I read the first paragraph:

Things come from nowhere. The mind is empty and then, inside the frame, a pear. Perfect green, the stem atilt, a single leaf. It sits in a white ironstone bowl, nestled amongt the limes, in the center of a weathered picnic table, on an old screen porch, at the end of a pond, deep in the woods, beside the sea. Next to the bowl is a brass candlestick covered in drips of old wax and the ingrained dust of a long winter left on an open shelf. Half-eaten plates of pasta, an unfolded linen napkin, dregs of claret in wine bottle, a breadboard, handmade, rough-hew, the bread torn not sliced. A mildewed book of poetry lies open on the table. “To a Skylark,” soaring into the blue, painful, thrilling, replays in my mind as a I stare at the still life of last night’s dinner. “The world should listen, then as I am listening now.”

and thought, ugh, what is this book?

Luckily for me, I kept reading and I was mesmerized. I can only really enjoy books set in locations I wish I could be and the summer place described in this book is my idea of the perfect place; woods and water.

I loved this book. It grabbed me and held me until the last page. So many feels.

I give it ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

From Amazon:

It is a perfect August morning, and Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at “The Paper Palace”—the family summer place which she has visited every summer of her life. But this morning is different: last night Elle and her oldest friend Jonas crept out the back door into the darkness and had sex with each other for the first time, all while their spouses chatted away inside. Now, over the next twenty-four hours, Elle will have to decide between the life she has made with her genuinely beloved husband, Peter, and the life she always imagined she would have had with her childhood love, Jonas, if a tragic event hadn’t forever changed the course of their lives. As Heller colors in the experiences that have led Elle to this day, we arrive at her ultimate decision with all its complexity. Tender yet devastating, The Paper Palace considers the tensions between desire and dignity, the legacies of abuse, and the crimes and misdemeanors of families.