Book ~ "The Last House on the Street" (2022) Diane Chamberlain

From Goodreads ~ When Kayla Carter's husband dies in an accident while building their dream house, she knows she has to stay strong for their four-year-old daughter. But the trophy home in Shadow Ridge Estates, a new development in sleepy Round Hill, North Carolina, will always hold tragic memories. But when she is confronted by an odd, older woman telling her not to move in, she almost agrees. It's clear this woman has some kind of connection to the area ... and a connection to Kayla herself. 

Kayla's elderly new neighbor, Ellie Hockley, is more welcoming but it's clear she too has secrets that stretch back almost fifty years. Is Ellie on a quest to right the wrongs of the past? And does the house at the end of the street hold the key? 

Told in dual time periods, "The Last House on the Street" is a novel of shocking prejudice and violence, forbidden love, the search for justice, and the tangled vines of two families. 

1965

Ellie is a white university student who spends her summers working in her father's pharmacy.  When she hears about The Summer Community Organization and Political Education (SCOPE) Project, whose goal was to recruit white college students to help prepare African Americans for voting and to maintain pressure on Congress to pass what became the Voting Rights Act of 1965, she signs up.  Her family and friends in her small town try to dissuade her but she feels strongly enough to risk losing her family and friends for this cause.  While involved, she experiences violence which only makes her conviction stronger.

2010

Kayla and her husband were building their dream home when he passed away in a freak accident in the house before it was finished so she has a love-hate relationship with house.  Kayla and her young daughter move in and strange and scary things start to happen.  Ellie has moved back home for a while to take care of her ailing mother and brother and she and Kayla become friends.

I've read many books by this author and thought this one was just okay.  In 2010, it is first person perspective in Kayla's voice and in 1965 in Ellie's voice.  It bounces back and forth between the two different time periods and the chapters are marked as to what the time period is and whose voice it is.  I found the writing slow for most of the book ... it's not until towards the end that it picked up.  

When I decided to read this book, I didn't know what it was going to be about.  The focus is less on the mystery of why someone doesn't want Kayla to be in the house (which is what I was expecting) and more on Ellie's 1965 story, which was fine as SCOPE was a worthy and interesting cause (I hadn't heard of it before) but there were a lot of details and information which I found slowed the writing down.

Given all that Kayla was going through, with her husband recently passing away and being terrorized to drive her out of her house, she didn't seem overly stressed.  It seemed like she was more concerned about being loyal to her husband's dream of living in the house than protecting her young daughter, which seemed unrealistic.  I found that Ellie, given her privileged white upbringing was just too gung ho about being involved with SCOPE.  It was quite a switch in her lifestyle (one house she stayed in had an outhouse and no electricity) and her family and friends disowned her yet she still carried on with the cause.

As a head's up, there is swearing and violence.

Book ~ "Big Lies in a Small Town" (2019) Diane Chamberlain

From Goodreads ~ North Carolina, 2018: Morgan Christopher's life has been derailed. Taking the fall for a crime she did not commit, she finds herself serving a three-year stint in the North Carolina Women's Correctional Center. 

Her dream of a career in art is put on hold - until a mysterious visitor makes her an offer that will see her released immediately. Her assignment: restore an old post office mural in a sleepy southern town. Morgan knows nothing about art restoration but desperate to leave prison, she accepts. What she finds under the layers of grime is a painting that tells the story of madness, violence and a conspiracy of small town secrets.

North Carolina, 1940: Anna Dale, an artist from New Jersey, wins a national contest to paint a mural for the post office in Edenton, North Carolina. Alone in the world and desperate for work, she accepts. But what she doesn't expect is to find herself immersed in a town where prejudices run deep, where people are hiding secrets behind closed doors, and where the price of being different might just end in murder.

What happened to Anna Dale? Are the clues hidden in the decrepit mural? Can Morgan overcome her own demons to discover what exists beneath the layers of lies? 

North Carolina, 1940
Anna Dale's mother has just passed away when she wins a national contest to paint a mural for a post office in Edenton, a small town in North Carolina.  She moves temporarily from New Jersey to Edenton to get to know the town and do the mural justice.  A couple high school students help her out for credits and experience.  One is black and the small town's prejudices don't approve.  Plus a local artist had entered the contest and Anna was chosen over him, so there is some resentment.

North Carolina, 2018
Morgan has just spent a year in a woman's prison when she is made an offer she can't refuse.  She has been chosen by one of her favourite painters to restore a mural for the gallery his estate is opening.  Not know anything about restoration or why she was chosen as the late painter's latest project, she agrees so she can be released early from prison.  As she starts cleaning up the mural, which Anna Dale had painted, Morgan discovers some disturbing things that have been painted on it and wants to know what happened to Anna.

I've read many books by this author and liked this one.  I liked the writing style and found the story interesting.  It bounces around in the two different time periods and voices but the chapters are marked as to what the time period is and whose voice it is. It is written in first person perspective from Morgan's point of view and third person when it's Anna's point of view.  I liked the characters.  As a head's up, there is some swearing and violence.

Book ~ "The Dream Daughter" (2018) Diane Chamberlain

From Goodreads ~ When Caroline Sears receives the news that her unborn baby girl has a heart defect, she is devastated. It is 1970 and there seems to be little that can be done. But her brother-in-law, a physicist, tells her that perhaps there is. Hunter appeared in their lives just a few years before - and his appearance was as mysterious as his past. With no family, no friends, and a background shrouded in secrets, Hunter embraced the Sears family and never looked back.

Now, Hunter is telling her that something can be done about her baby's heart. Something that will shatter every preconceived notion that Caroline has. Something that will require a kind of strength and courage that Caroline never knew existed. Something that will mean a mind-bending leap of faith on Caroline's part.

And all for the love of her unborn child.

It's 1970 and Caroline is a young widow ... her husband has just been killed in Vietnam.  When she discovers she is pregnant, she is ecstatic but that turns to devastation when she learns that her unborn child has a birth defect and won't live after it's born.  Her sister's husband, Hunter, comes to Caroline with a solution to save her baby's life and she has to put a lot of trust in him to make it happen ... and she does.

And that's all I can say because I don't want to give anything away.  I started reading this book without reading other reviews so was pleasantly surprised at the direction the book took as it's a genre I enjoy.  And just when I thought things were going to work out for Caroline, there was a new twist I didn't see coming.

I liked the writing style and enjoyed the story.  It bounces around in different time periods and voices but the chapters are marked as to what the time period is and whose voice it is. It is written in first person perspective from Caroline and Hunter's points of view.  I liked the characters, except I found Hunter's mother to be a bit too cold and harsh.  As a head's up, there is swearing.

Book ~ "Pretending to Dance" (2015) Diane Chamberlain

From Goodreads ~ Molly Arnette is very good at keeping secrets. She lives in San Diego with a husband she adores and they are trying to adopt a baby because they can't have a child on their own. 

But the process of adoption brings to light many questions about Molly's past and her family - the family she left behind in North Carolina twenty years before. The mother she says is dead but who is very much alive. The father she adored and whose death sent her running from the small community of Morrison's Ridge. Her own birth mother whose mysterious presence in her family raised so many issues that came to a head. 

The summer of twenty years ago changed everything for Molly and as the past weaves together with the present story, Molly discovers that she learned to lie in the very family that taught her about pretending. If she learns the truth about her beloved father's death, can she find peace in the present to claim the life she really wants?

There are two stories in this book ... Molly today in her late thirties and Molly in the summer of 1990 as a fourteen-year-old.

Molly and her husband, Aiden, are unable to have a child and are looking to adopt.  As they get into the process, there are lots of forms and interviews ... and Molly is afraid that the lies she has told about her childhood will be discovered.

Molly grew up in Morrison's Ridge, NC, the only child of  Nora and Graham ... Graham is her birth father and Nora is his wife, who adopted Molly.  Molly's birth mother lived nearby, as did Graham's siblings and their families and their mother.  Graham had MS and was in a wheelchair since he had no movement below his neck.  He was a therapist who practiced "pretend theory" ... for example, if you pretend to be the sort of person you want, will gradually become that person.

During the summer of 1990, there were family gatherings.  Molly became close friends with Stacy, who had no parental supervision.  Molly stopped crushing on Johnny Depp and the Backstreet Boys when she fell in love with an older boy named Chris.  The happenings of that summer still affect Molly today.

I liked the writing style and I thought the story was okay.  It bounces back and forth from today to 1990 but the chapters are marked as to what the time period is. It is written in first person perspective from Molly's point of view.  As a head's up, there is swearing and sexual activity between Molly and Chris, which was kind of yukky to read.

Book ~ "Secret Lives" (2010) Diane Chamberlain

From Goodreads ~ Actress Eden Riley's decision to make a film about her mother plunges her into a shattering confrontation with her own past, irrevocably altering her life and the lives of those she loves. Her mother, Katherine Swift, was a renowned children's author who died when Eden was very young. Now Eden, recovering from a divorce and disillusioned with her glamorous life, returns to the childhood home of the mother she barely knew. She moves in with her uncle, archaeologist Kyle Swift and his wife, Louise.

Eden gets more than she bargained for when Kyle gives her the journal her mother had kept from the age of thirteen until her death. Eden is spellbound by the powerfully written, intimate diary that chronicles a life of hardship, madness and tragedy. But her fascination turns to horror when she discovers the shocking truth about her mother's life.

Eden turns for comfort to Ben Alexander, Kyle's colleague, not knowing that Ben has a secret of his own that could ruin Eden and her career. Now Eden must make a heartbreaking decision as she struggles to lay the ghosts of the past to rest and come to terms with her own future.

Shifting gracefully between Eden's world and Katherine's, "Secret Lives" seduces with the power of its images and the lyricism of its prose. 

Eden is an actress who has recently gone through a divorce.  Her mother, Kate, had written books for children and had died when Eden was young.  Kate had been considered an oddball and Eden decides to make a movie to show everyone what she was really like.  Eden moves back to Virginia for the summer to live with her uncle, Kyle (her mother's brother), and his wife, Lou, to write the screenplay.  In addition to speaking with the locals who knew her mother, Kyle also gives Eden her mother's journals, which she'd started when she was 13.  As she reads them, she discovers some shocking things about her mother.

In the meantime, Eden meets Ben, who works for Kyle.  Ben suffered a tragedy within the last two years and is grateful to Kyle for the job.  Eden and Ben fall in love but Ben's past could rip them apart.

Despite the romance between Eden and Ben, this book covers some very heavy subject matter.  There was a lot going including mental illness, suicide, child molestation, incest, agoraphobia, child abuse and more.

I liked the writing style.  It is written in third person perspective.  The book jumps back and forth from the present with Eden's life and the past with Kate's journal (Kate's journal is dated and in italics).  This book was originally published in 1991 and the author intentionally didn't update it so it is before the days of cell phones, laptops and the Internet.  As a head's up, there is swearing and adult activity.

I questioned Eden's priorities when she found out what Ben's secret was.  Yes, she believed he was innocent but the magnitude of what had happened to him had the possibility of causing repercussions for her career and could give her ex-husband ammunition to seek sole custody of their young daughter.

Book ~ "Breaking the Silence" (2009) Diane Chamberlain

From Goodreads ~ Laura Brandon's promise to her dying father was simple: to visit an elderly woman she'd never heard of before. A woman who remembers nothing - except the distant past. Visiting Sarah Tolley seemed a small enough sacrifice to make.

But Laura's promise results in another death. Her husband's. And after their five-year-old daughter, Emma, witnesses her father's suicide, Emma refuses to talk about it - to talk at all.

Frantic and guilt ridden, Laura contacts the only person who may be able to help. A man she's met only once - six years before. A man who doesn't know he's Emma's real father. 

Guided only by a child's silence and an old woman's fading memories, the two unravel a tale of love and despair, of bravery and unspeakable evil. A tale that's shrouded in silence - and that unbelievably links them all. 

On his deathbed, Laura's father makes her promise that she will look out for an elderly woman named Sarah Tolley.   Laura's husband, Ray, forbids her to do so and commits suicide when she's visiting Sarah.  Their five-year-old daughter, Emma, witnesses it and becomes mute and fearful of men.  Laura takes Emma to therapy and her therapist suggests that she might benefit from a positive male influence. Laura contacts Dylan, Emma's birth father (Emma is the result of a one night stand), to see if he wants to be part of her life.

Laura begins visiting Sarah, who has Alzheimer's (she can't remember what she did yesterday but her memories of the past are clear) to figure out the connection between Sarah and her father.  As Laura gets to know Sarah (she has no family), she learns Sarah's story.  In the meantime, she and Dylan work together in hopes that Emma will speak again.

This is the fifth book I've read by this author and I liked it.  I liked the writing style ... it was written in third person perspective.  The book jumps back and forth in time but the chapters are labelled, which worked for me.  I found part of Sarah's story farfetched but I went with it. The story comes together at the end ... some of it I bought (there was one twist I didn't see coming), some of it I didn't.

I liked the main characters.  Laura has a lot going on ... caring for her daughter, grieving for her father and her husband, solving the mystery of how Sarah and her father knew each other, etc.  It was interesting to see Dylan's growth during the story.  I felt bad for Sarah because she is all alone and so looks forward to her walks with Laura.

Book ~ "The Midwife's Confession" (2011) Diane Chamberlain

From Goodreads ~ Dear Anna, 

What I have to tell you is difficult to write, but I know it will be far more difficult for you to hear, and I'm so sorry -

The unfinished letter is the only clue Tara and Emerson have to the reason behind their close friend Noelle's suicide. Everything they knew about Noelle - her calling as a midwife, her passion for causes, her love for her friends and family - described a woman who embraced life.

Yet there was so much they didn't know.

With the discovery of the letter and its heartbreaking secret, Noelle's friends begin to uncover the truth about this complex woman who touched each of their lives - and the life of a desperate stranger - with love and betrayal, compassion and deceit.

Tara, Emerson and Noelle have been best friends since university when Tara and Emerson were dorm roommates and Noelle was their R.A.  Twenty years later, they are still friends ... Tara is a recent widow with a teenage daughter named Grace, Emerson is married with a teenage daughter named Jenny (Grace and Jenny are best friends) and Noelle is a midwife.

Tara and Emerson are shocked when they discover that Noelle has committed suicide.  As Emerson is packing up Noelle's stuff, she looks for clues as to why their friend had killed herself.  She finds the beginning of a letter to "Anna", apologizing for something horrible she had done and Tara and Emerson discover so much about their friend they didn't know.

This is the fourth book I've read by this author and I enjoyed it.  It was an interesting story with lots of twists.

I liked the writing style.  It is written in first person perspective from Tara, Emerson, Grace and Anna's perspective and third person perspective when the focus was on Noelle.  The book jumps back and forth in time but the chapters are labelled so you know whose perspective it is and the time period, which worked for me.  As a head's up, there is a bit of swearing.

I liked most of the characters.  Tara was dealing with the recent death of her husband in a car accident and raising Grace while trying to move on with her life.  Emerson just opened a coffee shop.  I didn't like Grace, Tara's daughter.  Yes, she had a lot going on with the death of her father and her boyfriend breaking up with her but she was so rude and ignorant to her mother ... I think it went beyond just being a teenager.  Tara was trying to connect with Grace and I found their interactions and conversations with Grace awkward and unnatural.  And I wasn't a fan of Tara's husband, Sam, who appears in flashbacks ... he and Tara had a good marriage and he and Grace were very close but he left me cold.

Book ~ "Brass Ring" (2010) Diane Chamberlain

From Goodreads ~ Claire Harte-Mathias is an infinitely capable solver of other people's problems. Along with her husband, she has established a prestigious foundation to aid in the rehabilitation of people with spinal cord injuries. Training therapists, counseling patients and conducting workshops keeps Claire busy, fulfilled, and happy. It is a life she wouldn't trade for anything ... and one that is about to fall apart. 

One snowy night, Claire tries and fails to prevent a tragedy from occurring. The incident at first obsesses her, then seems to trigger something deep in her soul. Soon she is haunted by momentary disturbing visions - terrifying images that are vaguely familiar, yet unexplainable. Slowly Claire comes to realize that the pictures are, in fact, fragmented and forgotten memories of her childhood - a childhood she has always remembered as close to perfect. While part of her wants to see where these memories will lead her, another part wants only to run from them, to bury them once again. 

Confused and frightened, Claire is caught up in a complex and devastating struggle between yesterday and today; between the man who wants to help her and the husband who cannot; between terrible secrets and life-altering revelations. In her fight to uncover and accept the truth, Claire discovers that the past, present, and future are intertwined in a way she can never change ... or forget.

Claire and her husband, Jon, who is in a wheelchair, have been together since were 17 (they are now about 40).  While they are heading home after a conference, Claire sees a woman named Margot about to jump off a bridge so she stops to try and save her.  After this incident, Claire becomes obsessed with the woman and needs to make sense of why she would consider suicide.  This triggers nightmares and hallucinations for Claire.  She had a happy childhood so she knows it can't be memories she is reliving.  She becomes friends with Randy, Margot's brother, and it's him she turns to to help her figure out what's happening to her.

Vanessa is a 40ish doctor who had a troubled past with drugs and alcohol.  She has been living with Brian for a couple years yet thinks he's going to leave her at any time.  She has abandonment issues because her father took her when she was young and she never saw her mother or sister again.  Her pet project is a group for adults who were sexually abused when they were young ... she wants to help them get rid of the baggage.

This is the third book I've read by this author.  While I liked the writing style, I didn't like the story lines.  It's written in third person perspective with a focus on whatever is happening at the time.  The book goes back and forth in time, revealing details about Claire and Vanessa's childhoods so we get to know them both better.

I didn't like most of characters.  Claire has always wanted to shelter and help everyone and is always looking at the bright side of things (she got this from her mother who was a bit of a nut).  Jon was okay but I found him weak.  Their daughter, Susan, was away at university and thoroughly unlikeable and rude.  I didn't understand Claire's friendship with Randy and thought he should have shut down the friendship when he realized Jon didn't approve.  I could have done without Claire's attachment to Randy and would have rather have seen her befriend another woman as Randy added conflict that kind of took away from Claire's issues and made me dislike Claire and Randy even more.  The only two I liked were Vanessa and Brian.

Despite not enjoying this book, I look forward to reading others by this author.

Book ~ "The Broken String" (2014) Diane Chamberlain

From Goodreads ~ In celebration of the forthcoming novel The Silent Sister, Diane Chamberlain introduces Riley MacPherson in the e-short story, The Broken String. 

As seventeen-year-old Riley MacPherson rushes to the side of her brother who has been gravely injured in Iraq, she recalls their growing up years when he was her protector and best friend. Why did that relationship fall apart? She longs for a second chance to connect with her brother, not realizing that family secrets may prevent them from ever having that closeness again.

As 17-year-old Riley is flying to Germany to be with her brother, Danny, who has been injured while serving in Iraq, she remembers events from their childhood when they were close and he protected her.

Her mother was always "down" and her father busy.  One day she finds a picture of her mother smiling and hugging a young girl holding a violin.  Not knowing who the girl is, Riley longs to have the same relationship with her mother.  She eventually discovers that the young girl is her older sister, Lisa, who had committed suicide when she was Riley's age.

This is the second book I've read by this author and I enjoyed it.  It is a prequel to The Silent Sister, which I'd read in October.  I liked the writing style.  It is written in first person perspective from Riley's point of view.  As it is a short story, it sets up and explains some of the tensions in The Silent Sister.

Book ~ "The Silent Sister" (2014) Diane Chamberlain

From Goodreads ~ Riley MacPherson has spent her entire life believing that her older sister Lisa committed suicide as a teenager. Now, over twenty years later, her father has passed away and she's in New Bern, North Carolina, cleaning out his house when she finds evidence to the contrary. 

Lisa is alive. Alive and living under a new identity. But why exactly was she on the run all those years ago and what secrets are being kept now? As Riley works to uncover the truth, her discoveries will put into question everything she thought she knew about her family. Riley must decide what the past means for her present and what she will do with her newfound reality.

Lisa was a child prodigy violinist.  In 1990, when she was 17, she was depressed and committed suicide.  Her sister, Riley, was two at the time and didn't remember her sister.  The life went out of their parents and their brother, Danny, began getting into trouble and eventually served in Iraq, from which he never recovered physically or emotionally.

About 25 years later, their mother has been dead a few years and their father has just died.  It's up to Riley to clear out his house, deciding what to keep, what to sell and what to throw out.  As she does this, she starts discovering that the life she thought they had was actually a lie.  Lisa is alive and her father knew all the time.

I've been meaning to read a book by this author for a while and I am happy I finally got around to it as I enjoyed this one.  I liked the writing style.  I thought it flowed well and it kept me interested in wanting to know what was going to happen next.

It is written in first person perspective from Riley's point of view and third person perspective from Lisa's point of view (in addition, the chapters are labelled so you know whose voice it is when the points of view change).  Plus it jumps back and forth in time but the chapters are labelled so you know what the time period is.  I found this worked for me as it built up the suspense.  Quite quickly I figured out a couple of the twists but I was okay with them.  As a head's up, there is some swearing.

I liked the characters.  The author did a good job in letting us feel Riley's aloneness and feeling pressured.  Her parents are dead, her older sister who she never knew is dead, her brother is happy being on his own in his trailer in the woods and not bothering with her, and she's just broken up with her boyfriend of two years because he was still hung up on his wife who he was separated from.  As the book goes back in time, we get to know Lisa, why she did what she had to do and how she tried to make a new life without her family.

I look forward to reading others by this author.