Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson

I loved 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson so I knew that I would also enjoy her new book Suite Scarlett and I was not disappointed. Scarlett's family owns a small hotel in New York City. Everyone assumes that she must be rich because she lives in a hotel, but that is far from the case! In fact, the hotel has been struggling so much that the family has had to let go of all their staff and Scarlett's parents and Scarlett, her brother and two sisters have had to pick up the slack to do all the cleaning and cooking themselves.

The book begins on Scarlett's 15 birthday. For their 15th birthdays all the Martin children have received a suite in the hotel to care for. Scarlett gets the key to the Empire Suite and almost immediately Mrs. Amberson moves in for the summer. With the help of Mrs. Amberson, Scarlett's life is turned upside down.

Mrs. Amberson is a world traveler, a former actress and a very eccentric person. She tries to help Scarlett's older brother Spencer who wants to become an actor. When she takes over producing a theatre production, she introduces Scarlett to Eric an actor who has just moved to New York. Scarlett now has a budding romance, a new job and the family's failing hotel to worry about. It is sure to be an interesting summer!

Mistik Lake by Martha Brooks

In Mistik Lake by Martha Brooks, Odella's mother harbors guilt from an accident that happened when she was only 16 years old. Sally and three of her friends drove their car out on Mistik Lake and fell through the ice. Everyone was killed but Sally. The people of Mistik Lake say that it wasn't her fault; that she wasn't even driving, but Sally still feels the guilt and finds herself running from everything. When Odella is 16, her mother finally runs away from her family moves to Iceland with her lover. This book is how Odella learns to live with that abandonment, but it is also about why Sally feels the need to always run away from love.

Odella feels a pull to Mistik Lake where her family has a cabin and she and her two sisters spent most of their summers growing up. One summer she meets Jimmy and falls in love. The draw to Jimmy forces her to move back to Mistik Lake to spend the summer before going to college. She finds a job working at the meat counter of the local grocery store with a man who once dated her mother. That summer Odella finally learns the dark secrets about her mother and herself.

This is a gentle read that will be enjoyed by anyone who has ever lived in a small town. The citizens of Mistik Lake are so intertwined that it is hard to separate the families from one another and, of course, everyone knows everyone else's business. Odella, who has lived in a city her entire life, finds it hard to understand how everyone knew her mother and has stories to tell about her growing up. Mistik Lake tells the story of a teenage romance and the adults who have their secrets as they struggled to find love themselves.

Last Dance at the Frosty Queen

Last Dance at the Frosty Queen by Richard Allen Uhlig is definitely a spring time novel. As high school graduation approaches, Arty Flood wants nothing more than to escape his small Kansas town and see the world. But Arty’s life is a mess and it takes money to escape. His boss at Stiles Style, a clothing company for dogs, owes him over $1000 in back wages, the town sheriff blackmails him into dating his daughter, he is having an affair with his drama teacher and his family’s funeral home business is failing.

But Arty’s life begins to look up when the girl of his dreams swims into his life. Vanessa has problems of her own, but she helps Arty see that he must accept responsibility for his own actions and make things happen instead of blaming everyone else. She also lets him see his small town through the eyes of an outsider and shows him that you don’t have to escape to learn how to live.