Showing posts with label Family Saga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family Saga. Show all posts

Breaking Lucky by Bruce Mitchell
Book Review

Synopsis

Danny ‘Lucky’ Thornton cursed his middle name. Born in 1895, asthma almost killed him when he was four, but he survived to be among the first volunteer lifeguards on Sydney’s Coogee Beach. Danny’s sister Cath dreamed of becoming a doctor at a time when they told women to ‘know their place’. She didn’t listen, and broke through the walls of prejudice to graduate from Sydney University the only woman in her class.

Danny came home from the war with a crippling wound and a shattered mind. Cath stared down a gun barrel in a night of terror and fell in love with a ‘Chinaman’ at the

Stars Over the Southern Ocean by J.H. Fletcher
Book Review

Synopsis

With her home and freedom on the line, will her family force her to leave it all behind?

1937 - Seventeen year old Marina Fairbrother has lived in the small logging town of Mole Creek, Tasmania, her whole life. When she meets Jory Trevelyan, she is intrigued by the young man with the strange name and his tales of the west coast. Stories of wild winds and a tumultuous sea leave her hungering for a freedom she hadn't realised she lacked.

1993 - After a terminal diagnosis, Marina knows there is only one place she wants to spend her remaining days. The remote coastal property of Noamunga has been her

A Wild Legacy by Celeste De Blasis
Book Review - Blog Tour

Publication Date: February 15, 2021
Publisher: Bookouture
Series: Wild Swan Trilogy, Book 3
Format: ebook
Genre: Historical Fiction, Family Saga

Synopsis

Lexy Culhane follows in stunned silence as her father bundles her younger brothers onto the train in a midnight flight away from the only life they have ever known. It seems impossible to her that her gentle, loving mother could have shot a man.

Despite the shock, Lexy soon grows to love her new home at Wild Swan, the grand horse farm in Maryland run by her formidable

A Wild Heart by Celeste De Blasis
Book Review - Blog Tour

Publication Date: December 8th, 2020
Publisher: Bookouture
Series: Wild Swan Trilogy, Book 2
Format: ebook
Genre: Historical Fiction, Family Saga

Synopsis

Alexandria Falconer gazes around the honeyed land of Wild Swan, the extraordinary horse farm she built up from nothing in the border state of Maryland. It has been Alex’s sanctuary through years of turmoil, and she has come of age in this land of opportunity. But the storm clouds of civil war are gathering, and Alex knows she has a choice to make to protect her family and maintain the precarious peace at Wild Swan.

A Wild Hope by Celeste De Blasis
Book Review - Blog Tour

Publication Date: 8th October, 2020
Bookouture
Ebook

Synopsis

Banished from her uncaring family home for her growing friendship with older neighbor St. John, Alexandria Thaine is unprepared for the new life she encounters with her distant cousins in England’s West Country. She blossoms under the warmth of the Falconers, and as she throws herself into the thrilling danger of the family’s smuggling trade, Alex forms an unbreakable bond with the eldest son, Rane.

But just as Alex begins to imagine a future in

The Gilded Hour by Sara Donati
Book Review

Synopsis

The year is 1883, and in New York City it’s a time of dizzying splendor, crushing poverty, and tremendous change. With the gravity-defying Brooklyn Bridge nearly complete and the city in the grip of anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock, Dr Anna Savard and her cousin, Sophie – both graduates of the Women’s Medical School – treat the city’s most vulnerable. Even when doing so puts all they’ve worked for in jeopardy . . .

For Anna, her role as a surgeon has placed her in the path of four children who have lost everything. Faced with their helplessness, Anna must make the unexpected choice between holding on to the pain of her past

BOOK REVIEW-BLOG TOUR: Where the Light Enters by Sara Donati

Publication Date: 17th September 2019
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
Format: Paperback
Pages: 672
Genre: Historical Fiction, Family Saga

Synopsis

Obstetrician Dr. Sophie Savard returns home to the achingly familiar rhythms of Manhattan in the early spring of 1884 to rebuild her life after the death of her husband. With the help of Dr. Anna Savard, her dearest friend, cousin, and fellow physician she plans to continue her work aiding the disadvantaged women

CAN'T-WAIT WEDNESDAY: I Can't Wait for White Sands of Summer by J.H. Fletcher

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they're books that have yet to be released. Find out more here.

Book Review: Perseverance: Book Two of the Garth Trilogy by L.F.McDermott

Perseverance continues the story of two convict families, the Garths and their friends, the Belletts, which began in Of Angels and Eagles. It spans the years 1809-1864 and focuses on the next generation, primarily James Garth and Mary Belletts.

When the Government decides to close the penal settlement of Norfolk Island, the two families are forced to leave and resettle in Van Diemen's Land.

Perseverance opens with the Belletts arriving in Hobart Town to take up their land grants and to be reunited with the Garths.

Book Review: In the Silence of the Snow by Jessica Blair

French-born Marie Gabin forms a friendship with Veronica Attwood in their final two years at school, but this is tested when Marie is forced to disclose a secret to her friend.

The First World War takes its toll when Marie loses the man she loves. Veronica's husband suffers injuries which eventually leave her a widow, but she finds consolation in her love for the land. Returning to France, Marie marries her childhood sweetheart, but once again life brings involvement in war for the two friends.

Loving their Yorkshire land, Veronica and her daughters enlist in the Land Army. When a bomber squadron arrives on a newly constructed airfield on part of the estate, relationships are formed. Veronica's daughter Elise joins the RAF and is recruited into the SOE. But secrets will out. On a mission to France, Elise faces dangers she did not expect as she searches for Marie and the truth - a truth that will have an outcome she never envisaged.


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This promised to be a great family saga. With a synopsis mentioning a Yorkshire setting, two World Wars and the Land Army, it was irresistible and I was prepared to be swept away. Unfortunately, this didn't happen and I finished the book feeling badly let down.

While the plot line was good, it was predictable in places. This wasn't the cause of my disappointment as much as the lack of evocative description to draw me into the different time periods and round out the characters.

None of the characters appealed to me. Their thoughts and actions were presented in a manner that didn't allow attachments to be formed. I wasn't involved in their lives and I so wanted to be; to feel their sorrow and grief, their happiness and their love for the land. My emotions weren't engaged at all and this made what I thought would be an exceptional read dull and lifeless.

I didn't dislike this book enough not to finish it, but believe it could have been so much better had pivotal events in the plot (some mentioned in the synopsis) been developed further and not rushed through, and had there been more evocative and emotive description.

As In the Silence of the Snow is the first I've read by Jessica Blair, I'm hoping that not all her books are written in the same style. Perhaps another book would have been a better introduction to this author. So to be fair, I will give Jessica Blair another try.