Completed: January 16, 2024
Rating: 9.5/10
Review: Laurel Millard is the youngest sibling in her family. Her father passed away when she was three and her Mom had never remarried. All her siblings are married with families of their own but Laurel still lives with her Mom (who is in her forties). Unbeknownst to their mother the siblings issue Laurel an ultimatum that as the youngest without a family of her own she must forgo her dream of one day marrying and having that family in order to take care of their Mother. In shock that they would expect that of her, Laurel holds out hope that she can actually find a good man who would not only love her but would also take her Mother under his household also. When the Atlanta Cotton Exposition of 1885 comes to town, Laurel's mother encourages her to apply to work there in the hopes that maybe she can meet a suitor. Laurel does meet a very wealthy Langdon Rochester who is heir apparent to his father's steam engine business. He is charming and wealthy and sets his sights on Laurel in order to appease his own mother who is pushing him to get married. Laurel also meets a young security guard named Willie who may not have two cents to rub together but has a good and kind heart. In becoming friends with Willie and his black friend Quincey who is a groundskeeper at the exposition, Laurel starts to see first hand the the division of class and education and racism that is prevalent in her city. As the exposition contends with some disasters the two young men Laurel has gotten to know are pitted against one another.
I really enjoyed this Christian fiction from a favorite author. Under the historical setting of the exposition the author explores themes of racism and bigotry, the have vs the have nots, friendship and integrity, the desire in all humans to be loved and to belong, injustice and standing up for what is right. The characters were interesting and though sometimes Laurel might have seemed a tad naive and therefore frustrating, it would come from her sheltered life as a younger sibling in those times. Willie and Quincey's friendship was beautifully written, I thought, and the struggle, misunderstandings and turmoil that the situation they found themselves in really brought out what it might have been like back in that time. The love to hate character did his job well, I loved to hate the character. And though the ending was not a surprise the journey to get there was moving and thoroughly kept my attention.
Completed: January 23, 2024
Rating: 7.5/10
Review:
Completed: February 10, 2024
Rating: 9/10
Review: MacThomas Pockets is part of the Scottish Special Forces and has been hired by a film director he met on a plane to help get some of the action scenes right. Through this he meets Joe Sue, a recent Hollywood legend and her actor husband. And from this he is hired to become Joe Sue's bodyguard. As he gets to know Joe Sue, Pockets starts to see that the Joe Sue the public sees and the private Joe Sue are two very different people. Discovered as a young woman, Joe Sue has come from a hard, traumatic childhood that didn't necessarily change when she became a star. But her dream to have a child of her own is dwindling as she cannot carry a pregnancy to term. Trying to hide the past and present hurt she turns to pills to get her through the day. After several stints in various rehabs, Joe Sue is still struggling with her hidden addiction. As her husband's career is taking off, Joe Sue is left to deal with her present problems on her own. But she isn't really alone. Even after Pockets was no longer working for her, he kept up with what was going on with her and watched from afar.
This book asks the question "how far will you go in selfless acts to help someone you love?" and "are you willing to give up your own life to save that loved one?" The story goes back and forth between Joe Sue's voice and Pockets' voice and between past and present. At times I did have to reread a small portion when I wasn't paying attention. It was a heart wrenching, tough story that presented a lot of moral implications in actions that were taken. It definitely makes you think and there is a background thread of Christ sacrificing Himself for us woven into the story without it actually stating it outright but if you know, you know. It's a story of deep friendship, of commitment even when one party no longer wants the relationship. There is twists and turns that keep the story moving along. Charles Martin is a favorite author and I rated this a 4/5 on Goodreads with their 5 star rating system but an 9/10 on my own. What kept it from a 10 star read for me, was just the believability of some of the things that happened and a small, but still something that kept it from being that 10 star for me, was the odd names. It took me a long time into the story to get used to all the odd names and that kept it from being enjoyable for me as I'd had to pause and think about who the character was again. That's my own issue but it still detracted from the total enjoyment of the book for me. But still a powerful story that, as is the norm for Charles Martin books, made it so I couldn't pick up another book for a few days as I pondered this one.
Completed: February 15, 2024
Rating: 9/10
Review:
Completed: March 5, 2024
Rating: 9.5/10
Review: Nineteen year old Brenda Dubie works in her parents organ store and her dream is to attend a music school. Her young life is pretty easy, working at the store, practicing her organ and flirting with the young soldiers who are in town. Then in 1943, she meets Charlie Fish. At first he doesn't leave much of an impression. A Harvard educated mathematician, he is reserved and quiet, nothing like the fun loving soldiers she hangs out with. But keeps coming around the store to see her. In a short time they become a couple but his mild nature holds Brenda back from fully committing to him. Then Charlie is drafted into a special top secret military project where he gets very little time off. Working for the Manhattan Project, Charlie finds his life fully consumed. Soon he is assigned the task of designing a detonator without knowing what it is for. But as he continues to work on the project and the reality of what it is he is having a hand in building starts to become very real, Charlie starts to have reservations. His highly ethical nature is rising up, yet he is not allowed to talk to anyone, including Brenda, about it. As he struggles with his conscience, Brenda unaware of what the project is, urges him to be a man and step up to the task. If it helps the war effort, then what could be the problem? When the war is over Charlie ends up receiving a scholarship to get his PhD in physics, a dream as there is no way he could afford it. But it comes at a cost. As the guilt continues to lay ahold of both Charlie and Brenda of what they had a part of, Charlie quits school and the two build a life trying to make amends.
This is my second book by this author and I have loved both. I didn't really know what it was about when I bought it a couple of years ago, but funny that I happen to pick it up right when the movie "Oppenheimer" is all the buzz. The story is loosely based on the life Charles B. Fisk, who was a mathematician and world renowned organ maker. It explores the guilt and remorse that followed him throughout his life for his part in the development of the atomic bomb. It's a love story set in a time when payback and stopping the enemy was forefront in the minds of most Americans and most were willing to do what it took without really understanding or looking into the consequences of what producing such a weapon would have for the future. I learned a lot about a part of the WWII effort that I've never really understood before and, if truth be told, never really thought of at all. And that is the guilt that some of these ordinary people had to live with for their whole lives. They were not soldiers or military but ordinary people who had been drafted into the making of a horrendous, top secret weapon just because of the skills they possessed. In all honesty, I find it hard to believe why this book is not being talked about, or reviewed more. I did read another story that dealt with the making of the atomic bomb last year, "The Woman with Two Shadows, that explored the question of how the scientists working on the bomb could justify the end result. This one took the angle of the guilt that plagued some of them as the revelation of what they were using their talents for comes to light and their struggle to make sense of it. Very good read that held my attention with it's compelling and flawed characters and it's twists and turns based in history.
Completed: March 23, 2024
Rating: 9.5/10
Review:
Completed: March 30, 2024
Rating: 9/10
Review: Frankie McGrath is a young woman barely out of her teens from a well to do California family where they live a typical all American lifestyle. Image is everything in their circles and the men in the family serving their country are upheld highly. Women go to school and then marry and become mothers. That is the way of things. For various reason her father never did serve but has a family wall of heroes in his study of all the men in the family who served. When her brother Finley gets drafted to the Vietnam war everyone is very proud and throws him a huge going away party. But once he is gone, Frankie is at loose ends without her beloved brother and so she makes a rash decision to take her nursing degree and sign up with the Army Nurse Corp hoping to see her brother in Vietnam. Thinking her family would be proud, she is shocked when her father is angry and her mother is devastated. When she arrives in Vietnam she is immediately thrown into the middle of the destruction and horror of what the war really is. Nothing like the upbeat letters her brother had sent home. When she finally comes home she does not find the rest and peace she hoped for or deserved for her 2 years of service on the front. She comes home to a country divided, full of protests and is spat on when in uniform. Her parents refuse to talk about Vietnam and what she experienced. In fact, wherever she turns, people deny that women were even over in 'Nam. As the anger in her builds, Frankie fights a whole other battle within herself away from Vietnam that has everything to do with being in Vietnam.
This is the most talked about book at the moment in any of the fb book groups that I am a part of. The author first conceived of it more than 20 years ago but felt she wasn't, at that point in her writing, to do it justice. She finally wrote it now. It is intense. Very, very intense. So many trigger warnings but a story that must be told. I was just a child when this war was being fought and I really had no idea. The story for me had 3 parts: The first being the background of Frankie's life growing up in the idyllic American dream. Then her two tours in Vietnam as a combat nurse. And the last part being her experiences returning to a divided America who's government had been lying to them about the war. The author does not hold back on the horrors experienced by the soldiers or the medical teams that tried to save their lives. There is lots of descriptions of the combat and the injuries that came into medical units and what they had to do to save the men's lives. The author did a good job in telling the story of the women who were over in Vietnam helping to save lives and the strong friendships that were formed amongst the nurses and the medical teams and other relationships that were formed. She also did a really good job of relaying the experience of PTSD, from what I can tell as I've never had it or known anyone who did. But she was able to bring in my emotions as the characters experienced it in the story. It certainly opened my eyes to how easy it is to make wrong choices and decisions when experiencing and reliving the horrors that someone in combat does. I learned a lot about a war I really knew nothing of. The only thing that kept this from a 10 star read for me was I felt there was some repetition of things. I especially remember one specific paragraph that jumped out at me because I felt it was literally copied and pasted from an earlier part in the story. But that being said, it is an important book that finally tells the heartbreaking story of the women and and men who fought in an un-win-able, awful war and who for years to come were certainly not held as heroes.
DNF'd at page 75
Completed: April 20, 2024
Rating: 10/10
Completed: April 26, 2024
Rating: 9.5/10
