Trapped in Time by Evangeline AndersonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
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Monday, December 21, 2020
Thursday, December 3, 2020
Wednesday, December 2, 2020
Review: 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz
999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz by Heather Dune MacadamMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
999
This was an extraordinary recounting of the first women’s transport to aushwitz. It was amazing what these women were able to survive and their tales are heart wrenching.
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Review: Watermelon
Watermelon by Marian KeyesMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Watermelon
3.5 Stars
This book was a recommended read by a friend. This was real. A very real life experience felt by many people. The ideas of abandonment and manipulation by someone close to you are hard to take in and hard to realize while you are going through them. I thought the author did a good job of expressing those feelings.
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Friday, November 20, 2020
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
Review: The Lions of Fifth Avenue
The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona DavisMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
The Lions of Fifth Avenue
Wow! I really had higher hopes for this book. The characters were unlikable and most of the story to me just didn’t make sense on what the characters would’ve done.
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Review: 15th Affair
15th Affair by James PattersonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
15th Affair
Mystery and intrigue. In this one I enjoyed how Boxer handled herself, even with everything going down her life she still kept her cool. I liked the whodunit aspect and the Chinese intrigue.
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Review: The Jane Austen Society
The Jane Austen Society by Natalie JennerMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Jane Austen Society
I liked all the different stories and all the different character personalities that this book brought up. Everyone has sorrow in their life, and I really liked how Jane Austen’s novels were able to help them and connect all of the characters together.
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Thursday, November 12, 2020
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
Review: Dear Mrs. Bird
Dear Mrs. Bird by A.J. PearceMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Dear Mrs. Bird
This book was definitely not what I was expecting when I originally picked it up to read it. It was thoughtful, and it definitely dealt with a different experience of someone during that time who just wanted to help.
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Monday, November 9, 2020
Review: Possession
Possession by Katie LoweMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Note:I received a free ARC of Possession by Katie Lowe from Macmillan in exchange for an honest review
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Tuesday, October 13, 2020
Review: Wunderland
Wunderland by Jennifer Cody EpsteinMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
East Village, 1989 - Things had never been easy between Ava Fisher and her estranged mother Ilse. Too many questions hovered between them: Who was Ava's father? Where had Ilse been during the war? Why had she left her only child in a German orphanage during the war's final months? But now Ilse's ashes have arrived from Germany, and with them, a trove of unsent letters addressed to someone else unknown to Ava: Renate Bauer, a childhood friend. As her mother's letters unfurl a dark past, Ava spirals deep into the shocking history of a woman she never truly knew.
Berlin, 1933 - As the Nazi party tightens its grip on the city, Ilse and Renate find their friendship under siege—and Ilse's increasing involvement in the Hitler Youth movement leaves them on opposing sides of the gathering storm. Then the Nuremburg Laws force Renate to confront a long-buried past, and a catastrophic betrayal is set in motion..
It was fun to read a story from a German perspective during the time of World War II. Also regarding the unlikely friendship of two girls during that period of time.
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Review: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie FordMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
I like how the author portrayed the angst Chinese and Japanese Americans during the time of World War II and the prejudices that they had to overcome in the face of the war.
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Review: The Secrets We Kept
The Secrets We Kept by Lara PrescottMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Secrets We Kept
As someone who has never read Doctor Zhivago, I still found this book to be highly entertaining and it was interesting to see the authors backstory. I also liked the element of espionage portrayed by every day women after World War II.
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Thursday, October 8, 2020
Review: Girl in the Blue Coat
Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica HesseMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Amsterdam, 1943. Hanneke spends her days procuring and delivering sought-after black market goods to paying customers, her nights hiding the true nature of her work from her concerned parents, and every waking moment mourning her boyfriend, who was killed on the Dutch front lines when the Germans invaded. She likes to think of her illegal work as a small act of rebellion.
On a routine delivery, a client asks Hanneke for help. Expecting to hear that Mrs. Janssen wants meat or kerosene, Hanneke is shocked by the older woman's frantic plea to find a person - a Jewish teenager Mrs. Janssen had been hiding, who has vanished without a trace from a secret room. Hanneke initially wants nothing to do with such dangerous work, but is ultimately drawn into a web of mysteries and stunning revelations that lead her into the heart of the resistance, open her eyes to the horrors of the Nazi war machine, and compel her to take desperate action.
This book shows the student side of the resistance movement in Holland. It also shows the naivety that some people had to what was really going on around them.
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Monday, October 5, 2020
Review: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne CollinsMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capital, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.
The odds are against him. He's been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined -- every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute... and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.
Oh dear. I loved the Hunger Games trilogy so much. I have to say, I was never really looking forward to this book. I did not want to like Coriolanus at all of feel remotely bad for him. This book started off really slow and did not get any better.
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Review: Mrs. Lincoln's Sisters
Mrs. Lincoln's Sisters by Jennifer ChiaveriniMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Mrs. Lincoln’s Sisters
I liked the different stories that each other sisters had to tell and each of their different perspectives on Mary Lincoln.
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Review: Code Name Hélène by Ariel Lawhon
Code Name Hélène by Ariel LawhonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
4.5 Stars
Set in 1936, Nancy Wake, an audacious Australian ex-pat in Paris, finds herself swept off her feet by wealthy industrialist Henri Fiocca. However, their romance is short-lived as the Germans invade France, prompting Nancy to adopt a code name and become a daring smuggler known as Lucienne Carlier. Evading capture and earning the moniker "The White Mouse" from the Gestapo, Nancy's life is at stake with a bounty on her head. Forced to leave Henri behind, she undergoes training with the Special Operations Executives in Britain, where she is given the name Hélène. Returning to France as Madam André, Nancy becomes a formidable leader in the French Resistance, armed with her wit, red lipstick, and the ability to acquire weapons from the Allied Forces. However, as the war progresses, the danger intensifies, and Nancy must protect her true identity, even at the risk of those she loves.
This was a fantastic book. I loved all of the characters in it, especially Nancy and Henri. Henri was amazing, he seemed like the perfect husband. I also really enjoyed all of his drinking rules, I’ll have to see if those could be put to good use.
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Thursday, October 1, 2020
Monday, September 28, 2020
Monday, September 21, 2020
Thursday, September 17, 2020
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Review: The Dressmaker's Gift
The Dressmaker's Gift by Fiona ValpyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Dressmaker’s Gift
3.5 Stars
As much as I did not need Harriet’s present day story, it was interesting how the author tied her story in. I really liked Claire’s, Vivians, and Miriam’s stories better. The hardships the girls had to face were tremendous but I like how the author showed a story of survival and friendship.
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Monday, September 14, 2020
Review: The Third Daughter
The Third Daughter by Talia CarnerMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The third daughter
This was an interesting book. I did not really know anything about this time in Argentina’s history where prostitution was legal and about the white slave trade of the girls who were brought there.
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Thursday, September 10, 2020
Review: The Girl in the Picture
The Girl in the Picture by Kerry BarrettMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
East Sussex Coast, 1855 - Violet Hargreaves is the lonely daughter of a widowed industrialist, and an aspiring Pre-Raphaelite painter. One day, the naïve eighteen-year-old meets Edwin; a mysterious and handsome man on the beach, who promises her a world beyond the small costal village she’s trapped in. But after ignoring warning about Edwin, a chain of terrible events begins to unfold for Violet…
East Sussex Coast, 2016 - For thriller-writer Ella Daniels, the house on the cliff is the perfect place to overcome writer’s block, where she decides to move with her small family. But there’s a strange atmosphere that settles once they move in – and rumours of historical murders next door begin to emerge. One night, Ella uncovers a portrait of a beautiful young girl named Violet Hargreaves, who went missing at the same time as the horrific crimes, and Ella becomes determined to find out what happened there 160 years ago. And in trying to lay Violet’s ghost to rest, Ella must face ghosts of her own...
While this book was a bit slow paced, the story overall was interesting overall. Violet's character was incredibly naive and I felt really bad for Frances.
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Review: The Secret Messenger
The Secret Messenger by Mandy RobothamMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Venice, 1943
The world is at war, and Stella Jilani is leading a double life. By day she works in the lion’s den as a typist for the Reich; by night, she risks her life as a messenger for the Italian resistance. Against all odds, Stella must impart Nazi secrets, smuggle essential supplies and produce an underground newspaper on her beloved typewriter. But when German commander General Breugal becomes suspicious, it seems he will stop at nothing to find the mole, and Stella knows her future could be in jeopardy.
London, 2017
Years later, Luisa Belmont finds a mysterious old typewriter in her attic. Determined to find out who it belonged to, Luisa delves into the past and uncovers a story of fierce love, unimaginable sacrifice and, ultimately, the worst kind of betrayal…
I really enjoyed Stella's story set in World War II Venice but I could have done without Luisa's part. The 2017 mystery took me out of the actual story that I wanted to know about.
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Friday, September 4, 2020
Tuesday, September 1, 2020
Review: Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope by Wendy Holden
Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope by Wendy HoldenMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Eastern Europe, 1944: Three women believe they are pregnant, but are torn from their husbands before they can be certain. Rachel is sent to Auschwitz, unaware that her husband has been shot. Priska and her husband travel there together, but are immediately separated. Also at Auschwitz, Anka hopes in vain to be reunited with her husband. With the rest of their families gassed, these young wives are determined to hold on to all they have left—their lives, and those of their unborn babies. Having concealed their condition from infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, they are forced to work and almost starved to death, living in daily fear of their pregnancies being detected by the SS.
In April 1945, as the Allies close in, Priska gives birth. She and her baby, along with Anka, Rachel, and the remaining inmates, are sent to Mauthausen concentration camp on a hellish seventeen-day train journey. Rachel gives birth on the train, and Anka at the camp gates. All believe they will die, but then a miracle occurs. The gas chamber runs out of Zyklon-B, and as the Allied troops near, the SS flee. Against all odds, the three mothers and their newborns survive their treacherous journey to freedom.
This was an interesting story of three woman's perspectives of what they went through while being pregnant in a concentration camp. I liked having the change of perspective, but I did find it hard to keep all of the characters and individual stories straight.
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Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Review: The Woman on the Orient Express
The Woman on the Orient Express by Lindsay Jayne AshfordMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
2.5 Stars
Hoping to make a clean break from a fractured marriage, Agatha Christie boards the Orient Express in disguise. But unlike her famous detective Hercule Poirot, she can’t neatly unravel the mysteries she encounters on this fateful journey. Agatha isn’t the only passenger on board with secrets. Her cabinmate Katharine Keeling’s first marriage ended in tragedy, propelling her toward a second relationship mired in deceit. Nancy Nelson—newly married but carrying another man’s child—is desperate to conceal the pregnancy and teeters on the brink of utter despair. Each woman hides her past from the others, ferociously guarding her secrets. But as the train bound for the Middle East speeds down the track, the parallel courses of their lives shift to intersect—with lasting repercussions.
I have always really liked Agatha Christie and I thought this would be a really interesting read. I found the plots to be interesting but the writing was slow.
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