Lola's Secret

August 13, 2012
Australian author McInerney revisits the Quinlan family (first introduced in 2005’s The Alphabet Sisters), this time focusing on the quirky matriarch: 84-year-old Lola. After ensuring that her son, Jim—the proprietor of the South Australian motel that Lola calls home—and his wife, Geraldine, go on a much needed vacation over Christmas, Lola secretly invites a disparate group of guests to stay at the motel free of charge. As the adventure approaches, readers learn that Lola is a favorite among friends and family, including her squabbling granddaughters Bett and Carrie, who prefer commiserating with their grandmother to confiding in Geraldine, a practice that triggers the latter’s resentment. Lola also serves as referee and advice-giver at the thrift store where she works, whose “NASA control room” of computers she uses to keep in touch with great-granddaughter Ellen. Politics at the shop, family tensions, a rotating cast of characters, and the possibility of Lola locating her lost love keep this book jam-packed with plot lines, and though one gimmicky thread gets lost en route to the end, big personalities and believable conflicts keep the story engaging. Agent: Grainne Fox, Fletcher & Co.

September 15, 2012
Life can be both good and bad, and you're guaranteed heaps of both in McInerney's follow-up to The Alphabet Sisters (2004). Just ask great-grandmother Lola, the crusty doyen of the Quinlan family. The octogenarian has encouraged the entire family to take separate vacations during the Christmas holiday while she stays at the family-owned Australian Valley View Motel and holds down the fort. Of course, her family believes that Lola's just looking forward to some much-needed rest since the motel doesn't have any bookings while they're gone. But wily old Lola, who's become somewhat of an expert using the Internet, has other plans. She's actually booked free rooms for a handful of people who have some very messy personal problems. Not that Lola's aware that these people have problems, and not that their problems are really very central to the overall plot, since each problem is resolved before any of the potential guests show up at the motel. So, if Lola doesn't have to deal with all the guests and their problems--after they happily resolve their issues, they cancel their reservations--what does she have to worry about? For one, Lola's son wants to sell the motel and pursue different interests, and that kind of throws Lola's future into disarray. Plus, Lola's 12-year-old great-granddaughter is acting like a brat because her father is dating again five years after the death of her mother, and Lola's surviving adult granddaughters, Bett and Carrie, are also acting pretty bratty and arguing like, well, like sisters. Then there's the pushy volunteer at the local charity store where Lola spends a great deal of her time. She insists that they decorate the display window for the annual Christmas competition using her design. Lola, of course, applies the wisdom of her advanced years to straightening out every situation, while briefly reconnecting to her past and resolving her own future. If McInerney fans search hard enough, they'll find a faint heartwarming message somewhere in the midst of this ho-hum plot.

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September 1, 2012
The incomparable Lola Quinlan, garish dresser and confirmed meddler, is the center of a galaxy of family and friends in Lola's Secret, McInerney's sequel to The Alphabet Sisters (2005). At 84 years old, Lola is still laying plans and changing lives, all from the confines of a South Australian country motel. As Christmas approaches, so do large and small tribulations that face the Quinlan clan and the guests coming to the motel. McInerney brings a light touch and plenty of humor to her on-the-nose depiction of the characters, whose squabbles show everyone's biasesone person's helpful advice is another's insufferable hectoring. As their stories intertwine, the various characters meet challenges with courage and kindness despite their shortcomings, and the love that binds them together is touchingly revealed in the resolution. McInerney believes in the goodness of people. The hectic nature of life and the pressure of the holidays are a potent mix, but Lola sees her loved ones through it all. Lola, and the novel, cheerily salutes the extraordinary in the ordinary and the connections of family and friends.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)