An easy read. A young woman spends a summer in a cabin overcoming her body issues resulting from a bout with breast cancer and her recently deteriorated marriage. While there, she unravels an old mystery in her friend's family. ( )

I was really looking forward to reading this book, but I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I’d hoped. It was good – just not excellent, not destined for my “favorites” list or to be recommended to all my friends.

What I really liked about this book:
· A major plot point is a decades-old mystery. This started out pretty slow, but picked up as the book went along. I found myself more interested in the “old” characters and their issues than the “current” characters.
· The descriptions of Appalachia are beautiful. It’s a great place for a story.
· There are a number of strong female characters – the kind I would want to befriend in real life.

Where I was disappointed:
· The book didn’t go as deep into the breast-cancer survival emotions as I’d hoped.
· The supernatural theme wasn’t as strong as I’d hoped.
· The fly-fishing theme was too strong for my taste. I am outdoorsy, but not a fisherman. ( )

An accusation of a murder that happen some 80 years ago, turning a small town into shame and tabloid scandal. A breast cancer survivor rents a cabin and finds herself back into the history of fly fishing passion. ( )

Mary Alice Monroe's `Time Is a River' explores the needs for self-knowledge and a connection to the world around us. It is the story of a breast-cancer survivor who uses fly-fishing in the hilly steams of North Carolina as a path to self-enlightenment. It is yet another story of women bonding - when Mia Landan, the protagonist, learns that her husband of ten years has been unfaithful, it is her fly-fishing guide Belle who provides a place for her to hide out and come to terms with her situation. While staying in Belle's family cabin, Mia is drawn into uncovering the story of Belle's maternal grandmother - a fly-fisher herself, a naturalist/artist, and a murder suspect. Throughout the novel, strong women unite with strong women to face adversity. Bonding and self-enlightment are dominant threads in contemporary women's literature and will have a great appeal to many readers. I simply found Monroe's depiction to be a bit heavy handed.
That said, for me the book has too many stock figures, predictable situations, and easy answers. There are times when a reader looks for a well-worn path, a smooth read, an expected outcome. This is a book for those times. It's an easy read with no real surprises. And sometimes that's a comforting, if not thought-provoking, read. ( )

Excellent! ( )