From the Bookshelf of Appomattox Regional Library System…

[close] Fourteen-year old June just lost her beloved and only uncle and godfather, Finn, to AIDS. And although she doesn't fully understand the significance of it, it is an event that changes the entire family dynamic...in particular the relationship between June and her sister. Left with a portrait of the two girls, Finn's last piece of artwork, which now is at the center of the family's lives...the painting becomes almost an additional member of the group, effecting each in a different way. To complicate everything further, there is the entrance of Toby, Finn's partner whom he hid away from the family for years.
A fantastic debut novel from author Carol Rifka Brunt, it is both sad and amusing, and stunningly written. It sheds light on an ostracizing disease that both empathizes with our natural instinct to avoid it, as well as forcing us to acknowledge and accept it at the same time. This is a novel you will read in a weekend, hardly putting it down. Keep an eye on this author...I expect this is only the first of many great novels.