Storymusing: Nightfall in the Garden of Deep Time by Tracy Higley

 

Nightfall in the Garden of Deep Time

by Tracy Higley

Kelsey is running the Chestnut Street Book Emporium for her “Gran,” who is actually her adoptive grandmother. She doesn’t know who her parents were at all. But Gran has had a stroke and is now living in assisted living.

Unfortunately, a developer and the city itself are breathing down Kelsey’s neck to get Gran to sell. There’s a big luxury hotel going in next door and the developer wants the property. The city is after her for back taxes as well. She either has to commit to paying a chunk of the back taxes and doing installment payments or they’ll seize the property and auction it off. Can she commit to those payments when Gran is in care and the facility also needs to be paid?

Kelsey has also put her own dreams on the back burner. She wanted to write for a living but a little bit of discouragement from two sources over the years sent her reeling pretty quickly. She stuffed the manuscript in a drawer and left it there.

And Kelsey’s boyfriend? Don’t get me started. Not exactly supportive, but then they’ve only been dating for a month.

“Despite everything going on, I savor this moment in my happy place, grateful for this bookshop that is everything I love stacked and bundled and shelved into one cavernous and glorious space with a hundred mysterious corners.”

The author creates for us an old-time bookstore, and the city neighborhood replete with a variety of shop owners, old and young, of varying backgrounds. It feels like a bit of Sesame Street that lives in so many of our hearts.

“Listen, Kelsey, you let me know if you need me to chain myself to the bookshop or anything, to stop the bulldozers. You know I will.”

Was that her neighbor William or …?

The story is picturesque and idyllic in places, but in contrast to the heartbreak and pain of life.

When Kelsey visits Gran to talk about all this, Gran mutters cryptic statements about the garden being the key. But there’s no garden. Can things get worse? Of course they can!

Then, one night, Kelsey finds the garden in the walled off lot next to the store, and a host of people inside, both demanding and supportive. Is this just a dream? If so, it’s a very literary one. Can they help her figure out how to save the bookshop?

I loved so much of the story, it really is for readers and writers, in particular. She has so much to say about imposter syndrome without naming it.

I feel a certain kinship with Kelsey – pushing my own writing aside so often for the more immediate necessities of family life and work at the library. “Imagination doesn’t pay the bills,” Kelsey thinks to herself in the first chapter. Thankfully, my work at the library includes the writer’s group, which keeps bringing me back to my own writing.

The biggest problem I had was that the author “read” it while I’m used to voice actors “performing” a story. I still enjoyed it, but it took a while for me to get into the story, and I think I would have enjoyed reading it more if I’d read it in a hard copy instead of listening to it.

First person and present tense is an interesting choice, bringing a sense of immediacy to a rather long book. It’s a lovely homage to the arts. There’s a bit of a side quest that didn’t really connect to me. I felt like it could be tightened up a bit and still keep the lush prose and deep dive into what it means to be an artist and persevere. It’s a strong 4 stars for me. I’m definitely glad I spent the time reading it and would recommend it to others.

Story Musing: At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities by Heather Webber

 

At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities

by Heather Webber

 

I’ve been a fan of Heather Webber’s writing for some time. I thoroughly enjoyed her Nina Quinn mysteries - a compulsively readable series that I wish hadn’t ended. I wrote a little bit about that series here https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2021/04/book-review-nine-quinn-mysteries-by.html

Her standalone novels often feature magical realism, another favorite genre for me. I reviewed Midnight at the Blackbird Café here https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2021/04/book-review-midnight-at-blackbird-cafe.html

At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities falls into the magical realism realm. It’s set in Driftwood, Alabama, on the coast. Maggie runs the coffee shop, Magpie’s, that her mother opened before she disappeared in a riptide swimming incident many years ago. Like a Magpie, Maggie collects little things and has an inspired ability to match people to these “treasures” that always mean more to them than anyone would suspect.

Driftwood is a close-knit community of wonderful quirky characters, very small town and homey. For example, Jolly Smith has a pet chicken that she walks with the Snail Slippers walking group. Sienna has coordination issues and is looking for a job where she doesn’t break everything. Estrelle makes pronouncements and has a terrible reputation for taking revenge, albeit in a witchy way, if someone does not follow her recommendations.

Everyone is very worried as Maggie’s father, Dez, has been acting a bit oddly. He’s talking about a ghost in the house and he has a tendency to collect things and not ever clear out. Then rumors start that he might be about to sell the coffee shop.

My heart rate skyrocketed. This didn’t make sense. My father wouldn’t sell the coffee shop. My mother’s coffee shop. Magpie’s was a fixture in Driftwood. It was the heart of this town. Closing it would be devastating.

Maggie’s blood pressure has been a threat lately, with a warning that she could have a stroke, and the rumors of her father selling the coffee shop don’t help.

In a fit of pique, Maggie posts an ad outside the coffee shop for someone to be a caretaker for her father and help him clean out his house. But she quickly takes it down.

Into this atmosphere drives Ava, half running from the terrible circumstances of her former boyfriend’s death and her own scary childhood of seizures. She’s been in remission from them, but something is going on and she’s scared they might come back.

Someone sent Ava the advertisement that Maggie put up then tore down and threw away. Ava has her own questions about how it arrived.

The letter had been sent by a dead man.

There was no doubt in my mind.

Fine. There was a little doubt. Okay, a lot of doubt. Buckets of it.

Everyone seems to have their own little secrets in this book, nothing too terrible, and some even they don’t know.

Along with her seizures, Ava has a hyperacute sense of smell and hearing that she doesn’t really want anyone to know about. They factor into the story in lovely ways. When Ava arrives at the coffee shop, there are a lot of sounds – “the blender, grinder, steamer, rattling ice, clank of silverware, music, and voices…..” But they somehow don’t overwhelm her. “Why did the whole town feel like a familiar song?”

Is it all coincidence, conniving trickery, unexplained but perfectly legitimate medical phenomenon, magic, or some otherworldly phenomenon?

I adore coincidences in fiction. I don’t need things to be scientifically and convincingly explained, as long as I’ve been given a good reason to suspend my disbelief. (Which is odd because the truth is that I’m something of a doubting Thomas in real life.)

The writing is lovely and humor features beautifully. There’s a dog that gives a quabark, half quack and half bark, according to Ava.

There are romantic interests for each Maggie and Ava, Donovan and Sam, that feature prominently in the story. They don’t have their own character arc, though they do have a little bit of mystery to their actions and motivations.

I love how you get Maggie and Ava’s perceptions about what is going on. They aren’t unrealiable narrators, but their perspective changes slightly as the story progresses and they find things out, which is real. It happens to all of us.

It was a very relaxing read, not too taxing or strenuous.

I anticipate reading more of Webber’s standalone novels and giving her Lucy Valentine mysteries a try soon.

Book Review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

 

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

By V.E. Schwab

Reviewed by Michelle Wells

Just a quick note to say that this review marks a change for the blog. I’ve decided to only write one review a month so that I won’t be so rushed in my reading and can do a more in depth review of the books. New reviews will be put up on the first Friday of the month and cover whatever I happen to be reading at the moment. I jump between genres with wild abandon. I apologize if that confuses anyone.

Why did I pick this book up? A friend raved about the writing and I needed something that I could sink my teeth into, something that would sweep me up in a story. This book did that fairly well.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue covers several hundred years and begins with a young woman being coerced to marry, “for the good of the village.” It is 1714 in Villon-sur-Sarthe, France. Addie does not want to marry and runs to the woods on the eve of her marriage to pray for deliverance, but Estele has warned her to beware the gods that answer after dark. The god, or devil, that answers Addie’s prayer demands a price. Even in her fear, Addie makes a bargain that at once frees her and damns her.

She is freed from the marriage, and all constraints of obligation, but now no one recognizes her, or remembers her once they have left her presence. Though it takes her time to learn the limits of this new life, Addie figures out ways to survive, and eventually to thrive and enjoy the beauty of art and life. She even figures out how to leave a mark on history.

While the story touches upon various major events in history during the time period covered, it is largely a glancing blow as the story focuses upon Addie, and her relationships with the god/devil she calls Luc, and other people she interacts with, most notably musicians and artists.

In looking back at the story, I was surprised at how early Henry Strauss is introduced. I thought it was much farther into the book, perhaps because he's a very average character, until we find that he can remember Addie. He runs a book store and she tries to steal a book, but it doesn't go down quite the way she expects.

The timeline is a little shallow, like a stone skimming across a pond through many jumps until it sinks in the end, though I did enjoy the ride. “Ooo, I recognize that, and oh, hey, yeah, I recognize that.”

I really wasn’t sure precisely where this was going, right until the final pages, so that is always a plus in my estimation. Things changed directions a bit several times throughout the book, and more often toward the end. I was very concerned at one point that it was turning into one of those books that extolls the virtues of an abusive relationship under the guise of romance, but thankfully that did not turn out to be the case.

Did it develop any deeper themes? Mainly that there is beauty to be found in life in between the pain.

The concept was intriguing, the settings lovely, and nicely described, but the book could have been condensed and not lost anything. Her interaction with her old friend Estele, after her pact with the devil, is echoed by her interaction with her friend Isabelle, without any useful addition. Fewer scenes included but developed more fully might have provided a richer reading experience.

The writing style drew me in and carried me along easily, but it was a long, slow, drawn-out ride. Is this zen or shallow? Addie can’t have any possessions or even leave a mark – with pencil or other tools. It almost forces her into a shallow life. There are mentions of more – trying to save people in World War II and a time of madness, but they aren’t drawn in any depth. It’s still always in relation to her and her relationships, just a framework.

Schwab is a prolific author, 20 books in under 10 years, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts which plays into this story through her use of art works to give Addie a presence in history. Various artists are inspired by her, though they cannot capture her directly. Bea, an art student and friend of Henry’s, notices the similarities in the art works and considers it for a thesis project. I loved this frame of the story, perhaps because of my own college experience. It was easily recognizable and gave me a tangible way into the story.

I listened to a lot of the book on audio and the narrator is quite excellent, bringing to life the French accent and the changing nature of it as Addie gradually loses it. Her male voices were believable too. Without such wonderful narration, I’m not sure I would have enjoyed it quite as much as I did.

The most important thing in a book is to tell a good story. I was entertained. Is it a book that is going to stick with me? I suspect not. Did it offer any revelatory thoughts or inspire me to new thoughts? No.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe by Heather Webber

 

Midnight at the Blackbird Café

by Heather Webber

When Anna Kate’s grandmother, Zee, passes away, she has no choice but to return to Wicklow, Alabama and work the Blackbird Café for two months in order to receive her inheritance. But there’s a reason her mama, Eden, left Wicklow when Anna Kate was little. Anna Kate is bound for medical school in August but first she is going to have to face these old ghosts, and the birds.

There’s something special about the birds that give The Blackbird Café its name. The legend has it that the women in Anna Kate’s family have to listen to the birds and then when people eat the pie they bake, they will dream of messages from deceased loved ones.

Birders descend on the town, having heard about the blackbirds, rare enough in Alabama. Rarer still is that the birds only appear from midnight to one am to sing.

Anna Kate doesn’t have any immediate family left. Her father died in a car crash when her mother was still pregnant. Her mother passed just a few years ago, and now her grandmother has died. But there is more family out there for her, if she can bridge the divide.

Anna Kate’s paternal family, The Lindens, includes her grandfather, Doc Linden, grandmother, Seelie, and an Aunt Natalie who is not all that much older than Anna Kate herself.

Natalie has had some trauma of her own. Her husband died under less than clear circumstances and she has a three-year-old daughter to raise on her own now so she moved back home for help, though she and her mother, Seelie, don’t see eye to eye.

“If my mother knew where I was going, she’d undoubtedly clutch her signature double strand of pearls, purse her lips, and vociferously question the heavens above as to where she had gone wrong raising her only daughter.”

Anna Kate’s grandmother, and Natalie’s mother, Seelie Linden, is an old-fashioned proper southern belle who was dead set against her son marrying Eden, and when A.J. died in a car accident, she blamed Eden.

This book is filled with wonderful characters. The ones who are no longer living are often as intriguing as the ones Anna Kate comes in contact with. It is a huge cast but each person feels real and individual in their own right.

There’s Faylene, a town busybody who means well and actually knows a lot. She quickly volunteers to babysit for Natalie while she takes care of her own granddaughter. Gordon was Zee’s lawyer and lives next door to the café. He seems sweet on Anna Kate and she is more than a little interested, but it’s all VERY restrained. Mr. Lazenby requires his daily piece of pie in order to dream of his deceased wife. Aubin Pavageau was Anna Kate’s father’s best friend growing up. He’s friendly but suffering from his own trauma after his wife died a few years before in a car accident. Then there’s a mysterious bird with a broken wing about town, and a ragged old gray cat that acts like it understands far more than any cat has a right to.

 This is a book as full of flavor as any of the pies Anna Kate serves in the Blackbird Café. I highly recommend.

Book Review: The Master of Hounds by Joseph Gary Crance

 

The Master of Hounds

by Joseph Gary Crance

This fourth book in the series opens with a family wedding and a display of the uncanny perceptions of the Ernst family. We step into the action not too long after the third book, then fast forward to the boy Mattie, all grown up and going to college. A new character, a young woman named Logan, enters the picture, running with the wrong crowd as she searches for a connection her upbringing lacked. She falls in with a biker gang that means bad news for her, and the Ernst family.

The author deems his work family saga but I felt like this book reminded me of an action film with magical realism, which definitely worked for me. The exceptional powers of characters, human and canine, plays fairly lightly but an important element. Though I’ve only had one dog of my own in my life, the uncanny intelligence of a dog is something that I’m well familiar with and so I can readily accept a canine character that goes just a touch above that. I’ve also always enjoyed an easy sort of acceptance in spirits and spirit guides stepping into a story to offer some perspective.

My favorite parts of the story owe more to the detailed description of nature and the experiences characters have while communing with the countryside of Painted Post – from camping to fishing to simply observing sunrises.  

“Then it happened. The sun poked above the eastern ridge, bathing Painted Post in soft yellow. A flock of starlings, ecstatic at the start of the new day, left the upper limbs of large sycamores and started a twisting murmuration over the growing corn.”

It brought me nostalgic reminders of my youth fishing with my father and listening to hunting stories around the dinner table. Homespun wisdom and nature lore play a large part in this story.

Many old favorite characters return, such as Uncle Arthur and J.P., then there are many familiar from just the last book who play important parts in Matthew’s story.

I have to admit there was a couple too many instances of characters cupping another character’s chin for my taste and some of the jokes are played with a fairly heavy hand, as with Uncle Arthur and a certain lady who is interested in him, and jokes about men running away from a wedding. These minor distractions did not keep me from enjoying the story though.

I’m looking forward to the next book.

Book Review: The Daughters of Temperance Hobbes by Katherine Howe

This is the sequel to The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. I would put it at magical realism rather than fantasy per se.

Connie is up for tenure and her workload is ridiculous, which has already put a strain on her relationship with her live in boyfriend. It’s about to get a whole lot worse. There’s a curse at work and the man Connie loves is in danger. She’ll have to work a spell to save him, but she’s not the only one who has ever worked this spell in an attempt to save the man she loved.

The scenes switch between present day university politics, the frantic attempt to put together the antiquated recipe ingredients for the spell, some of which are very bizarre, and the scenes of yesteryear as an ancestor attempts the same spell.

I really enjoyed the look at academic world politics where people are trying to get their degree and others are making choices based on whether they have tenure or not.

The politics are well described, as is the setting. “The Green Monster had once been a grand Cantabridgian house of the Gilded Age, all dentil moldings and curving oak-railed staircases and marble fireplaces.”

Overall, an engrossing and fun read for the history, the relationships, and the witchcraft. 

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Her Fearful Symmetry
By Audrey Niffenegger

Elspeth has been sending letters to Edie, her twin, in America every two weeks.  Edie has a mailbox where she receives the letters and then reads and burns them.  Finally, a letter arrives which says good-bye.  Elspeth is dying of cancer.

“Elspeth turned her face towards the door.  She wanted to call out, Robert, but her throat was suddenly full.  She felt as though her soul were attempting to climb out by way of her oesophagus.”

Edie is raising two daughters, Valentina and Julia, twins themselves.  In her will, Elspeth leaves the twins her flat but the bequest comes with strings.  Their parents cannot visit the flat, and the girls must live there for a year before selling.

The other people in the building next to Highgate Cemetery are dealing with changes as well.  Elspeth’s lover, Robert, lives in one of the flats.  He has never had to deal with losing someone. 

The other tenant, Martin, has an obsessive compulsive disorder and is agoraphobic.  His wife of 23 years, Marijke, has just left him to go back to her native land.  She would welcome him coming too but doesn’t expect he ever will.  He is too bound by his own mind.

“Check the gas.  Wash my hands.  Wash them very thoroughly, so there can be no mistake.  Use stronger soap.  Use bleach.  The floor is dirty.  Wash it.  Walk around the dirty part without touching it.  Use as few steps as possible. Spread towels over the floor to keep the contamination from spreading.  Wash the towels.  Again.  Again.”

As the twins arrive from America, Robert and Martin are getting through the days, dealing with their respective losses, but Elspeth has not completely left.  In fact, she is getting stronger.

The writing is pensive, elegant, involved.  Even a simple description of Marijke’s apartment is rife with meaning and emotion even as it gambols. 

“It had pitched ceilings, heavy beams, whitewashed walls.  Her futon occupied one corner; her clothes hung in another corner behind a curtain.  She had a table with two chairs, a tiny kitchen, a window that overlooked the little crooked street, a vase of freesias on the windowsill.  She had a comfortable chair and a lamp.  For more than a year now this room had been her haven, fortress, retreat, her triumphant, undiscoverable gambit in her marital game of hide-and-seek.  Standing there, clasping the earrings in her hand, Marijke saw her snug room as a lonely place.  Apartment.  A place to be apart.  She shook her head to change her thoughts and opened Martin’s letter.”

It is an unusual novel with some very lovely writing and some truly horrific incidents.  I was intrigued, transported and entertained.  I would recommend it.

Practical Magic ~ Alice Hoffman

Practical Magic
By Alice Hoffman

This is probably one of my all-time favorite stories, whether as a movie or a book.  I first fell in love with the movie in my twenties.  It’s everything a young woman wants in a story – a romance, a comedy, some kick-ass heroines who end up saving themselves and a whole lot of magic. 

The movie led me to the book.  The two play out differently and the book is told in a slightly different way, but this was the first introduction to magic realism I had in a book format.  (Of course, one might look at magic realism as a modern fairytale and, in that respect, say that they had been reading such stories since they could read.)

Sally and Gillian are as different as night and day and yet so close that they can finish each other’s sentences.  Sally is dark haired while Gillian is blond.  Sally is the responsible one, while Gillian is the lazy one.  Their parents died when they were young and they went to live with the aunts, who lost their loves when they were young women themselves. 

Sally and Gillian hope to find that their aunts are charlatans, but that isn’t the case.  When a young woman turns to the aunts for a love potion because she is obsessed with an older man, she gets more than she bargained for.  The older man becomes obsessed with her and suffocating in his love.  When the girls see this played out, they make a vow never to fall in love.

Of course, fate has other ideas, but it isn’t a smooth road.  Love comes to each of them, but not easily.   This seems to be the manner of things for Owens women.  They live under a curse when it comes to love. 

This story is a modern fairytale.  Most fairytales take the line that love can set you free but, in this story, love can be entangling, even obsessive.  It is a book of extremes, things that don’t or can’t happen in real life and things that people don’t or won’t say in real life, happen here.  The writing itself is somehow magical.  Give it a chance to cast a spell on you.

Big Fish ~ Daniel Wallace

Big Fish
By Daniel Wallace

“I thought of him suddenly, and simply, as a boy, a child, a youth, with his whole life ahead of him, much as mine was ahead of me. I’d never done that before. And these images – the now and then of my father – converged, and at that moment he turned into a weird creature, wild, concurrently young and old, dying and newborn. My father became a myth.”

When we’re young we see our fathers as larger than life. They pick us up and fling us around. They have an answer for everything we want to know. Then, one day, we realize that they are simply human, with all the inadequacies of the human race, and not everyone can forgive them for that, for being human.

In Big Fish, Daniel Wallace writes a novel that returns a father to those mythic proportions while encompassing the frailties of humanity, embodied in having an affair and dying of a disease.

Edward Bloom was an absentee father. William Bloom has learned who his father is in jokes and tall tales his father told while he was home. Among the tall tales and stories of Edward Bloom’s life, four different versions of his death are related. In the beginning, Edward is cracking jokes and telling tall tales while William rejects the humor and begs for something real, to finally know his father before he dies. In the end, William accepts that the tall tales and jokes are how he will know and remember his father.

A work of Magic Realism, Big Fish takes reality and infuses it with elements of the myth or legend. Things happen in a way that could never happen in real life, but in doing so make the story more true than if it had happened realistically because, the truth is, impossible things happen in real life all the time. When that happens, we say, “Huh. What’s the chance of that?” and put it down to coincidence. It’s up to you whether you believe in coincidence or not.

My father always told stories of his life as a boy. They were realistic and I accepted them as fact. It took some time before I realized they could change a little bit with every telling. Did that make them not true? I like facts, that’s how my mind works, but stories offer truth in a slightly different way where the truth of the situation doesn’t always reside in the facts, but in the spirit of the telling.

This little book resounds with truth.

The Sugar Queen ~ Sarah Addison Allen

The Sugar Queen
by Sarah Addison Allen

The first thing that meets the eye when you pick up a book is, of course, the cover, and the covers of Sarah Addison Allen’s books are lushly beautiful.  The Sugar Queen cover shows a young woman curled up on a window seat with big purple pillows and an open book, looking out into the woods - an enticing vision for any lover of books.  I’ll admit, covers often factor into whether I will pick up a book to begin with.  However, that is not why I picked up this book.  No, it was because of the most effective marketing for books ever introduced, word of mouth.  It was recommended to me by one of our library volunteers.  The cover was just a bonus.    

The Sugar Queen centers around four couples.  Josey, who lives in a big house helping to care for her mother, is secretly in love with the mailman, Adam.  She fills the void with sweet treats and romance novels at night.  Then Della Lee Baker takes up residence in her closet, hiding from her abusive boyfriend Julian, and starts pushing Josey out into the world, into new experiences. 

Josey meets Chloe at the sandwich shop she owns.  Chloe is stalked by self-help books, they simply appear whenever they have something to tell her such as Finding Forgiveness.  Her boyfriend, Jake, cheated on her and Chloe broke up with him but she is struggling with how much she still loves him. 

Finally, Josey’s mother Margaret has been in love with the local cabdriver, Rawley, for forty years.  In fact, they were once lovers, but now he never speaks to her.

Allen makes much of the interconnectedness between the couples, intertwining the stories further, giving the story a small town feel.  It turns out Josey’s new friend, Chloe, is good friends with Adam, who is also a friend of Jake.  Then Julian and Chloe meet at a bar and Julian begins charming Chloe, in stalker fashion.

Full of Southern charm, romance and magical realism cross paths in the books of Sarah Addison Allen.  The Sugar Queen is sweet and short but with surprising depth.  I highly recommend it.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake ~ Aimee Bender

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
by Aimee Bender

I’ve always been fascinated by books which bring magical elements into our everyday world.  Following in the footsteps of such well known authors as Alice Hoffman and Isabel Allende, authors like Sarah Addison Allen and Aimee Bender offer us fresh insight into the human soul through riveting stories that bring fairy tales and fables to modern life.

Aimee Bender offers a lyrical story in The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.  Rose Edelstein is an average little girl, overshadowed by her somewhat brilliant older brother and outside the special relationship he seems to have with their mother.  Then, when her mother bakes her a trial run birthday cake for Rose’s ninth birthday, Rose discovers an unusual gift.  She can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake, the “absence, hunger, spiraling, hollows.”  Though it is sweet and delicious, the cake tastes empty.    

From then on, Rose can taste her mother’s deep dissatisfaction with her life in every bite of food her mother prepares.  It is a painful awareness.  When her mother starts an affair, Rose can taste it.  As time goes on, Rose finds she can trace where a food came from and who was involved in its preparation, right back to the farm where the ingredients were grown. 

Rose slowly realizes that her brother has a special gift, a very disturbing gift, that takes him further and further away from their family.  She wonders where these gifts came from.  Neither of her parents have gifts, or do they?

One oddity is that even with her dialogue, Bender uses no quotes.  I can see where that would consternate some readers.  It gives the book the feel of a flashback, more of an internal quality, a storybook quality. 

This is not a “happy” book.  Everything is not going to be “okay,” and yet it is.  Rose finds a niche for herself in the world, finds her way.  That, to me, is real life.  At the end of the book I felt I had experienced something; that I had taken in a new way of looking at the world.  The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is an unusual book.  The author leads you down a path but in the end you do have to take a fairly large leap.  I enjoyed this book deeply, but you’ll have to decide for yourself whether you do.