Things Remembered (45 page)

Beat butter until creamy. Add sugar and beat until fluffy. Add eggs. Beat well. Sift together dry ingredients (they just need to be mixed together well if you don't have a sifter) and add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. (Start with one third flour mixture, then one third milk, and continue until all ingredients are incorporated.) Stir—use a spoon, not a mixer—in raisins, nuts, applesauce, and oats. Pour batter into greased ring mold. It really cooks best in a ring mold (or angel food cake pan), so only substitute if you absolutely have to.

You can frost with a light glaze for presentation, but it isn't necessary.

Cook at 350 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes. Test with toothpick.

P.S.

About the author

Meet Georgia Bockoven

G
EORGIA
B
OCKOVEN
is an award-winning author who began writing fiction after a successful career as a freelance journalist and photographer. Her books have sold the world over. The mother of two, she resides in Northern California with her husband, John.

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About the book

Discussion Questions for
Things Remembered

  1.   Taking into consideration the emotionally wounded state Karla was in when she came to live with Anna as a child, do you think their adversarial relationship was a given, or was there something Anna could, or should, have done to ease the transition that she didn't?

  2.   How big a factor were the ages of the three girls in their response to Anna when they came to live with her?

  3.   Grandparents taking over the rearing of their grandchildren is not uncommon in today's society. How do you feel about the way the book handles the problems created by combining two vastly different generations? Is love always enough in a situation like this?

  4.   Could Karla have made the transition in her feelings for Anna without coming to terms with her mother's death?

  5.   Do you think Anna was right when she said that she and Karla were alike? How important, or unimportant, was the realization?

  6.   If you were to give Grace her own book, how do you see it ending? Did you like or understand her? Did you see any redeeming qualities in her?

  7.   Do you think Karla, Heather, and Grace carried their emotional baggage into the relationships they had with the men in their lives? How?

  8.   Why do you feel it was so important to Heather to have Anna to herself in the end, even to the exclusion of her sisters, even to the point of going against her doctor's advice and traveling to Sacramento for Thanksgiving?

  9.   
Things Remembered
is a book about women and their relationships. Did you see yourself, your friends, or your own family members in any of the characters? If so, did it hurt or help your enjoyment of the story?

10.   Do you think setting the book in the fall and including the holidays made it different than it would have been had it been set in another season? 

Read on

Have You Read?

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Christine is a young filmmaker, barely out of college, who now must decide if her few precious memories of a man she believed to be long dead are enough to give him a second chance.

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None of these people will leave the beach house the same as they were before. . . .

DISGUISED BLESSING

After years of being alone, Catherine Miller thinks she's finally found happiness. Engaged to an adoring, successful executive, she lives in a luxurious house, and her beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter, Linda, is on the brink of college and adulthood. Then, Catherine's rose-colored world is shattered. Her daughter is burned terribly in a freak accident, and just when Catherine needs him most, her fiancé abandons her. Now Catherine must call on every ounce of courage and strength she has to help her beloved daughter recover. Fortunately, she's got help in fire captain Rick Sawyer, an expert burn counselor. Ruggedly handsome, appealingly down-to-earth, Rick is like no man Catherine has ever met. But Catherine made the wrong choice before. How can she trust her emotions—especially when it's not just her heart at stake but her daughter's life too?

In the tradition of Barbara Delinsky comes this poignant, moving story of the bonds of family, the strength of love, and the courage to dare.

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