Mr. Fixer Upper

Finished May 28

Mr. Fixer Upper by Lucy Score

This contemporary romance novel is set around a HGTV-type show called Kings of Construction. Siblings Gannon and Cat are the stars of the show. They work on projects nominated by viewers for people that they feel deserve to have a better place to live than they have now. There are a number of families that are helped each season. The families already own a home, but it doesn't work as well as it could for them. It might need updating due to a change in lifestyle, family circumstances, or physical mobility. They families might be young couples just starting out, empty nesters, or 

Paige St. James is the field producer for the show. As the book begins, they are prepping for the second season. Paige is well-liked by her staff, from her executive producer, Eddie Garraza, to camera operators, Tony, Rico, and Louis, to sound mixer Felicia. Management has been playing up a relationship between good-looking Gannon and another reality star, designer Meeghan Traxx. Traxx has a less than stellar reputation for how she treats the staff on her shows, but she is good-looking and sexy. In the first season, an incident led to Paige borrowing clothing from a staffer, from the staffer's daughters gymbag, part of which was a t-shirt with the word Princess on it, and Gannon began using that as a nickname for Paige, which she doesn't appreciate. Paige grew close to Cat, but doesn't feel that Gannon respects the tight timeline of the show and others' responsibilities. 

This season Gannon is paying more attention and he begins showing the respect due to the crew. There is a definite attraction between him and Paige and an incident on set where she is injured throws them together more closely. When Gannon suggests a spin-off show to run between seasons, it serves them both for her to produce it.

Paige is working with her friend and roommate on a planned documentary about women in television and how they've fought for their rights. Her work on reality television funds her passion project.

I found the characters had depth, and we saw both professional and personal aspects of their lives. It gave a window into the non-real aspects of reality television and how it manipulates, as well as the more positive side. 

The Invited

Finished July 1

The Invited by Jennifer McMahon

This novel set in a rural area near a small town in Vermont, has a couple, Helen and Nate, who have quit their jobs, bought a property, and are building their own house there. Helen was a history teacher and she is fascinated by the history of their property, particularly a previous owner, Hattie Breckenridge, who lived there many decades earlier. Hattie was suspected of witchcraft and was hanged by the townspeople. 

As Helen looks for historical artifacts that connect Hattie and her descendants to the home she and Nate are building, she begins to see things, and gets drawn to certain places and things. 

Nate, meanwhile, becomes obsessed with an unusual animal that he has seen in the marshes near their home, spending time tracking and trying to capture images of it. 

A teenage girl who lives nearby is mourning the loss of her mother, who disappeared recently. Olive's father is struggling with the unexplained disappearance of his wife and seems focused on remaking their home to draw her back. Olive herself is drawn to Helen and Nate, the stories of Hattie, and the mysterious activities of her mother before she disappeared. 

This story has a lot going on, that gradually comes together around the story of Hattie and her descendants. 

The Clockmaker's Daughter

Finished September 7

The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton

As always, Kate Morton brings the reader a book with history, romance, and so much more. This novel has more than one timeline, all around a core set of characters and a place. 

One of the narrators is unnamed, and the reader gradually learns their story through the narration, and only understands who it is as the story ends. The other main character and narrator is the modern day archivist Elodie Winslow. 

Elodie works as an archivist for a small collection in London focused on the historical figure of James Stratton. He was a philanthropist and we learn a little about him through the course of the novel as well. Elodie is cataloging a few items that were found in a small cloakroom during recent renovations, somehow missed previously. They are a fine leather satchel, a sketchpad, and a framed picture. One of the sketches in the book is a scene that Elodie recognizes from a story her mother often told her. This connection touches Elodie and she does something she's never done before and removes them from the office. 

Elodie is engaged to be married to a successful investment banker, and as her wedding nears, she has to make some final decisions around the ceremony and her dress. Her best friend Pippa has offered to design her wedding dress, and Elodie must meet with her soon to give some guidance to her friend. Elodie's mother, Lauren, had been a famous pianist who died in an accident when Elodie was young, and thus she and her father are very close. She is also close to her great uncle, Tip, a quiet man who has a bookstore. Elodie has been asked by her fiance's mother to choose a recording of her mother to play at the wedding and choosing one is another task that Elodie has to do. 

But Elodie continues to be distracted by the image of the house from the sketchbook, and about the photograph of the young woman that she found in the same case. 

As she begins to learn more, we also travel back in time, first to 1862 when the young artist Edward Radcliffe was just becoming famous and takes a party of artist friends and family members to a house he has recently bought that has special meaning to him. We travel to the same house in two other time periods as well as the present, with one time when it was being used as a boarding school, and another when a family took refuge there during World War II. 

As we gradually discover the connections between the various characters in these other times and the present Elodie, we also discover the history of the woman in the photo, and of the house that connects all the characters. 

There is a lot going on here, and romances in more than one time period, sometimes quite unexpected. Elodie also learns more about her own mother and how she feels about this parent she barely remembers. The house is almost a character in itself and there are many interesting personalities that have roles in the story. 

As always with Morton, I thoroughly enjoyed the unfolding story and anticipating some connections while being surprised by others. A great read. 

** This post was featured on Twinkl as part of their Literary Lovers campaign. **

The Dutch House

Finished March 18 

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, read by Tom Hanks

I started this book back in March 2020 when I was commuting to work and when the commute stopped, so did the reading. I recently started it up again to listen to while I did crafts and really enjoyed getting back into it. Tom Hanks does a great job of the reading, even breaking into song in one part. 

The story is of a place, a house that was bought by an ambitious young man, Cyril Conroy, for his family after it had been sitting empty for some time, empty of residents that is. 

It was bought full of the art, furniture, and other possessions of the Dutch family that built it. From crystal chandeliers to family portraits, Dutch language books in the bookcase and finely upholstered furniture the house was ready to live in. But Cyril and his wife Elna had come from the inner city. He'd made a career in real estate, but Elna had trouble adjusting to life in such a house, especially with servants who did the work she'd be used to doing. They had two young children, Maeve and Danny, and soon Cyril's wife left, at first for India to work with the poor there. For much of the book we don't learn her story, but she does return to it near the end. 

Meave and Danny were raised mostly by the two women working in the house, sisters Jocelyn and Sandy, who loved them as if they were their own. Danny started going with his father on the weekends to visit the buildings that he owned, help him collect the rents and learn about the business. Right down to the nuts and bolts of maintenance. But a single man of that kind of wealth attracts some attention and a woman had set her sights on Cyril. By this time, Maeve was in college and Danny in high school, and by the time the young single mother Andrea married Cyril and moved in with her two daughters Norma and Bright, Cyril was in her hands. Thus, when Cyril died young, the first thing Andrea did was kick Danny out of the house. Maeve and Danny soon discovered that she had maneuvered things so that she was the sole heir of the estate and the only thing Danny had access to was an educational trust fund. 

As the book begins, Danny and Maeve are sitting in a car on the street looking at the house and wishing they still lived there, so their circumstances are pretty clear from the beginning and how they got there soon gets told. 

The rest of the book tells of their growing up, starting lives of their own, but never able to let go of this house that had been their home. The story is told from Danny's viewpoint and Hanks brings him to life. We see his relationship to his sister, his happenstance meeting of his future wife and how his sister played a role in getting them together, how his history led to his career decisions and some of his personal ones. We also see how Maeve made Danny her project, giving up her own goals to ensure that he became a success despite Andrea's manipulations. 

Andrea is the stereotypical evil stepmother, a caricature of a person. The other characters are more complex, and the story makes some lovely turns bringing it to a quite unexpected ending that seems perfect. 

The Reluctant Tuscan

Finished July 12
The Reluctant Tuscan: How I Discovered My Inner Italian by Phil Doran

There were aspects of Doran's experience that I quite liked, such as his efforts to learn the language, and aspects that I didn't like, such as how the local people were often caricatures of various Italian stereotypes and his humour, which is in the style of the sitcoms that he wrote for as a career.
At the beginning of the book there is a disclaimer that all the events are true, but some of the place names and all of the people's names have been changed to ensure their privacy. This is good, but given some of the people's secrets, if you know Phil and his wife and where they actually have a home in Tuscany, I would think that some of these secrets might still become associated with the actual people, which is worrying given the promises made to those people.
There is the usual issue of Italian bureaucracy and the machinations used to sidestep and overcome it. Having never dealt with this, I couldn't say if these are real or exaggerated, but certainly at times it feels a bit much.
This memoir covers a year or so during which Doran's wife, a sculptor and lover of Italy, buys a ruined house with many issues and sets about making it into a home. One of her motivations is worry about the stress Doran has over getting his scripts accepted now that he is no longer on salary to a particular show or studio. She believes getting him away from California will help his health. Given the stress around this project, I'm not sure how successful this ploy was, but he did get a book out of it anyway.
Despite the stereotypes, one did get glimpses of the real humanity in the people he encountered, and some of them were more interesting to me, and I would like to know more about them, such as the young female mechanic.

Home Safe

Finished May 3
Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg, read by the author

Helen Ames, an accomplished writer, has had writer's block since her husband died nearly a year ago, but she hasn't been able to tell anyone. She lives in the Chicago suburbs, and her daughter Tessa lives closer to the center of the city. Tessa is also a writer, currently working for a magazine. Helen's husband Dan died very suddenly, and Helen is still coming to terms with it. She has been depending on Tessa a lot for things Dan used to do, and letting other things slide. When her accountant gives her a wake-up call on her finances, she is hit by the fact that she didn't know as much as she thought about her husband. And she needs to get her mojo back regarding her writing.
Helen accepts a grant-funded position to run a writing workshop at the public library, something she's not sure she's comfortable doing. But as the librarian indicates, this is not your usual writing workshop, and Helen finds the diverse group of people attending interesting. She experiments and goes with what seems to work, and her students respond enthusiastically.
As Helen learns to do things for herself more, she also learns to let Tessa go and to move on with her own life.
This is a story of love and loss, and finding hope. A comforting read.

On Turpentine Lane

Finished February 20
On Turpentine Lane by Elinor Lipman

This novel is a fun read, a bit madcap, and a bit romantic. Faith Frankel, age thirty-two, has recently left her job in Brooklyn, returning to the suburbs of Boston and taking a job in the fundraising department of her private school alma mater, Everton Country Day; a job that offers less in the way of stress. She likes her job as head of Stewardship and gets along well with her officemate Nick who is in charge of Major Gifts.
As the novel opens, Faith is buying a small house. It's been on the market a while and while it definitely has a few issues, Faith hopes to lowball an offer so that she can afford the mortgage on her own. Faith has a fiance, Stuart, but recently he's remade himself and she isn't sure she likes the new man. Stuart has decided to walk across the country to find himself, but he seems to be taking a lot of selfies with old girlfriends. And he doesn't have a job. Quite a difference from that attentive hard-working man she first met.
On the family front, there are also issues. Faith's father, recently retired from his insurance job, has taken a studio in Boston and her mother seems unconcerned, but is the reason really as innocuous as he says? Faith and her brother Joel, who runs a snowplow business get along well, and team up to find out what her father is up to.
When Faith's dad finds a photo album with disturbing pictures in the attic of Faith's new house, she wonders what the story is behind them. And when she hears rumors about other things that may have happened with the previous owner she grows more concerned. So, when her officemate Nick finds himself in need of a place to crash, she offers up her second bedroom. After all, they get along fairly well, and she'd feel better with someone else in the house.
And then things get more interesting.
A book with a lot going on, and relationships changing, and families supporting each other. A nice uplifting read.

Not So Big Remodeling

Finished August 14
Not So Big Remodeling: Tailoring your Home for the Way You Really Live by Sarah Susanka

I'm a sucker for home design books and magazines, and I think I have a pretty good eye for design, but I have a small house. I like the attention to detail in this series of books, and the examples the book gives for different situations. There is lots of information here, and before and after plans and images to give the reader a feel for the changes. Gave me some more things to think about for my house, if I ever have the energy to get back at it.

Easter Weekend Reading

While I took time away from the computer this past weekend (except for Saturday at work) and read, did needlework and relaxed.
I managed to finish 3 books and work on a couple of different needlework projects.

Finished April 22
The Big House: a century in the life of an American summer home by George Howe Colt
This is a book I picked up last summer out on Vancouver Island. It was recommended by one of the staff at Tanner's in Sidney. Colt tells the story of a summer home on Cape Cod that was built in 1903 and that he spent summers at regularly all his life. Not only is it the story of an interesting house, but it is also a social history of summer homes on the Cape and a family history. Colt talks about the last summer he spent at the house with his wife and young children, and reminisces about the time he spent as a child. He also delves back further into the lives of his grandparents and great grandparents. Also included are aunts, uncles and cousins. He talks about the family secrets, including mental illness, and about the summer family relationship with the locals. This is an interesting book, that I thoroughly enjoyed. It made me want to explore and pick through all the things in the Big House, to see what interesting things came to light. It also reminded me of the farmhouse I spent some of my summer vacation at for most of my childhood, a house that my grandparents lived in.

Finished April 24 
Oxford Letters by Veronica Stallwood
This is one of the books in the series featuring writer Kate Ivory. My mother-in-law picked this up at a library sale for me. I love this series, set in Oxford and featuring the inquisitive writer. Here, Kate returns from vacation to find that her mother, Roz, is ill, and has a middle-aged married couple who appear to have taken control of Roz's life. Both Kate and her mother's business partner are concerned, and Kate begins to dig deeper into this couple's history. There are warning letters and emails, violence, intrigue and second guessing around a really good story. An interesting side story to do with Roz's history also makes an appearance. And of course Kate's love life moves forward. A great read, as expected.


Finished April 24
Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
This is a classic that I had never read, but that was recommended in the book, Book Ends, which I finished recently. It also counts toward my 1001 Books to Read Before You Die challenge. It took about half the book to really get into it. In the first half I was a bit put off by the biting wit that seemed mean-spirited, about some of the writer characters. However the delving of the main character into his past and a woman that he knew in his youth, the wife of a famous writer, made the book come alive. Rosie's character came to life here as a wonderfully engaging, life-loving woman. Her husband Edward Driffield also was shown as more than that described directly. We see how the various people in an author's life have influence on their writings. Apparently this novel caused quite a commotion at the time, with various people taking offense at the portrayal of characters they saw as based on themselves. A very interesting read and I'm glad I took the time.