WHAT HAVE WE DONE by Alex Finlay

 

MY THOUGHTS

I loved this book. It had so much going on that it took my breath away. The ending I did not see coming at all. Still wondering where the twins came from but it's not relevant to this story. It was just an all around good edge of your seat story. 

Children in the system. Living in a group home for foster children. Teens. At the right age for adults to basically take advantage of them. There was five children who you meet in this story. Each one coming from some type of loss to be left here by the state. Under the care of who I saw as a very uncaring man. His son was a bully and he did nothing to stop him. 

The story is told from several different characters. Each explains what is happening to them at the time. Someone is out to kill them and it takes them a bit to understand that it has something to do with the house they lived it.

It starts out with someone being shot. Multiple people shoot this person. You know who is pulling the trigger so no surprise there. Five children who live in this group home. Each pulls the trigger. Sealing them together with this secret forever. Thus the title: WHAT HAVE WE DONE!

You'll meet Jenna. She's married to the love of her life. She has two step-children and she once worked for an organization that took out people. She was groomed from the age of fifteen and finally got out. Finally has a good life. Then it all starts to fall apart. Someone is threatening her and her family if she doesn't do what she is told. She has to take out someone or else!

Donnie is a musician. He is also a bit of a drunk. He never truly got over his life. He's been drinking since he was a kid. But one night he falls off a cruise ship. One that he was playing in a band on but was fired from said band. Did he jump or was it something more sinister? 

Nico is a tv personality. He is in charge of a reality tv show called The Miners. Someone tricks him and leaves him for dead in the pits of the dark mine. He knows there is not much time and he has no cell signal at all. Very little battery life also. What will become of him? 

These three will have to work together to find out who wants them dead and why. Could it be linked to what they did twenty-five years ago. Could it be the son of the man they killed? 

Ben was on track to be a federal judge when he was murdered. He was one of the children from the group home also. He worked very hard to pull himself up and do what he did with his life. He left behind a wife and child that he loved dearly. He had no secrets from his wife either.... Who killed him and why.

There is also Artemis. Artemis was the quiet one. The inventor. The one that grew up to be very rich. He was also in the group home. You'll get to know him also. 

Then you get the twins. Casey and Haley. Both evil to the core. They love inflicting pain and horrors on people. They seem to get off by tortuous acts. Who are they and where did they come from. What do they have to do with the children, now grown ups, from the group home. 

You'll find out everything. You will cringe from some of the things that happen in this book. You'll root for the kids to make it. For the grownups to make it. For some to live. I have to admit that I wanted a couple of these characters to be killed. They really do deserve it. 

I loved the three initial story tellers. Jenna, Nico and Donnie. They are solid and very likable in their own ways. I don't think any one of them deserved to go through anything. 

This book is very good. It's edge of your seat good. It's not what I thought it was going to be after reading a few other reviews. It wasn't dark. It contained no acrobat actions. Nothing out of the ordinary for a good thriller. Lots of fighting and some bloody parts sure. What did you expect. It's a Finlay book. A good Finlay book.

Thank you #NetGalley, #AlexFinlay, #StMartin'sPress, for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.

4.25 stars. Grab it. It's that good.

SYNOPSIS

In this “top-notch mystery thriller” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) from Alex Finlay, What Have We Done is a tale about the lives we leave behind and the secrets we carry with us forever.

One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2023:• BookPage • BookBub • E! News • Go BookMart • Goodreads • PopSugar • The Every Girl • She Reads • Beyond the Bookends

A stay-at-home mom with a past.
A has-been rock star with a habit.
A reality TV producer with a debt.
Three disparate lives.
One deadly secret.

Twenty five years ago, Jenna, Donnie, and Nico were the best of friends, having forged a bond through the abuse and neglect they endured as residents of Savior House, a group home for parentless teens. When the home was shut down—after the disappearance of several kids—the three were split up.

Though the trauma of their childhood has never left them, each went on to live accomplished—if troubled—lives. They haven’t seen one another since they were teens but now are reunited for a single haunting reason: someone is trying to kill them.

To survive, the group will have to revisit the nightmares of their childhoods and confront their shared past—a past that holds the secret to why someone wants them dead.

It’s a reunion none of them asked for . . . or wanted. But it may be the only way to save all their lives.

What Have We Done is both an edge-of-your-seat thriller and a gut-wrenching coming-of-age story. And it cements Alex Finlay as one of the new leading voices in thrillers today.

THE LAST CAROLINA GIRL by Meagan Church

 

MY THOUGHTS

I've read a few emotional books in my time. Some that really kept me weeping all the way through. This is one of them. This is emotional on a whole new level though. I learned a few things while reading this book. A few things that we all should know and prevent from ever happening again. 

This is fourteen year old Leah Payne's story. It's told with her voice. Her thoughts and her feelings. Her pain. Her losses. Her heart. It will absolutely break your heart. The sad thing is that this happened in this country. Way to many times. I thought other countries were bad trying to create the perfect race. While this is not in so many words about creating the perfect race, according to the people who did this, it actually is. Using Eugenics to keep anyone from having a child. To sterilize women. To sterilize a child. It is beyond cruel. It's inhumane. No one has the right to decide who is not smart enough to have a child. Who is not good enough. It's just wrong on so many levels. This book will take you there and many more places. 

Leah was living her life with her daddy in North Carolina. Going about her daily life happy and content. While they were basically poor they did have a lot. They had each other. They had a roof over their heads and her daddy had a job. Yes they lived on the Barnas' property but Leah's daddy worked for them. She played with their son Jesse. Went to school with him. He was her best friend. Her mother died after she gave birth to her. She bled to death. Her daddy raised her and taught her to be a good child but also let her experience freedom. Be alive and happy. Until the unthinkable happened. Then she had to go live with a foster family. But she didn't have any idea what she was in store for. Being a "helpmate" instead of a typical foster child. The Griffins were a typical family. They had money and a nice life. Three children and a home. Plenty of food and each other. 

Leah goes through so much from Mrs Griffin. The woman is cruel. Evil mean. She puts Leah in what can only be described as a closet out back with room only for a bed and dresser. One tiny window. All Leah is there for is to cook, clean and help with the youngest child. Leah is a hard worker and only wants a family. To be accepted. She also wants to go back home. She puts up with physical and mental abuse from Mrs Griffin. While the other children seem to love her, especially the youngest, Leah is not at all happy. She tries so hard to please this woman. The final straw comes when she over hears Mrs Griffin and another snooty woman taking at the cotillion. She finds out that the woman her her sterilized. 

This story takes you on a very emotional ride. Through so many tears. The things this teenage girl goes through is so sad. What makes it worse is it is based on an actual event. This author's aunt. You will learn about her in the "Author's Note" at the end. It's heartbreaking what happened and in some cases it seems still happens. This book is well researched so don't think it's not real. That it never happened. It did. It needs to never happen again. No matter what.

Quotes that hit me: 

'ALL I HAD LEFT IN ALL THE WORLD WAS MY QUILT AND THE PICTURE I'D TAKEN FROM THE DRESSER BEFORE WE'D WALKED OUT THE DOOR THAT MORNING.'

'THE THING ABOUT KIDS. ADULTS ALWAYS TRY TO TELL THEM TO GROW UP, ACT THEIR AGE, THAT THERE'S NO SENSE IN CRYING. BUT KIDS KNOW THAT SOMETIMES THE ONLY THING TO DO IS LET THE TEARS WASH OUT OF YOU. SOMETIMES TEARS ARE THE ONLY WORDS WORTH SHARING."

 

Yes, this is a very emotional story. It does have a couple of very sweet parts and a couple of chuckles but overall it's based on actual events and it's heartbreaking. It's horrible. It's one you need to read.

Publishes March 28th of this year.

Thank you #NetGalley, #MeaganChurch, #SourceBooksLandmark, for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this story.

Five huge stars and a very high recommendation. Read it with a new box of Kleenex. You will need them.

SYNOPSIS

"Unforgettable, this a powerful debut to savor." — Kim Michele Richardson, New York Times bestselling author of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

A searing book club novel for fans of Where the Crawdad's Sing and The Girls in the Stilt House following one girl fighting for her family, her body, and her right to create a future all her own

Some folks will do anything to control the wild spirit of a Carolina girl...

For fourteen-year-old Leah Payne, life in her beloved coastal Carolina town is as simple as it is free. Devoted to her lumberjack father and running through the wilds where the forest meets the shore, Leah's country life is as natural as the Loblolly pines that rise to greet the Southern sky.

When an accident takes her father's life, Leah is wrenched from her small community and cast into a family of strangers with a terrible secret. Separated from her only home, Leah is kept apart from the family and forced to act as a helpmate for the well-to-do household. When a moment of violence and prejudice thrusts Leah into the center of the state's shameful darkness, she must fight for her own future against a world that doesn't always value the wild spirit of a Carolina girl.

Set in 1935 against the very real backdrop of a recently formed state eugenics board, The Last Carolina Girl is a powerful and heart-wrenching story of fierce strength, forgotten history, autonomy, and the places and people we ultimately call home.

Mailbox Monday

 

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week.

Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles, and humongous wish lists!!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books, has a permanent home now at Mailbox Monday.

 ************

Here’s a shout out to the administrators:
Emma @ Words And peace

Serena @ Savvy Verse And Wit
Martha @ Reviews By Martha's Bookshelf 

************

                THANKS to everyone for keeping Mailbox Monday alive.

1: THE INTERN by Michele Campbell

     Courtesy of Publisher via NetGalley

2: A TRAITOR IN WHITEHALL by Julia Kelly

     Courtesy of Publisher via NetGalley

3: HAVE YOU SEEN HER by Catherine McKenzie

     Courtesy of Publisher via NetGalley

4: THE FORGETTING by Hannah Beckerman

     Amazon First Reads March

Spotlight & Excerpt of JOHANNA PORTER IS NOT SORRY by Sara Read

 

JOHANNA PORTER IS NOT SORRY

Sara Read

EXCERPT

The Pinedo family cordially invites you

to a private party to celebrate the opening of

the Nestor Pinedo Retrospective.

Friday, January 20. Nine o’clock.

Shimon-West Gallery,

North Capitol Street, Washington, DC.

Johanna,

I do hope you will join our little gathering. Father is finally starting to feel his age and hopes very much to see you again. There are so few friends left from the old days. Time comes for us all, no?

Saludos,

Pilar

Fuck their party. Fuck this expensive invitation which some unpaid intern probably agonized over for weeks. Fuck Nestor Pinedo and his retrospective. Fuck Pilar Pinedo and her little personal note in her elegant handwriting. Fuck their amazing champagne and their interesting friends and all of Nestor’s glorious paintings.

Fuck all of it. I am not going.

There’s half a bottle of the good whiskey left in the cabinet above the fridge. I climb up there for it, then pour a glass, neat. Here’s to telling Pilar and her heartless troll of a father to piss off. I slap the invitation down on the counter, which is none too clean, cross my arms and stare at it, as if it’s not quite safe to turn my back.

Dear Pinedos, Johanna Porter warmly requests your presence at leave-me-the-fuck-alone.

Dear Pilar, For the sake of the young women in attendance, please ensure that Nestor keeps his withered old dick in his pants. My regrets.

Dear Nestor, My body will already be present on your canvases. The presence of my Self was never particularly important.

She doth protest too much—I know that’s what you’re think­ing. And yes, I doth. (Have you ever tried this whiskey, Tem­pleton? It’s delicious.)

A preopening party? Friends from the old days? Since when was I a “friend”? Not since twenty years ago, and even then—not exactly how I would characterize myself and Nestor. And Pilar hates my guts. Yet I still can’t throw this invitation in the trash where it belongs.

Johanna Porter disrespectfully declines.

There will be no paintings by me at that show, but there will be paintings of me. I refill my glass. As much as I detest Nestor and Pilar, they form a direct line to the years when I was on fire. When I felt my own greatness. When I very nearly made it real.

But I failed. The fire is dead. I’m nobody. They are invit­ing me back inside—god knows why—but all that’s in it for me now is great champagne and beautiful people and big, clean galleries full of someone else’s art.

I hate galleries. They make me want to cry.

It’s not that I didn’t like to sell. I was good back then. I held a six-figure check with my name on it once. But now no one knows me. Not even me. I snatch that sophisticated square of cardstock from the counter, sloshing liquor on my wrist in the process.

Boo-hoo. Pity the unfulfilled housewife. That’s what you’re thinking now, right? I am not a housewife. I’m a single mother with a job. But fine, I am unfulfilled. The very peo­ple inviting me to this party strangled my career—my call­ing—in its cradle. It’s been twenty years of exile and decline ever since. (Okay, I am getting drunk and dramatic. So be it.)

Actually, let’s call it nineteen years of exile and decline, overlaid with seventeen years of my baby girl, Mel. That’s her, clomping down the hall to our apartment, still wear­ing her cleats from practice. I set my drink and the invita­tion on the counter and try to clear up the frown lines I can feel on my face.

She drops her duffel bag by the door and comes to the kitchen. Seventeen years old, nine feet tall, and built like the goddess of the hunt with a face to match. Not exactly, but that’s how she reads to a room. More like five nine, all long, lean muscle, and glorious hair. She towers over me as I hug her firm, sapling waist.

“Any plans tonight?”

At least half the time Mel comes over for her weekends, she takes a shower, transforms herself from warrior-athlete to sweet-smelling ingenue with a few swipes of powder and a hair tie, and is back out the door before I can even get a good look at her.

“Nothing tonight.” She heads for the refrigerator. “You coming on Sunday?”

Home game at ten. “Yep. I’ll be there.”

She drinks some milk straight from the carton and forages a cheese stick from the dairy drawer.

“What’s the matter?” she says, not even looking at me.

“What do you mean?”

“Mom.” She turns and raises an eyebrow. I have never been able to do that.

They say predators can smell fear. Mel Porter can smell ex­istential distress. If I’m just pissy about the dishwasher being broken, she barely notices. But if something is grating at my soul, she’s all over it.

I pick up the invitation. Holding it up by a corner, I let her read it.

Her brow crinkles. “I thought he was dead.”

“Not dead. Just old.”

“Who’s Pilar?”

“His daughter. And publicist. She hates my guts.”

“So why the note?”

“My question exactly.”

She takes the invitation and turns it over. Looks at the matte detail from an early Pinedo on the back. Chews her cheese stick in contemplation. “Are you going?”

“I don’t know.” I may be expert at lying to myself, but I’ve never been any good at it with Mel.

She looks at me with those teddy-bear brown eyes. I wish I’d had half her emotional intelligence when I was her age. Or now, for that matter.

“What if you looked really smoking hot?”

I can’t help a good laugh at that. “Mel, this body does not do smoking hot.”

“It could. I mean for your age, with the right dress and some badass boots?”

I am writing mental Fuck you notes. Mel is already going shopping.

 

Mel goes to bed early, giving me some alone time as I get ready for bed myself.

If it were just an invitation to see Nestor—a dinner or a cocktail party or something—I wouldn’t still be thinking about it. But it’s a gallery. And not just any gallery. Shimon-West is the elite gallery in the city. A shrine where Art and Money go to get married. No matter the passage of time, I am not over the lure of a place like that.

My invitation does not include a plus-one. I would gate-crash a date, but honestly it would all be too much to explain, even to Mel. If I go, it’s just easier to go alone, even if I have to manufacture a smile and carry the weight of heartbreak in my chest the whole night.

Hanging on the wall in my room is a painting I did a year and a half after Nestor. As I’ve done many times before, I take it down and hold it in my lap. It’s only twenty by thirty and unframed. A self-portrait, mother and child, me and my Amelia. My baby Mel.

No, she’s not Nestor’s baby. She’s Ben’s baby. As much as a girl can be like her father Mel is, down to the big dreamy eyes and the shimmer of anxious energy.

I painted this one looking in a mirror with Mel at my breast. A local collector offered me decent money for it at the time, but there was no way I’d part with it, then or now. It’s part of my soul. We have a weightless quality in this paint­ing, almost hovering, but with the gravity of Mel’s body on mine. Highly saturated shades of blue and purple predomi­nate. In the near background, a vase of red flowers bursts through the midnight tones. The brushstrokes are subtle and confident. The arrangement of our bodies has both languor and energy, and the way my head is tilted says everything about how wholly I loved Mel, but also how I was burdened.

I shouldn’t, but I run my thumb over my signature—in that corner, the paint is wearing thin—then hang it back above my bed. My own mother died when I was seventeen. On my bureau I keep a picture of her in a glass frame. She is wearing ice skates and standing by the entrance to the rink, her cheeks pink with cold, and her smile winter-bright. I never got a chance to paint her portrait from life.

 

In the morning, I startle awake to the sound of Mel mak­ing a smoothie in the kitchen. Staring hard at the ceiling, I contend with the truth.

Right in the center of who I am, a fire once burned bright. It has been dormant a long time. Most of Mel’s life. She brought me a long way from the broken young woman I was, accidentally pregnant at twenty-six, but she is almost a woman herself now, and when I held that goddamn invi­tation to Shimon-West in my hand, an ember sparked and glowed to life. I tried to drown it with whiskey, but it’s te­nacious. And it’s hungry for a source of fuel. Who am I kid­ding with my snark and resistance?

I find Mel at the breakfast table, feet up, looking at her phone.

“I’m going to that party.”

She puts down her phone and claps her hands. “Yes. I knew it.”

At a gallery party you either need to look like you make art or like you make money. Thus, smoking-hot women who used to be artists (“Still are, Mom”) do not go to private Pinedo parties in Gap dresses. Not even Anthro dresses. No. While working artists can and do wear practically whatever they want, smoking-hot women go to Pinedo parties in Ro­darte dresses, Miyake suits, and handmade shoes.

Mel understands this. She also understands that smoking-hot former artists who teach art at her high school do not shop anywhere within a mile of Rodarte, so she has located a consignment store downtown. I may still spend half my pay­check on a garment, but according to Mel we will achieve a high-class-kiss-my-ass look that will make me feel like I’m doing them a favor showing up at their fucking party.

If only a dress could do that. But I do know that a dress can buy a person that crucial hour of self-confidence that will get her through the door. And once I’m in, I’ll sip some champagne, flirt with rich men, and let the Pinedos see I’m fine, thank you very much.

It’s gray out but mild for January, and Mel and I take a comfortable walk with coffee in hand down the block from the subway. She finds the building and the narrow door, and she leads us up a flight of stairs to the boutique. The pro­prietress, sixtyish and slender with a gray updo and amazing eyeliner, nods at us as we enter.

I’ve been in a lot of used clothing stores, and I have no idea how this one got rid of that smell that all the other ones have. Instead of dust and stagnation with an undertone of feet, this place smells like a boudoir. And it’s not jammed with clothes the way they always are. We move easily between racks of slacks, blouses, cocktail dresses, gowns, coats. The side wall is tastefully arranged with shoes and accessories, and win­dows in front let in a gentle light. Behind the antique desk that serves as a counter, a large reproduction of Beardsley’s strange art nouveau drawing John and Salome gives the whole place an air of sex and conflict. I love it here.

Mel holds up a velvet minidress. I shake my head. I’m too old for mini. I examine the garments, feeling like I should have washed my hands. Gucci, Chanel, Ford, Herrera. I lift a long-sleeved black gown off the rack.

Mel frowns. “You’re not going to a funeral.”

“Can I help you find something?” the lady with the eye­liner says from her desk.

Mel waves her over. The woman is about my height and less intimidating than I first thought.

“She’s going to a private party at a fancy art gallery,” Mel says. “Like really upscale. And she hates everyone who’s going to be there, so she needs to look smoking hot. But not like she’s trying. Like she just is.”

Lady Eyeliner laughs. Where Mel learned to talk to sales­people I have no idea. It has to be genetic, and not from my side. Mel is wearing slides, baggy sweats, and her father’s fleece pullover, and her bun is coming loose, but this so­phisticated woman takes to her immediately.

They stand me in front of a full-length mirror, and to­gether they size me up, clearly confident that they can pull this off. I wish I felt it myself. All I see are dark circles under tired eyes. Narrow shoulders and a smallness in my posture. A woman who does not command space. Mel brings over a dress that looks like a full-length slip in blood red. I shrink some more.

Lady E understands me better. First a black strapless. She shakes her head before I have a chance to. Too plain. She comes back with a military-style shirt dress. Mel grimaces.

Finally I retreat to the fitting room and try on a minimalist gray knit. Too big. Then a color-block shift. Not bad, but Lady E says, “Cliché.” I unzip myself from it and sit on an upholstered stool in my underwear. This is supposed to be fun, and I suppose it is. Fancy shopping with my daughter is always fun. But this time the fun competes with the voice inside that says Fraud. Poser. I could find the perfect dress, but all it will take is someone asking me that most miserable of cocktail-party questions, What do you do? for it to all fall apart.

“Can you do one-shoulder?” Lady E calls from across the store.

“I guess so.”

In a moment she slips a black velvet dress through the door. The zipper is stiff and sticks in a couple of places as I get it open. Then I step in and shimmy the dress up over my hips.

“Do you need help?” Lady E says. I crack the door, and she steps in.

As she works the zipper closed, the dress embraces my body like it’s known me carnally. Fitted around the ribs and waist, it angles from the shoulder sharply across the bust, showing one collarbone. The skirt is gathered at a seam below the waist where the velvet falls in sculptural folds.

“What do you think?” Lady E smiles at my reflection. She turns me so I can see the back.

“I think I like it.”

“Oscar de la Renta.” Her voice is gentle, and I wish she were my friend. She smooths the skirt. “This wrap here is such a nice detail. Like an upside-down tulip.”

I smile back at her. It’s the strangest thing, a dress like this. It makes me feel like it could be possible. It could even be fun.

Excerpted from Johanna Porter is Not Sorry by Sara Read, Copyright © 2023 by Sara Read. Published by Graydon House Books. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

JOHANNA PORTER IS NOT SORRY

Author: Sara Read

ISBN: 9781525899980

Publication Date: March 7, 2023

Publisher: Graydon House

 

Author Bio:

Originally from Washington, DC, SARA READ tried the nine-to-five life for about a nanosecond before moving to rural Virginia to become a flute-maker’s apprentice and traditional fiddle player. Childbirth led her to a career in nursing. A cancer survivor herself, she now has the distinct privilege of caring for cancer patients. She is co-founder of #momswritersclub, a biweekly YouTube and live Twitter chat for writers. Sara lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband, two teens, a terrier, and three snarky cats. She loves a long run, a long road trip, and a long talk with a friend. www.sararead.net

BOOK SUMMARY

A sharp, witty debut novel about a soccer mom who steals a world famous portrait of herself from the narcissistic artist who was once her lover, an impulsive crime that will re-frame her suburban life and make her question her life choices.

The headlines dubbed it the art heist of the decade, but for Johanna, it wasn’t theft, it was a rescue.

Twenty years ago, Johanna Porter was a rising star in the art world. Now she’s an unknown soccer mom. When an invitation arrives to an elite gallery opening for her former lover, the great Nestor Pinedo, Johanna wants to throw it in the trash where it belongs. But with some styling help from her daughter, she makes an appearance and comes face-to-face with the woman she was before the powerful and jealous Nestor ruined her.

La Rosa Blanca is a portrait of Johanna herself, young and fierce and fearless—a masterwork with a price tag to match. When she cuts it out of its frame, rolls it up, and walks out, Johanna is only taking back what was stolen from her.

Hiding out with La Rosa Blanca in a shack on the Chesapeake Bay, Johanna digs into the raw work of reviving her own skills while battling novice-thief paranoia, impostor syndrome, and mom guilt. But Johanna doesn’t just want the painting, she wants to paint again. To harness her powerful talent, she must defy everyone’s expectations—most of all her own—for what a woman like her should be.

Buy Links:

BookShop: https://bookshop.org/p/books/johanna-porter-is-not-sorry-sara-read/18524228?ean=9781525899980 

Harlequin: https://www.harlequin.com/shop/books/9781525899980_johanna-porter-is-not-sorry.html  

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/johanna-porter-is-not-sorry-sara-read/1141490074?ean=9781525899980 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Johanna-Porter-Not-Sorry-Novel/dp/1525899988/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=johanna+porter+is+not+sorry&qid=1673387930&sprefix=johanna+porter+%2Caps%2C114&sr=8-1 

Books-A-Million: https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Johanna-Porter-Not-Sorry/Sara-Read/9781525899980?id=8292090795540 

 

Author Website: https://www.sararead.net/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarareadauthor/r

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarafinn11/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sarareadauthor 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21955366.Sara_Read 

THE LOST ENGLISH GIRL by Julia Kelly

 

MY THOUGHTS 

I absolutely loved this book. It's a very heartwarming story of a young woman and her strange marriage and beautiful child. One that will stick with me for a while. Julia Kelly has hit this out of the park for sure.

There are a lot of characters in this story but the ones that count are Viv and her daughter Maggie. Also Joshua. I can't forget about Joshua. He's a very important part of this story. He's also Maggie's father. 

Viv Byrne meets Joshua Levinson where Joshua plays a Saxophone in a club band. They are almost immediately smitten with one another. They only have two official dates and the second one results in Viv becoming pregnancy. She's not a bad girl by any means. She was just attracted to Joshua and it happened. Her family are Catholic while Joshua's is Jewish. Now the fireworks begin....

Viv and Joshua decide to marry and both families seem to be ok with that. For the unborn child's sake at least. At the wedding though Viv's mother offers Joshua a deal he just can't refuse. He leaves right after the wedding and Viv doesn't hear from his again. 

Joshua wants to be a famous Saxophone player so he goes from Liverpool to the US to seek his fame. He tries to make it as a big time musician. He's a struggling Sax player though. When WW2 breaks out and he learns that things back home are not so good he decides to go home and join up. 

Viv gives birth to a little girl she names Margaret Anne. She loves this child like she's never loved anything. Viv's parents though are very indifferent to Maggie. Like she is not their grandchild. Viv's sister has three children who they adore very much. Maggie however is like an unwanted part of their lives and Viv's mother is not very quiet about it. She makes a huge difference between the grandchildren. Viv has no choice but to live with her parents. She's a married woman and can't live on her own or have a job. Women were treated like property back then. When she did get a job she had to give her money to her mother. 

When the war is about to hit Liverpool the children are being sent to foster homes in other areas to keep them safe. Viv has to send Maggie even though she really does not want too. It breaks her heart to part with her beautiful and very sweet child. It's during this time that she goes to work for the postal delivery again and saves some money so she can visit Maggie. She has to actually take her own money before her mother can take it all. Needless to say Viv's mother is not a very nice woman.

When the unthinkable happens Viv is devastated. Her world is turned upside down and will never be the same. In the meantime Joshua is in the service and has started to straighten up his life. He misses his wife but she told him to never come around if he left and leave he did do. I didn't much like Joshua for a long time but he was young and impressionable so I kind of felt bad for him too. They were too young to be getting married but if they didn't Viv would be labeled a fallen woman. Not that it was much better that she married a Jew. People shunned her because of it. She carried on though as did Joshua. 

A lot goes on in this story that will have you turning the pages. A lot of tears will be shed also. It's a heartfelt story that in parts had me weeping. What Viv goes through is so horrible but she is also very strong when pushed. She does not give up easy and that works to her benefit. With Joshua's help things get better. I kept rooting for them to end up together after they got older and can't tell you if they did or not. They did work together for a great cause and got things back the way they should have been. 

This is one of the best books I have read this year. You should read the very end, the acknowledgments, to find out where the author came up with this story. I found it quite interesting. Well done Julia Kelly. Very well done.

This story is told in three parts and between Viv and Joshua. Also Maggie has a few chapters in here. Each one is great and gives you insight to what they feel and have to say. I enjoyed this book so much.

Thank you #NetGalley, #JuliaKelly, #GalleryBooks for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts.

Five huge stars and a very high recommendation.

SYNOPSIS

The acclaimed author of the “sweeping and beautifully written novel” (Woman’s World) The Light Over London weaves an epic saga of love, motherhood, and betrayal set against World War II.

Liverpool, 1935: Raised in a strict Catholic family, Viv Byrne knows what’s expected of her: marry a Catholic man from her working-class neighborhood and have his children. However, when she finds herself pregnant after a fling with Joshua Levinson, a Jewish man with dreams of becoming a famous Jazz musician, Viv knows that a swift wedding is the only answer. Her only solace is that marrying Joshua will mean escaping her strict mother’s scrutiny. But when Joshua makes a life-changing choice on their wedding day, Viv is forced once again into the arms of her disapproving family.

Five years later and on the eve of World War II, Viv is faced with the impossible choice to evacuate her young daughter, Maggie, to the countryside estate of the affluent Thompson family. In New York City, Joshua gives up his failing musical career to serve in the Royal Air Force, fight for his country, and try to piece together his feelings about the family, wife, and daughter he left behind at nineteen. However, tragedy strikes when Viv learns that the countryside safe haven she sent her daughter to wasn’t immune from the horrors of war. It is only years later, with Joshua’s help, that Viv learns the secrets of their shared past and what it will take to put a family back together again.

Telling the harrowing story of England’s many evacuated children, bestselling author Julia Kelly’s The Lost English Girl explores how one simple choice can change the course of a life, and what we are willing to forgive to find a way back to the ones we love and thought lost.