The perfect book for readers who want a quick, feel good novel.  Arthur Mason visits his wife’s grave daily at lunch time.  Often when he is there, so is Maddy, a sad-looking teenager.  Arthur tries to speak to her, eventually does, and they soon form a connection.  Arthur also feels a bond with his next door neighbor, Lucille, a retired school teacher who has never married and bakes the most delicious concoctions.  This unlikely trio learn the true meaning of family, friendship and love.

The Story of Arthur Truluv was a bit too sweet and neatly tied together for me, but a lot of people will find it heart-warming and satisfying.

Cassie and Julia have been best friends since nursery school.  Although physically they are very different and their home life is too,  they have this strong bond that Julia, the novel’s narrator, feels will never be broken.  However, when Cassie’s mother’s boyfriend comes to live with them, Cassie stops telling her best friend everything.  And when the girls go into junior high, Cassie starts hanging out with the “fast” crowd.  Julia hopes that Cassie will come around and that they can be best friends again.

The Burning Girl is more than just a story about friendship.  What Julia learns from her relationship with Cassie is that one can never truly know another person and that is just part of what growing up is about.  Messud writes a very good story about adolescent girls, friendships and family.

Against the backdrop of  The Seattle World Fairs in 1909 and 1962,  Ford depicts the life of Ernest Young.  Ernest is sent over from China alone as a young child and after bouncing around from orphanages and boarding schools in Seattle,  he is sold to the highest bidder at The 1909 World’s Fair auction who happens to be the owner of a brothel.  There he works his way up to chauffeur and falls in love with two young girls, Maisie and Fahn.  Fifty-three years later is married with two grown-up daughters.  One is a reporter who wants to write a story about her father’s life,  which means uncovering secrets that Ernest would not like known.

If you were a fan of Ford’s novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, you will find this novel enjoyable.  Ford tells a nice story based on historical events.  His characters are interesting, but not terribly complex.

It is the worst storm the east coast has seen in decades.  Richard, a professor at NYU, Lucia a Chilean who also teaches at NYU and Evelyn an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, must travel through the blinding, slippery snow to rural upstate New York to dispose of a body they found in Evelyn’s employer’s car.  If the premise of  In the Midst of Winter sounds a bit far-fetched, that’s because it is!  How they get together, how two of them fall in love, and what happens before, during and after they get rid of the dead woman, is too unbelievable for me.  It seems as if Allende wanted to tell a story about the plight of South and Central American immigrants and built a rather flimsy plot around it.

Blakeslee spends the greater part of this book describing the wolves who live in and around Yellowstone National Park.  Wolves possess traits that make them admired, feared and misunderstood.  They travel in packs but they are monogamous.  They are loving parents, loyal to their group, but they will not think twice about killing a wolf outside the pack who encroaches on their territory.  Wolves can easily kill animals twice their size but they ignore human beings.  Blakeslee’s narration zeroes in on one “alpha” female, O-Six, who is beautiful, strong and maternal and is a favorite of visitors to Yellowstone.

If you are an animal lover, and especially if you find wolves intriguing, you’ll want to read American Wolf.

I sometimes read children’s books, but I have never put one on my blog . . until now.  Philip Stead was given bare bone notes Mark Twain made after reading his daughters this bedtime story.  Johnny, a lonely boy with a good heart and a cruel grandfather, meets an old woman who gives him some seeds.  After eating them, Johnny is able to communicate with all the animals he comes across.  Strategically placed within the story are conversations between Twain and Stead.  The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine is funny and heart-warming with a subtle moral.  The illustrations by Erin Stead are gorgeous-each page is truly a work of art.

This is not the book for every child, but it is ideal for a sensitive intuitive youngster ten years and older.

Jules Lacour is a seventy-four year old Jewish cellist living in Paris.  His parents died during The Holocaust when he was four years old, his wife, whom he adored, died of cancer, and his young grandson was just diagnosed with leukemia.  Jules feels certain that if he can get his hands on a huge sum of money,  his grandson will be able to go to Switzerland or The United States, work with the finest doctors in the world, and his life will be saved.  How Lacour plans to obtain the money, along with a few subplots that include a May-December romance and the murder of two bigoted Muslims, is the crux of Paris in the Present Tense.

Helprin writes a good story and is very knowledgeable about Paris and music, but some readers will find him too wordy.  If you are in the mood for a quick read, don’t read this novel, but if you’re a Mark Helprin fan, and I am, you will enjoy Paris in the Present Tense.

Although I’m fond of most of Alice Hoffman’s works, I was all set to dislike The Rules of Magic.  Magical Realism is fine, but the title led me to believe the magic would be so far fetched it would get in the way of the plot.  However, despite the somewhat unrealistic occurrences, Hoffman tells a very fine love story.  Franny, Jet(short for Bridget) and Vincent are witches who can see into the future, cast spells and are instructed to avoid falling in love because it will only cause disastrous results.  Of course, they all fall in love with the perfect mate, and terrible events follow.

If you can go with the flow and not be put off by the unbelievable, you will enjoy this novel.  Hoffman’s characters are well drawn and her settings are superb.  If you’re a romantic, suspend belief and read The Rules of Magic.

Short-listed for The National Book Award, Jennifer Egan’s fifth novel is the story of Anna Kerrigan and the people whose lives she touches.  Manhattan Beach follows Anna from the time she is a young girl in New York City during the depression through her time as a Navy diver in World War II.  In that time period Anna’s father disappears, she has a relationship with a disreputable nightclub owner and she must prove herself more than worthy in an occupation where she is the only female.  Anna is both feisty and thoughtful; a strong female character who is brave, smart and independent.

I enjoyed this novel immensely.  The characters are realistic, not stereotypes, and Egan’s rendering of a slice of New York City in the 30’s and 40’s is interesting and insightful.,

An Irish immigrant named Jim commits suicide in Brooklyn in the early 1900’s.  His death strongly affects his widow as well as their unborn daughter.  The nuns at the  neighborhood convent, provide the widow, Annie, with a job in their laundry.  Her daughter, Sally, learns a lot more than religion from these pious women.

Although very Catholic,  I thoroughly enjoyed The Ninth Hour.  This is not a dramatic tale with a plot that twists and turns; rather it is a slice of life with somewhat predictable characters.  A frequent theme is what is right and what is a sin, making McDermott’s novel good for book group discussions.