Finished: A Bell For Adano (Hersey) Pulitzer Prize winning novel about an American WWII major who is assigned the Italian town of Adano to oversee after the Allies take over the former fascist towns. Major Joppolo is a good and fair young officer. He starts with a town that is distrusting of town leadership, since their last mayor was a fascist who treated them all terribly. The town is starving, in need of water, and in very low morale. Former town leaders make their way to Joppolo within his first few days of being there and let him know that their biggest need is not food or water...but that Mussolini had taken their 700 year old bell from the city square bell tower and had it shipped to his military to be melted down and made into weapons. If they could only have their bell back, they would know freedom for certain and all be able to heal as a town. Major Joppolo promises to look into getting a new bell, but at the top of his list, he makes providing the town with food, water and the ability to start their businesses running again his top priorities. When the hard-core, blustering, unyielding General Marvin is trying to move through the town on Joppolo's first day there, he is held up by a man with a donkey cart in the middle of the road. The townsman has fallen asleep in his cart and the donkey will not move. Enraged, the general orders his men to dump the cart over into the ditch, with the man in it, and then to shoot the donkey in the head. Reluctantly, his men do so. He then stops in to see Joppolo and commands that it be put in writing that there shall be no more carts on the roads into or out of Adano. Period. Joppolo lets the townsfolk know about the edict, and he enforces it...for one day. When the people of the town come to him to let him know they are starving and without water unless the carts can come through, Joppolo tells the men under him to ignore the edict and directly go against the general's order. One man, who is afraid to do it, decides to write up a report and have it sent to the general. In several interspersed chapters that remind me much of the dark humor of Catch-22, various military men under the major purposely make mistakes and reroute the report or bury the report on various desks in order to keep Major Joppolo from getting into trouble with the general. This goes on until the end of the book, when finally the report accidentally ends up in the general's hands and he blows his lid. He calls for Joppolo to be on the very next transport out of Adano and to Algiers to be reassigned. (It is said that General Patton actually shot a mule that was blocking his way on a small Italian road, so maybe this general is representing him?) Anyway, before the reassignment ever comes at the end of the book Major Joppolo does wonders with the town. He sees to it that they are thriving with water and food, mostly by making sure that there is no one there to mess with free market prices like the old mayor did. He finally gets the town to trust him and realize that he will NOT be taking any cut of any money the people make. He gets permission from the Navy (since they are a port town) to let the fisherman go back into the water as long as they have maps and know where to stay away from possible mines. This truly makes the town thrive again with the fishing business underway. Joppolo also handles all the town disputes with fairness, hearing all sides. The people come to respect whatever punishment he doles out, which is usually nothing more than teaching a moral lesson. He also never keeps searching for how to get a bell back into the town. He approaches the Navy captain again, and tells him the tale of the bell, and then cleverly almost makes it seem like the captain's idea to look for a replacement for the bell. And, lo and behold, one of the Navy men just happens to know of an American destroyer that is captained by a fellow who he went to school with. When he reaches out to that captain, he gives up his ship's bell for the town of Adano. The town has come to love Major Joppolo so much, that they decide to have a portrait painted of him and throw him a party of thanks. When the bell arrives the morning of the party, Joppolo works feverishly to get the bell installed so he can surprise the town people that night. One piece is needed, though, that the Navy can't get until the next morning. At the party, Joppolo is touched by both his portrait and the people there who have come to love him. He also sees one of his officers drunk, and when he goes to help him out, he finds out the officer had intercepted the major's mail that morning and had in his pocket the order from the general reassigning Joppolo. Saddened, Joppolo keeps a happy face through the rest of the party, and then packs his belongings to leave the next morning. He doesn't want to leave the town, and mostly, he hopes that whoever replaces him will have the welfare of the townspeople in his heart. Too emotional to say goodbye to anyone, Joppolo hops in the jeep that has come to get him, and when they are a bit of the way out of town, he asks the driver to stop and listen. They hear a bell peeling at the 11:00 hour that the old city bell used to peel. Joppolo is at least happy to know that the bell has been installed and is ringing. This story is based on the true actions of a major in World War II who made sure that the small Italian town he'd been put in charge of got it's bell....and the bell did come from an American destroyer! This was such an uplifting story to me, and Major Joppolo was such a good man! Definitely glad I read this one! :-)

Finished: Shadow of Night (Harkness) The second book in the All Souls Trilogy (i.e., the sequel to A Discovery of Witches). A good continuation of the story of witch, Diana Bishop, and vampire, Matthew Clairmont, who fall in love in the first book and realize at the end of that book, they must travel far back in time to find the ancient manuscript (Ashmole 782) that supposedly holds the key to their origins. And, also while there, they must seek out a witch who can help unbind the spell Diana's mother put on her before she died to keep Diana from realizing her own witch powers, to keep her safe. So, in this second book, Diana and Matthew travel back in time to Elizabethan England. The book starts off a bit slow. (I must admit, these books are not a fast read for me at all...not page-turners, so it's taking me so long to read each one.) Anyway, they travel back in time where the Matthew de Clairmont of the 1500's hangs with the likes of true historical figures Walter Raleigh, Christopher Marlowe, Henry "Hotspur" Percy, and even Queen Elizabeth herself. We meet some new characters, like a vampire nephew of Matthew's, Gallowglass, who is loyal to both Matthew and Diana. Basically, the married couple continues to go through the trials of being married to another "kind". They also get pregnant, but lose the baby, but then get pregnant again by the end of the book. Diana does finally meet a powerful witch, Goody Alsop, who helps her discover that she's not only a witch who can time travel, but she's also a weaver, which is very rare, meaning she can weave spells that deal directly with life and death. Diana discovers her "familiar" is a firedrake. And, both Diana and Matthew see and interact with their fathers who are deceased in modern times. Matthew's father is a very powerful vampire, Philippe de Clairmont, and though he objects to her at first, he comes to respect and love Diana and adopts into his family officially (after throwing Diana and Matthew a legitimate wedding) so she will always have his protection. Diana's father, Stephen, had been killed when she was only seven, but he was also a time-traveler, so when they run into him in 1500's England, he realizes he's meeting his grown daughter, and they have some very poignant moments together. After Diana's binding spell is broken, and she learns how to come into her own power...and...after they finally get their hands on the Ashmole 872 to see what it's all about, Diana and Matthew realize they must go back to their modern time to be with the families they left behind and fight the battles that were begun there with the Congregation, who were dangerously opposed to the union of witch and vampire. At the end of the book, Diana and Matthew arrive back at Sept-Tours, the de Clairmont home in France, and are reunited with Matthew's mother Ysabeau, his son, Marcus, and Diana's aunt Sarah, along with the other friends and family who had gathered at the fortress in preparation for the coming war with the Congregation. Oh, and Diana is carrying twins. :-) I will definitely read the third book of the trilogy, but think I'll take a little break with some other books in between first!

Finished: A Discovery of Witches (Harkness) The first book in the trilogy set in current times, where humans share the world with witches, vampires, and daemons. The story is about a witch, Diana Bishop, who falls in love with a vampire, Matthew Clairmont. Diana is a professor of alchemical history who is doing research at the University of Oxford in England. She is a witch from the famous Bishop family of witches, but has always squashed her own abilities at magic since her parents, both witches, died when she was just seven years old. Devastated by their deaths, but raised by her aunt Sarah and her partner, Emily, also witches, she has always refused to practice any magic, let alone give into the natural, very strong abilities, she possesses due to her powerful lineage. When Diana inadvertently checks out a long lost manuscript that witches, daemons, and vampires have been searching for for centuries, she suddenly becomes very interesting to very many people. When she touches the manuscript, she can tell that it is under a powerful magic spell, so after glancing at just a few pages, she returns it immediately. Enter the charming, but dangerous, biologist and doctor, Matthew Clairmont, the vampire that has been alive since the 1500's, and has been searching for the illusive manuscript for nearly all that time. The vampires, as well as the witches and the daemons, all believe that the manuscript holds the secrets to how they were all initially created, and more importantly, how they could rid the world of each other. Matthew initially makes contact with Diana to gain access to the manuscript, but very quickly falls in love with her and she with him. Unfortunately, the "mixing" of vampires, witches, and daemons is strictly forbidden by the Congregation....a committee headed by three vampires, three witches, and three daemons, all very powerful. The Congregation was created centuries ago when the other-worldly creatures began to get "out of hand" and were starting to be too noticed by humans. Any vampire, witch or daemon caught trying to have a relationship with one of the other "types" could face harsh penalties, even violent death. Add to that everyone looking for the manuscript, Matthew's very frosty vampire mother, Diana's very protective witch aunts, and Diana's complete lack of control of her powers, and you get the adversity needed to throw Matthew and Diana right into each other's arms. They manage to win each other's families over, but they cannot shake the danger they are in. When Matthew is nearly killed trying to protect Diana from, Juliette, a powerful vampire sent by the Congregation, Diana unleashes her powerful witchfire, and burns Juliette to a crisp. She manages to save Matthew's life, with the help of her family, and Matthew's vampire son, Marcus. As a group, they decide that for Diana's own safety, and for the impending battle with the Congregation, she needs to learn how to control and use her powers. Since her genetic markers show she has time-traveling abilities passed on by her father, Matthew and Diana decide to go back in time to when there were supremely powerful witches who can teach her how to use her skills. It also doesn't hurt, Matthew decides, that they'll go back to the time when the manuscript might be floating around before being spellbound. Their destination? England in the 1500's. They journey there at the end of book one, and land there at the beginning of book two, which I have just started reading. An enjoyable series to read so far! :-)

Finished: Alias Grace (Atwood) A fictional story based on the 1843 real-life murders of Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery in Canada. Kinnear was a gentleman and Nancy his housekeeper, who he was having an affair with. At the heart of the book is Grace Marks, the servant girl hired by Nancy who arrived at the house to help when she was only fifteen years old. Having had an extremely tough childhood, where she watched her mother die at sea crossing over from Ireland, worked to the bone by her abusive father while caring for her younger siblings, and scarred by the death of the only friend she ever had, Mary, from her previous place of employment, Grace already has three strikes against her. By the time she is sixteen, Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery have been brutally murdered and Grace and the farm hand, James McDermott, have been arrested for their murders. As the story opens, Grace has been in the penitentiary for fifteen years and is set to be interviewed by budding psychiatric doctor, Simon Jordan. It is through this series of interviews, and a series of letters written between characters, that we hear Grace's entire story. She claims to have no memory of the actual murders, but can give vivid detail of everything leading up to the murders and everything within hours afterwords. Is she simply playing the amnesiac? Was this her way of escaping being hung, the fate James McDermott suffered? Grace's story is terribly sad and compelling and depressing, but you come away still never knowing the real truth of whether she's a calculating, bold-blooded murderess. Grace says McDermott did it and threatened her life as well, but she has no memory of the details. McDermott says that Grace promised him she'd bed and marry him if he'd only get rid of Nancy and Thomas. We'll never know the real truth. Sadly, Simon deteriorates a bit in the environment and at times fancies himself in love with Grace, and he also has a sordid affair with his married landlady, which is totally against his character. When he realizes he's in too deep, and has really come away with no answer after weeks of interviewing Grace, he heads for home. Home for him, though, is the U.S., which is about to enter the Civil War. Apparently Simon then fights for the North and suffers a head injury that renders HIM with no memory of his recent past, and all his dealings with Graces. Perhaps that's actually for the best? Eventually, when Grace is 45, she is granted clemency and released from the penitentiary. In the book she marries and settles down to a quiet life with her husband, eerily, a teenage boy (at the time of the murders) who gave testimony that helped put her away. In reality, people lost touch with her and she disappeared from public and the limelight. The book itself took me forever to read, maybe because of the subject material. I was really surprised to find an Atwood book that I didn't tear through!

Finished: The Alchemist (Coelho) First book of 2018! I can't believe I'm starting my seventh year of my reading bender. :-) The Alchemist is the story of Santiago, a shepherd boy from Spain who decides to follow the path that a recurrent dream leads him on to find treasure near the Pyramids in Egypt. Little does he know, as he sells his sheep and sets off on his journey, that he will meet people who have a profound influence on his life...the man who is a king, the crystal shop keeper, an Englishman searching for his own treasure, a gypsy woman, a lovely girl fetching water at the oasis well, and the alchemist, himself. What Santiago learns from all these people, and from his own experiences, is that what he is really searching for is the soul of the world through nature and through the universal language of love. He comes to realize that God created everything, and so all things are equal. He goes through many tribulations, but also has many positive experiences while listening closely to his own heart and the world around him. Eventually he learns that trusting his heart will lead him to the treasure, which does actually exist. Once he finds the actual treasure, he has found so much more in the world around him, and he heads back to the oasis to find his love, the girl who is waiting for him there. It's a good book...a little preachy, and not very complicated...but good. I think as this new year begins, I'm going to make my recaps much shorter. It's more enjoyable for me that way...to read a book and savor it and then just write a little bit about it before moving on. Happy 2018!

Finished: A Wrinkle In Time (Le'Engle) A book my kids read in middle school and I finally read it! A girl, Meg, whose scientist father has been missing for a year, is taken on a fifth dimension, time traveling, tesseract adventure by three unique individuals, along with her super smart, other-worldly little brother, Charles Wallace, and her new friend, Calvin,  to try and rescue her father. Her father is being held by an evil force, which nearly takes over the mind of Charles Wallace as well before Meg realizes that the answer is that love conquers all. Once she does that, they are all whisked back to their own planet and dimension....with the very real promise of more adventures to come.

Finished: The Dry (Harper) Another page turner! The Dry is about Aaron Falk, a detective in the fraud division in Melbourne, Australia, who goes back to his small hometown for the first time since a scandal twenty years before, to attend the funeral of his childhood best friend, Luke Hadler. Drought conditions have driven people to even killing their own cattle that they can't keep watered, and the unchallenged theory is that a drought distraught Luke took the life of his young wife, and his young son, before killing himself. Luke's father thinks otherwise, though, and he has reached out to Aaron to come home and figure out what happened. The motherless Aaron and his own father had left Kiewarra twenty years before, run out of town more like it, when Ellie Deacon, the girl sixteen year old Aaron was in love with, was found drowned in the river. Many people thought she'd taken her own life, especially since they suspected she was physically abused by her father, but having found a note in a pair of her jeans that had the date of her death written on it, and the name "Falk", the entire town turned against Aaron and assumed he'd killed her. Luke offered up Aaron a false alibi, since they were both off separately just fishing and whatnot. Luke didn't want Aaron to be pinned with something he didn't do. Nonetheless, the town was relentless in it's harassment of both Aaron and his father, so they picked up stakes and left the family farm. When Aaron comes back twenty years later, many of the town folks remember him and still shun him. Ellie's father and cousin are particularly brutal bullies, but Aaron is determined to stay and see what happened to Luke, his wife and little Billy. Their 13 month old baby girl had been left unharmed in her crib, so it was all a big mystery. Of course, most of the town had already judged the dead Luke and determined that financial and farm troubles had lead him to the murder/suicide. With the help of the local police chief, Aaron uncovers what looks to be motives in a few different people who may have wanted Luke dead, but each one becomes a dead end. In the meantime, he's also meeting up with Gretchen, the fourth in their quartet of teenage friends, and trying to figure out what really happened to Ellie...one week after they shared their first kiss at the secret "rock" tree by the river. When Aaron and the chief finally stop looking at who might have a grudge against Luke and look at his wife, Karen, they hit the jackpot. Karen had uncovered $50,000 of mishandled funds at the elementary school, which had received the much need money grant from a charitable society. The principal, who had moved to town in recent years, had a gambling problem and owed some nasty men some money. When confronted by Karen, the school bookkeeper, he decided that it would be better to kill her and Luke and blame it on Luke than to face the consequences of admitting he'd stolen the money. He had thought little Billy would be at his own home on a play date with his own seven year old daughter, but Karen had canceled that at the last minute. So, when Billy saw his principal shoot his own mother, he ran to his room to hide, but the principal tracked him down, found his hiding spot and killed him. :-( That part of the book is very sad and awful, but the majority of the book doesn't focus on the gruesome details. Instead, we delve into Aaron, Luke, Ellie, and Gretchen's past...and into Aaron and Gretchen's current lives. We also find out that it was the evil Mal Deacon himself, who killed his own daughter Ellie, when he tracked her down to the river preparing to run away like her own mother had five years before and he killed her. Twenty years later, Aaron found her backpack tucked in the crevice of their secret rock tree and in it her diary where she explained that her father had become more and more abusive so she was going to leave town...even though she'd just found someone she really cared for....Aaron. This was a really good book, and I believe the author's first. I will definitely be reading her next book which apparently also has Aaron Falk in it, solving another murder mystery in Australia! :-)

Finished: The Child Finder (Denfeld) A suspenseful, thought-provoking, page-turner of a book! Naomi is a nearly thirty year old woman whose job and mission in life is to find missing children. Her current case involves five year old Madison Culver who went missing deep in the snowy Oregon woods when she ran ahead of her parents as they were out to find a Christmas tree. It has been three years now, and Madison's parents are convinced she is still alive and that someone has her. The story flashes back and forth between a few point of views...mostly Naomi's and the snow girl's. The snow girl is, of course, Madison, who was found nearly frozen to death by a deaf and mute mountain-man trapper. He takes Madison back to his cabin, nurses her back to health, but also keeps her locked in his basement. We come to find out that he was kidnapped as a seven year old boy by a horrific pedophile, and brought to this very cabin. Beaten and sexually abused, eventually as a young adult, he got the courage up to kill his tormentor. He had been so physically and psychologically damaged, and stunted in how to socialize with people, that he remained living the cabin by himself for years until he stumbled across Madison. Then, he did all he had ever known, and though he treated Madison better than he was treated, she became his possession and he abused her sexually. Madison, upon awaking away from her parents, felt herself thawing out from freezing and immediately decided that she must be the snow girl from her fairy tale book, and that Mr. B, as she came to call him, was her creator. Though she definitely suffered a bit of Stockholm Syndrome, she also knew deep down that she had a family somewhere, and once Mr. B started taking her out with him to do animal trapping, she began leaving little threads from her sweater tied to low tree branches in case she ever needed a pathway out of the cabin if she escaped. Meanwhile, Naomi continues her searching. She has demons of her own. She was also taken as a child, but she remembers nothing but running from an underground prison, across a strawberry field, towards a fire where some migrant workers took her to the sheriff. There were no parents who claimed her as missing, so she was brought up by a loving, kind foster mother. She has nightmares about what happened, and each missing child that she finds, whether living or dead, helps her towards realizing her own past. Eventually she remembers that she also had a little sister with her, and that they ran as fast as they could across the field, but when she turned to tell her that they made it, her little sister wasn't there....she had not kept up. Naomi refuses to give up on Madison, and through methodical work, looking at years old claim records of hunting cabins, and diligent searching, finally finds the colorful threads! Through a very suspenseful portion of the book, where Mr. B knows she's coming and sets a trap, and through Naomi and Mr. B having an all out physical fight, and through Madison working her way out of the basement trap door, Mr. B is killed by a knife that Madison hands Naomi. Madison is reunited with her parents, and stays in touch with Naomi. Naomi sets off in search of her next missing child...her little sister! Not very pleasant subject material, but it's not graphic. It's more about defeating the kidnapper and not letting the experience ruin the lives of the victims. And, wow, it was, as I said...a page-turner!

Finished: Black Beauty (Sewell) I can't believe I went my whole life never reading Black Beauty...especially being a horse owner, with a daughter who has ridden and been a horse lover since 2nd grade! Now that I've read it, though, I was a little disappointed. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was different than I thought it would be. The story is told from Black Beauty's point of view. He talks and tells the story of his life, from owner to owner, and horse friendship to horse friendship. He seems to understand what humans are saying when they talk! And, he has lovely conversations with other horses. :-) His life starts out pretty cushy. He's well bred and treated royally, and taught in all the proper ways how to act, how to take the bridle, and saddle, and desensitized to scary noises so he won't shy away. Then, he's sold, and though every time he's sold, the previous owner tries to make sure he goes to other people who will treat him with the utmost respect, he does suffer through some bad owners, thus leading him to nearly breaking down. He spends time being a cab driver, a carriage driver, a driver for private owners, etc. He nearly dies of ignorant mistreatment a couple of times. But...at the end, he ends up back on a farm with a horse groom who was actually one of his grooming boys years before! The biggest problem I have with the book is the section where Black Beauty is owned by a cab driver in London. His owner is just wonderful, and treats him great. However, the book takes far too many tangents delving into what the cab driver has to pontificate about on life issues, morals, drinking, churchgoing, etc. They are all good, valuable things for a child reader to learn, but it's just odd that Black Beauty is relating these pages long human conversations that really have nothing to do with his horse life, lol. Anyway, I'm so glad I finally read the book...but also glad I'm done with it. Can't wait to ask Jenny Cate if she actually ever read it! I know she has several copies. :-)

Finished: Little Fires Everywhere (Ng) A very good book that hooks you at the beginning with the family home of the Richardsons, the main characters, burning down and then flashing back to how it all reached that point. The Richardsons are the perfect family living the perfect life in Shaker Heights, an overly pre-planned suburb of Cleveland. Mr. Richardson is a lawyer and Mrs. Richardson is a town journalist. They have four teenage children Lexie, a senior in high school, Trip, a junior, Moody, a sophomore, and Izzy a freshman. They are kids who have never wanted for food, TVs, cars, etc. They aren't bad kids, just privileged and not overly insightful to other people's needs...except for Izzy. Izzy is the rebel of the family who is always arguing for the underdog at the family dinner table. She's been suspended from school a few times, but rather than sit her down and really talk about why, her overbearing mother just assumes the worst of her and is always at odds with her. Each of the members of the family is delved into pretty deeply, and we learn that they all have their motivations and insecurities, just like the rest of us. Mrs. Richardson is so hard on Izzy because she's afraid of losing her. After three easy births with her first three children, Mrs. Richardson faced the terrifying experience of Izzy being several weeks premature and battling several of the problems that go along with preemies. Izzy, though, grew up just fine with no residual affects. Her mother, though, turns her fear of losing Izzy into a harsh over-protectiveness and harsher expectations, more so than with any of her other kids. They can all feel it, and because of it, Izzy becomes more of the rebel and the loner, not really getting along with her siblings. Lexie and Trip are the popular good-looking ones of the bunch; and Moody is the smart, thoughtful one. He understands Izzy the most. The author writes very beautifully as we see what makes each of these characters tick. So...enters into their little Shaker Heights world the enigmatic Mia Warren...an artist who uses her photography, along with other materials that appeal to her, to create very moving, meaningful pieces of art. She's an Asian woman and a single mother of fifteen year old Pearl. Mia and Pearl have moved from city to city as long as Pearl can remember. Mia will get an idea for a project, and plant roots for awhile to see her vision come to life...and then when she's done, they will pack up their VW Rabbit and be on their way. As an early art school student, Mia met a very influential photography professor who, recognizing her raw talent, put her in touch with a gallery agent who occasionally sold pieces of Mia's artwork. This bit of money, plus what she made taking whatever job she could where they moved, kept Mia and Pearl scraping by. When they move to Shaker Heights, Mia tells Pearl that they will finally stay put just as Pearl is entering high school. Pearl meets Moody Richardson first, and they become fast friends. Pearl is smart, and shy, but shares his same love for poetry and sense of humor. They do homework together and walk back and forth to school together and have all the same classes. Of course, Moody falls hard for Pearl...but when he finally takes her home to meet his brother and sisters, Pearl falls hard for Trip! It's more than just a teenage romance story, though. We see how all the Richardson kids are drawn to Pearl for different reasons. They accept her as one of their friends, and she begins to spend all her afternoons there. Her crush on Trip doesn't become known for quite awhile. We also learn about Mia's past. Her big secret is that she agreed to be a surrogate mother for a couple in New York to pay her second year of art school. Her parents had refused to pay, thinking photography and art in general were stupid things to build a future on. About six months after becoming pregnant (by sperm in a turkey baster!!) with the couple's child, Mia realized she'd fallen in love with her baby and couldn't go through with it. It was the beginning of her packing up what little she owned and running away. It was also right when her beloved younger brother, the only person who didn't judge her...the person with whom she even had a secret language from childhood, died in a car accident while with a friend. It was his VW Beetle that she ended up taking and making her own. There are just layers and layers to the story that I can't do justice to with a recap. Anyway, as Pearl grows close to the three oldest Richardson children, Izzy discovers that she gets along well with Mia. She goes over to Mia's rental every day after school and helps her with her photo development. Mia just seems to "get" Izzy and is warm and understanding to her, much more than her own mother. It is also Mia who Lexie turns to after she has an abortion (which Pearl drives her to). No way could she face her own mother, or ever let her know she got pregnant. In the midst of all the goings on between the Richardsons and Mia and Pearl, Mrs. Richardson's best friend has just thrown a first birthday party for the little Asian baby girl that she and her husband will be adopting after years and years of trying to get pregnant. They've had little Mirabelle since she was two months old, since she was left on a winter evening on the doorstep of a firehouse. However, just as they are about to do their final adoption proceedings, Mia finds out that she actually works with the baby's biological mother at her afternoon job at the Chinese restaurant. And...the mother wants her baby back now that she's back on her feet. A custody battle ensues, and battle lines are drawn. Mr. Richardson becomes the lawyer for the friends who are adopting, and Mrs. Richardson, Lexie, Trip and Moody all feel that Mirabelle should be placed with the loving parents she's been with for the past year. Izzy, and Mia and Pearl all think that she should be able to go back to her biological mother. In the midst of all this, Pearl and Trip finally realize they have feelings for each other and begin their own secret and sexual relationship! All kinds of drama, and secrets, and misunderstandings come to a head that end up blowing up all the relationships. The friends of the Richardsons win the custody battle, but then the biological mother sneaks into their house and takes her daughter and head back to China. Moody finds out about Trip and Pearl and is very upset. Mrs. Richardson, in trying to find out if the biological mother had an abortion (a bit of a side story) finds instead the name of Pearl Warren in the list of young girls who had recent abortions at the clinic! Of course, Lexie was the one who had the abortion, but she used Pearl's name since her mother knew the director so well and she didn't want her to recognize her name. It's all a huge misunderstanding that leads Mrs. Richardson to accusing Moody of getting Pearl pregnant; Moody lashing out that it was Trip who was "screwing" her; Izzy hearing it all; Mrs. Richardson barging over to Mia's rental (which is owned by the Richardsons) and railing against Mia's inappropriate daughter, Pearl, when Mia knew it was actually Lexie who had the abortion; Mrs. Richardson telling Mia she'd done some digging and knew about how Mia had fled from the couple whose surrogate she was, keeping Pearl from her real father; Mrs. Richardson insisting that Mia and Pearl leave right then, thus ripping Mia away from Izzy's one person who understood her; Izzy confronting Lexie after she figured out is wasn't Pearl who had been in trouble, but her own sister; Mia telling Izzy that sometimes you just had to have a scorched earth policy, like burning everything down and starting over, to explain why they were leaving; and finally, Izzy taking that very literally, and waiting until everyone was out of the house, and setting little fires everywhere to burn down her family home and all it represented before taking off in a bus to try and find Mia and Pearl. That all sounds a bit convoluted, but it was so well written! And, it was so heart wrenching! There wasn't really a character that wasn't given depth and a background, so you could feel what they were feeling. A really good story and, having already read her other novel, as well as this one, I will definitely read more of Ng's books. :-)