Bring Me Back

Author: B. A. Paris
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2018
Pages: 304
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Finn and Layla are young, in love, and on vacation. They’re driving along the highway when Finn decides to stop at a service station to use the restroom. He hops out of the car, locks the doors behind him, and goes inside. When he returns Layla is gone—never to be seen again. That is the story Finn told to the police. But it is not the whole story.

Ten years later Finn is engaged to Layla’s sister, Ellen. Their shared grief over what happened to Layla drew them close and now they intend to remain together. Still, there’s something about Ellen that Finn has never fully understood. His heart wants to believe that she is the one for him...even though a sixth sense tells him not to trust her.

Then, not long before he and Ellen are to be married, Finn gets a phone call. Someone from his past has seen Layla—hiding in plain sight. There are other odd occurrences: Long-lost items from Layla’s past that keep turning up around Finn and Ellen’s house. Emails from strangers who seem to know too much. Secret messages, clues, warnings. If Layla is alive—and on Finn’s trail—what does she want? And how much does she know?

A tour de force of psychological suspense, Bring Me Back will have you questioning everything and everyone until its stunning climax.

Review: I loved B.A. Paris' first novel, Behind Closed Doors, but the follow-up, The Breakdown,was predictable and fell short of being a true "thriller." I was hoping Paris would get back on track with this one, although early reviews suggested she didn't.

I started reading and was drawn in immediately. While I suspected the direction of this novel, I was never 100% confident of my theory so props to the author for that.

Whistling Past the Graveyard

Author: Susan Crandall
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Gallery Books, 2014
Pages: 336
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: In the summer of 1963, nine-year-old spitfire Starla Claudelle runs away from her strict grandmother’s Mississippi home. Starla hasn’t seen her momma since she was three—that’s when Lulu left for Nashville to become a famous singer. Starla’s daddy works on an oil rig in the Gulf, so Mamie, with her tsk-tsk sounds and her bitter refrain of “Lord, give me strength,” is the nearest thing to family Starla has. After being put on restriction yet again for her sassy mouth, Starla is caught sneaking out for the Fourth of July parade. She fears Mamie will make good on her threat to send Starla to reform school, so Starla walks to the outskirts of town, and just keeps walking. . . . If she can get to Nashville and find her momma, then all that she promised will come true: Lulu will be a star. Daddy will come to live in Nashville, too. And her family will be whole and perfect. Walking a lonely country road, Starla accepts a ride from Eula, a black woman traveling alone with a white baby. The trio embarks on a road trip that will change Starla’s life forever. She sees for the first time life as it really is—as she reaches for a dream of how it could one day be.

Review: It took me a few pages to fall into the rhythm of a 9 year old narrator, but I loved this book. I bought this story and every misadventure hook, line, and sinker. These characters will stay with me for a long time.

A Rebel Heart

Author: Beth White
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group, 2018
Pages: 384
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Five years after the final shot was fired in the War Between the States, Selah Daughtry can barely manage to keep herself, her two younger sisters, and their spinster cousin fed and clothed. With their family's Mississippi plantation swamped by debt and the Big House falling down around them, the only options seems to be giving up their ancestral land.

Pinkerton agent and former Union cavalryman Levi Riggins is investigating a series of robberies and sabotage linked to the impoverished Daughtry plantation. Positng as a hotel management agent for the railroad, he tells Selah he'll help her save her home, but only if it is converted into a hotel. With Selah otherwise engaged with renovations, Levil moves onto the property to "supervise" while he actually attends to his real assignment right under her nose. 

Selah isn't sure she entirely trust the handsome Yankee, but she'd do almost anything to save her home. What she never expected to encounter was his assault on her heart.

Review: When I needed a break from the fact-driven, highly researched family saga, The Lowells of Massachusetts, I picked up this book. It was lighter reading, but it started out slow. It was hard to cheer this couple on when Levi wasn't likeable and Selah wasn't believable. However, the last quarter of the book was fast-paced and interesting, and I was flying through pages.

My sister recommended Beth White to me, and I'll give this author another chance before I make my final judgement. I don't know if I'll continue with this series though.

The Lowells of Massachusetts

Author: Nina Sankovitch
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Picador, 2018
Pages: 400
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: The Lowells of Massachusetts were a remarkable family. They were settlers in the New World in the 1600s, revolutionaries creating a new nation in the 1700s, merchants and manufacturers building prosperity in the 1800s, and scientists and artists flourishing in the 1900s. For the first time, Nina Sankovitch tells the story of this fascinating and powerful dynasty in The Lowells of Massachusetts.

Though not without scoundrels and certainly no strangers to controversy, the family boasted some of the most astonishing individuals in America’s history: Percival Lowle, the patriarch who arrived in America in the seventeenth to plant the roots of the family tree; Reverend John Lowell, the preacher; Judge John Lowell, a member of the Continental Congress; Francis Cabot Lowell, manufacturer and, some say, founder of the Industrial Revolution in the US; James Russell Lowell, American Romantic poet; Lawrence Lowell, one of Harvard’s longest-serving and most controversial presidents; and Amy Lowell, the twentieth century poet who lived openly in a Boston Marriage with the actress Ada Dwyer Russell.

The Lowells realized the promise of America as the land of opportunity by uniting Puritan values of hard work, community service, and individual responsibility with a deep-seated optimism that became a well-known family trait. Long before the Kennedys put their stamp on Massachusetts, the Lowells claimed the bedrock.

Review: Very well-researched and structured, this was an epic novel. It was the sweeping saga style, rather than the family itself that got my attention. This was not a fast read, but I found it interesting. 

I'm well-versed in American History, but this put a new perspective on historical events since they were recounted from a single family's experiences.. For example, the Lowell's were Federalists and therefore opposed to Jefferson's Republican ideals. It's not very often you hear the dissenting side of Jeffersonian thought.

It was also heartbreaking to read how a generation of Lowell men was decimated during the Civil War. Most were killed shortly after enlisting too.

If you love American history, family sagas, and non-fiction, this novel will interest you.

Sixteen Brides

Author: Stephanie Grace Whitson
Genre: Christian Historical Fiction
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group, 2010
Pages: 352
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Sixteen Civil War widows living in St. Louis respond to a series of meetings conducted by a land speculator who lures them west by promising "prime homesteads" in a "booming community." Unbeknownst to them, the speculator's true motive is to find an excuse to bring women to the fledging community of Plum Grove, Nebraska, in hopes they will accept marriage proposals shortly after their arrival!

Sparks fly when these unsuspecting widows meet the men who are waiting for them. These women are going to need all the courage and faith they can muster to survive these unwanted circumstances--especially when they begin to discover that none of them is exactly who she appears to be.

Review: Forgive my fluffier reads lately, but this one is interesting from the perspective of how much thought and work goes into writing a novel with 16 main characters (that she whittles down to 8 pretty quickly, and not through untimely demises). I can only imagine what the author’s “roadmap” and character notes looked like. 

With eight main characters plus those in supporting roles, I wasn’t able to predict exactly how this would end so yay for that.

I can’t ever pass up a mail order bride story either.

Solid 4 stars.

The Road to Paradise

Author: Karen Barnett
Genre: Christian Historical Fiction
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group, 2017
Pages: 352
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: An ideal sanctuary and a dream come true–that’s what Margaret Lane feels as she takes in God’s gorgeous handiwork in Mount Rainier National Park. It’s 1927 and the National Park Service is in its youth when Margie, an avid naturalist, lands a coveted position alongside the park rangers living and working in the unrivaled splendor of Mount Rainier’s long shadow. 
 
But Chief Ranger Ford Brayden is still haunted by his father’s death on the mountain, and the ranger takes his work managing the park and its crowd of visitors seriously. The job of watching over an idealistic senator’s daughter with few practical survival skills seems a waste of resources.
 
When Margie’s former fiancé sets his mind on developing the Paradise Inn and its surroundings into a tourist playground, the plans might put more than the park’s pristine beauty in danger. What will Margie and Ford sacrifice to preserve the splendor and simplicity of the wilderness they both love?
 
Karen Barnett’s vintage national parks novels bring to vivid life President Theodore Roosevelt’s vision for protected lands, when he wrote in Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter: "There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children's children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred."

Review: Less preachy than I’m used to for the Christian historical fiction genre, and while predictable it’s cute. Or maybe I just love the concept-vintage National Parks. Either way, it’s fast-moving, cute (as I said), and light.

The Kitchen House

Author: Kathleen Grissom
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Touchstone, 2010
Pages: 384
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of the highly anticipated Glory Over Everything, established herself as a remarkable new talent with The Kitchen House, now a contemporary classic. In this gripping novel, a dark secret threatens to expose the best and worst in everyone tied to the estate at a thriving plantation in Virginia in the decades before the Civil War.

Orphaned during her passage from Ireland, young, white Lavinia arrives on the steps of the kitchen house and is placed, as an indentured servant, under the care of Belle, the master’s illegitimate slave daughter. Lavinia learns to cook, clean, and serve food, while guided by the quiet strength and love of her new family.

In time, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, caring for the master’s opium-addicted wife and befriending his dangerous yet protective son. She attempts to straddle the worlds of the kitchen and big house, but her skin color will forever set her apart from Belle and the other slaves.

Through the unique eyes of Lavinia and Belle, Grissom’s debut novel unfolds in a heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful story of class, race, dignity, deep-buried secrets, and familial bonds.

Review: I had heard such rave reviews of this book that I expected more from the ending. I wish authors would find more creative paths for characters to take, rather than resorting to killing them off. I also didn't love the story being told by two different narrators. This seems to be a style every author is trying lately, and while it didn't detract from the story, it didn't add anything either.

All of that being said, this is a solid, four-star read, and probably higher for people for whom historical fiction is a favorite genre.