Branching Out

October 26, 2015
March’s contemporary standalone is a sentimental and, at times, heart-wrenching story that touches on guilt, grief, forgiveness, and motherhood. After a difficult, fatherless childhood with a self-centered mother, Shelby Meyers has found true love with Ryan Chambers, scion of a wealthy, high-profile Chicago family. From the outset, their marriage is everything Shelby has hoped for, even though she is hounded by paparazzi and intrusive admirers because of Ryan’s notoriety. When Shelby’s world is rocked by a devastating tragedy, she pulls away from Ryan as she tries to deal with her loss. She retreats to her home in Bayfield, Wis., a warm-hearted community in a pristine area of Lake Superior, where she was mostly raised by her grandparents, and where Shelby feels grounded and safe. She discovers much more about her mother and the circumstances of her birth, and she learns that Ryan has been keeping a guilty secret. March (Family Trees) keeps things moving along, but the reconnection with Ryan feels rushed, and the ending is predictable.

December 1, 2015
Taking up where her first novel, Family Trees (2015), left off, March rejoins Shelby Meyers, whose hometown on the banks of Lake Superior is a long way from fiance Ryan Chamber's posh family home on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. But she loves Ryan and is sure that their marriage will work out. Life, however, is not easy for the newlyweds. The Chambers family is wealthy and influential, and the press becomes Shelby's constant companion. Intent on preserving her privacy, Shelby is quickly labeled icy, and soon stories about her mother's wild youth begin to surface. Shelby misses the quiet openness of Lake Superior and the grandmother who raised her. She works with Ryan to develop a documentary depicting life in northern Wisconsin, but when a personal tragedy threatens their marriage, she flees for home. There Shelby must confront secrets from her past and pressures from her present. March's sweet, thoughtful novel follows two likable characters as they work to hold on to their marriage and develop their own sense of family in the face of daunting obstacles.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)