Death Comes to Pemberley

by P.D. James
3 Stars
Historical Fiction
Setting: England
291 pages
Published 2011

Ellie's Review

P. D. James, who is a renown mystery writer, combined her skills with the world created by Jane Austin in Pride and Prejudice.  Death Comes to Pemberley looks at the life of Elizabeth and Darcy six years after they were married.  Their happy life at Pemberley is disrupted when Lydia arrived unexpectedly to announce a murder.  James was creative in putting her murder mystery genre into the story so many people loved.  If you look at it from a mystery standpoint, it was an entertaining read.  I learned more about the life of that period through the thoroughly researched details included.  However, if you want to see more of the love between Elizabeth and Darcy, you will be disappointed.  I do absolutely love Pride & Prejudice and will probably just reread it the next time I long for Mr. Darcy. This is the first novel by James I have read, and I probably will not read any more of her works.  If you like James' other novels and Jane Austen, this is probably a great read for you.  

If you are an Austen fan, I suggest Shannon Hale’s novel Austenland (4 stars). 

Book Summary
It is 1803, six years since Elizabeth and Darcy embarked on their life together at Pemberley, Darcy's magnificent estate.  Their peaceful, orderly world seems almost unassailable.  Elizabeth has found her footing as the chatelaine of the great house.  They have two fine sons, Fitzwilliam and Charles.  Elizabeth's sister Jane and her husband, Bingley, live nearby; her father visits often; there is optimistic talk about the prospects of marriage for Darcy's sister Georgiana.  And preparations are under way for their much-anticipated annual autumn ball.

Then, on the eve of the ball, the patrician idyll is shattered.  A coach careens up the drive carrying Lydia, Elizabeth's disgraced sister, who with her husband, the very dubious Wickham, has been banned from Pemberley.  She stumbles out of the carriage, hysterical, shrieking that Wickham has been murdered.  with shocking suddenness, Pemberley is plunged into a frightening mystery.

Inspired by a lifelong passion for Austen, P. D. James masterfully re-creates the world of Pride and Prejudice, electrifying it with the excitement and suspense of a brilliantly crafted crime story, as only she can write it.

Prayers for Sale

by Sandra Dallas
3 Stars
Historical Fiction
Setting: Breckenridge, Colorado
305 pages
Published 2009

Ellie's Review
This is my second book I've read by Sandra Dallas, and both novels had the themes of female bonding, quilting, and a newcomer wanting acceptance.  Prayers for Sale is based on life in the mining town of Breckenridge, Colorado (called Middle Swan in the book) in 1936.  I found this aspect of history quite interesting since I tend to think of Breckenridge and other towns in Summit County as ski resorts with expensive real estate.  Life in the high country was quite rough for the miners who established the towns, and I enjoyed hearing about the life from a woman’s perspective.  The main character, Hennie, is a great story teller and provides a broad picture of the town and the times by sharing her numerous stories of herself and others.  This was a enjoyable, quick read.

Book Summary
Hennie Comfort is eighty-six and has lived in the mountains of Middle Swan, Colorado since before it was Colorado.  Nit Spindle is just seventeen and newly married.  She and her husband have just moved to the high country in search of work.  It's 1936 and the depression has ravaged the country and Nit and her husband have suffered greatly.  Hennie notices the young woman loitering near the old sign outside of her house that promises "Prayers For Sale".  Hennie doesn't sell prayers, never has, but there's something about the young woman that she's drawn to.  The harsh conditions of life that each have endured create an instant bond and an unlikely friendship is formed, one in which the deepest of hardships are shared and the darkest of secrets are confessed.  Sandra Dallas has created an unforgettable tale of a friendship between two women, one with surprising twists and turns, and one that is ultimately a revelation of the finest parts of the human spirit.

Nefertiti

by Michelle Moran
4 Stars
Historical Fiction
Setting: Egypt
463 pages
Published 2007

Ellie's Review
I’ve always been fascinated by Egyptian culture and love visiting the pyramid exhibits at museums.  However, reading Nefertiti has given me such a better understanding of the Egyptian culture and religious views.  Michelle Moran expertly creates a fascinating novel told from Nefertiti’s sister’s perspective.  I was transported into ancient Egypt and learned about the main gods worshiped, afterlife beliefs, and how the pharaohs were linked to the gods.  If you enjoyed The Other Boleyn, try out one of Moran’s historical fiction novels.  While we know what Nefertiti looked like from various artifacts, this spins a fascinating story around an overlooked sister and some of the dynamics in a kingdom where the pharaoh changed the main god of Egypt. 

Book Summary
Nefertiti and her younger sister, Mutnodjmet, have been raised in a powerful family that has provided wives to the rulers of Egypt for centuries.  Ambitious, charismatic, and beautiful, Nefertiti is destined to marry Amunhotep, an unstable young pharaoh.  It is hoped by all that her strong personality will temper the young Amunhotep's heretical desire to forsake Egypt's ancient gods, overthrow the priests of Amun, and introduce a new sun god for all to worship.

Love, betrayal, political unrest, plague, and religious conflict - Nefertiti brings ancient Egypt to life in vivid detail.  Fast-paced and historically accurate, it is the dramatic story of two unforgettable women living through a remarkable period in history.

Ellie's Review of Michelle Moran's novel Madame Tussaud

The Story of Beautiful Girl

by Rachel Simon
4 Stars
Historical Fiction
Setting: USA
346 pages
Published 2011

Ellie's Review
While reading this novel, I was fascinated by the treatment of handicap and even deaf people back in the 1960’s in the US.  That wasn’t too long ago, yet thankfully our country has changed so much in our views and treatment!  This story about a mentally handicapped girl (maybe autistic?) and a deaf black man is incredible.  Author Rachel Simon has a sister who has an “intellectual disability” and greatly researched the treatment and “schools” for similar people – I loved learning that the book was greatly founded on truth, yet it also sickened me.  This look at people who were often overlooked is amazing, and I really loved and grew attached to the characters in the novel.  I’m excited to discuss this at book club as I feel like the book has many themes and lessons to discuss in addition to the historical aspect.

Book Summary
From the author of the memoir Riding the Bus with My Sister, a moving, uplifting novel about a woman who can't speak, a man who is deaf, and a widow who finds herself suddenly caring for a newborn baby.

The Story of Beautiful Girl gets right under the skin and into the heart with the story of Lynnie, a young white woman with a developmental disability that hinders her ability to speak, and Homan, an African American deaf man with only his home sign language to guide him.  Both were institutionalized in the mid-twentieth century, when people with disabilities were routinely shut off from society and left to languish without attention, forgotten.

One night, Lynnie and her sweetheart, Homan, escape.  They find refuge in the farmhouse of the widow Martha, a retired schoolteacher.  But the couple is not alone; Lynnie has just borne a child.  The authorities catch up to them; Homan escapes into the darkness and Lynnie is caught.  But just before she is gruffly taken back to The School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, she utters two words to Martha: "Hide her." And so begins the tale of three lives desperate to connect, yet kept apart by seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution

by Michelle Moran
5 Stars
Historical Fiction
Setting: France
446 pages
Published 2011

Ellie's Review

Although I've never toured a Madame Tussauds wax museum, I've walked past the NY location numerous times not knowing how this tourist attraction claimed its name.  Who is/was Madame Tussaud? 

I stumbled upon this novel and soon became engrossed in the French Revolution, which is a war I previously did not understand nor not have an interest in.  This historical fiction tale tells of the French Revolution from a girl who makes wax sculptures of famous people in her uncle's salon - this tourist stop started long before I had realized.  She mingled with both sides of the war and was brought into the midst of it.  I learned so much about this turbulent time for France, and I loved being engrossed in this wonderful woman's life.

If you enjoy historical fiction, this is an amazing read!  I'm excited to read other historical fiction novels by Michelle Moran.

Book Summary
Spanning five years, from the budding revolution to the Reign of Terror, Madame Tussaud brings us into the world of an incredible heroine whose talent for wax modeling saved her life and preserved the faces of a vanished kingdom.


Smart and ambitious, Marie Tussaud has learned the secrets of wax sculpting by working alongside her uncle in their celebrated wax museum, the Salon de Cire.  From her popular model of the American ambassador, Thomas Jefferson, to her tableau of the royal family at dinner, Marie's museum provides Parisians with the very latest news on fashion, gossip, and even politics.  Her customers hail form every walk of life, yet her greatest dreams is to attract the attention of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI; their stamp of approval on her work could catapult her and her museum to the fame and riches she desires.

Ellie's Review of Michelle Moran's novel Nefertiti

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

by Washington Irving
4 Stars
Children's Classic
Historical Fiction
Setting: Sleepy Hollow, NY
112 pages
Published 1819

Ellie's Review
To bring out the Halloween spirit (or spirits?), I read this classic American tale for the first time even though I've heard the retelling countless times and ways.  This short story was a quick and entertaining read and something people should read at least once in their lives.  I had never really known the truth about what happened between the Headless Horseman and Ichabod Crane.  (But does anyone really know?)

Book Summary
Since this story's first appearance in 1819, generations of readers, young and old, have thrilled to the Headless Horseman galloping through the haunted woods of Sleepy Hollow.

Note on Editions
While many editions of this classic tale are available, I recommend finding an illustrated copy to make reading it that much more fun!  I enjoyed the illustrations of Arthur Rackham who focused on the haunting spirits that the inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow saw in everything.

The Passion

by Jeanette Winterson
3 Stars
Historical Fiction
Setting: Europe
176 pages
Published 1987

Ellie's Review
This was beautifully written novel about the many different aspects of passion set during Napolean's reign, and I loved how she spun in little bits of fairy tale. I really liked the first section and while I enjoyed the other three sections, they weren't as gripping.

Book Summary
Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, The Passion intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice's compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pair meet their singular destiny. In her unique and mesmerizing voice, Winterson blends reality with fantasy, dream, and imagination to weave a hypnotic tale with stunning effects.

The Birth of Venus

by Sarah Dunant
4 Stars
Historical Fiction
Setting: Florence, Italy
403 pages
Published 2003

Ellie's Review
If you liked Pillars of the Earth or The Other Boleyn Girl, you should read this. Set in Florence, Italy in the 1500's, The Birth of Venus is a wonderful historical fiction novel wrapped around the art of the time. I was fascinated by the story plus I loved learning about the art and treatment of women at this time. Just to warn you, this does have some sex scenes.

Book Summary
Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities.

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee
4 Stars
Classic, Historical Fiction
Setting: Alabama
323 pages
Published 1960

Ellie's Review
To Kill a Mockingbird is a great book about prejudice that was artfully written from the viewpoint of a child who knows no prejudice and learns the social customs and hatred our world has. I enjoyed it in high school and enjoyed it again as an adult who has experienced more. I hope to have the strength of the character Atticus in raising my children.

Book Summary
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.

East of Eden

by John Steinbeck
3 Stars
Classic, Historical Fiction
Setting: USA
601 pages
Published 1952

Ellie's Review
I almost gave East of Eden 4 stars. I did enjoy this book and the lessons of good and evil within us. Some of the descriptions were fabulous (Liza is "as humorless as a chicken"). However, I think Steinbeck added in things he could have cut out to make the book shorter. I was a bit confused as to why he had someone narrate it first-person in just a handful of sections; I kept waiting for that person's story to be told more.

Book Summary
The masterpiece of one of the greatest American writers of all time. East of Eden is an epic tale of good vs. evil with many biblical references and parallels. The story is ultimately that of good's triumph over evil and the human will's ability to make that happen.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

by Jamie Ford
4 Stars
Historical Fiction, WWII
Setting: Seattle
304 pages
Published 2009

Ellie's Review
This book was a fascinating read about the Japanese internment - I learned so much. However, this book was also a wonderful love story and a novel about father/son relationships. At times, the writing didn't flow that well, but I still really liked the book.

Book Summary
In 1986, Henry lee joins a crowd outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II. As the owner displays and unfurls a Japanese parasol, Henry, a Chinese American, remembers a young Japanese girl from his childhood in the 1940s -- Keiko Okabe, with whom he forged a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcended the prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family were evacuated to the internment camps, she and Henry could only hope that their promise to each other would be kept. Now, forty years later, Henry explores the hotel's basement for the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot even begin to measure. His search will take him on a journey to revisit the sacrifices he has made for family, for love, for country.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

by Thomas Hardy
4 Stars
Classic, Historical Fiction
Setting: UK
592 pages
Published 1884

Ellie's Review
While I really enjoyed Jane Austen's books where the girl always ends up happily ever after with her love, Hardy's view of what girls go through was fascinating. Sometimes life sucks. I contemplated giving this book five stars, but I was a bit disappointed in the ending. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and was sad that it ended.  This gave me a lot to think about.

Book Summary
Thomas Hardy's penetrating look at the sexual hypocrisy of Victorian society attracted strong barbs (and numerous readers) when first published. Today it is revered for its subtle character portraits and resonant symbolism.

The original title was Tess of the D'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith
3 Stars
Classic, Historical Fiction
493 pages
Published 1943

Ellie's Review
I learned a lot about the early 1900s in Brooklyn and what struggles families encountered, so I'm really glad I read this book. However, I felt that while the subplots painted a fuller picture of the time, they were too numerous and meandering.

Book Summary
The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the century, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness -- in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.

Washington Square

by Henry James
4 Stars
Classic, Historical Fiction
Setting: New York
240 pages
Published 1880

Ellie's Review
I really liked this book and look forward to reading other Henry James works (this was my first read). He's a male Jane Austen.

Book Summary
The shy and sweet daughter of a well-to-do physician, Catherine Sloper seems destined for lifelong spinsterhood until the sudden appearance of a dashing suitor who proposes marriage. Her adored father suspects the would-be fiance of fortune-hunting and threatens her with disinheritance, forcing Catherine to choose between lover and father.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

by Katherine Howe
4 Stars
Historical Fiction, Witches
Setting: Massachusetts
371 pages
Published 2009

Ellie's Review
This is a captivating modern-day novel that flashes back to the Salem witch trials. Were those charged really innocent? If you enjoy historical fiction surrounding the Salem witch trials, I think you would like this book as it has a bit of a different twist on what happened.

Book Summary
Interweaving two narratives, one set in 1991 and one set three centuries earlier, Katherine Howe's debut novel is a marvel of invention and historical reconstruction. The author employs her training as a historian to vividly depict the realities of 17th-century Salem, dramatizing the plight of the unfortunate victims as they fall prey to the mania of their accusers. But it is the leap of imagination by which she connects Connie to to that distant past that turns The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane into a bewitching reading experience.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows
4 Stars
Historical Fiction, WWII
Setting: Guernsey
274 pages
Published 2008

Ellie's Review
This was a delightful read - the authors did a great job with creating a novel solely from letters amongst the characters. I learned new things about what Europe went through in World War II.

Book Summary
January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….

Authors' Information
Mary Ann Shaffer worked as an editor, a librarian, and in bookshops. Her life-long dream was to someday write her own book and publish it. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was her first novel. Unfortunately, she became very ill with cancer and so she asked her niece, Annie Barrows, the author of the children’s series Ivy and Bean, as well as The Magic Half, to help her finish the book. Mary Ann Shaffer died in February 2008, a few months before her first novel was published.

Shanghai Girls

by Lisa See
4 Stars
Historical Fiction
Setting: China, California
309 pages
Published 2009

Ellie's Review
Shanghai Girls had a great plot mixed with interesting Chinese traditions and history. I learned a lot while being hooked on the story. This is my favorite Chinese historical fiction book I've read so far!

Book Summary
In 1937, Shanghai is the Paris of Asia, a city of great wealth and glamour, the home of millionaires and beggars, gangsters and gamblers, patriots and revolutionaries, artists and warlords. Thanks to the financial security and material comforts provided by their father’s prosperous rickshaw business, twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Though both sisters wave off authority and tradition, they couldn’t be more different: Pearl is a Dragon sign, strong and stubborn, while May is a true Sheep, adorable and placid. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree . . . until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth and that in order to repay his debts he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from California to find Chinese brides.

The Help

by Kathryn Stockett
5 Stars
Historical Fiction
Setting: Mississippi
451 pages
Published 2009

Ellie's Review
This is a great novel set in Mississippi during segregation; the three narrators (two black maids and a white young lady) give a neat perspective of that time and place. I came away from it knowing I need to not judge people so quickly as I never know what they're going through or who they really are. I also had a sense of pride that some people will speak up against something they know is wrong even when the consequences can be very dreadful. While this book did have some very serious themes, quite a few light-hearted stories were threaded through.

Book Summary
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

Emma

by Jane Austen
4 stars
Classic, Historical Fiction
Setting: England
474 pages
Published 1815

Ellie's Review
Emma is a great read, but I think Pride and Prejudice is still my favorite Austen. This did have wonderful character development.

Book Summary
Beautiful, clever, rich - and single - Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected. With its imperfect but charming heroine and its witty and subtle exploration of relationships, Emma is often seen as Jane Austen's most flawless work.

The Heretic's Daughter

by Kathleen Kent
4 stars
Historical Fiction, Witches
Setting: Salem, Massachusetts
332 pages
Published 2008

Ellie's Review
The Heretic's Daughter is a great historical fiction book about the Salem Witch trials. It grabbed me from the beginning, especially since the author is a descendant of the characters. However, the ending was sad. Of course, I knew it would be, but I kind of like happy endings.

Book Summary
Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live. Often at odds with one another, mother and daughter are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria of the trials and the superstitious tyranny that led to the torture and imprisonment of more than 200 people accused of witchcraft. This is the story of Martha's courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived.

Kathleen Kent is a tenth generation descendent of Martha Carrier. She paints a haunting portrait, not just of Puritan New England, but also of one family's deep and abiding love in the face of fear and persecution.