My friend Tracy gave up buying books for Lent, so she’s looking for some good suggestions. I’m going to help her out.



I really loved Do Me, Do My Roots by Eileen Rendahl. I bought the book because I met Eileen at RWA in NYC, when we were waiting to get into The Today Show. She’d just sold the book then, and by Dallas, it was out in print. I bought it at the literacy signing. It sat on my TBR shelf for 2 years. I’m not a big fan of chick lit, but I did want to read what Pocket was buying.

My other friend Kris read it and recommended it (okay, GUSHED about it), so I pulled it out.

Wow.

Wow.

It’s the story of three sisters who meet regularly to do each other’s roots, make a girls’ night of it. The heroine (OMG, I forgot her name, and I loaned the book to Cindi, since she’s the youngest of three girls like the heroine) is recovering from the loss of her husband, who died of a brain tumor. The description of what she went through is just so heartwrenching. I particularly loved the scenes at the survivors support group. She has a daughter, and her husband’s best friend is on hand, needing the connection in his own way. Everything is through her eyes, and we feel everything she feels. Everything.

She has a controlling older sister who falls for a younger man, a musician, a vivacious middle sister, a nurse who found herself married to a drug addict.

Her parents are loving but quirky (and I mean that in a good way.)

There is romance, there is humor, there is sadness (at one point, I was SOBBING. Sobbing. Can you remember the last book that made you sob?)

It certainly deserved its Rita nod last year.