Thursday, March 1, 2012

Twelve Rooms with a View

If you, like me, are HGTV fanatics and especially if you like shows like Selling New York, you will enjoy the book Twelve Rooms with a View by Theresa Rebeck.  It has everything - wild Manhattan real estate, crazy family dynamics, the 90% and the 1% and those somewhere in between.

Tina is the youngest of three sisters whose mother was an alcoholic, married a reclusive man and pretty much dropped out of their lives.  Tina hasn't made any sort of success out of her life thus far and her sisters treat her like she never will amount to anything.

Unexpectedly, they learn that their mother has died and has left them an apartment in Manhattan. When they get the keys from their mother's lawyer, they find that the apartment consists of twelve rooms in a historic building, and is probably worth millions.  It's such a vast apartment that the second kitchen has been rented to another resident of the building so he could create a "mossery" in it.  Yes, the kitchen is filled with many varieties of moss.

Since Tina was living in a trailer park at the time, they move her into the apartment.  While this sounds like a grand bit of luck for Tina, there is very little furniture in the apartment, and her sisters tell her not to leave the apartment because it turns out that their mother's husband has two sons who grew up in the apartment and they believe they should inherit the place.

After she receives a very unpleasant visit from the drunken brothers in the middle of the night, Tina installs deadbolts on the inside of the door to protect herself from the brothers and from her sister, Lucy, who turns up whenever she likes and makes Tina's life miserable.

Lots of drama ensues as Tina meets other residents of the building, none of whom want Tina and her siblings or the brothers to inherit the apartment.  Tina makes some friends, finds a secret passage, solves a ghostly mystery and does some long overdue maturing.  This is a great tale that will keep you turning the pages to see what could possibly happen next.




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