Cavendish Library Blog

Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult

Atria, 496 pages, Copyright 2009; Library Call Number Fic Pic, CD Fic Pic

Jodi Picoult has a lot of common themes running through her books and many of them show up here:  Sick children, forgotten children, the cost of motherhood,  the story line switching between multiple points of view, and court room scenes never before have they been combined to such effect.

Charlotte O’Keef is a baker with two children, Amelia and Willow.  Willow was diagnosed in utero with osteogenesis imperfect, more commonly known as Brittle Bone Disease.  This causes her bones to break very easily, sometimes just by reaching for something.  Charlotte has given up her job to care for Willow full time.  Through a series of events, Charlotte and her husband, Sean discover they have grounds for a wrongful birth lawsuit against their obstetrician who happens to be Charlotte’s best friend, Piper. The lawsuit tears apart both families.

            What makes this book work so well are the characterizations and subplots.  Marin Gates, Charlotte’s lawyer, was adopted and goes on a quest to find her birth mother, which brings up the whole idea of wrongful birth on another level.   Amelia, Charlotte’s teenage daughter struggles with her feelings of guilt and fear of rejection, after all, if Willow isn’t good enough for her mother, how can she be?  Charlotte’s obsession with the lawsuit makes her a less than sympathetic character or does it? The center of the storm is Willow who is not heard from until the very end of the book.

            I checked this out as an audiobook and found myself so engrossed I would sit in my car in the driveway after I was home to find out what happened.           This book is gripping and heartbreaking.  It is worth your time

I love a good romance and so far Robyn Carr has written several of them in a series.  “Virgin River” is the first in that series.  It concerns Melinda Monroe, a recent widow and trauma nurse who answers an advertisement looking for a nurse practitioner for the town of Virgin River, Washington.  She gets there to find that the house she was promised was in poor condition, the doctor she was supposed to assist was less than welcoming and that she had been hired by an older woman who thought the town needed her.

She almost leaves, and then finds a baby on her doorstep fulfilling a dream of motherhood she had during her marriage. Not only that, Jack Sheridan, the local bar owner and former Marine falls for her.

I really liked this book for a few reasons; the characters are well done and recognizable without being clichés. Both Jack and Melinda are past the first blush of youth.  What I really liked was that Melinda came from a happy prior marriage.  Most romances I have read where the heroine falls in love for the second time are on the run from an abusive first husband.  I also liked the town is so full of quirky characters who recur in other books in the series.  In fact when I read this book, I found myself wondering what happened to a particular character only to find him again in the sequel “Shelter Mountain”.

So far I have read the first four books in this series and Carr has done a great job of keeping the stories fresh with different twists on the theme and I have enjoyed seeing Melinda and Jack pop up over and over.  I recommend this series.