D-L Nelson

Though this book may at first glance appear to be a Christmas read, what with the “Peace on Earth” holiday card prominently displayed on the jacket, it is really a wonderful story about two college friends, Jane and Diana, and how their lives diverge for many years, tenuously connected by the Christmas card, and ultimately come together again many years, husbands, and deaths, later. Their travels take them from Boston to Florida and Paris.
Diana’s father runs a newspaper, and the author does a nice job of representing the stresses of both the newspaper business, and journalism. This is really one of the most exciting, nail-biting parts of the story. Diana covers the 1968 Paris riots, as a journalist, and as an insider, taking on the risk of being an embedded journalist. Meanwhile Jane is trying to survive a cheating husband and reinvent herself at the same time, having been essentially his housekeeper through med school, she sees the future as one where she needs to empower herself. The story spans the decades of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, and in so doing the characters reflect the changing mores of those times, and Diana and Jane recognize their fathers’ generation as one to which they will no longer bow down.
It’s an uplifting and empowering read, along with some romance and recognizing hope for the future.
MAT04_10… (mer)