Dear Great Book Guru,  As summer is  winding down,  I want to make sure I take advantage of all the wonderful events still to come.  I will certainly be at Sunset Serenade on Thursday, Music at the Beach on Friday, and the great Cinema Under the Stars on Sunday at Roslyn Park featuring the classic Disney film “Mary Poppins.”  Well, with all this going on, I  want to have a good book on hand- any suggestions? Loving the Last Days of Summer

Dear Loving the Last Days of Summer,  I recently read  THE GOOD HOUSE by Ann Leary and I think you will find it very interesting.  Hildy Good and her family  have lived for generations  in Wendover, a small town  on the rocky north shore of Massachusetts not far from Boston.  As a successful real estate agent, recovering  alcoholic, and sometime psychic , she finds herself involved in the lives of her many friends and clients. When she sells a house to a wealthy young couple from Boston, a strange new chapter begins for her as her struggles with alcohol intensify.  At first she seems  in control but gradually things begin to fall apart as she tries to explain away her blackouts and increasingly bizarre behavior . When the town rallies to find a young  missing boy, Hildy and the reader  fear she is somehow responsible for his disappearance.  Throughout, the author presents us with a compassionate, albeit terrifying, portrait of a complex, tortured woman. Highly recommended!