At the heart of THE THREE GRACES OF PEARL STREET is the concept of family, as Elizabeth Wellington Rollins introduces us to the titular Graces --- the matriarch, Graziella; her daughter, Grace; and her granddaughter, Ella. 

Graziella is 96 when the novel begins, so it's clear she’s at the end of her rather prodigious life. Grace's husband, Bill, has asked for a divorce. They've lived apart for the past decade since he moved to Bermuda for his job, but Grace still has the sense of being a wife and mother. She loves the house that they bought with a greenhouse and plants that she tends. Ella dropped out of MIT two weeks before graduation and has been working in a thrift store. But an event at the start of the book brings Ella a bit of fame and upends her life.

"There are surprises and heart-wrenching events, and you will feel like a better person simply for having read this extraordinary novel. I want to be more like Grace, and so will you."

Grace and Ella move in with Graziella for different reasons, and it's their time together --- in the small house on Pearl Street where Graziella's immigrant parents lived and where she was born --- that causes the women, especially the younger two, to open up about their lives and their feelings. This inspiring novel is truly a paean to the strength and resilience of women as we watch Grace and Ella find their inner spirit and bloom.

Graziella is a fabulously complex character. She was a nun until she met and married Frank. Although she wanted many children, she was blessed with only Grace after another baby died as an infant. Graziella is a very private person, and while she does good deeds, they are performed quietly and without fanfare. She's a bit grumpy, exacting (especially when it comes to cooking), and extremely protective of Grace and Ella. But she also is highly intelligent. While she is quite proud of her Italian heritage and culture, she embraces the new cultures in her changing neighborhood and is fierce when she defends new immigrants against the bigotry of others. She is accepting of love in all its permutations and learns to work with technology in spite of her nine decades of life.

Graziella's biggest accomplishment (which can't be shared as it's a spoiler) is not what she values most. Her most sacred joy in life is to help others. She accomplishes that through the food pantry she runs at her church that feeds many in their small New York neighborhood, as well as through the feral cat program she initiated at the local Humane Society. She feeds an old feral cat twice a day, and Grace and Ella end up with rescued cats. I am a cat rescuer myself, and I assist in TNR (trapping, neutering and returning) feral cats, so Graziella's devotion to these helpless animals was especially touching to me.

There's so much to take in as we read this poignant, beautifully written novel --- from Graziella's fight to keep organized religion from taking over her good work, to the people she connects with on a human level and whose lives she changes through her generosity. It's the wisdom Graziella has accumulated over the near century of living that guides Grace and Ella as they move forward in their lives. Grace is taking up Italian, and Ella is learning to cook as Graziella teaches her the proper way to make the Italian food she herself lovingly prepares from her own mother's recipes brought with her from Italy.

THE THREE GRACES OF PEARL STREET is almost magical to read, replete with rescued cats, a food kitchen, and Graziella fighting the cold, misogynistic face of authority on behalf of those who need help and kindness. There are surprises and heart-wrenching events, and you will feel like a better person simply for having read this extraordinary novel. I want to be more like Grace, and so will you. The world would be a better place because of it.