ELIZABETH'S MOUNTAIN

Guarino’s novel charts the lives and loves of a grandmother and her granddaughter.

Elizabeth turns 90 surrounded by her family in the home she cherishes. No longer able to live alone without a helper, she now cohabitates with her granddaughter, Amanda, who moved in with Elizabeth after breaking up with her ex. Amanda insists that she’s fine being alone, just working and spending time with her grandmother, but Elizabeth doesn’t want her granddaughter to close her heart to the possibilities that life brings. So begins a story split into two separate narrative threads that follow Elizabeth’s early adulthood in the 1950s and Amanda’s life in the present. In many ways, their stories mirror each other, beginning with Elizabeth’s loss of her fiance and Amanda’s breakup. In 1953, Elizabeth is involved in an accident; in the hospital, she is fortunate to meet the handsome Dr. Joseph Paterson. During her hospital stay, the two develop a close bond, and after a chance reunion some months later, Joe asks her to dinner, beginning a love story for the ages. (“Dr. Paterson chuckled. ‘So you’re free then?’ ‘Free as in tonight or free as in unattached?’ ‘Both.’”) In the present day, Amanda attends a work conference where she happens to meet a passionate attorney named Jesse Taylor, and the two hit it off almost immediately. Life still has curveballs in store for both women, but Elizabeth’s strength and passion and Amanda’s drive (along with the courage she gets from her grandmother) should see them both through. In this modestly scaled novel, the romantic subplot is just the icing on the cake—the real story is about both Elizabeth and Amanda finding their happiness. Guarino’s use of alternating perspectives makes the parallels between the women’s lives even more pronounced and keeps the story moving at a quick pace, never lingering on any particular scene. Though the narrative is relatively brief, the author doesn’t skimp on providing depth for her characters, giving them both love interests and emotional backstories that firmly establish Amanda and Elizabeth as their own separate characters, despite their similarities.

A compelling slice-of-life story, told from two points of view in two different time periods.