Monday, February 7, 2011

New Book: Songs of the Humpback Whale

Up next in my personal library is Jodi Picoult’s first novel, Songs of the Humpback Whale. 
With Valentine’s Day only a week away I wanted to indulge myself in a really romantic contemporary love story.  I began my search by looking up titles written by female authors sure to give me all of that gushy love stuff. Nora Roberts. Danielle Steele. Sophie Kinsella. Carole Matthews. Cecelia Ahern.  Despite willing myself to want to read something girly and romantic, nothing I found spurred any excitement in me. Then, I stumbled across Picoult.
In the past, I have only read two of her novels: Salem Falls and House Rules.  Neither was overly romantic, but both novels were concerned with love (and murder – why do these two go together so often in literature?) in some form.  I really enjoyed both novels and was really pleased with Picoult’s ability to make me believe relationships: men and women, mothers and children . . .
My curiosity of where she began as a writer, and my desire for a story about relationships with some substance, brought to me look into her earlier writing, and so, I found Songs of the Humpback Whale.  According to her website, the novel “interweaves five rich narrative voices to tell a story of love, loss, and self-discovery. The voices belong to a mother, her daughter, and three very different men.”
Sounds like an emotional rollercoaster.  A great, yet unconventional, choice for Valentine’s Day.

Happy Reading.

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