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. 

After Anna

Author: Lisa Scottoline
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2018
Pages: 400
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: Dr. Noah Alderman, a widower and single father, has remarried a wonderful woman, Maggie Ippolitti, and for the first time in a long time, he and his young son are happy. Despite her longing for the daughter she hasn't seen since she was a baby, Maggie is happy too, and she's even more overjoyed when she unexpectedly gets another change to be a mother to the child she though she'd lost forever, her only daughter Anna.

Maggie and Noah know that having Anna around will change their lives, but they would never have guessed that everything would go wrong, and so quickly. Anna turns out to be a gorgeous seventeen-year-old who balks at living under their rules, though Maggie, ecstatic to have her daughter back, ignores the red flags that hint at trouble brewing in a once-perfect marriage and home.

Events take a heartbreaking turn when Anna is murdered and Noah is accused and tried for the heinous crime. Maggie must face not only the devastation of losing her daughter, but the realization that Anna's murder may been at the hands of a husband she loves. In the wake of this tragedy, new information drives Maggie to search for the truth, leading her to discover something darker than she could have ever imagined.

Review: May was such a great month of reading for me, and June has been the opposite. 

It's not that I didn't end up really liking this book, I did, but what a slow start. Around page 200, I had to make a decision. . . to keep going or not. I flipped to the last chapter, and I was intrigued by how it ended so I decided to stick with it.

Wrought with plot holes, misinformation, and a rushed/forced/convenient ending, this was not a good choice as a first Lisa Scottoline novel. If she consistently writes this poorly, she wouldn't be as published as she is.

Really disappointing.

The Underground Railroad

Author: Colson Whitehead
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, 2016
Pages: 320
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
     

In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.

Review: Clearing another book off my must-read list. I had gotten this book out of the library at least once before, but I expected it to be heavy reading. As a result it got pushed aside. I decided to give the audio version a try since it was on several "recommended reading" lists, and really did want to read it.

I was sucked into the story from the first few paragraphs. However, Whitehead imagines an actual "underground railroad" complete with an engine and a boxcar. This is jarring, and in that moment I hated the story as I felt myself being emotionally thrown out of a novel in which I was fully vested. Then, I realized the actual underground railroad story has been told countless times. By creating a physical train, Whitehead was able to quickly relocate the slaves and skip over 100 pages of a story we already know, wading through swamps, evading capture with the help of sympathetic whites. This allowed him to explore other themes and experiences. In the end though, Whitehead pushes an envelope as far the historical genre goes, and ultimately tries too hard to make the "underground railroad" real.

The title of the book is misleading readers to think they're getting something they're not, or perhaps calling it historical fiction isn't accurate. There's a bit of fantasy at play here, and suspension of belief is certainly required at times.

Ultimately, there was too much fantasy, a disorganized plot, a story that went nowhere, and an ending that was anti-climatic and lackluster. I would not have finished this had I been reading the hardback version, but I'm a lot more forgiving when it comes to my audio books.

Note: One of my favorite Diane Chamberlain novels, Necessary Lies, explores state-mandated sterilizations and racial tensions, and is well-worth the read.

The Underground Railroad is along the same vein as Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing which I reviewed here.