Loneliness and love, a challenging combination

Imagine a platter of delicious cheeses whetting your appetite and then a fantastic meal of coq au vin, a tasty vegetable tart, an interesting salad and a wonderful apple strudel dessert and you've got our book club!! How lucky we are. Wine swirled, conversation flowed, and dining cascaded well past 9 pm!

The books got a mixed review as is so often the case around our table. My Name is Lucy Barton, by Elizabeth Strout was not a favorite of most. Kathy found it to be an intriguing story of longing and missed opportunities for love and connection. The slow pace and unsatisfied relationships told their own story. No one else seemed to find anything much positive to say about the story or the characters. However, when the voting came in, there was a bit of surprise that votes were as high as they were. Nancy's 1 though brought the overall tally to a 2. (probably would have been a 2.75 if we did fractions!)

The House by the Lake, by Ella Carey, didn't fare much better. This story line had so much potential, but it fell short across the board. The interesting story of a cortesan's home uncovered decades after WWII inspired one of the story lines, but it wasn't fleshed out to any degree, so fell short. The San Francisco, Berlin budding romance was predictable and a bit trite. Some found this book more compelling than the Lucy Barton story, and it was a readable "story", but, it left so much to be desired. This book also ranked a 2 on our scale of 1-5.