On Turpentine Lane

December 19, 2016
When Faith Frankel moves from Brooklyn back to her hometown of Everton, Mass., she falls in love with a little house on Turpentine Lane. The house, because of rumors about a death that took place there, is well within her salary as a fund-raiser, so despite the asbestos and a failing roof, she decides to buy it. She’s accustomed to challenging projects, starting with Stuart Levine, her longtime boyfriend who has left on a solo hitchhiking expedition with her credit card. No sooner does she move into the house does she learn that the previous owner’s second and third husbands fell down the basement stairs to their deaths. Stuart is unsupportive, so she finally dumps him, encouraged by Nick Franconi, officemate and soon-to-be roommate. Faith and Nick develop a relationship while she tries to solve the mystery of the deaths at Turpentine Lane, her parents’ faltering marriage, and her eligible-bachelor brother’s lack of a significant other. With a witty cast of characters and her usual delightful dialogue and insightful observations of human behavior, Lipman (The Inn at Lake Devine) captures the complications of modern love. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME Entertainment.

November 1, 2016
A professional thank-you-note writer buys a house with a past and gets more than she bargained for.Faith Frankel is feeling like a bit of a loser. She has a futureless job writing letters to alumni in the development department of her old private school. Her fiance, who gave her a piece of red thread in lieu of an engagement ring, is on a cross-country walk to benefit his own personal growth and is documenting the trip on Facebook with selfies that include smiling ex-girlfriends in locations across the country. Her insurance-agent father has become a painter in his retirement and left her mother for the woman who convinced him to start a bat-mitzvah-gift forgery business. "She asked if he could make a copy of Chagall, but perhaps more lavender than blue--purple was their daughter's favorite color--and work her daughter's name into it, and give the angel her face, with her bangs but without her braces." This, it turns out, is a business model whose time has come. When Faith finds, in the attic of her new little house, a photo album containing images of what may be dead twin babies, she's so creeped out that she offers her empty second bedroom to her handsome, kind, newly single, and homeless officemate. Nick Franconi is another idea whose time has come. Of course things will get worse before they get better, with the local police department ripping up her basement in search of murder evidence and a scandal at the office in which Faith is accused of funneling a huge alumni donation to her fiance. Lipman (The View from Penthouse B, 2013, etc.) is known for her dialogue, so snappy, funny, and real that it cancels out any dubiousness about the kooky mystery plot. Warm, clever, a little silly, a lot of fun.

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November 1, 2016

Faith Frankel moves back to her Massachusetts hometown, mostly because the stress level is lower there. She's in charge of stewardship at her alma mater, the Everton Country Day School, where she writes thank-you notes to donors and shares an office with fundraiser Nick Franconi. She's just purchased her first home, a rundown five-room cottage on Turpentine Lane, not far from her parents' home but with a slightly unappealing history. Did people actually die there? A photo album found in the attic reveals more secrets than she could imagine. She has time to fix up the place, though, as her boyfriend/sort-of-fiance Stuart is off on a cross-country walk to "find his own path in life." So why do his online posts show him with all those women? And since when is her insurance salesman father an artist? VERDICT For someone nearing 40, Faith has her immature moments, especially when interacting with her family. But she is also gutsy in the clutch, and readers will be more than satisfied with Lipman's (The View from Penthouse B) drive down this lane. [See Prepub Alert, 8/22/16.]--Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2016

Faith Frankel has a job writing thank-you notes for her alma mater, a fiance who's off on a crowdfunded cross-country walk, and a new home on Turpentine Lane with a spooky history. But she's intrigued by some artifacts in the attic and a charming younger colleague. Lipman's ten books have sold over a million copies altogether.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.