“the strongest couples I know have grown together, supporting their partner’s changes rather than harnessing or fearing them. It’s a bit like growing roses—you don’t get to choose exactly which way the stems unfurl, but if you help them climb you get the pleasure of watching them flourish.”
― Olivia Ford, Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (The Neapolitan Novels #3) Elena Ferrante; translated by Ann Goldstein. The third book which centers around the friendship of Elena and Lila, two young women who live in Italy in the 60’s and into the 70’s. As girls, Elena always looked up to Lila, but it is Elena who is able to continue her education and eventually publishes a successful novel while Lila married a boy from the neighborhood. The marriage is a disaster, and Lila’s life is going through some rough times. But, things are not always easy for Elena and somehow another boy from the neighborhood, Nino, keeps showing up in their lives. Elena is married now, but has never quite gotten over the attraction Nino has always had on her. These books are a great story of female friendship that is never easy but lasts for years. 4 stars

On Folly Beach Karen White. I’ve read a couple of books by Karen White that were just okay for me, so I was surprised at how much I liked this one. A dual time-line with one part of the story taking place in 1944 during WWII and the second in more present day (2009). Emmy Hamilton lives in Ohio and has recently lost her husband. Her mother is from Folly Beach, SC and now runs a bookstore. She has received some books for her bookstore from a store she remembers from her childhood in Folly Beach. She encourages Emmy to buy the bookstore down there, so she can have a new start in her life. Emmy is reluctant, but after finding some love letters in the box of books, she decides to give it a try. She is soon caught up in trying to solve the mystery of the letters, though the people who were related to the writers of the letters are not quite as excited for the truths to come out. 4 stars

The Break-Up Book Club Wendy Wax. Four women who are facing different types of break-ups in their relationships can make for some depressing reading, but the friendships they form (which start by meeting for a book club at a charming bookstore) keep this book from being too heavy on the heart. Jazmine is a sports agent and a single mother. Judith is an empty nester with a clueless and insensitive husband. Erin was engaged to her high school sweetheart who decided he didn’t want to get married after all. And Sara’s husband has been working out of town, leaving her saddled with his mother who knows her son could have done better. How these women work through their problems and support each other makes for heart-felt reading. 4 stars

The Golden Gate Amy Chua. Homicide Detective Al Sullivan is summoned to the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, California. It’s 1944 and presidential candidate Walter Wilkinson has been killed in one of the ritzy hotel’s rooms. Wilkinson has many enemies, but some of the chief suspects are the granddaughters of the Bainbridge family, one of the wealthiest and most influential in San Francisco. What do these three young socialites have to do with a presidential candidate old enough to be their father? And what does the tragic death of their seven year old sister/cousin ten years ago have to do with the case now? Sullivan is determined to untie the threads and find the answer. 4 stars

Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame Olivia Ford. Jenny and her husband, Bernard, have been married for 59 years. Though she loves her husband and her life, Jenny yearns to do something more while she still can. She decides to apply to be a contestant on Britain Bakes, but doesn’t tell Bernard until she has no choice. That’s not the only secret she keeps from Bernard though the other one is 60 years old. Can she find a way to deal with her secret while competing on a national platform? Though I felt a bit uncomfortable with Jenny’s secret keeping, I love finding stories with older protagonists and that this one involves food is icing on the cake. 4 stars

Deacon King Kong James McBride. New York in the 1960’s where two neighborhoods overlap—one black and the other of Italian descent. When a black deacon known as Sportcoat shoots a known drug dealer, everyone is shocked and also scared. Isn’t it hard enough to get along without looking for trouble? I enjoyed getting to know these characters (and they are characters in every sense of the word). Life is not easy for any of them, but somehow they live and work together; standing up for their neighbors and family even when some of them might get on their last nerve. 4 stars

Piglet Lottie Hazell (audio). I listened to this because I heard a couple of people I follow rave about the audio. It was okay, but it might have been better for me if I’d read it in print. I seemed to have missed a couple of important things in my listening, such as: how can an adult woman continue to let people call her Piglet? How can she have any relationship with her parents at all for calling her that in the first place? But, anyway, Piglet (as she is known) is a cookbook editor and she is preparing to marry Kit. Kit’s family is a bit more upper-class than her own, so there’s those tricky waters to traverse. Then Kit drops a bomb on her just two weeks before they’re to be married. He has been unfaithful but wants her to forgive him. Can she? Can she carry on like everything is still peachy? Or will she just eat herself into oblivion? 3 stars

The Kamogawa Food Detectives Hisashi Kashiwai; translated from the Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood. A restaurant in Kyoto is not easy to find but if you make the effort, not only will you be served great food, but the father/daughter team also work as investigators and will find and create that special dish you remember from sometime in your past. Each chapter is about a different person who seeks out the Kamogawas to ask their help in recreating a dish that has a special meaning for them. I enjoyed reading about the different characters as well as the foods described which were mostly unfamiliar to me. 4 stars

Ladies’ Lunch and Other Stories (SS) Lore Segal. Lore Segal seems to have been writing forever. She had a story in a recent New Yorker, and she is now 96 years old. These stories mostly revolve around a group of friends who have been meeting for lunch for over 40 years. They’ve been friends long enough and have lived long enough to not hold anything back on what they think or how they feel. 4 stars