The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers by Terri-Lynne DeFino (Review by Lara Ferguson)
Rating: 4/5*
At its heart, The Bar Harbor Retirement Home is not just a place where famous writers go to live their final years, it is also a place of healing and acceptance. Terri-Lynne DeFino gives us a cast of characters—in every sense of the word—who are coming to terms with their past lives and embracing their coming days.
For me, this book was about the development of the characters and their relationships with each other. While some of these folks are coming to the end of their days, and others are just beginning to really live, all of them have their secrets and regrets and DeFino does a fantastic job of introducing these and weaving her characters into each other’s lives as she slowly reveals the varied paths they have travelled on their way to the retirement home and the ways they find to support each other in their respective places. Loving each other in spite of or maybe because of their past. Their collaboration heals them all.
When you begin the journey with this cast, they are strangers. When you turn the final page, you can call them friend. All thanks to the prose of Terri-Lynne DeFino.