Review: The Sirens of Soleil City

The Sirens of Soleil City by Sarah C. Johns
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a good book, but apparently not for me, and I usually like books about the over-60 crowd! So many others loved this deep look into motherhood that if it sounds interesting at all, I definitely would give it a shot.

This was a difficult, gritty look into the lives of two mothers who shared a daughter. It also looked into the lives of a granddaughter who is expecting her first baby and a group of senior women who are trying to save their budget retirement home.

One of Cherie's mothers is dying of lung cancer, one Mother is losing her home, and everyone's mess is on Cherie's shoulders to clean up.

This was a very difficult book to read. We jumped around in timelines. We jumped around with Dale's various husbands and figuring out who belonged to whom at various times nearly drove me to distraction.

Not my glass of Zinfandel.

*ARC was supplied by the publisher Random House, the author, and NetGalley.

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SYNOPSIS " Three generations of women learn to own their mistakes and rebuild their bonds as they prepare to compete in the Senior Synchronized Swimming Competition in South Florida.

West Palm Beach, 1999. A phone call summons fifty-eight-year-old Cherie Anderson from a frozen Minnesota to help her two Dale, the mother who left her when she was five and is facing eviction from her budget apartment complex, Soleil City, and Marlys, the mother who raised her from that moment on--and who’s now dying, but won’t admit it to her daughter. Cherie seeks a reason to stay in town long enough to give Dale the help she’s finally asked for and Marlys the help she clearly needs. And she must find a project to distract her pregnant daughter Laura, whose marriage has fallen apart weeks before her due date.

The South Florida Senior Synchronized Swimming Competition seems to be the answer. The publicity from winning the competition, along with the ten-thousand-dollar prize money, could help save Soleil City. With Laura, who used to captain a dance team, as their coach, they’ve got a fighting chance. And with everyone else preoccupied by the competition, Cherie can focus on saving Marlys before it’s too late.

Over the course of a month in an apartment complex filled with feisty, funny, strong-willed women in their 70s, four women who make up an uneasy family will realize that in life, and motherhood, there isn't good and bad. There's only trying to get it right."