#womensfiction – Rosepoint Publishing

The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club: A Novel by Martha Hall Kelly #AudiobookReview #ThrowbackThursday #histfic

Book Blurb:

2016: Thirty-four-year-old Mari Starwood is still grieving after her mother’s death as she travels to the storied island of Martha’s Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts. She’s come all the way from California with nothing but a name on a piece of paper: Elizabeth Devereaux, the famous but reclusive Vineyard painter. When Mari makes it to Mrs. Devereaux’s stunning waterfront farm under the guise of taking a painting class with her, Mrs. Devereaux begins to tell her the story of the Smith sisters, who once lived there. As the tale unfolds, Mari is shocked to learn that her relationship to this island runs deeper than she ever thought possible.

1942: The Smith girls—nineteen-year-old aspiring writer Cadence and sixteen-year-old war-obsessed Briar—are faced with the impossible task of holding their failing family farm together during World War II as the U.S. Army arrives on Martha’s Vineyard. When Briar spots German U-boats lurking off the island’s shores, and Cadence falls into an unlikely romance with a sworn enemy, their quiet lives are officially upended. In an attempt at normalcy, Cadence and her best friend, Bess, start a book club, which grows both in members and influence as they connect with a fabulous New York publisher who could make all of Cadence’s dreams come true. But all that is put at risk by a mysterious man who washes ashore—and whispers of a spy in their midst. Who in their tight-knit island community can they trust? Could this little book club change the course of the war . . . before it’s too late?

My Review:

As mentioned before, I do enjoy dual timelines—and it would seem, the older one. It appears to me that sometimes the more detailed development of characters occurs in the past characters, while the more contemporary characters barely get fleshed out enough to count as a character.

That said, I really enjoyed the characters of 1942, particularly sixteen-year-old Briar, who cried wolf once too often regarding the sighting of German U-boats. I did wonder, however, why the older girl determined she’d hide the fella washed ashore and his too convenient connection to the US.

On the whole, while a bit of a slow burn to get off the ground, it was a cute, almost cozy, narrative and often led right down the road expected. Descriptions of the island and the inhabitants, history, are fun; just wish the pace was more evenly distributed.

It won’t make classic Potato Peel Pie level book club, but it is a sweet story and weaves in a variety of appealing characters. Interspersed in the novel are Cadence’s columns that she writes for the local Vineyard Gazette, which eventually leads to greater writing possibilities.

I must admit to being caught off-guard by the mystery, as it was reading so benign, it snuck up on me, I didn’t see a dark side coming to the war time story that sees their brothers and others off to war with the devastation when they don’t return. The plot builds with added hooks including our own soldiers who arrive to set up coastal military training.

The denouement gives a satisfying close to the story and manages to come up with solutions to any remaining threads.

On the whole, a sweet read, well plotted. You’ll no doubt enjoy it if you like timeline switches, historical WWII life, and well-crafted characters in the setting.

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: World War II & Holocaust Historical Fiction, Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Random House Audio
Narrators: Martha Hall Kelly, Mary Elizabeth Kelly, Mia Hutchinson-Shaw, Imani Jade Powers, EJ Lavery

Title Links:

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: Martha’s debut novel LILAC GIRLS, about socialite Caroline Ferriday and her fight to help a group of concentration camp survivors, became an Instant NY Times bestseller in 2016 and went on to sell over two million copies. Once the paperback stayed on the NYT list for fifty-four weeks, and became published in fifty countries she wrote two more novels: LOST ROSES about Caroline’s mother, and SUNFLOWER SISTERS about her great grandmother, which also became Instant NY Times best sellers. Her latest novel, THE GOLDEN DOVES, which returns to WWII, arrives in bookstores April 18th, 2023.

Martha grew up in Massachusetts and now splits her time between Connecticut and New York City.

You’ll find more info about the incredible, true stories behind all of her books at her website: http://www.marthahallkelly.com, on Instagram: @marthahallkelly, Facebook.com/marthahallkelly, Twitter: @marthahallkelly and on her ever-changing Pinterest page.

#Audiobooks

Submarine graphic courtesy clipart.com

Before She Was Helen by Caroline B Cooney #AudiobookReview #DomesticThrillers

Book Blurb:

Her life didn’t turn out the way she expected―so she made herself a new one

When Clemmie goes next door to check on her difficult and unlikeable neighbor Dom, he isn’t there. But something else is. Something stunning, beautiful and inexplicable. Clemmie photographs the wondrous object on her cell phone and makes the irrevocable error of forwarding it. As the picture swirls over the internet, Clemmie tries desperately to keep a grip on her own personal network of secrets. Can fifty years of careful hiding under names not her own be ruined by one careless picture?

And although what Clemmie finds is a work of art, what the police find is a body. . . in a place where Clemmie wasn’t supposed to be, and where she left her fingerprints. Suddenly, the bland, quiet life Clemmie has built for herself in her sleepy South Carolina retirement community comes crashing down as her dark past surges into the present.

From international bestselling author of The Face on the Milk Carton Caroline B. Cooney comes Before She Was Helen, an absorbing mystery that brings decades-old secrets to life and explores what happens when the lie you’ve been living falls apart and you’re forced to confront the truth.

My Review:

Well, this is an unexpected treat. It appears to start as a cozy mystery, but no, it proves to be a multi-layered mystery, only part of which you’re introduced to. It might begin with a whimper, but it’ll finish with a bang…and a chuckle.

I enjoyed the good-natured pick at the seniors and the descriptions of the agers populating this tale.

Helen is living in a villa in Sun City in South Carolina. Sun City’s are rather exclusive. They are lovely senior communities. The one we lived near in Surprise, Arizona, was a great source of lovely furnishings at the consignment store where I found pieces to fill the apartment I’d found upon selling our RV.

I’m aware that senior communities tend to be much like represented in the novel. When we visited my mother in her senior mobilehome community, the news (gossip) was more about the people in the park rather than any world news.

So this narrative provides a few chuckles—some close to guffaws—and many hit close to home.

Clemmie is the feisty, sharp senior who can take charge of the situation until it comes to her own. In this case, the unwitting share of a piece in a neighbor’s home where she shouldn’t have been. And in this day and age of the internet, didn’t take long to get way out of hand. Especially when the police find the neighbor deceased.

I love it when the main character is taken back some decades ago—back before she was Helen. Clemmie has quite the history! The characters past and present drive the mystery and the plot becomes complex. Solving one thread may only lead to the next.

Will the two versions of Helen collide? This is one of those stories that becomes a delightful round of entertainment while assessing the next possible twist you won’t see coming. There are references to the 50s most seniors will identify with, which may bore the socks off the younger generations. For us, just pleasant memories.

A nicely paced, engaging, and well-plotted storyline. Fun audiobook! Recommended to me and I’m happy to recommend it to you. (You’re welcome!)

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Domestic Thrillers, Women Sleuth Mysteries, Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Random House Audio
ASIN: B085K92P1N
Listening Length: 11 hrs 13 mins
Narrator: Kimberly Farr
Publication Date: September 8, 2020
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: Caroline B. Cooney is the bestselling author of teen suspense, mystery, and romance novels that have sold over 15,000,000 copies and are published in several languages. Of all her books, she is best known for the young adult novel The Face on the Milk Carton that has sold over 3,000,000 copies and was made into a television movie.

Caroline grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, and spent most of her life on the shoreline of that state. She currently resides in South Carolina. She enjoys spending time with her grandchildren, playing piano, walking near her home, pottery, jewelry-making, and, of course, reading.

Find Ms Cooney at http://carolinebcooneybooks.com/

#TuesdayBookBlog

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid #AudiobookReview #FictionSagas

Goodreads Choice Award – Winner for Readers’ Favorite Historiacal Fiction (2025), Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Audiobook (2025)

Book Blurb:

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK From the author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, NPR, Good Housekeeping, Them, Marie Claire, Book Riot, Library Journal, Chicago Public Library, She Reads

Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.

Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easygoing even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.

As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.

Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, it all changes in an instant.

Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, creating complex protagonists, and telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love—this time among the stars.

My Review:

Well, phooey. Not what I expected. But it says right up top that it’s a love story. Obviously, not one of my favorite genres.

I really enjoyed Daisy Jones and The Six, and somehow expected that same level of realism in the space industry turned fiction for the consumption of the masses.

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid — Atmosphere – US cover

Joan Goodwin has always been fascinated with the stars and space, and though she is a successful professor at Rice University is immediately consumed with the desire to become an astronaut when she reads an advertisement looking for women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program.

Despite all the odds, she and a select few other women complete the training and are now vying for the upcoming scheduled missions with the few men also selected. These are the elite of the elite: scientists, engineers, and military combat pilots.

The storyline, which is told in a split timeline, details Joan’s story, her family, and her academic achievements. She is singularly devoted to her little niece, Frances, with whom she’s at times at odds with her sister, Barbara. Lots of support characters, mostly lightly developed, who run the gamut from the light-hearted to the back-stabbing Lydia.

I enjoyed some of the discussions regarding the stars, their positions, and history. Somewhere in the middle, however, the storyline veered away from the original mission and strongly into the love story. Once started as an ode to the stars, now drowning in emotional philosophical discussions.

I felt like I was promised an explosive, cutting-edge women in space piece with a double-edged sword. Also, the ending was too predictable. Too much personal development; too little in the aerospace industry. (I think it’s a 3-star effort, but I’m adding a half-star for the subplot with her sister. A well-written antagonist—kept me listening.)

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Publishing: Three point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Fiction Sagas, Family Saga Fiction, Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Random House Audio
ASIN: B0DKZMG16C
Listening Length: 9 hrs 52 mins
Narrators: Kristen DiMercurio, Julia Whelan, Taylor Jenkins Reid
Publication Date: June 3, 2025
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

Taylor Jenkins Reid is the New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & The Six and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, as well as One True Loves, Maybe in Another Life, After I Do, and Forever, Interrupted. Her newest novel, Malibu Rising, is out now. She lives in Los Angeles.

You can follow her on Instagram @tjenkinsreid.

Tis the Season!

The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner #AudiobookReview #HistoricalFiction

Book Blurb:

April 18, 1906: A massive earthquake rocks San Francisco just before daybreak, igniting a devouring inferno. Lives are lost, lives are shattered, but some rise from the ashes forever changed.

Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin’s silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin’s odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn’t right.

Then one early-spring evening, a stranger at the door sets in motion a transforming chain of events. Sophie discovers hidden ties to two other women. The first, pretty and pregnant, is standing on her doorstep. The second is hundreds of miles away in the American Southwest, grieving the loss of everything she once loved.

The fates of these three women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency and resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear.

From the acclaimed author of The Last Year of the War and As Bright as Heaven comes a gripping novel about the bonds of friendship and mother love, and the power of female solidarity.

My Review:

My first experience with this author and I’m sure an excellent entry into her beautifully crafted writing style.

Sophie Whalen is a young Irish emigrant who answered an ad in a desperate attempt to escape her squalid circumstances into which she’d fallen since arriving in New York. The tiny tenement lacking running water or bathroom facilities is shared with several other women.

The ad seeks a pseudo-mother for his five-year-old so he can appear to be a happily married sales member of his insurance company. She is successful in her bid and finds herself traveling from New York to San Francisco to live with Martin and Kat. The five-year-old is reticent and silent at first, Martin Hocking remains aloof after a quick court wedding the day she arrives, but the house is beautiful and she is made comfortable.

It’s not long before she bonds with Kat, who is precocious and adorable. Sophie hoped that she’d learn to love Martin, but he has not changed in his remote stance toward her and she realizes that it won’t happen.

Then she has a surprise visitor. It doesn’t take long in the conversation before Sophie realizes she’s been in a sham of a marriage and that her good-looking husband is no one she ever knew. Belinda is pregnant. Martin isn’t just cold and remote; he’s evil and apparently dangerous, and together they plot their escape.

Before either can take any measures, however, the big 1906 earthquake happens, throwing them into a world of death, destruction, fires, and desperate attempts to escape the city for a return to Belinda’s quarters in a nearby city.

Along the way, they discover another woman with deep ties to Martin and Kat.

The author is quite the storyteller and weaves an intricate tale of friendship, deception, mystery, and suspense. There is a space in about one half(?) of the book that sagged just a bit for me, became a bit repetitive, and lost the previous pace. Still, it managed a wild denouement at the end and made for a satisfying climax.

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Audio
ASIN: B089P13956
Listening Length: 10 hrs 39 mins
Narrators: Alana Kerr Collins, Jason Culp
Publication Date: February 2, 2021
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: Susan Meissner is the USA Today bestselling author of historical fiction with more than three-quarters of a million books in print in eighteen languages. Her novels include The Nature of Fragile Things, starred review Publishers Weekly; The Last Year of the War, a Library Reads and Real Simple top pick; As Bright as Heaven, starred review from Library Journal; Secrets of a Charmed Life, a 2015 Goodreads Choice award finalist; and A Fall of Marigolds, named to Booklist’s Top Ten women’s fiction titles for 2014. She is also RITA finalist and Christy Award and Carol Award winner. A California native, she attended Point Loma Nazarene University and is also a writing workshop volunteer for Words Alive, a San Diego non-profit dedicated to helping at-risk youth foster a love for reading and writing.

Visit Susan at her website: https://susanmeissnerauthor.com/ and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/susanmeissnerauthor/ on Twitter at @SusanMeissner or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/susan.meissner

Audiobooks with headphones — Graphic books and coffee courtesy Freepik.com

The Connellys of County Down by Tracey Lange – #AudiobookReview – #ThrowbackThursday

Goodreads Choice Award nominee

Book Blurb:

From Tracey Lange, the New York Times bestselling author of We Are the Brennans, comes The Connellys of County Down: a story about fierce family loyalty, good intentions gone awry, and the consequences of improbable love.

When Tara Connelly is released from prison after serving eighteen months on a drug charge, she knows rebuilding her life at thirty years old won’t be easy. With no money and no prospects, she returns home to live with her siblings, who are both busy with their own problems. Her brother, a single dad, struggles with the ongoing effects of a brain injury he sustained years ago, and her sister’s fragile facade of calm and order is cracking under the burden of big secrets. Life becomes even more complicated when the cop who put her in prison keeps showing up unannounced, leaving Tara to wonder what he wants from her now.

While she works to build a new career and hold her family together, Tara finds a chance at love in a most unlikely place. But when the Connellys’ secrets start to unravel and threaten her future, they all must face their worst fears and come clean, or risk losing each other forever.

The Connellys of County Down is a moving novel about testing the bounds of love and loyalty. It explores the possibility of beginning our lives anew, and reveals the pitfalls of shielding each other from the bitter truth.

My Review:

Tara, the youngest of three siblings left orphaned by their parents, has just been released from prison after serving eighteen months. She is thrilled to be returning home to her older sister Geraldine and brother Eddie but discovers pretty quickly that Geraldine is running an extremely tight ship in order to sort the chaos and leave her some sanity. Still, the responsibility of the two younger kids has stretched her near to the breaking point.

The rigid structure Geraldine created in her absence has left no room for spontaneity in any of the other two and they’ve learned to go by the rules or face the wrath.

Eddie, the middle child, is still suffering after effects of a horrible car accident when he was fourteen and is now trying to raise his son Connor.

Prior to Tara going to prison for drug trafficking, she was involved in teaching and made use of prison time by allowing her artistic side to grow and shine. Luckily, her expertise with graphics has landed her an illustrator position which she quickly learns to love along with the two boys who created the start-up.

In alternating chapters, each gets their POV where we learn the secrets they hold from each other. It was fun to be a fly on the wall in their separate lives as each navigates a serious issue, struggles with a disreputable childhood, and strives to overcome their baggage.

In many cases, where the children have had to be the adults, their loyalty to each other is strong, unconditional, and sacrificial. The three main characters are well-developed and sympathetic, but it’s easy to engage in supporting characters as well. Perhaps some of their decisions come from immaturity, but they share and support each other without question. I cheered Eddie’s advancement, heart sank with Geraldine’s foolish plan, and applauded Tara’s success with her graphics.

The officers responsible for sending Tara away had their eye on a larger target. But something about the case continued to bother him and he kept a close watch—perhaps too close–and that left me with a small case of disbelief. Tara’s record is always hanging over as she begins to grasp and then navigate the quandary Geraldine has initiated. Will it result in a return to the slammer?

It could.

Still, the twists in the conclusion worked and provided a satisfying end.

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Family Life Fiction, Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
ISBN-10: ‎ 1250865379
ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1250865373
ASIN: B0BJYBB316
Listening Length: 9 hrs 21 mins
Narrator: Barrie Kreinik
Publication Date: August 1, 2023
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: The Connellys of County Down [Amazon]

The Author: Born in the Bronx and raised in Manhattan, Tracey Lange comes from a large Irish family with a few secrets of its own. She headed west and graduated from the University of New Mexico before owning and operating a behavioral healthcare company with her husband for fifteen years. While writing her debut novel, We Are the Brennans, she completed the Stanford University online novel writing program. Tracey currently lives in Bend, Oregon, with her husband, two sons and their German Shepherd.

#ThhrowbackThursday

Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes – #AudiobookReview – #TuesdayBookBlog

Best Literature & Fiction

Nominee for Best Fiction (2023)

Book Blurb:

Who are you when you are forced to walk in someone else’s shoes?

Nisha Cantor lives the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband announces a divorce and cuts her off. Nisha is determined to hang onto her glamorous life. But in the meantime, she must scramble to cope–she doesn’t even have the shoes she was, until a moment ago, standing in.

That’s because Sam Kemp—in the bleakest point of her life—has accidentally taken Nisha’s gym bag. But Sam hardly has time to worry about a lost gym bag—she’s struggling to keep herself and her family afloat. When she tries on Nisha’s six-inch high Christian Louboutin red crocodile shoes, the resulting jolt of confidence that makes her realize something must change—and that thing is herself.

Full of Jojo Moyes’ signature humor, brilliant storytelling, and warmth, Someone Else’s Shoes is a story about how just one little thing can suddenly change everything.

My Review:

Well, gee, I do hate eating crow.

Guess I’d formed an opinion of the author back when I read The Giver of Stars after having read The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson. I read the latter for a book club at the time and given that Book Woman was published first, the former was wallowing in controversy. Still, no denying the wildly different writing style.

Well, different here is the theme. The women couldn’t be at more opposite ends of the spectrum of living. Sam is married with a daughter and the sole breadwinner as her husband lost his job and his father about the same time.

The depression that hit him has been a one-two punch he’s not moved beyond since. He spends his time as a couch potato. Sam is exhausted, both at home and at work where her supervisor picks at everything she does even though she appears to be quite effective at her position.

Nisha, an American, on the other hand, is living with an extremely wealthy and powerful husband, frequent fliers, while their son is living in an American boarding school. So it’s with a shock that she discovers her gym bag with her clothes and her husband’s favorite red Louboutin shoes were switched with someone else’s.

Sam, however, was in a hurry rushing to meetings and without time to return them immediately, simply wears what she finds in the bag to each successive meeting where she totally kills it. In the shoes and the clothes, she is transformed. She looks good. Feels good. Projects confidence and power.

So, yeah, Nisha comes off as wholly unsympathetic, a narcissist and spoiled. She is shocked when she is not allowed back into their posh apartment and then in succession discovers that along with her clothes, has no money, no bank cards that will be accepted, nothing. Her husband has completely cut her off—no explanation.

It’s a multi-layered, complex novel. The main characters are remarkable opposites, well-developed and believable. As the plot line progresses, Nisha’s character softens and Sam’s character begins to push her boundaries. There are interesting support characters who particularly near the conclusion create a bonded sisterhood. That part was fun, if not pushing disbelief.

Which brings me to the star rating. First, I had difficulty believing a wealthy woman would be working out, rubbing elbows, with the ordinary middle class. I loved the surprise Nisha saved for Carl but also had difficulty thinking he wouldn’t have known immediately who was the snitch. Also, while I savored that part, there were epilogues and the first was appreciated. The third…possibly TMI?

Otherwise, on the whole, I enjoyed the book and will now have to admit I’ll be looking for other books by this author. The narrator in this audiobook did an incredible job.

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Book Details:

Genre: Literary Fiction, Women’s Fiction, Romance
Publisher: Penguin Audio
ASIN: B0B7XWYTCH
Listening Length: 12 hrs 21 mins
Narrator: Daisy Ridley
Publication Date: February 7, 2023
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: Someone Else’s Shoes [Amazon-US]
Amazon-UK

Rosepoint Publishing: Four Stars

The Author: Jojo Moyes is a novelist and journalist. Her books include the bestsellers Me Before You, After You and Still Me, The Girl You Left Behind, The One Plus One and her short story collection Paris for One and Other Stories. The Giver of Stars is her most recent bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick. Her novels have been translated into forty-six languages, have hit the number one spot in twelve countries and have sold over thirty-eight million copies worldwide.

Me Before You has now sold over fourteen million copies worldwide and was adapted into a major film starring Sam Claflin and Emilia Clarke. Jojo lives in Essex with her family.

The Gem of Ireland’s Crown by Jean Grainger – #BookReview – #TuesdayBookBlog

Cullen’s Celtic Cabaret Book 4

Book Blurb:

The opportunity of a lifetime lands in Peter Cullen’s lap and nothing is going to stop him taking full advantage, not even the misgivings of his wife. Cullen’s Celtic Cabaret has been flying high, but the real goal, the secret desire of Peter’s heart, America, is finally, incredibly, looking like a reality.

The troupe are not at all prepared for what awaits them in prohibition era Atlantic City and they are dazzled by the bright lights. Keeping discipline and ensuring everyone remains focused drives Peter to the edge of his patience, but he soon realises that this is the least of his problems, as the gloss and sheen of the New Jersey shore reveals a dark side, and somehow his cabaret has fallen foul of it.

My Review:

When last we left Cullen’s Celtic Cabaret, the troupe was experiencing the dark side of the troubles between the Irish and the English during the twenties. Political tensions created drama for Peter’s brother and Nick acknowledged his aristocratic status with an extended visit to Brockleton.

Book four introduces the cautious decision to sail to America where they have an eye-opening introduction to prohibition era Atlantic City, New Jersey. Maud Flynn owns the theatre where the cabaret will play as well as the troupe’s residential accommodations. She has made extensive arrangements for them and laid down rules and expectations. It appears to be a clean, tight ship surrounded by sights and sounds, as well as slang and colloquialisms.

As “Oscar Wilde’s line in his short story ‘The Canterville Ghost’: ‘We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, the language.”

There were interpersonal struggles as well between those who found romance from within their group, but were not exactly free to act on their passions. May and Peter have a daughter now, Aisling, who has become somewhat of a darling of the troupe. Many of the members have discovered her intelligence and aptitude for learning either their particular skill or language. There may have been no booze, but the living was rowdy.

“The old Irish adage that ‘twas often a fella got his nose broken by his mouth’ was particularly true here.”

Despite the wildly successful splash they’ve made with their acts, their interpersonal relationships begin to force hard decisions. Tension escalates as each has to take a hard look at status quo. Additionally, there is an ever-darkening atmosphere as people and activities at arm’s length hide behind those bright lights and change the course of plans. Issues with Peter’s brother Eamonn become seriously tragic.

I can imagine that Atlantic City during prohibition was probably a wide-open port city during prohibition, entertaining everything from bootlegging, speak-easies, and the Boardwalk to summer resorts. There were bound to be gangsters as well.

The widely diverse characters are a strong hook in this series as well as the descriptive location in this installment. Any threads previously hanging were handled quickly in an Epilogue—almost too quickly—but settled the characters and issues.

I received a review copy of this book from the author who in no way influenced this review. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Rating: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Women’s Sagas, Saga Fiction, Family Saga Fiction
ASIN: B0CNGFLT6R
Print Length: 354 pages
Publication Date: February 7, 2024
Source: Author

Title Link(s): Amazon (US)
Amazon (UK)

The Author: JEAN GRAINGER – USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

SELECTED BY BOOKBUB READERS IN TOP 19 OF HISTORICAL FICTION BOOKS.

WINNER OF THE 2016 AUTHOR’S CIRCLE HISTORICAL NOVEL OF EXCELLENCE

Hello and thanks for taking time out to check out my page. If you’re wondering what you’re getting with my books then think of the late great Maeve Binchy but sometimes with a historical twist. I was born in Cork, Ireland in 1971 and I come from a large family of storytellers, so much so that we had to have ‘The Talking Spoon’, only the person holding the spoon could talk!

I have worked as a history lecturer at University, a teacher of English, History and Drama in secondary school, a playwright, and a tour guide of my beloved Ireland. I am married to the lovely Diarmuid and we have four children. We live in a 200 year old stone cottage in Mid-Cork with my family and the world’s smallest dogs, called Scrappy and Scoobi..

My experiences leading groups, mainly from the United States, led me to write my first novel, ‘The Tour’. My observances of the often funny, sometimes sad but always interesting events on tours fascinated me. People really did confide the most extraordinary things, the safety of strangers I suppose. It’s a fictional story set on a tour bus but many of the characters are based on people I met over the years.

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Many of the people who have reviewed my books have said that you get to know the characters and really become attached to them, that’s wonderful for me to hear because that’s how I feel about them too. I grew up on Maeve Binchy and Deirdre Purcell and I aspired to being like them. If you buy one of my books I’m very grateful and I really hope you enjoy it. If you do, or even if you don’t, please take the time to post a review. Writing is a source of constant contentment to me and I am so fortunate to have the time and the inclination to do it, but to read a review written by a reader really does make my day.

#TuesdayBookBlog

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon – #AudiobookReview – #HistoricalFiction

in Historical Fiction

Book Blurb:

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.

Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.

Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.

My Review:

I love it when an audiobook hooks immediately. So hard to put that earbud down! This novel tells the story of Martha Ballard, an early eighteenth-century midwife, who (unusually) not only reads and writes (and thinks for herself!), but has also been educated in medical conditions as well as local herbal tinctures.

Now in her fifties, she has successfully delivered hundreds of babies, not losing one baby or mother by malpractice. So as her reputation precedes her, it is not entirely unusual for her to be called to the scene of a suspicious death to render a forensic opinion of a man found frozen in the Kennebec River. Most jump to what might be the obvious cause of death, but Martha notices a number of issues that would point otherwise.

Her opinion was immediately countered by a young male doctor new to the village with little experience and less competence. His narcissistic ego is disagreeable and creates a strong antagonist sure to be reviled.

I was really taken with Martha. She is intelligent, thoughtful, kind, as well as strong-willed and independent. She has, from the beginning, kept a diary detailing her practice, including births, deaths, and callouts, and the diary becomes a historical record of the woman and her accomplishments.

“Like all mothers, I have long since mastered the art of nursing joy at one breast and grief at the other.”

She befriended and treated many women assaulted or bullied at the hands of husbands or others who at the time thought of women as little more than chattel. She recently treated a rape victim who decided to prosecute the men involved causing a huge uproar in the village and surrounds and, again, in opposition to the new doctor. I often wondered how she managed to protect herself facing her own husband’s lack of protection with his absences.

So many laws then weighed heavily against the female populace, rules and regulations that kept her impotent to even testify unless her husband was present.

The book evokes an atmosphere that chillingly cloaks the people and the village in suspicion and mistrust. It’s winter, everyone seeking protection from the elements, closed in, lack of communication except for gossip and hearsay. The simplest tasks are taken to monumental proportions to accomplish. Martha sacrifices over and over her own security, warmth, and protection in her calls from patients. At this point in her life, she and her long-standing husband have only one child left in the home. I wondered more than once how she survived, admiring her courage especially at that time in history given her oppositional stance in the rape trial.

The author shared her discovery of the woman, her diaries, and beautifully blended fact with fiction. Most of her diary entries were simple and didn’t elaborate, but remarkable in the decades covered bestowing knowledge to those who came after.

It was well-plotted and fast-paced with an amazing MC. Obviously, lots of research! But I wondered if it pushed disbelief regarding the latitude given her. I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Book Details:

Genre: Historical Fiction, Women Sleuth Mysteries, Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Random House Audio
ASIN: B0BXK3SRBL
Listening Length: 15 hrs 5 mins
Narrator: Ariel Lawhon, Jane Oppenheimer
Publication Date: December 5, 2023
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: The Frozen River [Amazon]
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

The Author: Ariel Lawhon is a critically acclaimed, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of historical fiction. She is the author of THE WIFE THE MAID AND THE MISTRESS, FLIGHT OF DREAMS, I WAS ANASTASIA and CODE NAME HELENE. Her books have been translated into numerous languages and have been Good Morning America, Library Reads, Indie Next, One Book One County, Amazon Spotlight, Costco, and Book of the Month Club selections. She lives in the rolling hills outside Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and four sons. She splits her time between the grocery store and the baseball field.