ongoing genocide in Iraq. It is a call to action, a testament to the human will to survive, and a love letter to a lost country, a fragile community, and a family torn apart by war. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—
• Where—
• Education—
• Awards—
• Currently—
Nadia Murad Basee Taha is a Yazidi human rights activist from Iraq, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and the first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking of the United Nations (UNODC). She was kidnapped and held by the Islamic State in August 2014. On 1 June 2017, she returned to her home village of Kocho after three years.
Background
Murad was born in the village of Kocho in Sinjar, Iraq. Her family, of the Yazidi ethno-religious minority, were farmers. At the age of 19, Murad was a student living in the village of Kocho in Sinjar, northern Iraq when Islamic State fighters rounded up the Yazidi community in the village killing 600 people, including six of Nadia's brothers and stepbrothers. The younger women, including Murad, were taken into slavery — more than 6,700.
She was held as a slave in the city of Mosul, beaten, burned with cigarettes, and raped when trying to escape. Nadia was able to escape after her captor left the house unlocked. She was taken in by a neighbouring family who were able to smuggle her out of the Islamic State controlled area, allowing her to make her way to a refugee camp in Duhok, northern Iraq.
In February 2015, she gave her first testimony to reporters of the Belgian daily La Libre Belgique while she was staying in the Rwanga camp, living in a container. In 2015, she was one of 1.000 women and children to benefit from a refugee programme of the Government of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, which became her new home.
Career
In December, 2015, Murad briefed the United Nations Security Council on the issue of human trafficking and conflict — it the first time the Council was ever briefed on human trafficking. As part of her role as an ambassador, Murad will participate in global and local advocacy initiatives to bring awareness of human trafficking and refugees. Murad reaches out to refugee and survivor communities, listening to testimonies of victims of trafficking and genocide.
As of September 2016, Attorney Amal Clooney spoke before the UN Office on Drugs and Crime to discuss the decision that she had made in June 2016 to represent Murad as a client in legal action against ISIL commanders. Clooney characterized the genocide, rape, and trafficking by ISIL as a "bureaucracy of evil on an industrial scale", describing it as a slave market existing both online, on Facebook and in the Mideast that is still active today.[10] Murad has received serious threats to her safety as a result of her work.
In September 2016, Murad announced Nadia's Initiative at an event hosted by Tina Brown in New York City. The initiative will provide advocacy and assistance to victims of genocide.
In 2017, Murad met Pope Francis and Archbishop Gallagher in the Vatican City. During the meeting she "asked for helping Yazidis who are still in ISIS captivity, acknowledged the Vatican support for minorities, discussed the scope for an autonomous region for minorities in Iraq, highlighted the current situation and challenges facing religious minorities in Iraq and Syria particularly the victims and internally displaced people as well as immigrants."
Her memoir, The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State, was published in 2017.(From Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/18/2018 .)
Book Reviews
The Last Girl is difficult to process. It is a call to action, but as it places Murad’s tragedy in the larger narrative of Iraqi history and American intervention, it leaves the reader with urgent, incendiary questions: What have we done, and what can we do?
Anna Della Subin - New York Times Book Review
Murad gives us a window on the atrocities that destroyed her family and nearly wiped out her vulnerable community. This is a courageous memoir that serves as an important step toward holding to account those who committed horrific crimes.
Washington Post
This devastating memoir unflinchingly recounts Murad’s experiences and questions the complicity of witnesses who acquiesced in the suffering of others.
The New Yorker
Her book is sobering—and an inspiration.
People
This is likely the most inspiring feminist memoir out this year.
Bustle
Nadia Murad's courageous account is horrific and essential reading. . . . Anyone who wants to understand the so-called Islamic State should read The Last Girl.
Economist (Uk)
Surpassingly valuable.… With her new book, The Last Girl, Nadia Murad has assumed the stature of an Elie Wiesel for her people.… As much as it is an account of the Yazidi genocide, the book is also a loving ode to a way of life that has now been all but obliterated.
Jewish Journal
A harrowing and brave book, a testament to human resilience.
Progressive
(Starred review.) Human rights activist Murad recounts her captivity in Iraq as a sabiya, or sex slave, held by ISIS in this brilliant and intense memoir.… This book is a clear-eyed account of ISIS’s cruelty and the devastation caused by the war in Iraq.
Publishers Weekly
In 2014, ISIS swept through Iraq, bringing death and destruction to the Yazidis people, a Kurdish religious minority.… [A] rare glimpse into the rich culture of the Yazidi. Her memoir is powerful and heart-breaking and will inspire the world to action. —Heidi Uphoff, Sandia National Laboratories, NM
Library Journal
[R]aw, terrifying.… With vivid detail and genuine, heartbreaking emotion, the author lays bare not only her unimaginable tragedy, but also the tragedies of an entire people…. A devastating yet ultimately inspiring memoir that doubles as an urgent call to action.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Last Girl … then take off on our own:
1. Discuss the ancient Yazidi religion with its creation myths, visions of afterlife, and its various customs. How did Nadia Murad's faith help sustain her during her ordeal?
2. Talk about the treatment of the Yazidi people throughout history, including the many occurrences of genocide. Why have Yazidis been the object of persecution? In fact, why has religious sectarianism— throughout history—been so virulent and led to such violence?
3. How did the Yazidi's lives improve with the initial 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. How did it worsen after the dismantling of the Baathist institutions?
4. ONce she escapee, Murad was required by the Kurd officials to testify, and despite assurances of privacy, the tape was made public. "I was quickly learning," she observed, "that my story, which I still thought of as a personal tragedy, could be someone else’s political tool." What were the Kurd officials hoping to achieve by airing the tape, and in what way did it endanger Nasser and his family?
5. What tricky issues did/does Murad face in publishing such an incendiary, if not sensational, book?
6. Follow-up to Question 5: Murad's story is almost too much to bear. Yet she was only one among thousands of women who suffered at the hands of ISIS. How important is it for us to read The Last Girl? Do you feel hopeless after reading it—or does it give you hope that her story has come to light?
7. Murad expresses fury and bafflement at the way families carried on with their normal lives under ISIS while all around them Yazidi women were subjected to horrific treatment. Where else have we heard similar reports of apathy in the face of atrocity? Is it human nature? Is it fear? Why are we so prone to ignore the horrors that take place under our noses?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna
Juliet Grames, 2020
HarperCollins
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062862839
Summary
From Calabria to Connecticut: a sweeping family saga about sisterhood, secrets, Italian immigration, the American dream, and one woman's tenacious fight against her own fate.
For Stella Fortuna, death has always been a part of life. Stella’s childhood is full of strange, life-threatening incidents—moments where ordinary situations like cooking eggplant or feeding the pigs inexplicably take lethal turns.
Even Stella’s own mother is convinced that her daughter is cursed or haunted.
In her rugged Italian village, Stella is considered an oddity—beautiful and smart, insolent and cold. Stella uses her peculiar toughness to protect her slower, plainer baby sister Tina from life’s harshest realities.
But she also provokes the ire of her father Antonio: a man who demands subservience from women and whose greatest gift to his family is his absence.
When the Fortunas emigrate to America on the cusp of World War II, Stella and Tina must come of age side-by-side in a hostile new world with strict expectations for each of them. Soon Stella learns that her survival is worthless without the one thing her family will deny her at any cost: her independence.
In present-day Connecticut, one family member tells this heartrending story, determined to understand the persisting rift between the now-elderly Stella and Tina.
A richly told debut, The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna is a tale of family transgressions as ancient and twisted as the olive branch that could heal them. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Juliet Grames was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and grew up in a tight-knit Italian-American family. A book editor, she has spent the last decade at Soho Press, where she is associate publisher and curator of the Soho Crime imprint. This is her first novel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[A] meaty family saga set in Calabria and Connecticut, crossing two centuries and five generations…. In conjuring this absorbing life, Grames has created a satisfying doorstop of a book, rich in detail, tightly written and delightfully easy to get lost in.
New York Times Book Review
The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna achieves what no sweeping history lesson about American immigrants could: It brings to life a woman that time and history would have ignored.
Washington Post
Epic in scale and richly detailed.… Grames holds the reader under a spell from start to finish as she constructs a puzzle of identity formed against convention.… Grames’s clear and compassionate voice lets the figures of her heritage move freely
Oprah Magazine
If you’re going through Elena Ferrante withdrawals, this is the book for you. A rich, sweeping tale of an Italian-American family and their long-buried secrets.
Harper's Bazaar
Grames’ witty and deeply felt family saga begins in a pre-WWII Italian village, where young Stella Fortuna learns the hard truths of life (and death) as she grows up with an abusive father and immigrates with her family to the U.S.
Entertainment Weekly
As Stella strives to prove herself among the many messy and aggressive men in her life, Grames uses her heroine’s story to reflect on motherhood, inherited trauma and survival.
Time
Remarkable…. A rich tale blending fiction with family history, one that celebrates the Calabrese culture in Italy as well as the immigrant experience of diverse cultures in America…. This compelling intergenerational tale is intelligently written.
Forbes
[A] vivid and moving debut…. Grames keeps the spotlight on stubborn, independent, and frequently unhappy Stella, while developing a large cast of believably complicated supporting characters…. This is a sharp and richly satisfying novel.
Publishers Weekly
[R]ichly imagined…. Beautiful, smart, and unyielding, Stella Fortuna grows up in a mountain village in Italy…. The family immigrates to America before World War II, and Stella continues protecting… sister Tina, with their estrangement in old age framing the narrative.
Library Journal
[T]he author’s own grandmother inspire this tale of an Italian American family and the complicated woman at its heart.… Readers who appreciate narratives driven by vivid characterization and family secrets will find much to enjoy here.... [Grames is] an author to watch.
Booklist
[A] stale]magic-realist tone… soon gives way to a harder-edged,… more compelling look at women’s lives in a patriarchal society…. The rush of events muddies the narrative focus…. Messily executed, but the author’s emotional commitment to her material makes it compelling.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Do you think that any of Stella’s near-deaths was her own fault? Which one(s), and why? Do you think Stella ever secretly blamed herself for a bad thing that happened to her? What about her family—do you think they ever believed that she had it coming?
2. The longer she is married, the more Assunta struggles with her oath to God that she will obey her husband. What individual events reshape her attitude, and how? Do you think she makes mistakes about when she should be obedient and when she should push back. Or do you think, in her shoes, you would make the same choices?
3. Do you—or could you—believe in the Evil Eye? Do you think other people’s jealousy can take form and negatively affect us?
4. Is Stella a religious person? How does her religiosity differ from her mother’s?
5. Does Stella Fortuna’s life have a love story? Why do you think there is never a more traditional romance during the course of her long life? Who does Stella love most? Who loves Stella most?
6. If Antonio Fortuna lived today instead of a century ago,would he be considered a sociopath? Or is he more complicated?Why do you think he does the abusive and grotesque things he does? Are they symptoms of a single underlying reason, or are hey random acts of an undisciplined and naturally cruel man?
7. When Stella first experiences her nightmare, she distracts her family from what really happened by blaming an imaginary black man for an assault that happened only in her dream. Why do you think she does this? How might the situation have escalated?
8. (Follow-up to Question 7) The Italian American community has had a reputation for anti-African American racism, which is often represented in media, like Quentin Tarantino’s True Romance or in the episode of The Sopranos entitled "Unidentified Black Males." Do you think Stella’s instinct to blame a black man is a product of the time in which she lived, or do you think she’d do the same today? Do you think that in America, where successive waves of immigrants from different places makeup the majority of the population, racism is more of a problem than it is in more homogenous populations? Do the simultaneous pressures to Americanize and preserve traditions pit groups against each other and create confrontations? Or is the truth the opposite, that the mixing of so many different groups means more open-mindedness and acceptance than the same immigrants would have felt in their home country?
9. Stella knows that her father, although strict, would not want to be identified as one of the "old world" un-Americanized Italians in Hartford, and Stella uses this knowledge to convince him to let the sisters cut their hair short. In your opinion, do the Fortunas Americanize, or do they ghettoize themselves among other Italians? Which of the family members do you imagine felt more of a moral imperative to modernize or preserve traditions? Have you observed similar tensions of identity among immigrant groups you may be a part of?
10. Is Carmelo Maglieri a good man?
11. After her Accident, when Stella turns on Tina, what do you think Tina thinks? Do you think she is baffled and heartbroken, or do you think on some level she feels guilty over things that have happened between the sisters over the last sixty-plus years?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
top of page (summary)
Need to Know
Karen Cleveland, 2018
Random House
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781524797027
Summary
Perfect husband. Perfect father. Perfect liar?
In pursuit of a Russian sleeper cell on American soil, CIA analyst Vivian Miller uncovers a dangerous secret that will threaten her job, her family—and her life. On track for a much-needed promotion, she’s developed a system for identifying Russian agents, seemingly normal people living in plain sight.
After accessing the computer of a potential Russian operative, Vivian stumbles on a secret dossier of deep-cover agents within America’s borders. A few clicks later, everything that matters to her—her job, her husband, even her four children—is threatened.
Vivian has vowed to defend her country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. But now she’s facing impossible choices. Torn between loyalty and betrayal, allegiance and treason, love and suspicion, who can she trust? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Karen Cleveland spent eight years as a CIA analyst, focusing on counterterrorism and working briefly on rotation to the FBI. She has master’s degrees from Trinity College-Dublin (international peace studies) and Harvard University (public policy). Cleveland lives in northern Virginia with her husband and two young sons. This is her first novel. (From the publishers.)
Book Reviews
The Russia page-turner that should be on everyone’s list.
New York Post
Cleveland’s assured if thinly plotted debut is an unusual mix of family drama and spy thriller.… The deep backstory may attract readers not usually drawn to espionage novels, but thriller fans who like tradecraft and action will have to look elsewhere.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) This pulse-hammering first novel plays fiendishly with interagency cooperation between the CIA and the FBI.… Having worked for the FBI and CIA, debut author Cleveland peppers her book with apparently impeccable tradecraft details. —Barbara Conaty, Falls Church, VA
Library Journal
(Starred review.) This is a compelling debut about a timely issue.… Perfect for fans of Shari Lapena’s thrillers and Chris Pavone’s The Expats (2012), and for just about everyone who loves the thrill of finding themselves in a book that can’t be put down.
Booklist
Cleveland was herself a CIA analyst, so she knows her way around secrets…. The problem is that the characters lack human development.… If you don't expect a deeply thoughtful thriller, you'll get carried away by the action enough to enjoy it.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our GENERIC MYSTERY QUESTIONS to start a discussion for Need to Know … then take off on your own:
GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?
4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?
5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.
- Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
- Are they plausible or implausible?
- Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?
6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?
7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?
- Is the conclusion probable or believable?
- Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
- Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
- Perhaps it's too predictable.
- Can you envision a different or better ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Sweeney Sisters
Lian Dolan, 2020
HarperCollilns
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062909046
Summary
A hilarious, heartfelt story about books, love, sisterhood, and the surprises we discover in our DNA that combines the wit of Jonathan Tropper with the heart of Susan Wiggs.
Maggie, Eliza, and Tricia Sweeney grew up as a happy threesome in the idyllic seaside town of Southport, Connecticut.
But their mother’s death from cancer fifteen years ago tarnished their golden-hued memories, and the sisters drifted apart. Their one touchstone is their father, Bill Sweeney, an internationally famous literary lion and college professor universally adored by critics, publishers, and book lovers.
When Bill dies unexpectedly one cool June night, his shell-shocked daughters return to their childhood home. They aren’t quite sure what the future holds without their larger-than-life father, but they do know how to throw an Irish wake to honor a man of his stature.
But as guests pay their respects and reminisce, one stranger, emboldened by whiskey, has crashed the party. It turns out that she too is a Sweeney sister.
When Washington, DC based journalist Serena Tucker had her DNA tested on a whim a few weeks earlier, she learned she had a 50% genetic match with a childhood neighbor—Maggie Sweeney of Southport, Connecticut. It seems Serena’s chilly WASP mother, Birdie, had a history with Bill Sweeney—one that has remained totally secret until now.
Once the shock wears off, questions abound. What does this mean for William’s literary legacy? Where is the unfinished memoir he’s stashed away, and what will it reveal? And how will a fourth Sweeney sister—a blond among redheads—fit into their story?
By turns revealing, insightful, and uproarious, The Sweeney Sisters is equal parts cautionary tale and celebration—a festive and heartfelt look at what truly makes a family. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Lian Dolan is a writer and broadcaster, whose name is pronounced like "Liam" but with an "n." She is the creator and host of "Satellite Sisters," the award-winning and top-rated radio talk show she produces with her four real sisters: Julie, Liz, Sheila, and Monica. She also created the popular podcast about modern motherhood, "The Chaos Chronicles," developed by Nick at Nite for TV.
Dolan is the author of two Los Angeles Times best-selling novels, Helen of Pasadena (2010) and Elizabeth the First Wife (2013), and a regular columnist for Pasadena Magazine. A graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, she now lives in Pasadena, California with her husband and two sons (From the publisher.)
[A] breezy tale…. While Dolan’s prose lacks verve, the juicy sibling rivalry propels the pace, and the presence of Serena helps the sisters form new bonds among themselves and with the outsider. This endearing story of sisterhood delivers on its promise.
Publishers Weekly
[A] lot of love and laughter.… It's been a while since Dolan's last novel, Elizabeth the First Wife, but this humorous, heartfelt family story is worth the wait. Will appeal to fans of Elin Hilderbrand and Elizabeth Berg. —Stacy Alesi, Eugene M. & Christine E. Lynn Lib., Lynn Univ., Boca Raton, FL
Library Journal
The Sweeney sisters gather in Southport, Connecticut, for the funeral of their father, Bill Sweeney, a brilliant writer. An unexpected guest at his wake, however, will shift the foundations of their lives.… A warmhearted portrait of love embracing true hearts.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Book Club Resources. They can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)