Last month was the 100 year anniversary of the tragic sinking of the Titanic. I was on a Titanic frenzy in April, reading and watching anything and everything about the ocean liner. This included the novel The House of Velvet and Glass by Katherine Howe.

Sibyl Allston lives in 1915 Boston with her widowed father and rambunctious college age brother. She spends her days attending to the household staff, a responsibility she had to take over since her mother’s death. Sibyl lives a pretty lonely life, with a father who keeps to himself mostly and a brother who is off living and studying at Harvard. Her only solace is in visiting a psychic, who reaches out to Sibyl’s mother and sister, both who perished on the Titanic three years prior.

After her brother Harlan is thrown out of school under mysterious circumstances, Sibyl looks to old friend (and once potential lover) Benton Derby to help figure out what is going on with her brother. In the meantime Harlan comes home with a mysterious young woman who introduces Sibyl to a dangerous pastime, visiting the opium dens in Boston. It is while under the influence of this dangerous drug (and handling a small crystal ball like object called a scrying glass that was a gift from her psychic) Sibyl comes to believe that she can see her mother and sister’s last moments on the decks of the Titanic through the glass. But to what length will Sibyl go to catch once last glimpse of her loved ones?

I love historical fiction that entwines different time periods within a story and The House of Velvet and Glass does this beautifully. From the opulent first class decks of the Titanic to the opium dens of China, the book moves seamlessly from one time to another, connecting the stories together like fine threads. The novel has a bit of everything; a potential romance between Sibyl and Benton, the frightening world of opium dens both in late 1800’s Shanghai and 1915 Boston and a little bit of magic with the psychic and her scrying glass.

You can tell that the author did a lot of research when writing this book. I especially enjoyed the chapters in which we see Sibyl’s father, as a young sailor visiting China for the first time, and his own experiences with an opium den in Shanghai. I also enjoyed how the author blended fact and fiction, in particular with the characters on the Titanic. I loved envisioning Sibyl’s sister Eulah dancing with Harry Widener, a book collector and actual Titanic passenger who perished that fateful night (and who is also the namesake of the Widener library at Harvard, donated by his mother who survived the tragedy).

I also want to mention the book cover, as it was what I was initially drawn to  when I saw the book in the store. It is a beautiful cover and conveys the story nicely. Between the very fashionable profile of the woman, the scrying glass and the iconic image of the Titanic inside the glass I knew this was a book I wanted to read.

On another note, I was lucky enough to meet Katherine Howe at a book signing at BEA a few years ago, where she signed a copy of her first book The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. It has been lingering on my bookshelf since then, but I am sure to pick it up after reading this book as I very much enjoyed the author’s writing style. To find out more about Katherine Howe, you can visit her website here.

When I received the pitch from the publisher for Daughters for a Time, I just knew that I had to read this book. Both the author and I have daughters and both of us came to motherhood by two different methods – we each have a biological daughter AND a daughter adopted from China (in fact, she has three girls, but I’m not sure whether her third child is adopted or not). The book also deals with a cancer diagnosis (which I am all too familiar with, being a breast cancer survivor myself). Needless to say, this book called to me in various ways.

The story is about Helen, a thirty five year old woman married to Tim and desperate to start a family, but unable to conceive a child. In addition, she is still dealing with her own abandonment issues, having lost her mother to cancer when she was a teenager. Her own father, unable to deal with his crumbling marriage and ailing wife, walks out on Helen and her older sister Claire during this most crucial time. Claire took care of Helen after their mother’s death and now lives close by with a husband and daughter of her own.

After years of infertility, Helen comes to terms with the idea of adoption and her and Tim are off on the adventure of a lifetime. She has also been in contact with her father, hoping that he will be able to play a part in her new daughter’s life. After coming home with their new daughter, Helen is hit with a devastating blow – the same cancer that stole their mother has now been diagnosed in her own sister. How can Helen enjoy her feelings of elation after finally becoming a mother, only to have to deal with such terrible news about Claire?

Daughters for a Time by Jennifer Handford is a lovely book about forgiveness, hope and devotion. I very much enjoyed the relationship between Helen and Claire, two people with very different personalities but who obviously love each other as only siblings can do. I also really liked the plot line about Helen trying to make a connection with her father who abandoned them so long ago. He is remorseful for the choices he made so many years prior and it is a nice story-line seeing how he tries to make up for the past by being in the present.

Also, if you are planning to adopt from China or have already done so, you would very much enjoy the chapters which follows Helen and her husband Tim in China at the moment they meet their daughter Sam. This part of the book was very true to the whole Chinese adoption proccess and reminded me of that life altering trip my husband, oldest daughter and I took over five years ago to adopt our daughter Maya.

Daughters for a Time was a highly enjoyable, albeit heart-wrenching book that I very much enjoyed. The book will be released on April 24th. The author writes for The Huffington Post and you can see her profile here. Thanks to the publisher for sending me this book for review!

One of my most favorite shows on TV is AMC’s The Walking Dead, about a post-apocalyptic world full of zombies. The most fascinating part of The Walking Dead aren’t the zombies at all, but the story of the people trying to survive in what seems like an unsurvivable world. Season two of the hit AMC show ended last month (and they won’t be back until October) so in the meantime I needed an “end of the world” fix, which I got in reading the new book White Horse by Alex Adams.

When most of the world is wiped out by a DNA altering monster virus, Zoe is left virtually alone and on the run. Trying to survive while continuing to live by her own moral code, Zoe has traveled all the way to Europe looking for Nick, her therapist turned lover who she believes is still alive. On her travels she meets “The Swiss,” a crazy abortionist who is hiding a terrible secret and who follows Zoe’s every move. Alternating between present day and the past, White Horse is a quick read that was quite enjoyable.

The best part of White Horse was the protagonist Zoe, who still holds on to her belief in humanity in this most inhumane world. She runs into some unsavory characters (in particular “The Swiss” who is unstoppable in his pursuit of Zoe) and yet she continues to look for the good in people and tries to keep her own sanity at the same time. White Horse is the first book in a planned trilogy and I’m sure that I would pick up book two to continue Zoe’s adventure.  

Look for White Horse in bookstores on April 17th! For more information about the author, check out her website here. Thanks to the publisher for sending this book my way for review.

Jack and Mabel have moved from Pennsylvania to become homesteaders in Alaska, mostly so Mabel can escape the memories of her stillborn child. It’s the 1920’s and life is hard in the Alaskan wilderness. There is sadness around them, from the backbreaking work it takes to get their new farm up and running and the loneliness of a harsh winter in the north. In the opening pages we find Mabel venturing out to the river, in the hopes that the ice will break, drowning herself in her sorrows. The ice is steady and Mabel heads back to the cabin to her own despair. 

In a moment of levity, Jack and Mabel find themselves outside on the first snow of winter and decide to build a snow child, complete with mittens and a  scarf. The next morning the snow child is gone and Jack and Mabel glance in the woods at a sprite of a child with long white-blond hair, who is wearing the mittens and scarf that their snow child was wearing. Before they can talk to the child, she is gone. Soon though the child, who is named Faina, comes to their cabin bearing small gifts – fish from the river or berries from the woods and they slowly get to know her. Before they can get to close though, the child is off into the cold night, only to return again with more gifts for the couple.

In getting to know Faina, Mabel remembers a Russian fairy tale her own father used to share with her, of a old man and woman who built a child of their own out of snow. Convinced that there is something magical about Faina, and desperate for a child to love, Mabel believes that she is their daughter made by their own two hands out of snow.  Jack, who is also very fond of Faina, doesn’t share in his wife’s belief that she is their snow child and worries about the little girl, wondering how she could survive on her own in the harsh winter.

Based upon a real Russian fairy tale by Arthur Ransome called Little Daughter of the Snow, The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey is a lovely, beautifully written story set in the harsh Alaskan wilderness. It is a story of wanting something so badly (in this case a child of her own) that we are willing to suspend all in which we believe to make it real. It is the story of trying to make a go of it in an unforgiving, albeit beautiful, landscape. It is a story about a marriage, broken from the devastating loss of a child and the toll it has taken on a relationship. The Snow Child is also a love letter to the state of Alaska, and Ivey’s lyrical writing about our most northern state had me mesmerized.

I fell in love with Mabel and Jack, two people who deal with their grief in very different ways, but who are ultimately brought together by this strange little girl. It is obvious that Mabel and Jack still love each other, but Mabel struggles with depression and Jack just doesn’t know how  to help her. I loved this passage, which speaks volumes about their relationship.

Mabel was at the window again. The snow fell faster and thicker. As she watched, Jack walked out of the barn carrying a lantern, and the snow eddied around him in the circle of light. He turned his head, as if he had sensed her eyes on him, and the two of them looked at each other across the distance, each in their pocket of light, snow like a falling veil between them. Mable couldn’t remember the last time they had so deliberately gazed at each other, and the moment was like the snow, slow and drifting.

As soon as I finished The Snow Child, I knew right away it was one of those books that I will read again one day. If you are looking for a book to completely immerse yourself in, make sure to get a copy of The Snow Child. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I picked up an ARC of The Snow Child at BEA last May. I am so glad that I did. For more information about The Snow Child (and to see the lovely book trailer for the novel) check out the author’s website here.

Gemma is the heroine of the imaginative new book The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey. Gemma, an orphan taken in by her Uncle on his Scottish estate in the early 1950’s, is a young girl with big dreams. Unfortunately, her loving Uncle passes away, leaving her at home with her nasty Aunt and equally unappealing cousins. Sent away to study at a boarding school, Gemma finds herself more of a servant than student and struggles through many years of mistreatment and cruelty, while still managing to keep her head high. When she turns eighteen,  she finds an job as an au pair at Blackbird Hall on the remote Orknay Islands. There she encounters Mr. Sinclair, the owner of the Estate and Uncle to the young child Gemma is hired to take care of. Gemma has big aspirations, but as her relationship with her boss becomes more complicated and Gemma begins to uncover some lies, she is faced with decisions that may alter the course of her life.

If this story sounds even a bit familiar, it is because it is a very clever retelling of the classic Jane Eyre. Even though the story follows the original quite closely during the first half, I appreciate how Livesey shook things up in the second half to fit the more modern time period. Instead of aspiring to landing a well-to-do husband (which was more appropriate in the time period that Jane Eyre takes place) Gemma, who comes of age just at the start of the feminist movement, has set her sights high and hopes to attend University. I found it very easy to fall in love with the main character and her quest to find herself. 

Even if you haven’t yet Jane Eyre (I did just a couple years ago – you can read my review here) I would recommend that you pick up a copy of The Flight of Gemma Hardy. It would be a great introduction to the Bronte-esque story, or just a fun way to reconnect with a beloved classic. Thanks to the publisher for sending me this book for review. To find out more about The Flight of Gemma Hardy or the author, check out her website here!