VACATION READING
When I’m on a long trip like our most recent one, I usually do some reading, but I don’t attempt any serious long fiction. Mostly, I read lighter fare, some of it fluff, which is diversion for those scattered bits of downtime. Here are several of those titles.
SWEET NOVEL
A Shoe Story by Jane L. Rosen
Esme’s life is thrown off track when her mother dies, and her father needs constant medical care. She gives up her boyfriend, her plans to move to New York, and spends seven years in her small hometown. When her father dies, she finally gets to Manhattan and ends up being a live-in dog walker for a woman with a fabulous collection of designer shoes. How Esme revisits her past love life, makes new friends, and sorts herself out for the future make for a fun and affecting novel with a satisfying ending.
GARDENS AND INTRIGUE
The Restoration Garden by Sara Blaydes
Master gardener Julia is hired to restore an English manor garden outside London to its 1940 glory. Her clients are the owner, Margaret, and her godson Andrew. With little in the way of drawings or recollections, Julia must ferret out what Margaret wants and what is driving her obsession with this garden.
The novel fluctuates between the present day and Margaret and half-sister Irene’s life with their scientist father and gentle mother in 1940. The father is based in part on a real government scientist, while secrets and deception lurk beneath the surface. A fascinating historical novel!
DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY
These Summer Storms by Sarah McLean
The title, These Summer Storms, is a pun on the raging Storm family. Estranged from her ultra-wealthy family for five years, Alice returns to their summer home for her father’s funeral. Demanding and difficult, her father has set up a crazy contest between the five children which will determine what they inherit; all of them must participate. Alice has developed a career as an artist and must decide whether to stay or go. This was not a happy book to read, but I was rooting enough for Alice to finish it.
FINDING OR RE-INVENTING YOURSELF
Her Lisbon Colors by Cynthia Morris
When Her Lisbon Colors popped up on a recent book list, I was intrigued mostly because of the Lisbon setting, a city I was going to for the first time. So, I kept it to read while in Lisbon and very much enjoyed the main character’s explorations of venues I too was discovering.
At 41, Darla is unhappy as a project manager in Boulder. She doesn’t like her job, doesn’t love Boulder, and when a very close friend dies, she forces herself to get out of her rut and travel. She is wary about new situations and new people, but she carries a sketchbook everywhere she goes and derives pleasure and satisfaction from sketching the scenes and colors she observes. A relationship with a rock climber and the development of her art start her on a path to finally becoming her own person.
I liked many aspects of this novel, which is partly based on the author’s own experiences. (Morris is a visual artist and writer.) But I was frustrated by Darla’s lack of concern for obtaining the proper documentation for her longer stay, her unfocused approach to the future, and her occasional whininess. Nonetheless, I cared enough about her delayed maturity to see her through to the end. Recommended for the setting.
WATCHING
The Diplomat, Season 3 (Netflix)
In the latest season of The Diplomat, Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell are back as Kate and Hal Wyler, married dueling diplomats. And they are joined by the inimitable Allison Janney as Vice President Grace Penn. When the series opens, Kate is U.S. ambassador to the U.K., and Hal is the trailing spouse.
An ongoing political crisis with the Brits, Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge, in particular, turns everything topsy turvy and the hijinks continue. As much as this series is about politics, it’s even more about the marriage between Kate and Hal. The cast overall is superb and, one never knows from where the next curve ball will come. Recommended!
