Authenticity, by Deirdre Madden

Finding a new favorite author is a lovely bit of serendipity. Sometimes the prose itself blows me away and, as for example with Cold Mountain, I stop at the end of the first page and tell myself to slow down and savor it. Sometimes, as with Last Orders or Angela’s Ashes, I fall in love with the voice. With other books, the plot grips me or the protagonist is someone I want to spend time with. Here all of these elements are done well, but none stands out. It is simply a good story well-told, a...