Genre: Historical Fiction

#BookReview Red Sky Over Hawaii by Sara Ackerman @ackermanbooks @HarlequinBooks @Bookclubbish #HarlequinPublicityTeam #RedSkyOverHawaii

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#BookReview Red Sky Over Hawaii by Sara Ackerman @ackermanbooks @HarlequinBooks @Bookclubbish #HarlequinPublicityTeam #RedSkyOverHawaii Title: Red Sky Over Hawaii

Author: Sara Ackerman

Published by: Mira Books on Jun. 9, 2020

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 400

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Harlequin Books

Book Rating: 9/10

Inspired by real places and events of WWII, Red Sky Over Hawaii immerses the reader in a time of American history full of suspicion and peril in this lush and poignant tale about the indisputable power of doing the right thing against all odds.

The attack on Pearl Harbor changes everything for Lana Hitchcock. Arriving home on the Big Island too late to reconcile with her estranged father, she is left alone to untangle the clues of his legacy, which lead to a secret property tucked away in the remote rain forest of Kilauea volcano. When the government starts taking away her neighbors as suspected sympathizers, Lana shelters two young German girls, a Japanese fisherman and his son. As tensions escalate, they are forced into hiding—only to discover the hideaway house is not what they expected.

When a detainment camp is established nearby, Lana struggles to keep the secrets of those in her care. Trust could have dangerous consequences. As their lives weave together, Lana begins to understand the true meaning of family and how the bonds of love carry us through the worst times.

Review:

Enticing, exotic, and touching!

Red Sky Over Hawaii is a tender, heartwarming tale that sweeps you away to the island of Hawaii in the days, hours, and minutes leading up to Pearl Harbor and the year after and into the life of Lana Hitchcock, a young woman who after losing her father suddenly takes on the responsibility of hiding four individuals whose nationality makes them a target for detainment and internment.

The prose is expressive and lush. The characters are multilayered, troubled, strong, and compassionate. And the plot is an evocative tale of life, loss, love, self-discovery, war, secrets, friendship, determination, survival, romance, and the true meaning of family.

Overall, Red Sky Over Hawaii is a beautifully written, informative, absorbing tale with intriguing characters that I devoured from start to finish. I’m a huge fan of Sara Ackerman’s writing, and this novel didn’t disappoint. If you enjoy well researched WWII novels with a fresh and unique perspective, then I highly recommend it.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

                

 

 

Thank you to Harlequin Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Sara Ackerman

Sara writes books about love and life, and all of their messy and beautiful imperfections. Born and raised in Hawaii, she studied journalism and later earned graduate degrees in psychology and Chinese medicine. She is the author of historical novels Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers and The Lieutenant's Nurse, with several more in the works. She blames Hawaii for her addiction to writing, and sees no end to its untapped stories. Sara lives on the Big Island with her boyfriend and a houseful of bossy animals.

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#BookReview The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner @NatalieMJenner @StMartinsPress #TheJaneAustenSociety

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#BookReview The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner @NatalieMJenner @StMartinsPress #TheJaneAustenSociety Title: The Jane Austen Society

Author: Natalie Jenner

Published by: St. Martin's Press on May 26, 2020

Genres: Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

Pages: 320

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: St. Martin's Press

Book Rating: 8/10

Just after the Second World War, in the small English village of Chawton, an unusual but like-minded group of people band together to attempt something remarkable.

One hundred and fifty years ago, Chawton was the final home of Jane Austen, one of England’s finest novelists. Now it’s home to a few distant relatives and their diminishing estate. With the last bit of Austen’s legacy threatened, a group of disparate individuals come together to preserve both Jane Austen’s home and her legacy. These people—a laborer, a young widow, the local doctor, and a movie star, among others—could not be more different and yet they are united in their love for the works and words of Austen. As each of them endures their own quiet struggle with loss and trauma, some from the recent war, others from more distant tragedies, they rally together to create the Jane Austen Society.

Review:

Charming, cosy, and quaint!

The Jane Austen Society is a delightfully nostalgic, heartwarming tale that takes us to the small village of Chawton, England post-WWII and into the lives of an unusual, eclectic group of people that includes a farmer, a doctor, a former school teacher, a young maid, a solicitor, a movie star, an antique auctioneer, and a distant relative of Austen as they join together to preserve and honour the iconic writer and the legacy she left behind.

The writing is tender and rich. The characters are multilayered, caring, and engaging. And the plot is an absorbing mix of life, loss, love, family, friendship, heartbreak, loneliness, familial expectations, second chances, and literary dabblings.

Overall, The Jane Austen Society is a sweet, touching, sentimental debut by Jenner that does a wonderful job of reminding us of all the special, remarkable characters and tales Jane Austen created and why we still enjoy and love them so much today.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Natalie Jenner

Natalie Jenner was born in England and emigrated to Canada as a young child. She obtained her B.A. and her LL.B. from the University of Toronto, where she was the 1990 Gold Medalist in English Literature at St. Michael's College, and was Called to the Bar of Ontario in 1995. In addition to a brief career as a corporate lawyer, Natalie has worked as a recruiter, career coach, and consultant to leading law firms in Canada for over two decades. Most recently Natalie founded the independent bookstore Archetype Books in Oakville, Ontario, where she lives with her family and two rescue dogs. A lifelong devotee of all things Jane Austen, "The Jane Austen Society" is her first published novel.

Photograph courtesy of Author's Website.

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#BookReview #Giveaway Liberation by Imogen Kealey @GrandCentralPub #Liberation #GrandCentralPub

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#BookReview #Giveaway Liberation by Imogen Kealey @GrandCentralPub #Liberation #GrandCentralPub Title: Liberation

Author: Imogen Kealey

Published by: Grand Central Publishing on Apr. 28, 2020

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 384

Format: Hardcover

Source: Grand Central Publishing

Book Rating: 9/10

Hero. Soldier. Spy. Leader. Her name is Nancy Wake.

To the Allies, she was a fearless freedom fighter, a special operations legend, a woman ahead of her time. To the Gestapo, she was a ghost, a shadow, the most wanted person in the world.

But at first, Nancy Wake was just another young woman living in Marseilles and recently engaged to a man she loved. Then France fell to the Nazi blitzkrieg. With her appetite for danger, Nancy quickly finds herself drawn into the underground Resistance standing up to Nazi rule. Gaining notoriety as the White Mouse, with a 5-million-franc bounty hanging over her head, Wake rises to the top of the Nazi’s Most Wanted list — only to find her husband arrested for treasonous activity under suspicion of being the White Mouse himself.

Narrowly escaping to Britain, Wake joins the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and parachutes into the Auvergne, where she must fight for the respect of some of the toughest Resistance fighters in France. As she and her maquisards battle the Nazis, their every engagement brings the end of the war closer — but also places her husband in deeper peril.

A riveting, richly imagined historical thriller, LIBERATION brings to life one of World War II’s most fascinating unsung heroines in all her fierce power and complexity. This is the story of one of the one of the war’s most decorated women, told like never before.

Review:

Fascinating, compelling, and inspiring!

Liberation is an intriguing, adventurous interpretation of the life of Nancy Wake, an Australian runaway who became known by the Nazis as the White Mouse after she used the status and money acquired by her marriage to French Industrialist, Henri Fiocca to aid the French resistance and later as a trained SOE office for Britain help them prepare for D-Day.

The prose is vivid and tense. The characters are vulnerable, resourceful, and courageous. And the plot, set in France during the early 1940s, is a moving tale about life, love, bravery, strength, heartbreak, loss, guilt, grief, loyalty, espionage, malice, betrayal, and survival.

Overall, Liberation is a wonderful blend of harrowing facts and engrossing fiction. It is a fast-paced, memorable, thrilling tale that does a lovely job of highlighting humanities ability to be selflessly heroic under even the direst, most horrific of circumstances.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

           

 

 

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

GIVEAWAY!

 

I’m giving two people a chance to win a copy of Liberation. To enter please visit my Instagram page HERE! 

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for sponsoring the giveaway! All giveaway information can be found in the Instagram Giveaway Post. Books will be mailed by the publisher to the randomly chosen winners. Good luck!

 

About Imogen Kealey

Imogen Kealey is the pseudonym of American screenwriter Darby Kealey and British novelist Imogen Robertson, who bonded over their desire to tell Wake’s story. Liberation, their first novel as Imogen Kealey, is currently in development as a major motion picture.

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#BlogTour #BookReview The Paris Hours by Alex George @AlexGeorge @Flatironbooks #TheParisHours

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#BlogTour #BookReview The Paris Hours by Alex George @AlexGeorge @Flatironbooks #TheParisHours Title: The Paris Hours

Author: Alex George

Published by: Flatiron Books on May 5, 2020

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 272

Format: Hardcover

Source: Flatiron Books

Book Rating: 8.5/10

One day in the City of Lights. One night in search of lost time.

Paris between the wars teems with artists, writers, and musicians, a glittering crucible of genius. But amidst the dazzling creativity of the city’s most famous citizens, four regular people are each searching for something they’ve lost.

Camille was the maid of Marcel Proust, and she has a secret: when she was asked to burn her employer’s notebooks, she saved one for herself. Now she is desperate to find it before her betrayal is revealed. Souren, an Armenian refugee, performs puppet shows for children that are nothing like the fairy tales they expect. Lovesick artist Guillaume is down on his luck and running from a debt he cannot repay—but when Gertrude Stein walks into his studio, he wonders if this is the day everything could change. And Jean-Paul is a journalist who tells other people’s stories, because his own is too painful to tell. When the quartet’s paths finally cross in an unforgettable climax, each discovers if they will find what they are looking for.

Told over the course of a single day in 1927, The Paris Hours takes four ordinary people whose stories, told together, are as extraordinary as the glorious city they inhabit.

Review:

Pensive, evocative, and atmospheric!

The Paris Hours takes you on a moving journey into the lives of four strangers in Paris for one day during 1927 and introduces you to their thoughts, feelings, motivations, fears, and dreams, and highlights just how small the world truly is and how easily our paths can cross, intertwine, and collide. 

The writing is eloquent and expressive. The characters are complex, damaged, and genuine. And the plot is an affecting, absorbing tale about life, loss, love, loneliness, family, friendship, heartbreak, war, grief, hope, guilt, secrets, deception, and survival.

Overall, The Paris Hours is a wonderful blend of historical characters and alluring fiction that sweeps you away to another time and place and does a beautiful job of reminding you that everyone that enters your life, no matter how brief, can impact, shape, and define it.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

                

 

 

Thank you to Flatiron Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Alex George

A native of England, Alex George read law at Oxford University and worked for eight years as a corporate lawyer in London and Paris. He has lived in the Midwest of the United States for the last sixteen years. He is the founder and director of the Unbound Book Festival, and is the owner of Skylark Bookshop, an independent bookstore in downtown Columbia, Missouri.

Alex is the author of The Paris Hours, A Good American, and Setting Free the Kites.

Photograph by Anastasia Pottinger/Rogue Studios.

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#BookReview Where the Lost Wander by Amy Harmon @aharmon_author @AmazonPub #WheretheLostWander

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#BookReview Where the Lost Wander by Amy Harmon @aharmon_author @AmazonPub #WheretheLostWander Title: Where the Lost Wander

Author: Amy Harmon

Published by: Lake Union Publishing on Apr. 28, 2020

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 348

Format: Paperback

Source: Amazon Publishing

Book Rating: 10/10

In this epic and haunting love story set on the Oregon Trail, a family and their unlikely protector find their way through peril, uncertainty, and loss.

The Overland Trail, 1853: Naomi May never expected to be widowed at twenty. Eager to leave her grief behind, she sets off with her family for a life out West. On the trail, she forms an instant connection with John Lowry, a half-Pawnee man straddling two worlds and a stranger in both.

But life in a wagon train is fraught with hardship, fear, and death. Even as John and Naomi are drawn to each other, the trials of the journey and their disparate pasts work to keep them apart. John’s heritage gains them safe passage through hostile territory only to come between them as they seek to build a life together.

When a horrific tragedy strikes, decimating Naomi’s family and separating her from John, the promises they made are all they have left. Ripped apart, they can’t turn back, they can’t go on, and they can’t let go. Both will have to make terrible sacrifices to find each other, save each other, and eventually… make peace with who they are.

Review:

Enthralling, moving, and authentic!

Where the Lost Wander is an absorbing story that sweeps you away to 1853 and into the life of Naomi May, a young widow who along with her family embarks on a wagon train journey from St. Joseph, Missouri to California in the hopes of forming a new life. But the prairies are not easily passable, and between the landscape, the elements, disease, and Sioux warriors this adventure is fraught with danger and death from the outset and if not for the help and love of John “Two Feet” Lowry, a mule drive with a foot in both the white man and Pawnee world they would have had little hope for survival.

The writing is eloquent and vivid. The characters are resilient, devoted, and strong. And the plot is a harrowing tale about life, loss, hope, family, grief, culture, hardship, trust, violence, murder, and love.

Overall, Where the Lost Wander is a beautifully written, exceptionally atmospheric novel that transports you to another time and place and immerses you so thoroughly into the feelings, personalities, and lives of the characters you can’t help but be affected. It is indisputably one of my favourite novels of the year that reminds us of the rugged beauty of this land we call home and a lifestyle that was savage yet harmonic and respectful.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

             

 

 

Thank you to Amazon Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Amy Harmon

Amy Harmon is a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and New York Times Bestselling author. Amy knew at an early age that writing was something she wanted to do, and she divided her time between writing songs and stories as she grew. Having grown up in the middle of wheat fields without a television, with only her books and her siblings to entertain her, she developed a strong sense of what made a good story. Her books are now being published in eighteen languages, truly a dream come true for a little country girl from Levan, Utah.

Amy Harmon has written fourteen novels including the USA Today Bestsellers, Making Faces and Running Barefoot, as well as The Law of Moses, Infinity + One and the New York Times Bestseller, A Different Blue. Her fantasy novel, The Bird and the Sword, was a Goodreads Book of the Year finalist. Her newest release, What the Wind Knows, is an Amazon charts bestseller.

Photograph courtesy of Author's Goodreads Page.

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#BookReview Dovetail by Karen McQuestion @KarenMcQuestion @AmazonPub @LUAuthors @ThomasAllenLTD #Dovetail

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#BookReview Dovetail by Karen McQuestion @KarenMcQuestion @AmazonPub @LUAuthors @ThomasAllenLTD #Dovetail Title: Dovetail

Author: Karen McQuestion

Published by: Lake Union Publishing on Mar. 10, 2020

Genres: Contemporary Romance, Women's Fiction, Historical Fiction

Pages: 352

Format: Paperback

Source: Thomas Allen & Son

Book Rating: 8/10

From the bestselling author of Hello Love comes a spellbinding new novel of enduring love, family secrets, and mysterious death.

Joe Arneson’s ordinary life is upended by troubling dreams of himself as a different man in another place and time. It isn’t until he visits his estranged grandmother, Pearl, in her Wisconsin hometown that a startling connection emerges.

Drawn into his family’s past, Joe discovers secrets weighing on the old woman’s soul: the tragic death of her sister Alice a half century ago and its ripple effect on all who loved her. Digging into the events of that summer in 1916, Joe is convinced that his recurrent visions relate to Alice’s untimely passing and to the beloved man she meant to marry. With the help of Kathleen, a local woman Joe’s fallen for, the puzzles of the past start falling into place.

As uncovered truths bring Joe and Kathleen closer together, they also reveal a new danger. For Joe’s dreams may be a warning—from one star-crossed couple to another.

Review:

Pensive, heartwarming, and mysterious!

Dovetail is a captivating, moving tale that takes us into the life of Joe Arneson, a young man who after years of struggling with tormented dreams finally gets some closure and relief after moving to a new town, forging a relationship with a grandmother he never knew existed, embarking on a blossoming new relationship, and uncovering tragic memories and long-buried family secrets from the past.

The prose is fluid and smooth. The characters are troubled, complex, and genuine. And the plot, alternating between timelines and told from multiple perspectives is an absorbing tale of life, loss, love, family, guilt, grief, friendship, forgiveness, jealousy, obsession, and romance all interwoven with a thread of magical realism.

Overall, Dovetail is a compelling, thought-provoking, emotional novel by McQuestion that reminds us that often even the little choices we make often have far-reaching consequences, and sometimes, perhaps, things are truly just fated to happen. 

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to Thomas Allen & Son for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Karen McQuestion

Karen McQuestion is a bestselling author who writes for adults, teens, and kids. Some of her titles include Hello Love, Life on Hold, The Long Way Home, and the Edgewood series.
​
Her books have been translated into German, Spanish, Polish, Korean, Turkish, and Czech and are available internationally in English.
​
All told, her books have sold over a million copies.

Her publishing story has been covered by the Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, and on NPR. She has also appeared on ABC’s World News Now and America This Morning. McQuestion lives with her family in Hartland, Wisconsin.

Photograph courtesy of Author's Website.

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#BlogTour #BookReview Death of an American Beauty by Mariah Fredericks @MariahFrederick @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #MinotaurInfluencers #DeathofanAmericanBeauty

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#BlogTour #BookReview Death of an American Beauty by Mariah Fredericks @MariahFrederick @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #MinotaurInfluencers #DeathofanAmericanBeauty Title: Death of an American Beauty

Author: Mariah Fredericks

Series: Jane Prescott #3

Published by: Minotaur Books on Apr. 14, 2020

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 272

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Minotaur Books

Book Rating: 8.5/10

Death of an American Beauty is the third in Mariah Fredericks’s compelling series, set in Gilded Age New York, featuring Jane Prescott.

Jane Prescott is taking a break from her duties as lady’s maid for a week, and plans to begin it with attending the hottest and most scandalous show in town: the opening of an art exhibition, showcasing the cubists, that is shocking New York City.

1913 is also the fiftieth anniversary of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation speech, and the city’s great and good are determined to celebrate in style. Dolly Rutherford, heiress to the glamorous Rutherford’s department store empire, has gathered her coterie of society ladies to put on a play—with Jane’s employer Louise Tyler in the starring role as Lincoln himself. Jane is torn between helping the ladies with their costumes and enjoying her holiday. But fate decides she will do neither, when a woman is found murdered outside Jane’s childhood home—a refuge for women run by her uncle.

Deeply troubled as her uncle falls under suspicion and haunted by memories of a woman she once knew, Jane—with the help of old friends and new acquaintances, reporter Michael Behan and music hall pianist Leo Hirschfeld—is determined to discover who is making death into their own twisted art form.

Review:

Authentic, atmospheric, and mysterious!

In this latest novel by Fredericks, Death of an American Beauty, we head back to Manhattan during the early twentieth century and into the life of lady’s maid, Jane Prescott whose highly-anticipated vacation is suddenly turned upside down when a resident of her uncle’s refuge for reformed prostitutes is found viciously murdered, and the American Beauty Pagent is in urgent need of a last-minute seamstress.

The prose is meticulous and rich. The characters are independent, intelligent, and resourceful. And the plot is a well-paced whodunit full of amateur sleuthing, red herrings, suspects, deduction, familial dynamics, duty, friendship, secrets, racial inequality, sexism, romance, violence, and murder.

Death of an American Beauty is the third book in the Jane Prescott series, and if you love historical mysteries, this novel won’t disappoint. It is a menacing, entertaining, vivid tale that is certainly well worth a read.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press – Minotaur Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Mariah Fredericks

Mariah Fredericks was born and raised in New York City, where she still lives with her family. She is the author of several YA novels. Death of an American Beauty is her third novel to feature ladies' maid Jane Prescott.

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#BookReview Truths I Never Told You by Kelly Rimmer @Kelrimmerwrites @HarlequinBooks @BookClubbish #TruthsINeverToldYou

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#BookReview Truths I Never Told You by Kelly Rimmer @Kelrimmerwrites @HarlequinBooks @BookClubbish #TruthsINeverToldYou Title: Truths I Never Told You

Author: Kelly Rimmer

Published by: Harlequin Books on Apr. 14, 2020

Genres: Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

Pages: 352

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Harlequin Books

Book Rating: 8.5/10

From the bestselling author of The Things We Cannot Say comes a poignant novel about the fault in memories and the lies that can bond a family together—or tear it apart.

With her father recently moved to a care facility for his worsening dementia, Beth Walsh volunteers to clear out the family home and is surprised to discover the door to her childhood playroom padlocked. She’s even more shocked at what’s behind it—a hoarder’s mess of her father’s paintings, mounds of discarded papers and miscellaneous junk in the otherwise fastidiously tidy house.

As she picks through the clutter, she finds a loose journal entry in what appears to be her late mother’s handwriting. Beth and her siblings grew up believing their mother died in a car accident when they were little more than toddlers, but this note suggests something much darker. Beth soon pieces together a disturbing portrait of a woman suffering from postpartum depression and a husband who bears little resemblance to the loving father Beth and her siblings know. With a newborn of her own and struggling with motherhood, Beth finds there may be more tying her and her mother together than she ever suspected.

Exploring the expectations society places on women of every generation, Kelly Rimmer explores the profound struggles two women unwittingly share across the decades set within an engrossing family mystery that may unravel everything they believed to be true.

Review:

Moving, mysterious, and absorbing!

Truths I Never Told You is an engaging, affecting story that immerses you into the lives of the Walsh family as they struggle to come to grips with an ailing father, a family home filled with nostalgia and secrets, a sister grappling with postpartum depression, and the real truth behind the life and loss of their mother Grace when they were children.

The writing is smooth and emotive. The characters are genuine, supportive, and multilayered. And the plot, including all the subplots, intertwine and unravel into a hopeful tale about life, loss, family, parenthood, mental illness, secrets, deception, introspection, forgiveness, and love.

Overall, Truths I Never Told You is a heartbreaking, touching, enlightening tale by Rimmer that reminds us life is too short for grievances, resentments, and regrets, and psychological disorders are very real concerns that should never be left untreated.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

 

Thank you to Harlequin Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Kelly Rimmer

Kelly Rimmer is the worldwide and USA TODAY bestselling author of five novels, including Me Without You and The Secret Daughter. She lives in rural Australia with her husband, two children and fantastically naughty dogs Sully and Basil. Her novels have been translated into more than twenty languages.

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#BookReview They Went Left by Monica Hesse @MonicaHesse @littlebrown @HBGCanada #TheyWentLeft

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#BookReview They Went Left by Monica Hesse @MonicaHesse @littlebrown @HBGCanada #TheyWentLeft Title: They Went Left

Author: Monica Hesse

Published by: Little Brown and Company on Apr. 7, 2020

Genres: Historical Fiction, Young Adult

Pages: 384

Format: Hardcover

Source: HBG Canada

Book Rating: 9/10

Germany, 1945. The soldiers who liberated the Gross-Rosen concentration camp said the war was over, but nothing feels over to eighteen-year-old Zofia Lederman. Her body has barely begun to heal; her mind feels broken. And her life is completely shattered: Three years ago, she and her younger brother, Abek, were the only members of their family to be sent to the right, away from the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Everyone else–her parents, her grandmother, radiant Aunt Maja–they went left.

Zofia’s last words to her brother were a promise: Abek to Zofia, A to Z. When I find you again, we will fill our alphabet. Now her journey to fulfill that vow takes her through Poland and Germany, and into a displaced persons camp where everyone she meets is trying to piece together a future from a painful past: Miriam, desperately searching for the twin she was separated from after they survived medical experimentation. Breine, a former heiress, who now longs only for a simple wedding with her new fiancé. And Josef, who guards his past behind a wall of secrets, and is beautiful and strange and magnetic all at once.

But the deeper Zofia digs, the more impossible her search seems. How can she find one boy in a sea of the missing? In the rubble of a broken continent, Zofia must delve into a mystery whose answers could break her–or help her rebuild her world.

Review:

Heartwrenching, haunting, and hopeful!

They Went Left is a poignant, compelling tale that sweeps you away to post-war Germany and into the life of Zofia Lederman, a young Jewish girl who after being liberated from a Nazi concentration camp and with a mind traumatized by cruelty and violence travels from her home town in Poland to the Foehrenwald Displaced Persons Camp to search for the one family member who may not be lost forever and that she swore to protect, her younger brother, Abek.

The prose is raw and tense. The characters are vulnerable, tortured, and resilient. And the plot is a moving tale about life, love, bravery, strength, loss, deception, hope, survival, and the enduring aftereffects of war.

Overall, They Went Left is a lovely blend of historical facts, realistic fiction, and palpable emotion that does a beautiful job of reminding us that even after suffering the most unimaginable cruelty and wickedness humanity still has an innate ability to want to love and be loved.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

                

 

 

Thank you to HBG Canada for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Monica Hesse

Monica Hesse is the national bestselling author of the true crime love story American Fire, and the historical mystery novel Girl in the Blue Coat, which has been translated into a dozen languages and won the 2017 Edgar award in the Young Adult category. She is a feature writer for the Washington Post, where she has been a winner of the Society for Feature Journalism's Narrative Storytelling award, and a finalist for a Livingston Award and a James Beard Award. Monica lives in Maryland. with her husband and a brainiac dog.

Photography courtesy of Author's Website.

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#BookReview The Last Bathing Beauty by Amy Sue Nathan @AmySueNathan @AmazonPub @LUAuthors #TheLastBathingBeauty

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#BookReview The Last Bathing Beauty by Amy Sue Nathan @AmySueNathan @AmazonPub @LUAuthors #TheLastBathingBeauty Title: The Last Bathing Beauty

Author: Amy Sue Nathan

Published by: Lake Union Publishing on Apr. 1, 2020

Genres: General Fiction, Women's Fiction, Historical Fiction

Pages: 304

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Amazon Publishing

Book Rating: 8/10

A former beauty queen faces the secrets of her past—for herself and the sake of her family’s future—in a heartfelt novel about fate, choices, and second chances.

Everything seemed possible in the summer of 1951. Back then Betty Stern was an eighteen-year-old knockout working at her grandparents’ lakeside resort. The “Catskills of the Midwest” was the perfect place for Betty to prepare for bigger things. She’d head to college in New York City. Her career as a fashion editor would flourish. But first, she’d enjoy a wondrous last summer at the beach falling deeply in love with an irresistible college boy and competing in the annual Miss South Haven pageant. On the precipice of a well-planned life, Betty’s future was limitless.

Decades later, the choices of that long-ago season still reverberate for Betty, now known as Boop. Especially when her granddaughter comes to her with a dilemma that echoes Boop’s memories of first love, broken hearts, and faraway dreams. It’s time to finally face the past—for the sake of her family and her own happiness. Maybe in reconciling the life she once imagined with the life she’s lived, Boop will discover it’s never too late for a second chance.

Review:

Tender, nostalgic, and sentimental!

The Last Bathing Beauty is an absorbing, heartwarming tale that takes us to the shores of South Haven, Michigan during 1951 when Jewish summer camps in the Catskills of the Midwest were the place to be, girls were excited for more than just marriage, and Betty Stern and her family would never be the same.

The writing is vivid and expressive. The characters are authentic, vivacious, and sympathetic. And the plot, using a past/present, back-and-forth style is a delightful mix of summer fun, friendship, family, coming-of-age, secrets, heartbreak, forbidden love, familial expectations, and second chances.

Overall, The Last Bathing Beauty is a heartfelt, beguiling, charming tale by Nathan that not only reminds us that everyone that enters our lives impacts, shapes, and defines it but that love is truly ageless.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to Amazon Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Amy Sue Nathan

Writer of novels, lover of cats, morning coffee, dark chocolate, and bold lipstick. Former vegetarian, occasional crafter, adequate cook, loyal friend, proud mom to two awesome adults.

Photograph courtesy of Author's Goodreads Page.

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