Review: The Favorite Daughter by Patti Callahan Henry

The Favorite Daughter by Patti Callahan Henry

Expected Publication: June 4, 2019

Publisher: Berkley Books

Format: via publisher

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis

Ten years ago, Lena Donohue experienced a wedding-day betrayal so painful that she fled the small town of Watersend, South Carolina, and reinvented herself in New York City. Though now a freelance travel writer, the one place she rarely goes is home--until she learns of her dad's failing health.

Returning to Watersend means seeing the sister she has avoided for a decade and the brother who runs the family's Irish pub and has borne the burden of his sisters' rift. While Alzheimer's slowly steals their father's memories, the siblings rush to preserve his life in stories and in photographs. As his secret past brings Lena's own childhood into focus, it sends her on a journey to discover the true meaning of home.

My Thoughts

After finding out the ultimate betrayal on her wedding day Lena left home and never spoke to her sister again and only came home if she never saw her sister either. However, after a call from her brother she comes back home after her father is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and her family needs her help.

She is close to her brother who has taken it upon himself to care for his dad and now runs the family business, a pub he knows his father needs the family more than ever and calls on Lena and her sister in hopes they bury the hatchet and come together for their father’s sake. Growing up Lena always felt a distance of sorts from her mother but never knew exactly while but soon she will discover a long kept secret while sorting out her father’s belonging. This happens when they agree to have a party in honor of their father in hopes of celebrating his life before the disease takes all his memory away.

In time we learn why Lena ran off from her family and why she and her sister don’t talk. We also learn why Lena always felt like a stranger in her own family and why her father was so close to her.

This is a story with secrets coming out of every angle, which I loved! I felt like it was the gift that kept on giving, with layers upon layers being peeled back and the truth being revealed. I felt as if there were two storylines being told one was the conflict between Lena and her sister and the other the secret her father held from her.  Both were amazing stories and tied together beautifully, I especially felt as if Lena finally came into her own and made peace with herself in the end.

The Favorite Daughter is an amazing story with a great storyline about family and forgiveness. While forgiving others is great I find that forgiving within yourself heals yourself like nothing else. It gives you that inner peace that nothing else or no one can give you. This is a great book for the summer one that needs to be thrown in your beach bag and be read by the pool, beach or simply in the comfort of your home.

May TBR

Review: The Bookshop at Water's End by Patti Callahan Henry

The Bookshop at Water’s End by Patti Callahan Henry

Expected Publication: July 11, 2017

Publisher: Berkley Books

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis

Bonny Blankenship's most treasured memories are of idyllic summers spent in Watersend, South Carolina, with her best friend, Lainey McKay. Amid the sand dunes and oak trees draped with Spanish moss, they swam and wished for happy-ever-afters, then escaped to the local bookshop to read and whisper in the glorious cool silence. Until the night that changed everything, the night that Lainey's mother disappeared.

Now, in her early fifties, Bonny is desperate to clear her head after a tragic mistake threatens her career as an emergency room doctor, and her marriage crumbles around her. With her troubled teenage daughter, Piper, in tow, she goes back to the beloved river house, where she is soon joined by Lainey and her two young children. During lazy summer days and magical nights, they reunite with bookshop owner Mimi, who is tangled with the past and its mysteries. As the three women cling to a fragile peace, buried secrets and long ago loves return like the tide.

My Thoughts

In The Bookshop at Water’s End, we meet Bonny and Lainey two best friends who spent their childhood summers together in South Carolina and who have experienced the highs and lows of their lives. Bonny is a doctor who wants out of her marriage but when an accident occurs on her watch her whole career is put on the line. She has a teenage daughter who is going through some growing pains and Bonny thinks spending the summer at her childhood beach house will straighten Piper out.

Lainey, on the other hand, is forever trying to overcome the one summer her mother left her and her brother to never return again. She is married with children and although she promised her husband she would let go of looking for her mother she just can't. She is secretly still searching desperately to know why her mother could just leave and never look back. Lainey is forever chasing the love only a mother can give.

When Bonny asks Lainey to join her for one last summer in the summer home they shared as kids Lainey doesn't want to go back. She promised herself she wouldn’t after the pain she suffered that summer but she also promised Bonny if she ever needed her she would be there for her so she returns. Lainey’s brother is a carefree guy who is always looking for the next adventure so when he shows up Lainey is excited. She is always missing her brother but little does she know that he showed up for Bonny, the one girl he has always loved and never got over. Needless to say, this will be a summer no one will forget.

I loved this storyline! While Bonny was a bit of heavy-handed character for my taste I loved Lainey. I truly felt compassion for her and for her quest of finding her mother. When she finally gets her answers the pain I felt for her was real. All those summers again and her mom leaving forever stayed with her and altered how she saw and felt things. It made her wait in life to have children thinking she would be the same way with her kids and she didn’t want that. The Piper storyline was good, I loved how she found herself in her new surroundings and how she finally grew up and how she finally found real love with someone who could appreciate her.

This was a very enjoyable read of coming back home. Though some didn’t want to go back it was needed to face their demons and to ultimately find out the answers they needed. This shows you that family doesn’t always have to be by blood but by those who love you the most.

The Idea of Love by Patti Callahan Henry

The Idea of Love by Patti Callahan Henry

Expected Publication: June 23, 2015

Format: via NetGalley

Challenges: 2015 NetGalley/Edelweiss

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis

Ella's life has been completely upended. She's young, beautiful, and deeply in love—until her husband dies in a tragic sailing accident while trying save her. Or so she'll have everyone believe. Screenwriter Hunter needs a hit, but crippling writers' block and a serious lack of motivation are getting him nowhere. He's on the look-out for a love story. It doesn't matter who it belongs to.

When Hunter and Ella meet in Watersend, South Carolina it feels like the perfect match, something close to fate. In Ella, Hunter finds the perfect love story, full of longing and sacrifice. It's the stuff of epic films. In Hunter, Ella finds possibility. It's an opportunity to live out a fantasy – the life she wishes she had because hers is too painful. And more real. Besides. What’s a little white lie between strangers? But one lie leads to another, and soon Hunter and Ella find themselves caught in a web of deceit. As they try to untangle their lies and reclaim their own lives, they feel something stronger is keeping them together. And so they wonder: can two people come together for all the wrong reasons and still make it right?

My Thoughts

The Idea of Love is a fun look at love through two people who initially lie about who they are. Ella is trying to recover from the shocking truth that her husband is having an affair with her best friend’s sister. She feels betrayed by her husband and friend and is heartbroken that no one told her the truth. Then she meets Hunter who isn’t very truthful either when it comes to who he really is and what he is really doing there in town.

Hunter isn’t really a tourist in town but in fact a screenwriter and is in search of a new movie idea. He meets Ella and thinks her story of being a widow and how her husband died is a tragic love story, just what he is looking for to make it to the big screen. Little does he know her "story" isn't what it seems. However the lies are soon exposed and feelings are hurt but can love real love and feelings be stronger than all the lies? Can they make it past everything and start something real once the truth is revealed? Can love really conquer all? Overall I really enjoyed this read it was funny and I loved the characters, even though both lied about who they were I felt both never did it to be mean or hurtful. In my opinion I felt they were just putting up walls, protecting themselves from getting hurt again.

This is a quick love story that is a bit unconventional but one that delivers all the romance that one would expect from a great read. This makes a great summer read, it’s the perfect escape on a hot summer day.

Review: The Stories We Tell by Patti Callahan Henry

The Stories We Tell by Patti Callahan Henry 

Published: June 24, 2014

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Format: via publisher

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis

Eve and Cooper Morrison are Savannah’s power couple. They’re on every artistic board and deeply involved in the community. She owns and operates a letterpress studio specializing in the handmade; he runs a digital magazine featuring all things southern gentlemen. The perfect juxtaposition of the old and the new, Eve and Cooper are the beautiful people. The lucky ones. And they have the wealth and name that comes from being part of an old Georgia family. But things may not be as good as they seem. Eve’s sister, Willa, is staying with the family until she gets "back on her feet." Their daughter, Gwen, is all adolescent rebellion. And Cooper thinks Eve works too much. Still, the Morrison marriage is strong. After twenty-one years together, Eve and Cooper know each other. They count on each other. They know what to expect. But when Cooper and Willa are involved in a car accident, the questions surrounding the event bring the family close to breaking point. Sifting between the stories—what Cooper says, what Willa remembers, what the evidence indicates—Eve has to find out what really happened. And what she’s going to do about it. A riveting story about the power of truth, The Stories we Tell will open your eyes and rearrange your heart.

My Thoughts

The Stories We Tell is a beautifully written story that focuses on the Morrison family and one night that changed the dynamics of their family forever.

It opens on the night of a car accident that involved Eve’s sister Willa and her husband Cooper. Soon a mystery is revealed, why were Willa and Cooper in the car together? Why was Cooper in town anyway when he was supposed to be out of town? This one accident sets off a domino effect that looks past just that night but a whole set of problems that have been festering for a while now.

Cooper tries to example everything away since Willa has suffered an injury and cannot remember a thing. She is determined to undercover what happen since everyone just assumed that it was her drunken past that as crept up again. Eve is stuck between her husband and sister. She wants to believe both but knows one is lying. Either way she knows when the outcome is revealed she will lose someone in her life.

Eve has always wanted a secure and ideal life. Coming for a place where her family wasn’t ideal when she met Cooper she was hungry for love and family. She has prided herself in building that façade and doesn’t want that to change. However in wanting that she has lost that connection with her husband and is always fighting with her daughter. She does however have that connection with her long friend and coworker. He makes her feel everything she wishes her husband would.

Patti Callahan Henry weaves this tale like no other. The characters are so real and relatable that it could hit close to home. The universal theme here is communication and family. Can we really blame situations that happen if we don’t speak up and voice our opinions? This read will make you question how we deal with things in our lives and make us realize that it’s the things we don’t say that have the biggest impact in our lives.

WoW [13]

Waiting on Wednesday (WoW) is a weekly event hosted by Jill @

Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

This week’s WoW feature is:

And Then I Found You by Patti Callahan Henry   

Expected publication: April 9, 2013

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

[Goodreads] Katie Vaughan is no stranger to tough choices. She’s made them before. Now it’s time to do it again. Kate has a secret, something tucked away in her past. And she’s getting on with her life. Her business is thriving. She has a strong relationship with her family, and a devoted boyfriend whom she wants to love with all her heart. If Kate had ever made a list, Rowan would fill the imagined boxes of a perfect mate. She wants the facts to move from her head toward her heart and settle in with deep love, something past admiration and comfort. But when Kate discovers the small velvet box hidden in Rowan’s drawer, she panics.

It always happens this way. Just when Kate thinks she can love, just when she believes she can conquer the fear, she’s filled with dread. And she wants more than anything to make this feeling go away. But how? When the mistakes have been made and the running is over, it’s time to face the truth. Kate knows this. She understands that a woman can never undo what can never be undone. Yet, for the first time in her life she also knows that she won’t fully love until she confronts those from her past. It’s time to act. Can she do it? Can she travel to the place where it all began, to the one who shares her secret? Can the lost ever become found?

And Then I Found You gives new life to the phrase "inspired by a true story." By travelling back to a painful time in her own family’s history, the author explores the limits of courage, and the price of a selfless act.
I'm a big fan of the author. In my effort to read more fiction I can't wait for this one. I've enjoyed her other books and I'm sure I will enjoy this more even more.

So what are you all waiting on? Please share.