Moonlight Over Paris
Synopsis:
It’s the spring of 1924,
and Lady Helena Montagu-Douglas-Parr has just arrived in France. On the
mend after a near-fatal illness, she is ready to embrace the restless,
heady allure of the City of Lights. Her parents have given her one year
to live with her eccentric aunt in Paris and Helena means to make the
most of her time. She’s quickly drawn into the world of the Lost
Generation and its circle of American expatriates, and with their
encouragement, she finds the courage to pursue her dream of becoming an
artist.
One of those expats is Sam Howard, a journalist working
for the Chicago Tribune. Irascible, plain-spoken, and scarred by his
experiences during the war, Sam is simply the most fascinating man she
has ever met. He’s also entirely unsuitable.
As Paris is born
anew, rising phoenix-like from the ashes of the Great War, Helena
realizes that she, too, is changing. The good girl she once was, so
dutiful and obedient, so aware of her place in the world, is gone
forever. Yet now that she has shed her old self, who will she become,
and where, and with whom, does she belong…?
My Review:
This
is the third Jennifer Robson book I have read in the last year. I LOVED
IT!! A fantastically romantic story. Lady Helena Montagu-Douglas-Parr
recovers from a near-death bout with illness. Once she recovers, she
decides she wants to go to France to study art. In France she befriends a
group of artists that allow her to really come into her own. Among
those friends is the American Sam Howard. She is immediately smitten as
is he but their relationship becomes distant and complicated. While in
Paris, Helena is able to meet the influencers of the time like Hemingway
(and even Hadley), Gertrude Stein, the Fitzgeralds to name a few. A
fantastic and elegant story filled with all of the wonderful things
about the Paris of pre WWII. Loved it and would highly recommend it to
those who love historical fiction.
The Good Neighbor
Synopsis:
Things are a little
rough for Izzy Lane. Still reeling from the break-up of her marriage,
the newly single mom moves back to the Philadelphia home she grew up in,
five-year-old Noah in tow. The transition is difficult, but with the
help of her best friends—and her elderly neighbor, Mrs. Feldman—Izzy
feels like she’s stepping closer to her new normal. Until her ex-husband
shows up with his girlfriend. That’s when Izzy invents a boyfriend of
her own. And that’s when life gets complicated.
Blogging about
her “new guy” provides Izzy with something to do when Noah’s asleep.
What’s the harm in a few made-up stories? Then, her blog soars in
popularity and she’s given the opportunity to moonlight as an online
dating expert. How can she turn it down? But when her friends want to
meet the mysterious “Mac,” someone online suspects Izzy’s a fraud, and a
guy in-real-life catches her eye, Izzy realizes just how high the
stakes are. That’s when Mrs. Feldman steps in, determined to show her
neighbor the havoc that lies can wreak. If Izzy’s honest, she could lose
everything, and everyone. Is the truth worth any cost?
My Review:
What
an unexpectedly delightful read. Unexpectedly only because I wasn't
familiar with Amy Sue Nathan's work before reading The Good Neighbor. I
am now a fan. I mainly read historical fiction, but every once in a
while I come across a book (or a rather a book cover) that intrigues me.
This was one of those books. I mean, it truly is one of the best covers
I've seen in a long time. Simple and beautiful. But, this is not the
reason I recommend this book. The story line really was good. REALLY
GOOD! I could relate to this story in so many ways. I too went through a
divorce and had to take over 100% of the care of my children while
their father was coping with his new single-life. I was very moved by
how this situation was presented. The callousness with which the
ex-husband thinks that his ex-wife should be considerate of his need to
"find himself" while on a trip to California with a new girlfriend that
is going to take care of him financially. He wants to be absolved of any
responsibility to caring for their son - until he gets himself
together. What can she do but move on and take over the responsibilities
to parenting that his absence creates. ASN conveyed the feelings of
frustration and anger Izzy experiences. Nobody can really take a break
from parenting. That's just ridiculous. It's like breathing - you just
have to do it. On top of becoming only parent to their son, Izzy is
trying to adjust to being single. She starts a blog in which she blogs
about her love life with a made-up boyfriend who is almost too good to
be true. Not to mention that his name is Mac (hmmm.. a lot like her
laptop). Her blog is picked up by her best friend's struggling website
and it becomes and immediate hit. However, although she tries to let her
friends know that her perfect Mac is a figment of her imagination, they
just hear what they want to hear and so escalates her conundrum. There
is a secondary story about Izzy's 80 year old neighbor - Mrs. Feldman -
whom she has known since childhood and trusts and loves as much as her
own mother. Mrs. Feldman knows about Izzy's secret and with secrets of
her own she understands and tries to provide Izzy with the guidance she
desperately needs. The relationship between Izzy and Mrs. Feldman is
simply beautiful and even fun. I really loved this book. I appreciated
the emphasis on how difficult it is to be a mom, to turn 40, to appear
as though you've got it all together although you may not.... It is a
real story that I greatly appreciated and loved.
A Memory of Violets: A Novel of London's Flower Sellers
Synopsis:
In 1912,
twenty-year-old Tilly Harper leaves the peace and beauty of her native
Lake District for London, to become assistant housemother at Mr. Shaw’s
Home for Watercress and Flower Girls. For years, the home has cared for
London’s flower girls—orphaned and crippled children living on the grimy
streets and selling posies of violets and watercress to survive.
Soon
after she arrives, Tilly discovers a diary written by an orphan named
Florrie—a young Irish flower girl who died of a broken heart after she
and her sister, Rosie, were separated. Moved by Florrie’s pain and all
she endured in her brief life, Tilly sets out to discover what happened
to Rosie. But the search will not be easy. Full of twists and surprises,
it leads the caring and determined young woman into unexpected places,
including the depths of her own heart.
My Review:
I
absolutely love how Hazel Gaynor writes. She writes such humanity and
reality in every single character. Whether you hate or love the
character it is because you can truly understand them. A Memory of
Violets is the story of two sets of sisters whose relationships,
although unique, demonstrate the strength of the sibling bond. The
story, as the subtitle indicates, is a story about the flower sellers of
London. I thought of My Fair Lady and Eliza being a flower girl in
London so immediately I was engaged. Two sisters (one blind and the
other with a handicap - Flora and Rosie) are separated. One goes off to a
home designed to give the handicapped homeless girls of London an
opportunity to better their opportunities and chances to work and
develop a skill. The other sister is adopted by a wealthy family and
grows up to forget her childhood in the streets of London. Their stories
become more distant year after year. We fast forward some 40 years
later and we are introduced to two other sisters. One, Tilly, is leaving
home to become a house mother at one of the homes for flower girls -
Home for Watercress and Flower Girls - and the other stays home after a
horse riding accident that leaves her in a wheelchair. The two stories
become intertwined. Reading this book was so enjoyable. It was
heartbreaking and sad at times but had a great overriding message about
the strong bond and love between siblings that no matter how far apart
they might be or how their lives take different paths, they always come
back to reunite (even if metaphorically). Beautiful story. Beautiful
writing. Hazel Gaynor is one of my favorite writers.
The Gilded Hour
Synopsis:
The year is 1883, and in
New York City, it’s a time of dizzying splendor, crushing poverty, and
tremendous change. With the gravity-defying Brooklyn Bridge nearly
complete and New York in the grips of anti-vice crusader Anthony
Comstock, Anna Savard and her cousin Sophie—both graduates of the
Woman’s Medical School—treat the city’s most vulnerable, even if doing
so may put everything they’ve strived for in jeopardy.
Anna's
work has placed her in the path of four children who have lost
everything, just as she herself once had. Faced with their helplessness,
Anna must make an unexpected choice between holding on to the pain of
her past and letting love into her life.
For Sophie, an
obstetrician and the orphaned daughter of free people of color, helping a
desperate young mother forces her to grapple with the oath she took as a
doctor—and thrusts her and Anna into the orbit of Anthony Comstock, a
dangerous man who considers himself the enemy of everything indecent and
of anyone who dares to defy him.
My Review:
What
an amazing story about the importance of education/information and the
dangers of the notion of controlling the masses through the use of fear,
unrealistic moral expectations and control. The important discussion in
this book is around women's health at the end of the 1800s. However, you can see the relevance to any time beyond then. I
think of the similar impacts made in women's health by events such as
the women's vote, the inception of Planned Parenthood, the women's
rights movement, the Supreme Court ruling of Roe vs. Wade, etc. This
story is about two cousins - Anna and Sophie Savard. Both are physicians
who treat women in NYC. One, Sophie, is from New Orleans. She is of
mixed race but has lived so long in NYC with her white aunt that she
assimilates best among whites. However, she is curious about her black
heritage and has the opportunity to meet with blacks in Brooklyn where
she feels the cultural pull. By the simple fact that she is a woman and
of mixed race, her life is marked. But her resolve to be the best most
ethical physician drives her actions. She cares about women's rights
about their bodies and supports fully her cousin's efforts to spread the
much needed education about women's health and the importance of using
and having access to contraception. What makes things difficult in their
efforts is the very powerful Anthony Comstock, postmaster general of
the time. He is the author of the Comstock Act of 1873 that enforced the
suppression of trade in, and circulation of, obscene literature and
articles of immoral use by criminalizing the use of the U.S. Postal
Service to send any literature related to such things considered immoral
like contraception information, sexually explicit literature, erotica,
etc. As a feminist and as a woman, it was so frustrating (as it is in
current time) to confront the ignorance and control that men like
Comstock enforce. S. Donati does a great job presenting the situation in
a way that you can see just how damaging this mentality is to women and
the advancement of women's health research. There is a secondary,
somewhat related story about 4 orphans who are separated and search each
other to reunite in a time when orphans had very few opportunities to
overcome their circumstances because of the overwhelming numbers. The
connection between the stories has to do with the lack of information
about women's health and contraception leading to so many unwanted
children that they were turned out and given to the orphanage world run
primarily by the Catholic church. Anna Savard assumes the care of the
two Italian girl orphans searching for their two missing brothers. In
the process, an Italian detective-sergeant with the New York police
department, Jack Mezzanotte, not only falls for Anna romantically but
helps her in the search for the girls' two brothers. His
immigrant-Italian background help her understand the cultural
differences between her NYC upper-class family and that of the girls.
This is such a complete experience in so many ways. The plot is perfect
and relevant. It manages to educate the reader about an important time
in history as well as the cultural differences that make us that
"melting pot" we tend to forget about. Plus the important discussion
about women's health and the importance of women's rights in the care
and decisions to be made about their bodies without being "preachy" or
one-sided. It simply presents the facts and assumes the reader is smart
enough to come to their own conclusion.
Fantastic read. Never
dull or too bogged down in historical facts but rather written into the
story as part of the story. Plus, what I loved most and in my opinion
makes this such an important read is the depiction of such strong,
intelligent, capable women who are real, relevant and even flawed.
