Tag Archives: historical

Jan2

Every Time We Say Goodbye by Natalie Jenner- Review

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This is a follow up book from Bloomsbury Girls which I read and reviewed for Rosie’s Book Review team. I appreciate St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing an ARC copy of this book for me to read and review.

The story is set in the 1950s and is the continuation of the life of one of the women who worked at the bookstore in Bloomsbury, London. Vivien, in addition to working in the store, is also a playwright and chose to leave for Italy for a period of time when her success as a playwright was called into question. She took a job working at a film studio in Rome and worked on rewriting some of the screenplays being filmed there. Rome is still recovering from WWII and all the various issues that time period caused in Italy.

While there, she has to deal with the censorship of the Vatican as they have full control of what is acceptable or not in what film audiences are allowed to see.

Vivien also meets some interesting people and forms friendships with them. As well, she forms a romantic entanglement with an older man.

The story is richly layered with individual characters who are uniquely drawn and have multi-faceted personalities.

Vivien is a character we grew to admire in Bloomsbury Girls and this book finds this reader still rooting for her and hoping she gets resolution of a matter that has haunted her since the war. One of the young men she meets while working at the studio also has an interesting story line about events that happened to him during the war. Both of them were characters this reader grew attached to and hoped for the best outcome.

The author is very talented and the prose is beautifully written. The flow of the story is well done as well. This book does not have to be read after Bloomsbury Girls as the story is complete without it being necessary to know the events of the other book. Some of the characters are recurring, but it’s not vital to know those back stories. I do love how real life famous people are woven into the tale. Sophia Loren and Ava Gardner even make appearances. Such fun to addition to the story.

A lovely read.

Dec1

Cover Love: Twelve Days of Christmas

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This is my upcoming new release blurb and cover.

Just imagine…Imagine if the twelve days of Christmas weren’t about Christmas at all.  What if the Partridge in a pear tree was actually a chef named Otto Partridge who found a pear orchard to pick some fresh pears for his restaurant? Imagine the two turtle doves as a pop duo? What if the eleven pipers piping were bakers on a baking challenge show? And what if the six geese a-laying were sassy birds full of advice for a young girl looking to earn money for a prom dress?

A mixture of stories sure to appeal to a variety of readers. Some are set in historical times, some are modern, some fantasy and some romantic. All of them fun and mostly light-hearted. Something for everyone. And none of them Christmas…except for the last one, which involves the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade… the traditional kick off for Christmas festivities.

Oct9

Salt of the Earth- JJ Marsh- a review

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Set in Switzerland in the era of WWI and up to the mid-1920s, we first meet Seraphine where she lives in the Alps. Her life is hard. She’s the illegitimate child of an unwed mother who has found a husband and given birth to two other children. The two children (sons) suffer from cretinism (congenital hypothyroidism) and the daughter (as well as the mother) has a goiter condition.

The daughter has the burden of caring for the family with her work tending the sheep as well caring for her brothers. The father is off patrolling the borders and the mother is clearly depressed and doesn’t do much other than sit at the house. The only break Seraphine gets is when she’s at school.

We’re then introduced to Bastian, a young man who was in medical school but conscripted into the army during the war. Eventually, he is mustered out and returns to school in Zurich. We meet his friends and learn about his life.

The chapters alternate with the two main characters and also include newspaper articles of the era detailing the Russian revolution and the Swiss workers’ strikes, as well as letters between a number of people that help move the story along.

Eventually, Bastian comes to the Alps to assist a doctor who is working on a cure for cretinism and goiters and the two main characters meet.

The book is called Salt of the Earth for a reason as this doctor, among others, believes these conditions are caused by a lack of iodine in the diet. It’s especially important to not have an iodine deficiency in the preconception stage. The doctors’ work focuses on helping the people of the Alps and concentrates as well on the pregnant population to try to stop these conditions from manifesting in the infants and children.

Intrigued by the story and the iodine component, I took a deep dive into the history of this disease and who started the research into a cure. The author used the real history in the story, even naming the doctor, H. Eggenberger, as a peripheral character, as well as using Otto Bayard as a mentor to the male protagonist.

She also used Anna Heer, a female doctor, who founded the first professional nursing school in Switzerland. The female protagonist also did some work with a real person, Lotte Volger, who specialized in moulaguese. I had never heard of moulages so did a look around online about them as well. They were wax models of how certain conditions manifested themselves on patients. Lot of great innovation happening in Zurich medically in that era and I love how it was woven into the tale without being boring.

I learned a lot reading this story. I love novels that use real events from the past as a jumping off point for the book. When such whets my appetite for more information, that’s even better. The author even worked in a famous murder that occurred in Santis, Switzerland in order to get the male protagonist out of a sticky situation he found himself in. It was quite a clever use of a historical event in the time period.  

I’m also curious about the author and why this thyroid condition intrigued her enough to write this book. I guess I’ll never get the answer to that question. Haha.

Historically set with a lot of references to everything that was happening in this era, this is an enjoyable story with characters who speak to the reader with their kindness and concern, not only for their loved ones, but for humanity at large. I liked the characters and the setting as well as how the author wove all the elements together.

A lovely read and beautiful story that I very much enjoyed.

Jun8

Burke and the Lines of Torres Vedras by Tom Williams

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Another great spy story from Tom Williams starring his spy, Burke and the sergeant, William, who helps him in his missions. I had not heard of the fortifications at Torres Vedras before picking up this book.

I love this series as it combines history with intrigue and exciting stories. This one was no exception. It was more of a slow burn than a minute by minute danger zone, but was very enjoyable. Our hero is tasked with rooting out spies in the Portugal city of Lisbon and the surrounding area. It wasn’t going to be quick and it wasn’t going to be easy. The pacing was slower than the last book, but as a fan of the series, I can see how that was necessary for the plot. While every minute of a spy’s day is dangerous due to the nature of the work, the actual tedium of doing the groundwork to root out the spy being sought might not be moments of breathless excitement.

Poor William caught the brunt of the issues in this adventure. I felt sorry for him. Poor guy.  But as usual, he didn’t let it bring him down.

The respect Burke shows to one of the adversaries near the end of the book was intriguing and admirable even though I was a bit surprised. He’s a good man and I love the way the author has taken a real historical figure and made him someone we in this modern era can relate to even if we sometimes can’t relate to the tactics that were used in those days in the Army and the art of war.

In short, this was another success and I recommend it for those who enjoy historical fiction with a lot of realistic scenes of danger and violence as each side of a war try to win. Man’s inhumanity to man is definitely on display in this one. Five stars.

Jun5

A Murderous Relation and Dark Road to Darjeeling – Both by Deanna Raybourn- Review

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I’ve been meaning to review these books for a while but have had a number of personal family issues that have made reviewing difficult recently.

A very long time ago, I read the first books in the Lady Julia Grey series by Deanna Raybourn and truly enjoyed them but didn’t keep going in the series. I did pick up a couple more of them as the years went on but they were in my pile to be read and I never got to them.

In the meantime, I picked up A Murderous Relation in paperback not too long ago and read it in January. I enjoyed the two main characters, Veronica Speedwell and Stoker. They had a great relationship and the mystery they solved was intriguing and interesting.

Reading this book made me decide to dig out the other books I had by her and I started reading Dark Road to Darjeeling. As I read the first couple of chapters, I was thrown off by the fact that Lady Julie was the daughter of an earl and had siblings with her as they traveled in India. It took me a while to catch on that this was a different heroine than the one in A Murderous Relation.

I am truly not an idiot but having recently read the Murderous book, I wasn’t thinking about those older books with Lady Julia as it had been over 10 years since I read those. The two main characters in each of the book series were so alike and spoke in the same voice that it took me a while to differentiate what series I was reading.

Lady Julia is an aristocrat and the legitimate daughter of an earl. Veronica is the illegitimate child of the Prince of Wales. Veronica is a lepidopterist involved with a man name Stoker who is a jack of all trades and enjoys taxidermy. Lady Julia is a wanna-be detective married to a detective named Brisbane who has a myriad of skills like Stoker. They are both independent-minded women (which I love) and are not cowed or intimidated by strong men.

Both men are alpha types and get frustrated with the female main characters. Both are overly protective (which is right for the era) and have similar character traits.

As I read the first chapters, I kept saying, “Wait, I thought she was illegitimate and had no real relationship with her siblings.”  Eventually, it dawned on me that I was reading about different characters. I laughed and said “Duh,” as I recalled the first books I had read in the Lady Julia series.

But later on, I confess, I got confused again. There was a young boy character in the Darjeeling book who collected creatures, including butterflies. My first thought was, “With her being a lepidopterist, she will be able to relate to him well.” Another duh moment.  Wrong heroine.

I understand the author’s voice is the author’s voice, but I confess, the similarities of the personalities of Lady Julia and Veronica as well as similarities with both Stoker and Brisbane, I spent way too much time mulling over who was who and what series I was reading.

I very much enjoyed both books. The setting in the Himalayas in the Darjeeling book was marvelous and the brothel scenes in the Veronica book were delightful. The plots were intricate and well-done. The flow of the stories was also well done and the pacing was great. I just have to do better as I read them in the future. 🙂

Jan3

A Noble Cunning: the Countess and the Tower by Patricia Bernstein

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This novel is based on and inspired by the real life bravery of a Scottish countess in 1715. Her name was Winifred Maxwell, Countess of Nithsdale. She saved her husband from certain death by smuggling him out of the Tower.

The character in the book is Bethan Glentaggert, Countess of Clarencefield. When she was a child, her family fled to France with King James II (A Stuart king) when William of Orange and Queen Mary (Stuarts) took the throne. Her family was Catholic and lived in exile for many years. She married at age 27 and moved to Scotland with her husband. They lived happily for a while, having three children, but eventually, when the first Jacobite rebellion (to restore James to the throne) occurred, her husband joined in, taking many of his tenants with him into battle.

With the rebels’ loss at Preston, her husband was taken prisoner and held in the Tower of London awaiting trial. The countess sent her children to safety and traveled to London to try to save her husband.

We, as readers, make the journey with her. Through a terrible winter storm. One of the worst in years. The author did an excellent job with the descriptions and the travails of the trip. A lesser woman might have given up. The countess had to leave her companion at one point and continue on her own. As a modern day woman, I can’t even imagine how scary that was—first, with the weather and then when alone, worrying about cutthroats and robbers. A woman alone was very vulnerable, but she persevered.

Once she arrives in London, she visits her husband in the Tower and gets him legal counsel to try to fight the treason charges. She also tries to plead to the king to let him go free. She hatches a back-up plan to try to save him if the legal case doesn’t go well.

The book was full of historical details and the author did an excellent job of painting the reader a picture of the era. It was as if we were there with the intrepid countess in the snow and in the Tower. The feeling of fear she felt for her husband and what would happen to him read very real.

The only disappointment I had with the book was the ending. I wanted more information about what happened when the countess joined her husband at the culmination of her brave and daring plan. I guess I’ll have to read one of the books in the bibliography at the end of the novel to learn more about the real life lady who took on the British establishment.

Dec5

Review – Last Train to London by Meg Waite Clayton

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This is a fictionalized story based on the very real kindertransport trains and ferries taking Jewish children out of Nazi Europe. The real woman who convinced Eichmann to allow the first 600 children to be transported to London, when England agreed to provide visas for them, was named Geertruida Wijsmuller. She saved a large number of Jewish children’s lives, first by taking two and three, and sometimes as many as ten, out of Germany and into the Netherlands. She started doing this in the mid-1930s. The situation became more urgent after Hitler invaded Austria. Many countries closed their borders and refused to allow Jewish people entry visas. Tante Truus, as she had the children call her, worked with some highly placed people in England to pressure their parliament to allow children to be evacuated and held in two summer camps until foster families could take them in. After the war, she was granted Righteous Among the Nations status.

The story in this book centers on two families. One a wealthy Jewish chocolatier who has a wife suffering from cancer. They have two sons, Stephan and Walter. The other, a barber, a Christian grandfather who has a widowed daughter-in-law with two daughters. One is Zofie-Helene and the other Johanna. Their mother is a journalist who is very outspoken against the Nazis.

The story starts with both families living their normal lives and Zofie and Stephan becoming close friends. She’s mathematically gifted and he’s interested in being a playwright.

The chapters alternate between their stories and the story of Tante Truus and her rescues of small groups of children and the dangers she faces in that endeavor.

With Truus in the Netherlands and the others in Vienna, I wondered in the early parts of the book how she was going to help them being as they are quite a ways apart.

When Germany annexes Austria with not so much as a shot fired and seemingly overnight, Stephan’s family’s life undergoes a massive change. His father is taken to a camp and he goes into hiding as he is of an age where the Nazis want to inter him in a camp as well. His brother is only five and, at this time, they were not taking children that young to the camps.

Zofie’s mother, a Christian, eventually gets taken by the Nazis due to her unwelcome stories pointing out their conduct which she won’t stop writing even though she is pressured to do so. The two girls are left with their grandfather.

The story unfolded at a good pace. Some of the parts were very hard to read. The author depicted the utterly senseless cruelty of the Nazis and their adherents very well. It always amazes me how terribly awful these people could be to other people. And how the population turned on people who had been their friends and fellow citizens just days prior.

The author also did a good job showing the fear and terror of the ordinary citizen and why so many didn’t speak up to try to stop the atrocities they witnessed. A great part of the population was cowed and if they spoke up, they would be punished severely as well. Some of them tortured and murdered merely for voicing an opinion—or for nothing at all, even an imagined slight.

It was a harrowing read but one I recommend for several reasons. One, the story of the main characters in Vienna seems to be a reflection of what a lot of families went through during this time. Two, the story of Geertruida Wijsmuller is a story of how one person can make a massive difference in the lives of so many. One voice, one brave soul, she saved so many and gave them a chance at life and that is amazing. And third, with the seeming resurgence of some of the awful ideas the Nazi’s had, this is an important read. We must never, ever, let these things happen again and the author of this book makes what happened to Jewish people, as well as anyone who disagreed with the Nazi ideals in that time, all very real and relatable with the characters she created.

This one is well worth a read.

Mar27

Rizzio by Denise Mina

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This story about the murder of David Rizzio, the private secretary of Mary Queen of Scots was a quick read. A much fuller picture of what happened that night and the days to follow than I’d read previously

What the conspirators put the poor man through was brutal and violent. The terror he must have experienced was gut-wrenching even reading about it more than 460 years later. Queen Mary’s fear for her life as well as her child’s and the way her own husband tried to force her to have a miscarriage was awful. Imagine spending a whole night and day thinking you’re going to be killed any moment and there is no escape. And that your husband is part of the plot to kill you and your child. Such a savage era in history.

Of course, in some places, life can still be vicious and this retelling of the events of that night in 1566 reminded me that some people still live in places where such violence can be a daily occurrence. This reader counts herself lucky that she can read about such horrors without the kind of fear people face both in the past and in our time.

This killing boiled down to two things in my opinion—(1) an immature, jealous husband who was dissatisfied with his lot in life as consort, not king in his own right and (2) the greed and avarice of courtiers who saw this as their chance to take what they wanted and get rid of Mary. They played right into Darnley’s fantasy of being king and used that for their own ends with no intention of giving him his heart’s desire. A lot of nefarious people in Edinburgh.

The author here clearly researched the time frame extensively. I had not read about Henry Yair and his murder of Father Adam Black on the same night. That was an interesting part of the story I had not heard about before. Fanaticism seemed rife in that era for sure.

I can’t say I liked the book as it was a terrible, terrible time in Scotland’s history, but I did learn a lot and appreciate the author’s work in fleshing out this story. It was well-written and, as it was also brutally truthful, it was a heartbreaking read. 4 stars.

Mar21

Bluebird by Genevieve Graham- a Review

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I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

This story starts out in Belgium in WWI. The heroine, Adele, is a nurse in an army hospital. These women were called Bluebirds because of their uniforms of light blue and white. Adele has been there for a while and has been able to keep her distance from the injured men she helps treat. The nurses are encouraged not to become personally involved with the patients and Adele works hard to not get attached..

Then a tunneler named Jeremy is brought in wounded severely and requiring a lot of care. These tunnelers were vital to the war effort and spent all their time underground setting explosives to aid their comrades who were fighting above ground.  Jerry’s brother, John is also a tunneler and saves Jerry from an explosion by the enemy and makes sure his brother is brought to the hospital. The nurse assigned to Jerry is Adele.

At first, due to his injuries, Jerry can’t talk. Adele spends time with him reading to him and chatting. They draw close, but eventually, Jerry heals and heads back to the front and they lose contact.

Both Jerry and Adele are Canadian and from the same general area of Ontario. When Jerry returns home with his brother, he tries to find Adele but is unsuccessful and fears she died in Belgium. Adele is likewise sure Jerry didn’t survive.

The story follows each of them as they rebuild their lives. This part of the book seemed to drag a bit. Honestly, a lot of the story was slow moving and it took me many days to get through that middle part.

The action eventually picked up after the two of them found their niches in the world. Adele went to work for a local doctor. Jerry and his brother entered the dangerous line of work of running illegal alcohol to the United States during prohibition. This was when the book picked up the pace.

Run-ins with a former friend turned enemy brought a sense of urgency to the plot and this reader enjoyed the new quicker pace of the tale.

It was obvious the author delved deep into research of the era, including the nursing corps of Canada in WWI, the tunnelers of that war and the prohibition era dangers to the smugglers and competitors in the business. There were a lot of intriguing parts such as the various ways the rum-runners got their liquor across the border to sell it, including all the ways they hid bottles in the automobiles. It was also interesting to learn about the way the restaurants in Canada offered free liquor if the patron ordered food as a way to get around the laws in place. This reader wasn’t familiar with Canada’s laws during prohibition, so a lot of the information was new. The author was deft at sliding in the historical details without making the story read like a history lesson.

Overall, the book was good and well-developed. Parts were slow, but I enjoyed the characters and the real history of the times being artfully inserted. I’d recommend this one. 4 stars.

Mar1

Burke and the Pimpernel Affair by Tom Williams- A Review

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I enjoy historical tales and chose this one to review based on the year it was set. This book was part of a series, but it doesn’t need to be read in order in my opinion. It was easy to figure out who everyone was and the adventure in this story was self-contained. The setting was after the French Revolution era and into the times of the England/France wars with Napoleon.  The main characters, James Burke and his sergeant, William Brown, were sent from England to find the leak in the English spy network. Many of the agents working for England were going missing on the route from the channel to Paris.

Brown went into France with a group of French patriots whose mission was to sabotage certain enemy strongholds and one who was to distribute anti Napoleonic propaganda. They were to take the circuitous route into Paris, moving from safe house to safe house.

Burke followed behind them to be the lookout on the ground to figure out just where the leak or unsafe house was located.

Adventure ensues as the reader follows the route of the group as well as Burke. Some tense moments were in store on the road to Paris.

The story also contains scenes with the French spymaster, Fouche’ as he plots from his office and plans his tortures of any prisoners he can get his hands on. He’s especially interested in any spies from England.  

As the tale unfolds, dangers are around every corner. The action becomes intense and without spoilers, it’s hard to say much more. Suffice it to say, there were many times this reader was on the edge of her seat.

The author did an excellent job recreating the scenes of both the countryside and Paris of the era. I could almost smell the putrid streets of the city and the woods in the country. His descriptions of the interiors of palaces, cottages and the prison were also well done. The labyrinth of the office building/archives/prison was especially well done. The description of the darkness and many passages heightened the anxiety of the parts of the book that took place there.

A very immersive tale that I think was well executed and enjoyable even through the harrowing parts.  Four stars.