Lisa Tucker's "The Song Reader" made me a fan. so when I spotted "Once Upon A Day" on the shelves, it was a no-brainer to add it to my pile.

Good move.

Tucker's tale of how a St. Louis cab driver struggling to move forward following the deaths of his wife and daughter manages to help a family unable to move forward decades after a violent encounter is captivating.

Reading OUAD is a bit like watching an M. Night Shyamalan film. 

Information is revealed piece by piece, keeping you turning the pages even as you are guessing how all those pieces will eventually fit together.

At the heart of this novel are questions about protecting your loved ones. Can you go too far in the name of love? Is it worse to stifle in the name of protection or to risk losing it all in the name of freedom? 

Stephen and Dorothea come from opposite ends of the spectrum, and it is up to the reader to decide who has suffered more from those choices.

Tucker's tale is a thriller in the true sense of the word. 

Check out the discussion questions here.

- Tricia Ambrose

I have to address a few things from Jason's previous post about commercial vs literary success.
Why do we assume they must be mutually exclusive? I would think most writers want readers to appreciate their skills, for critics to laud their talent and for their work to actually reach a wide audience.
And I have read Jennifer Wiener's works (In Her Shoes, Good in Bed) and really enjoyed them. She's definitely a cut above in the genre. Her characters are well developed; her writing is solid; and her topic matter speaks to a lot of women.
To their concern about male writers garnering more critical acclaim than female writers, I haven't done any kind of analysis, but I wouldn't be surprised. I wonder how far we've come since the days of George Eliot and the Brontes.

And now for something completely different...

Do you like song lyrics? Do you like reading?
Me too.
So I was drawn to "The Song Reader" by Lisa Tucker.

The premise: By knowing which song lyrics a person find themselves fixated on, this young woman can help them get to the root of their problems.

Mary Beth believes her gift is helping people, even as she involves her younger sister and adopted son in her own problems.

Gets you thinking, though, about why it is that at certain times in your life you are drawn to a particular artist or type of music.

I am a big fan of the Smiths and adore lots of their lyrics "I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven knows I'm miserable now." "There's a club if you'd like to go; You could meet somebody who really loves you; So you go and you stand on your own, and you leave on your own." Or "Last night I dreamt that somebody loved me; No hope, no harm, just another false alarm."

But, I gotta be honest: Sometimes I'm just not in the mood for such heavy lyrics, no matter how upbeat the music.

Perhaps there's something to this song reader after all.

Get a sense of what Tucker was thinking here.

- Tricia Ambrose