Monday, May 27, 2013

Bollywood Nights

Bollywood Nights
by Shobhaa De


Genre: Women's Fiction

Synopsis: Bollywood is no place for a vulnerable, small-town girl like Aasha Rani. But that doesn't stop her mother from pushing her into a world of exploitation and bedroom casting calls. Aasha has no choice but to thrive-despite the vicious circles of starlets, pimps, and celebrities who want to see her meet her end.

But the day she meets Bollywood's leading man, everything she's worked so hard for is jeopardized. Because she may be falling for Akshay Arora-and there's no room for love in a business where it's the stranger under your sheets holding the key to your success. With her innocence stolen and nowhere else to turn, Aasha knows her downfall could come as quickly as her rise to fame. And letting herself love might just be the most fatal career move of her life...

Review: I really wanted to like this book.  I often want to read books about cultures that are foreign to me so I can learn something and get a glimpse into how other people like, work, and play.  Bollywood is fascinating to me as it seems so different from Hollywood.  I thought this book would be great for looking into the culture.  It's too bad that this book wasn't good.  It was vulgar at times.  It was full of Hindi phrases without translations so I had no idea what they were talking about in the book.  It really was a hindrance rather than a help to immerse myself in the culture.  I think the author made a huge mistake in not translating the phrases she used.  I don't know what kept me reading but I did finish the book.  The second part was better than the first as it was not vulgar but the author added this ridiculous storyline in one of the last chapters that was so unnecessary.  The main character, Aasha Rani, is not likable in any way shape or form but the author tries to make the character likable in the second half but by that time it's too late and she continues to be so dumb.  None of the other characters are likable either and their motivations seem to be lacking.  All of a sudden the characters would do something that seemed totally out of their character that they had no motivation for.  It was not a well written book and I would not recommend reading it.

Rating: 1 stars

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Jasmine Nights


Jasmine Nights
Julia Gregson

Jasmine Nights

Genre: Historical Ficton

Summary (from the publisher)At twenty-three, Saba Tarcan knows her only hope of escaping the clamor of Cardiff Bay, Wales, lies in her voice. While traveling Britain, singing for wounded soldiers, Saba meets handsome fighter pilot Dom Benson, recovering from burns after a crash. When Saba auditions to entertain troops in far-off lands, Dom follows her to London. Just as their relationship begins to take root, Saba is sent to sing in Africa, and Dom is assigned a new mission in the Middle East. As Saba explores Cairo’s bazaars, finding friendship among the troupe’s acrobats and dancers, Dom returns to the cockpit once again, both thrilled and terrified to be flying above the desert floor. In spite of great danger, the two resolve to reunite.

When Saba learns that her position makes her uniquely qualified for a secret mission of international importance, she agrees to help the British Secret Service, concealing her role from Dom. Her decision will jeopardize not only her safety but also the love of her life.

Based on true accounts of female entertainers used as spies during World War II, Jasmine Nights is a powerful story of danger, secrets, and love, filled with the colors and sounds of the Middle East’s most beautiful cities.


Review:  This was an easy to read, entertaining story about a singer performing for British troops in Egypt during World War 2.  I've read quite a few books about that time frame recently, but have never come across one that deals with an entertainer or Egypt, so I was intrigued by the novelty of this one.  I liked the descriptions of the locations and the clothing.  The secret mission felt a little cheesy, and the romance was a little rushed - but it was wartime, so perhaps that's how romances were? 

Rating: 3.5 stars

Sing You Home



Sing You Home
Jodi Picoult

Sing You Home

Genre: Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads): One miscarriage too many spelled the end of Max and Zoe Baxter's marriage. Though the former couple went quite separate ways, their fates remained entangled: After veering into alcoholism, Max is saved in multiple senses by his fundamentalist conversion; Zoe, for her part, finds healing relief in music therapy and the friendship, then romantic love with Vanessa, her counselor. After Zoe and Vanessa, now married, decide to have a baby, they realize that they must join battle with Max, who objects on both religious and financial grounds. Like her House Rules and several other previous Jodi Picoult novels, Sing You Home grapples with hot button issues. The novel also includes a CD of songs, each matched with a chapter in the book. Perfect for book clubs

Review: I generally find Jodi Picoult's books to be easy to read and hard to put down - Sing You Home was no different. The subject matter was certainly controversial; I would not recommend this book to conservative family members.  Overall, I really enjoyed Sing You Home and was tempted to give it five stars.  The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that there were a few issues that really bothered me.  The timing was extremely rushed, for no apparent reason.  I would have found the story more believable if more than a month passed between the time Zoe got divorced and the time she realized she was a lesbian, not to mention that she decided to get married to Vanessa a month after that.  Who would act that quickly even if she wasn't experiencing a major change in her sexuality?  And I did not care for Picoult's treatment of Christians, who were all portrayed as completely judgmental and fanatical.  Generally, I think Picoult does a good job trying to make the reader sympathize with both sides of the story, but in this book, the Christians were clearly the villains.

Rating: 4 stars

12.21



12.21
Dustin Thomason

12.21

Genre: Thriller

Summary (from the publisher):  For decades, December 21, 2012, has been a touchstone for doomsayers worldwide. It is the date, they claim, when the ancient Maya calendar predicts the world will end.

In Los Angeles, two weeks before, all is calm. Dr. Gabriel Stanton takes his usual morning bike ride, drops off the dog with his ex-wife, and heads to the lab where he studies incurable prion diseases for the CDC. His first phone call is from a hospital resident who has an urgent case she thinks he needs to see. Meanwhile, Chel Manu, a Guatemalan American researcher at the Getty Museum, is interrupted by a desperate, unwelcome visitor from the black market antiquities trade who thrusts a duffel bag into her hands.

By the end of the day, Stanton, the foremost expert on some of the rarest infections in the world, is grappling with a patient whose every symptom confounds and terrifies him. And Chel, the brightest young star in the field of Maya studies, has possession of an illegal artifact that has miraculously survived the centuries intact: a priceless codex from a lost city of her ancestors. This extraordinary record, written in secret by a royal scribe, seems to hold the answer to her life’s work and to one of history’s great riddles: why the Maya kingdoms vanished overnight. Suddenly it seems that our own civilization might suffer this same fate.
 
With only days remaining until December 21, 2012, Stanton and Chel must join forces before time runs out.


Review:  I've read a lot of book club type books recently, and was in the mood for something a little lighter and more action/adventurey.  I picked this up at the library in one of my two minute browses through the buzz book section while trying to keep my girls from running around like crazy people.  My expectations were not very high, particularly after I found out it was written by one of the authors of The Rule of Four, which I did not like at all.  But, I really liked it!

Picture a combination of The Davinci Code and The Hot Zone - it's a medical mystery that involves translating a centuries old document written in ancient Mayan.  I was completely engrossed by the Mayan history as well as the complexities of trying to stem an outbreak of an incurable disease.  While I'd like to think nothing like this could ever happen, the author made it seem believable and certainly within the realm of possibility.  The main characters were well-developed, although the secondary characters were harder to understand.  All in all, a fun action/adventure/medical mystery/thriller kind of book that reads quickly and will make you think twice about eating another hamburger.

Rating: 4 stars

The Power of Habit

The Power of Habit
by Charles Duhigg



Genre: Non Fiction

SynopsisA young woman walks into a laboratory. Over the past two years, she has transformed almost every aspect of her life. She has quit smoking, run a marathon, and been promoted at work. The patterns inside her brain, neurologists discover, have fundamentally changed.
Marketers at Procter & Gamble study videos of people making their beds. They are desperately trying to figure out how to sell a new product called Febreze, on track to be one of the biggest flops in company history. Suddenly, one of them detects a nearly imperceptible pattern—and with a slight shift in advertising, Febreze goes on to earn a billion dollars a year.
An untested CEO takes over one of the largest companies in America. His first order of business is attacking a single pattern among his employees—how they approach worker safety—and soon the firm, Alcoa, becomes the top performer in the Dow Jones.
What do all these people have in common? They achieved success by focusing on the patterns that shape every aspect of our lives.
They succeeded by transforming habits.
In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation.
Along the way we learn why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. We visit laboratories where neuroscientists explore how habits work and where, exactly, they reside in our brains. We discover how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. We go inside Procter & Gamble, Target superstores, Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, NFL locker rooms, and the nation’s largest hospitals and see how implementing so-called keystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference between failure and success, life and death.
At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.
Habits aren’t destiny. As Charles Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.
From the author's website
Review: I love psychology and this book immediately grabbed me during the first section because it was all about brain research and what the brain looks like when habits are formed.  That to me was very interesting to read.  I was really hooked for a while. The author split the book into 3 sections: how habits affect people, how they affect business and how they affect societies.  After a while the book seemed to get a little redundant.  At times I had a hard time figuring out how the content the author was writing about related to habits.  At the very end (the last page or so) the author tied everything together.  There was also an appendix that talked about how you can change your habits which I found to be very informative and I wish there had been more of that in the book.  The book dealt more with how habits are formed and the science behind them rather than how to change habits.  It was a good read but I don't think it would be a book that everyone would find interesting.  I think it is for a specific audience.

Rating: 3 1/2 stars

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Bridge of Scarlet Leaves


Bridge of Scarlet Leaves
Kristina McMorris

Bridge of Scarlet Leaves

Genre: Historical Fiction

Summary (from the publisher):   Los Angeles, 1941. Violinist Maddie Kern's life seemed destined to unfold with the predictable elegance of a Bach concerto. Then she fell in love with Lane Moritomo. Her brother's best friend, Lane is the handsome, ambitious son of Japanese immigrants. Maddie was prepared for disapproval from their families, but when Pearl Harbor is bombed the day after she and Lane elope, the full force of their decision becomes apparent. In the eyes of a fearful nation, Lane is no longer just an outsider, but an enemy.

When her husband is interned at a war relocation camp, Maddie follows, sacrificing her Juilliard ambitions. Behind barbed wire, tension simmers and the line between patriot and traitor blurs. As Maddie strives for the hard-won acceptance of her new family, Lane risks everything to prove his allegiance to America, at tremendous cost.


Review: Yes, I'm reviewing another book about internment camps during WWII.  I seem to be on a bit of a WWII kick lately.

This book was unique in that it told the story of a Caucasian women who refused to leave her Japanese husband, and so moved into an interment camp with his family.  It was beautifully written, although I was a little distracted by the 1940's era slang.  The characters were well developed and grew throughout the novel.  The author provided a lot of historical details about life in the camps, battles in the Pacific, and POW camps.  I can't speak to how accurate the history was, but the author made the scenes come to life.

It would make a good book club book, if you haven't recently read "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet".

Sorry this isn't as descriptive as most of my reviews, but Amelia wants to use the computer to play a game, and I finished the book 10 days ago, and I guess I don't remember as much about it as I thought!

Rating: 4 stars

War Brides


War Brides
Helen Bryan

War Brides

Genre: Historical Fiction

Summary (from the publisher):  With war threatening to spread from Europe to England, the sleepy village of Crowmarsh Priors settles into a new sort of normal: Evacuees from London are billeted in local homes. Nightly air raids become grimly mundane. The tightening vice of rationing curtails every comfort. Men leave to fight and die. And five women forge an unlikely bond of friendship that will change their lives forever. Alice Osbourne, the stolid daughter of the late vicar, is reeling from the news that Richard Fairfax broke their engagement to marry Evangeline Fontaine, an American girl from the Deep South. Evangeline's arrival causes a stir in the village, but not the chaos that would ensue if they knew her motives for being there. Scrappy Elsie Pigeon is among the poor of London who see the evacuations as a chance to escape a life of destitution. Another new arrival is Tanni Zayman, a young Jewish girl who fled the horrors of Europe and now waits with her newborn son, certain that the rest of her family is safe and bound to show up any day. And then there's Frances Falconleigh, a madcap, fearless debutante whose father is determined to keep her in the countryside and out of the papers. As the war and its relentless hardships intensify around them, the same struggles that threaten to rip apart their lives also bring the five closer together. They draw strength from one another to defeat formidable enemies - hunger, falling bombs, the looming threat of a Nazi invasion, and a traitor in their midst - and find remarkable strength within themselves to help their friends. Theirs is a war-forged loyalty that will outlast the fiercest battle and endure years and distance. When four of the women return to Crowmarsh Priors for a VE Day celebration fifty years later, television cameras focus on the heartwarming story of these old women as war brides of a bygone age, but miss the more newsworthy angle. The women's mission is not to commemorate or remember - they've returned to settle a score and avenge one of their own.

Review:  My problem with this book is that I liked the overall story, but was driven completely nuts by the writing style, character development, and timeline.  Regarding writing style, the author tries to recreate a Cockney accent in text, which was completely distracting since I often had to read a sentence three or four times before I could figure out what the character was trying to say.  While the story was predominantly written from the point of view of the main five characters, the author would throw in occasional chapters written from the perspective of the vicar or the Cockney mother or the stationmaster, none of whom were important characters.  It frequently didn't help develop the story, it just made the large cast of characters even more confusing.

Many of the characters could have used more fleshing out, particularly Tanni, who is hurriedly  married to a neighbor boy and shoved on a boat to England in about three minutes.  The next time we see her, she's living in England and in love with her husband.  How did she end up feeling so loving towards someone who was basically a stranger, when she seemed to be so in love with someone else?  No explanation was given.

With respect to the timeline, the first 90% of the novel was fairly slow paced, not much happened.  Then all of a sudden, there was a catastrophe that changed everyone's lives, followed by a few pages of Alice's new life, then the novel jumped forward 50 pages.  WHAT?!?!  We finally got to the interesting part of the novel, and the author skipped it all!  Sure, she summed it up in the ending (which is another thing I was disappointed by) but I couldn't believe she skipped what could have been the best parts of the book.  It felt like she just got tired of writing all of a sudden, and gave up.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for books about how British women coped during World War II, but I did enjoy the story and the glimpses into ordinary life at that time. 

Rating: 3 stars

Sapphire Blue



Sapphire Blue
Kerstin Gier

Sapphire Blue (The Ruby Red Trilogy, #2)

Genre: Young Adult Fiction

Summary (from the publisher):  Gwen’s life has been a rollercoaster since she discovered she was the Ruby, the final member of the secret time-traveling Circle of Twelve. In between searching through history for the other time-travelers and asking for a bit of their blood (gross!), she’s been trying to figure out what all the mysteries and prophecies surrounding the Circle really mean.
At least Gwen has plenty of help. Her best friend Lesley follows every lead diligently on the Internet. James the ghost teaches Gwen how to fit in at an eighteenth century party. And Xemerius, the gargoyle demon who has been following Gwen since he caught her kissing Gideon in a church, offers advice on everything. Oh, yes. And of course there is Gideon, the Diamond. One minute he’s very warm indeed; the next he’s freezing cold. Gwen’s not sure what’s going on there, but she’s pretty much destined to find out.

Review:  This should be the middle of a nice thick book about a time traveling teenager; instead it's the second book in a trilogy where nothing much has happened so far.  I still like the story, but I can't understand why Gwen thinks she's in love with Gideon when he isn't very nice to her.  And someone needs to start explaining things to Gwen soon, or the trilogy is going to end and she's going to be just as clueless as she was at the beginning. There are some cute parts and some funny parts, and I still love all the bits about the costuming from different eras and the quirky ghosts that Gwen befriends.  I'll read the next book when it comes out, because I'm invested in the story now, but if you ever want to read the trilogy, get all three books at the same time and think of them as one long book.

Rating: 3 stars

The Bungalow


The Bungalow
Sarah Jio

The Bungalow

Genre: Historical Fiction

Summary (from the publisher):  A sweeping World War II saga of thwarted love, murder, and a long-lost painting.

In the summer of 1942, twenty-one-year-old Anne Calloway, newly engaged, sets off to serve in the Army Nurse Corps on the Pacific island of Bora-Bora. More exhilarated by the adventure of a lifetime than she ever was by her predictable fiancé, she is drawn to a mysterious soldier named Westry, and their friendship soon blossoms into hues as deep as the hibiscus flowers native to the island. Under the thatched roof of an abandoned beach bungalow, the two share a private world-until they witness a gruesome crime, Westry is suddenly redeployed, and the idyll vanishes into the winds of war.

A timeless story of enduring passion from the author of Blackberry Winter and The Violets of March, The Bungalow chronicles Anne's determination to discover the truth about the twin losses-of life, and of love-that have haunted her for seventy years.


Review: This is a hard book to review; while I read it quickly and enjoyed the reading, I had a few complaints.  Most of the story is set on the island of Bora Bora during World War II, so the descriptions of the setting were beautiful and unique among the World War II books that I've read recently.  I was hoping for a little more information about the war in the Pacific, or the challenges a nurse might experience in that arena, but the story mainly revolved around friendships between the nurses and servicemen, the romance between the main characters, and the very light mystery.  This book was definitely more of a beach read and less of a serious historical novel.

While Anne was a likable character, she didn't have enough depth for me to truly understand or empathize with her.  She made a rash decision to abandon her charming, wealthy, understanding fiancee to join her friend as an army nurse, then she spontaneously fell in love with a soldier, and then she refused to have a real conversation with her best friend, her lover, or the native girl she tried to help.  Instead, she jumped to conclusions and made decisions about her life without trying to discover the truth.  The ending wrapped things up nicely, but a little too neatly, especially considering the age of the main characters.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Friday, May 10, 2013

Over in the Meadow

After receiving a book from Hawaii called Over on the Island and then hearing the song being sung, I have discovered so many books that have the melody of Over in the Meadow.  Just this last library visit, we checked out 3 books that had this melody!  I thought I would share some titles with you in case you are interested in reading them.  I do talk about the ease of singing the book to the melody.

1.  Over on the Island by Yuko Green and Sarah Tupou.  I really liked the torn paper like illustrations and I really enjoyed reading this story about the animals found in Hawaii.  The text fits well to the melody.  I imagine that it might be a hard book to find at libraries though.  It doesn't seem to be a widespread book.

2.  Over at the Castle by Boni Ashburn.  This one was difficult for me to sing as some of the lines of text were just part of the melody and it was hard to figure out which part of the song it was.  So I just ended up reading those lines in a normal voice.  Even when the verses did fit with the melody, I felt like there was a word missing or too many syllables.  I had to stop several times to explain words in the book.  My kids obsessed over the prisoner and could not grasp why he was there and why he was shackled.  Perhaps this would be a better book for older kids.

3.  Over in the Hollow by Rebecca Dickinson.  I loved the Halloween take on this book.  It's filled with Halloween creatures-ghosts, vampires, monsters, spiders, monsters, etc.  Each creature does a distinct action.  The words fit the melody very well.  It's not a scary Halloween book.  I read this to my kids' preschool class on Halloween and they sat and listened to the book very nicely.  I thought that the illustrations were really nice and not scary.

4.  Going Around the Sun: Some Planetary Fun by Marianne Berkes.  This author has created quite a few other books with this melody.  I picked this book up because my son loves to read books about space and surprisingly it's hard to find pictures books about space travel.  This book threw me off because it doesn't start with "over in the..."  It started with "Up in outer space..."  But other than that the words fit with the melody.  The pictures are fun drawings of the planets.  I don't think it teachers kids too much about the planets but it still is fun.

5.  Over in the Arctic Where the Cold Wind Blows by Marianne Berkes.  This book shows different animals that live in the Arctic region.  In the illustrations you see other animals hiding in the background.  At the end the verse tells you to go back and look for the hidden animals.  You can read about these animals in the back.  You can also read about the other Arctic animals in the back.  The text fits well with the melody.

6.  Who's Who? by Ken Geist.  This book is about animal twins which is why I picked it up for my twins.  Then we found out that it is to the tune of "Over in the Meadow."  It's a cute story about twin animals but I found the illustrations a little distracting.  There was so much going on in them that wasn't part of the text.  It was fairly easy to sing as well.

7.  Over in the Forest: Come and Take a Peek by Marianne Berkes.  This book is similar to Over in the Arctic with the hidden animals.  My kids really enjoyed finding all the different animals in the book.  The text was easy to sing as well.

8.  Little Goblins Ten by Pamela Jane.  This was another Halloween book written to the melody of "Over in the Meadow."  It has different creatures such as a monster, ghost, zombie, witch, dragons and much more.  The illustrations are a little less cutesy than Over in the Hollow but they aren't scarey at all.  Its easy to sing this book.

9.  Over in the Jungle by Marianne Berkes.  This was another one of the author's books with this rhyme that visits another habitat.  This one did not have the hidden animals in it.  The illustrations were so fabulous.  I was trying to figure out what the background was-it looked like broccoli that had been colored but at the end the illustrator told us that she put polymer clay in the food processor!  The different textures in the illustrations were amazing!

10.  Out on the Prairie by Donna Bateman.  This was my least favorite of all the "Over in the Meadow" books.  The lines didn't work as well- some were too long and others were too short. I didn't care for some of the illustrations.  In some of the verses, I had no idea what the author was talking about!  But I guess that means I don't know enough about prairie plants!

11.  Over in the Grasslands by Anna Wilson.  This book fit fairly well to the tune-one line I thought needed to have one more syllable (the same line in each verse) but other than that it was fine.  The one thing that disappointed me was the animals they picked to feature in this book.  There are some animals that are not common-rhinos, hippos, lions, etc but then they did verses for frogs, eagles, hares and bees.  I thought it would have been nicer if they had more animals that you could only find in the grasslands of Africa.

Here are other titles I have found but have been unable to get at my library:
Somewhere in the Ocean by Jennifer Ward
Over in Australia by Marianne Berkes
Over in the Ocean in a Coral Reef by Marianne Berkes
Over in the Garden by Jennifer Ward
Way Out in the Desert by Jennifer Ward
Way Up in the Arctic by Jennifer Ward
The House in the Meadow by Shutta Crum (I think this is to the tune)
Plus tons of books titled "Over in the Meadow"

If you know of any more, let me know!

Thursday, May 9, 2013

The Two Week Wait

The Two Week Wait
by Sarah Rayner


Genre: Women's Fiction

Synopsis: After a health scare, Brighton-based Lou is forced to confront the fact that her time to have a baby is running out. She can't imagine a future without children, but her partner doesn't seem to feel the same way, and she's not sure whether she could go it alone. Meanwhile, up in Yorkshire, Cath is longing to start a family with her husband, Rich. No one would be happier to have a child than Rich, but Cath is infertile. Could these strangers help one another out? Combining Sarah Rayner's deft exploration of raw emotions with the joy and resilience of friendship, The Two Week Wait is a memorable, moving page-turner about two very different women, each yearning to create a family of her own.
From the publisher

Review: I liked this book but it was not a fabulous-you-must-run-out-and-read-it-right-away-book.  It was a good, light read that if it happens to be the library, why not check it out?  I liked the story line of two women, Lou and Cath, both wanting to have a baby and helping each other out with the help of modern science. I really liked the characters in the story (with the exception of 2 minor characters) and sympathized with them but I thought that they were fairly one dimensional.  I don't feel like the book captured the emotions of someone who is struggling with infertility and I think that goes back to the characters being one dimensional and also is related to my next criticism.  The book takes place over a year at least and I feel like the author just rushed through parts that would have been the most excruciating for someone struggling with infertility and perhaps that is why I didn't feel like there was enough emotion in the book.  But like I said before, it was a good book but not a great book.

Rating: 3 stars

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

The American Heiress

The American Heiress
by Daisy Goodwin



Genre: Romance/Historical Fiction

Synopsis: Be careful what you wish for. Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the twentieth century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash, whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts’, suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England. Nothing is quite as it seems, however: Ivo is withdrawn and secretive, and the English social scene is full of traps and betrayals. Money, Cora soon learns, cannot buy everything, as she must decide what is truly worth the price in her life and her marriage. 

Witty, moving, and brilliantly entertaining, Cora’s story marks the debut of a glorious storyteller who brings a fresh new spirit to the world of Edith Wharton and Henry James. 

From the publisher

Review: When I'm in the right mood, I like a good romance novel that takes place among the ton of London in the later 1800s but this book was trying too hard to not be a run of the mill romance novel.  It tried to make itself into a historical fiction book but yet there wasn't enough of a story line to make it meatier.  Someone on GoodReads mentioned that the book was filled out more than a traditional romance novel but yet she couldn't identify how it was filled out more.  I think that sums up how I feel about it!  I guess it really can't be considered a romance novel because there isn't enough smut but it's hard pressed to consider it historic fiction because there really wasn't much to the story besides a romance.  There was so much of the story that could have been removed.  All of a sudden a chapter would be told from the perspective of some random servant that had very little importance in the story.  The descriptions of everything were very flowery and unnecessary at times.  This book could have been quite a bit shorter!  It was an easy read but a little long and not quite meaty enough for me.

Rating: 3 stars