Fellowship Point

 

Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark

Fiction

2022 Marysue Rucci Books

Finished on October 10, 2023

Rating: 5/5 (Excellent)

Publisher's Blurb:

Celebrated children’s book author Agnes Lee is determined to secure her legacy—to complete what she knows will be the final volume of her pseudonymously written Franklin Square novels; and even more consuming, to permanently protect the peninsula of majestic coast in Maine known as Fellowship Point. To donate the land to a trust, Agnes must convince shareholders to dissolve a generations-old partnership. And one of those shareholders is her best friend, Polly.

Polly Wister has led a different kind of life than Agnes: that of a well-off married woman with children, defined by her devotion to her husband, a philosophy professor with an inflated sense of stature. She strives to create beauty and harmony in her home, in her friendships, and in her family. Polly soon finds her loyalties torn between the wishes of her best friend and the wishes of her three sons—but what is it that Polly wants herself?

Agnes’s designs are further muddied when an enterprising young book editor named Maud Silver sets out to convince Agnes to write her memoirs. Agnes’s resistance cannot prevent long-buried memories and secrets from coming to light with far-reaching repercussions for all.

It's been a couple of weeks since I finished reading this marvelous novel, and while it took me over three weeks to read, I'm still thinking about Agnes, Polly, and Maud, wishing I could return to Fellowship Point and their stories. Fellowship Point is a literary work with a strong sense of place and unforgettable characters. It took me several chapters before I was fully immersed in the story (and I didn't care for a few of the men), but I loved the friendship (80 years long!) between Agnes & Polly. Friends and neighbors their entire lives, this is an epic friendship, though not without its faults...

I guessed one of the plot twists, but not most significant one, which was a lovely surprise and almost had me shouting, "No way!" Alice Elliott Dark is a new-to-me author, and I plan to jump into her backlist as soon as possible with hopes for a new novel in the coming years.  

Some random passages that spoke to me:

Rarely did she have to compromise for anyone, a privilege she did not take for granted and refused to squander. She was eighty, but she had not slowed down. Just the opposite. Her remaining work was urgent, and she was well aware of working alongside the specter of the unknown moment of her last breath.

and

The world through the looking glass, the parallel universe where life is as it should be, so close to us yet impenetrable except when we accept the graces and the love offered to us. What I have learned is the grace and love are offered all the time, in every new moment, at every glimpse of the sky, or dawn of a day that has never before existed, or squirrel skittering along a branch, or a conversation with a sister or a friend, or the sense of time suspended when reading a good book. We are free, always, to accept what is offered; it is we who don't recognize this. This is our free will. The result is what we call our experience, which in turn forms our beliefs. There are a lot of bad ideas in the world. I have less and less patience with any ideas at all. Animals, flowers, the sea. Friends. Children. Art. The end.

Is it too soon for a second reading? Perhaps on audio? Fellowship Point may just be my favorite book of 2023.

I have to include this photo from my neighborhood. It reminds me so much of the cover art for Fellowship Point!

Garden Spells

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
Contemporary Fiction
2007 Bantam Books
Finished on 10/30/08
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)




Product Description

In a garden surrounded by a tall fence, tucked away behind a small, quiet house in an even smaller town, is an apple tree that is rumored to bear a very special sort of fruit. In this luminous debut novel, Sarah Addison Allen tells the story of that enchanted tree, and the extraordinary people who tend it.…

The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers. Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so were their futures.

A successful caterer, Claire Waverley prepares dishes made with her mystical plants—from the nasturtiums that aid in keeping secrets and the pansies that make children thoughtful, to the snapdragons intended to discourage the attentions of her amorous neighbor. Meanwhile, her elderly cousin, Evanelle, is known for distributing unexpected gifts whose uses become uncannily clear. They are the last of the Waverleys—except for Claire’s rebellious sister, Sydney, who fled Bascom the moment she could, abandoning Claire, as their own mother had years before.

When Sydney suddenly returns home with a young daughter of her own, Claire’s quiet life is turned upside down—along with the protective boundary she has so carefully constructed around her heart. Together again in the house they grew up in, Sydney takes stock of all she left behind, as Claire struggles to heal the wounds of the past. And soon the sisters realize they must deal with their common legacy—if they are ever to feel at home in Bascom—or with each other.

Enchanting and heartfelt, this captivating novel is sure to cast a spell with a style all its own…

I remember when this first came out as one of Barnes & Noble's "Recommends" titles. After hearing several mixed reviews from co-workers and bloggers, I put the book on my TBR list, but wasn't overly eager to give it a try, not with all my other books vying for attention. Earlier this year a good friend (who loved the book) sent me a copy, wanting me to experience what she believed was a fabulous read. I added it to my stack of "gift" books with plans to read it within the next month or so. Well, that "month" dragged on much longer than I planned, but on a whim I finally picked it up, ignoring all the ARCs I'd just received. I was immediately drawn into the magic of the story and quickly devoured it between work and home life. I loved the characters and came to care about them, hoping for a happily-ever-after ending. I won't give anything away, but I can say I thoroughly enjoyed the story and plan to read the author's second novel, The Sugar Queen.

Thank you, Gayla, for sending me such a charming book! I'm glad I held off to read it until this past month. It was just the right bit of escapism for a long, stressful month.

Check out the following reviews (many of which are a quite a bit more in-depth than my meager post) on some of my favorite bloggers' sites:

A High and Hidden Place

Bookfoolery and Babble

Lesa's Book Critiques

Tripping Toward Lucidity

BooksPlease

Home and Away

Home and Away: More Tales of a Heritage Farm by Anny Scoones
Nonfiction - Autobiography/Essays
2006 TouchWood Editions
181 pages
Finished on 10/15/08
Rating: 3/5 (Above Average)



Publisher's Blurb:

Home And Away: More Tales of a Heritage Farm follows Anny Scoones' popular and best-selling first book, Home: Tales of a Heritage Farm that introduced readers to the historic Glamorgan Farm.

In Home and Away, Anny presents more stories about the joys and sorrows, excitements and mishaps, of living on the farm. She also takes readers farther afield, sharing with them her travels to other parts of Canada, to New York and to such places as Malaysia and Belarus. Her travel tales offer not only her keen observations on what she sees and experiences while away, but also her perspective from afar on the importance of having a place to return to that truly is home.

Anny has owned Glamorgan Farm since 2000. Located in North Saanich, B.C., it's one of the original farms and homesteads on Vancouver Island, established in 1870 by Richard John. She is restoring the historic structures and raising heritage breeds of livestock. The front meadows are gardened by an herb gardener and a group of mentally challenged adults who grow organic, heirloom varieties of flowers and produce.

Anny writes candidly and colourfully about real things, from visits with her family (she is the daughter of internationally acclaimed artists Molly Lamb Bobak and Bruno Bobak) to simple pleasures like arranging bowls of pears and hearing the owls in the woods at dusk. She writes about making bonfires, sitting with a dying horse, playing with a 700-pound sow and visiting the SPCA. Some of her tales are told with humour, some in sadness, but all tell the truth about living, observing and creating, whether at home or away.

ANNY SCOONES is a second-term councillor for the District of North Saanich, B.C., with a special interest in heritage and agriculture preservation; parks, trails and cycling paths; and architectural design and planning. She has a B.Ed. in history from the University of Victoria and a Diploma of Humanities in philosophy. At the time of writing, Anny had seven cats and four dogs, all from the SPCA. She continues to ride her Russian woolly horse, raise rare Gloucester Old Spot pigs and collect eggs from her many breeds of hens. Her greatest pleasure is to sit down by the fire in the living room, surrounded by books, candles, flowers, art, bowls of fruit and happy dogs, to think and enjoy being at home.

Last summer while vacation in the San Juan Islands, I decided to buy a few books from the local section of the bookstores we visited rather than some knick-knack or unnecessary souvenir. I fell in love with Tanner's Books in Sidney, B.C. and spent a long time roaming the aisles in search of just the right book to remind me of our holiday. With all the books I had waiting for me at home, I knew I didn't want to get something I could buy at my local B&N. I wanted a book written by an author from the region. My eye was immediately drawn to the gorgeous cover on Anny Scoones' Home and Away: More Tales of a Heritage Farm, and my search was over. Not surprising to many, this book wound up sitting on one of our living room tables for well over a year. The cover art is so pretty that I kept the book out to see any time I walked by on my way upstairs. Earlier this month, I decided the time had come. It would be just the sort of book I knew I'd need to have with me on another trip. A book of essays into which I could fall easily after a long, stressful day.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the book, but I'm afraid it's not the sort that should be read from cover-to-cover. I got a bit bored with the writing and might have enjoyed it more had I read an essay or two every week or so. Nonetheless, I'm glad I finally got around to reading it and will return it to that living room table where I can have a bit of spring in the coming months of a long cold winter.

No remarkable passages to quote, but I thought I'd include a short snippet from the author's introduction:

The tradition of having my parents, Bruno and Molly Bobak, illustrate my writing continues. Mum and Dad were Canadian war artists, uniformed, and are now living in Fredericton. Dad sketches the New Brunswick countryside, often on some grassy riverbank, and Mum, her eyes failing, paints watercolours of flowers from their garden. Here on Glamorgan Farm, much of their art hangs on the walls of the old farmhouse (originally the farm workers' lodgings), and some of it is shared with you in this book.

I have bequeathed Glamorgan Farm to North Saanich as a heritage park although, as the years go by, I'd like to share its goodness sooner rather than later, and I hope my books assist me in this endeavour. Some of the stories in this book venture farther from home; they are memories of past homes and journeys. Others are stories inspired by this dear, weathered farm, which, in its gentle way, seems to provoke so many reflections on nature and the human spirit.