title: Woman with a Parasol
author: Malin, Libby
description: For many years I've had a beef with Leo Tolstoy. In Anna Karenina, he'd written: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Not so, Leo. Unhappy families are the ones with the depressing sameness...Happy families, or at least ones that manage to stay together and make a go of things, find a thousand different accommodations for each other's imperfections, a thousand different sacrifices to make things work. Why hadn't I been able to make those sacrifices for my own marriage? A story that explores the depths of maternal love.... When Toni (Antoinette) cons her reluctant thirty-two-year-old daughter, Belle Norton, into accompanying her on a trip to France, mother and daughter spar about everything from how Belle dresses to her favorite painter, Monet. As they fight and make up over and over again, Belle comes to realize Toni has lured her on this journey to reveal an old secret that threatens to shake her world. To add to her stress, Belle deals with her own motherhood issues as she stays in touch with teen daughter Alyson, who is unhappy over Belle's plans to divorce Alyson's dad, Max. Mother and daughter, daughter and mother make their way through the gardens of their own love stories, encountering thorns that prick and beauty that enriches beyond measure. Award-winning author Libby Malin has penned a funny, sweet story that holds at its core an age-old mystery: What is the depth of a mother's love? ____