Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune

Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune by Roselle Lim (2019) 299 pages

Natalie Tan, estranged from her agoraphobic mother for 7 years, mostly because of her mother's refusal to accept her ambition to become a chef, returns to their home in San Francisco's Chinatown when she learns of her mother's death. Despite the odds against success, Natalie decides to reopen the long-closed restaurant that her grandmother (who'd died before Natalie was born) had run below her mother's living space.

Natalie's youth had been spent caring for her and her mother's needs because her mother wouldn't leave the building, which was so much responsibility on her young shoulders. She hated the father she'd never known for his absence and resented their neighbors for not helping more. However, when she moves back, her time with the various neighbors ‒ whose shops are no longer thriving ‒ surprisingly reminds her of many happy interactions she'd had with them in the past. One of them, a seer, reads her fortune. Natalie's wish is to help the neighbors while working on her own business. It's clear that her cooking talent rivals her grandmother's; food has a delicious part in this fairy-tale-like story.

The Woman in the Window

The Woman in the Window: a Novel / A.J. Finn, 427 p.

I loved being completely engrossed in this disquieting and creepy novel.  Anna, formerly a successful child psychologist, is stuck in her house, with a severe case of agoraphobia.  She entertains herself with DVDs of Hitchcock and other old suspense films, lots of merlot, and by watching her neighbors.  When a new family moves in across the park, Anna sees something terrible through their parlor window. At least, she might have seen something terrible.  The real and the imagined are very hard to tease apart here, and suspense builds to a satisfying conclusion.  If occasionally the reader can see some of the surprises coming, it doesn't detract from an excellent reading experience. 

Illumination Night

Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman  224 pp.

I've read a number of Hoffman's books and this one is my least favorite to date. It's the story of a family Vonny & Andre and their young son, Simon, a problem teenager sent to help her ailing grandmother, and a reclusive gentle giant. The couple has money issues and worries about their young son's lack of growth. The Elizabeth, elderly woman, is failing in health bit by bit. Jody, the teenager, is a wild one and her grandmother is hoping to turn her into a decent human being. There is an illicit attraction between Andre and Jody. All the family worries cause Vonny to have panic attacks and agoraphobia. The giant recluse doesn't appear until the last half of the book when he develops a crush on Jody. A horrible accident brings the giant out of hiding. There are a few too many twists for such a short book. It would have been better if either a few things were left out or the final product longer.