Elisabeth Hyde | Book Chatter

Go Ask Fannie
By Elisabeth Hyde
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 9780735218567, April 10, 2018, 304pp.

The Short of It:

This family’s story tugged at my heart.

The Rest of It:

Murray Blaire is getting on in years. At 81, he’s set in his ways but still present enough to know the importance of family. In an attempt to convince his youngest adult daughter that the man she is seeing is far too old for her and a real jerk, he invites his three children up for a long weekend.

Ruth as the eldest, figures it’s a good time to discuss the possibility of long-term care before her father actually needs it but Lizzie and George and most of all, Murray, just aren’t ready to talk about it. Plus, Lizzie quickly figures out the real reason for the visit and although she realizes she made many mistakes in her life, she’s not quite ready to address them. Certainly not in front of her judgmental older sister.

This is family drama at its best. Go Ask Fannie is a touching story about what it takes to have a successful marriage and raise a family while still maintaining a sense of self. Lillian and Murray lived a wonderful life but her death and the death of their son Daniel place a cloud over this family that cannot be ignored. Murray’s grief and the weight of loss his kids carry is palpable. It’s a story about missed opportunities and second chances. It’s sweet and well-told and comes together beautifully at the end.

Elisabeth Hyde is a new-to-me author but I really enjoyed her writing. Go Ask Fannie is a book many will enjoy this summer.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

In The Heart of the Canyon by Elisabeth Hyde

Friday Finds is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Here’s the blurb from the publisher:

From the author of The Abortionist’s Daughter, a gripping new novel about a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon that changes the lives of everyone on board.

Meet Peter, twenty-seven, single, and looking for a quick hookup; Evelyn, a fifty-year-old Harvard professor; and Ruth and Lloyd, river veterans in their seventies. There’s Mitchell, an overeager history buff with no qualms about upstaging the guides with his knowledge. There’s Jill from Salt Lake City, wanting desperately to spark some sense of adventure in her staid Mormon family; and seventeen-year-old Amy, so woefully overweight that she can barely fit into a pup tent, let alone into a life jacket.

Guiding them all is JT Maroney, who loves the river with all his heart and who, having made 124 previous trips down the Colorado, thinks he has seen everything. But on their first night, a stray dog wanders into their campsite, upsetting the tentative equilibrium of this makeshift family. Over the next thirteen days, as various decisions are second-guessed and sometimes regretted, both passengers and guides find that sometimes the most daunting adventures on a Colorado River trip have nothing to do with white-water rapids, and everything to do with reconfiguring the rocky canyons of the heart.

I almost picked this one up at the library last night but with all of the books that I am reading over the course of this month, I decided to hold off for a bit. What did you find this week?

Chatting with friends about books and life…