It’s Friday, and Friday’s are for fiction! And Saturdays. And Sundays.
Scratch that. All days. All days are for fiction. Friday’s, however, are the day all bibliophiles ask: What am I reading this weekend?
To help with that I celebrate Fiction Friday’s by sharing something I’ve read, and that think absolutely needs to be on everyones ‘To Read’ list. There is always a good reason to head to the book store, or stop by the library, or your kindle account. (We don’t judge here. Even if kindle doesn’t have the lovely book smell.)
Sarah-Kate Lynch is one of my favorite authors. As soon as I finish her newest novel, I’m instantly impatient for her to write another. I search every bookstore I venture into, to see if they have had the good taste, and superior sense to stock their shelves with her novels.
House of Daughters is the first, of her novels, that I lost myself in. I remember my Aunt, who was the only one who would trek the hour and a half to the bookstore with me, reading the back cover and dismissing it out of hand. Saying something about it sounding like a book she had read by some other author. I paid her no mind. By the time we made it home, I was going to be up the whole night.
The story begins with a death, a will, and three unfortunate half sisters, discovering that they are now tied together by an inheritance. The dilapidated, crumbling remains of a once grand Champagne House in Champagne, France. Disappointed dreams, shattered hearts, longings that swell to aching, traveling bands of gypsies, and always the possibility of redemption, in the fragile tendril of hope for new dreams, repaired hearts, and the familial love that had been so lacking. Surrounded by vivid descriptions of food, the tumbling lands of Champagne, and the in-depth process of champagne making. This is a novel that cannot be put down.
Suspension of reality is a corner of any great novel. Ms. Lynch masterfully accomplishes this with vivid descriptions of food, the tumbling lands of Champagne, the complex ancient practice of fermenting Champagne. For a little while I traveled from the well loved shores of Carolina, to the South of France, I felt the bubble of Champagne on my tongue, smelled sun baked fields after the rain.
The next day I set it on the little table by my Aunts reading chair. She read it and that night ordered another of Ms. Lynch’s books. It took me eight months to get House of Daughters back, and another four to rest a sheepish admission that my taste had reigned superior. Sarah-Kate Lynch novels never stay on the shelf long in my home, they are always being shuttled, or mailed off to some initiated relative or other.
Is there an author in your family, or book circle that gets passed around? What will be your Friday Read?
