Review: The Whiskey Sea, by Ann Howard Creel with giveaway (ends 09/21)

12 September 2016 by Melissa

About the book, The Whiskey Sea

Paperback
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing (August 23, 2016)

Motherless and destitute, Frieda Hope grows up during Prohibition determined to make a better life for herself and her sister, Bea. The girls are taken in by a kindly fisherman named Silver, and Frieda begins to feel at home whenever she is on the water. When Silver sells his fishing boat to WWI veteran Sam Hicks, thinking Sam would be a fine husband for Frieda, she’s outraged. But Frieda manages to talk Sam into teaching her to repair boat engines instead, so she has a trade of her own and won’t have to marry.

Frieda quickly discovers that a mechanic’s wages won’t support Bea and Silver, so she joins a team of rum-runners, speeding into dangerous waters to transport illegal liquor. Frieda becomes swept up in the lucrative, risky work—and swept off her feet by a handsome Ivy Leaguer who’s in it just for fun.

As danger mounts and her own feelings threaten to drown her, can Frieda find her way back to solid ground—and to a love that will sustain her?

Buy, read, and discuss The Whiskey Sea:

Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About the author, Ann Howard Creel

Ann Howard Creel was born in Austin, Texas, and worked as a registered nurse before becoming a full-time writer. She is the author of numerous children’s and young adult books as well as fiction for adults. Her children’s books have won several awards, and her novel The Magic of Ordinary Days was made into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie for CBS. Creel currently lives and writes in Chicago. For more information about Ann’s work, visit her website, annhowardcreel.com.

My Thoughts

The Whiskey Sea is my first review after a month off. I needed the month, but, it seems, I needed this book as well. Last month I turned 46, and I’ve found that as I’ve grown older, I’ve also grown impatient with novels where the women let other people save them. Frieda, in The Whiskey Sea, has help at times, but fundamentally she saved herself, and I really love that about her.

In truth, Frieda’s a bit prickly for a lead character. She’s fiercely independent, stubborn, and overly cautious when it comes to trusting people – the latter with good reason as her mother was the town whore – but somehow, I found myself liking her anyway. Her self-reliance and determination practically leap off the page and demand that you take notice, and her flaws only humanize her.

Then there’s her little sister, Bea. Frieda spends much of her childhood playing mother to Bea, mostly out of necessity, but the sisters’ bond never really fades and while the younger sister is often overshadowed by the older, her arc is crucial to the plot.

If Frieda and Bea are at the center of The Whiskey Sea the men in the story are the satellites in orbit around them. There are two, specifically, that bear mentioning: Silver, the man who decides, basically on a whim, to give the two orphaned sisters a home, is the man who kicks off the tale. Old and set in his ways, he makes a snap decision that changes all their lives.

Sam Hicks is the constant in Frieda’s life from the time she graduates from high school, onward. Steady, solid, ever-present, he reminds me of all the fisherman and clammers I used to see in my cousin’s diner early in the morning when I was a kid.

All together, this story has everything: a coastal village setting, the historical background of prohibition, and the rum-running that went along with it, and a gritty coming-of-age story that doesn’t assume ‘of age’ means eighteen, but understands that we all come into ourselves at their own pace.

For me, though, this novel was special in ways over and above the brilliant writing and compelling story. It was special because the setting – Highlands, New Jersey, is where my own roots are. My family lived ‘over in Atlantic Highlands’ (the two towns are adjacent) and my cousins ran a local diner not far from the harbor. Seeing the historical depiction of a place that is literally in my blood made this book feel magical to me.

Author Ann Howard Creel is a deft and masterful storyteller. Her characters feel incredibly real, and this novel is the perfect book to immerse yourself in on a crisp fall evening, or a sultry summer afternoon, or pretty much any other time.

Goes well with Manhattan-style clam chowder (that’s the red kind), fried clams, and a cold beer, but not an IPA, because they’re too hoppy.

Giveaway

One lucky reader in the U.S. or Canada will get a copy of The Whiskey Sea mailed to them by the publicist. How? you ask. I’ll tell you.

There are three ways to enter (one entry per person for each choice, so if you do all three, you’re entered three times).

Find my tweet about this book and retweet it (I’m @Melysse).
Find my Facebook post about this book and like/share it (I’m MissMelysse).
Leave a relevant comment on this post.

Winner will be chosen from those entries received by 23:59 CDT on 21 September 2016.

Ann Howard Creel’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS

Monday, August 22nd: Musings of a Bookish Kitty

Tuesday, August 23rd: You Can Read Me Anything

Wednesday, August 24th: Staircase Wit

Thursday, August 25th: I Wish I Lived in a Library

Friday, August 26th: Thoughts on This ‘n That

Monday, August 29th: BookNAround

Tuesday, August 30th: Black ‘n Gold Girls Book Reviews

Wednesday, August 31st: Caryn, The Book Whisperer

Thursday, September 1st: Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews

Monday, September 5th: Patricia’s Wisdom

Tuesday, September 6th: Just Commonly

Wednesday, September 7th: Reading is My Superpower

Thursday, September 8th: Write Read Life

Monday, September 12th: Bibliotica

Tuesday, September 13th: Melissa Lee’s Many Reads

Thursday, September 15th: View from the Birdhouse

Friday, September 16th: FictionZeal

Monday, September 19th: Reading the Past

TBD: The Warlock’s Gray Book

Review: Secrets of Nanreath Hall, by Alix Rickloff

4 August 2016 by Melissa

About the book, Secrets of Nanreath Hall

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (August 2, 2016)

This incredible debut historical novel—in the tradition of Beatriz Williams and Jennifer Robson—tells the fascinating story of a young mother who flees her home on the rocky cliffs of Cornwall and the daughter who finds her way back, seeking answers.

Cornwall, 1940. Back in England after the harrowing evacuation at Dunkirk, WWII Red Cross nurse Anna Trenowyth is shocked to learn her adoptive parents Graham and Prue Handley have been killed in an air raid. She desperately needs their advice as she’s been assigned to the military hospital that has set up camp inside her biological mother’s childhood home—Nanreath Hall. Anna was just six-years-old when her mother, Lady Katherine Trenowyth, died. All she has left are vague memories that tease her with clues she can’t unravel. Anna’s assignment to Nanreath Hall could be the chance for her to finally become acquainted with the family she’s never known—and to unbury the truth and secrets surrounding her past.

Cornwall, 1913. In the luxury of pre-WWI England, Lady Katherine Trenowyth is expected to do nothing more than make a smart marriage and have a respectable life. When Simon Halliday, a bohemian painter, enters her world, Katherine begins to question the future that was so carefully laid out for her. Her choices begin to lead her away from the stability of her home and family toward a wild existence of life, art, and love. But as everything begins to fall apart, Katherine finds herself destitute and alone.

As Anna is drawn into her newfound family’s lives and their tangled loyalties, she discovers herself at the center of old heartbreaks and unbearable tragedies, leaving her to decide if the secrets of the past are too dangerous to unearth… and if the family she’s discovered is one she can keep.

Buy, read, and discuss this book:

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About the author, Alix Rickloff

Alix Rickloff is a critically acclaimed author of historical and paranormal romance. Her previous novels include the Bligh Family series (Kensington, 2009), the Heirs of Kilronan trilogy (Pocket, 2011), and, as Alexa Egan, the Imnada Brotherhood series (Pocket, 2014). She lives in Chestertown, Maryland, with her husband and three children.

Connect with Alix:

Website Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter

My Thoughts

In Secrets of Nanreath Hall, author Alix Rickloff gives us an interesting well-written historical novel that takes place in two time periods without the use of time travel.

Instead, we meet Lady Katherine (Kitty) first as she’s announcing to her close friends that she’s been diagnosed with cancer, and doesn’t have much time left, and later in alternating chapters that flash back to show us her personal history. Her story is set against the backdrop of World War I, and we follow her constant straining against the society family she was born into and her love for an artist who paints her the way he sees her, but dies far too soon.

We also meet Anna, Kitty’s daughter, who is serving as a Red Cross nurse. Her story is also set during wartime, World War II, and her chapters have a snap and sparkle to them that the Kitty sections do not, which fits the energy of the time.

Of the two women, it’s difficult to say which is stronger. Anna is certainly more self-sufficient, but Kitty is more unconventional, and yet, Rickloff makes them undeniably mother and daughter, even though Anna loses her mother when she is only six.

Both women have stories that involve coming of age, losing family, and finding their right place in the world. Kitty’s is more languid, especially as we know her ultimate end – dying essentially alone – from the beginning. Almost, it feels like lassitude slowly creeps into her story. Conversely, Anna’s story increases in tempo as it goes on. Her early scenes paint her as very much a lost lamb, having just lost her guardians in an air raid.

There are other characters in this story of course. Kitty’s lover (and Anna’s father) the painter Simon Halliday is one. Anna’s cousin Hugh and friend Tilly are others. These characters are well drawn, each with their own flaws but they serve to highlight the women at the heart of the novel.

A final character is the family manse, Nanreath Hall, a house that has been conscripted for use as a convalescent home – the house where Anna is assigned. If the actual secrets held by the Hall were somewhat predictable, it wasn’t a detractor. The novel is so well written that even the predictable is a delight to read.

While this book will most appeal to Anglophiles and people who love historical novels, I think it would suit a broad variety of readers.

Goes well with warm pastry and hot tea, or maybe a splash of brandy.

Tour Stops

Tuesday, August 2nd: BookNAround

Thursday, August 4th: Bibliotica

Friday, August 5th: Let Them Read Books

Monday, August 8th: Ms. Nose in a Book

Tuesday, August 9th: A Literary Vacation

Wednesday, August 10th: Broken Teepee

Monday, August 15th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Tuesday, August 16th: A Bookish Affair

Wednesday, August 17th: Savvy Verse & Wit

Thursday, August 18th: Lesa’s Book Critiques

Review: The Memory Painter, by Gwendolyn Womack

21 July 2016 by Melissa

About the book, The Memory Painter

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Picador (July 5, 2016)

What if there was a drug that could help you remember past lives?

What if the lives you remembered could lead you to your one true love?

What if you learned that, for thousands of years, a deadly enemy had conspired to keep the two of you apart?

Bryan Pierce is an internationally famous artist, whose paintings have dazzled the world. But there’s a secret to Bryan’s success: Every canvas is inspired by an unusually vivid dream. Bryan believes these dreams are really recollections?possibly even flashback from another life?and he has always hoped that his art will lead him to an answer. And when he meets Linz Jacobs, a neurogenticist who recognizes a recurring childhood nightmare in one Bryan’s paintings, he is convinced she holds the key.

Their meeting triggers Bryan’s most powerful dream yet: visions of a team of scientists who, on the verge of discovering a cure for Alzheimer’s, died in a lab explosion decades ago. As his visions intensify, Bryan and Linz start to discern a pattern. But a deadly enemy watches their every move, and he will stop at nothing to ensure that the past stays buried.

Buy, read, and discuss this book:

Amazon | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | Goodreads

Watch the trailer for this book

About the author, Gwendolyn Womack

Gwendolyn Womack began writing plays in college and majored in Theatre at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. She received an MFA in Directing Theatre and Film from California Institute of the Arts and currently lives in Los Angeles with her family. The Memory Painter is her first novel.

Connect with Gwendolyn

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest

My Thoughts

I was part of a book blast for the hardcover version of this book a year ago, but didn’t get to read it until I signed up to be part of this blog tour. I’m sorry I had to wait for such a gripping story, but, wow! Am I glad I finally read it! This is a great story that not only taps into the power of our dreams but is also a compelling mystery/thriller. Why is Bryan suddenly painting the same scene from Linz’s nightmare? Is it possible something else is going on? And why are people after them.

At times haunting – especially when Bryan is in the throes of a painting session – and at other times heart-poundingly exciting – with just enough romance to balance everything else. The dialogue is incredibly well written, and the characters seem like people you’d totally want to eavesdrop on in your local coffee shop.

If you want a story that defies categorization, keeps you in suspense to the end, and makes you question everything you think you know about dreams and creativity, and where both come from, Gwendolyn Womack’s The Memory Painter will give you the perfect blend of entertainment, insight, and provocation of ideas.

Goes well with baguette, brie, red wine, and a rainy day.

Tour Stops

Monday, July 4th: Lilac Reviews

Tuesday, July 5th: Kahakai Kitchen

Wednesday, July 6th: Dreaming Big

Thursday, July 7th: 100 Pages a Day…Stephanie’s Book Reviews

Friday, July 8th: Art @ Home

Monday, July 11th: A Bookish Affair

Wednesday, July 13th: Ms. Nose in a Book

Thursday, July 14th: Broken Teepee

Monday, July 18th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Tuesday, July 19th: From the TBR Pile

Wednesday, July 20th: Ms.Bookish.com

Thursday, July 21st: Bibliotica

Review: The Woman in the Photo, by Mary Hogan

24 June 2016 by Melissa

About the book, The Woman in the Photo

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (June 14, 2016)

The lives of two young women—bound by heritage and history—are changed forever by one epic event . . .

1889: Elizabeth Haberlin, of the Pittsburgh Haberlins, spends every summer with her family on a beautiful lake in an exclusive club. Nestled in the Allegheny Mountains above the working-class community of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the private retreat is patronized by society’s elite. Elizabeth summers with Carnegies, Mellons, and Fricks, following the rigid etiquette of her class. But Elizabeth is blessed (or cursed) with a mind of her own. Case in point: her friendship with Eugene Eggar, a Johnstown steel mill worker. And when Elizabeth discovers that the club’s poorly maintained dam is about to burst and send 20 million tons of water careening down the mountain, she risks all to warn Eugene and the townspeople in the lake’s deadly shadow.

Present day: On her eighteenth birthday, genetic information from Lee Parker’s closed adoption is unlocked. She also sees an old photograph of a biological relative—a nineteenth-century woman with hair and eyes likes hers—standing in a pile of rubble from an ecological disaster next to none other than Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross. Determined to identify the woman in the photo and unearth the mystery of that captured moment, Lee digs into history. Her journey takes her from her hometown in California to Johnstown, from her present financial woes to her past of privilege, from the daily grind to an epic disaster. But once Lee’s heroic DNA is revealed, will she decide to forge a new fate?

Buy, read, and discuss this book.

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About the author, Mary Hogan

Mary Hogan is the NAPPA Award-winning author of seven young-adult books. Two Sisters is her first novel for adults. She lives in New York City with her husband, Bob, and their dog, Lucy.

Connect with Mary.

Website | Twitter

My Thoughts

I began reading The Woman in the Photo thinking I would prefer the historical chapters more than the contemporary ones, and was surprised when I found that not to be true. Instead, I liked both time periods equally.

In the past, we meet Elizabeth Haberlin, aged twenty, on a seemingly interminable train ride to her family’s summer home. But the train eventually does roll into the stop, and Elizabeth (or Lizbeth, as her eight-year-old brother calls her) is reunited with her friend, Eugene Eggar, a townie – a mill worker. In the present, we meet Lee (named Elizabeth at birth, but adopted as a baby), newly turned eighteen, and living with her mother in someone’s pool house because of familial financial woes. She’s just been provided with a clue about her birth mother – a faint clue – but a clue nevertheless.

I loved the way author Mary Hogan wove these two tales together, the chapters in the past driving relentlessly forward, the chapters in the present looking backward. Almost, it made me wish for a magic mirror so that Lizbeth and Lee could come face to face, but maybe, metaphysically, they did, because while this book is about influences of Destiny and DNA, it’s also about choices and family, and what constitutes the latter.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed this novel as a whole, and took it not only as a sort of family saga, but also as a portrait of the many ways in which young women make the decisions that set the paths of their lives.

And what a rich portrait it is, with believable, complex characters, vivid settings, and just enough real history to lend credence to the story without overwhelming it, or sounding more like a history book and less like a work of fiction.

Readers of historical fiction and contemporary fiction will find something to like in The Woman in the Photo.

Goes well with roasted, herbed chicken, a tossed salad, and iced tea.

Tour Stops

Tuesday, June 14th: BookNAround

Wednesday, June 15th: Books Without Any Pictures

Friday, June 17th: A Bookish Affair

Monday, June 20th: Reading Reality

Wednesday, June 22nd: A Chick Who Reads

Friday, June 24th: Bibliotica

Monday, June 27th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Tuesday, June 28th: Lesa’s Book Critiques

Wednesday, June 29th: Ms. Nose in a Book

Thursday, June 30th: Broken Teepee

June, by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore – Review & Giveaway

17 June 2016 by Melissa

About the book June: A Novel

Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Crown (May 31, 2016)

From the New York Times bestselling author of Bittersweet comes a novel of suspense and passion about a terrible mistake made sixty years ago that threatens to change a modern family forever.

Twenty-five-year-old Cassie Danvers is holed up in her family’s crumbling mansion in rural St. Jude, Ohio, mourning the loss of the woman who raised her—her grandmother, June. But a knock on the door forces her out of isolation. Cassie has been named the sole heir to legendary matinee idol Jack Montgomery’s vast fortune. How did Jack Montgomery know her name? Could he have crossed paths with her grandmother all those years ago? What other shocking secrets could June’s once-stately mansion hold?

Soon Jack’s famous daughters come knocking, determined to wrestle Cassie away from the inheritance they feel is their due. Together, they all come to discover the true reasons for June’s silence about that long-ago summer, when Hollywood came to town, and June and Jack’s lives were forever altered by murder, blackmail, and betrayal. As this page-turner shifts deftly between the past and present, Cassie and her guests will be forced to reexamine their legacies, their definition of family, and what it truly means to love someone, steadfastly, across the ages.

Buy, read, and discuss this book.

Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

My Thoughts

I absolutely loved this book. As I told a friend, the writing is perfect capturing the two separate time periods in which the novel takes place, and the language is lyrical. The characters are compelling, and it’s got a bit of everything, romance, friendship, mystery, intrigue, and even a dash of the paranormal (but only a dash).

In many ways, author Miranda Beverly-Whittemore has written two novels, and woven them together in June. In 1955, which is June’s story as seen through Lindie’s eyes, we are treated to a coming-of-age story that involves love, loyalty, and what happens when a Hollywood production takes over your town – and your life. I confess that of those two characters, I preferred Lindie, as she seemed a lot more grounded, and was a breath of fresh air to read. At the end, it’s Lindie who seeped into my brain.

The other story is contemporary: Cassie Danvers has inherited her grandmother’s crumbling old manse, Twin Oaks, and claimed it as a refuge, of sorts, from a bad relationship and a stagnating life. She’s at the point where she has to face her lack of funds when she’s told about another inheritance, this time from the star of the movie that so absorbed Lindie and June (her grandmother) sixty years before. His daughter and her half sister burst her bubble of safety almost immediately, and Cassie must fight to keep the house she so loves, while learning all the secrets of the past.

In anyone else’s hands, this novel would probably descend into Lifetime Movie of the Week territory, where everything is over-the-top. Fortunately, Miranda Beverly-Whittemore’s touch is both delicate and deft. As I said above, she writes with a lyrical ease, and I especially enjoyed the way she handled dialogue.

One convention that I enjoyed, but I know others are less on-board with, is that the novel opens with the house – Twin Oaks – giving its own point of view. As someone who has spent a lot of nights in old houses, I really appreciated that touch. Not only did the house serve as the focal point of the story, but its presence as a character in its own right really became the glue that held each part of the narrative together. It is this dash (and it really is just a dash, the merest hint) that makes this novel edge into magical realism territory, but it’s the same conceit that makes the story so special.

Like Cassie, I wanted to hole up inside Twin Oaks, and breathe life back into the old estate.

Unlike Cassie, I’m sorely lacking obscure, rich, relatives who will leave me their fortunes.

Goes well with espresso served in vintage demi-tasse and Stella D’oro anisette toast.

Giveaway

This one’s a quickie for the weekend. ONE reader from the US/Canada will get a copy of this book.

Three ways to enter: 1) Find my tweet about this book and retweet it (I’m @Melysse). 2)Find my Facebook post about this book (it’ll come from Twitter) and like/share it (I’m MissMelysse). 3) Leave a comment here on this post telling me about a house you love.

Contest is open until 11:59 PM CDT on Monday, June 20th.

Winner will be contacted by me, but fulfillment will be from the publicist for this book, and may take up to six weeks.

About Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

MIRANDA BEVERLY-WHITTEMORE is the author of three other novels: New York Times bestseller Bittersweet; Set Me Free, which won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, given annually for the best book of fiction by an American woman; and The Effects of Light. A recipient of the Crazyhorse Prize in Fiction, she lives and writes in Brooklyn.

Connect with Miranda

Website | Facebook | Twitter

Miranda Beverly-Whittemore’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS

Monday, May 23rd: All Roads Lead to the Kitchen

Tuesday, May 24th: A Bookish Way of Life

Wednesday, May 25th: A Literary Vacation

Thursday, May 26th: View from the Birdhouse

Friday, May 27th: Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Monday, May 30th: Buried Under Books

Tuesday, May 31st: FictionZeal

Tuesday, May 31st: Books a la Mode – author guest post

Wednesday, June 1st: Musings of a Bookish Kitty

Thursday, June 2nd: Luxury Reading

Friday, June 3rd: You Can Read Me Anything

Monday, June 6th: Must Read Faster

Tuesday, June 7th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Wednesday, June 8th: Fictionophile

Thursday, June 9th: Just Commonly

Friday, June 10th: A Bookaholic Swede

Monday, June 13th: Bewitched Bookworms

Tuesday, June 14th: Reading Reality

Wednesday, June 15th: Kritter’s Ramblings

Thursday, June 16th: Write Read Life

Friday, June 17th: Bibliotica

Monday, June 20th: Kahakai Kitchen

Review: The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom, by Alison Love

10 May 2016 by Melissa

About the book, The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom

Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Broadway Books (April 19, 2016)

An epic love story featuring an Italian singer and a British dancer, set against the backdrop of war-torn England.

The first meeting between Antonio and Olivia at the Paradise Ballroom is brief, but electric.

Years later, on the dawn of World War II, when struggling Italian singer Antonio meets the wife of his wealthy new patron, he recognizes her instantly: it is Olivia, the captivating dance hostess he once encountered in the seedy Paradise Ballroom. Olivia fears Antonio will betray the secrets of her past, but little by little they are drawn together, outsiders in a glittering world to which they do not belong. At last, with conflict looming across Europe, the attraction between them becomes impossible to resist–but when Italy declares war on England, the impact threatens to separate them forever.

The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom is a story of forbidden love and family loyalties amid the most devastating war in human history.

Buy, read, and discuss The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom

Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About the author, Alison Love

ALISON LOVE is the author of the historical novels Mallingford and Serafina. Her short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and in 2013 her story Sophie Stops the Clock was shortlisted for the Bristol Short Story Prize. Alison has worked in the theater, television, and public relations. The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom is her American fiction debut.

Connect with Alison

Twitter

My Thoughts

The first thing that struck me about this novel, The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom, was that it has a very specific soundtrack. We meet Antonio when he is a temporary singer at the eponymous Paradise Ballroom, and song titles are peppered throughout the story. All those lovely standards, classics, even if they’re not classical, didn’t just set the period for this novel; they set the tone, and they did so brilliantly. As a musician, I found that the mentions of songs peppered throughout the narrative really kept me hooked.

Similarly, the use of language in this novel was just thrilling. Alison Love’s biography (see above) says that she’s worked in theatre, so maybe that’s where she honed her ear for dialogue, but she also excels at evocative description. Read this paragraph from early in the book:

In Soho one of the cafes, Ricci’s, was open still. Antonio could hear the rise and fall of voices punctuated by the twang of a mandolin. He thought of Maurice Goodyear’s parchment face, of eanie’s violent scent, of the way he had fluffed a high note in “Night and Day.” He tried not to think about the tango dancer, and the terrible thing she had done to her own body.

And then read this one, from near the end:

A flock of rooks flew across the iron-gray sky, cawing as they landed in the beech trees beyond the orchard. Olivia was standing on the terrace where once, on a sunlit evening, she had drunk juniper-scented Negronis with Uncle Dickie. She was huge and stately in a loose crimson dress, her hair knotted untidily at her neck.

Language like this is just delicious to read, to submerge yourself in.

Of course, language and music aren’t enough, there has to be plot an character, but again, Love’s work is outstanding. Olivia and Antonio are the central figures of the novel, and they are brilliantly written: flawed, funny, sad, passionate, vivid, real people., but the supporting characters, Bernard, Danila, Filomena, others, are equally well-defined. The story – two people who meet and connect, who are constantly drawn to each other despite having separate lives, and being committed to other people – is a familiar one, but even though the bones of the plot are familiar, mixing it into a period piece that focuses on the Italian experience of World War II makes it fresh and interesting.

I didn’t just enjoy reading The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom; I felt as though I’d been transported by it.

I hope you let yourself be transported, as well.

Goes well with a glass of Merlot and a smoky baritone.

Giveaway

One lucky reader in the United States or Canada will win a paperback copy of this book. To enter, find me on Twitter (@Melysse), follow me, and retweet my tweet about this book review OR leave a comment here (you must use a valid email address) and tell me about a song that has particular meaning for you.

The winner will be chosen by me, and their information will be forwarded to the tour host/publicist for fulfillment. This may take up to six weeks after the day of the end of this blog tour.

This giveaway opportunity is open until noon, central time, on Monday, May 23rd.

Alison Love’s TLC Book Tour’s TOUR STOPS:

Monday, April 18th: Luxury Reading

Monday, April 18th: The Maiden’s Court

Tuesday, April 19th: The Lit Bitch

Wednesday, April 20th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Thursday, April 21st: View from the Birdhouse

Monday, April 25th: Books a la Mode – guest post/giveaway

Tuesday, April 26th: Mom’s Small Victories

Wednesday, April 27th: BookNAround

Thursday, April 28th: Just Commonly

Friday, April 29th: Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews

Monday, May 2nd: Kahakai Kitchen

Tuesday, May 3rd: The Best Books Ever

Wednesday, May 4th: Savvy Verse and Wit

Thursday, May 5th: Write Read Life

Monday, May 9th: A Chick Who Reads

Tuesday, May 10th: Bibliotica

Wednesday, May 11th: A Bookaholic Swede

Friday, May 13th: Broken Teepee

Monday, May 16th: Diary of an Eccentric

#Bibliotica reviews The Railway Man’s Wife, by Ashley Hay

5 May 2016 by Melissa

About the book, The Railway Man’s Wife

Publication Date: April 5, 2016
Publisher: Atria Books, 288 Pages
Format: Hardcover, eBook, & AudioBook; 288 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction/Literary

Amidst the strange, silent aftermath of World War II, a widow, a poet, and a doctor search for lasting peace and fresh beginnings in this internationally acclaimed, award-winning novel.

When Anikka Lachlan’s husband, Mac, is killed in a railway accident, she is offered—and accepts—a job at the Railway Institute’s library and searches there for some solace in her unexpectedly new life. But in Thirroul, in 1948, she’s not the only person trying to chase dreams through books. There’s Roy McKinnon, who found poetry in the mess of war, but who has now lost his words and his hope. There’s Frank Draper, trapped by the guilt of those his medical treatment and care failed on their first day of freedom. All three struggle to find their own peace, and their own new story.

But along with the firming of this triangle of friendship and a sense of lives inching towards renewal come other extremities—and misunderstandings. In the end, love and freedom can have unexpected ways of expressing themselves.

The Railwayman’s Wife explores the power of beginnings and endings, and how hard it can sometimes be to tell them apart. Most of all, it celebrates love in all its forms, and the beauty of discovering that loving someone can be as extraordinary as being loved yourself.

Buy, read, and discuss The Railway Man’s Wife

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-a-Million | IndieBound | Goodreads

About the author, Ashley Hay

Ashley Hay is the internationally acclaimed author of four nonfiction books, including The Secret: The Strange Marriage of Annabella Milbanke and Lord Byron, and the novels The Body in the Clouds and The Railwayman’s Wife, which was honored with the Colin Roderick Award by the Foundation for Australian Literary Studies and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the most prestigious literary prize in Australia, among numerous other accolades. She lives in Brisbane, Australia.

For more information please visit Ashley Hay’s website.

My Thoughts

“This is how you touch grief.” Ani Lachlan’s thought a short while after hearing of her husband’s work-related death rocked me in a way that few sentences have. So much so that as I read the line, I texted it to a friend.

Ani is the railway man’s wife, but she’s also a book lover, a reader, mother to an adorable young girl, Isabelle, and a woman who, like most of us, possesses more inner strength than she at firest realizes. This novel is really her story, and I found it quite easy to connect with her, and her life in a coastal village in Australia.

Early in the novel – chapter two – Ani and Mac are on a shopping trip, and their last item to purchase is “something magical” for their daughter’s birthday. They choose a kaleidoscope, and I can’t help feeling that this story was also a kaleidoscope of sorts, in that everything happens within a constrained set of parameters, in a close town, within a relatively few changes of scene, despite the emotional twists and turns. Yes, it’s a satisfying 288 pages, but it’s a literary novel, so it’s okay that this lyrical story never explores much beyond the town limits, or that we only really see a few locations. It’s not about place, anyway, it’s about people, and they way they respond to love, loss, grief, and solace.

Author Ashley Hay works magic, populating her pages with people who leap of the page. Ani, of course, and Mac, her husband. While we don’t really get to see a lot of them before he dies, what we do see is so emotionally truthful that I reacted to news of his death with that visceral knife-in-the-gut feeling. Their love for each other, and for their daughter, is imbued in every page of the story. Similarly, the characters of Roy, the WWII veteran who writes poetry to process his pain, and Frank, who is carrying his own guilt and hurt, felt dimensional and real. I believed their dual gravitation toward the (sort of) oblivious about it Ani.

The post-war coastal Australia setting worked well for me – a story like this needs to be set against the blue expanse of the sea.

This is a story about grief and loss and love and hope, and while it is both literary and historical, its themes are universal ones, and it feels contemporary in terms of language and style, but not in an anachronistic way.

This is a novel that touched me.

I think it will touch you, too.

Goes well with a bowl of clam chowder, crusty bread, and a mug of brisk, black tea.

Giveaway

One lucky reader in the United States will win a paperback copy of this book. To enter, find me on Twitter, follow me, and retweet my tweet about this book review OR leave a comment here (you must use a valid email address) and tell me about your favorite library.

The winner will be chosen by me, and their information will be forwarded to the tour host/publicist for fulfillment. This may take up to six weeks after the day of the end of this blog tour.

This giveaway opportunity is open until noon, central time, on Wednesday, May 18th.

Blog Tour Schedule

Monday, April 18
Review at #redhead.with.book

Tuesday, April 19
Spotlight & Giveaway at Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More

Wednesday, April 20
Review & Giveaway at Flashlight Commentary

Monday, April 25
Review & Giveaway at Poof Books
Review at Just One More Chapter

Tuesday, April 26
Spotlight & Giveaway at A Literary Vacation

Wednesday, April 27
Review at Ashley LaMar

Monday, May 2
Review & Giveaway at The Maiden’s Court

Tuesday, May 3
Review at Book Nerd
Review at Queen of All She Reads

Thursday, May 5
Review & Giveaway at Bibliotica

Friday, May 6
Review at Back Porchervations

Tuesday, May 10
Review at CelticLady’s Reviews

Monday, May 23
Giveaway at Passages to the Past

Loving Eleanor, by Susan Wittig Albert

26 April 2016 by Melissa

About the book, Loving Eleanor

Publication Date: February 1, 2016
Persevero Press; Thorndike (Large Print)
Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, Large Print
Genre: Historical Fiction/Biographical Fiction

When AP political reporter Lorena Hickok—Hick—is assigned to cover Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the wife of the 1932 Democratic presidential candidate, the two women become deeply, intimately involved. Their relationship begins with mutual romantic passion, matures through stormy periods of enforced separation and competing interests, and warms into an enduring, encompassing friendship that ends only with both women’s deaths in the 1960s—all of it documented by 3300 letters exchanged over thirty years.

Now, New York Times bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert recreates the fascinating story of Hick and Eleanor, set during the chaotic years of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Second World War. Loving Eleanor is Hick’s personal story, revealing Eleanor as a complex, contradictory, and entirely human woman who is pulled in many directions by her obligations to her husband and family and her role as the nation’s First Lady, as well as by a compelling need to care and be cared for. For her part, Hick is revealed as an accomplished journalist, who, at the pinnacle of her career, gives it all up for the woman she loves. Then, as Eleanor is transformed into Eleanor Everywhere, First Lady of the World, Hick must create her own independent, productive life.

Drawing on extensive research in the letters that were sealed for a decade following Hick’s death, Albert creates a compelling narrative: a dramatic love story, vividly portraying two strikingly unconventional women, neither of whom is satisfied to live according to the script society has written for her. Loving Eleanor is a profoundly moving novel that illuminates a relationship we are seldom privileged to see and celebrates the depth and durability of women’s love.

Buy, read, and discuss Loving Eleanor

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | IndieBound | Goodreads

About the author, Susan Wittig Albert

Susan Wittig Albert is the award-winning, NYT bestselling author of the forthcoming historical novel Loving Eleanor (2016), about the intimate friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok; and A Wilder Rose (2014), about Rose Wilder Lane and the writing of the Little House books.

Her award-winning fiction also includes mysteries in the China Bayles series, the Darling Dahlias, the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter, and a series of Victorian-Edwardian mysteries she has written with her husband, Bill Albert, under the pseudonym of Robin Paige.

She has written two memoirs: An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days and Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place, published by the University of Texas Press.

Her nonfiction titles include What Wildness is This: Women Write About the Southwest (winner of the 2009 Willa Award for Creative Nonfiction); Writing from Life: Telling the Soul’s Story; and Work of Her Own: A Woman’s Guide to Success Off the Career Track.

She is founder and current president (2015-2017) of the Story Circle Network and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters.

For more information please visit www.susanalbert.com and www.LovingEleanor.com, or read her blog. You can also find Susan on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Goodreads, and Pinterest. Like the Loving Eleanor page on Facebook.

My Thoughts

I read this book months ago, when I first received the e-galley, and stupidly didn’t write my review right then, so forgive me if this isn’t detailed.

Put simply, this is a wonderful book. It’s challenging to write plausible fiction about real people, but Susan Wittig Albert has done so before, and in this novel, Loving Eleanor, she’s really gone beyond the even her usual skill. I felt like I was experiencing everything along with Hick. Then again, Albert used the real Hick’s actual letters, which were kept private until her death, out of respect for all of the people mentioned within. Knowing that, can this really be called fiction? Doesn’t it ride the edge of being creative non-fiction? Don’t all true stories include some extrapolation?

Whether or not you accept this novel, and the relationship depicted between Hick and Eleanor as factual, it cannot be denied that this book is truthful. It speaks to period in which both women came of age, and came into their power as adults. It speaks to the political and cultural climate of the bulk of their lifetimes, and it speaks to the longing that we all have, not just for a life partner, but for that bosom friendship so few contemporary women seem to have.

Wittig’s tackled a difficult subject with a delicate hand, giving us a glimpse of the Eleanor Roosevelt we all know and love through the eyes of someone who knew her, and loved her, better and differently, than we who can only view her through the long lens of history could ever do. And yet, this isn’t a dry biography. There is humor. There is warmth. There is also grief and loss.

While much of the novel is Hicks’s view of Eleanor, the reality is that this is Hicks’s own story. We see her build her successful journalism career. We see her have to choose between that career and the woman she loves, and when the object of her affection becomes a global icon, she has to choose again how to be – how close, how far, how truthful.

Again, I come back to: this is a wonderful book. Rich in detail, a perfect blend of fiction and history. Truthful, on the deepest emotional levels.

Goes well with strong coffee and mint Milano cookies.

Giveaway

Three copies of Loving Eleanor by Sisan Wittig Albert are up for grabs! To enter, please use the GLEAM form below.

Rules

– Giveaway ends at 11:59pm EST on May 31st. You must be 18 or older to enter.
– Giveaway is open to US & Canada residents only.
– Only one entry per household.
– All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the systems; any suspect of fraud is decided upon by blog/site owner and the sponsor, and entrants may be disqualified at our discretion
– Winner has 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.

Embed Code for Giveaway: Loving Eleanor

Direct Link to Giveaway: https://gleam.io/QlWl0/loving-eleanor-

Blog Tour Schedule

Tuesday, April 26
Review at Bibliotica

Wednesday, April 27
Review at Broken Teepee

Thursday, April 28
Spotlight at The Lit Bitch

Friday, April 29
Spotlight at Passages to the Past

Monday, May 2
Review at A Chick Who Reads

Tuesday, May 3
Spotlight at I Heart Reading

Wednesday, May 4
Review at A Holland Reads

Thursday, May 5
Interview at A Holland Reads

Friday, May 6
Review at The Book Binder’s Daughter
Spotlight at To Read, or Not to Read

Monday, May 9
Review at The Book Junkie Reads

Tuesday, May 10
Review at Back Porchervations

Thursday, May 12
Interview at Back Porchervations

Monday, May 16
Guest Post at Let Them Read Books

Tuesday, May 17
Spotlight at The True Book Addict

Wednesday, May 18
Review at Book Nerd

Friday, May 20
Guest Post at Creating Herstory

Monday, May 23
Review at Unabridged Chick
Interview at Layered Pages

Tuesday, May 24
Interview at Unabridged Chick

Wednesday, May 25
Review at Ageless Pages Reviews

Thursday, May 26
Spotlight at A Literary Vacation

Monday, May 30
Review at Jorie Loves a Story
Review at Just One More Chapter

Tuesday, May 31
Review at Luxury Reading
Review at Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More
Interview at Jorie Loves a Story

What We Set in Motion, by Stephanie Austin Edwards #review

29 March 2016 by Melissa

About the book, What We Set In Motion

Print Length: 320 pages
Publisher: Novel Ideas by SAE; 1 edition (March 30, 2016)
Publication Date: March 19, 2016

Set in the turbulent, colorful 1970’s, What We Set In Motion finds the daughter of a prominent old South Carolina Lowcountry family fleeing to New York’s Greenwich Village in pursuit of a dance career. Cut off by her disapproving father and abandoned by her would-be fiancé, Nadine Carter Barnwell must strive on her own to beat the harrowing odds. Penniless and surrounded by the temptation of dubious money-making schemes and the bitter disappointment of seeing a friend fall prey to them, Nadine battles fiercely for her place in the ultra-competitive world of dance — only to reluctantly step away to please a man. It takes the loving, mystical intervention of her beloved aunt back in South Carolina and an unexpected letter from a young girl to set Nadine’s chaotic life firmly on the path to fulfilment and the startling realization that every encounter and each choice is a milestone in the quest to forge her own destiny.

Buy, read, and discuss this book.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About the author, Stephanie Austin Edwards

Stephanie Austin Edwards, author of What We Set In Motion (2016), is a writing teacher, novelist and grant consultant.Her recent publications include a short story in the University of Texas literary journal, riverSedge, and an essay in the book Beaufort Through the Ages. In a past life, Stephanie was a costume supervisor on Broadway for productions of Dreamgirls, Grind, The Rink (Liza Minelli) and Woman of the Year (Lauren Bacall), among others. She has worked on The Cosby Show, the Woody Allen films Hannah and Her Sisters and Radio Days, and Michael Jackson’s BAD music video. She lives in the South Carolina Lowcountry, teaching writing workshops at the college level and working for the Beaufort School District as a grant consultant.

Connect with Stephanie.

Website | Facebook

My Thoughts

I wasn’t entirely certain what to expect when I was offered the chance to review Stephanie Austin Edwards’ novel What We Set In Motion, but I certainly was not disappointed. The voice Edwards gave to her protagonist Nadine feels like a mix between Anne Rivers Siddons and Nora Ephron – feminine, intelligent, sassy, and definitely Southern. I was hooked from the first page.

While my favorite thing abut this novel was Nadine herself, and her story which blends low-country sass with uptown smarts, I enjoyed all aspects of this novel. The supporting characters all felt like characters you might have met in fishing camps or on city streets during the late sixties and early seventies, but slightly heightened, as if seen through the best of memories, which really worked for the story.

Similarly, I thought Edwards’ descriptions of places was amazing. Granted a costume supervisor has to have a good eye, but her words made every location seem vivid and even cinematic. I felt the dolphin spray and saw every outfit.

While I was a little concerned that this novel would feel a bit soap-opera-esque based on the drama and emotion in the first scene, but what I discovered was a well-written, compelling, thoroughly engaging story.

Goes well with catfish and hush puppies, even though they have nothing to do with the novel.

Terrible Virtue, by Ellen Feldman #review #TLCBookTours

24 March 2016 by Melissa

About the book, Terrible Virtue

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harper (March 22, 2016)

In the spirit of The Paris Wife and Loving Frank, the provocative and compelling story of one of the most fascinating and influential figures of the twentieth century: Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood—an indomitable woman who, more than any other, and at great personal cost, shaped the sexual landscape we inhabit today.

The daughter of a hard-drinking, smooth-tongued free thinker and a mother worn down by thirteen children, Margaret Sanger vowed her life would be different. Trained as a nurse, she fought for social justice beside labor organizers, anarchists, socialists, and other progressives, eventually channeling her energy to one singular cause: legalizing contraception. It was a battle that would pit her against puritanical, patriarchal lawmakers, send her to prison again and again, force her to flee to England, and ultimately change the lives of women across the country and around the world.

This complex enigmatic revolutionary was at once vain and charismatic, generous and ruthless, sexually impulsive and coolly calculating—a competitive, self-centered woman who championed all women, a conflicted mother who suffered the worst tragedy a parent can experience. From opening the first illegal birth control clinic in America in 1916 through the founding of Planned Parenthood to the arrival of the Pill in the 1960s, Margaret Sanger sacrificed two husbands, three children, and scores of lovers in her fight for sexual equality and freedom.

With cameos by such legendary figures as Emma Goldman, John Reed, Big Bill Haywood, H. G. Wells, and the love of Margaret’s life, Havelock Ellis, this richly imagined portrait of a larger-than-life woman is at once sympathetic to her suffering and unsparing of her faults. Deeply insightful, Terrible Virtue is Margaret Sanger’s story as she herself might have told it.

Buy, read, and discuss this book

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About the author, Ellen Feldman

Ellen Feldman, a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow, is the author of five previous novels, including Scottsboro, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, and Next to Love. She lives in New York City.

For more information on Ellen and her work, please visit her website, www.ellenfeldman.com.

My Thoughts

There is no more appropriate time for this novel, Terrible Virtue, which was released two days ago, to be available. Ellen Feldman’s fictionalization of the life of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger is brutally honest and beautifully poignant, letting us see the life that formed her person and her convictions, but not shying away from showing her flaws. It’s an excellent reminder that our icons are, in fact, real people, just like us.

As the feminist daughter of a feminist mother, I was raised on Our Bodies Ourselves and Ms. Magazine. The name “Margaret Sanger” has always been a part of my cultural vocabulary, but the deeper truth of her story – that she was one of thirteen children, that she watched her mother becoming ever more exhausted and depleted as she gave birth to baby after baby – was new to me. This first person account of what Sanger’s life was like gave me a deeper context, and turned her from a mere name, an abstract symbol, into a whole person.

Ellen Feldman, of course, is not new to writing well-researched novels about real historical figures. Personally, her 2005 “what if” novel, The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank is one of my favorite such reads. In Terrible Virtue, however, she isn’t challenging us with the question of “what if?” Rather, she is asking, “what was likely?”

And her presentation – giving us the bulk of the story from Margaret’s own point of view where we see her as a fully dimensional young (and then older) woman, but also providing counterpoint in the form of people who disagreed with, not her fierce support that birth control was necessary and and required in order for women to be truly free, but also her other opinions – really puts us, the readers, in the middle of history.

Her story, her struggles with her own loves and marriages, her ongoing battle with tuberculosis, and her impoverished beginnings, not only gives us a picture of a woman with a mission, it puts that mission into a deeper context.

The one quote that everyone is sharing is the one that really defines the heart of this novel, “No woman can call herself free until she can choose when and how often she will become a mother,” is absolutely the core of Sanger’s own life, as well. It’s a truth we sometimes take for granted, and one we must remember, especially in our “modern” age.

We are in the middle of an election year that is growing ever more toxic, and we are seeing our rights as women, as people, being constantly eroded by (mostly) white, male politicians who believe their religious leanings should govern all of us. TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) are becoming more and more widespread, and more and more vindictive. Where is the Margaret Sanger for our age? And how will history treat her?

This book may not answer that question, but it’s a worthwhile read, and I can’t recommend it enough.

Goes well with strong coffee, dark chocolate, and an upraised fist.