Michelle Richmond

The Year of Fog

Peggy Walker

I loved this book!! This story is so beautifully written. The author expresses so well how one would feel when the unthinkable happens. The disbelief, the frantic panic, the terrible guilt. She uses a recurring refrain that really lured me in: "Here is the truth, this is what I know. I was walking on the beach with Emma. It was very cold and foggy. I let go of her hand." Life is so fragile. I have to say that her hunt for Emma was a bit out there, but I'm not taking points off for that. Her story just leapt off the page and into my heart and mind. Excellent. Highly recommended.

Cindy Lieberman

I originally picked up this novel looking for fiction set in Costa Rica. However, this is primarily set in San Francisco. Fortunately I also like SF. Costa Rica is not even mentioned until about 2/3 of the way into the story! And it’s a heartbreaking one. A woman is at the beach with her fiancé’s 6-year-old daughter. The girl is looking for sand dollars while the woman is following and also taking photos. The woman stops to examine a dead sea lion in the sand and when she looks up, the girl is nowhere to be found. This begins a long and emotionally fraught search. I won’t spoil it but the ending is not exactly as I expected (in other words, I didn’t predict the final outcome). I also enjoyed the author’s deeper dives into photography (although the workings of the quirky Holga camera did become repetitive and should have tied more to the plot in my opinion) as well as memory research. At its heart the story asks the reader to consider what makes a family.

The Year of Fog

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