Review of my new novel

Family Value. Nelson, D. L. (author).

Apr. 2010. 324p. Gale/Cengage, hardcover, $25.95 (9781594148736).
REVIEW. First published March 2, 2010 (Booklist Online).

The house at 392 Chestnut Street is a duplex occupied by the DiDonatos and the Marshes. Life isn’t perfect for either family. Jay Marsh, an attorney, is dealing with his dying, estranged adoptive father. Jay’s wife, Carol, a probation officer working with juvenile offenders, oversees a kid who has become a neo-Nazi, and Carol’s whole family is put in harm’s way. Tony DiDonato, an unemployed college professor, has turned to salvaging and refurbishing furniture. His wife, Laura, a safety engineer, has found out that her company’s dangerous chemicals violate the law, but if she turns the company in, she’ll lose her much-needed job. Nelson has painted a sympathetic portrait of families with problems and issues—many of them major. Her keen eye for detail makes this novel a richly textured, realistic view of the modern American family.

— Shelley Mosley