I always have two books going at the same time, a paper book and one on my trusty Kindle. This time the two books happened to be so complimentary to each other, it seems I had accidentally created myself a book flight. Both of these novels deal with daughters, who for strange reasons were abandoned by their mothers and are seeking answers. So if you love mother daughter sagas with a bit of magic and whimsy, here is a book flight for you (accidentally or not!)
All books can be purchased in The Brown Dog Bookshop!
The Story She Left Behind
Clara lost her mother at a much younger age and under mysterious circumstances. Clara’s mother, a child prodigy, published a well loved children’s book at age 12. Years later, her whimisical ways lead to an accident after which she ran away and was presumed to have drowned in the attempt. When Clara gets a mysterious phone call regarding some papers that were thought to have been at the bottom of the ocean with her mother, she hopes to finally find the answers as to why her mother would voluntarily leave her.
Arriving on a ship in London with her young daughter, she finds the city in the midst of the deadly fog that shuts the city down for days. Patti Callahan Henry’s mother daughter stories are always beautifully written and this is no exception.
The Warbler
Elisa has never been able to stay anywhere for more than 10 months. The women in her family are cursed so that if they every put down roots metaphorically, the will put down roots literally and become trees. Her mom chose to stay with the man she loved and paid the price, leaving her daughter to travel around, moving every 10 months, to try and find a way to break the curse.
The Warbler is magical realism, but the way Durst write will make you believe that anything is possible. Even breaking the curse that has left you lonely.
