Julie's Review: Dreams of Falling

Author: Karen White
Series: None
Publication Date: June 5, 2018
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 435
Obtained: publisher via Netgalley
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction, Women's Fiction
Rating: 4.5/5
Bottom Line: Family secrets always have a way of coming out
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Summary: On the banks of the North Santee River stands a moss-draped oak that was once entrusted with the dreams of three young girls. Into the tree's trunk, they placed their greatest hopes, written on ribbons, for safekeeping--including the most important one: Friends forever, come what may. But life can waylay the best of intentions.... Nine years ago, a humiliated Larkin Lanier fled Georgetown, South Carolina, knowing she could never go back. But when she finds out that her mother has disappeared, she realizes she has no choice but to return to the place she both loves and dreads--and to the family and friends who never stopped wishing for her to come home. Ivy, Larkin's mother, is discovered badly injured and unconscious in the burned-out wreckage of her ancestral plantation home. No one knows why Ivy was there, but as Larkin digs for answers, she uncovers secrets kept for nearly fifty years--whispers of love, sacrifice, and betrayal--that lead back to three girls on the brink of womanhood who found their friendship tested in the most heartbreaking ways. ~amazon.com

Review: Dreams of Falling is a multi-generational novel about how secrets tend to come out even if they’ve been hidden for decades. Each of these women has their own skeletons and issues to deal with but everything is done out of love. We have CeCe, Ivy, Bitty who are all holding something back from Larkin and have been for years. Not only are they holding back from her but they have been keeping things from each other for decades. Now with Ivy's accident, Larkin finds herself back in the place she didn't ever want to return to for a long period of time, home. Larkin was doused with love as a kid but because she wasn’t allowed to fail or to see herself as other did; reality comes crashing down on her and she isn't equipt to handle it.

Larkin also carries around tremendous guilt about an incident that happened which caused her to flee. She's not quite sure when her BFF from childhood, Mabry reenters her life. She sees how easy it would be to fall back into step with her. Not to mention Mabry's twin brother Bennett, who she really is not looking forward to seeing.

What Ms. White does well is tell the story in flashbacks and present day. You start to understand the choices each of them made and why they made the decision she made. You start to see Larkin come out of her shell and fully appreciate the person she is and reconcile herself with the kid who fled home 9 years ago. Of course she realizes that sometimes you can go home again. There were of course a few things I saw coming but it didn't lessen my enjoyment of it at all.

If you enjoy books about family with a southern setting, then you won't want to miss Ms. White's latest novel.


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Julie's Review: The Forgotten Room

Author: Karen White, Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig
Series: None
Publication Date: January 19, 2016
Publisher: NAL
Pages: 384
Obtained: purchased
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Rating: 5/5
Bottom Line: Loved how the stories ended up linking in the end
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Summary: 1945: When the critically wounded Captain Cooper Ravenal is brought to a private hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, young Dr. Kate Schuyler is drawn into a complex mystery that connects three generations of women in her family to a single extraordinary room in a Gilded Age mansion. Who is the woman in Captain Ravenel's portrait miniature who looks so much like Kate? And why is she wearing the ruby pendant handed down to Kate by her mother? In their pursuit of answers, they find themselves drawn into the turbulent stories of Gilded Age Olive Van Alen, driven from riches to rags, who hired out as a servant in the very house her father designed, and Jazz Age Lucy Young, who came from Brooklyn to Manhattan in pursuit of the father she had never known. But are Kate and Cooper ready for the secrets that will be revealed in the Forgotten Room? The Forgotten Room, set in alternating time periods, is a sumptuous feast of a novel brought to vivid life by three brilliant storytellers. ~amazon.com

Review:  The Forgotten Room is a sweeping family saga that spans decades and is woven together by one room in a former Manhattan mansion. These stories are also linked by love stories that span lives and decades, love lost and love found. There is tragedy and misunderstandings; love and loss; passion and dedication.

I'm actually not sure which story line I loved the most because I think I loved all 3 equally. I loved the moxie that Olive, Lucy and Kate had. I loved that they were forging their way before their time. Each went against their family in their own way. For Olive it was putting herself in a house where she was seeking revenge; Lucy was the first woman to go to work outside the family business and Kate was forging her own path as a female doctor.

Each has their own story to tell and each woman has a distinctive voice but there is a thread that ties them. Is it the men they love, is it the room or something else?

I loved that 3 authors wrote this book but I couldn't tell where one's voice started and another ended. I loved each of the time periods that the book ventured into and explored.

If you are a fan of historical fiction then you won't to miss The Forgotten Room.

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Julie's Review: Grand Central

Author: Various
Series: None
Publication Date: July 1, 2014
Publisher: Berkley Books
Pages: 368
Obtained: publisher
Genre:  Historical Fiction, Anthology
Rating: 4.5/5
Bottom Line: Must read for those who like stories about WWII era
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Summary: A war bride awaits the arrival of her GI husband at the platform… A Holocaust survivor works at the Oyster Bar, where a customer reminds him of his late mother… A Hollywood hopeful anticipates her first screen test and a chance at stardom in the Kissing Room… On any particular day, thousands upon thousands of people pass through New York Citys Grand Central Terminal, through the whispering gallery, beneath the ceiling of stars, and past the information booth and its beckoning four-faced clock, to whatever destination is calling them. It is a place where people come to say hello and good-bye. And each person has a story to tell. Now, ten bestselling authors inspired by this iconic landmark have created their own stories, set on the same day, just after the end of World War II, in a time of hope, uncertainty, change, and renewal…. ~powells.com

Review: Grand Central: Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion is a beautiful collection of short stories set after World War II. Each story has its own flow, its own stamp on the book but are intricately woven together to bind them together. The parts of this anthology are gorgeous but it's the sum that make it stand out.

As if you couldn't tell from the previous paragraph, I loved this anthology of stories. I don't read a lot of short stories but they were written by some of my favorite authors, I couldn't pass it up. I am so happy I read this. This book will make the rounds in my book lending circle. It is well worth the read. You could read them all in one sitting or you could savor them, which is what I did.

There are always stories that resonate with a reader and for me these were Sarah Jio's "I'll Be Seeing You", Erika Robuck's "I Walk Alone" and Melanie Benjamin's "The Kissing Room". Each one brought out a different emotion in me. It's not to say that the rest weren't wonderful because they were, it's just these are the ones that stick with me.

I also loved how Sarah McCoy brought us back to her novel with her story, "The Branch of Hazel". It touches a subject matter that she writes in about in her wonderful novel The Baker's Daughter.

You can feel the love the author's have for this time period through their stories. It is obvious they did research for particular aspects of them. For most of them I have a feeling that their stories came from something personal, perhaps family history and that is also what makes these stories hit home. 

I realize that you can't cover all aspects of the time period but I feel that to give it a well-rounded view a story about either the Tuskegee Airmen or about the black soldiers fight when they got back from the war.

If you have a love for this time period, then you shouldn't pass up reading this wonderful anthology, you might just learn something new or discover new authors like I did. 




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Julie's Review: The Lost Hours

Summary: When Piper Mills was twelve, she helped her grandfather bury a box that belonged to her grandmother in the backyard. For twelve years, it remained untouched. Now a near fatal riding accident has shattered Piper’s dreams of Olympic glory. After her grandfather’s death, she inherits the house and all its secrets, including a key to a room that doesn’t exist—or does it? And after her grandmother is sent away to a nursing home, she remembers the box buried in the backyard. In it are torn pages from a scrapbook, a charm necklace—and a newspaper article from 1939 about the body of an infant found floating in the Savannah River. The necklace’s charms tell the story of three friends during the 1930s— each charm added during the three months each friend had the necklace and recorded her life in the scrapbook. Piper always dismissed her grandmother as not having had a story to tell. And now, too late, Piper finds she might have been wrong. ~amazon.com

Review: The Lost Hours is an intense, taut, heartbreaking novel that touches on subject matters that are uncomfortable.  The past is a tricky thing. It pulls us in with the need to know what happened and by the time you figure out that maybe things are left better hidden, you are too deep. This is what happens to Piper. She wants to know what made her grandmother the quiet, sad person she was during her lifetime. Was she always like this or was there a significant event in her life that altered who she was?

A letter written by her grandmother, Annabelle, to a Lillian sets Piper on the quest for unearthing the past of her grandmother. They mystery surrounding these two women is slowly revealed through the pages of a journal, newspaper clippings and through the eyes of Lillian. We experience the story from Piper, Lillian and Helen's point of views.

All of these women have had to endure disappointments and tragedies, this is what bonds them in the end. It is their resilience in life that makes them strong. They all make extremely interesting narrators. You get to know them from the others perspectives and their own inner thoughts. It brings a depth to the novel that wouldn't have been achieved through a single narrator.

I read this book so fast because I wanted to find out what happened. Just as I thought the mystery was resolved and could read the rest of the book in peace, Ms. White threw another curve ball at me. It literally took my breath away. It also caused me to sob during the last 20 pages.

It's taken me all day to write this review because it's not an easy novel to review. I'm also trying my damnedest not to judge Lillian and Annabelle. Things were different in the 1930s for women. There were some things that were just expected and to try to wrap our current mindset around that is hard. I can't imagine the decisions and consequences the women of that generation lived with. Yet, these were some of the strongest women I've read about. They paved the way for us to be able to have the things we did. They thought outside of what society expected and broke down barriers.

The past always affects the present but not always in extremes. I think it helped Piper figure out who she was and who she didn't want to be by figuring out who her grandmother was during her youth. It also gave Piper the "family" she had always wanted.

My only disappointment is that we didn't find out more about Piper's grandfather during this process. Throughout the book he was portrayed as a man who was deeply disappointed in his granddaughter. She didn't live up to his hopes and dreams, so he wrote her off. I wanted to know more about him and why his expectations were so high for her. What drove him to drive her?

Karen White is now an author who I will want to seek out in the future. I'm only sorry that I waited so long to read this novel.

Final Take: 4.75/5

Lisa also reviewed it.

 

Giveaway: The Lost Hours

We have a copy of The Lost Hours to give away. Please leave a comment here by midnight EST time April 24, 2009 to be automaticaly entered. See my review here.

For an even better chance to win, post about this contest on your own blog (linking back to this post) and your name will be entered twice! The winner will be announced on April 25, 2009.

Good Luck!

Lisa's Review: The Lost Hours

Summary
When Piper Mills was twelve, she helped her grandfather bury a box that belonged to her grandmother in the backyard. For twelve years, it remained untouched.

Now a near fatal riding accident has shattered Piper’s dreams of Olympic glory. After her grandfather’s death, she inherits the house and all its secrets, including a key to a room that doesn’t exist—or does it? And after her grandmother is sent away to a nursing home, she remembers the box buried in the backyard. In it are torn pages from a scrapbook, a charm necklace—and a newspaper article from 1939 about the body of an infant found floating in the Savannah River. The necklace’s charms tell the story of three friends during the 1930s— each charm added during the three months each friend had the necklace and recorded her life in the scrapbook. Piper always dismissed her grandmother as not having had a story to tell. And now, too late, Piper finds she might have been wrong.

Review
How have I never heard of Karen White before? This is her tenth(!) book and the first for me. I read the summary knowing that it was right up my alley and was excited when her publicist offered it to us for review. Full of wonderful characters, it was a little difficult to love Piper immediately. She was feeling sorry for herself and a bit stubborn and defensive. Her grandfather's death opened up a mystery for her. Her grandmother is stricken with Alzhiemiers and eventually dies. Piper reaches out to the only other person alive who can provide answers, but finds her efforts rebuffed. Determined, she sets off to dig further and finds her life being transformed as the mystery unfolds.

This is a heartwarming novel, about friendship, secrets, regrets, forgiveness and healing. With flashbacks to early 20th Century Savannah, by way of scrapbook entries, it was easy to guess at the answers to the questions Piper had, but it was never completely predictable, nor could I guess at all the secrets.

My issues with the novel are minor. The timeline at the beginning was a bit jumpy and I was left a little confused. In addition, I am not sure that I got a believable resolution to a minor character's story. I had a small problem with the point of view switching from Piper to other characters about 75 pages in. I'd gotten used to the third person at that point, however after I read an interview the author gave that explained her reason for switching and found it acceptable. Other than that I am happy to sing Ms. White's praises and wonder what other gems I've been missing.

Final take: 4.5/5