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In this superb new novel by the beloved New York Times bestselling author of Open House, Home Safe, and The Last Time I Saw You, four women venture into their pasts in order to shape their futures, fates, and fortunes.
Cecilia Ross is a motivational speaker who encourages others to change their lives for the better. Why can’t she take her own advice? Still reeling from the death of her best friend, and freshly aware of the need to live more fully now, Cece realizes that she has to make a move—all the portentous signs seem to point in that direction.
She downsizes her life, sells her suburban Minnesota home and lets go of many of her possessions. She moves into a beautiful old house in Saint Paul, complete with a garden, chef’s kitchen, and three housemates: Lise, the home’s owner and a divorced mother at odds with her twenty-year-old daughter; Joni, a top-notch sous chef at a first-rate restaurant with a grade A jerk of a boss; and Renie, the youngest and most mercurial of the group, who is trying to rectify a teenage mistake. These women embark on a journey together in an attempt to connect with parts of themselves long denied. For Cece, that means finding Dennis Halsinger. Despite being “the one who got away,” Dennis has never been far from Cece’s thoughts.
In this beautifully written novel, leaving home brings revelations, reunions, and unexpected turns that affirm the inner truths of women’s lives. “Maybe Freud didn’t know the answer to what women want, but Elizabeth Berg certainly does,” said USA Today. Elizabeth Berg has crafted a novel rich in understanding of women’s longings, loves, and abiding friendships, which weave together into a tapestry of fortunes that connects us all.
Praise for Elizabeth Berg
“Truth rings forth clearly from every page. [Elizabeth] Berg captures the way women think—and especially the way they talk to other women—as well as any writer I can think of.”—The Charlotte Observer, about Talk Before Sleep
“Elizabeth Berg’s gift as a storyteller lies most powerfully in her ability to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, the remarkable in the everyday.”—The Boston Globe
“Berg’s writing is to literature what Chopin’s études are to music—measured, delicate, and impossible to walk away from until their completion. [Grade:] A+.”—Entertainment Weekly
“A writer whose luminous prose is likely to stay with you a long, long time.”—Chicago Tribune
“Berg could be creating a new genre. . . . [She] is especially wonderful at depicting the small revealing moments of women’s friendships, the offhand sharing of secrets in the grocery store.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Berg’s impeccable prose gives voice to that element in our psyche that enables us to cope with the impossible. . . . Berg writes on a higher plane.”—Booklist
“One of the most life-affirming writers around.”—The Miami Herald
“Berg has a gift for capturing the small, often sweet details of ordinary life.”—Newsday
Elizabeth Berg is the author of many bestselling novels, including The Last Time I Saw You, Home Safe, The Year of Pleasures, and Dream When You’re Feeling Blue, as well as two collections of short stories and two works of nonfiction. Open House was an Oprah’s Book Club selection, Durable Goods and Joy School were selected as ALA Best Books of the Year, Talk Before Sleep was short-listed for an Abby Award, and The Pull of the Moon was adapted into a play. Berg has been honored by both the Boston Public Library and the Chicago Public Library and is a popular speaker at venues around the country. Her work has been translated into twenty-seven languages. She lives near Chicago.
Since then, Berg has written subsequent novels, most of them, like Durable Goods, sincere, unpretentious, somewhat sentimental, and focused on an event that changes a woman's life. In Joy School (1997), a continuation of Katie's story, the crucible is her first taste of romance; in What We Keep (1998), it's a girl's abandonment by her mother; in Until the Real Thing Comes Along (1999), it's a woman's love for a gay man. All are grounded in the realistic minutiae of family life: irksome marriages, tempestuous parent-child relationships, love, betrayal, and resolution.
Although her books have received mixed reviews from critics, Berg remains immensely popular with readers who appreciate her fine powers of observation and honest descriptions. Her command of authentic details is on best display in her medically-themed titles. Before she became a full-time writer, Berg was a registered nurse, where she accumulated an endless store of observations related to sickness, healing, and the emotional toll that health crises take on people. In Range of Motion, Berg wrote about the experience of a comatose man; in Talk Before Sleep, about a nurse caring for a good friend who is succumbing to cancer; in Never Change, about a nurse treating an incurably ill man who also happens to have been a childhood acquaintance.
Although Berg's plots can occasionally be predictable, equally predictable is her taut, intelligent foray into the forces that shape ordinary people's lives -- especially women's lives -- and her exploration of the infinite resilience of the human spirit.
Berg hasn't managed to get her way when it comes to titling her books, usually getting overruled by her agent and editor. She wanted to call Durable Goods The King of Wands, after a tarot card; Range of Motion would have been Telling Songs; and Open House would have been The Hotel Meatloaf. Perhaps Berg should be thankful for her handlers?
Durable Goods was never meant to have a sequel, Berg says in a publisher's interview, but she ended up writing Joy School (and later True to Form) because she missed the original characters. Berg explains: "There was just a time when I was lying in the bathtub, and I thought about Katie, and I got out of the bathtub and started writing about her to see what she was up to."
Anonymous
Posted Sun Apr 14 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Where is the Elizabeth Berg of a few years ago? Tapestry of Fortunes was yet another disappoint in a string of disappointing Berg novels. The story line had potential, but was lost in the impossibility of circumstances. For example, the main character ( the voice of the novel) gives up her career, lists and sells her home and most of it's contents, and packs up and moves into a house with three women she doesn't know....all within a few hours. The potentially interesting problems facing the four women are glossed over and neatly (and happily) resolved by a short road trip across the Midwest. This book is too hard to relate to, too unrealistic, too absurd to believe. The characters are one-dimensional and not very likeable. . It is sad, because the tender and compassionate insight Ms. Berg used to have is gone. What happened to her gift of creating characters you would love to know, facing problems you also had? I will not read another of Ms. Berg's offerings. There are too
many worthier books to read. If you want to read Berg, please try her first four or five novels. They will touch your heart in a very special way.
3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.MrsO
Posted Fri Apr 12 00:00:00 EDT 2013
I am very confused. In the description of this book, it says it has 240 pages. So I am enjoying the read and suddenly a new chapter begins and what is to be a summary of what has happened to the characters in the past year. Now this is on my nook, and on page 198 the book is over. It then begins the first chapter of her Open House book, which I read years ago, so I have no desire to read it again and did not think I was paying for this...not a word is said about this book in the description. So I am giving this book one star because it was more like a short story with just glimpses of a beginning, middle and end. I have read every one of Elizabeth Berg's books. This one has just left me puzzled.
3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Debles
Posted Wed Apr 17 00:00:00 EDT 2013
I wish I had read the review below before reading the book. It said the book was almost 400 pages on my Nook. I was enjoying the story and all of sudden , it is obviously a wrap up chapter, skipping a year and didn't wrap up any of the stories of the other three characters! What a disappointment! and a waste of money for a book of 200 pages. I liked the story but so bummed at how short it was and didn't even wrap up the story!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted Thu Apr 11 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Sounds good
1 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Sometimes a book comes along at just the right time in our lives. This is true for Tapestry of Fortunes. A lovely story, well written and thought provoking.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Liz Berg is back, but not wholly 100% in her latest book, which I just finished.
It ended abruptly, w/ a succeeding old 1990 story
'Open House,' which I read years ago.
And guess what? 'Open House' was a 5 star, and her recent a 4 star! I will keep reading Berg's books, though, if not for her human content and poetic words. They can take you away...BeachGal
stovetop4you
Posted Wed Apr 24 00:00:00 EDT 2013
I enjoyed the book just fine but was shocked that while reading it on my Nook that it ended suddenly on page 198 when it indicates that there are 398 pages. On page 196 begins "Open House which I have already read. I felt very cheated. I will be very careful from now on when purchasing my Nook books.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted Wed Apr 17 00:00:00 EDT 2013
It was not her best but it was still good. The lessons learned are worthwhile. I would have liked to seen more fleshed out. Im a sucker for a happy ending though. Her last book was awful, this one is much better!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted Tue Apr 16 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Once again I truly enjoyed reading another heartwarming and at times life affirming novel. Will wait anxiously for her next book.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted Thu Apr 11 00:00:00 EDT 2013
No text was provided for this review.
Overview
In this superb new novel by the beloved New York Times bestselling author of Open House, Home Safe, and The Last Time I Saw You, four women venture into their pasts in order to shape their futures, fates, and fortunes.
Cecilia Ross is a motivational speaker who encourages others to change their lives for the better. Why can’t she take her own advice? Still reeling from the death of her best friend, and freshly aware of the need to live ...