Reviews - The Four Seasons
Moving, touching and beautifully drawn, the characters in this wonderful
novel are compelling and true. Ms. Monroe's skills as a teller of women's
fiction are becoming quite exceptional.
In Evanston, Illinois, three of the four Seasons siblings are coming home to
attend the funeral of their youngest sister Merry. Only thirty-two, Merry
died when her lungs finally failed after a long period of illness. The oldest
of the sisters, Jilly flies in from France where her career as a model is
just about over. Birdie, accompanied by her spouse and teenage daughter,
drives down from Wisconsin. Rose, being Merry’s caretaker over the years,
waits for the arrival of her two sisters.
After the funeral ends, the family attorney announces the will, which is
standard stuff until he gives the siblings a video and a letter from Merry,
who was brain damaged in an accident many years ago. In both, Merry pleads
with her siblings to bring home Spring, the daughter that Jilly gave up for
adoption when she was a teen. The trio reacts differently to Merry’s deathbed
request, but in the end blood proves thicker than water and an odyssey to
“return home” by finding Spring begins.
THE FOUR SEASONS is a deep contemporary relationship drama that showcases the
personalities of four siblings. The story line is loaded with emotion as each
of the three surviving Seasons cope with Merry’s death and her request in
their own way. With novels like this one and THE BOOK CLUB, Mary Alice Monroe
continues to be one of the leaders of complex female relationship dramas that
hit home to the audience.
...Monroe writes with a crisp precision and narrative energy that will keep [readers] turning the pages. Her talent for infusing her characters with warmth and vitality and her ability to spin a tale with emotional depth will earn her a broad spectrum of readers, particularly fans of Barbara Delinsky and Nora Roberts.
What a great story! The characters--four sisters, Jillian, Rose, Beatrice and Meredith--are a study in relationships between sisters. If you have ever had a close sister relationship or one with another woman, you will find this a fascinating study. THE FOUR SEASONS is definitely recommended.
Mary Alice Monroe writes from her heart to the hearts of her readers. It is a quality of emotional honesty together with lyrical, descriptive passages that draw her audience to books like The Four Seasons.
Magnificent Story - Highly Recommended
This is a book for anyone who had a sister or, like me, wished they had a sister.
Overall, I very much enjoyed this book. And although I would tend to view this book more as women's fiction because of its depth, the fact that there are three characters finding love instead of just one, and the fact that the main focus of the book appears to be the growth of each character from within -- but with finding love as a consequence of that growth. The use of flashbacks proved very effective in getting to know the characters. And that's the author's strength - characterization - and she does it admirably well, giving each character their individual strengths and weaknesses, and each their individual "voice" as well.
This book would appeal to readers who enjoyed THE SAVING GRACES by Patricia Gaffney, THE HOUSE ON OLIVE STREET by Robyn Carr, TALK BEFORE SLEEP by Elizabeth Berg, and even Mary Alice Monroe's previous book, THE BOOK CLUB.
I found it to be one of the best books I've read so far this year and highly recommend it as I believe it would appeal to readers of women's fiction and romance as well.