Pennsylvania Disasters

Author: Karen Ivory
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2015
Pages: 252
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: True accounts of major disasters in Pennsylvania history are retold in this engagingly written collection. From the Johnstown floods of 1889 to the heroic actions on United Flight 193 on 9/11, Pennsylvania has been home to some of the nation's most dramatic moments. Each story reveals not only the circumstances surrounding the disaster and the magnitude of the devastation but also the courage and ingenuity displayed by those who survived and the heroism of those who helped others, often risking their own lives in rescue efforts.

Review: It was tough to find a book to read following Calling Me Home. That book had drawn me in and and I lived inside it for days after finishing. Pennsylvania Disasters has a dedicated chapter for each event so I would read one or two and then set it aside.

Pennsylvania Disasters was well-written and well worth my time. I remember the US Airways crash near the Pittsburgh airport as well as the Quecreek Mine Rescue. Of course, no one has forgotten 9/11 or that Flight 93 crashed in Somerset County.

The Summer Before the War

Author: Helen Simonson
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio, 2016
Pages: 496 pages, 13 discs
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: East Sussex, 1914. It is the end of England’s brief Edwardian summer, and everyone agrees that the weather has never been so beautiful. Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha, who lives with her husband in the small, idyllic coastal town of Rye. Agatha’s husband works in the Foreign Office, and she is certain he will ensure that the recent saber rattling over the Balkans won’t come to anything. And Agatha has more immediate concerns; she has just risked her carefully built reputation by pushing for the appointment of a woman to replace the Latin master.

When Beatrice Nash arrives with one trunk and several large crates of books, it is clear she is significantly more freethinking—and attractive—than anyone believes a Latin teacher should be. For her part, mourning the death of her beloved father, who has left her penniless, Beatrice simply wants to be left alone to pursue her teaching and writing.

But just as Beatrice comes alive to the beauty of the Sussex landscape and the colorful characters who populate Rye, the perfect summer is about to end. For despite Agatha’s reassurances, the unimaginable is coming. Soon the limits of progress, and the old ways, will be tested as this small Sussex town and its inhabitants go to war.

Review: I had this book out from the library and just didn't get to it, so I checked out the audio version after reading some positive reviews. The narrator was fantastic. I would have enjoyed the hardback version too, I'm sure, but there's something about listening to a British accent when the novel is set in England. 

I just loved everything about this book, the narrator, the plot, the characters. Highly Recommend.

Calling Me Home

Author: Julie Kibler

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2014

Pages: 352

Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler is a soaring debut interweaving the story of a heartbreaking, forbidden love in 1930s Kentucky with an unlikely modern-day friendship.

Eighty-nine-year-old Isabelle McAllister has a favor to ask her hairdresser Dorrie Curtis. It's a big one. Isabelle wants Dorrie, a black single mom in her thirties, to drop everything to drive her from her home in Arlington, Texas, to a funeral in Cincinnati. With no clear explanation why. Tomorrow.

Dorrie, fleeing problems of her own and curious whether she can unlock the secrets of Isabelle's guarded past, scarcely hesitates before agreeing, not knowing it will be a journey that changes both their lives.

Over the years, Dorrie and Isabelle have developed more than just a business relationship. They are friends. But Dorrie, fretting over the new man in her life and her teenage son's irresponsible choices, still wonders why Isabelle chose her.

Isabelle confesses that, as a willful teen in 1930s Kentucky, she fell deeply in love with Robert Prewitt, a would-be doctor and the black son of her family's housekeeper—in a town where blacks weren't allowed after dark. The tale of their forbidden relationship and its tragic consequences makes it clear Dorrie and Isabelle are headed for a gathering of the utmost importance and that the history of Isabelle's first and greatest love just might help Dorrie find her own way.

Review: Oh my heart. Oh the feels. I certainly didn't see that coming.

This is one of those books where you want to fly through it, but you know you'll be sad when it's over so you force yourself to slow down. Cannot recommend it enough. 

When the Astors Owned New York

Author: Justin Kaplan

Genre: Non-Fiction

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2006

Pages: 208

Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: Endowed with the largest private fortunes of their day, cousins John Jacob Astor IV and William Waldorf Astor vied for primacy in New York society, producing the grandest hotels ever seen in a marriage of ostentation and efficiency that transformed American social behavior.

Kaplan exposes it all in exquisite detail, taking readers from the 1890s to the Roaring Twenties in a combination of biography, history, architectural appreciation, and pure reading pleasure.

Review: I love reading about the Gilded Age, but there just wasn't enough story in this book to make it super interesting. It was factual information after factual information, and none of the characters really came to life. Family feuds and the Astor wives were merely glossed over while there is plenty of fodder for a novel such as this.

It was difficult to keep all the Astor's straight since they shared many of the same names, which isn't the author's fault, but his timeline skipped around and that made it even more difficult. This just didn't follow a natural timeline that kept the story moving forward.

Mrs. Astor Regrets is a more entertaining read about this family.

Fever 1793

Author: Laurie Halse Anderson

Genre: Teen / Historical Fiction

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2002

Pages: 272

Rating: Recommend (Highly for teens)

Synopsis: An epidemic of fever sweeps through the streets of 1793 Philadelphia in this novel from Laurie Halse Anderson where "the plot rages like the epidemic itself" (The New York Times Book Review).

During the summer of 1793, Mattie Cook lives above the family coffee shop with her widowed mother and grandfather. Mattie spends her days avoiding chores and making plans to turn the family business into the finest Philadelphia has ever seen. But then the fever breaks out.

Disease sweeps the streets, destroying everything in its path and turning Mattie's world upside down. At her feverish mother's insistence, Mattie flees the city with her grandfather. But she soon discovers that the sickness is everywhere, and Mattie must learn quickly how to survive in a city turned frantic with disease.

Review: I didn't realize Fever 1793 was teen fiction when I requested the book from the library. It sounded good to me so I decided to read it anyway. I loved it, and it reminded me of the books that made me fall in love with reading in the first place.