“I wasn’t surprised when Mama asked me to save her life. By my first week in kindergarten, I knew she was no macaroni-necklace-wearing kind of mother. Essentially, Mama regarded me as a miniature hand servant:

Grab me a Pepsi, Lulu. Get the milk for your sister’s cereal. Go to the store and buy me a pack of Winstons. Then one day she upped the stakes: Don’t let Daddy in the apartment.”

The Murderer’s Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers

In the Summer of 1971, Lulu’s and Merry’s world falls apart in an instant. They’d seen the rows their parents got into over the years; their mom was more interested in glamour and not being bogged down with caring for two little girls and their father was often hitting the bottle, but this particular July everything changed when Lulu opens the door to her angry father.

Before either of the girls can get help their father has killed their mother and attacked Merry and now the girls are essentially orphaned. Once he’s sent to prison the girls are sent to live with relatives but their stay with their aunt and uncle isn’t very long as it is difficult to have the girls in the house and serving as a reminder of a tragedy. Lulu and Merry are sent off to a group home where they have to endure bullies and loneliness.

Years pass and the girls develop their own coping skills for dealing with the family tragedy. Lulu tries to build a world where her father doesn’t exist and Merry feels like it’s up to her to maintain some contact with her father while he’s in prison. Finally the girls are fostered by a wealthy and respectable family, the Cohens, but Lulu’s plans of finally being part of a family don’t necessarily pan out as she hoped. The family is kind but they they can’t become the mother and father the girls lost.

As the girls get older and have their own careers and relationships they are never free from their past. Merry is hopeful that their father will one day be released but Lulu believes that will never happen. She needs to know that will never happen because then her carefully constructed world where she has essentially rewritten history would all fall apart.

The sisters are always in a struggle over their parents and what they feel towards them now. They rely on one another and have always been there for each other but they’ll never agree on forgiveness and understanding.

The ending became a bit melodramatic with one scene in particular but still this was overall a good family drama. One thing in particular that I thought it did very well was handling how children perceive when adults are angry or have arguments. They don’t fully understand things and can easily blame themselves.

In my copy of the book there is a letter from the author on why she wrote the book and it’s not surprising to learn that she has worked for years with intervention programs. I can only imagine that the families and cases she worked with led her to write a story that feels very understanding of such a difficult situation.

Source: Advance Review Copy

We’ve been having a very nice weekend and enjoyed a film and did a bit of shopping at Half Price Books. I did have one moment of panic when I went to get my car inspection done and was told the wait would be 40 minutes. I was almost done with the book I had in my purse so I almost put off the car inspection to go back home and get something to read but I risked it and it turned out well as I even had one page left by the time my car was ready. Close call.

While I didn’t find a lot of books at HPB, my husband on the other hand found lots of mysteries in German so he stocked up on his crime thrillers. I did see some Scandinavian authors in his stash.

I got Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan which is a book I wanted to read after I got to hear the author speak at the Texas Book Festival last year. I also found The Fourth Man by K.O. Dahl which is a Norwegian crime thriller. My other is by Ruth Rendell, a writer who I think does psychological thrillers very well. I got The Water’s Lovely.

It’s been a full weekend of reading, book shopping, yoga and hanging out. I’ve spent very little time online and sometimes that’s really very good don’t you think?

These were all unexpected but I’m quite excited to have received them as some of them are from authors I’ve had on my radar.

• Whispers In the Sand by Barbara Erskine. Never read one of her historical novels and this particular book takes the reader through 19th century Egypt.
• The Butterfly’s Daughter by Mary Alice Monroe. The beauty of butterflies, coming of age and a trip to Mexico. Sounds like a good read.
• The Watery Part of the World by Michael Parker. Parker’s affecting fifth novel mines two historical anecdotes from 1813 and 1970 to draw parallel narratives around island dwellers off the North Carolina coast.
• The Illusion of Murder by Carol McCleary. I’ve been looking forward to discovering this mystery series featuring Nellie Bly. I’m not usually fond of mysteries who take on a real person and create a series around them but something about this series makes me curious.
• Alice Bliss by Lisa Harrington. “When Alice Bliss learns that her father, Matt, is being deployed to Iraq, she’s heartbroken. Alice idolizes her father, loves working beside him in their garden, accompanying him on the occasional roofing job, playing baseball. When he ships out, Alice is faced with finding a way to fill the emptiness he has left behind.” Doesn’t that sound good?

So, I’ve got lots to keep me busy don’t I? Anyway, I’m looking forward to these books and I am looking forward to the weekend too. Have a wonderful weekend everyone and more book talk soon!