Someone Else's Shoes by Jojo Moyes

This novel by Moyes was a bit different than her previous trilogy, Me before You, in that it really explores the relationships among women. The issue that gives the title its context is that a very middle class London women mistakenly picks up the wrong bag at the gym that belonged to a very wealthy New Yorker. Nisha, the American has a pair of very expensive Christian Louboutin red heelsin her bag, which Sam, the Londoner, discovers when she reaches for her shoes as she changes out of her flip flops on her way to a work meeting. The event sets into motion the moves that both try to recover their own bag and the shoes that were in them.

Despite their differences in background and monetary status, it becomes obvious that both women are desperately trying to hold their lives together. Nisha is a trophy wife whom her husband, Carl, is trying to shove out of their marriage and Sam is trying to hold it all together with a husband who is living in a depressed state and who, as breadwinner, is fighting a misogynistic boss who is looking for every reason to fire her. In addition she is a supporting friend to Andrea, who has been battling cancer and mother to Cat, a nineteen year old who has maturity beyond her age and can give a voice to her mother. 

After the mix-up at the gym, Nisha returns to the luxury hotel penthouse where she finds that Carl has locked her out holding her clothes, credit card, and passport hostage and is served divorce papers. As she is ejected from the hotel, she is befriended by Jasmine, a housekeeper there and is given a chance for employment. She has to clean toilets, which is a foul task to a woman used to the finer things in life. When Nisha is evicted from the budget hotel in which she had been staying, she moves in with Jasmine and her daughter, Gracie. A cold, self-centered woman, when confronted with her present circumstances, Nisha begins to soften a bit as she has to rely on others. 

Sam is beyond wit's end as she tries to deal with her boss and her husband as she is watching her marriage deteriorate. When Nisha confronts her at work and accuses her of stealing the shoes, Sam's boss has the ammunition that he needs to fire her. Eventually, the two become set on finding the shoes that Cat has delivered to a charity shop and alliances and friendships are formed as Andrea, Jasmine join the alliance. 

This was a complex novel that had at its heart many themes that are so important to the women - friendship, treatment of women, and contrition and change. The characters are well developed and layered. The reader witnesses how they change and how they influence change around them. It is complex and even thought there are some predictable and implausible happenstances, it is a great read.

Democracy Awakening by Heather Cox Richardson

One of my friends introduced me to Heather Cox Richardson a couple of years ago and I have become one of her most ardent fans. Her Letters from an American each morning is one piece to which I look forward before doing most anything else. I was ecstatic when it was announced that she would be speaking at the Ten Evenings programs of Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures. 

Democracy Awakening is a fascinating history of the United States in terms of how we have viewed and practiced democracy since the Founding Fathers gathered all their thoughts and expressed them in the documents that have formed the basis of our laws and culture. She contends that throughout our history there have been crossroads between authoritarianism and pluralism. As we approach this Presidential election, it has become even more obvious and she feels that we are "teetering on the brink" of authoritarianism if the election of Republicans comes to pass. 

Richardson is a scholar and professor of U.S. History at Boston University. Her research for this book traces the rise in the right wing ideology back to the New Deal of the 1930s through the Nixon presidency, Reagan and most recently most outstandingly personified by Donald Trump. There are no fewer than 10 chapters that delineate how he has moved to secure the position which sets him in direct comparison to the leaders of European fascism and Nazi Germany. She describes how in his term as President, one of the first actions were executive orders that began to dismantle the government and install his cronies and family members into interim positions to avoid needing Congressional approval. Of course his installing 3 ultra conservatives on the Supreme court has lead to the repeal of Roe v. Wade and the eradication of a women's right to have control over health decisions. 

Richardson has such an incredible way of writing that is learned and academic, but truly understandable by the non-academic. Her explanations illustrate give the lay reader a means to understand not only the past, but also the what is happening now and how we need to heed the warning signs that have been posted by the vile rhetoric of the evangelical conservative wing of the Republican Party. A must read for every citizen who does not want to be accused of having his or her head buried in the sand. 

I cannot wait to hear her speak.

The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry

The Secret Book of Flora Lea was just the kind of book I needed to take to Physical Therapy. It was engaging and a not too difficult read. In addition, it took place in London and was set at the time of World War II, time and place among my favorites. The novel has two timelines, one in the 1940s and the other in the 1960s.

Hazel and Flora Linden live in the Bloomsbury area of London with their mother. Their father has gone off to fight in the war and was killed in faulty engine fire while in training for the RAF. As the war rages, orders are given to evacuate the children from central London. The two sisters are sent to Binsy, Oxfordshire to be billeted with Bridie Aberdeen, a loving and caring woman who is also a single mother to her son Harry. In order to comfort her sister, Hazel creates stories centered around a fictional place, called Whisperwood. It is their secret and no one else is privy to it. Tragically, one day when Hazel, Flora and Henry are near the river in Oxford, Flora disappears. She was left alone sleeping and when Hazel and Henry come back to the river bank, she is gone. A massive search is conducted and she is presumed to have drowned.

Flash forward to 1960s in London to find Hazel working at a rare book store. For most of her life she has pursued what had actually happened to Flora. It haunts her day and night.  She is taken aback the last day on the job at the book store before she moves on to another job at Sotheby's. In the books for her to process to add to the store's collection, she opens one by an American author entitled Whisperwood and the River of Stars. How could someone know about the secret kingdom. Surely Flora is still alive and somehow the author has heard the story from her. 

She takes the book home with her and shares the story with her boyfriend, Barnaby. Inadvertently a couple of the illustrations get ruined, and her guilt about stealing the book gets the better of her. She decides to return the book, knowing that she could be arrested for stealing it and losing her job. 

The novel then morphs into a mystery about the missing Flora and how Hazel plays detective to find her. It becomes a page-turner, for sure as Hazel revisits all those who may have come in contact with Flora - Bridie, Harry, Kelty, and four nurses who often babysat the girls. She contacts the author of the book, Peggy Andrews, who travels from Cape Cod to London to become part of the adventure.

It is a captivating tribute to the power of storytelling and its magic. Throughout the book Bridie tells stories as does the journalist, Dorothy Bellamy,  who is writing about the children of Operation Pied Piper. those who were evacuated. It is also a novel following your heart and listening to what it sees for your future, especially when it comes to love.