Massachusetts ~ Island Girls

Nantucket — both the town and the island — is absolutely one of the characters of this novel.  As a matter of fact, the "island girls" in the story didn't provide much drama and the story was wrapped up a little too neatly — everyone lived happily ever after.  Well, not exactly, but it almost seemed that way.  Nantucket, on the other hand, was fascinating.  Enough so, that as some point I used Google maps to see if there really was a Lily Street in that town.  Yep, the house where the action takes place is on a real street.

"A storybook house.  A house with many stories" (p. 10).

When I googled it, I discovered the street is so narrow that it's a one-way street.  That doesn't matter so much when most of the time the characters walked wherever they were going.  Occasionally they rode a bike.  And only two cars could fit in their short driveway.  I "walked" up and down Lily Street and could see the limited parking situation.

Several times, characters chose NOT to wear shoes with heels because of the streets.  While exploring Nantucket online, I ran across a Wikipedia article that had this photo (and the satellite image above).  Notice Main Street's cobblestones.  Click on the picture to enlarge it.  In the novel, there's a bookstore in town.  I didn't search to see if it's real.

"They wandered into Bookworks and spent a long time browsing" (p. 247).

They lived on Lily Street and walked to places like Easy Street. I googled it and discovered that's only a half mile walk.  Puts things in perspective, doesn't it.  When I zoomed in to street level on Easy Street, I found myself looking out over a white picket fence at the boats anchored in the harbor.  A couple was standing there in front of me (I was, apparently, standing out in middle of the narrow one-way street).  Nearby was a dark-green bench where I could sit to enjoy the view.  What fun!

"Randall Real Estate was located in a small brick building on Easy Street, facing the harbor" (p. 258).

On my way back to Lily Street (via Google Map, of course), I took another route and discovered the six-columned, white building of the United Methodist Church.  No, it wasn't mentioned in the book, but I'm a retired United Methodist pastor, so I was happy to see the place.  And I highly recommend using Google maps to see where your novels and memoirs take place.  Want to know how it felt?  Like Sam Beckett "leaping" from one time-place to another time-place in the old Quantum Leap television series.  I first felt that when I realized I had "arrived" behind that couple looking out over the harbor.  I also expected them to turn around and ask me, "Where'd you come from?"

Island Girls ~ by Nancy Thayer, 2013, fiction (Massachusetts), 8/10.
To read more about the novel itself, read my Library Loot post.

Cross-posted on my Bonnie's Books blog.

Tennessee

Bonnie recommends Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver, published in 2012, for the state of Tennessee.  "Kingsolver is a very good writer, and I rate this novel 9 of 10."

Set in a rural part of Tennessee that has endured unseasonal rain, the plot explores the effects of a bizarre biological event on a Bible Belt community.  Dellarobia Turnbow comes upon millions of monarch butterflies glowing like a "lake of fire" in a sheep pasture owned by her in-laws.  The event is immediately branded a miracle and could provide a lucrative tourist season for the financially beleaguered Turnbows.  The arrival of a research team led by sexy scientist Ovid Byron reveals the troubling truth behind the butterflies' presence, that they've been driven by pollution from their usual Mexican winter grounds and now face extinction due to northern hemisphere temperatures.  Equally threatening is the fact that her father-in-law, Bear, has sold the land to loggers. Already restless in her marriage to the passive Cub, for whom she gave up college when she became pregnant at 17, unsophisticated, cigarette-addicted Dellarobia takes a mammoth leap when she starts working with the research team.  As her horizons expand, she faces a choice between the status quo and the possibility of personal fulfillment.

State settings of books

The Avid Reader has a mini-challenge called State Settings, during the fourth hour of today's 24-Hour Read-a-Thon, about books relating to states.  It's a good place to find books to fit our blog's challenge.  Here were my answers, all linked to this blog:

1)  Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God, by Joe Coomer ~ New Hampshire
2)  Forever, by Pete Hamill ~ New York
3)  A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley ~ Iowa

I'm back

I'll resume posting in the next few days.

Georgia

Bonnie said, "Here's another one for the state of Georgia. I've written a review of Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore on my blog."

The narrator is Catherine Grace Cline, a teenager who wants more than anything in this world to get out of the little town of Ringgold, Georgia. Her daddy is the preacher at Cedar Grove Baptist Church, which was founded by Catherine Grace's great-granddaddy William Floyd Cline, who had been "one of the most prolific bootleggers the state of Georgia has ever known" (p. 12). "William Floyd found the Lord somewhere in the congregation's third singing of the fourth verse of 'Just As I Am" (p. 13), and within days he was "sermonizing from his own makeshift pulpit next to a grove of cedar trees" (p. 14). When he died, his son took over the pulpit, and now Catherine Grace's daddy was the current Reverend Cline. A humorous look at one girl's desire to reach the big city of Atlanta.
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Maybe this will explain my long absence from this blog. Please re-submit any book suggestions you've made that I failed to get posted.
Thanks,
~~~ Bonnie

California

Judy said, "Here is the link to my first state book: 1st to Die by James Patterson." The book is set in California.

First to Die is the first in the Women's Murder Club series of books by James Patterson. Four women -- four friends -- share a determination to stop a killer who has been stalking newlyweds in San Francisco. Each one holds a piece of the puzzle: Lindsay Boxer is a homicide inspector in the San Francisco Police Department, Claire Washburn is a medical examiner, Jill Bernhardt is an assistant D.A., and Cindy Thomas just started working the crime desk of the San Francisco Chronicle. But the usual procedures aren't bringing them any closer to stopping the killings. So these women form a Women's Murder Club to collaborate outside the box and pursue the case by sidestepping their bosses and giving each other a hand. The four women develop intense bonds as they pursue a killer whose crimes have stunned an entire city. Working together, they track down the most terrifying and unexpected killer they have ever encountered -- before a shocking conclusion in which everything they knew turns out to be devastatingly wrong.

Wisconsin

Jill said, "And another Christina Schwartz book for Wisconsin. I just finished So Long At The Fair, and it was an excellent story set in modern Wisconsin." Here's Jill's review.

In the summer of 1963 a plot for revenge destroys a career, a friendship, and a family. The consequences of the scandalous event continue to reverberate, touching the next generation. Thirty years later, over the course of one day, Jon struggles to decide whether to end his affair or his marriage. His wife, Ginny, moving closer to discovering his adultery, begins working for an older man who is mysteriously connected to their families’ pasts. And Jon’s mistress is being courted by a suitor who may be more menacing than he initially seems. As relationships among the characters ebb and flow on that July day, Christina Schwarz illuminates the ties that bind people together — and the surprising risks they take in the name of love.

New York

Laurie suggests: "NY: The Honey Thief by Elizabeth Graver. See my review here."

The summer that eleven-year-old Eva is caught shoplifting (for the fourth time), her mother, Miriam, decides the only solution is to move out of the city to a quiet town in upstate New York. There, she hopes, they can have the normal life she longs for. But Miriam is bound by a past she is trying to forget, and tensions escalate. It is only when Eva meets a reclusive beekeeper that she-and her mother-can find their way back to each other, and can begin life with renewed promise. A haunting novel of memory and desire, The Honey Thief reveals the healing power of friendship and the ineradicable bonds of mother and child.

California

Laurie suggests: "CA: Self-Portrait with Ghosts by Kelly Dwyer. See my review here."

Self-Portrait with Ghosts is about the pain that leads to suicide, as well as the pain that suicide leaves behind. It is about the many ways we betray the people closest to us, sometimes without even knowing it, and about the healing powers of grief, forgiveness, and love. Kate Flannigan has done pretty well for herself. After a disaster of a first marriage, she's going with a great guy who is crazy about her, she has raised a loving, if slightly rebellious, teenage daughter, and has made a name for herself as a ceramist, an accomplished sculptor of portraits. She has worked hard to meet the demands of single motherhood and, at the same time, to put her sister Colleen's betrayal behind her. Kate's brother, Luke, hasn't done so well. Haunted by the early death of his father, he has struggled with depression for most of his life, and kept it a secret from his family. Only Audrey, Kate's daughter, is able to crack through her uncle's solitude. To her, Luke isn't just a substitute for the father who left years ago -- he is the only person she believes will always tell her the truth. When Luke commits suicide, the family is forced to reexamine the deceptions that have torn it apart, and to face and forgive the past and present, the real and imagined ghosts. The story is told through three compelling voices -- Kate's, Audrey's, and Luke's.

Connecticut

Bonnie said, "Nobody has suggested a book for Connecticut, so I started looking around for one and found Sacred Cows by Karen E. Olson. I know absolutely nothing about it except what I found online. It was the winner of the first Sara Ann Freed Memorial Award and it features Annie Seymour, a police reporter for a New Haven daily who is covering the murder of a young woman who was a student at Yale. Has anyone read this book?"

"After a late night on the town, New Haven police reporter Annie Seymour is yanked from her bed by an early morning phone call from her editor. Soon she's shivering on a wet, dark city street, staring down at the once beautiful, now broken body of a Yale University coed." "Paid to observe and get just the facts before writing up her stories for the New Haven Herald, Annie finds herself drawn to the story of an Ivy League sophomore whose secret moonlighting led to her violent murder. But after Annie links the girl's death to a network of vice and fraud buried deep in the city's shadows, the cynical reporter is shocked to discover her own mother is involved." "With help from a sexy private investigator, Annie investigates but stumbles upon one obstacle after another. Her cop lover stonewalls her, her editor pulls her off the assignment to cover a surreal parade of fiberglass cows grazing throughout the city, and an overeager cub reporter nips at her heels to get the scoop for himself." Caught in the center of a treacherous scheme, Annie must take the biggest gamble of her career - outwit a dangerous con man to uncover the truth that could win her that elusive Pulitzer ... or a mention in the next day's obituary.