Where the Lost Wander by Amy Harmon

Where the Lost Wander by Amy Harmon is a work of historical fiction that tells the story of John Lowry and Naomi May on the Oregon Trail. She's a young widower from a white family, he's half-Pawnee, raised by his white father, without his mother.

John was retained to travel the first part of the journey west by Naomi's travelling party, which included her immediate family of mother and father Winifred and William May and brothers Warren, Will, Webb, and Wyatt. Also part of the group was the Bingham family and Caldwell family, whose son Naomi had been married to. 

The group set out in 1853, and people that made the trip west were in search of a better life, and found many hardships along the way, and encounters with both Indian and illness sometimes fatal. John and headstrong Naomi, who draws and paints, fall in love and John and Naomi marry. At the start of the book, Naomi's mother, father, older brother Warren, and the Binghams are killed by Indians, and Naomi and her youngest brother Wolfe, who was born during the trip, are taken by the tribe. 

John comes across the massacre, sees that Naomi has likely been taken, and goes in pursuit of her. He comes across a group of Shoshoni, including his sister, Hanabi and the chief, Washakie. John learns about a different group of Shoshoni, led by Pocatello, with a reputation for killing white people. Washakie tells of a coming meetup of tribes and there Washakie and John state their case for the release of Naomi and Wolfe, but a vote of the various leaders results in Naomi being released and Wolfe kept, to be raised by a woman, Weda, in Pocatello's band who lost her own baby.

Naomi goes with John and Washakie and his people, but from the death of her parents and brother, and taking of Wolfe, she retreats into herself, lost in grief, hence the Where the Lost Wander book title. Wolfe is brought back to them by Weda as he's sick and she hopes they can heal him. Instead, Wolfe dies in Naomi's arms. He had been loved by many and Naomi and John left Washakie and his people and rejoined Webb, Will, and Wyatt and formed a life. It's a solid book and while still fiction, it's interesting how it based on real people.

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

The Wedding People by Alison Espach is a lovely novel that tells a story about Phoebe Stone, who arrives at a Newport, Rhode Island resort hotel with the intention to take her life.

Phoebe had been left by her husband, was going nowhere at work, and found her cat dead, leaving her in a broken state. Upon arrival at the hotel, she finds herself the only guest not part of a week-long wedding party, and becomes quickly intertwined with Lila and Gary, the respective bride and groom to be.

Lila is used to being the center of attention and Gary older, and has a daughter, Juice, from his wife who got cancer and died. Espach writes of how people have a part to play at the wedding, and that includes telling the bride how perfect everything is. Phoebe comes in and doesn't feel a compunction to lie given that she was going to take her own life. She forms relationships that matter with Lila, Gary, and Juice.

Events wind up having Phoebe be tapped as the maid of honor, and the toast she writes is lovely. She was going to say, "a wedding is a huge waste of money, but it's also true that this wedding will never be a waste. Because I came here to die. And now look at me. Lila, every day this week, you gave me a reason to get up in the morning, to put on a beautiful dress and be part of something, and for that I will always be grateful."

At the end, Espach writes this about Phoebe, to be alive, she must leave this hotel, despite the uncertainties of everything. Walk down the long hallway of that mansion come winter, not knowing what will become of her, which is a thing that does scare her. But she also feels a thrill imagining the candles she'll light at night. Frank, the nineteenth-century yellow dog, who will sleep on her bed as she writes. The snow dusting the ocean.

It's a lovely story of someone falling into a situation and then how the characters lives touch each other. The book is immensely entertaining, but most of all has heart.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrick Backman

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman is a novel that tells the story of seven-year-old Elsa, who is different than other kids and often picked on at school. 

Her best, and only, friend is her grandmother, seventy-seven years old and crazy—as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. At night, Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s adventure begins. Her grandmother’s instructions lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and old crones but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms, and new friends from her grandmother's world, including Wolfheart. The story is an odd one, but finishes nicely, and is about being different, having family, friends, and protectors.