When a radical NY lawyer, Joel Litvinoff, is felled by a stroke, a long-buried secret is uncovered and the members of his family, especially his wife Audrey, are forced to reexamine long-held articles of faith.

Audrey's views on life and especially her perception of the myth of "Joel and Audrey, the entity," are shaken to the core. After all, the "Joel and Audrey" she had come to believe in was almost an institution.

Daughter Rosa, a disillusioned revolutionary, turns to Orthodox doctrine; Karla, a social worker hoping to adopt a child with her husband, is falling in love with the owner of a newspaper stand; and Lenny, the adopted son, is relapsing once again into his heroin addiction.

While Joel lies in a coma in the hospital, battling his illness, his family members battle their demons.

Author Zoe Heller, whose What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal: A Novel earned acclaim, has skillfully woven the details of this drama - the dilemmas and conflicts of Audrey, Rosa, Karla and Lenny, as well as a supporting cast of characters - into a masterful, yet emotional and intellectual probing; nothing will be left unexamined by the end of this tale. And how the pieces fall together afterwards - well, the reader may be able to anticipate some of the changes, but others will certainly come as a surprise.

The Believers captured my attention, as I love a good family drama. I found it easy to immerse myself in the characters, as they examined and reexamined their true beliefs.

Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of: Web of Tyranny, etc.

Our story begins in Iraq, where we meet a mysterious, nameless and faceless character, who is gloating - yes, even exhilarating - in the death of someone who is popular, well-loved, and a soldier...

We next zero in on a young woman, Abby Fitzgerald, who is counting down the days until her husband, John Stanton, returns from Iraq.

In a startling tumble of events, the tragedy unfolds. A hero's fall - supposedly gunned down by a sniper - and the pain and loss of family members as they receive the news are the immediate results.

Abby's in-laws, Jim and Sharice Stanton; their daughter Madison, who questions the war in Iraq and even protests occasionally; and then Abby herself...all of them are reeling in the aftermath of this death. And then there is Noah, the younger brother, who is still in Iraq. He had enlisted, along with his brother, and now he is left...questioning everything he thought was right.

When the military establishment provides no answers - indeed, when there seems to be a cover-up - Abby, Madison, eventually even Sharice...each begin to search for their own resolution.

When Noah returns for the funeral, he seems more than a little distressed...so when he leaves afterwards, headed to Canada to join other "deserters" and "protesters", even his father, a member of the military establishment himself - now retired - understands, even though he cannot agree.

But Emjay Brown, the soldier who was with John Stanton when he was shot, has a completely different version of events than the one the military is handing down...he claims that John was killed by "friendly fire" - and not only friendly, but someone in his own platoon.

What will the establishment do to prevent the truth from coming out? And why is someone, also back from Iraq, claiming to be John's best friend, someone who suddenly seems to be moving in on Abby's life and attempting to take it over, turning extremely bizarre as he moves in on John Stanton's territory?

With each page I turned, the suspense intensified, until I could not turn them fast enough...to discover the truth, and to see resolution of the anguish for the survivors.

One September Morning is a poignant and timely tale of the wrongs that can be done in the name of "right."

Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of: Web of Tyranny, etc.

In mid-century Berlin, a young boy falls ill on the street; he is assisted by a woman who helps him clean up and sets him on his feet again. When he returns a few weeks later, to thank her, the two begin forming a pattern for their time together: making love and reading.

First he reads to her and then they make love. This relationship never leaves the spare rooms. The boy holds his secret safe inside; it warms him and comforts him, bolstering his self-confidence.

And then she is gone. The rooms are vacant and there is nothing left behind - no clues to why she left or to her current whereabouts.

The boy - Michael Berg - misses her, this woman, Hanna Schmidt. He compares each subsequent relationship to the one they had and all others fall short. Even though his relationship with the woman was very narrow and contained little in the way of sharing - just the reading and the sex.

Years later, while a student, Michael is involved in legal coursework, which leads to his attendance at a trial. Several defendants are being held accountable for deaths in the concentration camp - people who died in a burning church. One of the defendants is Hanna.

As the facts emerge throughout the trial, Michael begins to piece together several clues that reveal a deep secret held by Hanna - a secret that, if told, could actually improve her lot in the case. But she says nothing. And Michael, who struggles with whether or not to come forward, also remains silent. And she is sentenced to life in prison.

Through the years, he confronts the issues again and again, wondering if he did the right thing. His struggle is against the possibility of altering someone's fate - especially when that person has obviously chosen not to act on her own behalf - or remaining silent and allowing a miscarriage of justice. Eventually, he stifles the conflicts in order to get on with everyday life. But underneath, informing all of his choices is the emotional muffling that occurs when strong feelings are suppressed in such a way.

A deep and moving exploration of moral ambiguities and conflicting choices, The Reader (Movie Tie-in Edition) is memorable and emotionally stirring.

Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of: Web of Tyranny, etc.

With the voice of a young girl, the story told in She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana resonates with humor, truth and pathos. A memoir and sequel to A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana, we follow more of Ms. Kimmel's tales of growing up in Mooreland, Indiana - a small town that resembles small towns everywhere, but with the additional layer of how it feels to be "different" from other families.

As a young child, the author experienced the difference without apparent awareness. Perhaps like most children, her own family's uniqueness doesn't stir her until she sees other families up close. At some point, she recognizes how different they are...In her tale of the numerous mice and rats that abound in the walls, and how one day she is surrounded by mice carcasses - of "gifts" brought to her bed by the cats - the point is drummed home to her. They live in a house of squalor, with no running water at times, and no laundry facilities. This explains the mounds of unlaundered clothing that pile up everywhere and become so much a part of the scene that she hardly notices. She then seems to experience "a-ha" moments of acknowledgement of these differences in her family life.

But when her mother, who had previously taken up camp on the couch everyday, suddenly begins to change her life - first by going off to college, having taught herself to drive - and then not only excels but graduates summa cum laude, everything begins to transform itself. And the father, who was the self-anointed "boss" of the abode, has taken to collecting disability checks and changing into someone almost unrecognizable.

By the time her mother has obtained her first teaching position, however, the father has suddenly moved outside the home, too, taking on a job in law enforcement - a return to "rule", as it were - and without even noticing, because it has happened so gradually, "Zippy" realizes that her life and her family will never be the same again.

Almost as if she stands back, detached, Ms. Kimmel leads us through various anecdotes of her coming-of-age tale, revealing no self-pity and reflecting instead on the experiences that shaped her. A brave memoir that will not be forgotten by the reader any time soon.

Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of: Web of Tyranny, etc.

A woman and three children are living in the country; a husband is off writing his novels and having affairs - in the city - and against this backdrop, the unexpected happens. On an otherwise blissful day, an intruder stalks into all of their lives, murdering the woman and two of her children, while another child cowers in the field nearby, unharmed.

Except, of course, for that nasty post-traumatic stress disorder that clings to her - forever.

This is the past, to which the reader is introduced in When Will There Be Good News?, followed by an influx of seemingly unrelated characters - Reggie, who is Dr. Hunter's nanny; Louise, an unhappily-married police officer, fondly recalling a love she almost had, a long time ago; Jackson, married twice and cuckolded by a lover, whose infant child may inadvertently belong to him; and Ms. MacDonald, a former teacher, now retired. Somehow, all of these disparate individuals are connected by at least one common thread.

A train wreck...Indeed, as one character hurtles along on a train headed toward London, or so Jackson believes, it is actually headed toward Edinburgh. When it lurches and turns on its side, its passengers tossed about, everything becomes tangled - literally. When Jackson ends up in hospital, miraculously kept alive by CPR administered by one Reggie Chase, he has the wrong ID on him. This fact sets the tale in a completely different direction.

Unbeknownst to these two characters - Reggie, the nanny, and Jackson, a former police detective - Dr. Hunter and her baby have gone missing. Ah, yes - Dr. Hunter is the former Joanna Mason, the child accidentally left alive by the murderer all those years ago - and to compound the case even further, the murderer, one Andrew Decker, has just been released from
prison.

With the alternating storylines and characters, careening toward the answers to so many questions, I kept turning these pages, almost breathless, anticipating the conclusions. And, of course, there are many surprises at the end, which makes this more than an ordinary mystery, or a simple love story, and certainly not a predictable drama.

This writer skillfully teases the reader, pushing and pulling the facts around, until they arrange themselves in such a clever way. I found myself going back to the beginning again, wondering what I might have missed - what clue I had overlooked - in order to have been so stunned by the ending.

I have another of Ms. Atkinson's books on my stack - One Good Turn: A Jolly Murder Mystery - which will receive my attention very soon.

Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of: An Accidental Life, etc.

Rachel Resnick's exploration of love addiction opens with a traumatic moment in her life when she finally hits bottom. Already at a low point, her financial resources strapped, she is barely hanging on...And then she comes home to find that someone has drenched her computer's hard drive - her priceless possession where all of her work is stored. She describes the computer as "a living extension of my brain, an expression of my soul, a museum of my fragmented life..." This clearly demonstrates the devastation wrought by a former lover, bent on revenge.

So begins Resnick's tale Love Junkie A Memoir, a chronicle of how and why she arrived at this place.

The child of divorced parents, she is subjected to numerous moments of neglect and even abandonment. At one point, she describes images of her father always walking away...Those images represent their relationship, one in which she never found the approval and acceptance she craved. Each parent, with his/her own limitations and lack of emotional availability,
created in her a vast emptiness - indeed deep emotional scars and pain, feelings she sought to recreate in every relationship she entered for the next several years.

Her mother dies when she is fourteen. At that point, she hasn't lived with her mother in a few years...Supposedly placed with her father, she is shifted from one living arrangement to another, always seeking a feeling of acceptance, even safety, which constantly eludes her. So the abandonment continued, on a different level.

As she seeks to understand the source of her own complicity in bringing her to this lowest point in her life, Resnick begins at the beginning. Alternating with descriptions of moments in her childhood that are key elements in understanding her journey and why she has arrived at this place, she also describes each adult relationship in some detail, pinpointing the degradation and humiliation of always seeking out the dangerous, unavailable partners who could, somehow, recreate the emotional upheaval with which she is so familiar. She pushes the
boundaries with each new relationship, as if hoping to fill the void, yet always reverting to familiar patterns that leave her abandoned and bereft.

Sometimes these explorations are almost too gritty for the reader to accept, but when examining the sources, indeed the etiology of her behavioral choices, it is perfectly clear how and why each step is taken. The reader almost expresses that "a-ha!" moment, as the familiar patterns are recreated.

Most illuminating, finally, is the path to recovery. Brilliantly described and authentically explored, with 12-step meetings at the beginning of her journey to emotional well-being, the author demonstrates how the path is uneven, with occasional slips; she also reveals that with
determination, healing can happen. Her memoir, with all of her angst exposed, is a brave and triumphant declaration of the power of the human spirit.

Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of:
Embrace the Whirlwind, etc.

In an Art Deco building in one of Manhattan's oldest and most hip neighborhoods, a conclave of fictional Manhattanites reside; they are a mix of old and new money, a power-hungry and socially eager group that will do almost anything to maintain their residences - and hence, their social positions - in this piece of real estate that represents so much more to each of them. Thus begins the tale of One Fifth Avenue.

First, we meet some of the elder residents - those who have the respect of the others. We meet Louise Houghton, who has been in the building for more than thirty years - and is nearly 100 years old - who occupies the penthouse apartment that hovers like three tiers on a wedding cake, above all the others. Then we see Enid Merle, whose apartment on the thirteenth floor is the best (after the penthouse, of course) and is next to her nephew Philip Oakland, a writer. She, too, is elderly.

Louise and Enid are the historians for the place, and know "where all the bodies are buried".

Schiffer Diamond, an actress, has primarily lived in LA for the past several years, but after obtaining a part in a TV series, she returns to her small unit at One Fifth Avenue.

Billy Litchfield resides on lower Fifth Avenue and has little money. However, he acts as a kind of concierge to the very rich, and thus has entrée into the soirees and special events attended by the very rich. He is in and out of One Fifth Avenue, mixing with the residents as if he belongs.

On the very bottom floor, Mindy and James Gooch reside, with their 13-year-old computer-whiz of a son. Theirs is a cramped unit with a series of box-like rooms - they were formerly luggage space - but Mindy Gooch is the head of the board for the cooperative apartment building. She
wields some power in enforcing the rules and keeping out the unsavory potential residents.

But the residents shun her and exclude her from the social events.

When Louise Houghton dies unexpectedly - strangely put, since she is so old, but everyone expected her to live forever - her prime penthouse apartment is "up for grabs".

Enter Paul and Annalisa Rich, the new rich - he is a hedge fund billionaire and she, a former attorney - and more drama begins.

When the Rices buy the penthouse for 20 million, they are welcomed - at first. Then a series of events, coupled with Paul Rice's arrogant and paranoid behavior, lead to a warring of various factions, until in the end, everyone wants Paul out. He, on the other hand, with his money, greed and power, hopes to eliminate the others.

Mixed with various romances and the sexually-charged liaisons of the characters, we have a dramatic tale of power and lust gone mad.

What will happen to ultimately tip the balance of power and who will end up reigning? What sabotage will finally lead to tragedy, and who will end up paying the highest price?

These characters, richly drawn and compelling, remind us of Bushnell's other works - Sex & the City and Lipstick Jungle - and their antics kept me turning the pages eagerly until the final act.

Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of:
Embrace the Whirlwind, etc.

In 1972, an eighteen-year-old girl from New Hampshire wrote an essay for the New York Times, entitled "An Eighteen Year Old Looks Back on Life". Within days of the article's publication, many letters came pouring in - requests for other articles, offers to go on television, and offers to meet with editors. One offer culminated with Looking Back: A Chronicle of Growing Up Old in the Sixties - an expansion of the article she had written for the "Times".

In this memoir, the young woman, Joyce Maynard, wrote about her experiences growing up in a time when the world was changing dramatically - a world shaped by political activism, war, drugs, and women's liberation - and how such events, plus the constant media presence, dictated how a generation perceived the world.

Speaking as one person affected by these complex changes in our culture, Ms. Maynard describes coming of age in such a time as "growing old". Perhaps a kind of cynicism, or world-weariness from the constant barrage of images from television impacted her view of the world - and the view shared by many of her peers.

Nevertheless, she also illustrates her growing-up years with the "normal" kinds of experiences - the same insecurities and fears - that shadow most young people. She also points out in her foreword that she does not consider herself to have been "representative" of the typical experience of youth in her time. In fact, she states that the act of writing about these experiences in a way "sets a person apart from the territory of which she speaks."

It is impossible for me to read this book, however, and not relate to it as someone having lived through similar experiences. Not the experience of living in New Hampshire or having written a book at a young age, but the commonality of fears and insecurities that hound most young people in any time, but especially in an age (such as the sixties) when change was
dramatic and constant.

I had read this book many years ago, but in rereading it recently, I still could relate to it. Ms. Maynard's fiction is compelling, as well, including the novel To Die for...But her memoirs (another is At Home in the World: A Memoir), are erudite studies of growing up female in the Baby Boom generation.

Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of:
Miles to Go, etc.

It is a period in the middle of the twentieth century - the hopeful 1950s - and a young couple, Frank and April Wheeler, begin their marriage in New York. Soon after, they are suburbanites, living in a development in Connecticut, on Revolutionary Road.

Their marriage had begun after an unexpected pregnancy. After the birth of the first child, a second followed. They seemed to be a model couple: bright, beautiful, talented...Maybe Frank's job is dull and perhaps April never saw herself as a housewife. Yet they always believed, deep down, that greatness is just around the corner. And then, as the reality of their own limitations hits them with an almost blunt force, their illusions begin to crumble.

First come the dull, routine days, followed by the drunken fights. Then follows the almost manic plan to pull up stakes and move to Europe, where they can be glamorous expatriates, with April working at the embassy and Frank "finding himself", discovering his hidden talents.

When another unexpected pregnancy blasts them off course, the soul searching begins.

In one enlightened moment, following a terrible fight when each of them flung unforgivable words at each other, April comes to the following conclusions: "...In a sentimentally lonely time long ago, she had found it easy and agreeable to believe whatever this one particular boy felt like saying, and to repay him for that pleasure by telling easy, agreeable lies of her own, until each was saying what the other most wanted to hear - until he was saying `I love you' and she was saying `Really, I mean it; you're the most interesting person I've ever met.'...Soon you were saying `I'm sorry, of course you're right,' and `Whatever you think is
best,' ...and the next thing you knew all honesty, all truth, was as far away and glimmering, as hopelessly unattainable as the world of the golden people..."

Thus sums up the marriage for April on that day at the end...And then she does something so horrifying, so completely unexpected, yet expected at the same time and life for this couple is forever altered.

Revolutionary Road is a disturbingly authentic portrayal of what might seem to be a typical suburban young couple at a time when life was golden. Soon to be released as a movie, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, the characters are memorable and chillingly haunting.

Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of:
Web of Tyranny, etc.

A man has achieved great success academically, and then, while enjoying the fruits of such as a dean in a prestigious college, he makes a casual remark - something seemingly innocent - which is then perceived by two students as a racial slur.

Thus begins the unraveling of the man's career. In the stress of the aftermath, Professor Coleman Silk's wife Iris is felled by a heart attack and dies. And then, Silk (portrayed brilliantly by Anthony Hopkins) begins an unusual friendship with a reclusive writer, Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise), who lives in a cabin by a lake on the outskirts of town. As Silk reminisces - the goal is that Zuckerman will write a book about Silk's life - many secrets, held inside for more than fifty years, are revealed to the viewer. But not to Zuckerman, apparently, because he is startled by the secrets at the very end of the film.

Some of what Silk confesses is portrayed for us through flashbacks; the secrets are portrayed via flashbacks as "memories". Then, almost as an aside, Silk describes an "affair" with a younger woman (Nicole Kidman): she is someone down-and-out, a former rich girl who ran away when she was being molested by a stepfather; and then, she becomes the abused wife of a Vietnam vet (Ed Harris), who stalks her and threatens her repeatedly. In the midst of this, Silk is the perceived redemptive hero (to himself, at least), but when townspeople learn of the affair, he is scorned again.

In the end, a surprising dramatic turn reveals, finally, to the characters in the story, the "secret" Silk kept close to him for all those years.

Human Stain is a compelling movie that is based on the Philip Roth novel of the same name.

Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of:
Web of Tyranny, etc.