I can’t believe I waited so long to read this wonderful book. Rowley strikes the perfect balance between drowning in grief and finding the joy, laughter, and will to live by connecting with family and friends (old and new).
When Patrick’s best friend and sister-in-law Sara dies of cancer, his younger brother Greg asks him to take care of their two children (Maisie, 9, and Grant, 6) for the summer while he checks into a nearby rehab center to overcome his pill addiction. He feels ill-equipped to take care of two grieving children as a 40-something, childless gay man who is mourning both her loss and his unaddressed grief over the death of his boyfriend Joe almost a decade prior. However, Patrick accepts the responsibility and treats his niece and nephew like two little adults, not altering his extensive vocabulary of big words, his frequent references to pop culture from earlier times, his “colorful” language, or his penchant for bright caftans and comforting cocktails.
Whether it’s celebrating Christmas in July (complete with a towering pink tree), visiting kitschy Palm Springs tourist attractions, sharing useless facts (“distraction bombs”) and silly selfies, doling out “Guncle rules.” or just lounging in the backyard pool, he learns that he has an innate understanding of what these kids need to cope with the grief of losing their mother, making mistakes along the way, but also finding a way out of his self-imposed isolation and back to the world of acting he walked away from four years back. His methods may be unorthodox, but they’re also very thoughtful and effective.
I love how naturally funny Patrick is and how Rowley portrays his journey and re-awakening, so to speak. I also appreciate the insight into how hurtful it was for Patrick, with his platonic love for Sara, when she chose his own brother to spend the 2nd half of her life with after Patrick moved across the country to follow Joe and pursue his acting career. One of the reasons he is able to connect so well with Maisie and Grant is because she lives on through them. Rowley also raises the curtain on the struggles Patrick has endured as a gay man, especially when he lost Joe before same-sex marriage was legalized. Not gonna lie…that brought tears to my eyes! Rowley elicits a range of emotions, but I couldn’t help but think of my own life’s mantra borrowed from late comedienne Erma Bombeck: “If you can laugh about it, you can live with it.” And Patrick O’Hara really knows how to live. I can’t wait to read the upcoming sequel, The Guncle Abroad. Highly recommended!!
I received a complimentary ARC of this book from G.P. Putnam's Sons through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.
Debbie Johnson really weaves beautiful stories. The first one of hers I read, Maybe One Day, was packed with intense emotion: love, heartbreak, grief, PTSD, etc. It’s actually, in that respect, not too different from the core of this one. A traumatic event rips two people apart. Many years pass as they live separate lives, but the feelings never fade and the potential for a happy reunion sustains both the characters and the readers.
However, there’s a definite twist to this story in that it’s a love triangle. Harry and Elena have been together since college and have taken a trip to Mexico; in her mind, to figure out if their relationship has run its course or if this time together will help them reconnect. When disaster strikes as Elena has just met Alex, the course of their lives is thrown off-kilter. Circumstances occur and decisions are made, whether through guilt, pity or perhaps love, that force them all to give up on their dreams and expectations and forge new paths.
It isn’t until a decade has passed that a documentary on the anniversary of the moment Alex and Elena met stirs up painful memories and forces all three of them to face the past that they’ve buried. Sometimes people do “the wrong thing for all the right reasons” and the time comes to make painful, but inevitable decisions about what the future might look like if they have the courage to be honest with themselves and each other.
Johnson is a masterful storyteller. She deftly weaves a stunning love story from the ashes of disaster, drawing characters who are flawed but have the best of intentions. She’s delicate and respectful in her handling of grief and survivor guilt, and navigates the lives of her characters in a way that helps her readers find empathy for all of them and hope that they’ll each find their happy ending. Highly recommended.
I received a complimentary ARC of this book from William Morrow Paperbacks through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.
5*
Meissner is a queen of historical fiction with stellar books such as As Bright as Heaven (set in Philadelphia during the Spanish Flu pandemic), Secrets of a Charmed Life (set in London during the Blitz), and A Fall of Marigolds (set in NYC after 9/11). The Nature of Fragile Things is one of her best yet, a taut thriller that opens just months before the 1905 San Francisco earthquake and fire. The story begins with Irish immigrant and mail-order bride Sophie Hocking being questioned by a detective concerning the whereabouts of her husband Martin after she reports him missing weeks following the earthquake. She left home under mysterious circumstances, lived briefly in the tenements of New York, then married the very handsome Martin in order to have a good life like she had in her childhood with “a warm house and clean clothes and food in the pantry,” someone to share it all with, and the opportunity to be a mother to his daughter Kat.
However, she soon finds that Martin is a very dispassionate man who pays little attention to her or Kat other than amply providing for them. He’s gone many days a week for his insurance business, but Sophie doesn’t know the name of the company or exactly what he does on his trips. When he tells her he’s going to be storing and helping sell a hair tonic made by his cousin, Sophie becomes suspicious, but she can’t begin to comprehend the depths of his deceit until she receives shocking news when a stranger appears at her door on the eve of the earthquake.
Meissner deftly weaves together the horrors of the SF tragedy, the mystery of Martin, the friendship between three women thrown together by circumstance, and the love of a mother for her child. Her descriptions of the earthquake and fire are alarmingly accurate, making readers feel as if they’re there experiencing it with Sophie and Kat. The adrenaline spikes as the mystery unfolds, and leaves us on the edge of our seats. Masterful and epic! Highly recommend.
I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Berkley Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.
