Beastmomma

From goodreads: 

Hildy Good is a townie. A lifelong resident of an historic community on the rocky coast of Boston’s North Shore, she knows pretty much everything about everyone. Hildy is a descendant of one of the witches hung in nearby Salem, and is believed, by some, to have inherited psychic gifts. Not true, of course; she’s just good at reading people. Hildy is good at lots of things.  A successful real-estate broker, mother and grandmother, her days are full. But her nights have become lonely ever since her daughters, convinced their mother was drinking too much, staged an intervention and sent her off to rehab.  Now she’s in recovery—more or less.

Alone and feeling unjustly persecuted, Hildy needs a friend. She finds one in Rebecca McCallister, a beautiful young mother and one of the town’s wealthy newcomers. Rebecca feels out-of-step in her new surroundings and is grateful for the friendship. And Hildy feels like a person of the world again, as she and Rebecca escape their worries with some harmless gossip, and a bottle of wine by the fire—just one of their secrets. 

But not everyone takes to Rebecca, who is herself the subject of town gossip. When Frank Getchell, an eccentric local who shares a complicated history with Hildy, tries to warn her away from Rebecca, Hildy attempts to protect her friend from a potential scandal. Soon, however, Hildy is busy trying to cover her own tracks and protect her reputation.  When a cluster of secrets become dangerously entwined, the reckless behavior of one threatens to expose the other, and this darkly comic novel takes a chilling turn.

Pages: 288 (ebook)

Publisher: Published January 15th 2013 by St. Martin's Press

Rating: 7 out of 10

Source: Purchased for Nook

Date Completed: April 25, 2013

When the Partners, Professors, and Pals book club selected The Good House by Ann Leary I was excited to read about the connection to witches and enjoy the New England setting.  The story that unfolded was not what I expected; however, I still enjoyed the book.  The perspective of Hildy was so engaging.  Initially, I agreed that her children had over reacted.  As the story unfolded, I changed my mind.  

From Hildy's perspective, we get to know other characters and see events unfold. At several points, I wondered how things looked from the other characters' viewpoints. Based on the description, I was expecting a very twisted, intense, surprising ending.  There were some surprises, but I felt like the story kind of puttered out.  After all the build up, things finished very weakly.