Book Review: Island Girl by Lynda Simmons

Title: Island Girl
Author: Lynda Simmons
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Publication Date: December 7, 2010
Paperback: 448 pages
ISBN: 978-0425237243
Genre: Fiction

From the Publisher:

There are people who try hard to forget their problems. All Ruby wants to do is remember…

Ruby Donaldson has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease, and she’ll be damned if she won’t straighten out her troubled family before she no longer knows how.

Ruby spent years fighting to hold on to the home her grandmother built on Ward’s Island. The only way she can ensure that her younger, mentally scarred daughter Grace can live there for the rest of her life is to convince her older daughter, Liz, to sober up and come home.

Ruby always thought she’d have a lifetime to make things right, but suddenly time is running out. She has to put her broken family back together quickly while searching for a way to deal with the inevitable- and do it with all the grit, stubbornness, and unstoppable determination that makes Ruby who she is…until she’s Ruby no longer.

My Review:

Some books stay with a reader longer than others and Island Girl by Lynda Simmons is an extraordinary beautiful and deeply emotional book about a mother’s love of her home, her family, and the battle against time.  Island Girl is most definitely not a beach read, rather it is an emotional story with the protagonist, Ruby Donaldson being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and suddenly must face reality and get her family sorted out before she no longer is capable of remembering them.  Ruby Donaldson is a character that works her way into the reader’s heart.  Her story is one that is not easily forgotten once the book is closed.  Simmons creates a family that is flawed, making the characters that more realistic, a picturesque setting, and an all too realistic scenario, which for this reader would be one of my worst fears made into reality.  Island Girl takes the reader deep into the life of a mother who knows her time to sort her family out is running out and she is desperate to correct the ways of her daughters and set things straight.  How to sum up a book of this magnitude?  Island Girl is a powerful look at a mother’s love, the strong determination of a mother, and the cold hard truth of Alzheimer’s disease.  I would highly recommend this book to all readers and book discussion groups, it is not a light read, nor at times an easy one, but Island Girl is most definitely worth reading.

About the Author:

Lynda Simmons is a writer by day, college instructor by night and a late sleeper on weekends. She grew up in Toronto reading Greek mythology, bringing home stray cats and making up stories about bodies in the basement. From an early age, her family knew she would either end up as a writer or the old lady with a hundred cats. As luck would have it, she married a man with allergies so writing it was.

With two daughters to raise, Lynda and her husband moved into a lovely two storey mortgage in Burlington, a small city on the water just outside Toronto. While the girls are grown and gone, Lynda and her husband are still there. And yes, there is a cat—a beautiful, if spoiled, Birman.

When she’s not writing or teaching, Lynda gives serious thought to using the treadmill in her basement. Fortunately, she’s found that if she waits long enough, something urgent will pop up and save her—like a phone call or an e-mail or a whistling kettle. Or even that cat just looking for a little more attention!

Further information about author Lynda Simmons may be found on her website.

For more reviews of the book, please follow the book tour.

I received an copy of Island Girl by Lynda Simmons from TLC Book Tours to be a part of this tour and offer my honest review of the book. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned book.

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