Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons
By Lorna Landvik

This is one of the best coming-of-age books I’ve read in a long time. It’s reminiscent of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Steel Magnolias. Come in and meet the ladies of the Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons Book Club.

There’s Faith, a woman who is hiding her past from everyone; Audrey, an outspoken and tough woman; Merit, the doctor’s wife who harbors her own painful secret; Kari, the older woman, who is smart and helps her friends, but who, too, winds up with a shattering secret of her own; and Slip, a petite waif who is anything but fragile.

Together, these five women form a book club and meet once a month at the home of the person that chose the book, to discuss the book, life and anything else that comes up.

Follow their lives from 1968 to 1998 – 30 years of books, children, laughter, fears, illness, marriages, divorces, Vietnam, politics and death. Everything that could happen did happen to one of them at one point in their lives.

Through it all, they have become fast and true friends. Their book club has survived and by the end of the book, they (and we) learn and grow.

A great read. Pick it up and enjoy!

Nightfall
By Nelson DeMille

I had never read anything by Nelson DeMille before. One day, I picked up Nightfall because it sounded like it would be a good book. It put it on my shelf and forgot about until recently. I’m sorry I waited so long to read it.

Nightfall is about TWA Flight 800. Whether you choose to believe it was a tragic accident or an act of terrorism, you will enjoy this book. DeMille bases his novel on facts; how much of his story is factual is what kept me riveted to this book.

In the opening pages, we meet a couple, Bud and Jill, both married to other people who are going to the beach to make love, toting along a video camera. Bud and Jill are making love, the camera capturing every moment, when the sound of an explosion reaches their ears. They watch for a moment, while the camera rolls, before grabbing everything (almost) and running back to the car.

Next, five years later, we meet John Corey, former cop, now Anti-Terrorist Task Force member, and his wife Kate, an FBI agent. They are attending the five-year memorial services on the anniversary of the TWA Flight 800 disaster when Kate begins to tantalize her husband’s thoughts, making him question the “official” version of what really happened to Flight 800. Soon, Corey and his wife are thrown into a whirlwind chase to find out what really happened and who is covering what up.

What impressed me the most was DeMille’s handling of the World Trade Center disaster. Throughout the book, I wondered how he would handle it, or even if he was going to
touch on the subject at all in his story.

When I realized he was going to deal with it (I had reached a certain point on the book when it “clicked” that yes, he was going to deal with it), I felt chills and almost closed the book, not wanting to “go there”.

But, needless to say, I finished the book.
It was well worth finishing.
I highly recommend this book.