The Soldier's Wife by Margaret Leroy

This has been a thought evoking book. It's about the life of a tiny French island and its people and how their troubles, passions, and growing pains go on despite the fact its under German occupation during WWII. 

Vivienne's husband is a soldier who is gone fighting. They had a troubled relationship before he left and one has to wonder if they will have a relationship at all when he gets back. See, Vivienne has taken up with the enemy. This is the passionate part. Germans have taken over the house next door as most of the islanders left for England before the Germans arrived. Vivienne at some point (it's not clear where) fell in love with Gunther and proceeds to take him secretly into her bed each night. This was supposed to be passionate, but I didn't really feel this romance between them. It was implied more than experienced.


I was in a turmoil over this aspect of the novel. I couldn't help but think that what Vivienne is doing would be the equivalent of me bedding down with the Taliban whilst my own soldier husband was over in Afghanistan.. However, I also seen the moral behind it: Soldiers are just doing their jobs and you cannot hold the actions of a country against a single man.


Troubles arise with the building of labor camps.. Many islanders wish to help the starving, beaten prisoners but to do so puts one's own family at risk...


Despite the Occupation, Vivienne's daughters still grow up. Her teenage daughter disobeys Vivienne to consort with the enemy herself before seriously stopping to think of what she is doing. The younger daughter makes a special friend and inadvertently causes her own mother to "grow a pair" as I like to say and stand up for what is right.


A couple issues I had: 1) The lack of passion in the romance department. It came from nowhere and all of a sudden. 2) The heroine is a wimp until the end. When her little daughter hurts her leg, Vivienne doesn't even have the balls to poor medicine on it. Throughout the entire novel, her daughters have her "whipped." 3) WAY too much description. Everything from the flowers to the sea to her bedroom is described in detail. If I won't remember it once I turn the page, please don't waste my time describing it.


What I liked: 1) The mother in law's dementia added an interesting and sad twist. 2) The book is very well written despite being overly descriptive. I was entertained. 3) The moral I mentioned above about soldiers. "You do your job. You do what you have to do. You don't always look around you. You don't always think about everything..."


I received two ARCs of this book (oops), one from the publisher and one via Amazon Vine. My bad. 


Three stars.

Enchanted Island by May Torres

The author of this novel has done a great job of combining Puerto Rican history with an entertaining modern day tale of 4 teenagers. I hesitate to use the word "paranormal" here because to me, paranormal is vampires and werewolves (which I hate). I am going to use the word "magic" instead to describe the twist.

Gabby is a young Puerto Rican girl growing up in NY. Her mom works for this snooty, rich white family with a daughter Gabby's age, Molly. Molly is actually very lonely and dying for real friends and though it's rough going at first, the two girls become friends. Enter Gilberto, another Puerto Rican American kid and an absolute honey bunny and you got some jealousy issues... When the three of them take a trip to PR at the age of 12, another young PR man enters the scene, Juan. More jealousy builds up and this time, the result is a life changing experience.. as Gabby gets hurt and begins to experience strange visions related to the island of enchantment.


Back in NY, Molly enters the school of hard knocks and Gabby and Gilberto begin to take their relationship to the next level. Then this love quad thing starts... Gilberto loves Gabby. Gabby love Gilberto and Juan. Juan loves Gabby. And Molly loves Juan.. for a while. 
Sounds a little 90210ish, right? Well, I was highly entertained and it turns out these "love connections" tie in to a bigger story that explodes in the last quarter. All four of them of are related somehow in their past lives.. and each past life leads back to Puerto Rico. 


So, when all four of them find themselves back on the island as teenagers, all hell breaks loose. There's some magic, some evil, some ship wrecking, some stones, visions, forbidden love, rivalry, and resentment as Gabby unveils the story of Loiza Aldea and it's up to Gabby to break a "curse" of sorts.

Loiza Aldea... (there's a town in PR named after her) was a woman cacique (chief). According to legend, she was killed by her own people for becoming the lover of a Spanish mullato and converting to the white man's religion. May Torres does a "story within a story" to explain the legend of Puerto Rico's only female cacique. Well done.

The writing style sometimes tells more than shows, but because what was being "told" was so entertaining to me, I wasn't bothered by this. One thing that bothered me was repetition. Often, a scene would be relayed twice. Example: When the teens are on a boat, Molly is watching Juan and Gabby and steaming up cause Juan puts an arm around Gabby. Then we read about it as though it's a "close up" and the scene is repeated but telling what Gabby is feeling as Juan puts an arm around her. Since the story was told in third person POV, I felt this was unnecessary. This was a minor irritation for me as it happened more than once.


There are some minor punctuation/spelling errors, but nothing to call the Guard about. 


All in all, a good read. I'm not certain if this is marketed as YA or not, but I think it's more adult. If you are looking to pass this to a young adult, you may want to sit down and discuss sexual relations and the responsibilities that go with such relations with the individual as the teenagers in the novel are having sexual intercourse at 15 years of age. Some teenagers may get the wrong idea. 


Four stars. I received this from the publisher. 

Deadly by Julie Chibbaro

Superb YA historical novel. It's narrated in the first person POV, like she is writing in a journal. The heroine is a young lady, Prudence, in NYC, 1906. Prudence has a fascination with death.. she wishes she could stop it. She has lost her brother and her father and watched countless women die in childbirth.

Her mother forces her to attend a school for future ladies type thing, but Prudence has bigger plans. She goes to work for the Department of Sanitation. First case: typhoid epidemic. What's causing all these families to become so ill and possibly die?


And thus, through Prudence's eyes, readers learn about Typhoid Mary, an Irish immigrant who left a typhoid trail in her wake. Every family she cooked for became seriously ill.. even though Mary herself never got sick. Strange! Something to do with red blood cells maybe? 


I was seriously fascinated by this.. the early days of science, of medical study, of a young girl wanting to be a doctor in a time when women just didn't do that... I found myself having an inner debate.. Should Typhoid Mary be quarantined? Is this fair to her? What about others? Because though I seen a walking disease carrier, like Prudence, I also seen a human being... 


On top of all of that, Prudence is feeling the early stirrings of puppy love, dealing with her mother possibly dating again, and finding out the truth of her father as well as fending off the unwelcome advances of a suitor of her own. 

Absolutely fabulous read. Highly recommended, 5 stars. 


This was a library book. 

A Race to Splendor by Ciji Ware

This has been a fun read. I love the heroine, Amelia. I was hooked from the very beginning when she marches into the middle of a poker game and demands her hotel back to when she is learning to drive and demands that her "instructor" goes and hides behind a tree to when she fires men from the job site and brandishes a weapon to defend herself. She's a wonderfully strong heroine.

It's 1906 and Amelia comes home to San Francisco from France with a degree in architecture only to discover that her drunken father has gambled away her inheritance, a fine hotel called the Bay View, away to a rogue, J.D. Amelia takes the rogue to court but it being 1906.... well.. she loses, of course. 


J.D. doesn't have long to gloat, however, as the hotel winds up ruined during the great earthquake and fire. Fate plays horrible tricks, however, and Amelia, now employed by famous architect Julia Morgan, is assigned the daunting task of rebuilding her former hotel... but not for herself.. for J.D.

What follows is a "race" between Amelia and Julia. Julia is rebuilding the Fairmont, another fine hotel and both women aim to have their assigned hotels built and open by the earthquake's anniversary. However, J.D. is an idiot. He doesn't listen. He constantly deals with shady characters, employs bad people, angers everyone, and  to make a long story short, his dealings cause lots of problems on the Bay View site... fire, blackmail, beatings....
 

And yet, the strong, independent Amelia falls for him anyway??? This is the what made no sense to me throughout the novel and why I gave the book a four instead of a five. Amelia, this guy stole your inheritance... he made you look incompetent.. took advantage of your father and grandfather... left you and your mother penniless and you want to bang him? Hmmmmm.

The Fairmont

I grew weary of J.D. and all his crap, his dealings with Kemp, his dad... all that stuff. I didn't like the man and even in the end when he "explained" himself, I didn't like him and I didn't like the decision Amelia made. It just didn't "fit" with the kind of woman I was envisioning her to be up to that point. 
 
I absolutely loved the writing style, however, and the look into who Julia Morgan may have been. I enjoyed the architecture and Amelia's spunk. Until the last quarter when I got tired of J.D's idiocy, I was enthralled. 



Four stars and I received this ARC from a friend

The Year We Were Famous by Carole Estby Dagg

This is a novel aimed at ages 12 and up but I thoroughly enjoyed it and I am way past 12... The year is 1896, the setting a small, struggling farm in Washington state. The mother, Helga rarely gets out of bed, the father has a back problem, there are a total of 8 living children, the oldest being Clara. Clara has to take care of everything.. but there's one thing she cannot do: save their family's farm.

So.. her mom comes up with this idea: they will walk all the way from Spokane to New York. Yes, I said walk, no taking trains or anything. They find a publisher willing to pay them ten grand to do this.. upon arrival by a deadline, of course. So Helga and Clara set off..


They fight bad weather, shoot a man, meet nice people, chop wood, wear out their shoes, teach Indians to use a curling iron, survive a flash flood and sprained ankle, and meet a future president. And along the way, they argue, bicker, and secrets come to the surface. Meanwhile, Clara is trying to convince a suitor back home that she really does not want to marry and settle down.


Even if they make it to NY... and on time.. they may not save their farm, but they can certainly prove the endurance of women.


Laugh out moments: 


In a postscript from a letter Clara writes: Ma had a chance to trade me to a Ute brave for three horses, but she decided to keep me.


The Wyoming chapter headings go like this: Somewhere in Wyoming, Still nowhere, Wyoming, Between nowhere and more nowhere, Wyoming... 


I liked this book, but I have one quibble preventing it from being a five star read. I couldn't stand Helga. She's a horrible mother. She gets herself shoes over her daughter, she goes on a ridiculous gold finding whim with no regard to her daughter or their deadline, she gives Clara credit for nothing and doesn't even print her name on their cards.. It's Helga and daughter. She breaks bad news to Clara and expects her to just deal with it. Frankly, I found Helga to be one of the most selfish mothers I have ever read about. 


Clara says, "I was just 'and daughter' like something else she had packed in her satchel and brought out in emergencies. Need someone shot? Need someone to drag you through the lava fields? Whip out your trusty Clara; she'll take care of it."


This novel is based on the author's ancestors. 


Four stars. I received this ARC from the publisher. Quotes may not be exact in the published book.

Jeri Bittle by J. Rose Knight

I fell in love with the cover of this book and when I was presented with an opportunity to read it, I jumped at the chance. 


What I liked: The heroine is getting a string of hard knocks, from her dad's open heart surgery to a car wreck to her husband's death, debt up to her eyeballs, fires... Whereas most women would end up crying, screaming, or possibly being institutionalized, Jeri just keeps going. She does what she can to solve the mystery surrounding her husband's death and pre death antics, save her ranch, and provide for her little girls. 


The mystery involves dirty people in authority, poker games, real estate, and cattle rustling. I liked Sheriff Roy and his wife, Arlene. I liked the way everything tied together and I found myself nodding and saying, "Yep, I can see this happening in small town, bored Wyoming.

However, it could have used more tweaking on the fine details of law enforcement.. Example: I don't care who you are or how high up on the political chain, you don't just waltz to the local sheriff's house and declare his arrest without a warrant in hand. 


A tiny irritation: When people were conversing on the phone, how did the bystanders around them know what the unseen (on the end of the line individual was saying?)


Also, more emotion from the characters could have been injected. 


Those are minor quibbles. I said above that I basically liked the heroine, Jeri. However, there is one thing that really bothered me about this book. I am deaf and I am not ashamed of it. There is a character in this novel, Bob, who rescues Jeri more than once. Bob is deaf and mute. He was left at a recreation area at age eleven and some farmer found him and (Supposedly he didn't know there was such a thing as Child Protective Services. I didn't think WY was that backwards!) took him home, put him in the barn, and turned him into his own personal ranch hand. Bob did not get educated, but he is NOT dumb.


Upon first meeting him, the very first second Jeri realized he was deaf, she thinks he's deaf and dumb. Deaf and dumb go hand in hand twice in the novel. Bob is actually far from dumb. He saves animals and provides basic medical care to people in need. That's not a dumb person. Throughout the novel, Jeri begins to see Bob in a new light, but constantly thinks to herself, "he's so good looking and intelligent. If only he could hear.." and things of that nature.. She thinks Bob can never provide for a woman because he is handicapped. (His deafness if a deal breaker for this chic.) The "if only he could hear" thing comes up more than once. I wanted to scream at her. Bob is not the one who needs fixing!! It's everyone else's attitude towards Bob! What is wrong with his not being able to hear? That should not make him an unattractive person.


As a deaf person, I was bothered by this and would have liked to have the Bob issue resolved... a happy ending for him or more acceptance of him by the time I turned the last page. The ending left the possibility hanging.. but I still didn't feel good about Jeri's attitude towards him at that point.


Two stars. I received this from the publisher.

Ellis Island by Kate Kerrigan

This is not really about Ellis Island.. It is about the American Dream though, and Ellis Island was at one time, the first stepping stone to achieving that.

The first quarter of the novel takes place in Ireland, early 1900s. A very young Ellie, age 8, falls in love with her future husband, John, age 10. They grow up together despite their different families. Ellie even starves herself for five days to make her extremely religious parents realize how much she needs John. John is sweeter than all get out. I found myself wanting to marry him myself... in the beginning anyway.


They do get married, but bad stuff happens... John gets hurt in the revolution. Ellie is given an opportunity to go to the United States and send money home. She boards a ship and arrives at Ellis Island, lost, alone, scared, confused... and awed.

"We were united in amazement at the Statue of Liberty-a beautiful white goddess, she seemed to welcome and warn us with her spiked crown and her impervious expression, and we stared in amazement at the at the upstretched arm and its gold cone."


At first, Ellie is shocked by America. "The animals seemed more relaxed here too, quite content to mix with us humans. The rabbits and pheasants at home hid away from us in case we'd catch and eat them. Here the people were feeding the wild animals, and dressing their dogs up in fancy collars and being dragged down the street by them!"


Besides, that, she is surprised by her "mistress" or "boss lady." The woman is an unscrupulous drunk who does nothing for herself. There's a severe division of the classes, of course, but Ellie soon realizes that in America, one can rise above their "station." She goes to typing school, gets a job, sends a ticket back to Joe in Ireland.. only he doesn't come.


Meanwhile, there's a wealthy American man named Charles that takes a strong interest in Ellie.. (This comes rather late in the game and I was a bit disappointed as the book blurb had me thinking there would be more of this scandalous American romance.)


Soon enough, one year becomes four and Ellie is faced with a difficult choice. "America had already give me so much: a career, friends, an elegant demeanor, a home full of beautiful things. Now my adopted country was offering me wealth and love and fulfillment-a lifetime without hardship or complaint. All I had to do was stay."


I was disappointed with the ending.. It was a realistic ending, very real life as very few of us get everything we want and desire and I think most of us have "settled" for less, but I was hoping for more for Ellie. She didn't make the choice I was hoping she would make and I closed the last page of this book feeling sad. 


However, the writing style is superb, the narrative is engaging, the descriptive details not overdone. I enjoyed the novel and found myself pondering more than once, "what would I do?"


Four stars. I won this ARC on LibraryThing.

My own visit to Ellis Island when I was eleven years of age.