EFR REVIEWS

When a terrible accident claims the life of Eleanor’s twin, her family is left in tatters, and her reality begins to unravel, dropping her in and out of unfamiliar worlds. When she returns to her own time and place, hours and days have flown by without her. One fateful day, Eleanor leaps from a cliff...and vanishes. In a strange in-between place, she meets a mysterious stranger who understands the weight of her family history: Eleanor’s twin wasn’t the only tragic loss. And unless Eleanor can master her strange new abilities, she may not be the last.   ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ This novel spans over a few generations, and it's not always immediately clear what's going on, so it make take a little while getting settled into the story. It did for me, at least. The story opens with Eleanor...the first, that is (there are two in this story). This first Eleanor is a competitive swimmer, now pregnant with her second child and struggling with some feelings of malaise within her domestic life. Though ...

  Something Worth Doing In 1853, Abigail Scott was a 19-year-old school teacher in Oregon Territory when she married Ben Duniway. Marriage meant giving up on teaching, but Abigail always believed she was meant to be more than a good wife and mother. When financial mistakes and an injury force Ben to stop working, Abigail becomes the primary breadwinner for her growing family. What she sees as a working woman appalls her, and she devotes her life to fighting for the rights of women, including their right to vote. Following Abigail as she bears six children, runs a millinery and a private school, helps on the farm, writes novels, gives speeches, and eventually runs a newspaper supporting women's suffrage,  Something Worth Doing  explores issues that will resonate strongly with modern women: the pull between career and family, finding one's place in the public sphere, and dealing with frustrations and prejudices women encounter when they compete in male-dominated spaces. Bas...

  THE OTHER MRS Sadie and Will Foust have only just moved their family from bustling Chicago to small-town Maine when their neighbor Morgan Baines is found dead in her home. The murder rocks their tiny coastal island, but no one is more shaken than Sadie. But it’s not just Morgan’s death that has Sadie on edge. And as the eyes of suspicion turn toward the new family in town, Sadie is drawn deeper into the mystery of what really happened that dark and deadly night. But Sadie must be careful, for the more she discovers about Mrs. Baines, the more she begins to realize just how much she has to lose if the truth ever comes to light. **Potential Trigger Warning : child abuse and suicide repeatedly mentioned throughout this novel; detailed descriptions of hanging death ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ After getting news of the death of his sister, Will Foust and wife Sadie, along with their two sons, trade big city Chicago life for small-town island residency in Maine. The Fousts not only take over the care of...

MEMORY KEEPER'S DAUGHTER On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down's syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret. But Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the infant. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child herself. So begins this beautifully told story that unfolds over a quarter of a century in which these two families, ignorant of each other, are yet bound by David Henry's fateful decision that long-ago winter night. ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ It's a snowy, winter night in Kentucky in 1964 when the wife of Dr. David Henry goes into labor. He drives through the unusual amount of snow for the area, event...