What the Lady Wants

Author: Renee Rosen
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2014
Pages: 448
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: In late-nineteenth-century Chicago, visionary retail tycoon Marshall Field made his fortune wooing women customers with his famous motto: “Give the lady what she wants.” His legendary charm also won the heart of socialite Delia Spencer and led to an infamous love affair.  

The night of the Great Fire, as seventeen-year-old Delia watches the flames rise and consume what was the pioneer town of Chicago, she can’t imagine how much her life, her city, and her whole world are about to change. Nor can she guess that the agent of that change will not simply be the fire, but more so the man she meets that night.…

Leading the way in rebuilding after the fire, Marshall Field reopens his well-known dry goods store and transforms it into something the world has never seen before: a glamorous palace of a department store. He and his powerhouse coterie—including Potter Palmer and George Pullman—usher in the age of robber barons, the American royalty of their generation.
 

But behind the opulence, their private lives are riddled with scandal and heartbreak. Delia and Marshall first turn to each other out of loneliness, but as their love deepens, they will stand together despite disgrace and ostracism, through an age of devastation and opportunity, when an adolescent Chicago is transformed into the gleaming White City of the Chicago’s World’s Fair of 1893.

Review: This book is not a literary masterpiece, not even close, but when I have to follow up something like The Nightingale, I need fluff and inconsequential reads. I also love reading anything set during The Gilded Age. It's just so fascinating to me.

The author comes right out and states that she took a lot of liberties telling the story of Marshall Field and Delia Caton so I can appreciate that.

Other Renee Rosen Novels:
Windy City Blues

The Nightingale

Author: Kristin Hannah
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2015
Pages: 448
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: In love we find out who we want to be. In war we find out who we are.

FRANCE, 1939

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn't believe that the Nazis will invade France...but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne's home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.

Vianne's sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can...completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.

With courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of World War II and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women's war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France--a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.

Review: This was everything I heard it would be. It was engrossing, intense, heart breaking, and uplifting. I felt all the feels, as they say. You must read this. Must.

Kristin Hannah is one of my go-to authors anyway, but this was beyond anything she's written in the past. Amazing.

Other Kristin Hannah Novels
Angel Falls
Home Front
Summer Island
The Enchantment
The Four Winds
The Great Alone
The Women
True Colors

Promise Me This

Author: Cathy Gohlke
Genre: Historical Fiction / Christian Fiction
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
Pages: 416
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Michael Dunnagan was never supposed to sail on the Titanic, nor would he have survived if not for the courage of Owen Allen. Determined to carry out his promise to care for Owen’s relatives in America and his younger sister, Annie, in England, Michael works hard to strengthen the family’s New Jersey garden and landscaping business.

Annie Allen doesn’t care what Michael promised Owen. She only knows that her brother is gone—like their mother and father—and the grief is enough to swallow her whole. As Annie struggles to navigate life without Owen, Michael reaches out to her through letters. In time, as Annie begins to lay aside her anger that Michael lived when Owen did not, a tentative friendship takes root and blossoms into something neither expected. Just as Michael saves enough money to bring Annie to America, WWI erupts in Europe. When Annie’s letters mysteriously stop, Michael risks everything to fulfill his promise—and find the woman he’s grown to love—before she’s lost forever.

Review: I wasn't sure I could stomach another novel about the Titanic, but this one sounded a little different. This ended up being more about life moving on after the sinking, and how survivors were then thrust into the Great War.

While predictable, the story itself was sweet and entertaining. It was exactly what I had expected from Christian Historical Fiction.

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

Author: Ayana Mathis
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013
Pages: 320
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd, swept up by the tides of the Great Migration, flees Georgia and heads north. Full of hope, she settles in Philadelphia to build a better life. Instead she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment, and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins are lost to an illness that a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children, whom she raises with grit, mettle, and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them to meet a world that will not be kind. Their lives, captured here in twelve luminous threads, tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage—and a nation's tumultuous journey.

Rating: This is a tough book to review/rate. I chose Do Not Recommend, but don't feel good about that decision. On the other hand, I can't exactly recommend it because it was disjointed and the last chapter didn't tie up anything. I give it three stars so take from that what you will.

I loved the concept, and did feel as though I got a sense of who Hattie was through her children, which is what the book promised. I came to think of this as a draft novel. It needed just a bit more editing to be really really good. I can appreciate the effort though.

This was on my "to-read" list for a couple years, and unbeknownst to me it is also an Oprah's Book Club book which fulfilled a requirement for my 2016 Reading Challenge.

The Girls of Mischief Bay

Author: Susan Mallery
Genre: Chick Lit
Publisher: Mira, 2015
Pages: 416
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Nicole Lord wants to be a good wife, but there's a difference between being supportive and supporting her husband, who quit his job to write a screenplay she's never seen. He won't even help take care of their son, leaving Nicole to run the house and work full-time.

Sacrificing a personal life for her career is how Shannon Rigg became VP at her firm, but she wonders now whether she made the right choice. An exciting new relationship with a great guy convinces her that it might not be too late—until he drops a bombshell that has her questioning whether she really can have it all.

Although Pam Eiland adores her husband, she feels restless now that the kids are grown. Finding sexy new ways to surprise him brings the heat and humor back to their marriage, but when unexpected change turns her life upside down, she'll have to redefine herself. Again.

Through romance and heartbreak, laughter and tears, the girls of Mischief Bay will discover that life is richer with friends at your side.

Review: I went into this never expecting to give it more than 3 stars, but I was pleasantly surprised. I ended up feeling it's a solid 4 stars read. 

Don't expect this to be your average beach read or chick lit novel.

I challenge you to get through this without crying. I felt and identified with each of the characters at one time or another. I'm looking forward to reading the second book in this series.

Other Susan Mallery Novels:
The Friendship List
The Sister Effect
The Christmas Wedding Ring

Wishing Tree Series
The Christmas Wedding Guest
Home Sweet Christmas

Mischief Bay Novels
The Girls of Mischief Bay
The Friends We Keep
A Million Little Things

Fall of Poppies

Author: Brockmole, Gaynor, Holland,  Kerrigan, Jefferson, Robson, Web, Williams, Willig
Genre: Historical Fiction / Short Story
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 2016
Pages: 368
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Top voices in historical fiction deliver an unforgettable collection of short stories set in the aftermath of World War I—featuring bestselling authors such as Hazel Gaynor, Jennifer Robson, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig and edited by Heather Webb.

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month...

November 11, 1918. After four long, dark years of fighting, the Great War ends at last, and the world is forever changed. For soldiers, loved ones, and survivors the years ahead stretch with new promise, even as their hearts are marked by all those who have been lost.

As families come back together, lovers reunite, and strangers take solace in each other, everyone has a story to tell.

In this moving anthology, nine authors share stories of love, strength, and renewal as hope takes root in a fall of poppies.

Review: Short stories generally leave me wanting. Basically it's like sitting down for a meal, but only being served an appetizer all the while wanting the main course, and in some cases, dessert as well. I avoid this particular genre for that reason. However, I'm glad I made an exception for this collection. 

After reading the first couple of stories, I got into the fast-moving pace of the short story genre. Besides, I have read and enjoyed both Jennifer Robson and Hazel Gaynor in the past so I wanted to read their short stories as well. 

A couple of these stories I just really liked, most I loved. Overall, highly recommend.