In the Golden Years

Dearest Dorothy, Help! I’ve Lost Myself!
Charlene Ann Baumbich

Fans of Jan Karon's Mitford or Philip Gulley's Harmony will revel in the antics of the residents of Partonville, Baumbich's imaginary village in 'the northern part of southern Illinois.' Alongside various familiar faces (the prickly mayor, the garrulous salon owner and the city slickers who've recently moved in from Chicago), the town boasts an individual who is anything but a stock character: Dorothy Jean Wetstra, an 87-year-old spitfire with a heart of gold. As the town gears up to celebrate its 130th anniversary, Dorothy helps new resident Katie Durbin come to terms with an unsettling revelation about her family, while Katie's son Josh winningly navigates the turbulent waters of adolescent dating. The novel has some mechanical problems, with sudden and inexplicable shifts in point of view, but the characters are quirky and charming; there are several laugh-out-loud moments; and Baumbich offers gentle inspiration without hammering readers over the head with God, whom Dorothy delightfully calls 'The Big Guy.'
Publishers Weekly Review; August 2004.

Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House
M C Beaton

Agatha Raisin, snug and warm in her Carsley cottage, has that same old feeling-boredom-until a report of a haunted house sends her and new neighbor, handsome Paul Chatterton, to investigate. Suddenly, middle-aged Agatha is aglow with romance and excitement. But the glow fades fast. It turns out Paul is a cad. The victim of the haunting is a universally disliked old biddy. And the ghost is most likely someone playing a dirty trick. Then an old lady is soon found murdered. But never fear! For Agatha, solving a homicide is more fun than hunting a ghost. She quickly has a theory and a risky scheme. And she is about to make a startling discovery which can be her greatest triumph...or leave her heartbroken, in trouble with the police, and in danger of losing her reputation-or her life.
Book Description.


Turning for Home
Sarah Challis

The ties between generations are at the heart of this romantic saga set outside London. At 84, Lady Pamela desperately wishes to remain in her home, but her calculating daughter-in-law wants to send her away so she can modernize the charming cottage. To the rescue comes 26-year-old Maeve Delaney, a companion whose headlong approach to life is just what Pamela needs to get her out of the doldrums. Maeve feels emotionally abandoned by her own parents, who divorced when she was 12, and Lady Pamela has always longed for a daughter to replace her Lizzie, who died much too young. Into the mix are thrown Maeve's best friend, Sophie, a single mother with twins; Matt, the handsome local vet who loves them both; Sam, Pamela's beau of over 50 years, whom she should have married; and Irish Dancer, the injured horse Pamela longs to bring back for one last race. Challis' second novel reads like a sexier Rosamunde Pilcher, packed with robust characters, romance for both young and old, and heart-tugging tragedy.
Booklist Review; May 2003.


Jane Austen in Boca
Paula Marantz Cohen
A clever update of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, this first novel is set in a Jewish retirement community in Boca Raton, FL. Carol Newman is obsessively seeking a mate for her widowed mother-in-law, May. When Carol decides that the recently bereaved and very wealthy Norman Grafstein is the ideal candidate, the resulting comedy of manners is worthy of Austen herself. The author's perceptive observations of life among the retirees of Florida are combined with skillful parallels to the plot and characters of the original novel. The narrative flows, and the reader will be chuckling, trying to guess who from Boca is a character from Austen. Particularly delightful is Flo Kliman, the contemporary Elizabeth Bennett character, a retired librarian from the University of Chicago with a keen intellect and acerbic wit. Although certain aspects of the plot seem contrived, this fiction debut by humanities professor Cohen, who has written scholarly studies such as Silent Film and the Triumph of the American Myth, will amuse readers everywhere.
Library Journal Review; September 2002.

Loop Group

Larry McMurtry

In his 28th novel, Pulitzer-winner McMurtry again displays his knack for compelling characters and plots, this time as two women of a certain age take a road trip through Texas. Sixty-year-old widow Maggie Clary hasn't felt like herself since her hysterectomy; though her Hollywood company, Prime Loops, is doing well--they dub in the grunts and groans for movie soundtracks--she secretly wonders if she's going 'bats.' Maggie's three well-intentioned daughters have appeared on her doorstep for a Sunday morning 'intervention.' Though Maggie's diminutive Sicilian psychiatrist has improved her mood, she decides to follows the advice of a flirtatious waiter and try a change of scenery. Maggie invites fellow 'looper' and best friend Connie (the two have been inseparable--and boy crazy--since they were 14), to join her on a drive to her octogenarian Aunt Cooney's Texas chicken ranch. Despite family troubles that threaten to sabotage their trip, the two stay the course on a road rife with reprobates, from a relentless 'professional' hitchhiker to a mild-mannered car thief forever violating his parole. Aunt Cooney's brief appearance is among the high points of McMurtry's life-affirming tale: sporting an 'old mashed-up' cowboy hat and an abundance of rouge, the gregarious granny greets her city slicker niece by yanking a pistol out of her pocket and firing shots into the sky.
Publishers Weekly Review; November 2004.

Julie and Romeo

Jeanne Ray

This is a short, sweet love story for the 60-plus set by a talented first novelist who is, according to the publicist's blurb, a nurse living in Nashville. Romeo Cacciamani and Julie Roseman are rival florists in Somerville, MA, whose families have feuded for three generations. Romeo's son Tony and Julie's daughter Sandy attempted an elopement in high school but were thwarted. Now it's the turn of widowed Romeo and divorced Julie, who meet at a small- business seminar and fall into a passionate love affair that their families are determined to thwart as well. This is a funny book, and Julie and Romeo are lovable protagonists, but the underlying premise is serious: can deeply held antagonisms be overcome, or are some relationships simply impossible? Ray comes up with some unforgettable characters, including Julie's aggressive real-estate agent daughter, Nora, and Romeo's equally aggressive 90-year-old mother, the witchlike matriarch whose 'poke' has unmanned many a Cacciamani and whose rosebush-killing method harks back to Rome's destruction of Carthage. The abrupt ending (and revelation of the basis for the family animosity) may disappoint slightly, but this would still make a terrific movie.
Library Journal Review; May 2000.

Miss Julia Paints the Town
Ann Ross

Julia Springer Murdoch has survived widowhood, scandals and her share of delightfully harebrained adventures in eight previous Miss Julia outings; here she tackles a town's worth of problems. Smarmy New Jersey developer Arthur Kessler plans to tear down the old Abbotsville, N.C., courthouse and replace it with condos, but more pressing is the fact that three of Julia's friends' husbands have decamped or gone missing, including Richard Stroud, who may have absconded with a great deal of money. Everyone's turning to Julia for advice except for Richard's wife, Helen, who's getting too cozy for comfort as she cries on the shoulder of Miss Julia's good-natured second husband, Sam. Julia rallies her friends to convince Kessler that Abbotsville is too full of Southern eccentricities for him, but those eccentricities may be too real for the plan to work. The memorably droll Ross has a gift for elevating such everyday matters as marital strife and the hazards of middle age to high comedy, while painting her beautifully drawn characters with wit and sympathy.
Publishers Weekly Review; January 2008.


The Three Miss Margarets
Louise Shaffer

Secrets are kept in small southern towns as they are nowhere else. In Charles Valley, Georgia, it is the three Miss Margarets-- 'little old ladies with pedigrees'--who not only held secrets but also lied to do what they thought was right. Li'l Bit Banning and Dr. Maggie Harris are from old families, and Peggy Garrison married into the town's wealthiest clan. Things come to a head when Vashti Johnson, an African American who became a renowned scientist, comes home to die at the same time a New Yorker writing a biography of Vashti turns up asking questions. And Laurel McCready, whose poor, white-trash, unwed mother blamed the three Miss Margarets for the ills in her life, wants the truth about how her father was killed before she was born. Shaffer unravels this tale with skill, building enough sense of foreboding to be enticing as she reveals the backgrounds of the major characters and the decades-old rape and murders and brings it all to a satisfying conclusion. This has likely appeal to book groups.
Booklist Review; February 2003.