Reviews of Sass & Serendipity
. . . the book exudes personality. Though biographic in nature, the book reads like a novel. Romance, danger, intrigue, exultant highs, crushing lows, and hell, even a car chase of sorts. All the ins, outs, highs and lows that make up life . . .
Masters begins this, her second book, having narrowly escaped death in a Japanese prison camp in Occupied China. The end of World War II brings her to the United States, where life away from her beloved China feels daunting. But those qualms are soon swept away when her life becomes full of twists and turns, taking her places she never dreamed, through adventures in the fashion industry, the building boom of the fifties, and into the space race. Along the way, she meets and marries Jay, her special love, and they end up in the Sierra Foothills of Northern California, where they raise two daughters, acres of fruit, gallons of cider, thousands of pies, and a considerable amount of hell.
Sass & Serendipity is a very well written book. Masters has a way with words and a direct approach to life that makes you cheer her triumphs and feel her anguish in turn. Learned the hard way, she has a never-look-back way of seeing things that we all could use. It’s a delight to read.
— Tom Williams, Hidden Passage Books
Even though Sass & Serendipity is fast-paced and highly entertaining, a certain amount of heartbreak manifests in Masters’ life saga. Kaleidoscopic in approach, it offers up a riveting read . . . allowing readers to become acquainted with Masters’ indomitable spirit and her total commitment to life as an event to be vibrantly experienced rather than endlessly endured.
— Rosemary Smith, Mountain Democrat
I read Sass & Serendipity with unflagging interest and admiration of your writing ability, especially the way you whiz along through hell and high water with a jaunty air. The book fascinates, not only because it traces an unusual life — yours — but also because it just as jauntily traces our collective history from the end of WW2 to the present era.
Starting with the exuberance of young people entering the land of promise (your first paragraphs are priceless), we soon see the big, brawny U.S.A. in all its sprawl: SoCal Edison promoting electric kitchens far and wide; the vibrant dance scene as it once was; details of the ever-interesting world of fashion design. And, as if that’s not enough, we’re soon on the tail of the rockets and [one of] the highest-paid females in the space industry. And before it’s over we get an inside view of Apple Hill; a young printing business; and some tragic misfirings of the environmental movement. Those lawsuits were wrenching . . .
— Naida West, acclaimed history novelist, whose books Eye of the Bear, River of Red Gold, and Rest for the Wicked have won major awards
Updated August 2011