Tag: NetGalley

The Lost Passenger by Frances Quinn

Publication Feb. 25, 2025-Random House Publishing-Historical Fiction-384pp

Book Summary

An immersive historical drama about a young mother who starts a new life with her son in New York after faking their deaths on the Titanic—the U.S. debut of an acclaimed British novelist.
Sometimes it takes a disaster to change your life.
     Marrying above your social class can come with unexpected consequences, as Elinor Coombes discovers when she is swept into a fairy-tale marriage with the son of an aristocratic English family. She soon realizes that it was the appeal of her father’s hard-earned wealth rather than her pretty face that attracted her new husband and his family. Curtailed by rigid social rules that include being allowed to see her nanny-raised infant son for only moments each day, Elinor faces a lonely future. So a present from her father—tickets for the maiden voyage of a luxurious new ship called the Titanic—offers a welcome escape from the cold, controlling atmosphere of her husband’s ancestral home, and some precious time with her little son, Teddy.
       When the ship goes down, Elinor grasps the opportunity to take Teddy and start a new life—if they can disappear completely, listed among the dead. Penniless and using another woman’s name, she must put that terrible night behind her and learn to survive in New York City. But even in a brash new world that couldn’t be more different from her own, secrets have a way of floating to the surface. . . .
      An absorbing historical drama set between the old world of the oppressive English aristocracy and the new world of opportunity and freedom, The Lost Passenger is a grippingly dramatic story about starting over in a brand-new world, triumphing over adversity, and finding hope in the face of great loss.

Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab

This is my first introduction to Frances Quinn’s writing and will definitely not be my last. Though she is well known in the UK, The Lost Passenger is her debut novel here in America and is a Titanic story like no other I’ve read. Main character, Elinor, is manipulated by the charming Frederick into a quick fairy tale wedding with a foreboding mother-in-law. The restrictions of society and the accepted practices of parenting are especially saddening as Elinor is only allowed a few minutes a day with her son, Teddy.  Extremely unhappy and suspicious of Frederick’s attentions, the stage for escape is set when Elinor receives tickets from her wealthy father for the maiden voyage of the Titanic.

The saga that unfolds is filled with astonishing descriptions and entrepreneurial spirit. The character development and pacing of the narrative kept me engaged, hopeful, anxious, and at times panicked! The element of historical fiction that I always appreciate is when the author sinks the reader into the scenes through sensory details. Readers will definitely get the sense of extreme differences between the divinely exorbitant amenities on the Titanic and the deplorable living conditions in the tenements of the Lower East Side of NYC.

Emotional attachments grow to overwhelming proportions as the novel progresses.  A much-disliked mistress from London’s high society crosses the Atlantic and my favorite character Tommy Jenkins from the sinking ship, makes a remarkably emotional plea. The immigrant family squished into the tiny apartment shows fortitude, ingenuity, and Quinn’s pure unbridled handling of their feelings is realistic and truthful.

Can Elinor steal a life by keeping secrets and taking risks? Becoming aware of more than one kind of happy ending is a spellbinding treat for readers of The Lost Passenger.  

Frances Quinn grew up in London and studied English at King’s College, Cambridge. She became a journalist, writing for magazines including Prima, Good Housekeeping, She, Woman’s Weekly, and Ideal Home, and later branched out into copywriting. Upon winning a place on the Curtis Brown Creative novel writing course, she started work on her first novel, The Smallest Man. Her second novel is That Bonesetter Woman and The Lost Passenger is her third. She lives in Brighton, England, with her husband and three Tonkinese cats.

The Dressmakers of London by Julia Kelly

Publication Feb.18, 2025-Gallery Books-Historical Fiction-384pp

Book Summary

The author of the “enthralling” (Woman’s World) The Lost English Girl returns with a heartfelt new novel about estranged sisters who inherit their late mother’s dress shop in World War II London.
     Isabelle Shelton has always found comfort in the predictable world of her mother’s dressmaking shop, Mrs. Shelton’s Fashions, while her sister Sylvia turned her back on the family years ago to marry a wealthy doctor whom Izzie detests. When their mother dies unexpectedly, the sisters are stunned to find they’ve jointly inherited the family business. Izzie is determined to buy Sylvia out, but when she’s conscripted into the WAAF, she’s forced to seek Sylvia’s help to keep the shop open. Realizing this could be her one chance at reconciliation with her sister, Sylvia is determined to save Mrs. Shelton’s Fashions from closure—and financial ruin.
     Through letters, the sisters begin to confront old wounds, new loves, and the weight of family legacy in order to forge new beginnings in this lyrically moving novel perfect for fans of Genevieve Graham and Lucinda Riley.

Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab

The Dressmakers of London is cut from a perfect pattern, fitting pieces of reconciliation and family history right alongside personal reinvention to create an elegant, delightful outcome. Julia Kelly tailors this World War II novel of two sisters, Sylvia and Izzie learning to trust each other again, with Izzie’s intriguing assignment in a barrage balloon unit in the WAAF-Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.

Food rationing and coupons are standard in WWII novels, but Julia Kelly includes fascinating details of cloth rationing that started in 1941 and lasted until four years after the war ended. The Cloth Utility Scheme regulated pleats, hemlines, buttons, and cuffs on trousers. This regulation had a huge impact on Mrs. Shelton’s Fashions and Izzie’s design dreams, which Kelly stitches seamlessly into the suspense of the shop’s survival.

The characters reveal true feelings through letters that move the plot while adding anticipation and hope. Readers learn of war details and the budding relationship from letters between young Izzie and American Staff Sergeant Jack Perry from Iowa. On the “sister front” rebuilding trust occurs slowly as Sylvia and Izzie share personal and quite different memories of their mother after their father died. Sylvia’s marriage to Horrible Hugo is another thread in the unraveled fabric of Izzie’s life; coming of age, sketching her own designs, and running the dress shop. There are some especially poignant revelations in situations between Sylvia’s socialite friends and the wise Lady Winman that knit life lessons into the narrative.

The Dressmakers of London tells of a mother’s bequest that leads to emotional, surprising results and happenings-a deep feeling for legacy and family heritage. Sylvia and Izzie would agree that their story is “an honest to goodness proper triumph!”

Julia Kelly is the international bestselling author of emotional historical fiction about extraordinary women and intriguing historical whodunnit mystery novels. Her books have been translated into 13 languages. In addition to writing, she’s been an Emmy-nominated producer, journalist, marketing professional, and (for one summer) a tea waitress. Julia called Los Angeles, Iowa, and New York City home before settling in London with her husband. Read about all of Julia’s books here: https://www.juliakellywrites.com/

The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict

Publication Feb. 11, 2025-St. Martin’s Press-Mystery-304pp.

Book Summary

London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment.

May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods. The murder has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing? If, as the police believe, the cause of death is manual strangulation, why is there is an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Determined to solve the highly publicized murder, the Queens of Crime embark on their own investigation, discovering they’re stronger together. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.

Inspired by a true story in Sayers’ own life, New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict brings to life the lengths to which five talented women writers will go to be taken seriously in the male-dominated world of letters as they unpuzzle a mystery torn from the pages of their own novels.

Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab

Five female writers united by the love of mystery writing overcome barriers of age, class, culture, and education to form the Queens of Crime in hopes of joining the male dominated Detection Club. Dorothy Sayers convinces Agatha Christie, Baroness Emma Orczy, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham to travel from London to France to piece together the unsolved murder of nurse, May Daniels, in order to become heroes and thus prove their worth.

Keeping in mind that May Daniels was a real person, not a character in one of their novels, the Queens of Crime band together to reconstruct the timeline leading to May’s disappearance. Marie Benedict develops the Queens so accurately through dialogue, attitude, and fashion sense, they each become recognizable and even predictable for readers. Pairing the Queens in different situations according to their individual skill sets as they “leave no stone unturned” along the Rue de Lille sinks the reader into the world of sleuthing in the 1930’s. Benedict reveals the assumptions and expectations of the male detectives and shop keepers of that era, leading them to false conclusions regarding May’s murder.  Leave it to the female mystery writers to connect theater tickets, silk dresses, letters and luggage. All these elements, character, setting, themes, and plot, come together to represent the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. Marie Benedict’s Queens of Crime-a truly golden “locked door murder mystery.”  

Marie Benedict is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Mitford Affair, Her Hidden Genius, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, The Only Woman in the Room, Lady Clementine, Carnegie’s Maid, The Other Einstein, and the novella, Agent 355. With Victoria Christopher Murray, she co-wrote the Good Morning America Book Club pick The Personal Librarian and the Target Book of the Year The First Ladies. 
Her books have been translated into thirty languages, and selected for the Barnes & Noble Book Club, Target Book Club, Costco Book Club, Indie Next List, and LibraryReads List. 

Christmas in Chestnut Ridge by Nancy Naigle

Publication Oct. 8, 2024-St. Martin’s Griffin-General Fiction, Romance-352pp.

Book Summary

In the enchanting mountain town of Chestnut Ridge, where tree farms blanket the hillsides and the promise of a white Christmas is ever-present, a heartwarming holiday romance is about to blossom. When Sheila’s best friend convinces her to help decorate a tree in the annual Christmas Tree Stroll fundraiser, she embarks on an unexpected journey of self-discovery, all wrapped in the cozy embrace of a tight-knit community. As she immerses herself in the joy of twinkling lights, hot cocoa, and the camaraderie of the townsfolk, Sheila’s world begins to transform, and she finds the sense of belonging she never knew she needed.

Meanwhile, Tucker, the town’s reliable fire captain, is gathering volunteers to help a family with four young children who have just lost their home to a devastating fire weeks before Christmas. Sheila offers her helping hand, and as the town rallies to support the family in their time of need, sparks of love begin to flicker between her and Tucker.

In this charming town where dreams come true, and Christmas magic is everywhere, come along for a tale of love, community, and the true spirit of the season.

Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab

A small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains is the setting for this heartwarming tale of second chances, discovering new purpose, and experiencing how a community pulls together. Shiela’s realizations about life in a rural area in contrast to city life add complexity to her preconceived notions about her best friend moving away. It’s never easy being the one left behind, but Nancy Naigle’s thoughtful dialogue and Shiela’s analysis of her own selfish feelings, along with being drawn into experiencing how Chestnut Ridge rallies around a needy family, give her a lot to think about. The excitement and busyness of a tree decorating festival and a blossoming friendship with confident but humble Fire Chief Tucker, are the ingredients in this perfect recipe for holiday reading. Mix chasing career goals with life’s puzzle pieces and fold in the Christmas spirit; add a side of hot chocolate and you have the perfect “good-night wink.”

USA Today bestselling author Nancy Naigle whips up small-town love stories with a whole lot of heart. She began writing while juggling a successful career in finance and life on a seventy-six-acre farm. Now happily retired from a career in the financial industry, this Virginia girl devotes her time to writing, antiquing, and spa days with friends.

Several of Nancy’s novels have been adapted for television. You can find the complete list of movies and a free downloadable checklist of all of Nancy’s books in series order on her website.

Betrayal at Blackthorn Park by Julia Kelly

Publication October 1, 2024-St. Martin’s Press-Historical Fiction-Mystery-320pp.

Book Summary

With mystery, intrigue, and the hints of romance international bestselling author Julia Kelly is known for, Evelyne Redfern returns in Betrayal at Blackthorn Park.

Freshly graduated from a rigorous training program in all things spy craft, former typist Evelyne Redfern is eager for her first assignment as a field agent helping Britain win the war. However, when she learns her first task is performing a simple security test at Blackthorn Park, a requisitioned manor house in the sleepy Sussex countryside, she can’t help her initial disappointment. Making matters worse, her handler is to be David Poole, a fellow agent who manages to be both strait-laced and dashing in annoyingly equal measure. However, Evelyne soon realizes that Blackthorn Park is more than meets the eye, and an upcoming visit from Winston Churchill means that security at the secret weapons research and development facility is of the utmost importance.

When Evelyne discovers Blackthorn Park’s chief engineer dead in his office, her simple assignment becomes more complicated. Evelyne must use all of her—and David’s—detection skills to root out who is responsible and uncover layers of deception that could change the course of the war.

Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab

Betrayal at Blackthorn Park, the second in a series, features avid reader of detective mysteries, Evelyn Redfern. (Her reading list is linked below in the author bio!) Plucked from the typing pool, Evelyn is a newly trained spy for the Special Investigations Unit in London 1940. Her first mission is a security check at a country manor in Sussex, known as Blackthorn Park. Now a weapons research facility with a staff of engineers, administrators, and workers, it is the perfect setting for a mystery.

The focus of Evelyn’s mission changes from a security check for missing supplies to a murder investigation. Author Julia Kelly’s lifelong love for mysteries and detective stories lends credence to interviews of suspects, tricks of the detective trade, and summaries of clues before heading the search off in another direction.

Julia Kelly’s characters move with ease from Whitehall to Blackthorn Park. To Evelyn’s dismay her partner at Whitehall, David Poole, has been promoted to ‘handler’ in the SIU and follows her to Blackthorn. Kelly’s development of Evelyn’s view of David Poole evolves from mostly annoying to sometimes endearing, giving readers hope for a closer connection in the future. She uses clever pairings such as Mr. and Mrs. Sherman, stationmaster at Benstead and housekeeper at the manor, to make connections and confirm clues. To relax the frantic pace and drama of the mission Kelly isolates the interviews of suspects into chapters and switches to Evelyn’s London life with occasional telephone calls to best friend Moira.  

Betrayal at Blackthorn takes place in one hectic week, with a day-by-day countdown to Winston Churchill’s visit for a weapons demonstration. Interviews, journal checks, letters and a secret hiding place keep readers piecing clues together until the last explosion at Blackthorn Park.

Julia Kelly is the international bestselling author of emotional historical fiction about extraordinary women and thrilling historical whodunnit mystery novels. Her books have been translated into 13 languages. In addition to writing, she’s been an Emmy-nominated producer, journalist, marketing professional, and (for one summer) a tea waitress. Julia called Los Angeles, Iowa, and New York City home before settling in London with her husband. EVELYN REDFERNS READING LIST FROM BOOK #1 1AND #2 https://www.juliakellywrites.com/evelyne-redferns-reading-list

Katharine, the Wright Sister by Tracey Enerson Wood

Publication September 10, 2024-Source Books-Historical Fiction -448pp

Book Summary

She helped her brothers soar… but was the flight worth the fall?

 It all started with two boys and a bicycle shop. Wilbur and Orville Wright, both unsuited to college and disinclined to leave home, jumped on the popular new fad of bicycle riding and opened a shop in Dayton, Ohio. Repairing and selling soon led to tinkering and building as the brothers offered improved models to their eager customers. Amid their success, a new dream began to take shape. Engineers across the world were puzzling over how to build a powered flying machine—and Wilbur and Orville wanted in on the challenge. But their younger sister, Katharine, knew they couldn’t do it without her. The three siblings made a pact: the three of them would solve the problem of human flight.

 As her brothers obsessed over blueprints and risked life and limb testing new models on the sand beaches of North Carolina, Katharine became the mastermind behind the scenes of their inventions. She sourced materials, managed communications, and kept Wilbur and Orville focused on their goal—even when it seemed hopeless. And in 1903, the Wright brothers made the first controlled, sustained flight of humankind.

What followed was the kind of fame and fortune the Wrights had never imagined. The siblings traveled the world to demonstrate their invention, trained other pilots, and built new machines that could fly higher and farther. But at the height of their success, tragedy wrenched the Wright family apart… and forced Katharine to make an impossible choice that would haunt her for the rest of her life.

 From internationally bestselling author Tracey Enerson Wood, Katharine, the Wright Sister is an unforgettable novel that shines a spotlight on one of the most important and overlooked women in history, and the sacrifices she made so that others might fly.

Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab

Wilbur, Orville, and Katharine Wright’s promise to one another required a lifetime of sacrifice to change the course of history. Travel with the Wright brothers from the bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, to the sandy beaches of North Carolina and to fame across Europe.  Woods’ detailed descriptions of sketching and journaling birds in flight, family dinner discussions on design changes, including a myriad of flight terms, adds immensely to understanding how trial and error, years of experimentation and Katharine’s personal sacrifice led to the brothers’ success.

The theme of family complexities and how good intentions can hurt loved ones is portrayed through thoughts and dreams as siblings share in alternating chapters. Wilbur, an all-around student & athlete, with a great knowledge of physics and math, feels pressure to succeed.  Orville, blessed with mechanical abilities and resourcefulness, becomes selfish and quite maddening in his demands of Katharine. Due to their mother’s illness and early death, Katharine, becomes head of household and runs the bicycle shop. Described by Wilbur as bossy and hard driving, she is the visionary; decisive, confident, bold. Katharine’s ongoing desire to be part of the team and her inability to stand up to Orville contradicts her fear of becoming a spinster as she sacrifices her private life. This heart wrenching conundrum is frustrating as she wavers between devotion and resignation.  

Experience the history of transportation from the horse & carriage, automobiles and finally in 1903, successful human flight and eventually flying machines.  Competition and ‘red tape’ creates suspense and great anticipation as the Wrights endure  meetings with patent attorneys, demands for data, and denials by the government. Thank your lucky stars for Orville and Wilbur’s determination and Katharine’s sacrifice in the field of aviation. Dive with failures, soar with success!

Sit back and enjoy the flight with Tracey Enerson Wood’s Katharine, the Wright Sister.

Mademoiselle Eiffel by Aimie K. Runyan

Publication September 10, 2024-William Morrow-Historical Fiction

Book Summary

From the author of The School for German Brides and A Bakery in Paris, this captivating historical novel set in nineteenth-century Paris tells the story of Claire Eiffel, a woman who played a significant role in maintaining her family’s legacy and their iconic contributions to the city of Paris.

Claire Eiffel, the beautiful, brilliant eldest daughter of the illustrious architect Gustave Eiffel, is doted upon with an education envied by many sons of the upper classes, and entirely out of the reach of most daughters. Claire’s idyllic childhood ends abruptly when, at fourteen, her mother passes away. It’s soon made clear that Gustave expects Claire to fill her mother’s place as caregiver to the younger children and as manager of their home.

As she proves her competence, Claire’s importance to her father grows. She accompanies him on his travels and becomes his confidante and private secretary. She learns her father’s architectural trade and becomes indispensable to his work. But when his bright young protégé, Adolphe Salles, takes up more of Gustave’s time, Claire resents being pushed aside.

Slowly, the animosity between Claire and Adolphe turns to friendship…and then to something more. After their marriage in 1885 preserves the Eiffel legacy, they are privileged by the biggest commission of Eiffel’s career: a great iron tower dominating the 1889 World’s Fair to demonstrate the leading role of Paris in the world of art and architecture. Now hostess to the scientific elite, such as Thomas Edison, Claire is under the watchful eye not only of her family and father’s circle, but also the world.

Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab

The Eiffel Tower, a beacon of science and beauty meant to be torn down after twenty years, is the pinnacle of success for Gustave Eiffel. The Eiffel family has a gift for detail, an eye for beauty, and the insistence for perfection. Will these gifts lead to the success or the demise of the Compagnie Eiffel?

The novel opens with Claire’s witness of the destruction of Gustave Eiffel’s office in the face of legal issues. Runyan then recaps the past years filling in the details leading to the World’s Fair in 1889 and through Claire’s life in 1924.

Claire experiences the death of her mother and the overbearing presence of her grandmother, and at the age of 14 is burdened with running the household, shepherding four siblings, and assisting her father. Runyan aptly depicts Claire’s acceptance of the injustice of her sacrifice and understanding the importance of her role in securing control of the company by marriage, through a discerning portrayal of her thoughts and decisions.  

Runyan juggles the family life of sister, Laure, along with the disappointing, embarrassing shenanigans of underwhelming brother, Edouard, with the business dramas involving the tower project.  When Gustave Eiffel’s tower project is faced with construction issues, petitions, and law suits he handles these situations with intelligence, discernment and integrity. Runyan’s references to Eiffel’s designs in Europe and the United States add immensely to understanding Gustave’s worldwide renown and the reasons for his inclusion in the Panama Canal venture.  

Fans of Aimie K. Runyan know she loves to include baking and food and won’t be disappointed! Included are descriptions of stunning venues in France and Portugal, where feasts and celebrations featuring luscious dinners starring Bûche Noël and Croquembouche decorate the pages.  

Gustave’s nod to his wife’s crochet patterns, represented in the ironwork designs, embellish this amazing masterpiece of engineering. Runyan’s novel, Mademoiselle Eiffel, provides the same exhilaration and joy experienced by thousands of onlookers as they witnessed the Eiffel Tower on opening day at the World’s Fair. Enjoy the view!

For further reading on the famous monument: https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/the-monument

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

Publication Aug. 20, 2024-Random House-Ballentine-Historical Fiction-544pp

Book Summary

From the New York Times bestselling co-author of Mad Honey comes a novel about two women, centuries apart—one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays—who are both forced to hide behind another name.

Young playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. But seeing it performed is unlikely, in a theater world where the playing field isn’t level for women. As Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, her best friend takes the decision out of her hands and submits the play to a festival under a male pseudonym.

In 1581, young Emilia Bassano is a ward of English aristocrats. Her lessons on languages, history, and writing have endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling, but like most women of her day, she is allowed no voice of her own. Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees all theatre productions in England, Emilia sees firsthand how the words of playwrights can move an audience. She begins to form a plan to secretly bring a play of her own to the stage—by paying an actor named William Shakespeare to front her work.

Told in intertwining timelines, By Any Other Name, a sweeping tale of ambition, courage, and desire centers two women who are determined to create something beautiful despite the prejudices they face. Should a writer do whatever it takes to see her story live on . . . no matter the cost? This remarkable novel, rooted in primary historical sources, ensures the name Emilia Bassano will no longer be forgotten.

Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab

This is a compelling novel supporting the idea that Emilia Bassano, known as the first female poet in England, was the author of many of William Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. Jodi Picoult presents this premise in a convincing dual timeline. Emilia’s timeline is filled with Shakespearean Easter eggs, plays to visualize on sixteenth century stages and stark contrasts between the privileges of royal gentlemen and the absence of rights and voice for women in the 1500’s. Be aware that Picoult’s prose takes readers behind the bedroom doors and uses brutal, graphic descriptions of how Emilia was treated and her living conditions. These passages are balanced with compassion and discernment concerning the emotions, personal losses and decisions thrust upon Emilia. Based on primary historical resources, Picoult presents a convincing case on Emilia’s behalf. The present-day timeline shines the same light on the biases against Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, reflecting struggles that Emilia Bassano faced centuries before. Emilia and Melina emerge as viable playwrights who are no longer invisible.

Readers will pour over this novel like an English Literature textbook from college; highlighting, underlining, scribbling notes in the margin; committing lines to memory and hoping to remember all the details. There’s an overwhelming urge to just begin again. 5 stars.

Shakespearean References-Easter Eggs

A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, Othello, The Tempest, Henry V, Henry VIII, As You Like it, The Merchant of Venice, Venus & Adonis, Tragedy of Antony, Arden of Faversham, Merry Wives of Windsor, Measure for Measure

Photo by Tim Llewellyn – Summer, 2021

Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 29 novels, including By Any Other Name, Mad Honey, Wish You Were Here, The Book of Two Ways, A Spark of Light, Small Great Things, Leaving Time, The Storyteller, Lone Wolf, Sing You Home, House Rules, Handle with Care, Change of Heart, and My Sister’s Keeper, and, with daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page.

Picoult’s books have been translated into thirty-four languages in thirty-five countries. Picoult lives in New Hampshire with her husband. They have three children.

Close Knit by Jenny Colgan

Publication 8- 6- 24-Avon, Harper Voyager-Romance-Women’s Fiction-336pp

Book Summary

In the northernmost reaches of Scotland, where a string of little islands in the North Sea stretches towards Norway, lives Gertie MacIntyre, a proud island girl by birth. Her social circle is small but tight: family and friends, particularly the women in her knitting circle. In the whitewashed cottages of their hometown, everyone knows everyone, and the ladies of the knitting circle know more than most. In a place of long dark winters and geographic isolation, the knitting circle is a precious source of gossip, home, laughter, and comfort for them all. And while she knits, Gertie’s busily plotting what to do with the rest of her life.

When Gertie develops a crush on Callum Frost, who owns the local airline, she dares herself to take a job as an air stewardess on the little plane that serves the local islands. Terrifying at first, the sixteen-seat puddle jumper also offers the first taste of real freedom she’s ever known. Will Gertie’s future lie in the skies? Or will she need to go further afield to find the adventure she craves? 

Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab

Knitting is a soothing, creative way to relax. The same can be said for reading Jenny Colgan’s Close Knit. The setting is Carso, the roof of Scotland, known as the friendliest, safest, best place in the world. Colgan stitches family, love at any age, and adventure into a comforting, satisfying pattern. Gertie Mooney lives with her mother, Jean, and grandmother Elspeth, in a tiny yarn filled cottage, which is the meeting place for the Knitting Circle. These women who essentially raised Gertie, are the town busy bodies; feared, admired, and full of advice. Colgan’s humorous descriptions and truthful hints at personalities and their favorite yarns and colors make them lovable, too. Key to the story are Gertie’s friends, Morag and Nathalie, who remind her of the stings of adolescence. Gertie’s self-talk perfectly accentuates the anxieties and hurtfulness of memories and how these feelings stick with us. Morag, a female pilot whose love for flying adds a different angle to the story, is searching for a replacement for pregnant Nathalie.  The adventure begins as Morag is to fly Dolly, the 16-seater airplane, for the epic primary school camping trip.

Colgan’s expressions describing the thrill of flying: “from beetling around on the surface…to breaking the bonds of gravity,” and her poignant descriptions of mountains, glens, and children singing, add comfort and overall joy to her prose.

Indulge your creative side with this self-soothing Scottish tale that delves into loneliness in spite of wealth, shaking free of the bonds of “sameness,” and gaining the courage to take Elspeth’s advice, “Live every day. Grab it!”  

Jenny Colgan is the author of numerous bestselling novels for adults, including Meet Me at the Cupcake Café and Little Beach Street Bakery. When Neil the puffin from Little Beach Street Bakery caught her readers’ attention, Jenny knew she needed a story of his own – and so the idea for Polly and the Puffin was born. Jenny is married with three children and lives in Scotland. For more about Jenny, visit her website and her Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter: @jennycolgan. https://www.jennycolgan.com/

Favorite Things? Happy Pub Day Maria: The Story of Maria Von Trapp by Michelle Moran

Publication July 30, 2024-Random House-Ballentine-Historical Fiction, Women’s Fiction-336pp

Book Summary

In the 1950s, Oscar Hammerstein is asked to write the lyrics to a musical based on the life of a woman named Maria von Trapp. He’s intrigued to learn that she was once a novice who hoped to live quietly as an Austrian nun before her abbey sent her away to teach a widowed baron’s sickly child. What should have been a ten-month assignment, however, unexpectedly turned into a marriage proposal. And when the family was forced to flee their home to escape the Nazis, it was Maria who instructed them on how to survive using nothing but the power of their voices.

It’s an inspirational story, to be sure, and as half of the famous Rodgers & Hammerstein duo, Hammerstein knows it has big Broadway potential. Yet much of Maria’s life will have to be reinvented for the stage, and with the horrors of war still fresh in people’s minds, Hammerstein can’t let audiences see just how close the von Trapps came to losing their lives.

But when Maria sees the script that is supposedly based on her life, she becomes so incensed that she sets off to confront Hammerstein in person. Told that he’s busy, she is asked to express her concerns to his secretary, Fran, instead. The pair strike up an unlikely friendship as Maria tells Fran about her life, contradicting much of what will eventually appear in The Sound of Music.


Reflections on Musicals and Maria Von Trapp

My mother, Leona, instilled my love for Broadway productions by taking me to concerts, plays, musicals, and operas. As a child and teenager I listened to recordings on the stereo, over and over, so lyrics are ingrained in my memory. Now 99 years-old, Leona remembers seeing a live performance of the Von Trapp Family Singers in 1942, as a freshman in college at University of Southwestern Louisiana. She recalls the performance quite vividly and says, “I was struck by the family’s determination and bravery it took to escape Austria under German control.” Sixty-eight years after that live concert, in 2010, we visited Stowe, Vermont, and stayed at the Trapp Family Lodge. Leona, then 75, had a memorable conversation with third daughter, Mitzi (86yo), while on a walking tour of the gardens. Mitzi, who had survived Scarlet Fever as a child, died in 2014, at the age of 100! Later that day one of Maria’s granddaughters gave a presentation to a large crowd of visitors. Leona proudly stood to share her memory of seeing and hearing the family while in college. She was the only person in the audience who had heard the Von Trapp Family in concert. These memories make it a great privilege and honor for me to read and review Maria, A Novel of Maria Von Trapp. Below the review is a link to the Von Trapp website.

The Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab

Many of the iconic songs of Oscar Hammerstein’s award-winning Broadway play and movie are ingrained in our musical memory; “Do-Re-Mi,” “My Favorite Things,” “Climb Every Mountain.” When The Sound of Music is mentioned images flash of Julie Andrews twirling amidst the Alps and the Captain realizing those are his children hanging from tree branches- in new play clothes made from curtains! Why is the movie SO different from Maria’s real story?  In 1959, with World War II fresh in viewers’ memories Rogers and Hammerstein decided to adapt Maria’s harrowing true story to a more palatable version for audiences.

Moran’s novel is based on the autobiography of Maria Von Trapp and the vehicle for moving from the Broadway script to Maria’s account is through Hammerstein’s secretary, Fran. When asked to read and give her opinion of the script Fran replies, “It’s simple and sweet and impossible not to like. Makes you wonder how much of it is actually true. A woman who finds herself married to a Baron after almost marrying herself to God?” That’s Moran’s perfect segue!

Fran’s assignment is to assuage Maria’s anger over the shocking differences between the script and her real story. Fran and Maria’s trusting friendship is Moran’s endearing element that leads to their meetings on park benches near St. Patrick’s Cathedral. These eye-opening conversations and Moran’s descriptions of New Yorkers, famous streets and buildings add to the atmospheric setting of NYC in the late 1950’s.

Discovering Maria Von Trapp’s true story as compared to the movie plot is what makes every page of this novel so compelling. Moran’s deep research reveals Maria’s childhood traumas, her education, and later her devotion to the Von Trapp children. Maria’s trust in God and her family bolstered her courage to leave the country she loved for an uncertain future in America.

After the Broadway opening Maria reminds Hammerstein that it’s not the agents, critics or managers that buy tickets; only the people do. Get your “ticket” to Maria by Michelle Moran to know the real Maria Von Trapp and the story behind The Sound of Music.

A few questions that Fran’s interview with Maria will answer through the novel and the Author’s Note.

Was Maria in love with the Captain when they married and who was the disciplinarian? How did Maria know so many folksongs? Did she really make play clothes from curtains? What’s the special meaning of the song, “So Long, Farewell?” What happened in the churchyard? Were the Nazis at the Salzburg Festival? Was Maria invited to the movie premiere in NYC? How much money did she make? And SO many more!

1947 Vermont-The engaging website for the Von Trapp Family: https://www.vontrapp.org/

Michelle Moran is the internationally bestselling author of eight historical novels. A native of southern California, she attended Pomona College, then earned a Masters Degree from the Claremont Graduate University. During her six years as a public high school teacher, she used her summers to travel around the world, and it was her experiences as a volunteer on archaeological digs that inspired her to write historical fiction. Her novels, translated into more than twenty languages, include Nefertiti, The Heretic Queen, Cleopatra’s Daughter, Madame Tussaud, The Second Empress, Rebel Queen, Mata Hari, and Maria. A frequent traveler, she currently lives with her family in England, where she is researching her ninth book.