Mercy Road

Mercy Road  by Ann Howard Creel  283 pages

This novel takes place in 1918. America has entered the Great War, but it hasn’t affected the Favier’s of Kentucky. They are kept quite busy with their thoroughbread horse farm. Arlene, the oldest child, is happy caring for the horses and cannot imagine any other lifestyle---no matter what her mother thinks. That is until a fire comsumes their home and takes the life of her father. Thankfully, the horses are spared. Arlene is sure that her father left the family in financial security and the stud services will help to pay for what they need.

Unfortunately, Dad didn’t do that.  Now the family is virtually destitute and with stud services drying up (no pun intended), Arlene realizes that she will have to find employment to care for her mother and brother.

Looking for work is not easy. Young women of that era do not work outside the home. Widening her scope, Arlene heads to the largest nearby city, Cincinnati. There she finds the American Women’s Hosptial, a privately-supported orgainziation that is as desperate for ambulance drivers as much as Arlene needs work. After an extensive interview, Arlene joins the all-female team of doctors and nurses headed for France, where the fighting is the heaviest.

Arlene goest through training that will teach her everything about the ambulances. There she meets Cass and they become friends, watching each other’s backs and helping each other.  The scenes of the ambulance convoys driving to the front are the scenes of nightmares. The author, Ann Howard Kreel, does a great job describing the sights, sounds and smells of war.  This reader felt as if she was there, but there was little tension that I felt a war scene should have.

I was disappointed that Arlene didn’t meet Ernest Hemingway, who was also an ambulance driver during World War I, but he was stationed in Italy, not France. But Arlene does meet another rake, an officer who takes no as a challenge, Felix Brohammer.  He is a smarmy jerk who believes every woman wants him. He sets his hat on Arlene.

Nothing about Felix attracts her. She would rather concentrate on her job and the bonus that she is promised if she stays the entire course. However, she does run into an old heartthrob from back home, Jimmy.

I was confused a bit by the title. I thought “Mercy Road” was the actual name of a road. Instead it’s a euphemism for the road she and the other girls are traveling.  Based on the points I covered in the review,  “Mercy Road” receives 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

Lady Clementine

Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict 336 pages

Fans of Melanie Benjamin’s “The Aviator’s Wife” and Paula McClain’s “A Paris Wife” are going to love Marie Benedict’s latest novel, “Lady Clementine.”

Clementine is the wife of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. One of the many things I learned about is that the pronunciation of her name rhymes with “Josephine.”

When Clemmie and Winston first meet, it is love at first sight. She becomes his “Cat” and he her “Pug,” and they refer to their children as their “kittens.” It is a sweet love story set among the backdrop of two world wars and countless other strifes. They marry in 1908.

Readers will get to know a Winston Churchill as we have never known him before: sensitive, insecure, a neglected child that lurks below the surface, a man who depends on his wife in so many ways, especially politics. In the political arena, Clemmie often reminded me of Mary Todd Lincoln. It was heartbreaking to read. Clemmie shares those same traits and experiences. He suffered from fatherly neglect and an overprotective mother; she from motherly neglect and and absent father. And if the rumors were true, the father she barely saw wasn’t her father at all. But when they are with each other, they find they can be their true selves.

Winston admires Clemmie for her assertiveness, her willingness to speak her mind and to learn about the politics he so greatly enjoys. The novel is written in first person from Clementine’s point of view, but Winston is rarelu out of the picture. it is truly a novel about the woman behind the man.

We watch Clemmie struggle with her alcoholic and promiscous mother, with her own motherhood as she lacks maternal instincts, with the ups and downs of her most unusual marriage, the death of a child, Winston’s adoration of his mother, her need to prove herself worthy in everything she does, and the feelings of failure that haunt her.

A remarkable story of a remarkable woman that history, or at least American-told history, has chosen to virtually forget. That’s a shame. Therefore,  “Lady Clementine” receives 6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

The Vineyards of Champagne

The Vineyards of Champagne by Juliette Blackwell   416 pages

If I don’t get my Christmas cookies baked this year (2019), it’s Juliette Blackwell’s fault. She has written another compelling novel that had to be read as opposed to baking.

The story takes place in, and below, in France’s Champagne region. I first learned about the numerous cave systems that run throughout the area when I read Kristin Harmel’s “The Winemaker’s Wife.” Fascinating reading.

This story has one of my favorite storytelling devices: dualing timelines.  The present day starts off in California’s Napa Valley. Recently widowed Rosalyn Acosta, a wine rep for Small Fortune Wines, is begin sent to Reims, France, to call on the smaller growers there in hopes of gaining the rights to represent them in the States. There are only two drawbacks to this assignment. First, Rosalyn doesn’t want to go to France, Paris in particular. It was where she and her late husband, Dash, honeymooned.  Second, Rosalyn abhors champagne.

On the flight to Paris, Rosalyn lives every long-distance flyer’s nightmare. A chatty seatmate in first class.  Turns out that the seatmate, Emma, is also headed to Reims. With her she has letters from Emile Legrand, that date to World War I. The letters are are between Emile and Lucie, a childhood friend,and Doris, Emile’s marraine de guerre, or war godmother. Women who wrote to the soldier’s that didn’t have no one back home. Emma knows that to get the complete story, she must find other letters. Letters that have been sitting in attics, backs of closets, in tiny museums for decades. That is her quest and it’s clear early in the novel, that Emma pretty much well gets what she wants.

As Rosalyn is reluntanctly brought into Emma’s quest, she becomes fascinated with how the people of the Champagne moved into the cave system in order to avoid the German bombs that fell incessantly. They had schools, shops, resturants, everything that was accessible above ground.

So now Rosalyn has two goals while she is there: Land some new accounts and help Emma translate the letters.

I enjoyed reading what life was like in the caves. It sounds rather romantic, but the facts lead to a different conclusion. I really enjoyed this novel and “The Vineyards of Champagne” receives 6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

Far Side of the Sea

Far Side of the Sea by Kate Breslin    384 pages

 

I always look forward to a new Kate Breslin novel. I can always depend on lots of intrigue with some romance and a dash of faith.  Her latest novel, “Far Side of the Sea,” doesn’t disappoint in those areas.

 

We last saw Lieutenant Colin Mabry at the end of her previous novel, “Not by Sight,” returning from WWI, injured physically and mentally. Suffering from what was then termed shell-shock (now it’s PTSD), Colin is haunted by the memories of being trapped underground after a tunnel collapse in which he loses a hand. He is the lone survivor.

 

Now he’s decoding messages for M18 in a small outpost outside London. The job is routine, but it’s what Colin needs right now. Then he decodes a message that leaves him breathless. A message from the woman he left behind, the woman he believed was dead, the woman whom he never told how he felt.

 

He travels to Paris to meet Jewel Reyer. But it’s not Jewel, but her half-sister, Johanna. Johanna is in search of Jewel and believes that she can lead her to their father, a man she has only met once. As Colin and Johanna work to find Jewel, sparks start to fly. Colin believes he loves Jewel, but as tensions rise, he must admit that he is not sure of how he really feels.

 

Everything that makes a great read is there, yet I found I was disappointed in the tale. While there is high adventure, I didn’t feel that there weren’t any unforeseen twists that took my breath away. And throughout the whole book, I felt like I was missing something. Maybe is that I really didn’t remember Colin from “Not by Sight.”  Therefore, “Far Side of the Sea” receives 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

The girl you left behind

The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes                 Audio Book:  13 hours, 30 mins.        Hardback Book: 639 pages                        

The story begins in a little village in France during the German Occupation of WWI.    German troops have moved in to the surrounding countryside during the occupation of France during WWI and are keeping the French population under their control.    The Kommandant brings some of his troops into town and forces the local hotel owners to accommodate them and he orders the woman in charge, Sophie, to prepare meals for them in the hotel’s restaurant.    The French people are starving subsisting on meager bits of food the can scrounge together because the invading German army has taken all of their food, their livestock and pretty much anything else they see and want.    The people walk around weak and in a daze from hunger.     When Sophie tells the Kommandant there is nothing to cook for them the Kommandant says he will have supplies brought in for her to cook for them.   Refusal means death.   Cooking for them means suspicion of aiding the enemy from all the townsfolk.    Fearing annihilation of her sister and her children as  well as Sophie herself, she decides to comply without a fight.    The first night she and her sister are dizzy from all the wonderful smells of succulent meat and vegetables wafting through the kitchen.     After preparation and serving, Sophie and her sister have to sit down because they are weak to near passing out from their immense hunger.    The Kommandant comes to thank them and seeing them about to faint drooped over the chairs in the kitchen, he asks if they are sick?   Sophie tells him how weak with hunger they are and that the fumes of the food are making them limp with desire to eat.    He tells her to eat as if he expected they would.    Sophie thanks him and asks if the children can also eat.   He thinks it over but agrees that yes, the children must eat as well.   Sophie sees what she believes to be genuine kindness in the man.   For the time the Germans are there Sophie and her family are no longer without food.   They also share what they can with the townspeople but are treated with distrust as if they are collaborating with the enemy.   From that point on most of the townspeople, even though they are starving, too, will not accept anything from Sophie calling her a traitor and a prostitute and worse.    The baker will not offer her good bread but only a loaf he has added a disgusting ingredient to – think of the pie in the film, “The Help.”   Yeah, that ingredient.    The Kommandant  is particularly drawn to a painting Sophie’s artist husband painted of her.    He often stops to look longingly at it and discuss art and the school her husband studied at, etc.   Sophie’s husband and her sister’s husband both joined the war effort and word has got back to Sophie that her husband has been captured and taken to Dachau.   It comes to Sophie that perhaps due to their friendship, the Kommandant might help her to bring her husband back to her.     She begs, pleads, cries, then she offers him the paiting of her.    The Kommandant tells her if they weren’t friends the things she is asking of him could warrant a death sentence for her.   Seeing that he has said they are friends, she knows this may be her only chance to free the man she loves.   Finally she offers herself.   The Kommandant tells her it has been 3 years since he last saw his wife.   Finally it is agreed upon – she will come to him.    Lots of things happen in this exciting tail of war, loss and upheaval.   Jojo Moyes tells the story as if she is right there describing everything so perfectly you feel the hunger, you feel the terror, her verbal repertoire is so vast she can even make you smell the things both good and bad – the aromas from the kitchen or the smell of blood when someone or something is killed.   She truly conveys the war is hell feel and brings the reader right into the midst of the action happening on every page.  The story continues into present day with a huge tie-in bringing it all together with protagonists and antagonists at every turn.    A gripping story, haunting in its way.   You will continue to think about this one and dwell on the characters after you finish it.    I hope this book is made into a film someday it is a fabulous story and would be great on screen as well as the written page.   Applause for Jojo Moyes.   Another excellent story.

As the Poppies Bloomed

As the Poppies Bloomed by Maral Boyadjian   282 pages

Anyone who is familiar with my musings on the books I have read knows that I often pick up a book based on its title and/or its dust jacket.  As the Poppies Bloomed is one such book. Based on the title, and to some degree the cover art, I thought I was going to be reading a book that took place in Germany or France during World War I.  The story takes place on the eve of the Great War but takes place in the Ottoman Empire. I was somewhat familiar with the Armenian Genocide from what I’ve learned by following author Chris Bohjalian’s career and reading his wonderful novels.

It’s 1913, somewhere in the Ottoman Empire that I couldn’t place. The landscape reminded me of the Middle East. It’s the story of a village, in particular one young girl, Anno.

Readers will learn about the Armenia customs, especially in regard to male-female relationships and marriage. I found it quite interesting and not unlike other cultures’ beliefs at the near-beginning of the 20^th century.

I had a hard time getting into the story, mainly because I was unfamiliar with how to pronounce the characters’ names and locations but also because many names began with the same letter and I couldn’t keep them straight. I kept having to flip back and make sure I know who each character was in relation to Anno.

Another flaw was not the inevitable ending. The story could only end one way to have an authentic feel, but the Epilogue takes place in 1976. It made me shake my head in disbelief.

Still there were times I was totally captivated by Anno and her village’s story. I even gasped a few times at the surprises that author Boyadjian provided that kept me reading. It took me almost two weeks to read this novel and that, plus the issues listed above forces me to give As the Poppies Bloomed gets 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir  by Jennifer Ryan   384 pages

Before she decided to write a novel, debut author Jennifer Ryan was a nonfiction book editor. Her novel, The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir, shows remarkable talent for a beginner. I believe she is going to be a writer with many national bestsellers if her first outing is any indication. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not perfect, but I believe that this work shows incredible talent.

The story takes place in England beginning in March 24 and ends on September 6, 1940, as England is inching closer and closer to joining the world at war. The local vicar of Chilbury has decided that since no men are available to add their voices, that the choir should be suspended. The village women completely disagree with the vicar.  

It’s not easy, what with the shortages and all. But they form their own little Band of Sisters and vow to keep going. This is their story: the struggles, the heartaches, deceptions, romances, sacrifices.

The story is narrated in an epistolary manner, through journal/diary entries and letters. An ensemble, five different women, narrate the events of the five-and-a-half month time period. And boy is there a lot going on!  At first it was difficult to tell the speakers apart, but after about 50 pages, it was very easy to discern each individual voice.

According to her bio, Ryan based her novel “on the stories of my grandmother who was twenty when the Second World War began, mostly hilarious tales about bumping into people in the blackout, singing in the air raid shelters, and the freedoms women had during the war years--the excitement and romance. She also belonged to a choir, and her choir stories dramatized the camaraderie and support they all took away; the knowledge that they weren't in this alone. The The Chilbury Ladies' Choir uses my dear grandmother's stories as its backdrop.”

I enjoyed the highs and lows the ladies endured. Their last performance at the book’s ending satisfying, but the story seemed to wrap up a bit too quickly after that. For this reason and the earlier difficulty, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. I would lie to add that I would like to see these characters again, perhaps in future novel. I want to know how, and if, Mrs. Tillings; Venetia Winthrop and her younger sister, Kitty; Sylvie, the Jewish refugee, and the local midwife, Edwina Paltry, they make it through WWII.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review. 

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson   480 Pages

Erik Larson’s latest book provides me with my second reason why she has no desire to ever, ever take a cruise. The first was all the books I’ve read on the Titanic.

Like Larson, I knew a bit about the sinking the luxury liner Lusitania, but after reading his book, I realize that my knowledge was skimpy at best, embarrassingly wrong at worse. I had always thought that the sinking of the Lusitania and other ships carrying American citizens is what propelled the United States into the Great War. Wrong. President Woodrow Wilson was a cool cucumber after the boat sunk, with the loss of life reaching a total of 1,198 of the 2,000 souls who were on board.

The ship left New York bound for Liverpool, England, on May 1, 1915. She was sunk by a torpedo form the German U-20 on May 7. When she sailed from New York harbor, she was booked to capacity. “This was, according to the New York Times, the greatest number of Europe-bound passengers on a single vessel since the year began.” Rather remarkable given that the war had been raging for ten months.

Larson gives reader lots of background information. I admit to discovering more about the politic of both Germany and the U.S., more about U-boats, and more details about the Lusitania than I ever though I would. Larson is an expert at narrative nonfiction that pulls readers into the story.

And while he is adept at making some boring topics interesting, his true success comes into his details about people. The U-20 commander, Schwieger, was a cold-blooded SOB. He didn’t think twice about sinking boats of all sizes, even those carrying large number of women and children. His main goal on each mission was to put as much tonnage as he could on the bottom of the world’s oceans and seas. The Lusitania’s captain, William Thomas Turner, was a credit to his position. I think I would have like him.

The parts of the book that I enjoyed most were the one about the passengers. Readers get to know several of the passengers. Larson paints vivid pictures of life aboard the liner.

The entire book leads up to the moment that a U-20 torpedo strikes the boat. The horrendous details that follow are enough to give readers nightmares. The sinking read much like the Titanic sinking: people jumping from the ship, the lifeboats (there were enough) not functioning properly, the debris that littered the ocean surface after the boat dropped below the waterline. To me, the most horrifying scenes were the people floating upside down in the water. They had put their lifejackets on incorrectly, thereby causing their heads to be forced underwater.

I give Dead Wake 4 stars out of 5. The details of the ships and the politics were a bit much for me. I think they could have been condensed somewhat. 

All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque  304 pages

Eighteen-year-old Erich Paul Remark was draft into the German Army to fight in World War I. He was sent to the Western Front in July 1917. There he experienced the horrors of war, as did many thousands of other young men on both sides. On July 31 he was wounded (shrapnel in the left leg, right arm, neck) and sent to an Army hospital where he spent the rest of the war.

Afterward he became a teacher until he took a leave of absence in 1920 to begin a literary life. He changed his name to Erich Maria Remarque. Maria in honor of his mother and Remarque, the traditional German spelling of his name

In 1929, he published his third novel, All Quiet on the Western Front. In the novel, eighteen-year-old Paul Baumer is a young German soldier fighting in the trenches in France. Like the Southerners in Gone With the Wind, Paul and his buddies head for the front with glorious ideas of quickly over-running the French. Instead, they are horrified by the blood-drenched trenches, the constant shelling, the mud, and the general misery of life at the Front.

When Paul returns home on leave, he is disgusted by the inaccuracies that people have of the battle---much like the American troops endured during Vietnam.

I first read this novel over summer break as a teen. Considered the greatest war novel of all time, I have to concur. Remarque takes readers into the trenches with him and, through his eyes, readers can experience the tragedy of war. One of things that make it stand out is that the point of view is from a German solider.

Remarque probably suffered from shell shock, or PTSD, as we know it today. I believe that he wrote to try to exorcize the demons that haunted him. He wrote nine other novels, all concerning war, but All Quiet on the Western Front is the one for which he is most remembered.

6 out of 5 stars.

Not by Sight

Not by Sight by Kate Breslin  375 pages

Kate Breslin’s second novel, Not by Sight, is based on one of my favorite Bible quotes from 2 Corinthians 5:7, “For we live by faith, not by sight.” Faith, on many level, plays a big role in this wonderful story.

Breslin uses this quote to return to WWI and the horrors that England is facing. The main protagonist, Grace Mabry, has every reason to feel more than patriotic. Her twin brother Colin is fighting in the trenches of France. Grace believes that every able-bodied man should be in uniform. Grace herself is in uniform; she’s joined the Women’s Forage Corps (WFC). But her reasons for joining are not strictly patriotism.

Before she leaves for the English country to bale hay for the calvary, she sneaks into one of aristocracy’s ball and boldly hands one a rakish society member, Jack Benningham, a white feather.  The white feather is a sign of cowardice. Jack is furious.

The story jumps ahead three months. Grace has arrived at her assignment with her maid and fellow enlistee, Agnes. As Grace learns what it means to do physical labor, she is intrigued by the estate’s owner, whom the other girls in the WFC refer to as “The Tin Man.” When she stumbles upon him relaxing near the manor house, the novel’s main plot is set in motion.

An excellent read. I really enjoyed learning about a little-known role women played during The Great War.

Either I missed it, or there is a big hole in the story. The lord of the manor has hardly been out the house since he arrived to convalesce from wounds he received while conducting his military service. He’s only been there three months, yet the villagers, the farmhands, and even the WFC girls have given him a Phantom-of-the-Opera-esque mystique, which didn’t read true to me. Supposedly no one knows he’s there, yet he has this reputation. And that’s the reason I give Not by Sight 4 out of 5 stars.

Echoes

Echoes by Danielle Steel    464 pages

From Publishers Weekly: “Europe in the throes of WWI and II serves as backdrop for this latest dose of melodrama from megabestseller Steel. Bookish, raven-haired beauty Beata Wittgenstein meets dashing French nobleman Antoine de Vallerand while on vacation in Switzerland and falls passionately in love. An affluent German Jew whose strict Orthodox parents forbid marriage outside the faith, Beata knows that a union with a Catholic from war-rival France is out of the question. But love trumps all, and shortly after returning to Germany, Beata defies her family, arranging to meet Antoine in Switzerland, where they marry. When WWI ends, the de Vallerands return to Germany and live happily with their young daughters, Amadea and Daphne. Antoine manages the stables at an old friend's castle, the perfect job for him, but just as all seems well, he's thrown from a headstrong horse. Meanwhile, Hitler's anti-Semitic sentiments spread across Europe, and Beata fears that even her half-Jewish daughters are no longer safe. Devout Catholic Amadea plans to become a Carmelite nun, but as the Third Reich's campaign of cruelty escalates, she finds a greater sense of purpose outside the convent walls. There's enough romance to keep readers going, but fans who prefer the glitz and glamour of Steel's contemporary settings may be nonplussed, and the abrupt disappearance of several major characters leaves giant holes in the narrative.”

 

Excellent read although has a few major holes.

The Cartographer of No Man's Land

The Cartographer of No Man’s Land by P. S. Duffy             595 Pages

I won a copy of The Cartographer on No Man’s Land back in the early Fall 2014 from Shelf Awareness. Immediately, I read the first couple of chapters. As I read, I knew that this was a book that I want to save until holiday vacation time. The beauty and depth of those first chapters made me aware that this was not a novel to be rushed through---although at times it was tough---but to be savored and enjoyed. This debut novel is all those things…and more

It’s 1917. World War I is raging across Europe, especially in the trenches in France. Back in Nova Scotia, Angus McGrath sails the coasts fishing and hauling as his father has done before. Ebbin, his brother-in-law, joined up and hasn’t been heard from in months. His wife, Hettie, is beside herself with grief.

 Angus enlists, going in search of Ebbin. He has been assured that he will not be in the thick of battle, but that he will be behind the lines, probably based in London as a cartographer. This surprises Angus as no one has ever thought his drawings were good.

Seems the Canadian recruiters are much like the American recruiters. They’ll promise young people anything to get them to sign on the dotted line. Needless to say, Angus winds up in the trenches, where replacement officers are needed.

Readers will get a true sense of war from this story. The landscape is decimated and dangerous by bomb craters, divided by the trenches and barbwire. The towns and farms are deserted. Forests are charred. Artillery shells burst around and over the soldiers. Clouds of gas roil obstruct the ghastly view.

Oscillating between Angus’s point of view and what’s happening back home, readers can almost get a true sense of the war and its toll on the families.

Although Duffy is a journalist, this haunting, debut novel is beautifully written and seductive as it pulls readers further and further into the story.  I would give The Cartographer of No Man’s Land six stars if I could.

Maisie Dobbs

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear, 294 pages

Set primarily in 1929 with flashbacks to World War I, Maisie Dobbs follows the titular character as she sets out to become a private detective. The fact that Maisie is a woman detective is enough of an anomaly for the time period, but she's also got a therapeutic approach to her profession and a background that takes her from a job in service at a stately manor (think Downton Abbey) to attendance at Oxford's college for women to nursing wounded soldiers in the Somme.

There is a mystery in this book (a client seeks her help to prove that his wife is cheating on him, which eventually leads Maisie to another, bigger mystery), but that doesn't seem to be the main point in Winspear's novel. Rather, the goal of this gentle mystery seems to be the introduction of Maisie as a character, and Winspear does that well. Maisie comes to life as someone who defies stereotypes, both by forging ahead in a "man's" career choice and by still being unsure enough of herself that she doesn't know how to describe her job on the metal plate outside her office. The other characters don't seem nearly so three-dimensional, though one would hope that they continue to develop as Winspear's Maisie series continues. Recommended for readers who enjoy historical fiction and a gentle mystery.