Secret Lives

 Fiction by Diane Chamberlain

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Eden Riley is a successful actress with a young daughter who has just gone through a divorce. Her ex-husband claims she is unknowable and incapable of intimacy, and while Eden does not believe that is true, she acknowledges to herself that she is much more comfortable in the artificial world of Hollywood pretending than she is within real relationships. 

She decides to try to delve into her past a bit as a possible remedy for this trouble, and announces that she will begin working on a film about her famously reclusive mother Katherine Swift. In this way she hopes to keep a semblance of professional distance from the more painful aspects of her own past, but will that actually be possible?

This was a really good book!

I also read recently by this author: Reflection

In the Time of Our History

 Amazon Prime Kindle Fiction by Susanne Pari

https://www.amazon.com

Mitra Jahani feels like she gave up a lot to save her younger sister Ana. When their controlling Iranian-American father refused to let Ana get married until Mitra agreed to marry also (to a suitable Iranian boy chosen by her father, of course), Mitra acquiesced to the wedding but backed out at the last minute in a dramatic fashion: she had sterilization surgery and rendered herself unmarriageable.

But then Ana died suddenly, and since her death Mitra has struggled to find a purpose for herself in this world where she is sisterless. Now it is the one-year anniversary of Ana's death and Mitra is traveling to New York for the family ceremony. (Apparently Iranians have a second funeral service for this. I think it's a really interesting idea.) Mitra must finally confront her estranged father and try to come to terms with Ana's death all at once.

This was a good character story about both Iranian culture and about the relationship between sisters.

I also read recently (for free) from Amazon Prime Kindle: Don't Believe it