This is the story of two women, Lila—an older woman who was forced to give up her baby for adoption as a teenager, and Rae, a young woman who would be about Lila’s daughter’s age and has recently found herself to be pregnant, though her live-in boyfriend has recently left her. Rae comes to Lila for a ‘fortune telling’ as Lila reads tea leaves. But what Lila sees in Rae’s teacup leaves her distraught and brings back many unpleasant memories for her and begins to entwine their stories together. This was an interesting story, with some of Hoffman’s usual mystical element to it, Also present is her theme of women ‘finding themselves’ which is fine for an occasional story, but I couldn’t read steady doses of this stuff without pulling my hair out. In short, it was okay but really nothing memorable. In fact, I forgot to add this to my review list and in going back to write this three weeks later, I had a hard time remembering the characters’ names or the plot. ( )

A strange book, but my first introduction to Alice Hoffman, my favorite author. ( )

Rae Perry is a twenty-five year old woman who has spent her young adult years trying to hang on to her irresponsible, self-centered and restless boyfriend. When she finds herself pregnant and alone in the midst of a California heatwave during "earthquake weather" she seeks out the residence of Lila Grey on Three Sisters street whose address she'd gotten from a business card.

As a fortune teller, Lila has little interest in seeing into the future - hers or anyone elses, but her knowledge of Rae's pregnancy unsettles her as it has so many times when other pregnant women come to her. These women bring back memories of her own painful past and Rae, especially, reminds her of what it is like to be pregnant with no one to turn to for help.

The lives of these two women intertwine in a story that is beautifully written in sparing prose. The gentle unfolding of events and the loving attention to ordinary lives is reminiscent of Anne Tyler novels. However, Fortune's Daughter has an almost surreal quality, as if the two women have been half-asleep or waiting for something that they could not name. At its core, this is a story about women gathering the courage to become more than the sum of their haunted longings and learning how to let go of the past. A pleasure to read. ( )

What I love about Alice Hoffman is that there's these cataclysmic events going on... but in the midst of all of this, she finds a way to concentrate on the things that really matter... loss...