Tag Archives: #family

Book Review: The Museum of Lost Dreams by Christine Nolfi

Posted on by
Reply

Publish Date: June 23, 2026 by Lake Union Publishing

When Bess Rollins’s parents die in a tragic accident, she is forced to abandon her dream job overseas. After three years away, she returns to her family’s estate in the Finger Lakes, a veritable monument to her brilliant late grandmother, and a reminder of the wreckage Bess left behind.

There’s the guilt over leaving her younger twin siblings, Casey and Caleb, and she struggles to rebuild a bond that may be irrevocably broken. Amid the grief, resentment still looms toward her reckless and self-indulgent mother and father. And then there’s Luke Monticelli, the devoted man Bess walked out on but never stopped loving.

Haunted by her regrets at every turn, Bess soon realizes that the past is far more complicated than she ever knew. With each secret that she uncovers about her family, Bess comes closer to healing their wounds, seizing a second chance at love, and fulfilling dreams that can lift them all—right here at home, where she belongs.

My Thoughts:

The Museum of Lost Dreams is the second book in a row I’ve read about family, and this story does not disappoint. Christine Nolfi gives the reader a realistic view of a family who is fractured by tragic circumstances, and we are shown the mindset of everyone, and their journey of opening their hearts to understand each other’s experiences, and how forgiveness and healing begins.

My heart went out to Bess and her siblings. They were severely neglected by their parents and when tragic strikes Bess’s younger brother, she goes through extreme quilt for what happened to him and her mother’s blaming Bess was unwarranted, but typical of her behavior. Essentially her drug addicted mother blamed her for many things and there was no self-accountability for the actions of herself, nor from her husband which ultimately, their recklessness and disgusting behavior, and lifestyle was their demise in my opinion.

This story has a dual timeline which really helped the premise and gave me clarity in the family dynamic. There are also historical elements that were intriguing and helped keep me invested in the story even more. I absolutely love dual timelines and when they are done right, it is a guarantee, I’m giving the story a high rating.

A thought provoking, emotional, and moving story of second chances.

Stephanie

I obtained an ARC from the publishers through NetGalley for an honest review.

Side Bar: I maybe counted three curse words in the entire book? Also, there is low spice in this book, but no actual description of sexual scenes.

Book Review: Dear Missing Friend by Susan McGuirk

Posted on by
Reply

Storied Sisters Society #1

Published May 19, 2026 by Sea Crow Press

Three hearts. Countless letters. One impossible choice.

Through letters exchanged across oceans and Manhattan streets, Irish immigrant Catherine McGuirk navigates love, ambition, and heartbreak. Torn between her seafaring husband, the suitor she once refused, and her own dreams, Catherine’s fate unfolds in an intimate, epistolary saga of passion, resilience, and nineteenth-century life.

My Thoughts:

I know this might sound strange to some, but after I finished reading Dear Missing Friend, written in the form of corresponding letters, I thought, how would I respond if I were to write a letter in the form of a review? You see, a letter would be more fitting, and more worthy because Susan McGuirk has given readers an incredibly personable and thought-provoking experience and as I navigated through the lives of a family and their friends, I have never felt such a deep connection this way before with characters in this format.

19th Century: Catherine McGuirk and her brothers are Irish immigrants who came to America to start new lives in a world full of uncertainties. Through the years, their thoughts, joy, friendships, heartbreak, domestic troubles, loss of children, abandonment, sorrow, loneliness, are shared through letters in such an open way that it’s as if you were part of their family experiencing everything they were going through.

As Catherine’s decisions in life unfolded, years later she was faced with examining the result of her decisions in life, and as a Christian, I felt such a deep conviction of my own choices in life regarding my relationships past and present. Which brought me to Catherine’s dear friend Jane, and a particular letter she wrote to Catherine about “putting things to right.” That letter really moved me. There is much to reflect on with this story about relationships. There were beautiful lessons of mercy, grace, faith and forgiveness.

There were also so many historical threads interwoven with the characters’ lives and one will experience that with these letters. Such as, the whaling industry, the great famine, civil war, the gold rush, immigration of the Irish, the Panic of 1857 and so forth. I also enjoyed reading the poems the author included in the beginning of each chapter by Walt Whitman from his book Leaves of Grass. I am going to buy a physical copy of Dear Missing Friend, and place it next to my copy of Whitman’s book. This is a story I won’t ever forget. This is a story I will always go back to. Even as I wrote this, I wanted to read the story all over again and I will.

I have rated this book five stars and so far, this book is among my five top favorite stories of this year. 

Stephanie

Book Review: You Belong Here Now by Dianna Rostad

Posted on by
1

Award Finalist of the Willa Literary Award – Women Writing the West

Published April 6, 2021 by William Morrow Paperback

Montana 1925: Three brave kids from New York board the orphan train headed west. An Irish boy who lost his whole family to Spanish flu, a tiny girl who won’t talk, and a volatile young man who desperately needs to escape Hell’s Kitchen. They are paraded on platforms across the Midwest to work-worn folks and journey countless miles, racing the sun westward. Before they reach the last rejection and stop, the kids come up with a daring plan, and they set off toward the Yellowstone River and grassy mountains where the wild horses roam.

Fate guides them toward the ranch of a family stricken by loss. Broken and unable to outrun their pasts in New York, the family must do the unthinkable in order to save them.

Nara, the daughter of a successful cattleman, has grown into a brusque spinster who refuses the kids on sight. She’s worked hard to gain her father’s respect and hopes to run their operation, but if the kids stay, she’ll be stuck in the kitchen.

Nara works them without mercy, hoping they’ll run off, but they buck up and show spirit, and though Nara will never be motherly, she begins to take to them. So, when Charles is jailed for freeing wild horses that were rounded up for slaughter, and an abusive mother from New York shows up to take the youngest, Nara does the unthinkable, risking everything she holds dear to change their lives forever.

***********

You Belong Here is a story of family, overcoming prejudices, acceptance, forgiveness, resilience, survival and healing.  

This story portrays much of how the world saw these children-not all good-and faced with uncertainty at the mercy of adults and environment, determining the decisions made for them, and even more hardships that may come as the result.

Nara and her parent’s interactions with the children- who come from completely different backgrounds from the rural culture-was the driving force of this story. and the change they all made as the result of this fact is heartwarming and beautifully told.

The literary conventions of this story make for a great American classic and will give many people who read this story a sense of nostalgia, not only in the style of language spoken by Nara, her parents and others, but also the mindset, no nonsense attitudes, culture, social norms, and the life-in general- rural people lived.

This is an historical story you are unlikely to forget and I highly recommend this book to all.

Side Bar:There are a few swear words in this story-not a lot-and it is mostly from Nara and her mother doesn’t like it one bit!

Stephanie

About the Author:

Dianna Rostad is a USA Today Bestselling and award-winning author. Her debut novel You Belong Here Now is a 2022 WILLA Literary Award Finalist for Historical Fiction and was shortlisted for Reading the West’s Debut Fiction Award 2022. A favorite task of her creative endeavors is the discovery and research of people and places where her novels are set. She has traveled extensively to pursue the last artifacts of our shared history and breathe life, truth, and hope into her novels. Dianna was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and spends time volunteering for various causes. She loves reading, playing with Bennee her dog, and growing flowers in her garden. She lives in Washington and Florida where she writes big-hearted novels for wide audiences.

Dianna Rostad’s  Website

An Early Glance: When Mikan Road Was Ours by D.K. Furutani

Posted on by
Reply

Expected Publication July 28, 2026 by Atria Books

This past Monday, I received an invite via email to read and review, “When Mikan Road Was Ours” from Atria Books,and I am truly thankful, and honored for the invitation to be an early reader for this story. I enjoy reading multi-generational family stories and I’ve been wanting to look more into how Japanese American Citizens were treated during World War II. I am already certain this story is going to be powerful and thought-provoking.

This book is available for pre-order!

Stephanie

Winner of Simon & Schuster’s Books Like Us contest!

Amidst a sweltering Los Angeles heat wave, Murano, a reclusive high school English teacher, is muddling through life. Reeling from his father’s death as well as his own recent cancer diagnosis, he spends his days grading papers and appeasing disgruntled parents while painstakingly counting down the days until summer vacation.

However, the monotony breaks when he inherits his great-uncle Benjiro’s unpublished memoir. He expects the pages to be a grim reminder of his position as the half-white son of the black sheep of the family. Instead, as he reads, Murano is whisked away to 1930s California, to a time when the Murano family was inseparable, relishing life on their bucolic farmland. As Murano is introduced to family members he never knew existed and confronted with the hidden complexities of the past, he is pulled close to the Japanese identity he’s dismissed all of his life.

Ultimately faced with more questions about his fractured family than answers, Murano becomes determined to discover the reasons behind his family’s dissolution following their incarceration in American concentration camps during World War II, no matter what hidden truths he might uncover about his ancestors or himself.

About the Author:

Born and raised in Southern California, D.K. Furutani is the author of When Mikan Road Was Ours, winner of Simon & Schuster’s third-annual Books Like Us contest. His work has received support from the Periplus Collective and the Tin House workshops. He resides in Los Angeles with his wife and three cats.

Book Review: The Northern Reach by W.S. Winslow

Posted on by
1

Published March 2nd 2021 by Flatiron Books

A heart-wrenching first novel about the power of place and family ties, the weight of the stories we choose to tell, and the burden of those we hide.

Frozen in grief after the loss of her son at sea, Edith Baines stares across the water at a schooner, under full sail yet motionless in the winter wind and surging tide of the Northern Reach. Edith seems to be hallucinating. Or is she? Edith’s boat-watch opens The Northern Reach, set in the coastal town of Wellbridge, Maine, where townspeople squeeze a living from the perilous bay or scrape by on the largesse of the summer folk and whatever they can cobble together, salvage, or grab.

At the center of town life is the Baines family, land-rich, cash-poor descendants of town founders, along with the ne’er-do-well Moody clan, the Martins of Skunk Pond, and the dirt farming, bootlegging Edgecombs. Over the course of the twentieth century, the families intersect, interact, and intermarry, grappling with secrets and prejudices that span generations, opening new wounds and reckoning with old ghosts.

My Thoughts:

First impressions are not always correct. In the beginning, I must confess the writing style and story structure threw me for a loop. When I started to feel something for a character or the family dynamic, the story moves on to the next and at times I became frustrated. Yes, I was having a rough go of it all. It was time to take a step back and reevaluate the story and purpose of the presentation and I’m glad I did.

One must remember that when reading about generational families or interconnected families-if you will, there will be multi-faceted plots. You will be taken deeply into a historical time-lines. There will be strong elements that can sway you from happy moments to darker times. In short, they evolve. Family bonds are complicated to say the least and the author marvelously portrays this fact. We might not like the characters or we will feel we are not getting enough from them but that is okay. The Northern Reach is an evocative story and will push boundaries you might not have expected to cross.

I did enjoy a quite few of the story-lines and the setting and I was intrigued with the character’s life story and I wanted to read more about them. Will we be reading more about these interesting people? I would like to very much! As the story continued, I began to have a better understanding of the set-up-if you will. There is strong character development and the setting gives you a stark, realistic view of the state of Maine and its’ towns. There is a particular social element in the story that is still considered a hot topic in today’s climate that I would really like to pick the authors brain about!

The author superbly portrays how people can make assumptions about other people and even more so in families. The Northern Reach is not a story of virtuous people, but they are down to the bone’s realistic of human nature and thought. In particular the attitudes of the Baines family and the people who marry into that family. At first, I found Edith Baines to be an intriguing woman, I soon discovered her to be just as flawed-if not more- like the rest of them. She was hardened by her life experiences and loss. Her attitude-I felt-towards her daughter-in-law Lilane was unjust. The women who made the most impression on me were Imelda, Alice, Liliane and Suzanne. I would like to read more about them.

An intriguing story wrought in hardships, cultural differences, family dysfunction, legacy and loss.

Stephanie Hopkins

I obtained a copy of this book through the publishers for an honest review.

Interview with W.S. Winslow coming up Friday, March 5th here a Layered Pages!