Book Reviews

Before We Were Yours

Lisa Wingate

Iinspired by true events. Avery Stafford is a successful federal prosecutor with a bright future unfolding. She returns home to help her father who is battling cancer.One day, while visiting a nursing home, she meets an elderly woman and knows, that somehow, there is a connection, between this woman and her grandmother. Thus begins her journey to uncover the truth. The book is written from two viewpoints, Avery’s, in the present and the other twelve-year-old Rill, set in 1939 Tennessee. Beware, this is a book that will steal your heart and stir up your emotions.

Once Upon a Wardrobe

Patti Callahan

Patti Callahan ponders how the events in C. S. Lewis’ life, particularly his childhood, inspired him to create the magical and mythical world of Narnia and the cast of characters inhabiting it. Set in 1950, we follow 19-yearold Megs Devonshire and her eight-year-old brother, George. Megs studies math and science at Oxford and relies on facts versus intuition; stories have never held much interest for her. When terminally ill and bedridden George becomes infatuated with the newly published The Lion,

The Witch and The Wardrobe and implores her to find out more about the source for Narnia, Megs finds herself visiting C. S. Lewis, an Oxford don who goes by Jack, and his brother, Warnie, in hopes of answering George’s questions about the fantastical world. Readers will reach for it again and again, eager to be reminded that love will prevail and imagination leads people down fantastical paths.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hug

Taylor Jenkins Reid

Evelyn Hugo, an aging, reclusive movie star, decides she wants to tell her life story, and she wants only one person to write it: a young journalist named Monique Grant. Monique is excited as this could launch her career but also confused. Why her? Evelyn promises all will be revealed in time and begins to tell her story. So begins her recount of her life: how she made it big in Hollywood, the sacrifices and compromises she made for her success, and of course each of the seven men she married. They were sometimes awful and sometimes sympathetic and sometimes somewhere in between, but they were each fascinating in their own way. There was one, of course, that was her great love. The most interesting of all is Evelyn. Beautiful, proud, lovable, complex, and pragmatic, she leaps off the page. She is the heart and soul of this wonderful book.

Wednesday