Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite

In Finding Sutton's Choice by Brenda Haas, Charlotte Sutton returns to Lakeside, Ohio, after a phone call reveals her estranged father, former baseball writer Chuck Sutton, is developing Alzheimer’s disease. Charlotte plans to stay only long enough to help manage his medical appointments before returning to her advertising job in Pittsburgh, but life inside the Sutton family cottage quickly becomes far more complicated. Chuck’s failing memory threatens the future of The Lakeside Line newspaper he spent decades building, while fourteen-year-old Adam Sutton, the half-brother Charlotte never knew existed, forces her to face the issues of her parents’ marriage and her own absence from home. As winter settles over the Lake Erie shoreline community where Charlotte grew up, she becomes increasingly tied to the people, responsibilities, and unfinished relationships she once believed she had permanently left behind.

Brenda Haas writes about reconciliation with the observational patience of a novelist who understands that families usually repair themselves through small humiliations, guarded conversations, and reluctant acts of decency. Haas pays close attention to the social rituals binding the town together. During a Thanksgiving potluck inside the waterfront community hall, Charlotte quietly guides her father through moments of confusion while neighbors study casserole trays to spare him embarrassment. Later, she arrives at Sammy Macon’s salon carrying a red velvet apology cake that cannot erase the history between them, but still changes the room. Charlotte’s growing connection with Adam gives the novel much of its humanity. Lakeside itself feels fully inhabited through frozen Lake Erie sidewalks, crowded marina diners, Victorian cottages, and the lingering habits of small-town journalism. Readers drawn toward family fiction rooted in caregiving, estrangement, and closely connected Midwestern communities will love Finding Sutton's Choice.