The Hurricane Sisters: A Novel

by Dorothea Benton Frank

Synopsis:

Best friends since the first day of classes at The College of Charleston, Ashley Anne Waters and Mary Beth Smythe, now 23 years old, live in Ashley's parents' beach house rent-free. Ashley is a gallery assistant who aspires to become an artist. Mary Beth, a gifted cook from Tennessee, works for a caterer while searching for a good teaching job. Though they both know what they want out of life, their parents barely support their dreams and worry for their precarious finances.

While they don't make much money, the girls do have a million-dollar view that comes with living in that fabulous house on Sullivans Island. Sipping wine on the porch and watching a blood-red sunset, Ashley and Mary Beth hit on a brilliant and lucrative idea. With a new coat of paint, the first floor would be a perfect place for soirees for paying guests. Knowing her parents would be horrified at the idea of common strangers trampling through their home, Ashley won't tell them. Besides, Clayton and Liz Waters have enough problems of their own.


A successful investment banker, Clayton is too often found in his pied-a-terre in Manhattan--which Liz is sure he uses to have an affair. And when will Ashley and her brother, Ivy, a gay man with a very wealthy and very Asian life partner--ever grow up? Then there is Maisie, Liz's mother, the family matriarch who has just turned eighty, who never lets Liz forget that she's not her perfect dead sister, Juliet.

For these Lowcountry women, an emotional hurricane is about to blow through their lives, wreaking havoc that will test them in unexpected ways, ultimately transforming the bonds they share.

My Review:

I love Dorothea Benton Frank. She has a way of bringing to life these wonderful characters straight from the South. This book was fun. I found that I couldn't wait to listen each day. This is one that I experienced as an audiobook because I wanted to hear it read with that wonderfully charming South Carolina accent that I absolutely love. 

The book revolves around the matriarch of the family 80+ year-old Maisie Pringle, her daughter Liz and her husband Clayton as well as Liz and Clayton's kids Ashley and Ivy and their life as life-long residents of the South Carolina low country. Liz and Clayton have a marriage that has become so dull that Clayton has an affair with an old friend of Liz's. Liz, however, is trying to cope with life as a woman in her 50s who is no longer a mother needed by her children or her husband for that matter. She starts as a career she loves working with a battered women's shelter. Ivy has a minor role in the story but he is the great brother and son anyone would love to have. Always offering support and great advise. However, the story is primarily about Ashley. Maisie's granddaughter and Liz's daughter in her early twenties. She makes some very naive choices about a particular man that she has put on a pedestal he did not deserve. But with the love of her family and her mother, grandmother, best friend and brother's support, she is able to learn from the experience and do the right thing. Ultimately, the story of the hurricane sisters is about empowering women regardless of poor choices made in the past. It's about forgiveness and loving your family above all. It was a wholesome book but tackled some important topics (infidelity, verbal and physical abuse, date rape, and the victimization of women by men with power) with sensitivity, tact and grace. Overall, it was a fun read with some great messages.

When We Were Strangers

by Pamela Schoenewaldt 

 

Synopsis:

"If you leave Opi, you'll die with strangers," Irma Vitale's mother always warned.

Even after her beloved mother's passing, 20-year-old Irma longs to stay in her Abruzzo mountain village, plying her needle. But too poor and plain to marry and subject to growing danger in her own home, she risks rough passage to America and workhouse servitude to achieve her dream of making dresses for gentlewomen.


In the raw immigrant quarters and with the help of an entrepreneurial Irish serving girl, ribbon-decked Polish ragman and austere Alsatian dressmaker, Irma begins to stitch together a new life . . . until her peace and self are shattered in the charred remains of the Great Chicago Fire. Enduring a painful recovery, Irma reaches deep within to find that she has even more to offer the world than her remarkable ability with a needle and thread.

My Review:

Beautifully written. I felt like I knew Irma personally. Her journey was met with tragedy but many small triumphs that defined her future as I imagine it did for many immigrants in the late 1880's. This book is a great example of why I enjoy reading historical fiction so much. I am a modern day immigrant to the U.S. so I'm fascinated about the journey others have undertaken. My family's journey was one of fortune and comfort so I feel a great deal of appreciation and respect for the struggles of those that immigrated under much more challenging circumstances.

The Paris Wife

by Paula McLain

Synopsis:  

Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. 

Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill-prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris, which hardly values traditional notions of family and monogamy. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Despite their extraordinary bond, they eventually find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for.

A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.

My Review:

In one word AMAZING. This book is why I love to read. McClain is such an eloquent writer. I felt the whole time as though I was a "fly on the wall" in the Hemingway's Paris apartment and in Chicago, and Pamplona and Schrun and the Riviera... I will be in Paris in November, and I have a list of places that I will visit, Hemingway's frequented landmarks in Montparnasse and 74 Cardinal Lemoine. I can't rave more about this book other than to say I LOVED IT. Just on a side note, Woody Allen has a wonderful movie called Midnight in Paris which I pictured in my head the whole time I read this book.

The Daughter's Walk

by Jane Kirkpatrick

Synopsis:

A mother's tragedy, a daughter's desire and the 7000 mile journey that changed their lives. 

In 1896 Norwegian American Helga Estby accepted a wager from the fashion industry to walk from Spokane, Washington to New York City within seven months in an effort to earn $10,000. Bringing along her nineteen year-old daughter Clara, the two made their way on the 3500-mile trek by following the railroad tracks and motivated by the money they needed to save the family farm.  After returning home to the Estby farm more than a year later, Clara chose to walk on alone by leaving the family and changing her name. Her decisions initiated a more than 20-year separation from the only life she had known.

Historical fiction writer Jane Kirkpatrick picks up where the fact of the Estbys’ walk leaves off to explore Clara's continued journey. What motivated Clara to take such a risk in an era when many women struggled with the issues of rights and independence? And what personal revelations brought Clara to the end of her lonely road? The Daughter's Walk weaves personal history and fiction together to invite readers to consider their own journeys and family separations, to help determine what exile and forgiveness are truly about.

My Review:

I enjoyed reading this book but found that at times it dragged a bit. However, the story of Clara and her mother's journey was truly inspirational. On the other hand, I found Clara's personal life journey after her "exile" was a little depressing. I found myself thinking what I would have done. I guess the times and society's expectations of how women should behave dictated much of her decision-making. At the beginning, I truly related to Helga. Her strength of character and unrelenting will really resonated with me. I've always felt that you make good and bad decisions in life, but they are yours and only yours to answer to. You assume the consequences and no one has a right to pass judgment. I can't help but think that Helga would have agreed with me. Family is important in the journey of life, but only you assume and can answer to where you go on that journey and why... 

Orphan Train

by Christina Baker Kline 

Synopsis:

A captivating story of two very different women who build an unexpected friendship: a 91-year-old woman with a hidden past as an orphan-train rider and the teenage girl whose own troubled adolescence leads her to seek answers to questions no one has ever thought to ask.


Nearly eighteen, Molly Ayer knows she has one last chance. Just months from "aging out" of the child welfare system, and close to being kicked out of her foster home, a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie and worse.


Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the coast of Maine. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.

The closer Molly grows to Vivian, the more she discovers parallels to her own life. A Penobscot Indian, she, too, is an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. As her emotional barriers begin to crumble, Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life - answers that will ultimately free them both.

Rich in detail and epic in scope, Orphan Train is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of second chances, of unexpected friendship, and of the secrets we carry that keep us from finding out who we are.

My Review:

Fantastic book. Tragic and sad but not predictable nor wrapped up nicely with a an unrealistic happy ending. Pure historical fiction at its best. I cried through many sections of Niahm's (Dorothy/Vivian) story. Her account of what she had gone through in life after coming to America from Ireland as an innocent little girl of 6 up until she was 10 was truly heart wrenching. Her realization at such an early age that she was nothing more than an indentured servant without the love of a family is sobering. Yet she is a little girl at heart like any girl in any place at any time who simply yearns for the love of a family and the safety of a home. I couldn't put this book down once I started reading. I'm not sure, if like The Book Thief, this is a book targeted at YA readers, but I would definitely place it in the same category as The Book Thief. 

I would highly encourage YA readers curious about a very interesting part of our American history and the short-lived (approx. 75 year) social experiment that came to be known as the Orphan Train to read it. However, I don't mean to imply that only YA readers would enjoy this book. It is beautifully written and is an honestly told story that any reader who appreciates historical fiction would thoroughly enjoy.

Winter Garden

by Kristin Hannah

Synopsis:

Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard: the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. 

On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time - and all the way to the end. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya's life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. 

Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother's life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.

My Review:

Wonderful book with an incredible story that will put things in perspective for what it means to love, to give, to sacrifice, to hurt, to be hungry and the will to live and survive under the worst of circumstances even after you've lost EVERYTHING you have ever loved. Does it sound depressing? Well, it is, but it is so well-written and the story so well-told that as you read the story of Vera, Evan, Nina, Meredith, Jeff, Anya, Sasha, Leo and all of the other wonderful characters Kristin Hannah conjures in this book from the horrors of Leningrad (Russia)during the siege of WWII to the early 2000s in WA state, you won't be able to put it down. The first half of the book was a bit difficult for me to get through, but it was not until I finished the book that it made sense why Hannah has to set up the beginning of the book as she did. I would tell anyone that is considering reading this book to not give up on it during the first half. The second half and the ending are so wonderful that I promise it will be well-worth the investment. This is a moving story with very detailed historical references.

The Book Thief

by Markus Zusak

Synopsis:

 
It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.


Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.

My Review:

This is probably one of the best most eloquently written books I have read in a long time. Beautifully written, it was not at all what I expected of a story set in WWII, Nazi Germany. What more can you say? I automatically thought The Diary of Anne Frank. However, it is so much more than just the story of a girl in WWII Nazi Germany. Every character in the book (good or bad) are so perfectly described that you find yourself really understanding (not always liking them) why they do the things they do - good or bad. Furthermore, the book is about words and how interpretation and the application (manipulation) of words change countries, minds, people, realities, outcomes, and how powerful those words can be. For a book about the importance of words, it is fitting that the author seems to have truly thought out every word in every page for just the right effect and evoke just the right emotion.

If you can't tell, I TRULY LOVED this book and I will tell everyone about it because I think when a good book makes such a great impact on a person (to me) it almost feels like it is my duty to pass it on for others to enjoy. This book will stay with me forever and I will always remember these great characters: Liesle, Max, Rudy, Hans and Rosa, Tommy and Ilsa.

Stella Bain

by Anita Shreve  

Synopsis:

When an American woman, Stella Bain, is found suffering from severe shell shock in an exclusive garden in London, surgeon August Bridge and his wife selflessly agree to take her in.


A gesture of goodwill turns into something more as Bridge quickly develops a clinical interest in his houseguest. Stella had been working as a nurse's aide near the front, but she can't remember anything prior to four months earlier when she was found wounded on a French battlefield.


In a narrative that takes us from London to America and back again, Shreve has created an engrossing and wrenching tale about love and the meaning of memory, set against the haunting backdrop of a war that destroyed an entire generation.

My Review:

Excellent book with a very unique story about a woman suffering shell-shock during WWI and her attempt to regain her life afterwards or rather to re-invent her life stronger and with a clearer understanding of who she is, her strengths, what she can handle. There are a lot of characters who contribute to her own understanding of herself, including a horrible husband who ironically is the reason she begins the journey to re-invent herself. 

I completely related to the story of a woman whose poor marriage choice at a young age finds herself in a place to not be defined by that choice but rather muster all of her strength of character to re-invent herself in the image of the person she knows is the best person she can be. 

The book starts off a bit confusing and I was not sure during the first 50 pages or so if I was going to "get into it". But I'm glad I hung on and kept reading because it was well worth it. Great story of a woman who is strong, admirable, and well ahead of her early 1900 contemporaries and their role as helpless women as a consequence of the events and mentalities of the time.

The House at Tyneford

by Natasha Solomons

Synopsis:

It's the spring of 1938 and no longer safe to be a Jew in Vienna. Nineteen-year-old Elise Landau is forced to leave her glittering life of parties and champagne to become a parlor maid in England. She arrives at Tyneford, the great house on the bay, where servants polish silver and serve drinks on the lawn. But war is coming, and the world is changing. When the master of Tyneford's young son, Kit, returns home, he and Elise strike up an unlikely friendship that will transform Tyneford—and Elise—forever.

My Review:

5 stars are just not enough. I loved this book. It is often advertised as a book for Downton Abbey fans, which I am, and quite honestly why I picked it up. But really, this book was so much richer and the characters much more interesting than even the Downton Crawleys. This book is so beautifully written. The story is tragic but not completely unjust or even a complete downer. WWII was a horrifying and tragic time in Europe. The unfortunate fate of many Austrian Jews is part of that tragedy. And the Austrian, Jewish leading-character, Elise Landau, is nothing short of classy, strong, smart and a real heroine. Great read. I can't imagine why anybody who appreciates good historical fiction would not delight in this book.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

by Jamie Ford

Synopsis:

In the opening pages of Jamie Ford's debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel. once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades. but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.

This simple act takes Henry back to the 1940s, when his world was a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who was obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While "scholarshipping" at the exclusive Ranier Elementary where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship-- and innocent love-- that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end and that their promise to each other will be kept.

Forty years later, Henry Lee, certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko, searches the hotel's dark, dusty basement for signs of the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot even begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice: words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago.

My Review: 

This is such a great work of historical fiction. I loved the story of Keiko and Henry and all of the familiar places referenced throughout their tragic and ill-fated love story in the great city of Seattle and other areas in the Pacific Northwest where my family has made their home. This was my first experience with an Audio book and I am a little torn as to how I feel about the format. At first, I found myself a bit lost, wanting to look for the words on the page, actually seeing them. However, it was nice to be able to work and have this beautifully "bittersweet" story serve as the background of my busy work day for the last 3 days. I am still a traditionalist and prefer the paper and ink version as I like marking up my books and dogearing the pages that make an impact throughout my short journey in the lives of great characters and their stories. But, I digress. 

This part of my review will focus on the the beautiful story of innocence, love, acceptance and humanity that Mr. Ford unfolds for us through the eyes of Henry, a Chinese-American boy and his friend Keiko, a Japanese-American during a turbulent time for race relations in the Asian community of Seattle. The characters in this book are endearing. Even Henry's stern, and extreme traditionalist father becomes a character we end up liking in understanding his love for his son and his need to honor his love and respect for his culture. To think how we treated people who were American-born simply because of their ancestry is repulsive but unfortunately such a common thread in the evolution of our country. However, what I loved most about this story was that it demonstrates the importance of common circumstance and understanding that is brought about as a result of that commonality which leads people to be more tolerant. The hatred bred in racial discrimination is more often born of a lack of understanding and compassion. 

There is a chapter that I found really spoke to that point when the Chinese family are thankful that the persecution is not towards them as they are Chinese-American and not Japanese-American. The mother even says something to the effect of "At least it's not us."

The Forgotten Garden

by Kate Morton

Synopsis: 

A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives completely alone with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a single book - a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the dockmaster and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-first birthday, they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and very little to go on, "Nell" sets out to trace her real identity. Her quest leads her to Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Mountrachet family. But it is not until her granddaughter, Cassandra, takes up the search after Nell's death that all the pieces of the puzzle are assembled. 

My Review: 

Great book. The story contained all aspects that I enjoy when I escape into the world of the books I read. There was intrigue, mystery, love, complicated relationships, fairytale whimsy, strong willed female characters, good winning over evil... Need I say more?

The Signature of All Things

by Elizabeth Gilbert

Synopsis: 

In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker—a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry's brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father's money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself. As Alma's research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of orchids and who draws her in the exact opposite direction — into the realm of the spiritual, the divine, and the magical. Alma is a clear-minded scientist; Ambrose a utopian artist — but what unites this unlikely couple is a desperate need to understand the workings of this world and the mechanisms behind all life.

Exquisitely researched and told at a galloping pace, The Signature of All Things soars across the globe—from London to Peru to Philadelphia to Tahiti to Amsterdam, and beyond. Along the way, the story is peopled with unforgettable characters: missionaries, abolitionists, adventurers, astronomers, sea captains, geniuses, and the quite mad. But most memorable of all, it is the story of Alma Whittaker, who — born in the Age of Enlightenment, but living well into the Industrial Revolution — bears witness to that extraordinary moment in human history when all the old assumptions about science, religion, commerce, and class were exploding into dangerous new ideas. Written in the bold, questing spirit of that singular time, Gilbert's wise, deep, and spellbinding tale is certain to capture the hearts and minds of readers.

My Review:

I can't properly review this book without giving away the story so I will do my best not to give away anything but truly express what a wonderful book this really is. How does a person of science incorporate religious faith into their rational explanation of the world? Is the signature of all things based on scientific explanation or is the scientific explanation based on a much deeper less rational faith in the bigger plan God has for the world? This is Alma's quest through her very full and industrious life's search for knowledge and reason. 

The seemingly irrelevant world of mosses turns out to be a parallel comparison of our very own world. Alma even refers to time as human time (very quick and fleeting) and moss time (which evolves over millions of years). When Alma comes to the realization that she is on human time and not moss time she begins to truly live and experience life. This involves acknowledging and testing her limitations and her strengths and realities. I know this doesn't tell you much about the story but this is a book to be experienced and I suppose to be interpreted by each reader uniquely. I loved it. It was as much Alma's journey through life as it was a journey for me reading it. I feel a different person after reading this book.

Simply a BRILLIANT work by a brilliant author.

The Girl Who Came Home: A Novel of the Titanic

by Hazel Gaynor 

Synopsis:

 

A voyage across the ocean becomes the odyssey of a lifetime for a young Irish woman. 

Ireland, 1912 . . .

Fourteen members of a small village set sail on RMS Titanic, hoping to find a better life in America. For seventeen-year-old Maggie Murphy, the journey is bittersweet. Though her future lies in an unknown new place, her heart remains in Ireland with Séamus, the sweetheart she left behind. When disaster strikes, Maggie is one of the few passengers in steerage to survive. Waking up alone in a New York hospital, she vows never to speak of the terror and panic of that fateful night again.


Chicago, 1982 . . .

Adrift after the death of her father, Grace Butler struggles to decide what comes next. When her great-grandmother Maggie shares the painful secret about Titanic that she's harbored for almost a lifetime, the revelation gives Grace new direction—and leads both her and Maggie to unexpected reunions with those they thought lost long ago.


Inspired by true events, The Girl Who Came Home poignantly blends fact and fiction to explore the Titanic tragedy's impact and its lasting repercussions on survivors and their descendants.

My Review:

This was a very enjoyable read. I've read a few reviews that criticize the writer for not adding anything new to the story about the ill-fated Titanic. I'm not sure that is a fair criticism as there hasn't been anything new to add to the tragic story of Titanic and its passengers since technology and modern forensics cleared up most of the mysteries behind Titanic many years ago. There were enough survivors that historians have been able to piece together the events of April 14, 1912. With that said, I have to commend Hazel Gaynor for writing a beautiful story of one girl and her experience as a young immigrant on one of the most famous ships of all-time. 

As historical fiction, and a good one at that, I learned some things I never knew about Titanic. I was born almost 60 years after the sinking of the Titanic and although I've always been familiar with and fascinated by the course of events, I found Gaynor's telling delightful. By the way, in the book post-script notes, we find out that the story of the Ballysheen 14 is based on the true accounts of the Addergoole 14. The only part of the story that was not to my liking was the side story of Grace, the main character's great-granddaughter, taking place in 1982. 

I found myself skimming through some of the sections about her and her boyfriend Jimmy - I found these sections boring compared to the rest of the story. I don't think the storyline really needed it. Jimmy's character was superfluous and added nothing to the otherwise interesting story of Maggie and her journey on the Titanic.

Lost

by Jacqueline Davies

 

Synopsis:

Essie can tell from the moment she lays eyes on Harriet Abbott: this is a woman who has taken a wrong turn in life. Why else would an educated, well-dressed, clearly upper-crust girl end up in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory setting sleeves for six dollars a day? As the unlikely friendship between Essie and Harriet grows, so does the weight of the question hanging between them: Who is lost? And who will be found?

My Review:

What a beautifully written story. A fabulous work of historical fiction told through the words of 16 year-old Essie. A girl in New York during the early 1900s. The author combines two real-life events that occurred in 1911 - the mysterious disappearance of a 25 year old socialite and heiress and the 1911 factory fire that killed 140+ teenage factory workers, young innocent girls, to craft the plot. Although the story told by Davies is sad it is so beautifully told that you can't help but want to know more. Fantastic read. I highly recommend!

The Lavender Garden 

by Lucinda Riley 

Synopsis:

An aristocratic French family, a legendary chateau, and buried secrets with the power to destroy two generations torn between duty and desire.

In the sun-dappled south of France, Emilie de la Martiniers, the last of her gilded line, inherits her childhood home, a magnificent chateau and vineyard. With the property comes a mountain of debt and almost as many questions . . .
Paris, 1944: A bright, young British office clerk, Constance Carruthers, is sent undercover to Paris to be part of Churchill's Special Operations Executive during the climax of the Nazi occupation. Separated from her contacts in the Resistance, she soon stumbles into the heart of a prominent family who regularly entertain elite members of the German military even as they plot to liberate France. But in a city rife with collaborators and rebels, Constance's most difficult decision may be determining whom to trust with her heart.
 
As Emilie discovers what really happened to her family during the war and finds a connection to Constance much closer than she suspects, the chateau itself may provide the clues that unlock the mysteries of her past, present, and future. Here is a dazzling novel of intrigue and passion from one of the world's most beloved storytellers.

My Review:

This was a great example of a book designed to entertain and intrigue. The story was a bit confusing at first and had a lot of different characters that were a bit tough to keep straight. However, as the story progressed, every character fell right in place with the story. I found the last 200 pages hard to put down.

The Perfume Collector

by Kathleen Tessaro

 

Synopsis:

London, 1955: Grace Monroe is a fortunate young woman. Despite her sheltered upbringing in Oxford, her recent marriage has thrust her into the heart of London's most refined and ambitious social circles. However, playing the role of the sophisticated socialite her husband would like her to be doesn't come easily to her—and perhaps never will.

Then one evening a letter arrives from France that will change everything. Grace has received an inheritance. There's only one problem: she has never heard of her benefactor, the mysterious Eva d'Orsey.

So begins a journey that takes Grace to Paris in search of Eva. There, in a long-abandoned perfume shop on the Left Bank, she discovers the seductive world of perfumers and their muses, and a surprising, complex love story. Told by invoking the three distinctive perfumes she inspired, Eva d'Orsey's story weaves through the decades, from 1920s New York to Monte Carlo, Paris, and London.

But these three perfumes hold secrets. And as Eva's past and Grace's future intersect, Grace realizes she must choose between the life she thinks she should live and the person she is truly meant to be.

Illuminating the lives and challenging times of two fascinating women, The Perfume Collector weaves a haunting, imaginative, and beautifully written tale filled with passion and possibility, heartbreak and hope.

My Review:

Loved it, loved it. I will never smell the beautiful scent of a perfume without thinking of this wonderful story and smiling. The book had intrigue, romance, intelligent dialogue and above all a wonderful plot with a just ending. 

The Chaperone

by Laura Moriarty

 

Synopsis: 

 

Only a few years before becoming a famous silent-film star and an icon of her generation, a fifteen-year-old Louise Brooks leaves Wichita, Kansas, to study with the prestigious Denishawn School of Dancing in New York. Much to her annoyance, she is accompanied by a thirty-six-year-old chaperone, who is neither mother nor friend. Cora Carlisle, a complicated but traditional woman with her own reasons for making the trip, has no idea what she’s in for. Young Louise, already stunningly beautiful and sporting her famous black bob with blunt bangs, is known for her arrogance and her lack of respect for convention. Ultimately, the five weeks they spend together will transform their lives forever.

For Cora, the city holds the promise of discovery that might answer the question at the core of her being, and even as she does her best to watch over Louise in this strange and bustling place she embarks on a mission of her own. And while what she finds isn’t what she anticipated, she is liberated in a way she could not have imagined. Over the course of Cora’s relationship with Louise, her eyes are opened to the promise of the twentieth century and a new understanding of the possibilities for being fully alive.

Drawing on the rich history of the 1920s,’30s, and beyond—from the orphan trains to Prohibition, flappers,  and the onset of the Great Depression to the burgeoning movement for equal rights and new opportunities for women—Laura Moriarty’s The Chaperone illustrates how rapidly everything, from fashion and hemlines to values and attitudes, was changing at this time and what a vast difference it all made for Louise Brooks, Cora Carlisle, and others like them.

My Review:

 

I loved this book. A truly good piece of well-written historical fiction. The story of an orphaned girl from New York who ends up in Kansas as a result of the infamous orphan train program. She is lucky though and ends up with a truly caring adoptive mother and father who raise her to be strong and loved. When her parents die she is thrust into adulthood but marries well. Her marriage however reveals some secrets that challenge her chances of ever knowing happiness. In her longing to find her birth parents she is given the opportunity to chaperone a young, spoiled, very progressive socialite to New York to attend a progressive dance school this is her opportunity to find out where she came from and possibly who her parents were. While the young Louise Brooks (her keep) attends dance classes during the day she visits the nuns that set her off on the orphan train to get answers about her true identity. It is only with the help of the church's handyman that she is able to retrieve her records and make it possible for her to fill the void and longing to find her parents. Her challenge is only exacerbated by the unruly Louise Brooks and her defiant teenage behavior. I won't tell you more as it is such a beautiful read that I would hate to spoil it for anyone wanting to read it. However, I will add that the book does talk a great deal about the famous Louise Brooks who made the bobbed haircut and flapper look so popular in the 20s during the age of silent movies. That part of the story was fascinating. I did a little of my own research about Louise Brooks and she really was quite a character. I actually listened to an audio version of the book brilliantly narrated by Elizabeth McGovern. This wonderful book is one of the many reasons I love - no, adore - historical fiction SO very much.

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

by Therese Anne Fowler

 

Synopsis:  

 

When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama. Before long, the “ungettable” Zelda has fallen for him despite his unsuitability: Scott isn’t wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame. Her father is deeply unimpressed. But after Scott sells his first novel, This Side of Paradise, to Scribner’s, Zelda optimistically boards a train north, to marry him in the vestry of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and take the rest as it comes. What comes, here at the dawn of the Jazz Age, is unimagined attention and success and celebrity that will make Scott and Zelda legends in their own time. Everyone wants to meet the dashing young author of the scandalous novel—and his witty, perhaps even more scandalous wife. Zelda bobs her hair, adopts daring new fashions, and revels in this wild new world. Each place they go becomes a playground: New York City, Long Island, Hollywood, Paris, and the French Riviera—where they join the endless party of the glamorous, sometimes doomed Lost Generation that includes Ernest Hemingway, Sara and Gerald Murphy, and Gertrude Stein. Everything seems new and possible. Troubles, at first, seem to fade like morning mist. But not even Jay Gatsby’s parties go on forever. Who is Zelda, other than the wife of a famous—sometimes infamous—husband? How can she forge her own identity while fighting her demons and Scott’s, too? With brilliant insight and imagination, Therese Anne Fowler brings us Zelda’s irresistible story as she herself might have told it.

My Review: 

Great read. Sad, but expectedly so. I believe Zelda was brilliant. Simply born in a very repressive time for independent, intelligent and head-strong women. This book gave me a new-found appreciation for the importance of teaching our daughters the value of independent thought and confidence in the self without the reliance on others to make us whole.

Rain and Revelation

by Therese Pautz

Synopsis:

 

On the rugged, rain and windswept coast of Ireland, twenty-year-old Eliza Conroy’s predictable life is shattered when she returns home to find her mother bathing in her own blood. Eliza sets out to understand the events leading up to that fateful day and discovers that she has been deceived her entire life by those she loves and trusts the most. What she uncovers threatens to destroy her family and tight knit community and Eliza is forced to choose between the cost of speaking the truth and remaining silent.

My Review:

 

A little gem of a book I took advantage of as a free download. I loved it. Great story with lots of twists and turns. Well written with a fascinating plot and great characters.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fickry

by Gabrielle Zevin

 

Synopsis:

 

On the faded Island Books sign hanging over the porch of the Victorian cottage is the motto "No Man Is an Island; Every Book Is a World." A. J. Fikry, the irascible owner, is about to discover just what that truly means.

A. J. Fikry's life is not at all what he expected it to be. His wife has died, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. Slowly but surely, he is isolating himself from all the people of Alice Island-from Lambiase, the well-intentioned police officer who's always felt kindly toward Fikry; from Ismay, his sister-in-law who is hell-bent on saving him from his dreary self; from Amelia, the lovely and idealistic (if eccentric) Knightley Press sales rep who keeps on taking the ferry over to Alice Island, refusing to be deterred by A.J.'s bad attitude. Even the books in his store have stopped holding pleasure for him. These days, A.J. can only see them as a sign of a world that is changing too rapidly.

And then a mysterious package appears at the bookstore. It's a small package, but large in weight. It's that unexpected arrival that gives A. J. Fikry the opportunity to make his life over, the ability to see everything anew. It doesn't take long for the locals to notice the change overcoming A.J.; or for that determined sales rep, Amelia, to see her curmudgeonly client in a new light; or for the wisdom of all those books to become again the lifeblood of A.J.'s world; or for everything to twist again into a version of his life that he didn't see coming. As surprising as it is moving, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry is an unforgettable tale of transformation and second chances, an irresistible affirmation of why we read, and why we love.

My Review: 

Who knew that such a little book about such a common man, with a rather ordinary life would pack such a punch?!?! I loved this book. And, not only because it is about a bookstore owner whose love of books is only surpassed by that of his adoptive daughter and quirky wife. He defines his experiences in life as though it were a book. There is a beginning, a middle, an end. There is tragedy, there is happenstance, there is irony, there is regret, and all of those other things I love - kindness, humanity, opportunity and above all love. Which at the very end (no worries, no spoilers here) it is what it is all about. Much like a book, life begins, has a middle and an end and in between the front and back cover a lot of those things that make up our life happen. But, once a book is read (in my case, thoroughly enjoyed) you move on to the next and smile every time you think of the high points that made you love that book to begin with.

For myself, I never remember the details of what I read in a book, but I ALWAYS remember how the book made me feel. I had to get used to the way the book is written. At first, to me it seemed choppy and lacking transitions from sentence to sentence. It seemed like a lot of statements just strung together. But as I got into the book, I realized that the simplicity in the writing and the fast movement of the book is essential. As I see it, and this is only my interpretation, but I felt that, like in life, the details can be superfluous. 

Great book. I realize that not everyone is going to share my opinion of this book but I LOVE READING and one of the things that makes reading so special to me is expressed in this book:

"The words you can't find, you borrow. We read to know we're not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone. My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart. We are not quite novels. We are not quite short stories. In the end, we are collected works. He has read enough to know there are no collections where each story is perfect. Some hits, Some misses. If you're lucky, a standout. And in the end, people only really remember the standouts anyway, and they don't remember those for very long." (Zevin, p. 249)

Life is short indeed and I want to spend it accumulating the experiences and moments that write my short stories. My short stories that one day will become a part of my collected works.