The Good Luck Girls of Shipwreck Lane was very fun to read, combining characters with unusual life situations with an interesting setting and cooking as the back story. I love books with characters who enjoy cooking and this one will make you want to get in the kitchen. The relationships are interesting and touching at times. This is not a deep read, but very enjoyable. I would definitely read more by this author.

In The Forgetting Tree the motives of the two main women characters were difficult to relate to. While it was easy to feel sympathy for their circumstances, their continued bizarre behaviors became uncomfortable and disappointing. They weren't characters I thought about for one minute after the relief of finishing the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story of a marriage, friendship, and parenthood told through the tools of modern technology. As the “wife” answers questions from an online marriage survey, readers who have been married at least 15 years will be able to relate to her revealing answers whether the answer is a short, direct answer or a lengthy, sometimes rambling answer. Her relationships with her father, children, and friends often explored via “twitter” or “e-mail” will be familiar to readers at the same stage of life. This was an engaging, easy to read book that I didn’t want to see end.

I loved this book! Lorna Jane Cook writes about our earthly tragedies from an eternal perspective in a poignant yet matter-of-fact way. The settings provide interesting back ground and the characters realistically tug at your heartstrings. The author's descriptions draw in the reader such as when her character, Alice, becomes enchanted with the child, Adam, and says "she felt herself slipping into the skin of the three-year-old". The story is well-written, fun, and easy to read and you will be sad for it to end.

The story of a 28 year old British woman's participation on an archeological dig in Kenya was very enjoyable on many levels. Although the descriptions of her past relationships with her family and her lover drag somewhat the overall story is suspenseful and ends with many surprises. The way the author weaves together the theme of music with African history and politics and with archeology should keep most readers interested. Especially because of the family relationships of both the main character and the dig participants, this book would be an interesting one for a book club.

I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend this book especially to mothers who will identify with Hope’s feelings and actions regarding her three year old daughter’s illness and behavioral issues. I found myself second-guessing the author as she employed different strategies to cope with and resolve her daughter's issues and yet knew that it's impossible to walk in another mother's shoes. Hope's descriptions of her family's trip to Belize and of the Mayan culture are also very enjoyable and enlightening, especially for those who enjoy travel and learning of other cultures, both past and present.

The first few chapters of the book were a little slow and left me wondering if the author was really going to make me care enough about any of the characters to keep reading. He did succeed, however, in developing the characters and the plot so that the suspense built and made it difficult to put the book down. The bonus was learning a little about Greek culture.