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Irreplaceable
Lovely's debut novel, a touching journey of the heart, tracks what happens to two Midwestern families after a death and a gift of life.
Archeologist Alex Voormann and his plant biologist wife, Isabel, had a pleasant enough life in Iowa until Isabel was struck and killed while riding her bicycle. Alex reluctantly complies with her wish to be an organ donor, which saves the life of Janet Corcoran, a 34-year-old Chicago art teacher and mother of two.
Lovely thoughtfully weaves the tales of these two families together, tracing the realities of love and loss of all kinds as Alex a
ttempts to move on, the man who was driving the truck that killed Isabel begins popping up in unexpected places, and Janet seeks out Alex and Isabel's mother to thank them and express her guilt and empathy. Lovely does a great job of staying out of sappy melodrama as the gravity of Isabel's death pulls the cast together in memorable fashion. The delicate handling of loaded material, attention to detail and depth of character make this a standout.
Look Again
When reporter Ellen Gleeson gets a “Have You Seen This Child?” flyer in the mail, she almost throws it away. But something about it makes her look again, and her heart stops—the child in the photo is identical to her adopted son, Will. Her every instinct tells her to deny the similarity between the boys, because she knows her adoption was lawful. But she’s a journalist and won’t be able to stop thinking about the photo until she figures out the truth. And she can’t shake the question: if Will rightfully belongs to someone else, should she keep him or give him up? She investigates, uncovering clues no one was meant to discover, and when she digs too deep, she risks losing her own life—and that of the son she loves.
Lisa Scottoline breaks new ground in Look Again, a thriller that’s both heart-stopping and heart-breaking, and sure to have new fans and book clubs buzzing.
The Local News
Lydia Pasternak is a decade out of high school, but inside she's still Danny Pasternak’s little sister, the bookish teenager who lived in her popular older brother's shadow until the night he disappeared. Though she has spent her adult life trying to forget that year she turned sixteen, the memory of her brother’s vanishing still haunts her: her secret pleasure at the attention she received as the missing football hero’s sister, her ambivalence about his possible fate, her emergence as an individual in his absence. As her parents went off the rails, she went to her first keg parties and befriended the school's elite crowd—all the while fervidly helping the attractive private investigator her family hired to search for clues to Danny's whereabouts. The shocking end to that trail of clues—an end that Lydia never prepared herself for—left a wound that has never healed, even now as she prepares to return to her hometown after many years.
An authentic dissection of public and private grief, The Local News is a moving, memorable debut that explores the complicated bond between siblings and how our brothers and sisters define who we are.
