Aunt Crete's Emancipation by Grace Livingston Hill

 

There are very few books that I am willing to read more than once. Aunt Crete's Emancipation is one of them. I've read it several times and feel like picking it up again. 

Grace Livingston Hill is famous for her romance books published between 1877-1949. They are cozy books rooted in courtesy and courtship. I've read many of them and am impressed that each book is different from the others. So many times you run across an author with a story structure that causes them to be so similar that it seems only the names have been changed. That isn't true for Grace's books.

Aunt Crete's Emancipation is a complete departure from any of her other books. Aunt Crete is an old maid, somewhere in her fifties. One of her sisters got married and moved west. She eventually died, leaving a son. Aunt Crete is living with her other sister Carrie and her niece Luella. In the beginning, she resembles an aged Cinderella, being maid and housekeeper to her two selfish relatives.

A telegram arrives stating that the Western nephew Donald is coming for a visit. Luella and Carrie decide to leave for the coast immediately to avoid the "countrified" nephew. He gets off the train as they get on the train headed east. He takes note of them and the things they say to friends on the platform.

When Donald finds the house, he meets Aunt Crete whose generous and loving nature charms him. He has come into a great deal of money and decides to take Aunt Crete on her first vacation.

The transformation of a quiet mousey woman into a fashionable society lady is wonderful and the gentle humiliation of Carrie and Luella is definitely satisfying to the depths of the heart.

It's old-fashioned, but wonderful in its own right and worth the whole 99 cents you pay for it on Amazon Kindle. If you follow the provided link, I will make a few cents as it is an affiliate link.

Thank you for visiting with me. Happy reading.

Kathi 

Aunt Crete's Emancipation

The Paris Daughter by Kristin Harmel

 Elise and Juliette meet in Paris in Juliette's bookshop. Both of them are well into their pregnancies and Juliette found Elise while she was having early contractions. Juliette already had three children, two boys and a girl, while this was Elise's first child. 

Their friendship grew from this event. Both mothers gave birth to daughters, who even look similar to each other. Ruth, a Jewish woman, is also in the friendship who has two children of her own. 

When the Nazis take over France, the situation becomes dire for Ruth and her children. Ruth makes the extremely painful decision to send her children on one of the Resistance lines to be safely kept in Switzerland until the war is over. The children will be given new names and false identity papers in order to save their lives.

Elise is married to a high-profile artist with Communist leanings. He is eventually arrested and killed, being opposed to the Nazi regime. This puts Elise's life in jeopardy as the Nazis will think she shares her husband's ideology. But fleeing for her life with her two-year-old daughter will put both of their lives at risk. She has to make another kind of painful decision - to ask Juliette to keep Mathilde as if she were her own daughter. What with rationing and other strictures under Nazi control, this is not an easy ask, but Juliette agrees,

Elise runs for her life alone and agonizing over the loss of her daughter.

Everything goes as well as possible for Juliette's family until a stray bomb falls on her bookstore. Her husband, both sons, and one of the girls die in the explosion. Juliette buries her family and Mathilde in the family plot and moves to New York to begin again with the one remaining child.

Please read this book, as Kristin Harmel is an outstanding storyteller and I don't want to spoil everything by telling you more than I have done already.

I borrowed the book from my local library, but it is very reasonable on Amazon Kindle. If you follow the link I am posting here, You will get to read the story and I will get a few pennies, as this is an affiliate link.  The Paris Daughter

Thank you for visiting with me. Happy reading.

Kathi

The Last Flight by Julie Clark

 

Wow! This book is a roller coaster ride. 

Not everything I read is the newest book on the shelf. I'm a sucker for a great title. It doesn't matter how new it is. Whether that applies to this title, you have to decide. Anyway, it caught my attention.

Claire's marriage appears to be perfect - from the outside. Inside, her husband is abusive and her life is in danger. So Claire makes plans to disappear, to give herself a head start on a new life. 

When she manages to get away to the airport, she meets another woman whose life seems to be in as much turmoil as her own. They decide to swap plane tickets and purses, completely throwing off anyone who might be on their trail.

Eva, the second woman boards a plane to Puerto Rico in Claire's place and the plane crashes in the Gulf, taking with it everyone on board. Now Claire can't go back even if she wanted to. 

What sort of life and what challenges has she inherited? I would love to tell you, but that would mess up your enjoyment of the read. Maybe you will pick up the clues sooner than I did, but the last few pages will surprise you.

If you follow this link to Amazon.com and purchase the book, I will make a few pennies as it is an affiliate link. It is available for free if you have Kindle Unlimited. The Last Flight

Thank you for visiting with me. Happy reading.

Kathi

A Secret in the Keys by Hope Holloway

 Thirty-four years and three grown daughters later, Rebecca Foster's husband wanted a divorce. 

Beck was devasted. Then she receives an invitation from her aunt to a "Celebration of Life" down in the Florida Keys. Her aunt has never been in touch with her for several decades, and Beck wonders why she would ask her for a visit now.

Beck spent her first nine years on Coconut Key and feels like she's come home. Two of her daughters follow her there. But the biggest -well, one of the biggest - surprise comes in the last few pages of the book, which brings us to the second book in the series. (More to come on that.)

This story doesn't have just one secret that comes to light. It is full of secrets that change each woman's life in dramatic ways.

This is book one in the Coconut Key series. I am halfway through the second one and will very likely finish every one of them. I love the characters. And, boy, are they characters! 

If you have Kindle Unlimited, you can read the book for free.

If you use the affiliate link provided below and purchase the book, I will make a few pennies. 

Thank you for visiting with me. Happy reading.

Kathi

A Secret in the Keys

The Room on Rue Amelie by Kristin Harmel

 Most of the books I read have satisfying endings. Maybe this one has one, but all of the main characters are dead by the end. World War II did not guarantee a long and happy life.

Kristin Harmel has written a number of books about World War II in France. This one takes place in Paris. Ruby is an American who fell in love with a Frenchman, Marcel Benoit. She married him and moved to France while Hitler was on the rise and beginning to acquire the countries around Germany. No one believed he would go so far as to aim for France. No one believed he would send French people away to work or death camps.

Ruby's world is first upended by the death of her husband who was working for the Resistance. Then she promises to take care of the teenage Jewish girl Charlotte next door. Charlotte's parents never thought they would be arrested - after all, they were French. 

Ruby begins to help hide English and American pilots who were shot down and send them on through the line out of France, maybe to Spain, maybe to the coast where they would be picked up by English boats. 

Charlotte also gets involved in the Resistance in her own way, helping forge false papers for those fleeing for their lives.

If you enjoy stories about World War II, you can't go wrong reading books by Kristin Harmel. She gives you the feeling that you are there taking part in the fight for liberation.

If you follow the link below to Amazon.com, I will make a few cents on your purchase of the book since it is an affiliate link. If you have Kindle Unlimited, you can read it for free.

The Room on Rue Amelie

Thanks for visiting with me. Happy reading,

Kathi 

Avid Reader

 

BibBornem, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

When I was young, I read so much that my mother would set the kitchen timer for an hour and tell me, "You WILL go out and play until this rings."

I haven't changed much since then, and I am much older now.

What I would like to do with this blog is to tell you about the books I read. I plan to give a short summary of the stories and my impressions of the story.

Just so you understand, I don't keep reading if a book doesn't hold my interest, so I'll mostly be sharing stories that I enjoy, stories that draw me in and keep me there.

I will add links to the book as it's found on Amazon.com so you can read the ones that sound like you would like them too.

My favorite genres are historical fiction, mystery, and sometimes science fiction. I can get lost in time travel stories and what Heinlein would call "future histories". I am known to wander through the adult, young adult, and children's sections of the library. You never know what I might come up with.

So hang on. We might be pacing the floor with David Baldacci or relaxing in an arm chair with Beverly Lewis.

Thanks for visiting with me.

Kathi