Write My Name Across the Sky

3.5 somewhat confused stars. Barbara O'Neal (aka [a:Barbara Samuel 175137 Barbara Samuel https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1296597110p2/175137.jpg] and [a:Ruth Wind 53017 Ruth Wind https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1619552320p2/53017.jpg]) is one of my favorite Women's Fiction authors. Once again she spins a compelling tale of women at a crossroads while negotiating complex family dynamics. I was especially thrilled that one of the narrators is a 70+ year old woman with a vibrant, full life. Gloria is a former stewardess who is now an Instagram influencer. When she learns that the great love of her life, who she hasn't seen in years, has been arrested for art forgery and theft, she realizes that her days of freedom may be numbered, as she was often his willing accomplice. She's tempted to flee, but she is reluctant to leave her two nieces who need her help and wisdom. Willow and Samantha are half-sisters whose mother Billie was a famous folk-rock star before her untimely death from a drug overdose. Willow has just arrived in New York after another failed relationship, determined to shed her “manic pixie dream girl” behavior and find success in the music world on her own terms. Sam's once profitable video game company is floundering after several poorly received releases and the loss of its best coder - Sam's best friend Asher, who she pushed away in a panic after they briefly became lovers.Like most of O'Neal's recent books, there is a lot of plot, and frankly not enough pages to fully flesh it all out. But the focus on the challenging dynamics between the sisters, and Gloria's unique role in their lives, is written beautifully, like one of Willow's compositions. It is so refreshing to find a septuagenarian character in Women's Fiction, especially one who still dreams and desires, albeit perhaps from a more realistic place than her nieces. As Gloria muses: The great tragedy of aging is not the loss of the supple body but the illusion we are forced to leave behind, one after the other, like a string of pearls from a necklace. That all will be well, that dreams can come true, that we can always do what we wish, that sacrifice and sorrow are not inevitable. The reason for my somewhat confused rating is my ambivalence towards the way the art theft is portrayed. Both Gloria and her former lover Isaac had mothers whose lives were destroyed by the Nazis in WWII, and it is briefly mentioned that the thefts were from a hidden cache of Nazi holdings. So does that make the thefts justifiable? Was any attempt made to return them to their original owners? What about the forgeries that were sold to collectors who thought they were the real thing? Gloria doesn't express much regret about her part in these crimes, other than considering them youthful indiscretions. Instead she focuses on not getting caught and protecting her nieces. I realize I'm a judgmental old fart, but even if I didn't want to see such a vibrant individual in prison, I wanted to see at least some attempt at restitutions or atonement for an illegal act. The more cynical part of me, however, thinks that in today's world where there is so little justice for political crimes (trying to steal a presidential election and so forth), decades-old thefts that didn't harm anyone shouldn't be considered such a big deal. There's very little black and white morality left in the world, so I should probably just chill out and enjoy the story. TL;dr - Barbara O'Neal has been writing consistently great stuff for 30 years, and she should include more MCs like Gloria for mature readers like me to appreciate. Uncorrected proofs received from Net Galley in exchange for honest review.