Book Review: Before and Again By Barbara Delinsky

BEFORE AND AGAIN

By: Barbara Delinsky

Published: June 26, 2018

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Fiction

Barbara Delinsky is the queen of family dramas. This is the fifth of her numerous novels that I have read, all usually dealing with some sort of family drama or secret. This one takes a current topic and plays it out for a young couple. Mackenzie Cooper is the wife of Edward Cooper, a venture capitalist and the mother to five-year-old Lily. They live an idyllic life in New England. While driving Lily to a playdate through an unknown neighborhood, she becomes lost. A quick glance at her GPS results in their lives being changed forever. One glance, one life gone. 

Fast-forward to four years later. We meet Maggie Reid, cosmetologist at a well-known inn and spa in Vermont. Due to media outrage, criminal charges, a trial, and even a new law in her name, Mackenzie has left her old life behind including her marriage, her family and started over as Maggie Reid. She has told no one her secret past and has been keeping her probation officer happy by staying under the radar. Then, her best friend's son is charged with a federal crime. Due to her connection and loyalty to them, her secret will likely come out and her life will again be splashed all over the papers.

Delinsky's setting in Vermont is the perfect place for someone to hide out. The quaint tourist town thrives off of traffic but also craves its privacy and doesn't ask for the local residents to explain what drew them to their community. Maggie feels like her life is as good as it will ever get. But, when things start to crash around her and people from her past start appearing, she doesn't manage these new changes well. I can't begin to imagine the deep loss that occurs after losing a child and then a marriage, but Maggie's constant hatred of herself was frustrating and repetitive. As people are showing her love and forgiveness, she just can't seem to accept it and as a reader, I felt it was a bit over-dramatic.

Maggie had cut off everyone from her past life but didn't let anyone from her new life get to really know her. Yes, she had friends, but now that her past was coming out, she was afraid of how everyone would see her and the judgments they would have against her. Her ex-husband reappears and her connection to him reignites a passion they had both missed. Delinsky portrays a couple full of hurt, anguish, betrayal, love, and forgiveness and doesn't hold back.

Recently on social media, we are seeing parents vilified for how they discipline their children. In another case, a woman is receiving death threats for calling the police after the video of the call is shared thousands of times on social media. Delinsky's story is current and displays the changes in how news is shared and interpreted by millions of viewers whether on social media or through news outlets. Everyone seems to want their fifteen seconds of fame, but in these types of situations, fifteen seconds can turn into a lifetime of horrors. After reading this book, I've looked at these types of situations differently, knowing we are only getting half of the story and wondering what is the motivation behind the people sharing the story.

Maggie's message of living through something so tragic and finding a way to continue on is an important one. No matter what life throws at you, people will remember how we handled the challenging days. Maggie's biggest obstacle was forgiving herself and until she did that, no one else was going to be allowed to love her or be loved by her. This book offers many life lessons for readers along with a dramatic story weaved through the past and present choices we all make every day. Living with those choices and making sense of the past is just one of the many hurdles towards moving on. Even though this is a fictional story, it offers a chance for the reader to reflect and maybe make an effort to love those who are hurting, not be so quick to judge, and take part in less social media drama.

Barbara Delinsky - source

Barbara Delinsky, author of BEFORE AND AGAIN, BLUEPRINTS (2015), SWEET SALT AIR (2013), ESCAPE (2011), and NOT MY DAUGHTER (2010), has written more than twenty-two bestselling novels with over thirty-five million copies in print. She has been published in thirty languages worldwide. 

Barbara's fiction centers upon everyday families facing not-so-everyday challenges. She is particularly drawn to exploring themes of motherhood, marriage, sibling rivalry, and friendship in her novels. 

A lifelong New Englander, Barbara earned a B.A. in Psychology at Tufts University and an M.A. in Sociology at Boston College. As a breast cancer survivor who lost her mother to the disease when she was only eight, Barbara compiled the non-fiction book Uplift: Secrets from the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors, a handbook of practical tips and upbeat anecdotes. She donates her proceeds from the sale of this book to her charitable foundation, which funds an ongoing research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. For more information, check out her website, HERE. 

To purchase a copy of BEFORE AND AGAIN, click the photo below:




My review for SWEET SALT AIR by Barbara Delinsky.





Thanks to the publisher for sending an e-copy of this book for the purpose of this review. This review is my honest opinion. If you choose to purchase this book through the above link, I may receive a small commission without you having to pay a cent more for your purchase. 

Book Review: Sweet Salt Air By Barbara Delinsky

SWEET SALT AIR

By: Barbara Delinsky

To Be Published:  June 18, 2013

Charlotte and Nicole were once the best of friends, spending summers together in Nicole's coastal island house off of Maine. But many years, and many secrets, have kept the women apart. A successful travel writer, single Charlotte lives on the road, while Nicole, a food blogger, keeps house in Philadelphia with her surgeon-husband, Julian. When Nicole is commissioned to write a book about island food, she invites her old friend Charlotte back to Quinnipeague, for a final summer, to help. Outgoing and passionate, Charlotte has a gift for talking to people and making friends, and Nicole could use her expertise for interviews with locals. Missing a genuine connection, Charlotte agrees.
But what both women don't know is that they are each holding something back that may change their lives forever. For Nicole, what comes to light could destroy her marriage, but it could also save her husband. For Charlotte, the truth could cost her Nicole’s friendship, but could also free her to love again. And her chance may lie with a reclusive local man, with a heart to soothe and troubles of his own.

My book club gals and I were lucky enough to win copies of SWEET SALT AIR thanks to Reading Group Guides.  This book will be available from your favorite book seller on June 18, and would make an excellent summer beach read.  We read it during the month of April and had an excellent discussion around the book.  Even though the book was predictable and a bit "soap operaish" we all still liked it.

The story of Nicole and Charlotte and their two separate secrets draw you in but what kept me turning the pages was the rich details around the food, the herbs, and the scenery.  I've never liked clam chowder, but after reading this book I feel like I could eat bowls of it.  

All of us felt the story was a bit repetitive...telling the same scenario over and over again. But in each of those scenes were true and raw emotions that made the characters real to each of us.  The pressures on Nicole, Charlotte, Julian and Leo were very different, but equally heart-breaking.  Throughout the pages, you were rooting for them and crying with them.  I think the most emotional section for me had to do with this conversation:

"A baby isn't a downside"
"It is if you grow it for nine months and feel it move inside you, then watch it being born and hold it in your arms and love it even when it's covered with blood, and just when you're thinking you can't give it up, a nurse takes it away and you know you'll never see it ever again -"

This is why I am a fan of Barbara Delinsky.  Her writing hits at those deep emotions that the reader can relate to.

MS (multiple sclerosis) makes an appearance in this novel and unfortunately my own family has been touched by this disease as well as many others that I know.  I found Delinsky's research in this area and the direction she took this disease in the novel fascinating.  I did wonder though, why she didn't incorporate the healing of medicinal herbs (that were such a main focus in the novel) into the healing of MS.  But at 400+ pages, I suppose something had to be left out.  I certainly enjoyed reading about the healing power of different flowers and herbs either through their scent alone or through their use in recipes.  

With Nicole being a food blogger, I found myself nodding my head while she was up late blogging, or finding that her blogging was truly her therapy.  I find that to be true myself.  I think it was a neat way to bring Charlotte and Nicole together after all these years - in the creation of her cookbook. With both of them being writers in very different ways, they were still able to use their talents together to create the cookbook.  I found myself salivating over the food and wanting the recipes.  Maybe Delinsky needs to publish a Sweet Salt Air cookbook full of the food described in the book.

All three of us really liked the cover of the book and the title.  We felt like we could feel the breeze and smell the air while reading it.  Delinsky's descriptions of the area, the people and the homes on the island made all of us want to visit.  

Overall, this book is full of emotion, triumphs, tragedies, love and friendship.  All are excellent qualities in a good summer read and one that should be read with your girlfriends.  Warning: Reading it will make you hungry for Clam Chowder!

Barbara Delinsky has written twenty NY Times bestselling novels with over thirty million copies in print. Her books are highly emotional, character-driven studies of marriage, parenthood, sibling rivalry, and friendship. Barbara’s newest novel, SWEET SALT AIR, is a June 18, 2013 St. Martin's Press release. 

Her first foray into non-fiction occurred in October 2001 with the publication of UPLIFT: SECRETS FROM THE SISTERHOOD OF BREAST CANCER SURVIVORS. UPLIFT is a handbook of practical tips and upbeat anecdotes that she compiled with the help of 350 breast cancer survivors, their families and friends. A breast cancer survivor herself, Barbara has donated the entirety of her author proceeds from three editions of UPLIFT to fund the first six years of a fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital that will train a surgical oncologist in research. A new Tenth Anniversary Edition of UPLIFT went on sale September 27, 2011.

Barbara lives with her family in New England.

For more on Barbara Delinsky, "Like" her Facebook page, HERE or visit her website, http://barbaradelinsky.com


Thanks to Reading Group Guides for sending us copies of SWEET SALT AIR.  This review is my honest opinion.  Neither I nor our book club was compensated in any other way for this review.  

Review: Not My Daughter by Barbara Delinsky

Susan Tate, high school principal, confronts a devastating secret. Her seventeen-year-old daughter, Lily, has revealed that she is expecting a baby - and this is not an accidental pregnancy. Susan soon learns that some of Lily's friends are pregnant, too: they've made a pact to become moms in high school, intentionally having unprotected sex. Naive but determined, they yearn to raise their babies on their own, and to keep the fathers away for as long as possible. For Susan, the news threatens to destroy her career. Once a teen mom herself, she has launched high-profile campaigns to educate students about preventing pregnancy. Then Lily makes a frightening discovery about the baby she is carrying, and she and Susan begin to see their futures in a new way.

Delinsky has written another great story and one every mom of a daughter should read. If I could have ignored the rest of my responsibilities I would have read the book in one sitting, but instead I fed my family, cleaned the house, and read it every spare moment I had. I could identify with so many of the characters in the book for various reasons: Susan and her difficult relationship with her parents and sibling, Pam, feeling like an "outsider" of the group, and Abby as she struggles with her secret. (I don't want to give anything away). There were many tears shed during this book. As I was reading it, my thoughts and feelings would appear in the following paragraph or chapter. I became deeply interested in the characters in this story. I appreciated how the author brought in so many ripple effects to the story; not just the girls and their families, but how their choices affected jobs, the community, and the school board. Our community has had difficulties with a school board much like one in the book and Delinsky portrayed the true power certain members can have on a whole community. Throughout the story I frequently asked myself how I would have reacted and several times I had to check myself and be honest about my feelings. This would be an EXCELLENT discussion book for a book club. As a former teen daughter and a current mom of a daughter, it definately gave me something to think about in regards to how I want to discuss choices with my daughter. I gave this 5 out of 5 stars! Another Delinsky hit!