Synopsis:
You try turning out all right after you overhear your mother wishing you hadn’t been born.
It had started out well. Umbrellas tangled. A storybook romance followed. A wonderful wedding. A beautiful, sweet first daughter. They were complete, a family, happy.
And then they went and had another daughter.
Her charming and witty fraud of a father Theodore starts disappearing, then worse, coming back. Her once allegedly sweet older sister Regina angrily resents her, and the sisters are at constant war. Her poor harried mother Helen is so busy what-iffing about the life she might have had that she overlooks the life she is actually having. Everyone blames younger daughter Debra for pretty much everything as the family slowly, then quickly, then one day explosively disintegrates. Along the way there are secrets and lies, heartbreaks and betrayals, plus the dramatic unexpected death of a central character at a pivotal moment. Debra, now a young woman, finds herself living awkwardly alone with her embittered mother when the phone rings—and her mother’s secret past suddenly crashes back into the present. Their life may be about to change forever; or rather, perhaps, revert back to what it should have been all along.
But not exactly because of that phone call, as it turns out.
Because of the remarkable second daughter. For what Debra Gale has is unyielding determination. What she has is an irrepressible capacity to love.
And now at last what she has is a chance.
The complex dynamics of a changing family. Mother, daughters, sisters, and the father who both divides and unifies them. That dramatic unexpected death, plus a fair amount of banana cream pie. Welcome to The Second Daughter: a funny but poignant, unusual but beautiful love story.
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Review:
I wasn’t feeling this book at first, but I’m not one to stop reading anything so I continued. I’m so happy that I did. I am so in love with this book. It brought out many emotions in me. One minute I was bored, the next I was happy then I was so pissed! Then I went back to happy and yet mad again, lol. No more boredom after I got into the story. I didn’t want to stop reading and I really didn’t want it to end.
I enjoyed the way historical events were thrown into the story line. The sex revolution, women’s liberation, Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson…. it really added to the story and gave me a better understanding for the time frame and setting. It made me feel like I was part of the book.
It’s not really any type of romance genre, which is what I normally read, yet I still found myself drawn into the story. There are romantic gestures in the book, but it’s not mainly a romance, I don’t know what you would call it…I just call it excellent, heart warming and heart wrenching all at the same time.
The story starts out sweet and kind of romantic. Helen and Theodore meet, fall in love and are married. Helen should have known better than to marry Theodore; the marriage kind of starts out on a lie. She doesn’t know Theodore’s real name and his age is off by 2 ½ years.
Despite the lies that Theodore assures Helen are nothing she goes on with the weeding. Helen gets pregnant on her wedding night, lol. They have the perfect family.
“And are you sure we are ready for a child?”
“What’s to be ready? We’ll just do it.”
“All right, then,” Helen said contentedly enough, closing her eyes. “You’re the boss.”
“Damn right I’m the boss. Now prepare for some dictation, young lady!” As Theodore said this he dexterously peeled off her lavender panties for some quick morning intimacy before she got ready for work.
Baby Regina is born and she is perfect. She is sweet and loving, a mothers dream.
And to be sure, Regina entered their lives as smoothly as a perfectly executed handoff to a speedy running back behind an outstanding offensive line. There was barely a pause, a hiccup, as they adjusted to their new lives. She was a perfect little baby and they were the perfect parents. She slept beautifully, ate beautifully, barely ever even cried. Everybody loved her, her toothy smile, her guffaw of a baby laugh, you almost didn’t notice her occasional tendency to bite and to pinch and to scratch, and if you did notice you almost didn’t mind—it was just all so cute!
After Regina is born, Helen becomes pregnant again. The 2nd pregnancy is not as smooth as the first. The 2nd baby…. not as sweet as the first. But I mean really, all babies are different, what did they expect!? Then come the reasons of why they want nothing to do with baby Dub-- So, the dad is freaked out because the baby has eczema…..that’s messed up. He wants nothing to do with her and it breaks my heart L
And then the horrible thoughts---- What if Debra hadn’t been born.----how can you think that about your own child!
The sisters, Regina and Dub share the same birthday. Regina hates Dub, all she does is terrorize her. I just wanted to wrap little Dub up and take her home with me! Ahh, and the barbies, I really want to cry over the barbies. How can you have a secret Barbie stash, that is just cruel!
Then the fighting begins. What do adults always fighter over? Money, sex and children….that goes the same for this story.
As the children grow older, and the parents grow farther and farther apart a beautiful story develops. A story between a mother and daughter and no one else. They need no one, they can take care of themselves and can learn to be happy together even after all of the lies and betrayal of Dub’s childhood.
This story branches out in many different ways. Like I said there is heart felt moments, but there is also heartache. Many cases of lies and deceit are unfolded in the story and in the end a strong woman emerges. I would recommend this book to anyone. Even if you normally follow the romance genre, this is still well worth the time to read.
About the Author:
J. Jeffrey stands about six foot three and likes poetry. He has been known to climb the occasional mountain and tame the occasional lion. He sings opera as an amateur but is trained as a masseur, and he is extremely partial to his wife’s green tea perfume. He drinks too much coffee, and gets lost a lot. Two words: Florence, Italy. Pastry for breakfast, over the crossword puzzle, preferably after noon. Soup for lunch, preferably late afternoon, over another puzzle (the first having been solved). His favorite drink (after coffee) is red wine. He knows a word or two but will not play scrabble. Regrettably, he believes he might be happy if only you would think him as funny as he thinks he is. But most importantly, he is not to be trusted. He writes biographies full of lies, or are they novels full of truths? Such a fine line.
The tour schedule can be found here
So, I finished this book a few days ago and it still has me reeling, it's taken me all this time to find the words to say just to write this review. I will start off by saying that I was captivated from the very beginning. I was all over the place with this book. It's full of lies, deceit, angst and rivalry. I second guessed everything someone said, looking more into it than was really necessary just trying to catch them in a lie. One chapter I was all for one character and the next chapter I was against them, I was back and forth throughout the whole book.
