Before I Go (Colleen Oakley)

Bring out the tissues for Colleen Oakley's debut novel Before I Go.  A one-sentence synopsis should be all you need to understand why -- a woman with a recurrence of breast cancer and given only months to live undertakes a mission to find her husband a new wife.

Daisy and Jack are all ready to celebrate Daisy being cancer-free for three years.  However, they are given the tremendously hard news that her cancer is back and is now at Stage 4.  This heart-wrenching diagnosis is hard enough to take for them both, but Daisy is even more worried about Jack being alone when she is gone.  Therefore, she resolves to spend her remaining days finding a new life partner for her husband.

Before I Go asks a tough-as-nails question of all of us.  Whose happiness is more important when put in this impossible situation? Oakley's novel shows that there is definitely no clear-cut answer.

MY RATING - 4

Promises to Keep (Jane Green)

As the hot weather begins to come in full force in Philly, it is natural for readers to want to get away from the "heavy hitter" lit and get into something mindless. That is what I thought I was getting when I picked up Jane Green's Promises to Keep. What I got was much, much more and truly made me weep.

Promises to Keep is Green's 11th novel. It begins with a sister, Steffi, who is struggling to find her way in the world in love and career. We then meet Callie, Steffi's older sister, who the reader jarringly finds out later, is in remission from breast cancer. Along the way, we also meet Lila, Callie's best friend; Steffi and Callie's divorced parents, Honor and Walter; Reece, Callie's devoted husband and father of her two adorable children; and Mason, a man who knows deep down that his life is not what he wants it to be, but doesn't quite know how to change it.

When Callie shockingly finds out that her cancer has returned, her family and friends pull together in a way they wouldn't have thought possible. I found myself relating the novel to Steel Magnolias (only with men included). In fact, my favorite line in that movie is by Dolly Parton. "Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion." At times laugh-out-loud funny, at times heartbreakingly sad, this is a beautiful story of what could happen when life suddenly turns upside down.

MY RATING - 5

This review can also be found on http://www.bookloons.com.

The Department of Lost and Found (Allison Winn Scotch)

After reading "Time of My Life" by Scotch a few months ago, I was anxious to get my hands on this, her first book. Scotch manages to take a very serious subject, cancer, and develop a story that is at times touching, at times hilarious, and at times achingly raw. In her book jacket bio, the author says that she lost a close friend to breast cancer and wanted to write a book with a happier ending. She accomplishes what she set out to do, but the reader is not spared any of cancer's wrath in the process.

"The Department of Lost & Found" is the story of Natalie Miller, a ruthless senior adviser to a senator. She will let nothing stand in her way. When she is diagnosed with breast cancer, she tries to continue things as normal, but must face the fact that everything she has must now go into fighting this disease. Along the way, the reader sees cancer for what one can only imagine it is who doesn't have it....merciless. Natalie begins to understand that life is not for settling, and if she is lucky enough to get a second chance, she should live the life she wants to live.

Scotch does not sugarcoat anything, including her main character. There are times when it is very difficult to like Natalie. But aren't there times in everyone's life when we are hard to like, with cancer or without?

MY RATING - 4