Eve Green by Susan Fletcher December 23, 2006

Eve, who is 29 and about to give birth to her first child, spends this novel reminiscing about her childhood, when she was eight-years-old and sent to live with her grandparents in Wales after the death of her mother.

The young Evie set out to discover more about the lives of her parents, the father she never knew and the mother she lost at such a young age. The small town she moved to was full of secrets, from the identity of her father to the disappearance of 12-year-old Rosie Hughes. But it was also a place of great beauty and kindness, and a place that even 29-year-old Eve is reluctant to leave.

I never really felt involved in this story, though it seemed like it would be a good one. I think the problem for me was that too much was revealed from the start. Knowing right away who Eve ends up with, and knowing that the biggest mystery of the novel is never really going to be solved didn’t keep me turning the pages. The book was a great character study, but I never found myself dying to sit down and read just one more chapter.

Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos December 23, 2006

Cornelia, a coffee shop manager, finds her life changing completely on the day that she meets Martin. A Cary Grant look-alike, Martin almost—but not quite—sweeps Cornelia off her feet. The beginning of this book makes it seem like it’s going to be a more traditional girl-meets-boy love story, but that’s not what it is at all. Cornelia’s love of old movies makes her try to live as if she is in one, but she can’t ignore her own feelings and doubts. Instead, the story takes a different turn as Cornelia meets Clare, an 11-year-old girl who has been abandoned by her mother. The relationship between Cornelia and Clare is the true love story of this novel.

I’m not a fan of old movies, so all the discussion of them throughout this novel didn’t really interest me too much, though it was easy to see how they influenced Cornelia’s life and I can grudgingly see their importance to the story.

I loved how small decisions in this novel led to life-changing events. Cornelia’s decision to let Clare stay with her changes her life in every way, all for the better. Clare’s decision to look for her father brings her a whole new family, so that she no longer has to worry about losing her one-family-member support system.

I found the ending of the book to be a little abrupt, as if everything was heading one way and suddenly veered off in a whole new direction. But it was a likable love story and I enjoyed reading it.

Blind Submission by Debra Ginsberg December 9, 2006

This is one of those books that you just devour, not even realizing that hours have passed since you sat down to read. It tells the story of Angel, who goes to work as an assistant in a literary agent’s office. Lucy, the agent, is an incredibly difficult and downright mean boss who expects her employees to work almost 24 hours a day. She’s horrible to her employees, but Angel, a voracious reader, finds that she has a real talent for working with authors, and is determined to keep her job.

One of the submissions Angel begins to read is called Blind Submission, and it is the story of a literary agency like Lucy’s. As Angel begins to work with the anonymous author and reads more of the story, she finds that it is beginning to parallel her own life. The submission takes on a sinister tone as Angel’s secrets begin to be revealed. Angel is sure that it is someone around her who is writing the manuscript, but she can’t figure out exactly who it could be.

This novel grabs you from the start and never lets go. I really loved it. It was so well-written and interesting from start to finish.

The Scroll of Seduction by Gioconda Belli December 9, 2006

This novel tells two different stories. One is the story of “Juana the Mad,” a Spanish queen who was considered crazy and locked away for most of her life. Though history paints her as a schizophrenic who had her husband’s coffin open long after his death so that she could kiss him, the author of this book maintains that she was a strong, passionate woman who was betrayed by the power-hungry men in her life.

The other story in this novel is that of Lucia, a teenage orphan who lives at a boarding school in Spain. Seventeen-year-old Lucia meets Manuel, who is a 40-year-old professor obsessed with the story of Queen Juana. He senses in her a similar spirit to the queen’s, so he begins to tell her the story of Juana, hoping that she will be able to feel what Juana felt and then explain it to him. He has her dress up as the queen when he tells her story, and as the story progresses, he almost begins to believe that she is the queen.

Certainly Lucia has a passionate spirit, but even as she becomes Manuel’s lover, it’s clear that she hasn’t fallen in love with him. She is in love with her own sensuality, and she expresses it, and herself, in a way that makes her seem much older. In a sense, she feels more passionate towards the queen’s husband than she does towards Manuel, and she becomes as caught up in the story as he does.

I think the author has an interesting take on Queen Juana, and I enjoyed learning about it. She was betrayed so often, by her husband, her father, her mother, and even her son. It’s hard to imagine anyone even wanting to be a ruler in that time, but interesting to read the lengths that some would go to have power.

Riding Lessons by Sara Gruen December 9, 2006

After the breakup of her marriage, a woman who was once a star equestrian returns home to her parents in New Hampshire. Annemarie brings along with her her angry teenage daughter and all her memories of her past. When she was a teenager, an accident took the life of a her beloved horse and almost cost her her own life. Once back in her own home, she finds a horse who is almost identical to the one she lost, and her fight for him and desire to save him become a passion that consumes her life.

Annemarie is a flawed character, that’s for sure, and it’s hard to find her sympathetic. She is unable to deal with her father’s illness and subsequent decline, she isn’t a very good mother, and she’s unkind to both her husband and the man who is most likely the love of her life. But her passion for horses, and for the horse she tries to save in particular, help to make her a more sympathetic character.

I liked this book, but not as much as Water for Elephants, the author’s third novel. (This novel was her first.) I will most likely read the sequel to this book, but the whole story had a “Lifetime Movie” feel to it that kept me from feeling too involved in much beyond the horses.