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I really loved The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd's first work of fiction) when I read it six years ago. Honestly, I think I might have read some of her other books - The Dance of the Dissident Daughter or The Mermaid's Chair - but I can't remember at all.

This book might also be mostly forgettable. A kind of memoir/travelogue in the vein of Eat, Pray, Love, co-written by Kidd and her daughter, the book deals with life transitions that women face. As Kidd and her daughter (Ann Kidd Taylor) prepare for a trip to Greece, Kidd is facing menopause and the realities of aging and death. Taylor, struggling with depression, is trying to find her calling in life. Heavy on introspection and light on plot, the women travel through Greece, and later France, and meditate on Mary, Joan of Arc, and the women of Greek Mythology - particularly Demeter and Persephone - as a way to come to grips with their own lives.

Although I wasn't in love with this book and I found some of the feminist spirituality (you could hardly call it feminist theology) a little shaky, I did - as a daughter, and as the mother of a daughter - find the women's relationship and interactions compelling, and I did find myself thinking about some of their stories after I finished the book.