I picked up Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman on Reese Witherspoon’s #RWBookClub’s recommendation. It turns out that she is also producing the movie adaptation, but nevermind – I like all of her recommendations (and really everything about her, but I digress…). Eleanor Oliphant reminded me of Ove in A Man Called Ove. And the book felt very similar as well. Eleanor has had a difficult life (foster homes, incarcerated/horrible mother, lack of social skills, and a generally sad existence). Things change when she and a co-worker save an elderly man’s life. Watching Eleanor struggle, change, and grow, is a delight. And Honeyman’s writing style is the perfect accompaniment to the story. I really enjoyed it – it’s a great choice for the summer.

The Good Widow by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke is a quick read – perfect for summer, particularly if you like a page-turning suspense. Jacks is caught off guard when police turn up at her house to tell her that her husband has died driving off the road in Maui. While hard to believe, Jacks and her husband’s mistress’ fiance head to Hawaii to put the pieces together to solve the mystery of their shattered lives. I am not going to say this is a stupendous read, but it’s fast and a decent story (though a little predictable). I was left only with the question about how these two authors worked together to write the story (did they alternate points of view, chapters?).

I liked The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck, but I didn’t love it. Perhaps I am tapped out on WWII?? While I liked the characters and the threads of their lives, told over about 50 years, it just didn’t hold up to great ones like The Nightingale. The three main characters, Marianne, Benita, and Ania, are widows of men with various roles in Nazi Germany, including those who planned the failed assassination attempt on Hitler. Marianne is in charge and bands the others together in her castle to protect their children and each other in the aftermath of the Nazis’ defeat. There’s suspense here and interesting information which I didn’t know before reading. The book was well-written and researched, but it didn’t quite do it for me.

I picked up This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel on a recommendation from Modern Mrs. Darcy, Anne Bogel’s blog or podcast (I can’t remember which). If you have not checked out her work, you should. She’s a reader’s dream! This is How it Always Is is a story about Claude, the fifth boy in his family (who always wanted a girl), who wants to be a girl. The family keeps this information secret until they can’t anymore. It’s a heartwarming story with lovable characters and delightful writing. I couldn’t put it down and loved every minute of it. I highly recommend it.

I have no idea where my copy of The Keeper of Secrets by Julie Thomas came from – it may have come from my Little Free Library, but I’m not certain. In any event, it’s another WWII book – there are just SO many. In this story, we jump from present to past and family to family around antique violins, their origins and secrets. While you have a hint of how the story is going to tie up, the book was well-written and enjoyable. And, of course, while the underlying thread of the Holocaust is awful, the hope, survival, and redemption make it not so painful to read.

The Orphan’s Tale by Pam Jenoff came highly recommended from multiple sources. And, it didn’t disappoint. I have read my fair share of Holocaust/WW II books, and, while this one was certainly sad, it didn’t carry the same weight as most of the others. We begin with Noa, who has been exiled by her parents because she has become pregnant by a Nazi. The home for girls where gives birth takes the baby from her. She leaves and finds shelter in a train station, where she comes upon a railcar full of babies, presumably stolen from their parents by the Nazis. She makes off with a baby, flees the train station and ends up becoming part of a traveling circus. As we learn about Noa’s life, we also encounter Astrid, a former circus aerialist. Astrid had married a Nazi but was forced to divorce him because she was Jewish. After fleeing Berlin, she returned home, only to find her home emptied and her family missing. But, the competing circus was still in place and she was able to join their ranks. It is here where she and Noa meet one another, train together, and survive with the stolen baby. This book moved along at a quick pace, and while moments might have required some suspension of disbelief, overall, it was quite a story and well worth reading.

The Day I Died by Lori Rader-Day was sent to me by William Morrow for a “Reading Group Choices” contest. Anna is a handwriting expert who usually tells companies who to hire and gives advice to the lovelorn. When she is asked to help with a missing child case in the new town where she and her son have moved, things go awry. The story alludes to Anna’s past and we get small snippets as we read, but I had trouble keeping track of the characters and found the snippets distracting and unnecessarily cryptic. Overall, while I wanted to like this story, I didn’t find it to be well-told and was ready for it to be over when it ended. I’d give this one a skip.

I have enjoyed Elinor Lipman in the past, but haven’t read anything of hers in a while. On Turpentine Lane is a quick read and not too taxing. We begin with Faith, who has returned to her hometown to work in the alumni office at her alma mater. Subsequently, she buys a falling-apart home while her fiance is walking across the country to find himself. Things then start going wrong with the house and also in her work and love life. Of course, things turn around by the end. This is light-hearted read, perfect for the summer.

The premise for Our Short History is completely depressing. A woman who is dying of stage IV ovarian cancer, writes the book for her six-year-old son. In it, she describes who his father is and why he hadn’t met him before (she and the dad had been dating for six months when she found out she was pregnant and he didn’t want a family with her). But, the book wasn’t depressing. It was sad, sure, but it was written in such a way that you weren’t unhappy while you read it. The ending left things hanging, but it worked. I’d pick it up if you think you can brave it.