I love discovering a new-to-me author that writes books that seem to be made just for me. Carolyn Parkhurst is my latest discovery and when I finished reading The Nobodies Album, I just wanted it to continue for about 1000 more pages. The story is narrated in the first person by a novelist who has suffered a great tragedy, both her daughter and husband died in a freak accident and she is left only with her son who eventually separates himself from her life. When her son is accused of murder, she is able to reconnect with him. There is a bit of a mystery: who really killed her son's girlfriend? And a smidge of romance. But, mostly, it is just a good story, about people I might like to meet, told in a wry voice with a great mixture of self-deprecation and reflection.
On the other hand, another new-to-me author is Amy Bourret. I am slogging through Mothers and Other Liars right now. I won't give away the plot, but will just say that the mother in this book is sickly sweet, too good to be true; yet she makes decisions that I don't think a mother would really make. So, she kind of lost me right from the beginning. And, the prose is too full of flowery metaphors and similes. It's like reading the high school English assignment where the students were instructed to use as many metaphors as possible in their writing. Even when the image is a good one, it still feels forced. Not sure if she has any other books out, but I won't be actively searching them out.
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