Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry

These last few weeks have been fun because I've had so many great books to read. I brought home a bunch from the library. And then there was LEARNING TO SWIM by Sara J. Henry, which I received as a Christmas present on pre-order. It arrived right after its release date last month.

I tried to pace myself with LEARNING TO SWIM, just so I could finish some of my library books and get them back to the library. But pacing myself didn't work. I kept going back to it. Which meant that I had to return several of the library books without reading them. Good problem to have, though: liking a book so much you can't put it down.

Here are some things I loved about LEARNING TO SWIM:

1. Main character, Troy Chance, was savvy. She was smart. She was a do-it-yourself type of woman. I liked her and was jealous of her all at once.
2. The plot kept me guessing. I won't spoil it for you, but something happens about a third of the way through that I was not expecting. And then it is resolved in a way I wasn't expecting. And then I thought I had the whole thing figured out, but of course it wasn't as straight-forward as I was expecting. Which, when you're reading suspenseful literature is a very good thing. Exactly what I wanted from this book.
3. The psychology of the book made sense. Troy's actions weren't always *right*, but I never blamed her for anything she did that went against the grain (though, at times, she did make me squirm, which is also good).
4. While I was reading, I kept hearing echoes, pleasant echoes of another book I enjoyed long ago. I had to rack my brain to figure out what it was reminding me of, but the book I landed on was REBECCA. Then on the back cover I noticed someone else had made a connection to REBECCA and after that I knew I wasn't crazy. I loved REBECCA. LEARNING TO SWIM shares the same mysterious flavor. Troy Chance feels like an interloper and has to unravel this family's mystery and it's intriguing and wonderful.

Big round of applause for author Sara J. Henry! And boy, am I glad there's a sequel. Maybe it's the romanticist in me, but I turned the last page and literally gasped, "This can't be the end!"