Books & Spoons Review for THINGS TO DO WHEN IT'S RAINING by Marissa Stapley

7/2/2018

When secrets tear love apart, can the truth mend it?

Mae Summers has it all: a loving fiancé, Peter, a job at the flourishing company he owns and a beautiful New York City apartment. But Mae’s life shatters when she wakes up one morning to discover Peter gone—leaving only a cryptic note behind him—and the company in shambles, its investments founded on lies.

There’s only one place for Mae to go: home to Alexandria Bay, the small tourist town in upstate New York where she was raised by her grandparents in the inn they own. And not all is right in Alex Bay, either: Mae finds her grandmother struggling with dementia, separated from Mae’s grandfather thanks to a terrible secret she never meant to reveal.

She also finds Gabe, her childhood best friend who became the love of her young life—now a handsome if brooding adult, working through a private trauma that still haunts him.

A lifetime of secrets stands in the way of Mae and her family’s happiness. Home may be where the heart is, but sometimes it takes equal parts love, forgiveness and will to mend that heart.

A poignant and touching story, so lifelike with all the layered secrets and family drama its heart-wrenching.
It was impossible not get emotionally involved with this story and it surely is churning a lot of emotions from joy to sadness to despair to irritation to elation and even relief.
The story is beautifully written, resembling poetry in the way the words are twined together. It was easy to get lost in the tale, the need to know that everything would be alright at the end, that all the secrets would be gone, and the characters would finally find peace and happiness, the building of the momentum was the energy that kept me reading. The intensity of the emotions and the drama that was build surrounding all the feelings have the taste of Young Adult novels, understandably, as the story goes back and forth to the younger days of all the main characters.
In the story, each gets their chance to tell their point of view for the events that range from the time before the WWII to the present time. The point of view switches from the past to present, from person to person without indications, and it took me a bit to get into the rhythm and style of the book and writing until it started smoothly flowing.
The book tells the story of three generations of lives and loves, secrets, and betrayals. The fact that history repeats itself is proven repeatedly to be true. The frustration with the actions and withhold information, lies, and deceptions by Lilly and then by Mae, was overpowering at times. The way Gabe was treated in the tale, as a child, as a young man, and then as an adult broke my heart a bit. He seemed to be, in his pain and agony, the only one who had the courage to face his hidden truths, to go after his dreams, the one who had direction in his life, may it be to be with Mae.
An elegant tale with its beautiful writing, an alluring story with the lifespans of lies, a touching story of pain, forgiveness, and learning to love, a fascinating and frustrating family drama that goes on for generations and time.
~ Four Spoons

Marissa Stapley is the Globe and Mail bestselling author of the novel Mating for Life, and the forthcoming Things to Do When It's Raining. She writes the commercial fiction review column "Shelf Love" for the Globe and Mail, reports on books and culture for the Toronto Star, and lives in Toronto with her husband and two children.