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This book made my heart so happy. I found myself chuckling and grinning at various points throughout the book. I listened to the audiobook during a particularly stressful week, and I felt my anxiety ease every time I would get a chance to listen to this book. A real winner!
Eva D'orsay has left her very sizable estate to Grace Monroe. However, Grace has no idea who her benefactress is. Thus begins a story of two women, one a hotel maid prior to WWII, the other a 1950's London socialite whose marriage is struggling. Chapters go back and forth between Grace and Eva and slowly the tale of these two and their connection becomes clear. Each of their stories, individually, is very interesting but how they come together is even more fascinating. Perfume is the driving force that will solve this mystery between these two vastly different women. The settings for this historical fiction novel unfolds in New York, Paris, and London during the aftermath of WWI and WWII. Unique plot with rich character development and depth. Descriptive, elegant writing style.
If you have ever lived in the City of Detroit, you certainly won’t want to miss reading Drew Philp’s memoir of refurbishing a house in the Poletown section of Detroit beginning in 2007. Philp, a young and idealistic graduate of the University of Michigan, decides to make his home in the city to make a difference and lead a more authentic life. His fascinating story of rebuilding the house he bought at an auction details the crumbling surroundings of homes in the neighborhood, suspicious fires, crack houses on his street, break ins, police harassment and more but, it is also the story about the wonderful neighbors that befriend him and the tight community that exists set amid this neighborhood of 'urban prairie' with a few houses here and there. It is a hopeful story of neighbors helping out neighbors, watching out for each other and the strong connections they form.
The Queen Anne styled home he purchased was basically a shell sitting on a crumbling brick foundation, missing windows, heat, water, electricity, and a very leaky roof. It makes the refurbishing of homes on This Old House look like a breeze. Through sheer determination and some help from his father and grandfather, Drew slowly begins the process of rebuilding his home after a rough start of removing 10,000 pounds of trash. Through recycling and restoring pieces that were given to him or even pilfering pieces out of abandoned houses, he gave his home a new life.
On second thought, even if you have never lived in the city, this is a book well worth the time to read on many levels from a history of the downfall of Detroit, to a single young man’s efforts to try and improve his city, to the strong interconnectedness of a community.
The author takes the reader back in time to the late 1800’s when Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse were locked in a legal battle over who invented the light bulb and therefore held the right to power the country . The author based his historical novel around many actual people including the young lawyer, Paul Cravath, who Westinghouse hired to represent him in the long legal fight against Edison and Nikola Tesla, the brilliant and tortured physicist.
Easy to read, riveting story with inventors, lawyers, hucksters, double dealings and greed-everything that will keep you turning the pages!
As historical fiction, the author weaves both fact and fiction into a fascinating story but unlike many other authors, Graham Moore provides a section of notes at the end where he separates facts from fiction and suggests further reading.
I knew little about this facet of history and found it to be educational and highly entertaining at the same time!
Set in the post-Civil War era, former Army Captain Jefferson Kidd makes his living reading to residents of various towns from the newspapers. During one of his readings, he is asked to bring a 10 year-old girl named Johanna, captive for four years among the Kiowa, to her aunt and uncle. She's the only survivor in her family from an Indian raid and because she was so young at the time of the kidnapping, she sees herself as a Kiowa and is very reluctant to allow the Captain to take her away.
Nonetheless, when Kidd does accept the responsibility to take her back to her aunt and uncle, the novel takes us on a 400-mile journey across Texas to get her home. The story is both about the physical voyage as well as the internal journey as they bond with each other. I highly recommend the book. The writing is really superb and the author captures the Wild West era perfectly. Most importantly, it is the relationship between the two characters that was unforgettable. Heartbreaking, tender, inspirational-the novel will stay with you a long time.
