Wildflower Hill

Author: Kimberley Freeman
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Touchstone, 2011
Pages: 544
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Emmy is a prima ballerina in London and at a crossroads after an injured knee ruins her career. When she learned of her grandmother Beattie's death, and her own strange inheritance - an isolated sheep farm in rural Australia - Emma is certain she has been saddled with an irritating burden. But when she returns to Australia, forced to rest her body and confront her life, she realizes that she has been using fame as a substitute for love and fulfillment.

Beattie also found herself at a crossroads as a young woman, but she was pregnant and unwed. She eventually found success - but only after following an unconventional path that was often dangerous and heartbreaking. Beattie knew the lessons she learned in life would be important to Emma one day, and she wanted to make sure Emma's heart remained open to love, no matter what life brought. She knew the magic of the Australian wilderness would show Emma the way.

Wildflower Hill is a compelling, atmospheric, and romantic novel about taking risks, starting again, and believing in yourself. It's about finding out what you really want and discovering that the answer might not be at all what you'd expect.

Review: This may be one of the best novels I've ever read. I love family sagas, and this is right up there with Roses at the top of my list. It was late when I sat down to read a chapter or two just to see what it was all about. A couple hours and more than 200 pages later, I decided I was going to sleep on it and come back to savor it tomorrow.

It seems as though every author has jumped on the bandwagon of alternating time periods. This style works for this novel, and there are multiple chapters before a time change.

Victoria

Author: Daisy Goodwin
Genre: Biography
Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2017
Pages: 432 (10 Discs)
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: Drawing on Queen Victoria's diaries, which she first started reading when she was a student at Cambridge University, Daisy Goodwin - creator and writer of the new PBS Masterpiece drama Victoria and the author of the bestselling novels The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter -- brings the young nineteenth-century monarch, who would go on to reign for 63 years, richly to live in this magnificent novel.


Early one morning, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria is roused from bed with the news that her uncle William IV has died and she is now Queen of England. The men who run the country have doubts about whether this sheltered young woman, who stands less than five feet tall, can rule the greatest nation in the world.

Despite her age, however, the young queen is no puppet. She has definite ideas about the kind of queen she wants to be, and the first thing is to choose her name.

"I do not like the name Alexandrina," she proclaims. "From now on I wish to be known only by my second name, Victoria."

Next, people say she must choose a husband. Everyone keeps telling her she's destined to marry her first cousin, Prince Albert, but Victoria found him dull and priggish when they met three years ago. She is quite happy being queen with the help of her prime minister, Lord Melbourne, who may be old enough to be her father but is the first person to take her seriously.

On June 19, 1837, she was a teenager. On June 20, 1837, she was queen. Daisy Goodwin's impeccably researched and vividly imagined new book brings readers Queen Victoria as they have never seen her before.

Review: I wanted a short audio book, and picked Victoria off the shelf at the library. This may have been a case of "choosing a book by its cover." 

I have a casual interest in the English royal family, but don't know much about Victoria herself. I still don't know much about her after having listened to this novel. This ended up being more about her love interests / and relationships with her prime minister, her mother, her cousins, etc. 

It is also common knowledge that she married Prince Albert, but the road to the proposal was painfully drawn out. Overall, I was disappointed with this novel, but maybe my expectations were misplaced.

I'm glad my husband and I watched Downtown Abbey because it gave me an understanding how the class system in English works, and the hierarchy of those in servitude, and their roles. That's helpful information when reading novels set in England.

Her Last Goodbye

Author: Melinda Leigh
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Amazon Publishing, 2017
Pages: 334
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Young mother Chelsea Clark leaves the house for a girls' night out. . .and vanishes. Her family knows she would never voluntarily leave her two small children. Her desperate husband - also a prime suspect - hires Morgan to find his wife and prove his innocence.

As a single mother, Morgan sympathizes with Chelsea's family and is determined to find her. She teams up with private investigator Lance Kruger. But the deeper they dig, the deadlier their investigation gets. When Morgan is stalked by a violent predator, everything - and everyone - she holds dear is in grave danger.

Now, Morgan must track down a deranged criminal to protect her own family. . .but she won't need to leave home to find him. She's his next target.

Review: I loved the first book in this series, Say You're Sorry, and couldn't wait to read Her Last Goodbye. I was not disappointed.  I like the little bit of romance mixed into the thriller too. The story and writing are great, but adding that dynamic takes the thriller genre up a notch.

I really like this cover too. Not that that has anything to do with anything, but it's striking.

The Morgan Dane series
1 Say You're Sorry
2 Her Last Goodbye
3 Bones Don't Lie
4 What I've Done
5 Secrets Never Die 
6 Save Your Breath

Before We Were Yours

Author: Lisa Wingate
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: 2017
Pages: 352
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty.

Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption.

Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.

Review: I hated this book. This did an emotional number on me, much like Sarah's Key did years ago. There are just some books this mom struggles to read. These poor children.

I had actually started this book last summer, but it didn't grab me so I set it aside. When it came up as the September book selection for my new online book club, I figured now was the time.

This is a story that needs to be told, should be told, but the detailed atrocities and heartache page after page after page. It was just too much. Finally on page 249, I set the book down and swore I wasn't going to finish it. 

This morning though, I decided I couldn't leave it unfinished and got down to the business of reading the last 100 pages. It did end on a high note, but the emotional beating I took over the course of 300 pages wasn't worth it. I could never get to an objective place. Everything that happened to these children, may as well had happened to my own.

The author certainly a wove a story, and the writing is actually good, but my heart. Proceed with caution. 

The Silence of the Girls

Author: Pat Barker
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing, 2018
Pages: 304
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: The ancient city of Troy has withstood a decade under siege of the powerful Greek army, who continue to wage bloody war over a stolen woman--Helen. In the Greek camp, another woman watches and waits for the war's outcome: Briseis. She was queen of one of Troy's neighboring kingdoms, until Achilles, Greece's greatest warrior, sacked her city and murdered her husband and brothers. Briseis becomes Achilles's concubine, a prize of battle, and must adjust quickly in order to survive a radically different life, as one of the many conquered women who serve the Greek army. 

When Agamemnon, the brutal political leader of the Greek forces, demands Briseis for himself, she finds herself caught between the two most powerful of the Greeks. Achilles refuses to fight in protest, and the Greeks begin to lose ground to their Trojan opponents. Keenly observant and cooly unflinching about the daily horrors of war, Briseis finds herself in an unprecedented position to observe the two men driving the Greek forces in what will become their final confrontation, deciding the fate, not only of Briseis's people, but also of the ancient world at large.

Briseis is just one among thousands of women living behind the scenes in this war--the slaves and prostitutes, the nurses, the women who lay out the dead--all of them erased by history. With breathtaking historical detail and luminous prose, Pat Barker brings the teeming world of the Greek camp to vivid life. She offers nuanced, complex portraits of characters and stories familiar from mythology, which, seen from Briseis's perspective, are rife with newfound revelations. Barker's latest builds on her decades-long study of war and its impact on individual lives--and it is nothing short of magnificent.

Review: This isn't a time period I would typically choose, but the premise interested me. In many ways this novel reminded me of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, which is another book that I read due to rave reviews, not because I was interested in the times.

At some point the women's voices are muted, and this becomes Achilles story to tell. It's a shame because the novel started out strong. Eventually too, the details become repetitive and the chapters tedious. The writing and story that we're introduced to in Chapters 1 and 2 aren't carried through to the end, and that's a shame.

The Silence of the Girls is violent, and there is strong/harsh language, but I just offer that up as a warning. 

Cane River

Author: Lalita Tademy
Genre: Historical
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2005
Pages: 584
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Beginning with her great-great-great-great grandmother, a slave owned by a Creole family, Lalita Tademy chronicles four generations of strong, determined black women as they battle injustice to unite their family and forge success on their own terms. They are women whose lives begin in slavery, who weather the Civil War, and who grapple with contradictions of emancipation, Jim Crow, and the pre-Civil Rights South. As she peels back layers of racial and cultural attitudes, Tademy paints a remarkable picture of rural Louisiana and the resilient spirit of one unforgettable family.

There is Elisabeth, who bears both a proud legacy and the yoke of bondage... her youngest daughter, Suzette, who is the first to discover the promise-and heartbreak-of freedom... Suzette's strong-willed daughter Philomene, who uses a determination born of tragedy to reunite her family and gain unheard-of economic independence... and Emily, Philomene's spirited daughter, who fights to secure her children's just due and preserve their dignity and future.

Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Cane River presents a slice of American history never before seen in such piercing and personal detail.

Review: I listened to the audio, which was very well done. I enjoy a good family saga, and this did not disappoint. There were slow parts, but as a whole the book was engaging and interesting. Knowing that this book was the culmination of the author's research into her family's past added depth to the story.

Crowning Design

Author: Leila Meacham
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2017 (first published 1984)
Pages: 240
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Some people aren't meant for happily-ever-after. And Deborah Standridge is one of them. When she called off her wedding to the perfect man to pursue her passion as an architect, she didn't mean to hurt anyone. But Deborah saw her chance to finally make her own dreams come and she took it, setting in motion a tragedy that has haunted her ever since.

Now, as one of Denver's most successful architects, Deborah has avoided love at all costs...until Daniel Parker walks into her life. He commissions her to design his company's headquarters and soon makes her want to believe in love again. But Dan is keeping a shocking secret that could rip apart everything they've built—and break Deborah's heart once and for all. Will Deborah find the strength to put the past behind her to fight for a love that could last for all time?

Review: Leila Meacham's Roses may be my favorite book of all time. I have also read more recent novels she's written. However, I wasn't aware that she had three novels published in the 1980s.

I enjoy reading authors who have been writing for a long time, and seeing how they evolve in their craft. It's also entertaining to see how times and sentiments have changed. This book had clear sexist overtones, as would have been the norm when this novel was written. 

This would not be the first book I'd recommend if you're interested in giving this author a try, that would be Roses, but placed in the context of the times, this was a fun, quick read.

Other Leila Meacham Novels
April Storm
Aly's House
Roses
Ryan's Hand
Somerset
The Dragonfly
Titans
Tumbleweeds