To paraphrase the words of Belle, I have just finished the most magnificent book. I LOVED this book!

Anthony hires Laura as his housekeeper. Laura is divorced and lonely. She needs something different to do. Anthony has been a finder of lost items which he brings home and meticulously records when and where he found them. Upon Anthony's passing, Laura is left his home with instructions to find the owners of the lost things he has found through the years. Can she do it?

These characters are wonderful. I laughed. I cried. I saw things come full circle. There are three stories in these pages. Anthony and Therese's story is the first and, for me, maybe the most tragic. Eunice and Bomber's was, perhaps, the funniest though it also brought me to tears. His sister, Portia, made it both funny and sad. Laura and Freddy, the gardener, was the most recent. Each story has its highs and lows. Each person must determine what is right and best for them. At times I was not sure if the choice was right. But I grew to love these characters.

Another character, Sunshine, Anthony's neighbor girl was a bright spot. She saw with the heart. She was honest, even when people did not want her to be so honest. Her openness was wonderful as she knew stories of the things Anthony found.

Stories came full circle at the end. My heart ached for the endings at times. Other times I was cheered by those endings.

This is not a book to be overlooked or forgotten. It is a wonderful story full of magic and love. It is a keeper!

Mr. Dickens and His Carol: A Novel - Sam...

Charles Dickens is having financial problems. His last book did not sell well. His publishers are threatening to deduct money from his royalties for their loss. They tell him he must write a Christmas story with less than two months before Christmas. He has lost his muse. At home, his wife is having baby number six. She is obsessed with their Christmas party. His children are obsessed with what they want for Christmas. Charles has lost his way and his good cheer for Christmas. He is fighting with everyone. He does not want to write a Christmas story but needs the money. Can he find his muse? Can he find the spirit of Christmas?

I loved this story. I felt like I was in Dickens' London. I love the nods to his other works, words, and characters. The characters of Dickens, his family, his friends, and his rivals were wonderful. I felt like I knew them and loved or hated them. I liked how he had to go back to the beginning to find his story. I enjoyed his interactions with Eleanor who points out what he feels, what he's missing, and what he needs. She is so spot on.

This book resonated with me. I will tell you to keep the tissue handy. You will need it. These people were so real to me. I hated leaving them. This is a keeper. Maybe not one I can read every Christmas season but one that needs a re-read and someone else to discuss it with each reading. There is so much there. So much wisdom, so much delight.

Lena goes to the Ionian coast for vacation. She plans on getting her class work ready for the next semester. While there she meets Nina and Elena, a young mother and her daughter, and takes an interest in them and their extended family. She also reflects on her daughters and her mother and their lives.

This is a character study of Lena. She does not come across well. She is mean and selfish. She should not have had children (her ex-husband either.) I found her hard to like and I wanted to be sympathetic, but I couldn't. She was not nice. I could relate to some of her experiences with her mother. I could not relate to why she kept the doll (there are a couple of dolls in the story.) I did not like her and that is rare for me. I finished it because of book club. Not sure I would have otherwise.

January has been left a house in Michigan by her late father. She goes up to live in it when she is broke and still is working on her current novel--or rather not working on it. Her next door neighbor is Gus Everett, her rival in college. After taking potshots at each other, they decide to have a contest where he writes a rom-com and she writes a literary novel and see which one can sell theirs first. In the course of their writing, truths come out.

I loved this book! I loved January. I could relate to her as she and Gus have their discussions at the end of their days of writing. I understood her thoughts. I also loved Gus. He is similar to January but his thoughts took on a darker tone. Once January can get him to open up, he reveals a lot to January--things she never expected. I did appreciate their openness when their thoughts and explanations came out. It is rare to have that much communication between characters. His explanation when they went to New Eden was wonderful and swoon-worthy.

I loved the other characters--Pete, Maggie, even Sonya. They are quirky (not Sonya). I was glad when Sonya made January listen to her. So much was said and pain was let go eventually. I wish January's mother had been more open with her earlier so her father's death would not have been a shock.

I liked the humor. There were times I was laughing out loud as I pictured these scenes. The dialog was snappy and snarky (reminds me of the dialog in The Maltese Falcon). This is one of the top books I have read this year. It is wonderful watching a curmudgeon fall in love.

Nora has decided she wants to die so she chooses her time but instead of dying she goes to The Midnight Library which is a place between life and death. There are green books on all the shelves as well as the Book of Regrets which is a book of her regrets. Also there is Mrs. Elm, her library teacher from school who turns out to be her guide to the Midnight Library. Nora is given the chance to live other lives which her choices made impossible to live when she was still on earth. She has many choices but which ones will she want to relive? Which ones will she not relive? Are there more lives than we have been told about? Which life does she choose?

This was not what I expected but I enjoyed it throughly. While I liked Nora, she was a bit of a downer at times. As she is living her different lives I felt for her since she was dropped into the lives with no idea where she would end up and she ends up looking crazy each time. I also liked Mrs. Elm. She stayed with Nora at the Midnight Library helping her to choose and guiding her to a life. The secondary characters can be in more than one life but mostly they are in one of her lives and she tries to figure out how they fit in her life

The story is interesting. It relies solely on Nora's choices. She recites philosophers often though the people in her lives have no idea the "real" Nora was into philosophy and it is the "real" Nora we journey with. I liked that we get larger views of her life and mentions of other journeys she has taken without us being aware of those lives. She needs to pick a life or she will be dead.

I wasn't sure which life I wanted her to choose but as Mrs. Elm said "the only way to learn is to live." I was glad to be on the journey with her.