The Venice Sketchbook

Author: Rhys Bown
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Amazon Publishing, 2021
Pages: 412
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Caroline Grant is struggling to accept the end of her marriage when she receives an unexpected bequest. Her beloved great-aunt Lettie leaves her sketchbook, three keys, and a final whisper. . .Venice.

It's 1938 when art teacher Juliet Browning arrives in romantic Venice. For her students, it's a wealth of history, art, and beauty. For Juliet, it's poignant memories and a chance to reconnect with Leonardo Da Rossi, the man she loves whose future is already determined by his noble family. However star-crossed, nothing can come between them. Until the threat of war closes in on Venice and they're forced to fight, survive, and protect a secret that will bind them forever.

Key by key, Lettie's life of impossible love, loss, and courage unfolds. It's one that Caroline can now make right again as her own journey of self-discovery begins.

Review: Rhys Bowen is one of my fave authors. She chooses intriguing subject matter, and her storytelling sucks you right in. She convincingly transported me to Venice. However, this isn't my favorite Bowen novel. The story took too long to get moving, and the parallels between Caroline's circumstances and her geat-aunt's were flimsy. That said, I still recommend it. Bowen brings Venice to life, and the characters are memorable.

Other Rhys Bowen Novels
Above the Bay of Angels
In Farleigh Field
Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure
The Rose Arbor
The Tuscan Child
Where the Sky Begins

Above the Bay of Angels

Author: Rhys Bowen
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Amazon Publishing, 2020
Pages: 348
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Isabella Waverly only means to comfort the woman felled on a London street. In her dying moments, she thrusts a letter into Bella's hand. It's an offer of employment in the kitchens of Buckingham Pace, and everything the budding young chef desperately wants: an escape from the constrictions of her life as a lowly servant. In the stranger's stead, Bella can spread her wings.

Arriving as Helen Barton from Yorkshire, she pursues her passion for creating culinary delights, served to the delighted Queen Victoria herself. Best of all, she's been chosen to accompany the queen to Nice. What fortune! Until the threat of blackmail shadows Bella to the Riviera, and a member of the queen's retinue falls ill and dies.

Having prepared the royal guest's last meal, Bella is suspected of the poisonous crime. An investigation is sure to follow. Her charade will be over. And her new life will come crashing down - if it doesn't send her to the gallows.

Review: Light on historical fact, but what a story. I never cared to go to the French Riviera before, but please, sign me up. I love Bowen's choice of settings. She truly brings each one to life.

I was expecting something along the lines of Downton Abbey, and life below stairs. Bowen delivered.

Other Rhys Bowen Novels
In Farleigh Field
Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure
The Rose Arbor
The Tuscan Child
The Venice Sketchbook
Where the Sky Begins

The Blue Bistro

Author: Elin Hilderbrand
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group, 2010
Pages: 336
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Adrienne Dealey has spent the past six years working for hotels in exotic resort towns. This summer she has decided to make Nantucket home. Left flat broke by her ex-boyfriend, she is desperate to earn some fast money. When the desirable Thatcher Smith, ownder of Nantucket's hottest restaurant, is the only one to offer her a job, she wonders if she can get by with no restaurant experience. Thatcher gives Adrienne a crash course in the business. . .and they share an instant attraction. But there is a mystery about their situation: what is it about Fiona, the Blue Bistro's chef, that captures Thatcher's attention again and again? And why does such a successful restaurant seem to be in its final season before closing its doors for good? Despite her uncertainty, Adrienne must decide whether to open her heart for the first time, or move on, as she always does.

Review: For beach reads, Elin Hilderbrand is one of the best. I've read quite a few of her books, but I kept hearing that The Blue Bistro was her best.

There are three things that make me sad about this book:

1. I can never read this book again for the very first page. I was drawn in from the first page, and it was off to the races to the ending.
2. The ending. It's weak and there were loose ends. A jump ahead prologue would have been a better solution even. That said, still worth reading.
3. This book is ripe for a sequel, but Hilderbrand signed a three-book deal with her publisher and is then retiring. It's unlikely she will revisit Adrienne and Thatcher et al at this point.
   

Other Elin Hilderbrand Novels:
The Five-Star Weekend
Summer of '69
Golden Girl
The Hotel Nantucket
The Island
The Castaways

The Winter Street Series
Winter Street
Winter Stroll
Winter Storms
Winter Solstice

The Winter in Paradise Trilogy
Winter in Paradise
What Happens in Paradise
Troubles in Paradise

A Walk Along the Beach

Author: Debbie Macomber
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 2021
Pages: 416
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: The Lakey sisters are perfect opposites. After their mother died and their father was lost in grief, Willa had no choice but to raise her sister, Harper, and their brother, Lucas. Then, as an adult, she put her own life on hold to nurse Harper through a terrifying illness. Now that Harper is better and the sister sare living as roommates, Willa has realized her dream of running her own bakery and coffee shop, bringing her special brand of caretaking to the whole Oceanside community.

Harper, on the other hand, is always on the go. Overcoming a terrible illness has given her a new lease on life, and she does not intend to waste it. When Harper announces her plans to summit Mount Rainier, Willa fears she may be pushing herself too far. Harper, for her part, urges Willa to stop worrying and do something outside of her comfort zone - like taking a chance on love with a handome new customer.

Sean O'Malley is as charming as he is intriguing - a freelance photographer whose assignments take him to the ends of the earth. Soon Willa's falling for him in a way that is both exciting and terrifying. But life has taught Willa to hedge her bets, and she wonders whether the potential heartache is worth the risk.

Life has more challenges in store for them all. But both sisters will discover that even in the darkest moments, family is everything.

Review: It's books like these that make me remember what I love so much about reading. You get sucked into the story, totally and completely, and then it rips your heart out, stomps on it, and then puts it all back together by the end :-) I love Macomber's books, and A Walk Along the Beach may be favorite. 

Surviving Savannah

Author: Patti Callahan
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Berkley, 2021
Pages: 432
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: When Savannah history professor Everly Winthrop is asked to guest-curate a new museum collection focusing on artifacts recovered from the steamship Pulaski, she's shocked. The ship sank after a boiler explosion in 1838, and the wreckage was just discovered, 180 years later. Everly can't resist the opportunity to try to solve some of the mysteries and myths surrounding the devastating night of its sinking.

Everly's research leads her to the astounding history of a family of eleven who boarded the Pulaski together, and the extraordinary stories of two women from this family: a known survivor, Augusta Longstreet, and her niece, Lilly Forsyth, who was never found, along with her child. These aristocratic women were part of Savannah's society, but when the ship exploded, each was faced with difficult and heartbreaking decisions. This is a moving and powerful exploration of what women will do to endure in the face of tragedy, the role fate plays and the myriad ways we survive the surviving.

Review: I could have done without the past/present gimmick again. I did prefer the "past" storyline, but the present could have worked as a stand-alone too. That said, I still gave it 5 stars on goodreads. The attention to historical detail/fact bumped this novel up to the highest rating. Be sure to read the author's note at the end.

One line or phrase that resonated while reading this book, was "surviving the surviving." How many times in our lives do we do this? It gave me a lot to think about it. 

This book also made me want to return to visit Savannah - somewhere I revisited last summer for the first time in 35 years, and certainly one of the prettiest cities in this country.

Also by Patti Callahan Henry:
The Secret Book of Flora Lea
The Story She Left Behind

Being Elvis: A Lonely Life

Author: Ray Connolly
Genre: Biography
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 20108
Pages: 416
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Elvis Presley is a giant figure in American popular culture, a man who talen and fame were matched only by his later excesses and tragic. A godlike entity in the history of rock and rool, this twentieth-century icon with a dazzling voice blended gospel and traditionally black rhythm and blues with country to create a completely new kind of music and new way of expressing male sexuality, which simply blew the doors of a staid and repressed 1950s America.

In Being Elvis veteran rock journalist Ray Connolly takes fresh look at the career in the world's most loved singer, placing him, forty years after his death, not exhaustively in the garnish neon lights of Las Vegas but back in the mid-twentieth-century, distinctly southern world. For new and seasoned fans alike, Connolly, who interviewed Elvis in 1969, re-creates a man who sprang from poverty in Tupelo, Mississippi, to unprecendented overnight fame, eclipsing Frank Sinatra and then inspiring the Beatles along the way.

Juxtaposing the music, the songs, and the incendiary live concerts with a
personal life that would later careen wilding out of control, Connolly demonstrates that Elvis' amphetamine use began as early as his touring days of hysteria in the late 1950s, and that the financial needs that drove him in the beginning would return to plague him at the very end. With a narrative informed by interviews over many years with John Lennon, Bob Dylan, B.B. King, Sam Phillips, and Roy Obison, among many others, Connolly creates one of the most nuanced and mature portraits of this cultural phenomenon to date.

What distinguishes Being Elvis beyond the narrative itself is Connolly's more subtle examinations of white poverty, class aspirations, and the prison that is extreme fame. As we reach the end of this poignant account, Elvis's death at forty-tow takes on the hue of a profoundly American tragedy. The creator of an American sound that resonates today, Elvis remains frozen in time, an enduring American icon who could "seamlessly soar into a falsetto of pleading and yearning" and capture an inner emotion, perhaps an eternal yearning, to which all of us can still relate.

Review: This books ends my Elvis reading kick. It was comprehensive, and while I may revisit Elvis in the future, I feel at this point anything I read will be repetitive.

The Lemonade War

 Author: Jacqueline Davies
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: NMH Books, 2009
Pages: 192
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: When Evan Treski finds out that his younger sister is skipping third grade and joining his fourth-grade class, he is not happy. The last thing he wants is Jessie showing him up with her perfect grades, and he definitely doesn't need her help getting his lemonade stand up and running. . .even if the business side of things has got him confused.

Jessie doesn't understand why Evan won't team up with her, but she's got a plan to set up her own lemonade stand to prove her worth. Now if she can just figure out how to attract customers as easily as Evan can, she'll be able to show him what he's missing.

Can these siblings do it all on their own, or will they need each other after all? And will their lemonade war ever end? Brimming with ideas for making money at any business, definitions of business terms, charts, diagrams, and even math problems, this fresh, funny, emotionally charged novelexplores how arguments can escalate beyond anyone's intent - and the unique rivalry (and partnership) that comes with having siblings.

Review: The Lemonade War was a one school / one book project for my kindergartener so I read it aloud to him every night. In some ways, it was beyond him, but he did enjoy it overall, and he loves being read to so it was a win/win. 

My teenage daughters read this when they were in elementary school, and enjoyed it. This is definitely a cute story, and all the things the synopsis says. While some books have appeal at any age, books by Michaela Maccoll comes to mind, and also Wonder, I would say this is definitely a book for children. 

Barnes and Nobles states, "Ages 9-12."