By age 50, Elin Boals has created for herself a perfect life: her wildly successful business as Manhattan's preeminent fashion photographer is flourishing. Her handsome, patient husband is devoted to her; her teenaged daughter, Alice, has been accepted to the ballet academy of her dreams. But then Elin receives an innocuous looking envelope. Folded inside is a star-chart, with an address written by a familiar hand. At once a family story and a mystery, A Question Mark Is Half a Heart traces a surprising journey across continents to reconciliation, and toward finding a true sense of home.
Elin is a complex character with a compelling story, and Lundberg avoids the obvious resolutions that readers may expect in favor of a deeper exploration of the meaning of love, forgiveness, and family. This satisfying novel will appeal to fans of Lisa Duffy and Patti Callahan Henry.
Lundberg’s sophomore work (after The Red Address Book) deftly and sensitively tells Elin’s past and present life stories in the ever-popular alternating chapter format. She builds Elin’s story slowly, but once the OMG moment hits, readers will turn the pages as if they are burning. For fans of narratives about conflicted and tormented heroines trying to make peace with their pasts.
In this tense outing, Lundberg (The Red Address Book) follows photographer Elin as she attempts to come to grips with the course of her life ... As the novel continues, Lundberg gradually reveals the complexity of Elin and Fredrik’s bond and the entwined relationship of their families ... The author succeeds at painting a picture of Elin and Fredrik’s intersecting families, as Elin grapples with the decisions she made for self-preservation. Readers will soak up the suspense as they search for the truth alongside Elin up until the end.
