Gravity of Birds

The Gravity of Birds by Tracy Guzeman was chosen by one of my book groups.  It is a book that has been on my TBR pile for a short while, so I was glad to pick it up to read.  I thought that I had read another novel by this author, but apparently I wrong, as this is her debut novel and it doesn't appear that any other novels by her are out there. 

The book is divided into sixteen chapters.  Thirteen chapters are told in the novel's present time (2007) and the other three chapters go back in time (from 1963 to 1972) to tell the background story of the novel  The book starts in August 1963. 

The novel begins with two young girls at a beach side cabin on vacation with their parents, where the family encountered the painter Thomas Bayber, who was staying in the next-door cabin.  Forty-four years later, Thomas, who hadn't painted for the past twenty years, asked his only friend, Dennis Finch to find and sell his painting Kessler Sisters.  Bayber had become a renowned painter and Finch had been an art history professor who had become an expert on Bayber's paintings.  The Kessler Sisters was an unknown, never seen before piece.  And before Finch could sell the painting, he needed to find Alice and Natalie.  And it appears that the women have disappeared.  Finch and art authenticator, Stephen, began the search to find the women and during their search they began to unravel life-changing secrets that were kept from all parties concerned.

This was a very interesting and compelling book.  I really enjoyed the story.  , and thought that the writing was excellent. Here's a very brief sample of the writing where Alice is talking about the pain she suffered from arthritis:

"I worry there's nothing left of the person I was supposed to be, beyond the pain.  Sometimes I can't separate myself from it.  I think about how when I'm gone, then the pain will be gone, too.  We'll have finally canceled each other out.  Maybe it will be like I was never here at all."

My only criticism is that at the very end the author threw in a rather irrelevant (I thought) added secret that I thought took away from the actual story.  Having said that, it did not alter the ending nor my pleasure reading the book!