I’ve read several books by Alice Feeney and she keeps delivering. Another classic psychological thriller, Adam and Amelia Wright spend a weekend away in a last ditch effort to repair their marriage. Adam, a screen writer, has had a tumultuous career, finding success primarily with adapting a grumpy author’s books into movies. Amelia just wants to be what makes him happy. Adam also suffers from face blindness, which means he can’t recognize family or friends, even his own wife. Every year for their anniversary, Adam’s wife writes him a letter to celebrate, as they exchange the traditional gifts, cotton, leather, copper. There are secrets abound, and someone may not survive the weekend away. How many secrets is too many secrets?

This book was my favorite type of historical fiction – parallel stories. We follow 3 generations in this story. First is Andie, a historical preservationist turned TV host for Makeover Mansion with the reputable Sprague Hall as the focus of this season. Ellen, the music teacher in 1899, who taught the heiress Maybelle Sprague how to sing to woo the Italian Prince for marriage and finally Lucky in 1959, a descendant of the Sprague line, who is married to alcoholic Stu Sprague and does her best in her vapid society life. The story alternates between these perspectives, slowly illuminating facts as we learn how each of these women are tied together. While not a particularly deep read, I enjoyed the tangled web of these women’s lives and how their decisions, which seemed valid in each of their time periods, made an impact on later generations.

This book was so interesting! Really different from the fantasy I normally read, which is typically set in different worlds with lots of different creatures and powers. This story, set in Vermont primarily, revolves around two half-sisters, one, Joanna, who is super into the magic books her family has spent her childhood collecting and the other, Esther, who isn’t interested at all. The only rule Esther agrees to follow is that for one day every year she must move and keep moving for 24 hours straight. Except this year, Esther doesn’t follow this rule. What’s the worst that can happen? When magic books get involved, the answer is apparently a lot.

This is a super quick read, I read it during my lunch break one day. Written in the late 1800’s, this is intended to be a feminist take on how women and their mental health issues were treated by the patriarchy during this time. As the main character slowly deteriorates due to not being taken seriously, this book I’m sure will resonate with women today who struggle to receive the proper medical care due to still not being taken seriously, over 100 years later. This is also an interesting book to read in conjunction with The Senator’s Wife, as a woman’s bodily autonomy and sense of self while maintaining mental soundness are a major theme there.

I used this on audiobook, which had the fun addition of some orchestral music. This book was phenomenal. It follows Ray, a young black musician, throughout his life as he discovers his love of the violin, encounters serious racism and comes to grips with his family history and his current family dynamics. Once he discovers his family violin is not just any old violin, his life changes forever.