Author: Meg Waite Clayton
Publication Information: Ballatine Books, Random House Publishing Group, Random House, Inc. 2013. 289 pages.
Book Source: I received this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program free of cost in exchange for an honest review. The book arrived as a paperback advance uncorrected proof.
Favorite Quote: "You Wednesday Children think all of life has to be lined up perfectly before it can be lived, but the Lord's good truth is that it doesn't ever line up the way you want it to. you just have to trust it to line up the way it ought, and plunge on ahead."
The Wednesday Daughters is a follow up to Meg Clayton's earlier book, The Wednesday Sisters, but it stands alone as a story. It is a story about characters rather than a plot. A lot of characters with a lot of stories.
Three of the main characters - Hope, Anna Paige, and Julie - are the Wednesday daughters. They are life long friends because of the friendship among their mothers. Hope's mother Ally recently passed away, and the friends come to England's lake district to clean out a cottage Ally owned there.
Hope is struggling to cope with her mother's death, still work out her relationship with her mother, and thinking about a struggling marriage. Julie is attempting to recover from the death of her twin and her own guilt about events in the past. Anna Paige, who had a very close bond with Ally, is grieving for her own loss and is dealing with relationship and commitment issues.
In the lake district, the women meet Graham and Robbie. Graham, a man living alone is struggling with his mixed heritage, a secret connection to the Wednesday daughters, and a lost love. Robbie is the island boatman but with a past and a story of his own. The stories of these two men intertwine with those of the Wednesday daughters.
Intermingled with these stories are excerpts from Ally's journals. These are written as Ally's musing and as conversations with Beatrix Potter (yes, the author). Mind you, the conversations and musing are imaginary of course.
Confused yet? Me too. This book had way too much going on. So many stories intertwined told in so many different voices. The individual thread became difficult to follow and did not hold my interest.
Three of the main characters - Hope, Anna Paige, and Julie - are the Wednesday daughters. They are life long friends because of the friendship among their mothers. Hope's mother Ally recently passed away, and the friends come to England's lake district to clean out a cottage Ally owned there.
Hope is struggling to cope with her mother's death, still work out her relationship with her mother, and thinking about a struggling marriage. Julie is attempting to recover from the death of her twin and her own guilt about events in the past. Anna Paige, who had a very close bond with Ally, is grieving for her own loss and is dealing with relationship and commitment issues.
In the lake district, the women meet Graham and Robbie. Graham, a man living alone is struggling with his mixed heritage, a secret connection to the Wednesday daughters, and a lost love. Robbie is the island boatman but with a past and a story of his own. The stories of these two men intertwine with those of the Wednesday daughters.
Intermingled with these stories are excerpts from Ally's journals. These are written as Ally's musing and as conversations with Beatrix Potter (yes, the author). Mind you, the conversations and musing are imaginary of course.
Confused yet? Me too. This book had way too much going on. So many stories intertwined told in so many different voices. The individual thread became difficult to follow and did not hold my interest.
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