Reeds’ Reads
Join us for our Reeds’ Reads book club 1st Wednesday of each month from 6pm-7:30pm with your moderators, Diane Wade and Jennifer Gensemer.
FEAR NOT, ANGELS ARE SUMMONED, by Kim Shipe
Facing life or death, Kim summoned her angels. They saved her life.
After a nomadic childhood as the daughter of a military veteran who treats his undiagnosed PTSD with alcohol, Kim survives the trauma of sexual assault, spousal abuse, addiction, and co-dependency to become a nurse and a runner. After re-marrying, she and her husband live happily with their three kids until an elderly driver mistakes the gas for the brake and slams Kim through the wall of an outdoor café where she’s waiting for her order. In horror, Kim’s fifteen-year-old son and twelve-year-old daughter witness the crash that changes their lives forever.
With shattered legs, Kim believes she is dying in the ambulance. Just then, a heavenly Angel appears and whispers unintelligible words over her body, dissolving all the pain and fear. Over many years, Kim endures dozens of painful surgeries. When she thinks her ordeal might be over, she is diagnosed with breast cancer and must undergo dozens more.
Kim’s remarkable story will inspire trauma and cancer survivors, as well as anyone seeking to face seemingly impossible challenges with grace and humor.
NOVEMBER 6 | The Sicilian Inheritance by Jo Piazza
Jo Piazza will be in person for our November 6 book club.
From bestselling author and award-winning journalist Jo Piazza, comes a transporting novel rooted in the author’s own family history about a long-awaited trip to Sicily, a disputed inheritance, and a family secret that some will kill to protect . . .
Sara Marsala barely knows who she is anymore after the failure of her business and marriage. On top of that, her beloved great-aunt Rosie passes away, leaving Sara bereft with grief. But Aunt Rosie’s death also opens an escape from her life and a window into the past by way of a plane ticket to Sicily, a deed to a possibly valuable plot of land, and a bombshell family secret. Rosie believes Sara’s great-grandmother Serafina, the family matriarch who was left behind while her husband worked in America, didn’t die of illness as family lore has it . . . she was murdered.
Thus begins a twist-filled adventure that takes Sara all over the picturesque Italian countryside as she races to solve a mystery and prove her birthright. Flashing back to the past, we meet Serafina, a feisty and headstrong young woman in the early 1900s thrust into motherhood in her teens, who fought for a better life not just for herself but for all the women of her small village. Unsurprisingly it isn’t long before a woman challenging the status quo finds herself in danger.
As Sara discovers more about Serafina she also realizes she is coming head-to-head with the same menacing forces that took down her great-grandmother. At once an immersive multigenerational mystery and an ode to the undaunted heroism of everyday women, The Sicilian Inheritance is an atmospheric, page-turning delight.
