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A review by jhscolloquium
Find Me in California by Kerry Lonsdale
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
With Find Me in California, bestselling author Kerry Lonsdale once again examines the far-reaching ramifications of familial secrets, turmoil, and psychological trauma. She describes the story as “romantic book club fiction,” noting that at its most basic level, the story is a romance. But it unfolds within the context of “themes of found family, chance meetings, and two estranged friends tangled in secrets that span decades.”
Find Me in California delivers everything that readers have come to expect from a Lonsdale novel. It is an absorbing, evenly paced story effectively related from the varying perspectives of her fully developed, intriguing characters. Matt Gatlin is a successful photographer with looming deadlines who has avoided serious relationships. When he was just ten years old, he was sent to live with his grandmother, Elizabeth “Liza” Holloway, following the death of his mother. Not only did Liza withhold affection and warmth from Matt, she actually banished him from her presence whenever they ended up in the same room of her palatial Beverly Hills home. As soon as he turned eighteen, he moved out and never looked back, swearing that he would never “sacrifice his sanity for her peace of mind again” and locking away his memories of the miserable years during which she failed and refused to comfort or console him after he lost his parents. As the story opens, Matt learns that Liza is living in the Rosemont Assisted Living and Memory Care facility. But she is going to be evicted in just five days because she is financially insolvent. The man to whom she delegated power of attorney to handle her affairs appears to have absconded. Matt is her designated alternate representative, but he has no intention of rescuing her.
Ruby Rose Hope (Mama Rose) resides in the same facility, having been afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease for some time. She is lucid at times, and her granddaughter, Julia, cherishes those increasingly fleeting moments because she is experiencing the nearly unbearable grief of watching the grandmother to whom she is completely devoted gradually fade away. She has no social life and her last relationship ended badly due to her commitment to Mama Rose. Five days per week, Julia works at a country club spa before spending another four hours, and up to twelve hours on her days off, volunteering as the in-house massage therapist at Rosemont to defray the costs of Mama Rose’s care. For reasons Julia has never understood, Mama Rose was adamant about spending her final days at Rosemont, and Julia has mortgaged Mama Rose’s home, in which she still resides, to help pay for her grandmother’s care. Now new management is refusing to honor the fee reduction agreement, insisting upon payment in full from every resident. The modified terms will take effect in just five days. She has no idea how she is going to be able to honor her promise to her grandmother that she would not relocate her.
Inexplicably, Liza has been hostile to Mama Rose, who doesn’t seem to recognize her, since she arrived at Rosemont. In a surprising moment of clarity, Mama Rose emphatically implores Julia to find her diary. Overhearing her request, Liza remarks, “All those secrets. She was very good at keeping them.” Julia suddenly realizes that her grandmother and Liza knew each other before they both became residents at Rosemont.
Back at Mama Rose’s house, Julia locates the diary with “Magnolia Blu” embossed on the cover. It was the name of her grandmother’s successful landscaping business. Lonsdale effectively intersperses Mama Rose’s diary entries, dating back to June 1972, into the narrative. She employs them to gradually reveal how Ruby Rose, who then called herself Magnolia Blu, ran away from her Arizona home, eventually making her way to California, and met Liza in a grocery story parking lot on her very first day there.
Meanwhile, Matt’s “damn moral compass” has compelled him to travel to Rosemont and make arrangements for Liza’s care, in part because he learns that Liza’s circumstances are quite dire, but largely because he knows that his late mother would “look past their estrangement to help her mom” now that Liza needs it. Matt meets a captivating and mysterious woman along the road who calls herself Magnolia Blu. He agrees to give her a ride and ends up taking a significant geographical, emotional, and psychological detour that delays his arrival at Rosemont. He abuses alcohol and smokes a lot of marijuana, but whether he’s hallucinating, dreaming, or actually encounters a spirit of some sort is left to readers’ interpretation in what is inarguably the weakest and a wholly unnecessary aspect of the story.
It was Julia who answered the telephone when Matt first called Rosemont and they continue conversing. They don’t like each other much in the beginning, but as they get acquainted, they find themselves drawn to each other, which surprises both of them. They discover that they have a great deal in common. Their grandmothers are both residents of Rosemont and, as Julia learns as she reads Mama Rose’s diary, have a shocking shared history. They both lived with their grandmothers as children, although Mama Rose was the opposite of Liza, doting on and adoring Julia. They were both abandoned by their mothers – in different ways — and bear the resultant psychological scars that have made it impossible for either of them to sustain a romantic relationship . . . so far. Might they be able to heal each other? Or will their commonalities drive them apart?
Lonsdale has crafted another emotionally nuanced, multi-layered story with, in addition to the aforementioned romance, a compelling mystery. This time she examines the fraught journeys of four main characters – Matt, Julia, Liza, and Ruby Rose. Two of them are still imagining and crafting their adult lives, while the other two are nearing the conclusion of their earthly sojourns. Through their experiences, Lonsdale illustrates the destructive power of secrets, resentments, and grudges, as well as the crippling pain of abandonment and the ways in which it destroys self-confidence and prohibits the development of a healthy self-concept. In particular, the rejection of a child by a parent impairs the child’s ability to form healthy attachments to and trust others, as shown by Matt’s pattern of short-term, transient relationships before he meets Julia. She also demonstrates how her characters, upon discovering the others’ histories, are able to understand, empathize, and, ultimately, forgive.
Perhaps the most important theme Lonsdale probes with respect to all four characters is how quickly time elapses, and how important it is to ask questions, avoid making assumptions, and seek resolution and reconciliation . . . before it is too late. “Don’t live your life with regrets,” Liza wisely counsels Julia. “Just live as fully as you can. Take it from one who knows: you can reshoot a scene multiple times, but you cannot do over your life.”
Even though her empathetic and likeable characters sustain disappointment and heartbreak, Lonsdale shows how they address their pasts head-on and learn from history in order to move forward, unburdened by what they have endured. Lonsdale emphasizes how important family is and why it is critical to learn from misguided decisions – both our own and our relatives’. As one character notes, “Make peace with your past or you’ll be lonely for the rest of your life. Nobody wants that.” Despite the serious subjects she addresses, Lonsdale demonstrates her characters’ strength and resilience, and infuses the story with touches of humor and hope. Find Me in California is another engrossing and impactful offering from a skillful and imaginative storyteller.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
Find Me in California delivers everything that readers have come to expect from a Lonsdale novel. It is an absorbing, evenly paced story effectively related from the varying perspectives of her fully developed, intriguing characters. Matt Gatlin is a successful photographer with looming deadlines who has avoided serious relationships. When he was just ten years old, he was sent to live with his grandmother, Elizabeth “Liza” Holloway, following the death of his mother. Not only did Liza withhold affection and warmth from Matt, she actually banished him from her presence whenever they ended up in the same room of her palatial Beverly Hills home. As soon as he turned eighteen, he moved out and never looked back, swearing that he would never “sacrifice his sanity for her peace of mind again” and locking away his memories of the miserable years during which she failed and refused to comfort or console him after he lost his parents. As the story opens, Matt learns that Liza is living in the Rosemont Assisted Living and Memory Care facility. But she is going to be evicted in just five days because she is financially insolvent. The man to whom she delegated power of attorney to handle her affairs appears to have absconded. Matt is her designated alternate representative, but he has no intention of rescuing her.
Ruby Rose Hope (Mama Rose) resides in the same facility, having been afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease for some time. She is lucid at times, and her granddaughter, Julia, cherishes those increasingly fleeting moments because she is experiencing the nearly unbearable grief of watching the grandmother to whom she is completely devoted gradually fade away. She has no social life and her last relationship ended badly due to her commitment to Mama Rose. Five days per week, Julia works at a country club spa before spending another four hours, and up to twelve hours on her days off, volunteering as the in-house massage therapist at Rosemont to defray the costs of Mama Rose’s care. For reasons Julia has never understood, Mama Rose was adamant about spending her final days at Rosemont, and Julia has mortgaged Mama Rose’s home, in which she still resides, to help pay for her grandmother’s care. Now new management is refusing to honor the fee reduction agreement, insisting upon payment in full from every resident. The modified terms will take effect in just five days. She has no idea how she is going to be able to honor her promise to her grandmother that she would not relocate her.
Inexplicably, Liza has been hostile to Mama Rose, who doesn’t seem to recognize her, since she arrived at Rosemont. In a surprising moment of clarity, Mama Rose emphatically implores Julia to find her diary. Overhearing her request, Liza remarks, “All those secrets. She was very good at keeping them.” Julia suddenly realizes that her grandmother and Liza knew each other before they both became residents at Rosemont.
Back at Mama Rose’s house, Julia locates the diary with “Magnolia Blu” embossed on the cover. It was the name of her grandmother’s successful landscaping business. Lonsdale effectively intersperses Mama Rose’s diary entries, dating back to June 1972, into the narrative. She employs them to gradually reveal how Ruby Rose, who then called herself Magnolia Blu, ran away from her Arizona home, eventually making her way to California, and met Liza in a grocery story parking lot on her very first day there.
Meanwhile, Matt’s “damn moral compass” has compelled him to travel to Rosemont and make arrangements for Liza’s care, in part because he learns that Liza’s circumstances are quite dire, but largely because he knows that his late mother would “look past their estrangement to help her mom” now that Liza needs it. Matt meets a captivating and mysterious woman along the road who calls herself Magnolia Blu. He agrees to give her a ride and ends up taking a significant geographical, emotional, and psychological detour that delays his arrival at Rosemont. He abuses alcohol and smokes a lot of marijuana, but whether he’s hallucinating, dreaming, or actually encounters a spirit of some sort is left to readers’ interpretation in what is inarguably the weakest and a wholly unnecessary aspect of the story.
It was Julia who answered the telephone when Matt first called Rosemont and they continue conversing. They don’t like each other much in the beginning, but as they get acquainted, they find themselves drawn to each other, which surprises both of them. They discover that they have a great deal in common. Their grandmothers are both residents of Rosemont and, as Julia learns as she reads Mama Rose’s diary, have a shocking shared history. They both lived with their grandmothers as children, although Mama Rose was the opposite of Liza, doting on and adoring Julia. They were both abandoned by their mothers – in different ways — and bear the resultant psychological scars that have made it impossible for either of them to sustain a romantic relationship . . . so far. Might they be able to heal each other? Or will their commonalities drive them apart?
Lonsdale has crafted another emotionally nuanced, multi-layered story with, in addition to the aforementioned romance, a compelling mystery. This time she examines the fraught journeys of four main characters – Matt, Julia, Liza, and Ruby Rose. Two of them are still imagining and crafting their adult lives, while the other two are nearing the conclusion of their earthly sojourns. Through their experiences, Lonsdale illustrates the destructive power of secrets, resentments, and grudges, as well as the crippling pain of abandonment and the ways in which it destroys self-confidence and prohibits the development of a healthy self-concept. In particular, the rejection of a child by a parent impairs the child’s ability to form healthy attachments to and trust others, as shown by Matt’s pattern of short-term, transient relationships before he meets Julia. She also demonstrates how her characters, upon discovering the others’ histories, are able to understand, empathize, and, ultimately, forgive.
Perhaps the most important theme Lonsdale probes with respect to all four characters is how quickly time elapses, and how important it is to ask questions, avoid making assumptions, and seek resolution and reconciliation . . . before it is too late. “Don’t live your life with regrets,” Liza wisely counsels Julia. “Just live as fully as you can. Take it from one who knows: you can reshoot a scene multiple times, but you cannot do over your life.”
Even though her empathetic and likeable characters sustain disappointment and heartbreak, Lonsdale shows how they address their pasts head-on and learn from history in order to move forward, unburdened by what they have endured. Lonsdale emphasizes how important family is and why it is critical to learn from misguided decisions – both our own and our relatives’. As one character notes, “Make peace with your past or you’ll be lonely for the rest of your life. Nobody wants that.” Despite the serious subjects she addresses, Lonsdale demonstrates her characters’ strength and resilience, and infuses the story with touches of humor and hope. Find Me in California is another engrossing and impactful offering from a skillful and imaginative storyteller.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.