The Inheritance

The Inheritance by JoAnn Ross 384 pages

Wow, the cover of this book really fooled me and has more of disconnect than any book I’ve seen in a long time. It screams historical fiction with a touch of contemporary, but the actual story is the reverse. It’s a contemporary story with a dash of historical fiction.

Jackson “Jack” Swann is a conflict photographer. He goes anywhere the world is in crisis/chaos. It’s been a great profession, however with little time, or energy, for meaningful relationships.  The father of three daughter, each by a different woman, has come home to his family’s Oregon vineyard to die. Cancer is ravaging his body.

He changes his will so that the three half-sisters at least get to meet one time, and so the family business remains in the family. He hopes.

Jack’s oldest daughter is Tess. He was married her mother for a short time. He had bailed before she got to know him and she refers to him only as “the sperm donor.” A former child TV star (think Patty Duke), Tess is now a bestselling author of young adult books. She pissed at the sperm donor as now she feels she has lost him all over again. With a terrifying case of writer’s block, Tess thinks a trip to Oregon might be just what she needs to shake the cobwebs loose. She know about Charlotte, but has idea that Natalia exists.

Charlotte is the middle child, well woman now. Raised in Southern high society, Charlotte has a passion for interior design, which Jack encouraged. However, her mother has made eroded her confidence and she retreats into being the perfect wife for her politician husband, but it seems he also belittles everything she tries to do. Bad news usually comes in threes, but for Charlotte, two were a disaster. She learns about Jack’s death on the same day she learns her husband is cheating on her. And to top that off, she as no inkling that she has two sisters.

The youngest, Natalia, is the one who knows Jack the best. Her mother captured more of Jack’s heart than any other woman. Natalia has even inherited his talent for photography. She is aware of Tess and Charlotte, but doesn’t know if they know about her.

Not only Jack’s daughters inherit the vineyard, they also inherited a grandmother. Rocked by her only son’s death, she eagerly awaits the girls’ arrival so that she can get to know them. The historical fiction comes in with Grandmother Madeleine. She and her husband were French Resistance fighters during WWII.

“The Inheritance” is an interesting novel about families and receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. 

 

A Spark of Light

A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult     352 pages

The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center—a women’s reproductive health services clinic—its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in late morning, a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking all inside hostage.

After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with incoming text messages he glances at it and, to his horror, finds out that his fifteen-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic.

But Wren is not alone. She will share the next and tensest few hours of her young life with a cast of unforgettable characters: A nurse who calms her own panic in order save the life of a wounded woman. A doctor who does his work not in spite of his faith but because of it, and who will find that faith tested as never before. A pro-life protester disguised as a patient, who now stands in the cross hairs of the same rage she herself has felt. A young woman who has come to terminate her pregnancy. And the disturbed individual himself, vowing to be heard.

This was a fascinating story, and well crafted, as it weaves together the stories of several lives as they intersect on one particular day at a woman's reproductive health clinic.

Some are there to get an abortion, some are there to get the pill, some are there because they work there, they are the abortion doctor, or that is where they receive they're gynecological exams. Whatever the reason, on this fateful day all their lives are thrown together when an anti-abortion activist starts shooting.

This story was a bit difficult to follow, at first, as it traces the story backwards. Immediately you're thrust into the story, amongst the hostages, the negotiator, and the gunman. It's always difficult for me when a story jumps back and forth between perspec

tives, and this story followed ten different people, and it jumped rather frequently.

The thing that Picoult is so skilled at is revealing the story, bit by bit, until all the pieces begin to come together, finally, into a whole, at the very end. And when you finally get a major reveal you've been waiting for the whole time you've been reading, often you end up making some audible sound, like a gasp, because you just didn't see it coming. At least, that's how it was for me, though not as strongly this time, as I predicted the sort-of big reveal before it happened, though not until I was at least half-way done.

The parts I loved about this story were the different character's stories and how they all fit together to tell this overarching story about abortion from all sides. Going into this story, you might just think it's a pro-live vs. pro-choice struggle. But there are so many facets that make up the abortion discussion, that aren't as often brought up. Picoult makes sure to touch them all. I learned so much just reading this book - and I highly recommend reading Picoult's "Author's Note," as well, where she speaks personally about her thoughts on abortion.

That being said, what kept this from being higher rated for me were the numerous times that this story felt less like a story and more like a "covering all the bases" blanket statement about abortion. As much as I appreciated all the information about abortion, sometimes the story element was lacking and a character became a mouth-piece to tell me a specific fact or point of view about abortion rather than me feeling link this was something heart-felt by that character. This story is definitely coming in at a time where these kinds of discussions are raging and abortion is painting a wide swath in a political landscape. This notion unfortunately colors my enjoyment of the story, a bit, as it feels like a PSA rather than a story.

But otherwise, I really felt like this was well done and is definitely up there in my list of favorite Picoult books. I would definitely recommend it to anyone because perspective is necessary when it comes to topics like these. Empathy is an amazing eye-opener, and getting an idea of what someone facing such a choice might be thinking or feeling or even knowing what their life is like is important and humanizing, a point that Picoult is emphasizing, underlining, and exclaiming with every word. So read it.

Reunion

Reunion by Hannah Pittard
271 Pages

This is a short novel about Kate Pulaski who has made a series of bad decisions in her life.  When her father dies she travels to Atlanta to meet with her two siblings to make the final arrangements.  Their father had been married 5 times and there are a number of half-siblings to deal with as well as the various ex-wives.  Kate has never really come to grips with her relationship with her father and the tough childhood she had and this is partially the cause of her current series of misfortunes.

A book of family dysfunction, Pittard weaves a story with a slight snarkiness and realistics relationships.  The only flaw I found with the novel is that it wasn't longer.