A fascinating glimpse into the world of design, the healing power of art, and the importance of women’s friendships.
Distraught over her grandmother’s death, Heather Mackenzie discovers that her beloved Nan—a woman who never sewed a stitch in her life—has left her a peculiar gift: a box of exquisitely embroidered, pearl-encrusted flowers. In her quest to discover her grandmother’s secrets, Heather will find much more than she had bargained for.
Robson’s (Goodnight from London, 2017) novel shifts deftly between Heather’s world, as she travels from Toronto to London in 2016, and Nan’s world, giving meticulous attention to the historical detail of post–World War II London. With everything from sugar and tea to heat and light strictly rationed, Ann Hughes, Heather’s grandmother, has done her best to make her drab house happy, but it's tough going. A talented embroiderer and dressmaker to the royal family, Ann’s work for Norman Hartnell, the premier dressmaker in England, offers an elegant respite from grim reality. Luckily, Miriam Dassin has decided to immigrate to London from Paris, where she, too, has worked as a superb embroiderer at the house of Christian Dior. Although haunted by her memories of Nazi persecution and imprisonment at Ravensbrück, Miriam secures a job at Hartnell House, befriends Ann, and moves into her house. As Princess Elizabeth and Lt. Mountbatten’s nuptials approach, the women of Hartnell House cut, stitch, and embellish her gorgeous wedding gown. Fortune seems to finally smile on the women, as Ann meets the dashing Jeremy Brackett-Milne and Miriam captures the eye of journalist Walter Kaczmarek. Yet they must avoid the snares of spies eager to steal and publish the designer’s patterns before the wedding. Untangling the threads of these remarkable women’s lives, Heather, too, just may find love.
A fascinating glimpse into the world of design, the healing power of art, and the importance of women’s friendships.Pub Date: Dec. 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267495-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.
Doerr presents us with two intricate stories, both of which take place during World War II; late in the novel, inevitably, they intersect.
In August 1944, Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a blind 16-year-old living in the walled port city of Saint-Malo in Brittany and hoping to escape the effects of Allied bombing. D-Day took place two months earlier, and Cherbourg, Caen and Rennes have already been liberated. She’s taken refuge in this city with her great-uncle Etienne, at first a fairly frightening figure to her. Marie-Laure’s father was a locksmith and craftsman who made scale models of cities that Marie-Laure studied so she could travel around on her own. He also crafted clever and intricate boxes, within which treasures could be hidden. Parallel to the story of Marie-Laure we meet Werner and Jutta Pfennig, a brother and sister, both orphans who have been raised in the Children’s House outside Essen, in Germany. Through flashbacks we learn that Werner had been a curious and bright child who developed an obsession with radio transmitters and receivers, both in their infancies during this period. Eventually, Werner goes to a select technical school and then, at 18, into the Wehrmacht, where his technical aptitudes are recognized and he’s put on a team trying to track down illegal radio transmissions. Etienne and Marie-Laure are responsible for some of these transmissions, but Werner is intrigued since what she’s broadcasting is innocent—she shares her passion for Jules Verne by reading aloud 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A further subplot involves Marie-Laure’s father’s having hidden a valuable diamond, one being tracked down by Reinhold von Rumpel, a relentless German sergeant-major.
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.Pub Date: May 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-4658-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
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