The Wedding of the Century

In case anyone hasn't noticed yet, I love a good historical fiction novel.  When it a historical fiction novel about the British monarchy, I start to drool.  Which is why I was so flipping excited to discover Jennifer Robson's The Gown... About four months before it came out.  And then I had to wait.  And wait.  And wait.  While entering every early release contest I could find for the book (I didn't win any). And on top of that, the day the book came out, I was driving home from vacation and couldn't read!  It was a rough day, knowing that the book was sitting and waiting for me on my kindle and not being able to read it.  (Also, the cover is an amazing image from the wedding.)

But then I got home.  And I opened my kindle to page one, and I was lost.  If there's anything I love more than a good historical fiction novel, it's a novel where I'm so transported into the world and the characters' lives that it feels real, and Robson really managed to do that with The Gown.  And on that note, I think I'll actually tell you about the book that I loved so much.

The Gown has three point of view characters, Miriam, Ann, and Heather.  Heather's storyline takes place in 2016, the year that the Queen's wedding dress was on display at Buckingham Palace.  Her Nan has died unexpectedly, and among her things is a box labeled for Heather.  In that box are several beautiful pieces of embroidery, something that Heather didn't even know her Non knew hot to do.  After losing her job, Heather starts to look into the embroidery pieces and discovers that they are extremely similar to the embroidery on Queen Elizabeth II's wedding dress from November 1947, designed by Norman Hartnell.  Heather's journey then takes her to England on a search for more information about her grandmother.

Ann is in her early twenties in the story, and has worked at Hartnell's as an embroiderer for eight years, since she was fourteen.  She's risen up the ranks and gotten to the point where she is entrusted with the embroidery for gowns of increasing magnitude, such as for the Queen and Princesses on their 1947 tour of South Africa.  At the beginning of the book, she is living with her sister-in-law, Milly, but Milly emigrates to Canada, leaving Ann alone.  She befriends the French Miriam, who has left France after the war, and the two become roommates.  Their skill with a needle is undeniable, and so, after Princess Elizabeth and Phillip Mountbatten announce their engagement and Hartnell earns the commission, it is no surprise that Ann and Miriam are asked to create samples of the embroidery, then do the main embroidery on the Princess's wedding gown.  During this time, Miriam is struggling with not only being a survivor of Ravensbruck concentration camp, but hiding her Jewish heritage when her whole family is captured.  Ann and Miriam both meet young men, but one has a heart of gold, and one is only after the money he could earn if he got the scoop on the Princess's wedding gown.

And that's where I'll leave it so that I don't tell too much of the story.  Seriously, though, I absolutely adored this book.  You can feel the characters' heartbreaks and joys, and their worlds are multilayerd and textured.  I learned a lot about post-war England from a perspective that I don't normally look at.  There's also a lot of talk about what it means to be an artist.  Miriam is an incredible artist in the book, but she works through embroidery and collage.  A different medium, as Ann tells her once, does not make her less of an artist.  It definitely made me rethink how I approach some of my own knit and crochet project.  This book also, not going to lie, makes me want to learn how to embroider.  Luckily, the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court Palace offers online classes!

This is the first of Ms. Robson's books that I've read, but I'm definitely looking forward to reading more!  This is one book I'll be buying a physical copy of as well. 

#thegown #elizabethii #normanhartnell #embroidery #royalschoolofneedlework #phillipmountbatten #postwar #worldwarii #art #whatisart #readabook #queenvicsbookshelf #thetiarabroke #weddings #weddingdress 

Welcome to Shadow's Landing

One of my all-time favorite authors is Kathleen Brooks.  You all know her by now, I'm sure.  Keeneston is one of my favorite places to visit and to write about.  In January last year, Kathleen published Forever Devoted, which introduced us to an extended branch of the Davies clan.  The Faulkners of Shadow's Landing, South Carolina, are related to Marcy Davies--they're all descended from Marcy's brothers and been separated from the family through a rift deepened by the biggest Mother Faulkner of them all, Marcy's mother.  Kathleen told us we were getting a spin off series to center around the Faulkner cousins, and in October of last year (I'm a little behind the eight ball) we got that introduction.

Gavin Faulkner is a doctor who was introduced in Forever Devoted, as a friend of Layne's future husband, Walker Greene.  When Gavin and Walker turn to Layne for help, the dark sordid past comes out and bridges start to be built between the Faulkners and the Davies.  Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the two families are oddly similar, with the same strong characters and dedication.  Tinsley, one of the cousins, is perhaps the dreamiest of the entire extended clan as an artist.  Gavin is the first Faulkner to get  his happily ever after.

Saving Shadows opens on a dark and stormy night... in the middle of a hurricane.  Gavin goes out to secure his boat more firmly to his dock and finds that there is a woman clinging to the end.  He takes her in, and it's clear to his doctor sensibilities that the woman is hurt, and not from an accident.  When she wakes up, she can't remember who she is.  Gavin turns to his Davies cousins and their facial recognition software to figure out her identity, although he lets her try to remember her life as organically as possible.

She is Ellery St. John and the last thing that she remembers before waking up to Gavin giving her CPR is something swinging at her head.  As with most of Kathleen's books, someone is out to get her!  But that head wound has given Ellery retrograde amnesia, and Dr. Faulkner is adamant about not planting false memories.  As the story moves on you meet some of the memorable characters of Shadow's Landing, which include Bubba the Gator and Gator, who catches him.  Granger Fox is the sheriff, and Cord is his deputy--and his Grandmama had a very good brownie recipe apparently.  The Rose Sisters of Keeneston find their matches in Miss Winnie and Miss Ruby.  There's a prayer group who throws prayer books like ninja throwing stars!  Ellery doesn't have all the time she needs to remember organically, because she is the only suspect in a murder investigation.

Here's the big question, though?  Will Ellery remember before she becomes another ghost to haunt Shadow's Landing?

And seriously, who keeps cutlasses in candlesticks?

#shadowslanding #savingshadows #pirates #stjohnsrevenge #cutlassesinthecadlesticks #pieorcake #faulkners #gavinfaulkner #ellerystjohn #art #charleston #artgallery #kathleenbrooks #frombluegrasstobayou #readabook #queenvicsbookshelf #anewseries

A Brush With Death

It might seem strange that I'm starting off a new year with a book that could have so easily been a tragedy, but Marius Gabriel's The Ocean Liner is a book of new beginnings.  It's a beautiful story of a mix of fictional and historical figures to create a narrative that is beautiful and makes you really think about who you are and what your identity is.

With the SS Manhattan docked in Le Havre, France, in 1939, we begin our introductions to her cast of characters.  At the helm is Captain "Rescue" Randall, a real figure who managed to save a many lives over the course of his career.  While the story of the Manhattan in this book belongs to her sister ship and Captain,  SS Washington, Randall's cool thinking in the climax of the novel is critical to survival.  Already on board the Manhattan are cousins Rachel and Masha Morgenstern.  These two girls are in their early twenties and Jews escaping Germany.  Famous composer Igor Stravinsky boards with his companion Katherine Wolff.  Leaving behind the graves of his mother, wife, daughter and lover, he feels as if it were better that he die and join those he loves.  Arturo Toscanini, the conductor who redefined music, waits impatiently for his wife, Carla, ready to disembark if she does not arrive in time.  When she does, she tells him they will be separated as Toscanini has had many affairs with much younger women.  Also in Le Havre, Stravinsky is joined by Thomas Konig, a German member of the Hitler youth with a secret that could mean his death.  As these characters are waiting impatiently in Le Havre for the ship to leave, in Southampton, England, Mrs. Rose Kennedy is struggling to control her oldest daughter, the ill-fated Rosemary.  Rosemary has fallen in love with Cubby Hubbard, a musician, and he with her, but the Kennedy's know what Rosemary's life looks like as she struggles with learning disabilities, seizures, fits, and is unable to control herself.  Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy separate them.  Also in Southampton is Fanny Ward, an aging actress who has recently lost her daughter and is struggling to maintain her public image. 

Eventually the Manhattan leaves Le Havre, picks up her passengers from Southampton, and begins her journey across the Atlantic.  She doesn't realize that there is danger lurking in the ocean in the form of U-113, a German U-boat.  Second in command of the submarine is Rudi Hufnagel, who has an interesting connection to one of the Le Havre passengers.  As the Manhattan sets out to sea, she comes into the sights of U-113, despite being an American passenger ship.

It feels as if it takes a long time to get the the climax of this book, the confrontation between the Manhattan and U-113, but every minute of that book has you falling in love with her characters just a bit more.  From Rachel, disowned by her family for a romantic relationship, to Toscanini, struggling with loving his wife and being in love with nubile young women, even to Rudi, struggling with his Captain's hardcore belief in the Nazi ideals when he does not believe as firmly.  It makes for a lot of tension when everyone comes together.  Only one side is going to come out of this confrontation intact.

While I loved the character development and how this confrontation between ships makes each character reevaluate their lives, the end felt a bit fragmented and incomplete.  I wish the story had stopped when the survivors of the confrontation arrived in New York.  While it was nice to see how each of them went on to live their respective lives, it was small flashes when I wanted the whole story. 

The character I found myself most interested in during the story was Rosemary Kennedy (pictured to the left, from her debut in London, 1938).  I did not know a lot about her going into the book.  I knew she was JFK's sister, and that she'd had a lobotomy, but I hadn't spent any time really looking into the story.  When I did, after reading some of it in this book, I was heartbroken for the beautiful young woman that she had been.  In  today's world, there are probably a million things that could have helped her, but Rosemary was a victim of her time and her parent's ambition.  When she wasn't controllable, when she was a threat to the ambition of the Kennedy men, she was shut away and dealt with.  Rosemary is definitely someone that I want to learn more about, and will.

I would definitely recommend The Ocean Liner to anyone who likes historical fiction, or fiction in general.  There's not a great romance, and there's enough technical and war elements that I can see the book appealing to a great number of readers, male and female alike, of all ages.  The diverse cast of characters also presents the possibility of another reader connecting more with a different character.  For instance, an older reader like my grandmother may have identified more with Toscanini, Stravinsky, or even Fanny Ward, who are struggling with, to put it bluntly, being old.  (Well, maybe my Grandmother wouldn't have.  She had fire in her soul to the very end.)  Someone struggling with their religious or even sexual identity may like Thomas, Rachel, or even Masha better. 

Get out there and read a book!  Start your new year off with a bang!  Or some torpedoes.

#readabook #theoceanliner #mariusgabriel #toscanini #stravinsky #rosemarykennedy #thekennedys #ssmanhattan #worldwarii #germany #nazi #jews #hope #abetterfuture #americandream #ellisisland #queenvicsbookshelf #january2019 

Get Over The Lies

I cried the other day.

I cried because I couldn't really afford a bottle of nail polish without breaking out a credit card.  It didn't matter that I couldn't actually find the nail polish in question (OPI's Envy the Adventure from their Nutcracker collection), but just the fact that I wanted the nail polish and couldn't get it broke me a little bit.  Which is admittedly ridiculous.

So instead I bought a book.  I can hear you all screaming now:  "You couldn't afford nail polish, why did you buy a book?!?!"  I broke out the credit card for this one.  I was walking through Walmart after I left work on Thanksgiving, feeling really sorry for myself and like I wasn't good enough.  I went for socks, but I ended up walking by the book section and Rachel Hollis' Girl, Wash Your Face was sitting there.  It's been suggested to me before, and I got it.  

I never thought I'd be the person who likes self-help or personal development books, but I've found that they really do help.  They make me think, and sometimes realize that things aren't as bad as they seem to me.  

Girl, Wash Your Face was the book I needed that I didn't know I needed.  Each chapter takes a big "lie" that we tell ourselves, or that we allow ourselves to believe.  Hollis then shares her experience with that lie and what finally made it click that she wanted to change.  That's the big thing.  You can't change your life if you don't WANT to.  Like the "Lie: I'll Start Tomorrow" chapter.  You can say that all you want (I've said it three times this week) but tomorrow will never come if you don't really want it to.  

This book definitely changed how I'm going to approach things.  I'm not going to be perfect, but accepting that is defeating one of the lies itself.  Perfection isn't necessary.

I'll get home from work tonight, wash my face, head to bed, and make tomorrow the best day that it can be!  Or so I tell myself today.

I'd write more, but this book is one you need to read for yourself because your experience will be different from mine.  It all depends on where you are in your life!

#girlwashyourface #theliethetruth #wantit #liveabetterlife #rachelhollis #bewhoyouweremeanttobe #queenvicsbookshelf #readabook #makelistsiswearithelps.

What's Life Without a Little Risk?

Guys, I laughed harder at these books than I have in a long time.  That and one of the boys is a bit of an idiot and makes some REALLY bad choices but hey.  We aren't there yet. 

Autumn Reed first came onto my radar a few years ago when she was writing the Stardust series with Julia Clarke (which is also amazing and I highly recommend).  I was super excited when I saw the first book of the Risking It series pop up, but life took over a little bit and I didn't get a chance to read the books until the third and final book came out.  In a few ways, I'm a bit glad that I did wait.  I read all three books really quickly, like usual, but the first two end on notes that make you want the next book and I'm not known to be the most patient person out there.

Emma has just finished her finals and lets her friend drag her off to a popular club in Vegas at the beginning of Raising the Stakes.  Now, we are in Vegas.  What good would life be without a bit of a gamble?  It's just not Emma doing the gambling.  Nicholas, Shane and Cole, who all meet Emma that night, are the ones who make an unorthodox bet.  Shockingly, I'm sure, I'm not going to tell you what it is.  But needless to say when Emma finds out about it, she's not the happiest camper in the forest.  But boy, oh boy, she is a girl after my own heart and gets those three back.  Leaving them with their jaws on the ground, Emma heads home for the holidays.  Cole follows her there to act as the guys' representative, and Emma forgives them.  Barely. 

In the accurately titled Playing to Win, Emma decides to go the unconventional route and date all three of the guys.  This is a risky gamble because they were all good friends before.  And there there's the question of what to tell everyone?  It's not just the four of them who are affected, but each of their families as well.  As Emma gets in deeper and deeper, she starts to question what brought the four of them together in the first place.  When everything comes to a head, is Emma going to brave enough to play her winning hand?  (Because it is totally a winning hand. I  want these three guys in my life!)

Just as Emma decided to fight for what she wants, the foursome are hit hard at another angle.  Nicholas decides stupidly that he needs to leave to support his sister, but he's sacrificing basically everyone's happiness.  Boy has some issues to work out in Defying the Odds, and it takes a life or death situation for someone Emma loves dearly to pull his head out of his tush and realize what it is that's really important. But Emma is faced with a decision.  Can the stay in her favor so she gets happily every after?

My bet would be yes (but don't take it from me.  I just read the books!)

Anyway.  These were a super quick and super fun read for me.  They were filled with just enough funny moments to balance out the drama, and I would like to claim Xavier as a best friend.  Oh, and can I have Emma's shoe collection?  I'll learn how to walk in heels!!

There are a lot of great things about these books!  For novellas, they have a great amount of character development and backstory.  You aren't just thrown in mid story,  you get all the bits and pieces.  They also don't condense a relationship down into an impossible timeline.  I know that a lot of romance and steamy books have an initial spark moment where things happen quickly and these have that moment in Raising the Stakes, but Emma also takes no shit and makes things move at her pace.  I think there's a lot of books that forget that slight detail that make me not enjoy them as much as I could.  Relationships aren't easy, and in a reverse harem book, you're dealing with multiple types of relationships all at the same time.  I also adore these covers!  They're practically perfect in every way.

Anyway.   Go read a book!  I'm already getting ready for my next caper in book land, and prepping for my 25 days of Holiday Books!  December is going to be a busy month for me!

#readabook #riskingit #playingtowin #raisingthestakes #defyingtheodds #vegas #reverseharem #shoes #shoesgloriousshoes #cactus #queenvicsbookshelf

Quoth the Raven....

Today's post is not about Edgar Allen Poe and his famous Raven, but rather about a conspiracy of ravens and the man who watches over them.  The man is Christopher Skaife, Yeoman Warder of Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress The Tower of London, and he has one of the most unique and, quite frankly, amazing jobs that exist.  He is the Ravenmaster of the Tower of London and his charges are the seven ravens who call the  Tower their home.

Legends say that if the ravens leave the Tower, the Tower will crumble and the throne of Britain with it, so the birds are permanent residents of the fortress.  Where this legend came of is unclear as Skaife tells readers in one chapter of his book, but they began their tenure at Tower in the late 1800's.  The Ravenmaster: My Life With the Ravens at the Tower of London is a mixture of Skaife's day as a Yeoman Warder with tours, a day in the life of caring for the Ravens, a history lesson, and a mini biography of the man himself, and it was a quick and very interesting read for me.  I would have read a book twice as long with no complaining.

Skaife's day starts by feeding, watering, caring for and releasing the Ravens, of which their are seven.  In the book, he introduces us to Munin, Merlina, Erin, Rocky, Jubilee II, Gripp II, and Harris, but not included in the book is Raven Poppy, who joined the Tower in May 2018 as a six week old bird.  It makes sense that the book does not include Poppy--it was published in October of this year and therefore would have been at the publishers before Poppy's introduction. 

As he goes about his day, Skaife tells of Merlina's tricksy nature, Munin's black widow nature and crazy adventures, how to care for the birds, how to become a Yeoman Warder (to start you need 22 years of good service in Her Majesty's military, so I'm out.  Drat), some of the typical questions Yeoman Warders' get asked (HINT:  DO NOT ask for the bathroom.  Ask for the toilet.  It's not rude and you'll save some embarrassment.  Speaking from real life experience, not just the book), and funny stories of day to day life. 

Finally, he calls the birds in to bed, one by one, pair by pair, until everyone is settled for the night.  Merlina stays high on the Tower walls, watching over it all.

I've had my own run ins with the Tower ravens, and I've added a couple of those pictures here.  It's Merlina, I think, hanging out with one of the others.  I'm not sure who.  But when I visited in December 2013, I had a fabulous time and I was asking a few questions of one of the Warders--I'm not sure who.  For all I know, it was the Ravenmaster himself. 

I've also included one of my all-time favorite pictures from my semester abroad in my favorite city in the world.

Wallis and Diana

Well, I took a bit of a break there, but I'm really glad to come back to you all with this book here!  You may or may not know, but I am a huge history freak.  I love English and British history (there's a difference), and I'm definitely a monarchist.  My undergraduate thesis, which I want to rewrite because I know that I can do better, was about the power of Queen Elizabeth's ladies in waiting and my master's thesis on American women who married into the British aristocracy and how that changed the makeup of England's upper class.  So I like to think I'm fairly knowledgeable about the subject.

However, I've never found Wallis Simpson or Diana, Princess of Wales to be incredibly sympathetic characters.  That's not to say I don't feel for either of them and their struggles, but, especially in Diana's case, I feel like there's a cult that's risen up around them where we can't say anything bad.  Gill Paul's book, Another Woman's Husband, made me more sympathetic and more interested in learning the full extent of their stories.

I was five years old when Princess Diana was killed in a car accident in Paris.  I remember it,
actually, the news coverage constantly playing on the TV in my grandmother's kitchen, and maybe that is when I formed my opinions of Diana, because my Gran thought she was a spoiled child who couldn't buck up.  I understand more now.  But it is the fateful night of August 31, 1997 that is the opening event of the book.  Rachel and Alex are newly engaged.  Alex is a news reporter and Rachel owns a boutique store with authentic period pieces from the 1920s and 30s back home in England.  They are driving through Paris when their taxi pulls over.  There's been a car accident in the Alma Tunnel just in front of them.  Rachel is disgusted by the paparazzi taking pictures and videos of the event as Alex rushes forward to help how he can, even if it's just to translate.  This is how they learn that the car contained Princess Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, with their driver and Diana's bodyguard.  Alex finds a bracelet at the scene with a heart locket, engraved on one side with a "J" and a "17" on the other.  As the weeks unfurl, Alex is determined to make a video documentary about the crash, the many conspiracy theories, and who he thinks is responsible.  Rachel is less enthusiastic because she was disgusted with the lack of humanity as a woman lay dying.  Reporters were taking photos rather than trying to help her.  She's dealing with a break in at her shop too, where a good amount of her difficult to replace stock was stolen.  As she's replacing her stock, she is confronted with the mystery of the bracelet, which it seems Diana found or was given at Villa Windsor, the Paris home of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor--The former King, Edward VII and Wallis Simpson.  As Rachel goes about replacing her stock, planning her wedding, and trying to figure out the mystery of the bracelet, she finds more and more pieces of Wallis' life.

Rachel and Alex's story is not the only story in the book. Juxtaposed against them is Mary Kirk, who was once a good friend, if not the best friend, of Wallis from when she was still Bessiewallis Warfield (Wallis is pictured to the left and Mary to the right).  They met at a summer camp for girls,and went to the same finishing school, but Mary reveals a Wallis who, although she acted confident, was not.  Mary's Wallis constantly felt the need to marry someone with more money or more standing so that she could feel secure.  Wallis' first marriage was to Earl Spencer, a Navy Airman who was a drunk.  The book also implies that he was abusive, which would make the already-flighty Wallis nervous.  They divorced in 1927.  Mary was married during the period of Wallis' first marriage, to a man named Jacques Raffray, a French airman.  It was through Mary and Jacques that Wallis met her second husband, Ernest Simpson, a British shipping magnate.  Mary is jealous of their relationship, for she had come to find a bosom companion in Ernest.  Mary's first marriage proved to be as sad as Wallis' for Jacques was also a drinker, likely due to what he saw as a French airman in World War I.  They eventually separated, at which point Mary and Ernest began a relationship in London, ruining Mary's friendship with Wallis

Ernest was put under great pressure not to divorce Wallis during the abdication crisis, but he eventually did.  He gave her the grounds of adultery by taking Mary to a hotel publicly and staying the night with her.  Ernest and Mary married six months after his divorce was finalized, but only three weeks after hers was.  They went on to have one child, a little boy.  Mary never lived to see an October 4, 1941, letter written by Wallis. Rachel found the letter in an outfit that Wallis had worn, saying that she wanted to bury the hatchet and be friends again, but Mary had died two days before the letter was dated of breast cancer. 

Love is a very strong central theme in this books, but not only the love between couples.  Every romantic relationship in this book is strained or breaks at some point, but the bond between friends and family remains strong.  Although Mary and Wallis, for instance, fight and don't speak for the last part of Mary's life, it doesn't mean that they didn't love each other and perhaps, with more time and after the war, they may have reconciled, as people who have been friends and surrogate siblings to each other often do.  I also loved the attention to historical detail, and I learned a lot of small details through this book.  There are clothing designers, as an example, who keep detailed records of all of their clients wardrobe choices and measurements.  I know for someone as internationally important as Wallis Simpson, this may have been to preserve the history, but it seems more like something they did for all of their clients.

I really enjoyed this book, and I'm about to start a reread so that I can catch anything I might have missed.  It's opened my eyes a bit more to two figures--Wallis and Diana, even though we only know Diana through her death and the aftermath--that I had previously dismissed.  It's also a great story, full of drama that will keep you turning to the next page.

I also got caught up in the title, although I didn't realize it for the longest time!  It's actually Another Woman's Husband, which makes perfect sense with Mary's relationship with Ernest (And the fact that Ernest was married to another woman before Wallis, and divorced her to be with Wallis), but my brain was thinking in term's of Wallis, and the idea of her constantly being another man's wife!  Either way, I loved the title, and it fit so perfectly with the book.

#readabook #queenvicsbookshelf #wallissimpson #princessdi #monarchy #England #France #divorce #historicalfiction #anotherwomanshusband