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Michele VanOrt Cozzens


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Michele VanOrt Cozzens is the author of I’m Living Your Dream Life: The Story of a Northwoods Resort Owner, The Things I Wish I’d Said, A Line Between friends and It’s Not Your Mother’s Bridge Club. (McKenna Publishing Group). Irish Twins is her third novel. She is a former newspaper columnist and, along with her husband and two daughters, is the owner/operator of Sandy Point Resort and Disc Golf Ranch in northern Wisconsin, where they spend their summers. The remaining nine months are spent in Tucson, Arizona, where their daughters attend school. She is the co-founder of the non-profit organization HerBeware, which is dedicated to educating the public about the potential dangers of unregulated herbs found in dietary supplements. Profits from book sales have gone to this cause and to Breast Cancer Research.

Irish Twins

Michele VanOrt Cozzens
McKenna Publishing Group (2010)
ISBN 9781932172362
Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (09/10) 

Read interview with author on ReaderViews.com

Synopsis: This is the story of two sets of Irish Twins—Anne and Molly—and Anne’s daughters, Jennifer and Catherine. Also known as Jenny and Caylie, they are approaching middle age when their mother dies and are left with many unanswered questions about a mother who left them far too quickly. 

The story begins on the day of Anne’s death. She is 80 years old, retired and living with her husband of fifty-four years, Michael. While waterskiing on Mitten Lake in Northern Michigan, she suffers a fatal stroke. We follow her on her journey into the afterlife—a place called Ohr—where she meets her Irish Twin, Molly, who greets her with a hot cup of tea. With Molly as her guide, Anne faces her judgment and witnesses her life and the lives of her surviving husband and five children through endless cups of tea. 

Anne is the narrator and the heart and soul of this tale. She keeps watch over her husband and children, and focuses on her Irish Twins. Jenny, her elder Irish Twin, has a two children and a happy marriage, yet struggles with the onset of middle age. Caylie has three boys, is divorced and facing loneliness and desperation. Meanwhile, the close nature of Jenny and Caylie’s own relationship is falling apart. Can they get back to being the tight-knit, trusting sisters they once were? 

Through Anne’s journey we discover secrets and revelations of a sister, a WWII bride, a wife, a parent, a friend. This is a compassionate and emotional tale about common childhood expectations, which also uncovers unexpected insights about death. Ultimately, Irish Twins is a story about sisterhood and forgiveness.