White Picket Fences by Susan Meissner

• Paperback
• 368 pages
• Christian Fiction
• October 6, 2009
• Price: $13.99
• Waterbrook Multnomah
• ISBN: 978-1-4000-7457-0 (1-4000-7457-6)
• Purchase A Copy!

From Back Cover:
The Janviers have the idyllic life–a beautiful home, great jobs, two wonderful kids–and surrounding it all is the proverbial white picket fence that protects them, offers them a serene sense of security…and hdes all their secrets.
When her black sheep brother disappears, Amanda Janvier eagerly takes in her sixteen year-old niece Tally. The girl is practically an orphan: motherless, and living with a father who raises Tally wherever he lands– in a Buick, a pizza joint, a horse farm–and regularly takes off on wild schemes. Amanda envisions that she, her husband Neil, and their two teenagers can offer the girl stability and a shot at a “normal” life, even though their own storybook lives are about to crumble.

Seventeen-year-old Chase Janvier hasn’t seen his cousin in years, and other than a vague curiosity about her strange life, he doesn’t expect her arrival will affect him much–or interfere with his growing, disturbing interest in a long-ago house fire that plagues his dreams unbeknownst to anyone else.

Tally and Chase bond as they interview two Holocaust survivors for a sociology project, and become startlingly aware that the whole family is grappling with hidden secrets, with the echoes of the past, and with the realization that ignoring tragic situations won’t make them go away.

Will Tally’s presence blow apart their carefully-constructed world, knocking down the illusion of the white picket fence and reveal a hidden past that could destroy them all–or can she help them find the truth without losing each other?

Susan Meissner has also written The Shape of Mercy, and Blue Heart Blessed. She lives in Southern California with her husband, a pastor, and they are the parents of four grown children.

My Opinion:
Tally believes she will only be staying a few weeks at her aunt’s house. She thinks her father will be back from his trip to Poland and then they will move on, but it doesn’t turn out that way. She and her cousin, Chase end up partners for a school project and interview two men from a nursing home about the Holocaust. They learn quite a bit from the time spent with them and become friends. Secrets are revealed during this time among family members. Secrets that need to be revealed and dealt with.

I Rated This Book:
4 stars

‘I received a sample from Waterbrook Multnomah to facilitate my review and I was NOT compensated in any way. This is my honest opinion only.’

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