Belong to Me

Belong to Me

Marisa de los Santos

April 2008

390 pages

Last year I read Love Walked In, a book that I adored. I also met the author, Marisa de los Santos. Unfortunately for her, at the time she was signing books next to Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame, and she was looking pretty lonely. I told her I loved her book and she lit up, and she told me about her next book that was due out. I've been waiting for that book for what seemed like forever. And it didn't disappoint. Thank goodness, because I really liked the author.

I'm going to borrow the barnesandnoble.com synopsis:

Everyone has secrets. Some we keep to protect ourselves, others to protect those we love.

A devoted city dweller, Cornelia Brown surprised herself when she was gripped by the sudden desire to head for an idyllic suburb. Though she knows she's made the right move, she approaches her new life with trepidation and struggles to forge friendships. Cornelia's mettle is quickly tested by judgmental neighbor Piper Truitt, the embodiment of everything Cornelia feared she would find in suburbia. A saving grace soon appears in the form of Lake, and Cornelia develops an instant bond with this warm yet elusive woman.

As their individual stories unfold, the women become entangled in a web of trust, betrayal, love and loss that challenges them in ways they never imagined, and that ultimately teaches them what it means for one human being to belong to another.

Synopses (just what is the plural of synopsis, anyway?) never quite do a book justice. Or they do too much justice. This one is pretty bare bones. Belong to Me brings back characters from Love Walked In, and introduces new ones. Piper, in particular. I love her Stepford wife persona. It's also fun to see Cornelia and Teo again, and to watch them evolve. I still can't quite figure out what appeals to me so in these books...but Belong to Me joins Love Walked In as one of my favorites.

And ta-da! I'm now all caught up with the book reviews. Whew!