Deborah Reed

4.5

If she told her family the truth, death would get on everything.~from Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan by Deborah Reed

Secrets. Children who don't really know their parents. Parents who don't really know their children. Trauma, consciously forgotten or unspoken, eating their souls.

Ninety-one-year-old Violet Swan's secret was not just the cancer killing her; guilt had dogged her life since a girl. A fire had killed her beloved father and sister. Evil men took advantage of the unprotected show more child. She escaped, a teenage vagabond crossing the country to the West Coast, pursuing a fragile dream of finding her place in the world.

Violet became famous for her abstract paintings. She lived in her art studio tower, her loving husband Richard protecting her solitude and running her business.

Their son Frank (Francisco, named for Francisco Goya) grew up imprisoned in himself, his silence smothering his marriage, his dutiful wife growing increasingly resentful. Their son Daniel had loved his Grand, Violet, but also felt his father's distance and had stayed away from home for years, living in LA as a filmmaker.

An earthquake begins the story, a premonition of the changes that will shake their relationships nearly to the breaking point. Daniel returns home bearing a secret. Violet finally agrees to allow her grandson to make a film interview; she will spill her secrets at last.

Deborah Reed saturates Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan with visual details, seen through an artist's eye. Music and literature enrich Violet's life.

Violet's story is unravelled throughout the novel, lending an urgency to keep reading, like a mystery novel; we want to understand the intricacies of life experiences that have brought this family to crisis.

I will warn that Violet's life includes trigger events. Violet is a survivor, a resilient woman. She finds salvation in the beauty of this world and in her art that endeavors to capture it.

Frank is mired in anger, addicted to television news. "How on earth was a person supposed to live a normal life?" he wonders, in despair.

Into their lives comes a small child and she changes everything and everyone.

An ordinary happiness runs through me...This is everything beautiful, this is love. Are you listening? Do you hear?~from Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan by Deborah Reed

I was very taken by this novel that glows under Reed's capable hands and beautiful writing.

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased. show less

Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan by Deborah Reed is mainly the story of the life of Violet Swan (a famous painter) during the last six months of her life, the past being her memory flashbacks. But it's also very much about her family--her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson and a bit about her late husband. There are also a couple of secondary characters of importance. I got to know all these people. Even minor characters felt real. The main POV is Violet, but the rest of her family each show more have some chapters from their point of view.

What I love most about all these characters is the flawed reality of them. I know them in what, to me, is a surprisingly real way. The living people as if I'd actually met them, maybe as a close family friend, and those no longer living in the way we sort of know someone we never met, but had been often told about by someone we care about who did actually know and care about them. I didn't always agree or understand them, but those disagreements were not due to deficits in the writing. They were the same as the disagreements I have with anyone I know. We never actually know anyone 100%. Probably not even ourselves.

This book is about love. It exudes love. It's not romantic, fairytale love, though there's a generous dollop of that. It's about an imperfect, yet real and abiding love of family and friends. By the end of the book that love was palpable. show less

Celia Donnelly comes from a long line of strong women with bad luck in husbands. Unfortunately for Celia, she has to learn of these family traits while fleeing kidnappers through the jungles of Mexico, roping her ex-lover into protecting her teenage son, and unraveling a complicated financial mystery.

Although A Small Fortune is her first published book, Audrey Braun writes like a pro, with none of the plot glitches or clunky dialog that plagues many a debut novel. Her literary style flows show more gracefully without weighing down the action or distracting from the story.

The only off note is the opening scene, which seems a little benign for the darker escapade to follow – more Anne Taylor than Mary Higgins Clark. But by page 30 or so, Braun has caught her stride and the story hurtles forward, never stopping until the exciting, satisfying finale.

This may fall in the category of "beach book," but don't wait for sun and sand to read this page-turner! show less

Reed's writing is lovely but not obtrusive. You can picture each character and scene, but she but lets the story do the heavy lifting. She packs a lot into the 302 pages of this rich family drama. Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan could have been twice as long and I would have enjoyed it twice as much – I didn't want it to end. This was the first book I read in 2021 and it may end up being my favorite book of the year.