Barbara Forbes, mother of four, is dying of terminal cancer. Barbara is the glue that holds the family together; they all need her to survive. Barbara realizes that her daughters will be forced to embark upon life’s many journeys without her there to guide them. So she writes each of them a letter, endowing upon them a bit of motherly truth and wisdom. Lisa is oldest daughter. In her mid-thirties, she’s afraid of commitment. Jennifer’s marriage is just steps away from falling apart. Amanda, the world traveler, never seems to stick around long enough to form any type of relationship with her sisters. Hannah, a teenager, seems to be suffering the most. She’s entering the rebellious streak that hits most teens and doesn’t have a mother to reel her back in. The girls allow the letters to guide them through their grieving process. Each girl deals with the grief differently. Their reactions aren’t sugar-coated and that adds to the honesty and believability of this book.

Marlowe Higgins is a bit of a loaner. He moves from town to town, never settling down in one place. Why, you may ask? Because Marlowe Higgins is a werewolf. For years the Wolf existed, uncontrolled and killing at random. Until Marlowe trained the Wolf to only kill those he deemed evil enough to die. A serial killer, The Rose Killer, has begun to kill young women in the small town where Higgins is currently residing. He works closely with Daniel Pearce, a local police detective, to obtain details regarding the crime and focuses his attention on alleviating the small town of this horrible killer. Pekearo did a wonderful job with this amazing thriller/horror novel. The descriptions of the Wolf’s actions were downright gory and added to the intensity of this book. This is definitely a book that would attract readers from several different genres, ranging from paranormal thrillers to true crime. The Wolfman was Pekearo’s first and only published work. Pekearo was a volunteer for the NYPD Auxiliary Police Officer and was killed in the line of duty in 2007.

Stone Creek is a small, quiet town in upstate New York. It is home to Danny, a young widower. He lost his wife a year ago and can’t seem to come to grips with his loss. To make things worse, his obtrusive mother-in-law blames him for her daughter’s death. The only thing that keeps him afloat is his five year old son, Caleb. Lily Spencer is a childless, married woman who comes to Stone Creek to get away from her work-obsessed husband and the constant reminder of her inability to have children. They meet; Lily’s heart instantly melts for young Caleb. The three form an instant and powerful bond and the healing begins for all. Lily has a bit of self-discovery and learns that for too long she has allowed her husband decide the fate and future of their marriage. Danny learns to open his heart up to his mother-in-law, and begins to see the hope and beauty in his life and his son. Lustbader does a wonderful job of portraying the strong, cold emotion of loss and abandonment. Stone Creek is powerful display of love, loss, passion, and forgiveness.

After reading Lovely Bones and Lucky, I was excited to read Almost Moon. My excitement didn’t last very long. Almost Moon is the tale of Helen Knightly, a divorced mother of two grown daughters. Her father having decades earlier, it is up to Helen to take care of her emotionally abusive agoraphobic mother. Throughout the book the reader flashes back to episodes portraying the strained relationship she had with her mother. The first several chapters of the book were engaging. Helen can no longer take the strain and frustration of dealing with her mother, so she smothers her with a kitchen towel. The reader is then lead through Helen’s ritual of stripping and bathing her mother, then pulling her down the basement steps and putting her in the oversized freezer. A little out there, yes, but completely plausible. The remainder of the book goes downhill quickly and I completely lost interest. Almost Moon might be a good book for those readers that haven’t read any of Sebold’s other work, and therefore have nothing to compare it to. But a diehard Sebold fan will definitely be disappointed with this one, as I was.

Emily Haxby is a successful young Manhattan attorney. It appears as though she has it all—a successful job, a handsome, wonderful boyfriend, Andrew. But before Andrew has the chance to propose to her, she ends the relationship. Her life begins to fall apart—she’s assigned to work on a law suit she doesn’t believe in, working side by side with an attorney that is known to be overly friendly and her active, loving, Grandpa Jack is suffering from the beginnings of Alzheimer’s. Emily begins on a journey, aided by her close friends, to find herself and soon discovers what is important in life. We begin to learn the motivation for Emily’s choices. This debut novel was comical, but also incredibly raw and emotional. The author’s writing style is right on—she uses the perfect language to describe an emotion, or a setting, which makes the reader feel that they are part of the book.

I assumed this book was about ghosts and haunting. Instead, it’s more about dealing with one’s inner ghosts. The Boylans move in to a dark and mysterious old mansion, named the Coffin House after the previous owners. Strange happenings are a common occurrence for them. Jennifer Boylan, born Jimmy, repeatedly sees the spirit of an older woman with starry eyes. Jennifer felt like she was herself a ghost living in a body that was not hers. She finally confesses her feelings to the world years after she’s moved out of the Coffin House. She has a wife and children of her own. She’s long toiled over the gray area between men and woman. Years after her sex change, she returns to her childhood home with a group of “ghostbusters” in the hopes of revealing more about the ghosts she encountered growing up. Is it possible that the ghost she saw as a teen was simply an embodiment of herself in the future? Boylan’s writing and witty comments keeps the reader involved in the reliving of her childhood. Her honesty is genuine and downright painful at times. Admittedly, I didn’t exactly get was I was expecting from this book. In actuality, I think I got more.

Anne Marie Roche is a recent widow. Despite having several close friends and owning a successful bookstore, she feels alone. Anne Marie’s close friends also feel the loneliness of widowhood. Lillie Higgins lost her husband in a plane crash, the same crash that took the life of the husband of her daughter, Barbie Higgins. Elise Beaumont lost her husband to cancer. Anne Marie and her friends get together and celebrate their lives. They discuss their hopes and dreams. Each decides to create a list of twenty wishes, dreams that they’ve had all their lives but have never fulfilled. In subsequent months, all of the women start acting on their wishes. Anne Marie’s first wish: Find one good thing about life. To her, it seemed to be an admission of how depressed and low she really felt. She finds that Ellen is the key to her happiness, and together Anne Marie and Ellen quickly fulfill their twenty wishes. This was my first “Blossom Street” book and I absolutely loved it. Macomber’s characters come alive and I feel like they are a part of my life. Finishing the book, I felt a sense of loss, but I have plans to pick up the rest of the “Blossom Street” books and continue on with these truly amazing women!

Admittedly, the premise of this book is a little odd. Girl falls in love with her childhood imaginary friend. But, despite this, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a pretty fabulous book.
Jane is a lonely child that grows up to be a lonely woman. Her mother, head of a Broadway theatre company is oppressive and overbearing. Jane’s attempts to spread her wings and fly are repeatedly squashed. Then one day, she sees him, Michael, her childhood imaginary friend. The only person she could ever confide in. The only person that truly understood her. He shows her that she has the strength and ability to walk out from beneath her mother’s overbearing arms and become the woman she is meant to be. Aside from the odd premise, this is a wonderfully endearing love story, based on something Patterson’s son said to him—“’Love means you never have to be apart.” I haven’t had the chance to read any of Patterson’s other “romance” novels but I certainly look forward to starting them after reading this one.