So many changes going on. It’s my retirement year. I’m traveling overseas for two months, retiring in 6 months, and we’re moving in six months. It’s the Year of the Dragon and I happened upon my Chinese horoscope. I don’t usually look at horoscopes, but it says this is going to be a year of change for me. That’s not news. I am going to take some time for prayer and relaxation every day so I don’t get stressed out by all these changes. So I’m determined to embrace all the change and prepare for it, because it’s coming on fast.
LAST WEEK ON THE BLOG
I was gone to Knoxville for work most of the week and didn’t post the reviews that I had planned. I participated in Sunday Post and Book Blogger Hop last week. I also posted a review of Hollidayby Matthew Di Paoli on Saturday, and for Indie Weekend I will post a review of Land of the Blue Mistand a Q&A with author Susan Mallgrave today.
This is the third book in the Mr. Darcy and Miss Tilney mystery series, and I loved the first two. The children of characters from popular Jane Austen books have teamed up to solve yet another murder. I’m looking forward to it.
A romantic historical fantasy with vampires set during the US Civil War? Yes, please!
A romantic fantasy set in a magical land and inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia.
Question: How do you relax during times of stress and change?
**This is a review I did for the Historical Novel Society. Now that it’s been published on their website, I can post it.
In the 1880s, Doc Holliday has done it all—dentist, outlaw, gambler, and more. But now he’s called a “lunger,” a cruel term for someone with tuberculosis, and he has traveled west to seek out a drier climate. He’s also heard of a fountain of youth that will rid him of his disease, and thus he begins a life-or-death search for a miraculous cure that eventually takes him all over the West, with stops that often end in murder and mayhem.
Along for the ride is one of Doc’s loves, a prostitute, Kate. Wyatt Earp also makes frequent appearances. As the adventure continues, Doc flashes back to his past and nears the end of his life, all the while seeking out a miracle.
This is a very gritty and realistic portrayal of the life of Doc Holliday. The description of the seedy side of the West in the 1880s evokes vivid and lasting images that transport the reader to that time and place. Holliday’s personality comes alive, for example: “Doc revered impropriety in women, so long as they were not his women.” The author does not hold back on the description of Holliday’s life, illness, fame, and sometimes murderous ways, but still manages to show a bit of dignity in the man.
The bloody effects of tuberculosis and Doc’s deterioration are described in realistic detail. The rumored fountain of youth is always just out of his grasp, “a few towns over,” just as all legends are. The reader follows Doc’s journey throughout the West until his last stop, Glenwood Springs, Colorado, and his final futile attempt to find that miraculous fountain. This book is recommended to anyone who is interested in Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, or realistic fiction about the Old West.
My rating is 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 on sites with no half-star option.
I received a free copy of this book via The Historical Novel Society. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Matthew Di Paoli has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times. He has won the Wilbur and Niso Smith Adventure Writing Prize, The Prism Review, 2 Elizabeth’s, and Momoya Review short story contests. Matthew earned his MFA in fiction at Columbia University. He’s been published in Boulevard, Fjords, Post Road, and Cleaver among others. He is the author of Holliday and the upcoming Killstanbul with Sunbury Press.
Book Blogger Hop is run by Billy@coffeeaddictedwriter. There is a different bookish question every week.
The full question is: Do you keep an active list of favorite authors—that you would spend your milk money on—to have it when they publish a book? (submitted by Laura @ Laura’s Book Binge)
Answer: I don’t keep an actual list. There are some series I will buy or request if a new one comes out. As far as authors, I will buy anything Jodi Taylor writes.
What about you? Do you have any “auto-buy” authors?
I’m sure winter is not quite over, but Spring Cleaning started this weekend. I worked quite a while, but haven’t made much of a dent in it yet. I have a lot of stuff to go through before I retire and we move in just a little over 6 months! Wish me luck.
Bryson City, NC. About six more months til I’m living here.
Next week I hope to review The Trouble with You by Ellen Feldman and Sisters of Fortune by Anna Lee Huber. For Indie Weekend, I will review The Mender by Jennifer Marchman and Hamelin Stoop and the Battle of Parthogen by Robert B. Sloan. I am also going to put up as many Indie Spotlights as I can next week. If time permits, I will participate in Top Ten Tuesday and Book Blogger Hop.
BOOK HAUL
What The Mountains Remember is set in 1913. A young girl’s circumstances change drastically after her father dies in a mining accident and her mother marries a rich man. But then she goes back to the mountains as part of one of Henry Ford’s “Vagabond” camping tours and to see her fiance, a man she’s only met once before. As the mountains begin to return her memories, she starts to awaken to the truths of her new privileged life.
Night Falls on Predicament Avenue:
In 1910, Effie James is committed to doing anything to save her younger sister, who witnessed a shocking murder, leaving her mute and in danger of the killer’s retribution. Effie must prove what her sister saw, but when a British gentleman arrives, he disrupts Effie’s quest with his attempts to locate his wife, Isabelle Addington.
A century later, Norah Richman grapples with social anxiety and grief as she runs her late great-aunt’s bed-and-breakfast on Predicament Avenue. But Norah has little affection for the house and is committed only to carrying out her murdered sister’s dreams until crime historian and podcaster Sebastian Blaine arrives to investigate the ghostly legacy of the house’s claim to fame–the murder of Isabelle Addington.
Long Time Gone: Sloan has one reservation about involving herself in a DNA experiment: she’s adopted. Grateful for a loving home, she’s never considered tracking down her biological parents. The results of her search are shocking. Sloan’s DNA profile suggests her true identity is that of Charlotte Margolis, aka “Baby Charlotte”, who captured the nation’s attention when she mysteriously disappeared, along with her parents, in July 1995. Despite an exhaustive search, the family was never seen again, and no suspects were named in the case. Sloan is soon led to the town of Cedar Creek, Nevada, and she meets Sheriff Eric Stamos, whose father died while investigating Sloan’s disappearance.
That was how my week went. How About You? How was your week?
Indie Weekend is my effort to help Indie authors with marketing. It’s quite a daunting task, and if I can help even a little, I’m happy to do it. Please see below a book description, much deserved 5-star review, author information, and buy links for Anywhere But Schuylkill by Michael Dunn.
BOOK DESCRIPTION
ANYWHERE BUT SCHUYLKILL is the first of three books by Michael Dunn in his Great Upheaval trilogy. It is story of a teenage boy, Mike Doyle, struggling to free his family from the violence of their greedy, hard-drinking Uncle Sean.
The time is 1870s. The Long Depression is raging. Children are dying of hunger. The Reading Railroad has hired Pinkerton spies to infiltrate the miners’ union. And there is a sectarian war between the Modocs, a Welsh gang, and the Kohinoor Boys, an Irish gang. But Mike has a plan. It’s risky. It involves collaboration with the Kohinoor Boys. He could wind up in jail, or worse.
ANYWHERE BUT SCHUYLKILL is Michael Dunn’s first complete novel.
BOOK REVIEW
Wow, what a wonderful piece of historical fiction! The research is just astounding and the author’s expert knowledge of these events is evident. The reader is transported to 19th century Pennsylvania and the sights, sounds, and smells of that time come alive through Michael Dunn’s writing. When our main character Mike goes into a coal mine, we can see the dark tunnels through the light of the miners’ lamps, and we can smell the sweat of the men next to him. When he is forced to walk through a picket line as a “blackleg,” we can feel the hate and desperation of those who are striking for better wages and treatment. And most of all we can see him lined up with a group of young, hungry boys forced to work for almost nothing.
The descriptive, realistic writing is impressive. For example, the following passage shows what it’s like to be a “breaker boy” in a coal mine. “Pulling his shirt over his nose, he proceeded through the diagonal maze of chutes that crisscrossed the room. Each had ascending rows of boys sitting side by side above them on thin planks, as if they were on bleachers at a ballgame, except instead of facing home plate and enjoying the game, they all faced uphill, hunched over, their arms and legs darting in and out, like cockroaches rummaging for food.” Difficult and horrific situations such as discrimination, forced labor, and child abuse are shown truthfully. The desperation of young boys in horrible situations is written so well that the reader feels as if they are experiencing it. The author masterfully paints a vivid picture of the time, place, and events. It is very difficult to completely recreate a historic event in writing, place the reader in the middle of it, and make them feel as if they are there. This author has done it, and in his debut novel! This is the first in a trilogy and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
AUTHOR BIO
Michael Dunn writes Working-Class Historical Fiction from the Not So Gilded Age. ANYWHERE BUT SCHUYLKILL is the first in his Great Upheaval trilogy. A lifelong union activist, he has always been drawn to stories of the past, particularly those of regular working people, struggling to make a better life for themselves and their families. These are stories most people do not know, or have forgotten, because history is written by the victors, the robber barons and plutocrats, not the workers and immigrants. Yet their stories are among the most compelling in America. They resonate today because they are the stories of our own ancestors, because their passions and desires, struggles and tragedies, were so similar to our own.
*If you read the book, please leave reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, as well as anywhere else you review books. Some people feel very daunted by writing a review. Don’t worry. You do not have to write a masterpiece. Just a couple of lines about how the book made you feel will make the author’s day and help the book succeed. The more reviews a book has, the more Amazon will promote it.
*Please click on the WordPress “share” buttons below and share these books with your Twitter (X), Facebook, and/or WordPress followers. A little bit of assistance from all of us will help Indie authors go a long way!
Everyone remembers her daringly short, silver lamé dress. An iconic photo capturing an electric moment, where emerging American designer Astrid Bricard is young, uninhibited, and on the cusp of fashion and feminism’s changing landscape. She and fellow designer Hawk Jones are all over Vogue and the disco scene. Yet she can’t escape the legacy of being the daughter of Mizza Bricard, infamous “muse” for Christian Dior. Astrid would give anything to take her place among the great houses of couture—on her own terms. I won’t inspire it when I can create it.
But then Astrid disappeared…
Now Astrid’s daughter, Blythe, holds what remains of her mother and grandmother’s legacies. Of all the Bricard women, she can gather the torn, shredded, and painfully beautiful fabrics of three generations of grief, heartbreak, and abandonment to create something that will shake the foundations of fashion. The only piece that’s missing is the one question that no one’s been able to answer: What really happened to Astrid?
BOOK REVIEW
This is a multi-period novel exploring the lives of three Bricard women who are talented but largely unrecognized for that talent. Mizza Bricard was a talented designer who is better known as the real-life muse of Christian Dior. Her fictionalized daughter Astrid Bricard was known as the daughter of Mizza Bricard and also as the muse of designer Hawk Jones. Astrid’s daughter Blythe is fighting to be recognized as a designer in her own right, but she is in the shadow of media perceptions and her designer ex-husband Jake. She is also living with the fact that her mother disappeared when she was a baby and her father has never been there for her either.
This novel looks at the oppression of women in the fashion industry, mental health, abandonment, and other issues. The characters are strong, talented women who face an uphill battle with discrimination, public perception, and media portrayals. The fashion industry background is richly described, and the treatment of the media towards women over the decades is eye-opening. Important mental health issues that affect women are also brought to the forefront. The three time periods—the 1940s, 1970’s, and present day are very different, but all share the same issue of women fighting to be recognized in the fashion industry. The love stories set in the midst of the glamour and betrayal of this industry are well done.
I also listened to the audiobook, and the narrator Barrie Kreinik does a great job of portraying all of the characters.
My rating is 4.5 stars, rounded up to five on sites with no half-star option.
Anyone interested in fashion and historical fiction will enjoy this novel.
I received a free copy of the ebook from Forever Books and a free copy of the Audiobook from Hachette Audio. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (FROM GOODREADS)
Natasha Lester is the multi-award winning and New York Times best-selling author of THE PARIS SEAMSTRESS, THE PARIS ORPHAN, THE PARIS SECRET and THE THREE LIVES OF ALIX ST PIERRE. Her new book, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ASTRID BRICARD is out now in Australia, and was published in North America in Jan 2024.
Prior to writing, she worked as a marketing executive for L’Oreal, managing the Maybelline brand, before returning to university to study creative writing.
Natasha’s books have been translated into more than twenty-one different languages and are now published all around the world.
She lives in Perth, Western Australia with her 3 children and loves fashion history, practicing the art of fashion illustration, collecting vintage fashion, traveling and, of course, books. (less)
Below are the American and Australian covers. Which one do you like better? I think I’m leaning toward the Australian cover, but I like the color of the dress on the American cover. I don’t always like it when they cut the face in half on a cover, so I will choose Australia.
When Rosie Macalister returns to Yale and her spot on the equestrian team after a year away, she finds out she is rooming with Annelise Tattinger, who turns out to be a very talented rider who reads tarot cards for the other girls in her spare time. Rosie has fought very hard for her place in the team’s inner circle, which is no easy feat since she is from a middle-class background. At first, she is resentful of the idea of having a roommate, but she soon becomes friends with Annelise and realizes there is a lot more going on than meets the eye.
This is a very realistic look at class differences and how the upper elite class treats everyone else. The attitude that the rules don’t apply to the rich is very evident. There were some hidden secrets that I didn’t see coming, and the characterization of the very rich and entitled Cressida is well done. The old cliche that “money doesn’t buy happiness” rings true in this book, but would be better defined as “too much money doesn’t buy happiness.” While some of the characters use their trust funds to sink deeper into despair, others just want enough money to fulfill their dreams.
Each chapter was headed with the description of a tarot card, which was not my cup of tea at all, but the way Annelise used fortune-telling in this book was interesting. For me, it was the relationships and class differences and how this affected the characters that truly made this book shine. Honest, sobering, sad, and heartbreaking, this book shines a light on the elite class and on struggling to belong in a world that is only set up for a few to succeed.
I enjoyed both the ebook and audiobook versions. The audiobook, read by Stephanie Cannon, is well done and completely captures the personalities of each character.
I received a free copy of the ebook from St. Martin’s Press and of the audiobook from Macmillan Audio. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RACHEL KAPELKE-DALE is the author of THE BALLERINAS (St. Martin’s Press 2021) and coauthor of GRADUATES IN WONDERLAND (Penguin 2014), a memoir about the significance and nuances of female friendships. The author of VANITY FAIR HOLLYWOOD’s column “Advice from the Stars,” Kapelke-Dale spent years in intensive ballet training before receiving a BA from Brown University, an MA from the Université de Paris VII, and a PhD from University College London. She currently lives in Paris.
Top Ten Tuesday is run by That Artsy Reader Girl. There is a different topic every week. This week’s topic is: Top Ten Quick Reads/Books to Read When Time is Short. Click on the covers to learn more about the books.
This is the prequel novella to Gail Meath’s Jax Diamond Mysteries series and tells us how it all got started when Jax met his German Shepherd partner, Ace. It’s only 112 pages.
This is one of many novellas in Jodi Taylor’s The Chronicles of St. Mary’s series. She always releases a short story on Christmas and this is the latest. 100 pages.
A classic. What more do I need to say? It’s only 128 pages.
This is a short story in the St. Mary’s Universe about how it all got started. 76 pages.
This is a short story from The Frogmorton Farm series, which couldn’t be more different than St. Mary’s. There’s no time travel, but there is a magical golden horse. 44 pages.
This is a heartbreaking novel of Soviet Russia. It’s 194 pages, but that’s still pretty short. My review is here.
In this one, I was in awe of the author’s talent and deeply affected by the story. And it’s only 82 pages. My review is here.
Can you believe it’s only 108 pages?
This is a lesser-known story of the Titanic, and it’s only 66 pages.
Ok, book bloggers. This is the story of a woman whose book collection has gotten so big it’s threatening to collapse. We can all relate. It’s only 40 pages.
Can you think of any shorter books that you love or want to read?
I spent yesterday making sauerkraut, which also involved finding organic cabbage fresh enough to work with. I finally found some at Fresh Market. Our family’s sauerkraut recipe goes back 100 years or more to my mountain ancestors, who grew cabbage in the summer and fermented it in the fall so it would last all winter. When my Mom taught me to make it, she said to always go by the Farmer’s Almanac, which tells you the best times to make fermented sauerkraut. She said if you make it certain times of the month, it just won’t turn out. That has held true, and I don’t know why, but yesterday was listed by the Farmer’s Alamanac as one of the best days to make sauerkraut, so that’s when I did it.
The FDA will advise you these days not to ferment sauerkraut in the jars, but to use crocks. Since my family’s been eating kraut made this way for my lifetime and beyond, I am not going to change it. It’s a personal choice.
Back in October 2019, my Mom showed a few of us how to make sauerkraut. It was probably the third time she showed me, but this time it stuck. She passed away in March 2020.
The pictures above are my Mom and Dad, Harold Zinser and Dorothy Jenkins Zinser, my Mom making sauerkraut in October 2019, my Mom in her beloved garden, and my Mom when she was only 16, growing up in Bryson City, NC.
Below is the batch of sauerkraut I made yesterday. It will have to ferment 6 - 8 weeks before we can eat it. The little flecks you see are red pepper flakes, which are part of what makes this taste so good.
Book Blogger Hop is run by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. There is a different bookish question every week. This week’s question asks about the last time you read a book in one sitting.
Answer: I pretty much read all of Jodi Taylor’s books in one sitting as soon as they are released. She writes the St. Mary’s Chronicles and The Time Police series. The most recent book I read in one sitting was Kinfolk by Sean Dietrich. See my review of this wonderful book here.
How about you? What is the last book you read in one sitting?
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