The Girl from Summer Hill, Jude Deveraux, A fun romance.

The Girl from Summer Hill, by Jude Deveraux

I'm a reader who needs to have something lighter, easier to read after reading heavy, important books, like Lilac Girls, in my last review.  Jude Deveraux is on of the writers I can count on to let me imagine different lives and can count on a happy ending. I know that sounds formulaic for romance novels, but that doesn't mean there isn't great character development, full plot arcs and wonderful settings.

 In The Girl from Summer Hill, Deveraux chose to overlay Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice over a completely contemporary setting and characters.  "Lizzie" is played by Casey, an accomplished chef who's come home to her hometown to recover from her last stressful job in DC.  Darcy is played by Tate Landers, an honest to goodness movie star, who owns the estate where Casey comes to rest.  Aside from the sizzle between them, the town is putting on Pride and Prejudice for charity. So the book is structured as a play within a play, within ... well, You'll see.  It's a sweet romance with just enough Hollywood thrown in to make it almost, but not quite, over the top.

I received this book from NetGalley for this review. For more information, contact Random House Publishing. This book will be released on May, 2016.

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelley. Five stars

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

For anyone who loved Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale or Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, Lilac Girls is a perfect book. Told from the perspective of three women during WWII with unique and important perspectives, The Lilac Girls will give you an understanding of how life continued in three very different ways.  I thought there had been enough WWII books for a while, but this one was well worth the time and impossible to put down.

Caroline Ferriday is a member of the New York aristocracy working as a volunteer in the French Embassy assembling comfort packages for French orphans when she meets handsome and charming French actor Paul Rodierre.  Though Paul is married, the two fall in love and much of Caroline’s story revolves around finding Paul again after he’s returned to Paris. In the process, she learns of the Rabbits, Polish prisoners at Ravensbrück, Hitler’s only major all female concentration camp upon whom some of the horrible medical experiments were conducted.

One of the Rabbits is Kasia, who was arrested as a young teen for helping her would be boyfriend in the Polish Resistance.  Kasia’s story from before the war through the trials after the war is as mesmerizing as they are awful. 

Perhaps the most original perspective comes from Herta, though. A German patriot, and gifted surgeon, Herta found herself closed out of the male-only community of physicians in Germany.  Even after passing all the tests, she was only able to find part time work as a dermatologist, and thus was unable to support herself or her mother, who depended on her.  When offered the opportunity to serve as a full physician at Ravensbrück, she reluctantly agrees. The progression from compassionate physician to puppet of the Third Reich is heartbreaking, and if it were possible, almost understandable.

This fascinating book is made even more so by the Author’s notes, where we learn not only that these women were real people, (though some conglomeration and literary license added to bring the story together. I won’t spoil the story by adding more facts here, but will just say that the author’s journey alone, finding the facts and putting them together is enthralling.  One of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

I received this book from NetGalley for this review. For more information, contact Random House Publishing. This book will be released on April 5, 2016.

The January Revival

Ah January, time for renewal! This morning I’ve read three articles in the New York Times dealing with three areas where I’m always looking for renewal: time management, diet and exercise. They were motivational and they suggested ideas that would work!  Resolutions and time management, healthy eating, and getting to the gym, if you want to check them out for yourself.)

For me though, the issues seem to be different, in that I have that elusive treasure, time.  There are benefits to reaching a certain age and letting go of the 9 to 5 world, and benefits as well to having a spouse who took on the task of financial support and retired able to keep those commitments.  But without stress or money woes to motivate me, what makes me get up in the morning?

For the past year, I’ve struggled with that.  There were days that I slept until noon, because I didn’t need to be up before dawn to do anything.  A year.  A whole year just blowing in the breeze. Now here, January 11, 2016, not the first, I realize that if I don’t figure it out, I’ll wake up closer to dead than ever before (isn’t that every single morning?  The cause of death is, after all, life.) So I need to figure out what I want to leave behind and how I want to spend the time I have.  I am not ready, it seems to roll over and wait life out.

It’s easier to know what I don’t want to leave behind, and easier to address that, though most of it makes me want to run and do anything else. Getting rid of all the skeletons in my figurative closets. Going through my files and disposing of the work that I’ve grown beyond.  Throwing away broken toys from when my children (in their late 20s and early 30s now,) have left behind.  Even moving out of the huge family home to something more fun and manageable.

But honestly, that’s just stuff. What do I want to do next?  When I pose this question to my inner psyche, ask it, what is important to you?  I came up with a few answers. 

1. My family.   Maybe that goes without saying, having devoted the last 30+ years in that direction, but I really do love them and am delighted when I can spend time with them or help them out. So I’ll keep that.

2. My freedom.  That includes the ability to write, the ability to move around freely, the ability to say and do as I genuinely want.  Stays in the “keep” pile.

3. My curiosity.  A long time ago someone coined the term “life long learner.”  Truth be told I’m happiest when I’m learning, whether that be following links on the internet, or traveling.  I love classes.  I keep signing up for ones that are a bit of a hoop jump to get to, but I make it.  So I’ll officially recognize this and find more.

4. My health.  This sounds like one of those things I’m supposed to write down on lists like this, but when I can’t sleep because something hurts, or I can’t climb that next mountain because my knees ache, the other things that are important to me get pushed aside.  It takes so little effort to be healthy… half an hour a day moving and eating things that aren’t junk.  I don’t have to treat my body like the low man on the totem pole. And I can enjoy this process so long as I don’t get crazy.  Walk the dogs, not run marathons.  Just not my aspiration.

So that’s where my focus will be in 2016. Not specific resolutions, though I’d like to do those too, because it helps me satisfy the inner list crosser offer…and because it is good to have short-term goals to measure long-term success. That will be my next task.

Gratuitous Dog Photo