What We Keep
Elizabeth Berg

I've read this one before. Elizabeth Berg is another author that can beautifully identify and describe emotions and almost unconscious feelings.

Publisher description: "Ginny Young is on a plane, en route to see her mother, whom she hasn't seen or spoken to for thirty-five years. She thinks back to the summer of 1958, when she and her sister, Sharla, were young girls. At that time, a series of dramatic events - beginning with the arrival of a mysterious and sensual next-door neighbor - divided the family, separating the sisters from their mother. Moving back and forth in time between the girl she once was and the woman she's become, Ginny at last confronts painful choices that occur in almost any woman's life, and learns surprising truths about the people she thought she knew best."

4 stars

The Year of Pleasures
Elizabeth Berg

Berg writes great books - enough said.
4 stars

Publisher description: "Berg's unique gift is for capturing emotions and joys in women's lives, this time with the story of a woman who refuses to let widowhood define her, and goes about recreating a happy and meaningful life. She moves to a new town after the death of her husband, where she rents a room in a house with two young men. She forms a mother/lover relationship with one of the young men, then meets a man with whom she also starts a relationship, with complicated results. At the same time, she reconnects with three college friends; they don't live in her new town but they begin to correspond and visit each other. Reinvention of a self and a life, through love and forming connections between one's past, present, and future is at the heart of this beautiful novel."

Until the Real Thing Comes Along
Elizabeth Berg

I've read this book before, but I wanted to read it again so that I can add it to the blog. The character development is great because you want to shake this woman and yet deeply emphathize with her at the same time.

Publisher description: "What do you do when your life isn't living up to your dreams? When the man you love is unavailable, and yet you long for a family, a home? What is the cost of compromising until the real thing comes along? Patty Ann Murphy says she's "Ms. Runner-Up" in life. Rarely the bridesmaid, never mind the bride, Patty sells houses for a living (well, she's sold one house so far), longs to be married and have a family, but is irresistibly drawn to the wrong man. Ethan seems perfect for Party - handsome, generous, and sensitive - but he's hopelessly unavailable. Patty's frustration leads her to feelings she doesn't admire - jealousy of her beautiful best friend, Elaine, for instance, about whom she says, "Find me one woman who doesn't withhold just a bit from another woman who looks like that." She's also worried about her mother, with whom she's very close but who is beginning to act strangely. Patty longs more and more for the consolation of loving and being loved, but for the moment feels she must content herself with waiting - until she can wait no more."

4 stars