Book Review (Summer Reading #1): “Come Home”

Reading “Come Home” is like going on a roller-coaster.

You do not know exactly what to expect at every twist and turn, but you know it’s going to be exhilarating and fun. In “Come Home”, Scottoline takes her readers on a ride of a lifetime at dizzying speeds. She packs quite a punch and keeps you hooked until the very last page.

In the first chapter, we are introduced to Dr. Jill Farrow, a caring, nurturing suburban mother and pediatrician, who has finally gotten her and her young daughter Megan’s lives in order after a divorce. She’s engaged to a wonderful guy named Sam. Everything seems picture perfect until late one night Jill’s life turns upside down when her ex-stepdaughter, Abby, shows up on her doorstep and delivers shocking news that Jill’s ex-husband is dead. Abby insists that her father was murdered and pleads with Jill to help find his killer.

Jill reluctantly agrees to make a few inquiries and discovers that things don’t add up. As she digs deeper, her actions threaten to rip apart her new family, destroy their hard-earned happiness, and even endanger her own life. Yet Jill can’t turn her back on a child she loves and once called her own.

This book explores the definition of motherhood and examines the emotional repercussions in a family. Readers can find themselves asking several questions like when do you ever stop being a mother or a stepmother? Is there such a thing as an ex-child? Is there a limit to the love of a family?

Almost all the characters are well-developed and believable. Jill is at the center of this Venn Diagram of characters. She’s torn between helping her old family, which consists of Abby and her sister Victoria, and maintaining her soon-to-be new family with Megan and Sam. How can she possibly juggle those things as well as focus on her career as a pediatrician?

What I love most about Scottoline’s main female characters, including Jill, are that they’re so strong, relatable and determined to get to the bottom of a problem or crisis. They risk their lives just to protect the ones they love.

Scottoline is an expert of “writing what you know.” There’s a wonderful consistency in all of her books where the setting is in the Philadelphia area, which is where she was born, raised, and still lives. From Route 202 to Broad Street, she is passionate about her community and exudes that in all her stories. As a former lawyer, Scottoline does a great job in researching and writing the medical jargon and details.

I jumped on the Lisa Scottoline roller-coaster about two years ago when “Look Again” came out, and I’m glad I did. Each new book she’s published has been brilliantly written and received rave reviews. When her latest thriller “Come Home” came out several months ago, my attention peaked but I wondered how a New York Times best-selling author could continue top her other 17 novels!! I am happy to say that she did not let me down!

I think this is the best book Scottoline has written so far because it’s a compelling novel that’s filled with heart, thrills, chills, and full of life.

 

A beach wedding to remember — Jamerican style

Author’s Note: This article was originally published in the January 2012 edition of Businesswoman’s Magazine‘s Bride2B supplement. For more information, visit http://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=95209 . The article starts on page 10.

By Rosalba Ugliuzza

Destination weddings at exotic places have been the flavor of the season for a long time.

Who can forget the wedding of Hollywood starlets Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes in November 2006? They spared no expense when they tied the knot in a lavish, star-studded ceremony in the same city where they publicly declared their love a year before in Rome, Italy. Most girls could dream of having an elaborate wedding like the Cruises, but others like Lancaster County bride Christine Culp Keyser prefer a small, relaxing, yet intimate ceremony.

“Personally, I never thought I would be getting a destination wedding,” she said. “Jamaica allowed our families to travel together for the first time.”

The blue, clear sky served as a beautiful backdrop for Keyser and her husband, Brent, when they married June 9, 2011 on the private beach at the Couple Negril Resort in Negril, Jamaica.

Brent, an officer for the Columbia Borough Police Department, said he had hoped Mother Nature wouldn’t spoil their special day.

“Honestly, I [thought], I hope it doesn’t rain. The clouds were rolling in right at 11:00, and Chrissy was still in the room getting ready, and it had rained every day so far until that point,” he said.

With 38 close family and friends and some hotel guests in attendance, Keyser walked down the aisle in a mermaid gown and no veil to the Jamaican steel drum version of Pachelbel Canon D. The couple exchanged vows in a 15-minute ceremony.

“It was very simple. We didn’t want to make a big production out of it,” said Keyser.

After the ceremony, which ended around lunchtime, guests were treated to cake and champagne poolside and on the beach. According to Keyser, the resort staff did all the wedding decorations as well as take pictures of the ceremony.

When the couple returned home, a beach-themed reception was held for approximately 200 people at the Susquehanna Fire and Rescue Company in Columbia. Keyser wore her wedding dress and Silver Spring Restaurant catered the event.

“It was a fun party. We had a DJ,” she said.

It was exactly two years prior to their wedding date that the couple attended a mutual friend’s wedding at the same resort. Keyser said that Brent loved the resort so much that he suggested that they get married at the same place.

With the help of her two closest friends, Keyser’s goal was to have a simple wedding.

“I’m not the type of girl that likes a big production. The whole wedding (planning) made me feel narcissistic,” she said. “The theme throughout the process was about us celebrating our marriage. It was about spending time with family and enjoying each other’s company.”

The “down-to-earth” couple met right before Thanksgiving in 2005 at a local pub, where they were celebrating a mutual friend’s birthday.

“We started talking and he told me he was going hunting. He called me every day when he went hunting,” Keyser said. “Ever since then, we’ve been connected at the hip.”

Keyser received an early Christmas present in 2009, when Brent presented her with a diamond ring that he designed. Brent said he didn’t feel any jitters before proposing.

“My mom had a dream that we got engaged,” Keyser said. “We told people of the engagement through text message.”

Today, the couple lives in Elizabethtown. They enjoy spending time with their families, having bonfires with friends, going up to their cabin near Penn State University, and traveling. In fact, the couple is planning another group trip to Jamaica in 2013.

“Ideally, my husband and I would love to go every year,” she said. “We consider ourselves Jamerican.”

In addition to having a peaceful, healthy and happy lifestyle, Keyser said she hopes that she and Brent have a lot of stamps on their passports 50 years from now.

In the meantime, Keyser recommends future married couples to have their destination wedding in Jamaica.

“It’s a peaceful place. It’s a gorgeous place.”

 

Book Review: The Godfather — an Italian-American classic

I’ll be honest with you.

I have seen “The Godfather” movie more than a dozen times. As a young Sicilian-American, it was probably my birthright to see this excellent movie classic. But I had never read the book … (hanging my head in shame). It’s true … I had never read and finished the book until a couple days ago and let me know tell you, I don’t know why I waited this long.

The book “The Godfather” was written in 1969 by the late Italian-American author Mario Puzo. It centers around the fictitious Sicilian crime family, the Corleones headed by Don Vito Corleone. Don Vito has four children: Sonny, Michael, Fredo, and Connie. He also “adopts” an Irish-American named Tom Hagen, who eventually becomes his consigliere. Set in the 1940s, the book details the mob war between the Corleones and the other four families in New York. It also tells the back story of Don Vito Corleone’s childhood to his emigration to America, and his entrance and success in the Mafia world with the help of his friends like Peter Clemenza and Sal Tessio.

Though Don Vito Corleone is the patriarch, the book’s central character is Michael, the youngest son, who slowly moves his way up to become the head of the family. English-speaking readers are introduced to several Italian terms like caporegime (high-ranking member), consigliere (counselor), and omerta (law of silence).

The book was made into a movie with the same name in 1972, garnering an Oscar-winning performance by Marlon Brando. Francis Ford Coppola (who scripted the movie with Puzo) won two Oscars for best director and adapted screenplay with Puzo. The movie also won best picture that year. Part 2 and Part 3 of the “The Godfather” trilogy were made in 1974 and 1990, respectively. “The Godfather Part 2” also won Oscars for best supporting actor (Robert De Niro), best director (Coppola), and best adapted screenplay (Coppola and Puzo).

Coppola is a genius in storytelling in films just like Puzo is a genius in storytelling in prose. Puzo’s style of writing is so rich and detailed. He carries the readers in every scene through violence, romance, and drama. He paints a vividly, elaborate picture of the Corleone family and of the Sicilian mob, and he writes it with such conviction and passion, making the Corleones look powerful with good intentions. One minute the reader can be celebrating with the family singing the “Tarantella” and eating spaghetti and meatballs, and the next he or she could be exposed to the murders to top all murders.

Through Puzo’s prose, the reader is immersed into the true nature of the Italian culture. The culture is certainly not about the mob. It’s about family. It’s about faith. It’s about loyalty.

So in conclusion, if I could steal that famous notable line, I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse: don’t wait, read this book! You won’t be sorry. It’s an oldie but a goodie and truly one of the best pieces of literature of all time.