All You Need Is Love...

True love stories never have endings.

(Richard Bach)

 

All you need is love but a little chocolate now and then does not hurt...

 

(Charles M. Schulz)

40 years of marriage
Celebrated on 19th of July...
On two continents...
With a little champagne and some chocolates.

Thank goodness for SKYPE!!

Mist Of Midnight by Sandra Byrd, Book review

• 
  
• Series: The Daughters of Hampshire
• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Howard Books (March 10, 2015)
• ISBN-13: 978-1476717869
• Also available in KINDLE format

SYNOPSIS:


In the first of a brand-new series set in Victorian England, a young woman returns home from India after the death of her family to discover her identity and inheritance are challenged by the man who holds her future in his hands.

Rebecca Ravenshaw, daughter of missionaries, spent most of her life in India. Following the death of her family in the Indian Mutiny, Rebecca returns to claim her family estate in Hampshire, England. Upon her return, people are surprised to see her...and highly suspicious. Less than a year earlier, an imposter had arrived with an Indian servant and assumed not only Rebecca's name, but her home and incomes. 

That pretender died within months of her arrival; the servant fled to London as the young woman was hastily buried at midnight. The locals believe that perhaps she, Rebecca, is the real imposter. Her home and her father's investments reverted to a distant relative, the darkly charming Captain Luke Whitfield, who quickly took over. Against her best intentions, Rebecca begins to fall in love with Luke, but she is forced to question his motives—does he love her or does he just want Headbourne House? If Luke is simply after the property, as everyone suspects, will she suffer a similar fate as the first “Rebecca”? 

A captivating Gothic love story set against a backdrop of intrigue and danger, Mist of Midnight will leave you breathless.

Link to Mist of Midnight on the Simon and Schuster/Howard Books Website:

http://books.simonandschuster.com/Mist-of-Midnight/Sandra-Byrd/The-Daughters-of-Hampshire/9781476717869

My thoughts:

From the first chapter Sandra Byrd grasps your attention with a mysterious plot set in Victorian England. Mist of Midnight is everything you seek in a good historical romance novel! Entertaining, intriguing and filled with details about life in the Nineteen Century. But it is her main protagonist which pulls at your heart with her stoic approach to a disturbing welcome upon her arrival on English soil. Rebecca is a survivor of the Indian mutiny and thought to find a refuge in a land she barely remembers.

Upon learning an impostor arrived with her Indian maid the previous year claiming to be her, Rebecca straightens her back, lifts her head and forges ahead. Someone must remember her gentle mother or perhaps herself as a child when she last visited Headbourne House and vouch for her character? 

Whilst thoroughly confused but determined to find out what happened to the deceased impostor, said to have been hastily buried, Rebecca finds herself strangely attracted to Captain Whitfield, now in residence in her childhood home.

Find out for yourself later this month what happens to Rebecca and her claim!
Good suspense, intelligent plot and with just the right amount of historical details to make it a pleasant read!

4 stars!

Meet the Author:

After earning her first rejection at the age of thirteen, bestselling author Sandra Byrd has now published more than forty books.
A life-long lover of Victorian Gothic romances, Sandra’s new series, Daughters of Hampshire, weaves elements of that mystical, traditional genre with inspirational and literary threads. Mist of Midnight, the series’ first book, debuts in March, 2015.

For more information visit her website (HERE)

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this ARC courtesy of CBA as part of the book promotion. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC 16 CFR, Part 255 'Guides concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. I was not asked to write a positive review and all opinions expressed are entirely my own. 

The Winter Guest by Pam Jenoff, Book review

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harlequin MIRA (August 26, 2014)
• ISBN-13: 978-0778315964
• Also available in KINDLE format

SYNOPSIS:

A stirring novel of first love in a time of war and the unbearable choices that could tear sisters apart, from the celebrated author of The Kommandant's Girl 

Life is a constant struggle for the eighteen-year-old Nowak twins as they raise their three younger siblings in rural Poland under the shadow of the Nazi occupation. The constant threat of arrest has made everyone in their village a spy, and turned neighbor against neighbor. Though rugged, independent Helena and pretty, gentle Ruth couldn't be more different, they are staunch allies in protecting their family from the threats the war brings closer to their doorstep with each passing day. 

Then Helena discovers an American paratrooper stranded outside their small mountain village, wounded, but alive. Risking the safety of herself and her family, she hides Sam—a Jew—but Helena's concern for the American grows into something much deeper. Defying the perils that render a future together all but impossible, Sam and Helena make plans for the family to flee. But Helena is forced to contend with the jealousy her choices have sparked in Ruth, culminating in a singular act of betrayal that endangers them all—and setting in motion a chain of events that will reverberate across continents and decades. 

My thoughts:

Pam Jenoff's name has been added to my (ever growing) list of preferred authors with her literary contribution in Grand Central: Original Stories of Post War Love and Reunion. 

This latest title brought once more what I like best in any author's work: sensitivity, historical facts, entertainment and most of all the feeling I have met a kindred spirit. 

I tend to like a WW 2 plot but I look for the hope such difficult moments in life highlights behind the tale (Do you ever wonder what you would do in such circumstances?) and as she has proven in the past Jenoff is a very good storyteller. 

The Winter Guest has all the necessary elements for a story to be remembered long after the last page has been turned, the sort you like to advise a loved one or a good friend to try for themselves in fact. 

Clearly written with elegance and much empathy, here is a story about the many facets of love and the difficulties many dealt with during the second World War. Her characters are finely defined and you have the satisfaction to see a well resolved ending (I do not like those endings that leaves you hanging!).

5 Stars!


Meet the Author:

Pam Jenoff is the author of several novels, including The Kommandant's Girl, which received widespread acclaim, earned her a nomination for the Quill Awards and became an international bestseller. 
She previously served as a Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. State Department in Europe, as the Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army at the Pentagon and as a practicing attorney at a large firm and in-house. 
She received her juris doctor from the University of Pennsylvania, her masters degree in history from Cambridge University and her bachelors degree in international affairs from The George Washington University. 
In addition to writing, she teaches law school.

For more information visit her website (HERE)

Note: This was a library loan and any opinion is mine only!

The Sea Garden by Deborah Lawrenson, Book review

Hardcover: 320 pages

Publisher: Harper (June 24, 2014)

ISBN-13: 978-0062279668

Also available in KINDLE format

SYNOPSIS:

Romance, suspense, and World War II mystery are woven together in three artfully linked novellas—rich in drama and steeped in atmosphere—from the critically acclaimed author of The Lantern.

The Sea Garden

On the lush Mediterranean island of Porquerolles off the French coast, Ellie Brooke, an award-winning British landscape designer, has been hired to restore a memorial garden. Unsettled by its haunted air and the bitterness of the garden’s owner, an elderly woman who seems intent on undermining her, Ellie finds that her only ally on the island is an elusive war historian. . . .

The Lavender Field

Near the end of World War II, Marthe Lincel, a young blind woman newly apprenticed at a perfume factory in Nazi-occupied Provence, finds herself at the center of a Resistance cell. When tragedy strikes, she faces the most difficult choice of her life . . . and discovers a breathtaking courage she never expected.

A Shadow Life

Iris Nightingale, a junior British intelligence officer in wartime London, falls for a French agent. But after a secret landing in Provence results in terrible Nazi reprisals, he vanishes. When France is liberated, Iris is determined to uncover the truth. Was he the man he claimed to be?

Ingeniously interconnected, this spellbinding triptych weaves three parallel narratives into one unique tale of love, mystery, and murder. The Sea Garden is a vivid and absorbing chronicle of love and loss in the fog of war—and a penetrating and perceptive examination of the impulses and circumstances that shape our lives.

My thoughts:

I have traveled a lot these last few weeks and had ample opportunities to read during those long lay overs. Unfortunately not all I chose to read gave me much satisfaction therefore it was with some relief I found this title awaiting my return, a definite improvement!

As a journalist Deborah Lawrenson is no newcomer to the world of writing and in THE SEA GARDEN delivers a pleasant 3 part novellas which as you will find are tied to one of the most beautiful places in this world, Provence. 

I cannot say I have ever met anyone who has not enjoyed the wonderful array of colours, the unforgettable scenery and the truly unique scents of Provence. Such is my own memory of it that I can hear the cicadas, feel the heat of the sun whilst my palate remembers only too well the rich sharpness of the food. 

Lawrenson shares her home betwixt Kent and yes, you guess it, Provence and has learned to listen to the locals and their remembrance of times gone by, when men and women pledged to fight for their freedom whatever the cost.

Resistance was strong in the south of Provence and this story is set against Partisans' activities in The Calanques. 
Don't miss the author's notes to learn more about the region's historical background and her many sources, they are excellent.

From The Sea Garden to The Lavender Field on to A Shadow Life, Lawrenson paints a bittersweet story of love and loss as often lived in wartime, and brings just what these long winter evenings demands, entertainment. 
I can also tell you that if the first installment seemed stilled, the second engaged my attention and I found the third to be most gratifying.

Copacetic, well manicured (perhaps a tad too much) I found the three novellas satisfying if not stimulating.

4 Stars!

(Porquerolles island - photo source Google)

Meet the Author:

1. 
   
2. Deborah Lawrenson is a British novelist and journalist. She was educated at Blackheath High School, The British School of Brussels and Eastbourne College, and read English at Trinity College, Cambridge.
3. For more information visit her website (HERE)

1. 
   

Note: This was a library loan and any opinion reflected is entirely my own!