The Peach Keeper.Finished audio 3-25-13. 4 stars, pub. 2011

Unabridged audio 7 hours, 35 minutes. Read by Karen White who did an excellent job.

When I read Allen’s first novel, Garden Spells, I fell in love with this writer who embodies lightness and magical realism in such a beautiful way.  I love the southern charm and those moments of the supernatural in her books.  I always finish satisfied.  Once I got past that expectation I enjoyed the book for what it was, a great story of friendship among women, from one generation to the next.  Some of the whimsy was missing, but only missing because I expected it.

Wall of Water, North Carolina, is home to Willa, Paxton, and Sebastian.  Though none of them were friends in high school, Paxton and Sebastian are inseparable now.  Willa own her own store and lives a happy but quiet life.  When Paxton restores the Blue Ridge Madam, an old home important to Willa’s family, it brings a mystery that leads them both to their grandmothers, looking for answers.

I loved the friendship that forms between Willa and Paxton, much like the one their grandmothers shared many years ago.  By the end of the book I was ready to look up some of my friends from high school to see if we could be BFFs again.  I also loved how the story showed how much where and how we grow up influences who we are as adults, and not just in the obvious ways.  I moved away from home when I went to college and, except for a 5 month pit stop after I graduated, I’ve never moved back.  So, I understood when Paxton’s brother didn’t want to move back to Wall of Water, afraid he’d forever be labelled ‘Stick Man’.  And Paxton, who had never lived anywhere else, lived the opposite life, always struggling with the expectations placed on her.  There was was much to like about this story.

SAA delivers once again.  She can’t write fast enough for her fans 🙂

Eyes Wide Open. Finished 3-21-13, rating 3/5, fiction, 340 pages, pub. 2011

Jay Erlich’s nephew has been found at the bottom of a cliff at Morrow Bay. It’s all just a tragic suicide, until secrets from the past begin to rear up again. Did a notorious killer, jailed for many decades, have his hand in this?

Years ago, Jay Erlich’s older brother, Charlie, a wayward child of the sixties, set out for California, where he fell under the sway of a charismatic but deeply disturbed cultlike figure. Tragedy ensued and lives were destroyed, but as the decades passed, Charlie married and raised a family and lived a quiet, secluded life under the radar. Yet the demons that nearly destroyed him never completely disappeared.

When Jay heads out west to help his grieving brother, he is pulled back into Charlie’s past–and begins to suspect that his nephew’s suicide may not have been that at all. With eyes wide open, Jay puts his own life at risk to uncover the truth, a quest that goes beyond the edge of madness and a family haunted by a secret past . . . and into the depths of evil.

from Goodreads

There was non-stop action and creepy characters, complicated sibling relationships and inequality in the way society deals with mental illness.  One of the main characters was even suffering with organ transplant issues.  I loved the exploration of Jay and Charlie’s relationship.  I thought it was spot on.  I was heartbroken, along with Charlie and his wife about the way that the cops and hospitals dealt with their troubled son.  This was a big storyline in the beginning and I wish Gross had followed up with it.

The story itself deals with a crime decades old and it was a little hard for me to get into even though it provided a Charles Manson like villain.  I thought the book was average.  It had high points and low points, but it was good enough for me to give this author another try someday.

I bought this book for my Nook.

Eden Close. Finished 2-27-13, rating 4/5, 265 pages, pub. 1989

I consider myself a fan of Anita Shreve even though I’d only read three of her sixteen novels.  So, when I saw that Diane had this on her favorites from 2002 list (reposted with 2012 favorites) and that I had it on my shelves I added it to my small 2013 reading pile.  This is Shreve’s first novel.

Andrew, after many years, returns to his hometown to attend his mother’s funeral. Planning to remain only a few days, he is drawn into the tragic legacy of his childhood friend and beautiful girl next door, Eden Close.  An adopted child, Eden had learned to avoid the mother who did not want her and to please the father who did.  Then one hot night, Andrew was awakened by gunshots and piercing screams from the next farm: Mr. Close had been killed and Eden blinded.

Now, seventeen years later, Andrew begins to uncover the grisly story – to unravel the layers of thwarted love between the husband, wife, and tormented girl.

from Goodreeads

This book had all of the things I love about reading Shreve.  The characters are complex and yet recognizable, the language haunting and beautiful, and the story told with a lingering sadness.  Andy is not only dealing with the death of his mother, but of returning home for the first time in almost 20 years.  As he packs up the house, memories of Eden and that fact that she is only across the driveway but may as well be a million miles away, keep him close and resisting a return to his real life with a job and a son. But ultimately Eden has always drawn him to her and when he can no longer resist he sees her for the first time since the shooting, the shot that took her sight.  He is also navigating old friendships that are so far away from the man he is now.

I savored every word because her writing is so beautiful.  There is something so familiar about her characters, insights that make you say, ‘yes! exactly!’ , sometimes out loud.  In this way her writing resembles Elizabeth Berg.  As much as I liked this one I did think that the story dragged in a few places, especially for as short a novel as it is. But the feeling of those two lonely houses alone together in a sea of farmland and the two old friends and would be lovers will be with me a while.

Let me leave you with a few passages about childhood.

And then, because he was seventeen, he had another realization-one that had possibly been lurking below the surface all along but now became, like many of the insights he was having that summer, a conscious thought: Even though you could love someone as much as he had loved his mother and she him, her only child, you could leave her if you had to.  You could even look forward to leaving her.

section 1

But TJ and Andy accepted this embarrassment  and his parents’ volatility as a give, much in the same way they unconsciously acknowledged that Andy’s mother was too fat and TJ’s mother was a social climber-these facts intruding upon their childhood, sometimes even causing them a moment’s pain or awkwardness, but ultimately easily dismissed as not being pivotal to their lives.  The weather was pivotal.  And the condition of the ice or the fishing.  Or a stolen baseball glove or the offer of a driving lesson or a chance at the playoffs.  Their parents, however seemed more like obstacles to be negotiated than central figures in the daily drama.

section 2

The Enemy. Finished 1-21-13, rating 4/5, 464 pgs, pub. 2004

Book 8 in the Jack Reacher series (Book 1) (Book 2) (Book 3) (Book 4) (Book 5) (Book 6) (Book 7)

She had lived through desperate times and she had stepped up and done what was necessary.  At that moment I started to miss her more than I would have thought possible.  At that moment I knew I would miss her forever.  I felt empty.  I had lost something I never knew I had.

Chapter 19

Jack Reacher, loner extraordinaire, wasn’t always such a hard man.  There was a time when he had a job, a family and friends.  He was a star in the military police force and he was content with life.  This story of his time at Fort Bird was quite a departure for Reacher and I liked it but Reacher didn’t feel completely known to me either.  This is a military police procedural with some mom and brother time thrown in for fans.  His mother’s storyline was powerful.  I liked the change of pace, but am looking forward to the roaming Reacher with nothing but a toothbrush to take on the world.

Why should you be reading the Jack Reacher series?  Because he’s alpha male dreamy.  He isn’t held back by rules but is ruled by what is good and just and he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty in the pursuit of justice.  He’s a tall, commanding man who, if you count the number of women he’s charmed out of their clothes, knows his way around a woman’s body.  Wonder if I can get Reacher to take a bus to Cleveland?

I found this paperback on my shelf and was ready to read it after seeing the Jack Reacher movie.