As a displaced native of the Brandywine Valley and a frequent visitor, I found this book to be a delicious portrayal of a unique area. The photography is generous, rich and superb. The reader feels as if he is truly a part of the spectacular rolling hills and historic homes that make the Brandywine a treasure. The text is informative and accurate. After reading this book, one will indeed have an "insider's" view of the region and its special composition of residents, history and natural beauty. Through many years, I have collected several volumes related to the Brandywine Valley. This one is by far my favorite. I have purchased several copies as gifts for friends who cherish the area as much as I, many of whom are long-time residents of the region. They all have related their pleasure and joy with the content of the book. In summation, an excellent effort which I highly recommend. Well done! William Sydnor

I didn't know what to expect from this book after listening to friends talk about it, reading reviews, and the jacket copy. But as soon as I started reading, I was hooked. I found the woman's reactions believable; people's reactions to grief come in many forms, and this dissociated response is but one of many.
In creating a protagonist who was just barely on the sane side of a total breakdown, the author made it possible to stay within her main character's point of view throughout the writing. I found that compelling.
The shift in tone from jaunty, sexy, and hilariously funny to the many lyrically beautiful passages (especially at the end, in the park) didn't bother me. Her flip, sassy, seemingly shallow responses wereclearly defensive. Her deep, gut-level, poignant grief was painful to share. Both felt exactly right.
This Zeidner lady can really write. I don't read poetry, but having finished Layover, I just might check out her poems, too.

Lisa Zeider here delivers a welterweight of a novel, taught, powerful, and quick. Her subject is Claire, a middle age woman who has the perfect upper class life style but is struggling, not only with the death of her young son, but also with trying to find her identity in our complex society which offers women so many conflicting signals. Zeider tells the story powerfully, with humor, grief and a rye attention to detail, all in appropriate measure.

Reading Layover, it comes as no surprise that the author is also an accomplished poet. Her tight prose carries the story beautifully. Where other authors might ruin the story by making it saccharine sweet, she is able to keep it going with powerful imagery and a great mastery of the language. As a reader, we cry for her character?s suffering, laugh at her barbed observations, and feel her sense of dread confusion.

A last personal note. As a reader, I found this novel so evocative that I often considered putting down. The ability to bring forth so many emotions marks this as a worthwhile novel. I highly recommend it.

The grief of losing a child and the process one woman has to go through afterwards, when she is "freed to behave in an irrational manner" after discovering her husband's infidelity (his own reaction to losing their child) is the crux of this, at times painful, at times wry, novel written by Lisa Zeidner. As a mother, I almost could not buy this book...the prospect of losing a child is so awful, I could not imagine being able to read it. However, the reviews were really good, and it had the addition of a possibility --improbably,but I read it in some review somewhere-- of some good sex scenes, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Surprise, surprise. Ms. Zeidner handles this first person narrative, told by Claire Newbold, sucessful travelling saleswoman of medical supplies, wife of Ken Newbold, cardiothoracic surgeon, former mother of Evan, now dead for three years, with extremely deft perception, humor, and compassion. Nobody who makes an appearance in the book is let off the hook, not Zach, Claire's young lover,she picks up while swimming laps in the pool at the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia, not his mother...not his (oh no! oh YES! ) father, and especially not Claire... her pain and semi-breakdown/alienation remind me of another lost soul's: Holden Caulfield. Her intelligence and the extreme oddness of her behavior counterpoint each other until you are gathered so effortlessly into her psyche that her actions make sense, when they shouldn't--and even when SHE herself is pointing that out to you.

Very strikingly written book, charming at times, intense at times, sexy at times, sad at times (yes, and at the end, I cried--but not from sadness...), very different and worth your time.