Illumination Night

Finished September 16

Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman 

This story of a few people living in a small community over a few years is one of relationships, secrets, and growth. Set on Martha's Vineyard, the story starts with a young couple and their child. Before they moved here five years ago, Andre sold the motorcycle design company he created and now makes some money restoring old motorcycles that he then sells to collectors. Vonny is a potter and sells mostly to local stores, where she has made a name for herself. Their son Simon will be four in a few months and is inquisitive and friendly. 

Their nearest neighbour, Elizabeth Renny, is nearly seventy-four and, as the story opens, takes a bad fall. Her daughter, who is having marital issues, decides to send her sixteen-year-old daughter Jody to stay with Elizabeth for the summer. That visit becomes more permanent, something both Jody and Elizabeth are happy about. 

The novel's title takes its name from a tradition on the vineyard that has been taking place for more than a hundred and fifty years. It happens in August and involves music, food, and the lighting of paper lanterns. 

When the event takes place early in the book, it marks a point in the book where things change for many of the characters. 

We see Elizabeth age, Jody grow up and figure out a future for herself, Vonny come to terms with her own parents in interesting ways, and Andre make both bad and good choices. Simon too, grows up, although not always at the pace his parents hope for, sometimes too slowly and sometimes having to face tragedy too early. 

This is a story that really captivated me, making it hard to put down. I cared about the characters and wanted the book to continue so I could see what happened in these people's lives. 

Tigers in Red Weather

Finished January 11
Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann

This novel begins just after World War II when two cousins Nick and Helena leave their shared home in New York to go to their husbands. Nick's husband Hughes is returning from the war and is stationed in Florida where they live in a small bungalow with a canal behind it. Helena is joining her fiance Avery in California to get married and live there. Helena's first husband was killed in the war and she doesn't know her new man all that well, something Nick worries about. Neither woman finds their situation to be what they expected. Avery is consumed by the idea of a dead actress, and has a relationship of some sort with a director, staying in a small house on the director's property. Hughes seems to be more remote than he was before the war, and Nick has trouble fitting into the community socially.
Nick's family owns a vacation home, Tiger House, on Martha's Vineyard, with Helena's family cottage just next door. This is a base that the women keep returning to, and we first see them there in 1959 when they both have 12-year-old children, Daisy and Ed. It is this first summer that the two children discover a dead body, the victim of a brutal attack, and this discovery with come up again later in the story.
This novel is separated into five sections, each with a different narrator. It begins with Nick, then moves to Daisy, then to Helena, then Hughes, and ends with Ed. Some of these have overlapping time periods, particularly the summer of 1959.
This is a book of two women who both love each other, and compete with each other. Their personal difficulties are an influence on their children, and shape their lives.

Loss of Innocence

Finished November 14
Loss of Innocence by Richard North Patterson

Hadn't read this author in a while and was looking for an audiobook so grabbed this one. The story is framed as the reminiscences of an older woman to a younger one, looking back at the summer of 1968 when Whitney Dane had finished university and was planning her wedding, to take place at the end of the summer. Whitney is a daughter of privilege, and she spends the summer at her parents' summer home on Martha's Vineyard. Her fiance has been given a job in her father's investment firm and comes back and forth, staying in the guest house on weekends. Her parents have bought the couple an apartment in New York City in the same building they started their own married life. Whitney feels that her life is planned to be a replica of her parents, and isn't entirely sure that is what she wants.
Lots is going on in the world, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the Vietnam war and the draft, civil unrest, particularly from black Americans, and even internationally with the Russian smothering of rebellion in Czechoslovakia. Whitney is also worried about her older sister, "the pretty one", and whether her life is really what it is what she claims. She is befriended by a local young man, a man with his own baggage, but who listens to her and values her intellect, encouraging her to think of new possibilities. As Whitney observes those around her and struggles to figure out what she really wants, she learns more about those close to her than she wants to know. A very engaging novel.