Customer Reviews

Coming Together

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In Coming Together, Joyce Norman employs her considerable skill as a first class story teller and takes her readers on an incredible adventure with her main character Daisy. The reader is introduced to Daisy, a very loving, sensitive and
artistic overachiever at a cross roads in her life. Deeply wounded by the breakup of her marriage, a casualty of her professional success, Daisy is presented with the opportunity of a lifetime in the form of the very remarkable Dr. Tsuru. World class scholar and Chairman of the Georgetown University History Department,Tsuru was raised as a Japanese expatriate mostly in Brazil. He bestows upon Daisy the honor of honing his passion for this most exotic place of his youth into a documentary destined to be a crown jewel in his academic life. Tsuru's passion
is contagious and his project puts Daisy on a trajectory she could never have imagined. Through those she mets and is with in Brazil, Isabel, Charlie , Luis and her beloved Clay, Daisy experiences fear, heartbreak, true love and discovers her both her own history and destiny. For those of us along for the ride it's a darned good read!

Getting lost in a novel is one of life's simple joys, and this novel sets up that kind of delight perfectly. I quickly came to care about Daisy and her professional and personal quests, and even caught myself worrying on her behalf at times. Some twists are foreshadowed and others are not, which makes for an engaging read. I read this book in a single afternoon, delighted to get lost in beautiful Brazil for a few hours. But now I'm really curious what Clay is up to...

A recently divorced filmmaker treks to Brazil on a job and finds love...but not just romantic love. When visiting an orphanage, she falls in love with a baby and decides to adopt him. Now, with two loves in her life, her struggles begin. The reader fights alongside, eager for every twist and turn the author reveals.
This is a great read, fast and easy, yet filled with almost unbelievable complicated events. The reader learns surprising information about Brazil and its culture, but more importantly, in the end, witnesses love's triumph.
This is a book with heart and I loved every page!

Recently divorced documentary filmmaker Daisy Gardner jumps at the chance to film a documentary about Brazil. It's in the vibrant city of Rio de Janeiro where she meets Luis, a local cameraman and a member of her team. Initially, Daisy finds the Brazilian arrogant and unapproachable. Upon closer inspection, however, she finds him captivating. Luis, it seems, feels the same way about her.

Quickly too Daisy becomes captivated by Rio. The landscape, the food, and the culture all intoxicate the American. While filming in and around the city, Luis suggests they visit a local orphanage. It's there where Daisy meets Clay, a baby boy born in a funabem, the equivalent of an American ghetto. Immediately she falls in love with the orphan, and soon she decides to adopt him.

Adopting Clay is not as easy it seems, however, and before she knows it Daisy becomes caught in the spider-web complexities of Brazilian bureaucracy. Meanwhile her relationship with Luis deepens. It also becomes more confusing. In the end, will Daisy be able to adopt Clay as well as confirm a long lasting relationship with Luis?

Joyce Norman has written a well-crafted easy-to-read novel based on one woman's transformation from a fiercely independent citizen-of-the-world to some one who is hoping for love and, ultimately, the chance for unlikely people - a Brazilian cameraman, an orphan, and herself - to come together.

Acclaimed filmmaker Daisy Gardner is hired in chapter two of "Coming Together" to create a documentary about Brazil in the early 1980s that accurately depicts the country in all its moods from Rio to the rainforest and from the playground beaches of the rich to the nearby hillside huts of the pragmatic poor. Recently divorced from a man who was jealous about her success and who resented the fact she wasn't ready to start a family, the thirty-two-year-old Daisy is more than ready to plunge into another foreign assignment.

Authors Joyce Norman and Joy Collins foreshadow the ultimate theme of this richly detailed novel in chapter one, as "the large wooden double doors fell in with a thunderous noise like a bomb exploding. Startled, Isabella dropped her fork and stood. When the dust cleared, she saw four Brazilian Federal Police, each holding a machine gun." The police have raided Isabella's home on Rio's Corcovado Mountain where she cares for abandoned children while facilitating their adoption. The policemen grab as many children as they can carry and take them away to a state institution.

As Daisy plans her trip at her Washington, D.C. home, the plight of Brazil's millions of street children some 4,769 miles away is well outside her field of vision. So, too, is a talented Brazilian filmmaker Luis Campos who will join Daisy and her long-time friend, cameraman Charlie Crawford on the project team. Daisy has never heard of Campos, but Charlie has met him and claims he "has the touch" and would be tailor-made for the project.

Once in Rio, Daisy soon discovers Campos' contagious--yet bluntly honest--passion for Brazil and its history. In addition to his skills with a camera, he's the perfect guide for a documentary team seeking the best locations for filming. One such location is Isabella's "A Candeia" orphanage where the team will take dramatic footage of the tall Christ the Redeemer (Cristo Redentor) statue on the mountain's summit.

Once there, Daisy meets the children and a hundred questions come to mind. Why is orphanage hounded by the federal police? Why are those trying to adopt or otherwise help the abandoned children met with so much government scorn and interference? The children, variously considered a national nuisance and a national, scandal become one of the candid subjects for the film as well as cause Daisy finds she cannot overlook.

Isabella says, "If I could tell you the stories of the man babies we have found in garbage cans, in open fields in the Northeast, in filthy stables and God knows where else, then you would understand why I work day and night to get these babies out of Brazil. These babies are little fighters."

While the documentary project serves as the novel's foundation, Joyce Norman and Joy Collins have skillfully blended in Daisy's on-going issues with her ex-husband and her parents to create a well-developed protagonist. The authors' familiarity with the chaotic adoption process in Brazil leads to finely rendered scenes that add tension and urgency to the plot while effectively showing the overarching hopelessness of most street children's future.

As Daisy, Charlie and Luis plan their documentary, the authors' devote a fair amount of space to the sights, sounds, culture, restaurants, slums and architecture of Brazil, most especially Rio de Janeiro--"River of January" with mixed results. These tours bring the city alive through the eyes of a filmmaker; but at times, they are more travelogues than fictional scenes and slow down the plot.

Readers may be unhappy with the authors' decision to indirectly resolve one harrowing event late in the novel via a few off-hand comments made during an after-the-fact conversation. Nonetheless, the plot succeeds. Daisy Gardner's carefully organized business trip to Brazil becomes an unexpected and chaotic personal journey as well as a powerful and heartfelt story.

--Malcolm R. Campbell for POD Book Reviews & More

Daisy, an American documentary filmmaker and newly divorced, and Charlie, an American photographer, go to Brazil to film a documentary for a history professor who has written a book on Brazil and its people. Daisy decides to use a local Brazilian photographer to fill out her crew and meets Lois, who soon becomes her love interest. As they start filming Daisy finds that Rio is a beautiful city, full of lovely beaches, flowers, new buildings, and beautiful people. And when they visit Isabella who runs a private adoption agency in her home on the side of a mountain, Daisy meets her second love interest, Clay, a beautiful infant boy that needs a home.

But Daisy is soon to find out that Brazil has a dark side that will affect both her loves and her life. Things are not always the way they seem and the Brazilian government has little interest in its children, there are far too many orphans for them to care for. Can Daisy complete the filming, keep everyone safe and have the loves and life she wants?

From my point of view, this book was a surprise. I think I was expecting something a little different. Coming Together was more of a romance novel that was luckily very light on the sex scenes and more focused on the emotional lives of Daisy, Lois, Charlie and Isabella. It also delved into both the beauty and ugliness of Brazil. It was an easy and quick read that flowed well and kept moving at a good pace. I would recommend this for an easy afternoon at the beach or a nice day in the hammock.

Coming Together: A novel of Love and Intrigue in Rio
Authors, Joyce Norman & Joy Collins Chalet Publishers, Az., Ala. (2009) ISBN: 978-0-9840836-2-6 $10.99 221 pages


The book is in three locations: Washington D.C., Texas, and Brazil--locations that elicit natural assumptions in readers. These assumptions depict polar-ideals such as: man-made procedures vs. destiny and spontaneity; fear vs. courage; scandal vs. true romance and love; personal family vs. universal family; apathy vs. compassion -- the sense of contradiction throughout the plot will keep you glued to the story, questioning your own values, until its last page. Ironic twists and turns that most books offer are not overtly revealed but are woven into the plot in subtle increments.

Authors Joyce Norman and Joy Collins have created a sophisticated plot, which secures the readers trust in their knowledge of landscape and characterization. Further, they have fleshed out a heroine that begins as a shallow young photojournalist who likes excitement and desires to be a free-spirit; and turns her into a bold and courageous woman of compassion, who can finally settle into all facets of home, family and true love, after a romance that is thoroughly explicit -- unequivocally!

The story follows the life and life perspective of a young photojournalist, Daisy Gardner, whose husband has divorced her literally and emotionally, leaving her depleted and guilty of being an ambitious young woman, definitively not cut out to be a stay-at-home-mom. The reader must remember, although the story is told in third person, it is third person omniscient narration, thus we watch Daisy grow up before our eyes as she reasons her trials and experiences throughout. She takes an assignment to document Brazilian life for a Historian professor, Dr. Tsuru and employs two colleagues: her close family friend and photojournalist -- Charlie, who has curiously lingered around her family all her life--for a reason. Then there is the charming, but abrasive (at first) photojournalist from Rio, Luis Campos, who also has a reason for his initial behavior. Along with these two men come colorful characters that help Daisy see life in a different avenue from her American middle class vantage point.

The story will engage you into a deeper understanding of love, courage, and the pursuit of true happiness. Well worth the purchase, as you will definitely get more than you pay for!

REVIEWER: L. NOLAN-RUIZ, INTERNATIONAL BOOKS CAFE
[...]

Coming Together is a wonderful read. It is a book filled with adventure that is physical and spiritual in its nature for both the characters and the reader. Most of all Coming Together is about love and following your heart no matter what the odds, no matter what the challenge. It is compelling! You will not want to put it down until you are finished.

Coming Together is a book that is filled with intrigue and surprises for the reader. Each chapter ends with an interesting twist, which propels the reader into the next chapter to find out what is going to happen next. It is a compelling story, with facts and a story-line that takes the reader completely off-guard with unsuspected suspense and action, is mesmerizing and carries a real emotional punch. It is a good, solid read that captivates the reader and makes it extremely difficult to put it down. It's a winner. A great new book. Don't miss it.

In an exotic land of beauty and despair, Coming Together is a story disturbing in the truths it reveals and inspiring in the courage and strength of its characters. Picked it up and couldn't put it down until I finished it. Romance is a strong element, but the book's core is about Daisy's struggle against a terrible wrong in the heart of Brazil.