BookTrib’s Bites: Four Reads to Fire Up Your Summer

(NewsUSA) - “Mothers of Fate” by Lynne Hugo

After constructing a new life for herself after an affair with her married boss, Deana Wilkes is ready to make things right and meet the son she was forced to relinquish in a closed adoption 30 years ago. She seeks out Monica Connell, an attorney, to find him; but Monica's wife, Angela, was adopted herself and is certain that closed adoptions need to remain closed unless the adoptee seeks contact. She draws a red line, but Monica feels compelled by her own complicated history to help Deana.

As this wedge between them hardens, will Angie or Monica have the best custody claim to their own beloved adopted baby? Through it all, nobody knows what Deana's son wants — not even his adoptive parents.

“Mothers of Fate” vividly portrays lingering psychological wounds as characters struggle to reconcile self-determination with the sacrifices love demands. Purchase at https://amzn.to/41LurjG.

“Surviving the Survivor” by Joel Z. Waldman

It started when Karmela Waldman, psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor, and her son Joel Waldman, a broadcast journalist, decided to start a podcast. It’s a bumpy start as the lovingly dysfunctional mother-son duo struggle to figure out the art of podcasting on the fly, but soon, their “Surviving the Survivor” podcast breaks out as a wildly popular true-crime hit.

Along the way, the two discover things about each other that they never knew — like how Karmela survived World War II by hiding in a boys’ Catholic school.

Mastering podcasting is one thing; figuring out the meaning of life is a challenge of an entirely different order. In real time and “on air,” mother and son engage frankly and movingly with each other for the first time as adults, discussing child-rearing, aging, illness, death and the secrets to enjoying life no matter how complicated it gets. Purchase at https://amzn.to/4iYYIkG.

“Little Great Island” by Kate Woodworth

On Little Great Island, climate change is disrupting both life and love.

After offending the powerful pastor of a cult, Mari McGavin has to flee with her 6-year-old son. With no money and no place else to go, she returns to the tiny Maine island where she grew up — a place she swore she’d never see again. There, Mari runs into her lifelong friend Harry Richardson, one of the island’s summer residents, now back himself to sell his family’s summer home. Mari and Harry’s lives intertwine once again, setting off a chain of events as unexpected and life-altering as the shifts in climate affecting the whole ecosystem of the island … from generations of fishing families to the lobsters and the butterflies.

“Little Great Island” illustrates in microcosm the greatest changes of our time and the unyielding power of love. Purchase at https://amzn.to/3XykTGc.

“Roll the Sun Across the Sky” by Barbara Linn Probst

Approaching a milestone birthday, Arden Rice has seen it all: three marriages, hardship and wealth, choices she both regrets and defends, all fueled by the same fierce desire — to give her daughter the best possible life. At least, that’s what Arden tells herself.

But nothing is simple. Arden is haunted by her impetuous history, with its trail of damage and deception. Yet she’s finally made a life where she can be her best self — until the unthinkable happens, and a train engineer’s lapse in attention throws that life into chaos.

Secrets begin to unravel, and Arden finds herself questioning everything she thought she knew — along with her own role in shaping the disturbing person her daughter has become. As the stakes increase, Arden must face questions she’s spent a lifetime avoiding: Which acts define a person? Can someone be better than her worst acts? Purchase at https://amzn.to/3E4KeRp.