I enjoyed this book, it is part history, part romance and part suspense.  Set in Walls of Water, North Carolina, it is the story of an old hotel called the Blue Ridge Madam, and two ladies who love their small town, its people, and the old hotel.  It is also about keeping and discovering secrets, old and new.

Willa, a sporting goods store owner and Paxton, a young socialite and business woman, were not very good friends in high school, Paxton was "Miss Everythng" and Willa was the high school prankster from hell.  However, the grandmothers, who are best friends, and former workers at the Madam, wish the girls were friends.  Now the two older ladies are in the same nursing home, one has alzheimers and the other is nearly blind. 

Paxton is the head of the Women's Club and is helping it celebrate its 75th anniversary.  At the same time, the Blue Ridge Madam is undergowing renovation and Paxton hopes to have the gala there.  Things are soon complicated when a skeleton is found under a peach tree.  Grandma Georgia knows who the skeleton belongs to and why he is buried there and how he died.

To tell more about the book would spoil the story.  While unraveling the mystery, realtionships are formed, friendships are tested and things will never be the same.  Read the book to see who killed the stranger under the peach tree and why it happened.

I liked this book.  It is a series of short stories about a small town in Maine called Crosby.  The inhabitants of ths small town are somewhat sad to see progress come to the village, including Olive, a math rteacher and her pharamacist husband, Henry.  The short stories revole around the town's people and the Kitteridge family.  Olive, a grumpy, frumpy stick in the mud type lady, has something to say about all the goings on in her town and most of it is not pleasant to hear.  She is  appalled at what goes on and the problems that seem to visit Crosby. 

Although each story is not about Olive and Henry, she plays a part in each section.  Although she is not an overly friendly favorite in the town, she gives sound advice and guidance and seems to at times, be the town guardian.  At the end of the book, the reader will find a softer, gentler side of Olive and she becomes more likable,

After I read the book, I saw a lot of Olive in me and in others.  Olive may have been an old, opinionate grouch, but her advice is usually sound and she is a strong shoulder to lean on.  I guess every small town needs an Olive to look out for it.

This is a story of unrequited love.  Fermina and Florentino fall madly in love during their teens, but Fermina turns her back on her 1st love to marry a wealthy doctor.  Florentino patiently waits for Fermina, never marrying.  The writing is very good, but it is a slow read.  I never found out if they ever were able to come together after Fermina's husband dies.  The novel won the Noble prize for Literature in 1982

Hannah Bryant is living secluded on a granite quarry island off Maine. She’s content to work on her paintings and other art on the island she inherited from her great-uncle Arlo.

Hannah is happy her artwork is selling and providing her with a good living.  She has lived like a hermit for six years but one summer day a dog washes up with the tide.  Next, a teenaged boy is sent to her by her half-sister.  Will is on the run from his abusive father.  With two living things dependent on her for survival, Hannah finds she must put her work aside and deal with the outside world.  With Will’s presence come more people intruding on Hannah’s isolation.  Hannah befriends Zee, the local boat delivery service girl and Zee’s father and grandfather.  The last to show up is Hannah’s half-sister Emily. She is pregnant by Will’s manipulative father and looking for a place to hide until the baby is born.  Hannah faces emotional challenges as a series of family secrets are uncovered that intertwine this group of people together.  Hannah begins to question the way she has lived her life and understands the difference between solitude and loneliness.

She weighs the solitude against the meaning of home and connection.  This is a story about losing faith and finding love.

The characters are not perfect but start to reveal him or her self, each becoming more realistic.  The island has its own personality and evokes the sights, smells and sounds of the ocean effortlessly.  This is a powerful well written novel that the library will be using for its July book discussion.  Come join the group.

This is a very good book about the friendship between Gail Caldwell and her friend, Caroline Knapp.  Gail is a runner and Caroline is a rower.  They teach each other their sports and are able to both participate in each others' activities.  They met over their dogs and are both writers.  They do a lot of soul searching while taking their dogs for walks and become quasi-psychiatrists for each other.  Gail drinks too much and Caroline smokes too much and she is also a bulliemic so they council each other and help straighten out their lives. 

In the midst of this tremendous friendship, Caroline finds out that she had terminal lung cancer.  The second part of the book is about Caroline's illness and the efforts of her partner and Gail to make her comfortable.  At the same time, Caroline finds a way to comfort Gail.  This is a story of a wonderful friendship.  Everyone should have someone like these two ladies had.

I loved this book, right from the introduction. It follows the story of a group of women who have been friends since childhood: how each of them develops apart from the group and how they all come back together to support each other when needed. What I loved about the story was the sense they all had of who each other was as a person:  not as mother or sister or child, but as person.  A great read.

In The Girls from Ames (by Jeffrey Zaslow, columnist for the Wall Street Journal), the author researched the lives and friendship of a group of 11 girls who grew up in Ames, Iowa.  The girls experienced many life situations that are familiar to all of us -- dating, marriages, births and raising of children, severe illness of a child, divorces, deaths of siblings and parents, and severe illnesses of a couple of the girls themselves.  Through it all, the friends consulted each other, celebrated together, mourned together, supported and comforted each other.  Although they now live in eight different states, the girls manage to meet for a reunion at least once each year.

This is an interesting book in which many readers can find themselves and compare their life events and friendships with those of the girls from Ames.  Though their situation seems at first to be rather unique, there are evidently quite a few large groups of friends who keep in touch in various ways for many years.