Tag: Book Bloggers

Book Review: A Fashionably French Murder By Colleen Cambridge

BonnieReadsAndWrites7 Comments

This is Book 3 in the “An American in Paris” cozy mystery series. I did this review for The Historical Novel Society.

BOOK DESCRIPTION (FROM AMAZON)

If there’s one art the French have mastered as well as fine cuisine, it’s haute couture. Tabitha and Julia are already accustomed to sampling the delights of the former. Now fashion is returning to the forefront in Paris, as the somber hues of wartime are replaced by vibrant colors and ultra-feminine silhouettes, influenced by Christian Dior’s “New Look.”
 
Tabitha and Julia join a friend for a private showing at an exclusive fashion atelier, Maison Lannet. The event goes well, but when Tabitha returns later that evening to search for a lost glove, she finds the lights still on—and the couturier dead, strangled by a length of lace. The shop manager suspects that a jealous rival—perhaps Dior himself—committed the crime. Tabitha dismisses that idea, but when another body is found, it’s apparent that someone is targeting employees of Maison Lannet.
 
Meanwhile, Tabitha’s Grand-père and Oncle Rafe are in the midst of their own design-related fracas, as they squabble over how to decorate their new restaurant. And there are strange break-ins at a nearby shoe store—but are the crimes related? It’s up to Tabitha to don her investigative hat and find answers before someone commits another fatal fashion faux pas.

BOOK REVIEW

1950. Tabitha Knight is back in the third book in the An American in Paris series.  This time she is visiting an up-and-coming Parisian fashion house with her good friend Julia Child when she discovers the body of the designer, Madame Lannet. Unable to resist an urge to investigate, she soon stumbles on yet another body, and it is not long before she’s once again crossing the path of Inspecteur Etienne Merveille, who is well aware of her sleuthing tendencies.   Romance is also in the air, and Tabitha finds herself attracted to Inspecteur Merveille against her better judgment.  While rescuing a feral cat with a broken tail, she also meets Monsieur Héroux, the veterinarian, and they make plans for a date as well.  Tabitha’s grand-père and his long-time partner also bring fun to the story, as they are fighting over how to design their new restaurant, and they take her to Dior to select a custom gown.

This is another great book in the series.  Julia Child, as always, steals the show with her over-the-top personality.  She injects joy, food, and humor whenever she is a part of the story. The author has obviously done her research well and captured Child’s character in a charming way.  The mouthwatering descriptions of delicious French food add to the delight, and I learned a lot about making crepes through Julia’s instructions to Tabitha.  The mystery is compelling with an unexpected ending, and adding the glamorous fashion industry into the mix makes this a winner.  Fans of cozy mysteries will love this book and the whole series.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via The Historical Novel Society. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

PURCHASE LINKS

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Book Review: Out Front the Following Sea

BonnieReadsAndWrites7 Comments

This is the story of Ruth Miner and her journey of survival in 17th-century New England. Accused of witchcraft after her parents’ deaths, she stows away on the ship of her friend Owen, who feels responsible for all her misfortune. However, they both soon find themselves fighting for their lives as the war between England and France in 1689, known as King William’s War, begins. Ruth’s strength and independence make her a target in this patriarchal society, and Owen, who has French ancestry, is treated as a suspect by the English. After Owen and Ruth find love, a harsh and domineering man tries to destroy them both.

What a wonderful and authentic work of historical fiction! The dialogue is completely true to the period, and there is a helpful list of non-English phrases at the end of the book. The descriptions of the people and their prejudices are completely realistic. The reader is shown how the absolute oppression of women includes death to any woman who seeks to be different, and how the accusation of witchcraft is a convenient excuse. The superstitions of the time are fascinating and well-researched. The wildness of the New World and the cruelty of those in power against anyone who disagrees with them are splashed in blood across the pages of this realistic and no-holds-barred novel. Out Front the Following Sea is an odyssey in an untamed country that will one day be America. Those interested in American history will want to explore this oft-forgotten period in her past.

I received a free copy of this book from Regal House Publishing via Historical Novels Review Magazine. My review is voluntary and my opinions are my own.

Leah Angstman

Leah Angstman is a historian and transplanted Midwesterner, unsure of what feels like home anymore. She is the recent winner of the Loudoun Library Foundation Poetry Award and Nantucket Directory Poetry Award and was a placed finalist in the Bevel Summers Prize for Short Fiction (Washington & Lee University), Pen 2 Paper Writing Competition (in both Poetry and Fiction categories), Saluda River Prize for Poetry (twice), Blue Bonnet Review Poetry Contest, Baltimore Science Fiction Society Poetry Contest, and West Coast Eisteddfod Poetry Competition. She has earned three Pushcart Prize nominations and a Best of the Net Award nomination, and serves as Editor-in-Chief for Alternating Current Press and a fiction and nonfiction reviewer for Publishers Weekly.

BUY LINKS

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The Children’s Blizzard

BonnieReadsAndWrites4 Comments

The Children’s Blizzard is the story of the devastating blizzard of 1888, which swept across the Great Plains with no warning and killed hundreds of people, many of them children on their way home from school. This is a fictionalized account of that devastating storm, but is based upon actual events and oral histories of the survivors.

This book is exquisitely written. Melanie Benjamin does an incredible job of connecting the reader with the characters. She shares the backstories and inner thoughts and feelings of pretty much every character in the book. Even the animals have something to say. And her stories delve deeply into the characters’ lives.

The main characters are two sisters who are both schoolteachers. Although they have so much in common, they experience very different outcomes during the storm simply based on last minute decisions. There is also an immigrant family led by a stressed out mother and a dallying, irresponsible father, and a young girl who has been sold to them by her mother for next to nothing. We meet an African American bar owner, who gives us the perspective of how people of color were treated in the late 1880’s. After the storm, a great newspaperman arrives. He comes to the area in search of the next big story, but instead experiences a life-changing connection with one of the victims.

Benjamin’s account of the harrowing experiences of the young people struggling though hazardous conditions, blinding snow, and freezing weather to try and find their way home, sometimes in vain, leaves us on the edge of our seat, feeling as if we are traveling with them.

Benjamin has written a book based on true events that cannot be missed, and I recommend everyone read this story, which is both heartbreaking and inspiring.

I received a free copy of this book from the publishers via Netgalley, and originally reviewed it for Historical Novels Review Magazine. My opinions are my own.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Melanie Benjamin is the author of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling historical novels The Swans of Fifth Avenue, about Truman Capote and his society swans, and The Aviator’s Wife, a novel about Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Her novel, Mistress of the Ritz, is a taut tale of suspense wrapped up in a love story for the ages, the inspiring story of a woman and a man who discover the best in each other amid the turbulence of war.Melanie Benjamin
Photo by Deborah Feingold

Previous historical novels include the national bestseller Alice I Have Been, about Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland; The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb, the story of 32-inch-tall Lavinia Warren Stratton, a star during the Gilded Age; and The Girls in the Picture, about the friendship and creative partnership between two of Hollywood’s earliest female legends—screenwriter Frances Marion and superstar Mary Pickford.

Her novels have been translated in over fifteen languages, featured in national magazines such as Good Housekeeping, People, and Entertainment Weekly, and optioned for film. 

Melanie is a native of the Midwest, having grown up in Indianapolis, Indiana, where she pursued her first love, theater. After raising her two sons, Melanie, a life-long reader (including being the proud winner, two years in a row, of her hometown library’s summer reading program!), decided to pursue a writing career. After writing her own parenting column for a local magazine, and winning a short story contest, Melanie published two contemporary novels under her real name, Melanie Hauser, before turning to historical fiction. 

Melanie lives in Virginia with her husband. In addition to writing, she puts her theatrical training to good use by being a member of the Authors Unbound speakers bureau. When she isn’t writing or speaking, she’s reading. And always looking for new stories to tell.

BUY THE CHILDREN’S BLIZZARD

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