House of Trelawney by Hannah Rothschild

Welcome to a modern day version of Downtown Abbey. The Trelawneys, a British aristocratic family, are struggling to keep the dream alive on one of England’s greatest estates. Times are changing, and the reader will quickly discover that the current 25th Earl, Kitto, isn’t equipped to deal with a crumbling estate in the 21st century; an estate inhabited by the family for 800 years with the older generation locked in a distant bubble of grand parties attended by Royals with large numbers of staff attending to your every need. 

The story begins in 2008 just before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and Kitto has taken some financial risky positions in the hope of making some much needed money. His sister, Blaze, who didn’t inherit the estate, but rather saw herself banished due to a centuries old rule, is living as a fund manager in London and is one of the few to predict the financial crisis. Kitto’s wife, Jane, is working herself to the bone trying to keep everybody (her husband, her less than grateful children and her parents-in-law) happy, running the estate while Kitto is away in London taking on his duties at the House of Lords. 

The financial collapse brings Trelawney to its knees and all the eccentric characters at Trelawney as well as in London begin to come alive, not to mention all the skeletons that start tumbling out of the closets. Into this chaos and sense of impending doom steps a young woman, the daughter of Kitto’s early Cambridge love interest. She is returning from India after her mother’s death and is about to turn everything on its head.

Hannah Rothschild is a talented writer with a knack for storytelling and adept at using her background as a historian to add color and history. The House of Trelawney is the story of growing up with history constantly looking over your shoulder to see if you are doing an adequate job, and how living up to expectations in a world where appearances is everything most certainly is not all that it’s cracked up to be, in spite of all the land (you once had), all the Royals and dignitaries (you once hosted). The book is also the story of how sometimes history and legacy chooses you and not the other way around and how as much as you might want to, you cannot deny your heart. 

The author has filled the book with lots of interesting characters and given them room to unfold. The family dynamics are the strength of the book - only made more interesting by the addition of wonderfully dry British humor.  Hannah Rothschild is already working (slowly, she says) on a follow-up and that is good news!

Pick it up if you liked…..Downtown Abbey (series or movie), Maria Semple or if you enjoy a good story set against a beautiful British backdrop and an aristocracy trying to reinvent (and save) itself.

Happy reading!

RESERVE YOUR COPY OF House of Trelawney by Hannah Rothschild

Long Bright River by Liz Moore

This is a 450 (ish) pages long book that is a mix of a thriller and a family drama. But hang in there – it is worth every page.

Meet Mickey and Kacey, sisters living very different lives. The only thing they have in common is a toxic childhood, growing up with their cold and distant grandmother after the premature death of their young mother and their abandonment by their father  who was thrown out by the grandmother. 

Now in their 20s, Mickey is a police officer patrolling the streets of Kensington, Philadelphia, looking out for Kacey, who has taken up their mother’s drug habit, and is living on the street, picking up men to finance the addiction. 

The book shifts between now and then, and tells the inside story of the sisters’ life. Once close, things change dramatically in high school, and they both carry a very heavy burden. In the “Now-side” of the story a serial killer is targeting young women living on the street, and Mickey is desperate to find Kacey. 

It sounds like a tragic and sad story, and it is full of broken people, but it is also full of hope, of how to deal with your destiny, of what addiction does to a family and to a city, and how broken hearts can help propel you forward in life.

Long Bright River is well-written and Mickey’s feelings of being torn between being a cop, which is her success in life, and also being a caring sister to Kacey is at the heart of the story, and it will keep you turning the pages in suspense.

Happy reading!

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Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano

Only after I had finished this book did I discover that it was inspired by a true story. In 2010 a plane crashed in Libya and the sole survivor was a 9 year old Dutch boy, who lost his parents and older brother. Napolitano couldn’t stop wondering what happened to the boy, so she decided to write ‘Dear Edward’. 

In this fictionalized version of the events, Edward is a 12 year old boy boarding a plane from NY to LA with his parents and older brother, Jordan. The plane crashes in Colorado and Edward, the sole survivor, moves in with his aunt and uncle – who are already struggling with their own pain of childlessness. 

The book is split in two stories. One story takes us on the doomed plane where we get to meet some of the passengers. What are they running from? Who are they running towards? Are they in love? It is all about relationships and how we connect with each other, and especially how we connect with each other while being ‘trapped’ on a plane. 

The second part of the story follows Edward as he lives with his aunt and uncle. Luckily Shay, a 12 year old girl living next door, is open to a friendship with Edward and they are able to heal each other in the time that follows the crash. 

Edward is experiencing the kind of fame you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy, and it adds an extra perspective when he comes across a bag with letters from the relatives of the other passengers. The letters wish for Edward to carry the dreams of those passengers. The reader cannot help but ask at what point does the burden of it all become too heavy for a 12 year old…

‘Dear Edward’ is a very emotional book that shows the ripple effects of our actions. How we connect and how we leave impressions upon each other. Healing is hard, but it also contains love and hope, and the book leaves you wishing Edward all the best in the world. 

Pick it up if you liked…Where the Crawdads Sing.

Happy reading!

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Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Ms. Brodesser-Akner is a well-known writer for NYTimes, GQ, NYMagazine, but this is her first novel. And what a début!

Meet Toby, a 40 something newly divorced doctor; short (emphasized in the book), a good dad and living in New York. His ex-wife Rachel, a highly successful actor-agent is constantly reaching for the perfect life for herself and her family. Toby and Rachel have two ‘tweens’, who find themselves are thrown in at the deep end of the divorce, but both kids love their parents very much. 

Then – with a hint of ‘Gone Girl’ and ‘Where’d you go Bernadette’ – Rachel disappears. She doesn’t return calls, she doesn’t go to work – she simply disappears. Toby has no idea what’s going on. He flips between being mad at her for not showing up, picking up the kids etc AND messing up his new dating life on multiple media platforms and believing that Rachel has died and worrying how her disappearance will effect their kids and their childhood.

It’s not a crime like Gone Girl, but much more in the league of novels by Maria Semple and Nicole Krauss, with a mix of tragic and comic. It is a very readable début about marriage at midlife, and how difficult it can be to live a modern life – even on New York’s Upper East Side with private schools and wealthy social circles. The seemingly perfect life is not always a happy life.

The book has three main narrators. It is mostly Toby’s story but we also hear from Libby, an old friend of Toby’s, who also struggles with modern life and marriage. The novel also reaches back into Toby and Libby’s college years. 

While Rachel’s disappearance is more of a ‘character’ than Rachel herself, she does get her say at the end of the book, showing once again that there are, of course, always, two sides to every story. Rachel’s story actually nailed the book for me. Her reflections on the complexities of her life and their family life, and of how we as human beings have a need to feel a sense of belonging are very on point, and will bring Brodesser-Akner across the Atlantic as a writer. 

Pick it up if you liked…’Where’d you go Bernadette’ by Maria Semple.

Happy reading!

RESERVE YOUR COPY OF Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner