Friendship Bread: A Novel by Darien Gee

Friendship Bread:  A Novel
Darien Gee
Publication Date:  April 2011
Publisher:  Ballantine Books

Donated By:  Lori (Lori's Reading Corner)

An anonymous gift sends a woman on a journey she never could have anticipated.

One afternoon, Julia Evarts and her five-year-old daughter, Gracie, arrive home to find an unexpected gift on the front porch: a homemade loaf of Amish Friendship Bread and a simple note: I hope you enjoy it. Also included are a bag of starter, instructions on how to make the bread herself, and a request to share it with others.

Still reeling from a personal tragedy that left her estranged from the sister who was once her best friend, Julia remains at a loss as to how to move on with her life. She’d just as soon toss the anonymous gift, but to make Gracie happy, she agrees to bake the bread.

When Julia meets two newcomers to the small town of Avalon, Illinois, she sparks a connection by offering them her extra bread starter. Widow Madeline Davis is laboring to keep her tea salon afloat while Hannah Wang de Brisay, a famed concert cellist, is at a crossroads, her career and marriage having come to an abrupt end. In the warm kitchen of Madeline’s tea salon, the three women forge a friendship that will change their lives forever.

In no time, everyone in Avalon is baking Amish Friendship Bread. But even as the town unites for a benevolent cause and Julia becomes ever closer to her new friends, she realizes the profound necessity of confronting the painful past she shares with her sister.

About life and loss, friendship and community, food and family, Friendship Bread tells the uplifting story of what endures when even the unthinkable happens.


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Participants:
Kathy - Mommy's Reading
Andrea - A Chick Who Reads
Heather - Proud Book Nerd
Kristin Durham - Kritters Ramblings
Hope - Hope ... Amidst the Chaos

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The Wives of Henry Oades

The Wives of Henry Oades

Author:  Johanna Moran

Publication Date:  February 2010

Publisher:  Ballantine Books

Donated By:  Kathy from Mommy's Reading

THE WIVES OF HENRY OADES is inspired by a controversial court case. In the late 19th century, Henry and Margaret Oades emigrate from England to New Zealand. There, Margaret and her children are abducted by Maori and eventually given up for dead. Grief stricken, Henry sails to California, where, many years later, he marries a young widow, Nancy Foreland. When Margaret and her surviving children show up on their doorstep, Henry and Nancy take them in, and all attempt to adapt. Berkeley townspeople rise up against the apparent debauched arrangement. Henry is charged with bigamy, a crime punishable by hanging. As their legal troubles mount, Margaret and Nancy find themselves allying in ways neither could have predicted. The story at heart is theirs. Readers will probably take sides, and will no doubt be divided. Both women have a rightful, lawful stake. 

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1.  Laura  --  done
2.  Michelle - done
3.  Heather - done

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Laura
Michelle
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Arcadia Falls

Arcadia Falls

Author:  Carol Goodman

Publisher:  Ballantine Books

Publication Date:  March 2010

Donated By:  Kathy from Mommy's Reading

Meg Rosenthal is driving toward the next chapter in her life. Winding along a wooded roadway, her car moves through a dense forest setting not unlike one in the bedtime stories Meg used to read to her daughter, Sally. But the girl riding beside Meg is a teenager now, and has exchanged the land of make-believe for an iPod and some personal space. Too much space, it seems, as the chasm between them has grown since the sudden, unexpected death of Meg’s husband.

Dire financial straits and a desire for a fresh start take Meg and Sally from a comfortable life on Long Island to a tucked-away hamlet in upstate New York: Arcadia Falls, where Meg has accepted a teaching position at a boarding school. The creaky, neglected cottage Meg and Sally are to call home feels like an ill portent of things to come, but Meg is determined to make the best of it—and to make a good impression on the school’s dean, the diminutive, elegant Ivy St. Clare.

St. Claire, however, is distracted by a shocking crisis: During Arcadia’s First Night bonfire, one of Meg’s folklore students, Isabel Cheney, plunges to her death in a campus gorge. Sheriff Callum Reade finds Isabel’s death suspicious, but then, he is a man with secrets and a dark past himself.

Meg is unnerved by Reade’s interest in the girl’s death, and as long-buried secrets emerge, she must face down her own demons and the danger threatening to envelop Sally. As the past clings tight to the present, the shadows, as if in a terrifying fairy tale, grow longer and deadlier.

In Arcadia Falls, award-winning author Carol Goodman deftly weaves a mesmerizing narrative of passion: for revenge, for art, for love. 

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Tour Participants:

Kathy mailed 7/1 ~  DC # 03082690000178350587


1.  Melissa -done
2.  Val - done
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4.  Kelli - done
5.  Michelle - done
6.  Heather - mailed 10/1  DC # 03082040000032020312

REVIEWS:

1.  Melissa - Coffee, Books and Laundry 
2.  Val - Passed on Review
3.  Katy - A Few More Pages 
4.  Kelli - I'd So Rather Be Reading 
5.  Michelle - The True Book Addict 
6.  Heather - Proud Book Nerd