What is Yvette Manessis Corporon reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Yvette Manessis Corporon, author of When the Cypress Whispers.

Her entry begins:

You know that incredible feeling when you fall deeply and madly in love with a book? When you feel you are in the room with the characters, when your chest is so full of emotion that you can’t breathe and the tears spill down your cheeks and wet the page? Yeah, that’s how I feel about Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto.

Bel Canto has been on my “to read” list for quite some time and I finally pulled it out and read it on a recent vacation in Mexico. There I was, sitting on the sand in Cancun, surrounded by my friends and husband, but Ann Patchett...[read on]

About When the Cypress Whispers, from the publisher:

On a beautiful Greek island, myths, magic, and a colorful cast of mortals come together in a lushly atmospheric debut celebrating the powerful bond between an American woman and her Greek grandmother.

The daughter of Greek immigrants, Daphne has been brought up to believe in the American dream. When her husband dies in a car accident, leaving her with an inconsolable baby and stacks of bills, she channels everything she has into opening her own Greek restaurant. Now an acclaimed chef and restaurateur, she has also found a second chance at love with her wealthy, handsome fiancé.

Although American by birth, Daphne spent many blissful childhood summers on the magical Greek island of Erikousa, which her grandmother still calls home. At her Yia-yia's side, she discovered her passion for cooking and absorbed the vibrant rhythms of island life, infused with ancient myths and legends lovingly passed down through generations. Somehow her beloved grandmother could always read her deepest thoughts, and despite the miles between them Daphne knows Yia-yia is the one person who can look beyond Daphne's storybook life of seeming perfection to help her stay grounded. With her wedding day fast approaching, Daphne returns to Erikousa and to Yia-yia's embrace.

The past and the present beautifully entwine in this glorious, heartfelt story about a woman trapped between the siren call of old-world traditions and the demands of a modern career and relationship. When Daphne arrives on Erikousa with her daughter, Evie, in tow, nothing is the way she recalls it, and she worries that her elderly Yia-yia is losing her grip on reality. But as the two of them spend time together on the magical island once again, her grandmother opens up to share remarkable memories of her life there—including moving stories of bravery and loyalty in the face of death during World War II—and Daphne remembers why she returned. Yia-yia has more than one lesson to teach her: that security is not the same as love, that her life can be filled with meaning again, and that the most important magic to believe in is the magic of herself.

Learn more about the book and author at Yvette Corporon's website.

Writers Read: Yvette Manessis Corporon.

--Marshal Zeringue