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A Matter of Happiness by Tori Whitaker

What's It About?

The story is told in alternating chapters, sharing the lives of Melanie Barnett, a 28-year-old marketing manager for a Louisville distillery, and her great-great aunt Violet, born in 1901.

If you ever kept a diary or journal, you probably thought about what would happen if someone else read it. And what if that reader was a family member dealing with the same issues you were, generations apart? This is the premise of A Matter of Happiness (Lake Union Publishing) by Tori Whitaker.

INTERGENERATIONAL STORY OPENS A CENTURY OF SECRETS

The story is told in alternating chapters, sharing the lives of Melanie Barnett, a 28-year-old marketing manager for a Louisville distillery, and her great-great aunt Violet, born in 1901. When we meet them, each woman is at a crossroads in her life, trying to balance the expectations of their families, society and themselves as they try to forge their own path.

When we first meet Melanie, she is at Violet’s home, which was left to her mother when Violet died 14 years earlier. It’s finally time to sell the house, which means everything must go. Melanie’s focus is the garage, where Violet’s very old car, a Jordan MX, sits moldering away. It also happens to be the one thing left to Melanie in Violet’s will.

While rummaging around in the car, Melanie discovers Violet’s diary with a note, telling her to “take from this story what you will, and bury the rest.” Needless to say, Melanie is intrigued, and her reading of the diary provides the “Violet” chapters of the novel.

What follows is the story of two young women connected across time by the desire to forge their own paths. In the early 1920s, Violet wants a career more than a family, and fears that committing to a man means giving up on her own dreams. Melanie is brokenhearted when, in 2018, she finds the same inability to balance love and her passion for her work.

A PORTRAIT OF SELF-DISCOVERY IN THE JAZZ AGE

The novel provides glimpses into the growing automobile industry in 1920s Detroit, where Violet lives and the plight of women who are forced to work in inhumane connections for low pay. We also get to see the growth of the boutique spirits world in 21st-century Kentucky as Melanie tries to make a name for herself. Throughout the story, we’re reminded that issues facing women in the world of work and life may have changed but still feel familiar.

Ultimately, A Matter of Happiness is a story about listening to and trusting yourself, while surrounded by family, friends, love and loss. It’s an entertaining historical fiction read that’s the perfect antidote for a rainy afternoon.

 

About Tori Whitaker:

Tori Whitaker is the bestselling author of Millicent Glenn’s Last Wish and A Matter of Happiness. She belongs to the Bourbon Women Association and the Historical Novel Society. Her work has appeared in the Historical Novels Review and Bookmarks magazine. Tori graduated from Indiana University, is an alum of the Yale Writers’ Workshop, and is recently retired from a national law firm where she served as a chief marketing officer. She spent a decade in Detroit because of her husband’s career in the automotive industry. The two now reside near their children outside Atlanta and have been married for 45 happy years. Connect with Tori through her website.

Buy this Book!

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A Matter of Happiness by Tori Whitaker
Publish Date: November 8, 2022
Genre: Fiction
Author: Tori Whitaker
Page Count: 363 pages
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
ISBN: 978-1542038072
Laura McCafferty

Laura McCafferty has been an avid reader since she was a little girl reading with a flashlight under the covers. Today, she is part of a book club that has been together for more than 18 years and has read well over 200 books. When she's not reading, she works as an executive in corporate communications and spends her free time gardening, traveling and spending time with her family and pets.

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