Paul Adams

A retelling of the tale of Jack and the beanstalk he climbed.

Summary of Anne Tyler's A Spool of Blue Thread is the poignant story of four generations of the Whitshank family living in Baltimore. They are an ordinary family like any other, but they are also special in their own quirky ways. The members of the family love and care for each other, but they also harbor jealousies, rivalries, and carry secrets. Red Whitshank runs the family business, Whitshank Construction. His wife, Abby, is a social worker, and...

The lives of two teens, a French girl and a German boy, improbably intersect at the end of World War II in All The Light We Cannot See. Before the war, Marie-Laure LeBlanc, who has been blind since childhood, lives comfortably in Paris with her father, Daniel, who is the key master for the natural history museum…

Summary of Elin Hilderbrand's The Rumor takes place during the summer in Nantucket, a hot bed of rumor, passion, friendship, and excitement, a seemingly sleepy town that is full of secrets and scandal. At the heart of things is Grace, her husband, Eddie, her best friend, Madeline, and Madeline's husband, Trevor…

Summary of Debbie Macomber's Last One Home is a novel about persevering through tough times. It also shows how strong the bond between sisters can be. Sisters Karen, Cassie, and Nichole have a happy childhood. They play hide-and-seek and other games with the children in the neighborhood. This changes when Cassie, at the age of eighteen, goes against the advice of her family and marries Duke Carter. She leaves her family after a terrible argument with...

Summary of Danielle Steel's Prodigal Son is the story of a man who loses everything that he considers important in his life only to discover how much more there is to happiness. His process of self-discovery includes reconciling with his long estranged twin brother, divorcing his wife, and then discovering a shocking secret that changes everything. The story has twists, turns, and revelations and the main character evolves along with the story. Peter...

Summary of Dorothea Benton Frank's All The Single Ladies is a novel by Dorothea Benton Frank that centers on three women brought together by the death of a friend, Kathryn Harper. Lisa St. Clair is in dire straits. She lost all of her money in a failed yoga studio business and has been reduced to living in a home vacated by her parents' elderly friends. She is also estranged from her grown daughter, Marianne, who has chosen to live in Colorado to...

Summary of Heidi Murkoff & Sharon Mazel's What to Expect When You're Expecting a best selling, step-by-step guide to pregnancy, covering everything from before a woman starts trying to conceive to six weeks after the birth. Over the course of that time, a woman's body undergoes numerous changes, as does her personality and her relationships with her partner, doctors, and colleagues…

Summary of Nick Hornby's Funny Girl is a novel by writer Nick Hornby set in Blackpool, England in 1964. It tells the story of twenty-one year old Barbara Parker, a beautiful blonde, who wants to become a comedic actress like Lucille Ball. Barbara wins the Miss Blackpool beauty pageant. Barbara wants more than anything to get out of Blackpool. When she realizes the title of Miss Blackpool commits her to a year of hospital visits and charity events,...

Summary of J.D. Robb's Obsession in Death is a murder mystery by J.D. Robb that features homicide detective, Lieutenant Eve Dallas. This is the fortieth book in this futuristic crime series. Lieutenant Eve Dallas is called to the scene of a murder. Leanore Bastwick, a defense attorney, is the murder victim. A message to Dallas is written on the wall at the murder scene claiming it was done for Dallas and that justice has been served. Dallas and her...