Grace. Often used, rarely understood, ‘grace’ is the intimate stepping stone in Donna VanLiere’s new book about journeying through sadness and joy to a place of peace. “Finding Grace, a Memoir” is indeed a message of losing in order to find; a prodigal daughter story with modern characters.

VanLiere, who penned the famous Christmas Hope series of books that began with a slightly cheesy but heartening song about Christmas Shoes, is a beautifully descriptive writer. Her opening paragraphs provide vivid images of her childhood home and its supporting cast of characters, who, we discover, lead her to the place of lost childhood innocence and eventual grace.

God factors highly in VanLiere’s memoir; the Big Guy is, after all, the supreme giver of grace and offers it to us whether we deserve it or not. As with most people who struggle with the concept of something for nothing, this is unsettling for VanLiere. We feel her struggle to confront guilt in the backlash of sexual abuse by a neighbor boy when she was five and watch as forgiveness and grace torment her (though she knows not why) well into adulthood, and openly mock her desire to become a wife and mother.

A witty and gifted writer, VanLiere matures into a young adult with sharpness, zeroing in on other people’s un-grace. Finding it easier to point out where other people’s shortcomings in the grace department lie rather recognizing her own, VanLiere quickly discovers that grace and Christianity are not necessarily a package deal. In an astounding observation of a boyfriend’s parents, uber-conservative Christians, she states they were “so supersized in their spirituality they had no need for grace. They had forgotten that it was the lop-sided souls….who followed Christ while he was on earth.” Ouch.

Central to “Finding Grace” is VanLiere’s struggle to have children. Through honest storytelling and vivid descriptions of fertility treatments, we are witness to her walk down the ambiguous road of injections, sickness, and ultimate disappointment as she and her husband fail to conceive. Initially rejecting adoption, our author refuses to give in to the quiet, grace-filled whispers floating through her head, choosing instead to kick and scream her way through a daily regime of hormones. But, as grace often does when infiltrating our souls, VanLiere allows the whisper to become a voice, and the voice leads her to peace about her body, her emotions, and her spirituality as she begins to complete adoption forms.

Grace the child (and subsequent sister and brother) joins their family in a beautiful progression of chapters in which I became enamored with VanLiere and her lifelong quest to be herself, not just somebody she thought she should be. It’s about time, I thought, too late realizing that I, like VanLiere, might just be searching for my own level of understanding of grace.

The best part of “Finding Grace” is not what VanLiere actually says. While a distinctly Christian-based book offering the Almighty as grace-giver, the point is that grace is not something we should be fighting to seek as if on a quest. It is simple, quiet, and always there. We just have to wade through the crap to see it.

“Didn’t you get the memo, God? The one I sent when I was five? Yeah, I got that memo, but I thought I’d give you something better than you think you deserve.”

That, Van Liere says, is the language of grace.

Read the book, mamas. You might know more about grace than you think.

Erin Kirkland is a freelance writer and blogger from Anchorage, Alaska.

The Ten Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer is imperative reading for any woman who has ever, with a heart so full it hurts, gazed lovingly at her sleeping child only to then glance at herself in the mirror and see a woman she no longer recognizes. It’s a story of four women. Four mothers. They are intelligent and educated and all held powerful positions before leaving the workforce to have children. Yet, even despite the comfortable privilege of their middle/high income New Yorker lives, each in her own way is suspended between who she is and who she always thought she would be.

For those wanting a light-hearted read, this is not it. Wolitzer is a brilliant - and complex - writer. The stories of these women and those with whom they live are not simple snapshots. They are portraits with the deep angles and dark shading of reality and the consequences of choices we all make as mothers, daughters, and wives. The consequences: they brim with both gratitude and regret.

There are several themes that run throughout the novel, but perhaps the most encompassing is feminism. The women – one a daughter of a prominent feminist, one a bohemian artist, one a statistician, and another who was voted the most promising in her college graduating class – have lived their lives expecting great things of themselves. Wolitzer flashes back throughout the book to stories of the girls’ mothers. Although I felt these flashbacks interrupted the flow of the contemporary issues, they did provide a historical context and framework for the ways the girls were shaped, purposely and unwittingly, by their mothers’ struggle for equality.

Perhaps most refreshing about this novel is the complete absence of judgment in the stay-at-home v. working mom debate. Instead, Wolitzer seamlessly addresses a larger dilemma: even in this day and age, women (particularly mothers) are not in fact provided equal opportunities or equal expectations. Society’s mindset may have changed, but the system in which it operates has not. That neither the author, nor the characters, has a simplistic answer authenticates the story, because as we know, there just isn’t one.

This book is exceptionally good. As I was reading, I felt a keen sense of recognition. It is one of those reads that encourages the use of post-it notes and highlighters. It is rich with short passages that illuminate the heart’s struggle to live up to our own expectations, to balance the fullness of being as we are with the hope of being more, and to maintain that hope especially in the times of flux and transition that besiege us when we least expect it. No, it isn’t a light novel, but it is lush and savory, and upon finishing it, you will feel as if you have found a friend in Meg Wolitzer.

Review by Mary Bordner Tanck

Soft Landing is a really great read! Hermanson takes a serious subject manner and shows an unusual knack for wit while still being sensitive to the subject matter.

After Maxine rescues a child she believes is being molested, she faces fears that she may have made a mistake. The next few days take her on a journey where she must examine the mistakes of her past and the future she is uncertain about. A trip to her old hometown opens Maxine’s eyes to what she must do.

While Soft Landing is mostly Maxine’s story, Hermanson gives us an intimate look into the other people who are in Maxine’s life - her fiance’, the little girl she saved, the parents of the child she saved, and her own sister.

Even though she faces charges of felony assault and kidnapping, the incident gives Maxine the chance to examine her life and right her wrongs - both past and future.

Hermanson’s characters are very human and very believable. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a nice down-home story.