American Baby

American Baby was thoroughly researched and written by Gabrielle Glaser.  The subtitle is A Mother, A Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption.  This book is an in depth look at the creation and development of the American adoption system.  

Glaser has set down the history of how adoption services were built around the embarrassment of young women who became pregnant in the 1950s and 60s at a time in our country when unwed motherhood was damaging to a family's reputation.

Taking advantage of the soldiers returning from World War II, coming home to marry and start a family, and the number of young wives who could not conceive, adoption services took advantage of the young girls who could not keep their babies.

In American Baby, Glaser follows the story of 16 year old, Margaret Erle, grew up in a strict Jewish family where discussions of sex education, and childbirth were taboo.  Her parents were Holocaust survivors who had big dreams of success for their daughter.  She fell in love with her high school sweetheart, George who was 17 at the time she became pregnant.  Both sets of parents were scandalized.  

Margaret was taken to Lakeview, a maternity hospital on Staten Island, NY, owned by the Louise Wise Agency, which in return for a fee would keep the young women fed and sheltered until she gave birth.  There she would be sequestered so no one would ever know about her indiscretion.

After she had delivered her son, Margaret was forced to sign papers giving him up for adoption.  Though she and George kept explaining that they wanted to get married and keep their child, their parents were all unsupportive.  They had no choice in the end and Margaret gave up her rights to her own son to the Louise Wise Adoption Agency.  The Louise Wise kept all the records of these transactions sealed.  Margaret never could find out what happened to her son and the Rosenbergs never knew the truth about their adopted child's past, or any family health issues that might affect David's health.

Glaser finds both Margaret Erle Katz and eventually her son, who goes by the name David Rosenberg so many years later.  She tells the story of how Margaret searched for her son for years.  The story of David Rosenberg's life and the obstacles of a closed, harsh adoption system.

This is a fascinating look at a system that was cold and unfeeling toward the women who were giving up their children and the children who were pawns in the business of babies.  Luckily over time the rules were challenged and now there are much better practices in place.

If you are adopted, are adopted parents or are looking for a child you put up for adoption this is an informative heart felt story.  For all of us it is an incredible story of a family separated and reconnected.

Three Hours in Paris

 This is a stand alone book by Cara Black.  Black takes us to Paris, France on the day Hitler comes to attend church there.  He only spends three hours in Paris.  

Around the truth. of that visit without anymore information than that Black builds a novel of suspense, spies and intrigue .  A young widow is set up to assassinate the Furher.  She was a marksman sharpshooter from America who found the love of her life in Paris.  He is in the Royal Navy and they have been assigned to the Orkney Islands.  When a German plane explodes a war ship the husband and their young chid are killed in a terrible accident as a result of the bombing Kate is ready to take revenge.

The plot revolves around her escape from the scene of the crime and how she is trying to get back to safety. The Germans are investigating and seem to be hot on her trail. 

The Invisible Woman

 The Invisible Woman by Erika Robuck is an historical novel based on a true story.  Again a novel that reveals the life of a woman who defied the odds and showed how brave and determined a woman could be during the horrors of Word War II.

Based on the real life of Virginia Hall, who through out the book goes by Diane as her code name.  Though there are other names that people refer to by.  The Germans who have a price on her head call her one name, the French resistance fighters think of her as a hero and have a very different way of referring to her.

 Leaving the safety and comfort of the life of a Baltimore debutant, Virginia travels to Paris the city of her dreams.  She has just arrived, getting a job and making friends, when the Germans invade France.  Instead of returning to America and avoiding the war, Virginia jumps in with both feet .  She is recruited as an Allied spy and becomes the best at her job.  Traveling from safe house to safe house, communicating by radio messages and plotting drops for food and guns to arm the resistors hiding in the woods.  

They are preparing for D-Day.  Of course along the way there are the catastrophes that devastate Virginia and she wants to give up but she is driven to help the French and save France from the Nazis.  She dresses up as an elderly woman.  Putting grey dye in her hair, make up that sets lines and wrinkles on her face, and stuffs her clothes to appear heavier.  German soldiers ignore her on the streets and others laugh at her for trying to do things as an old woman.  She becomes invisible to those around her even though in reality her real face is on wanted signs and she is being hunted by the Nazis.

She keeps saying that she has outlived her time, that Vera her contact person told she had 6 days to live. But she will not give up until she has avenged the people who have assisted her who have died fighting the enemy.

It makes me wonder how invisible I am when I go somewhere now.  My grey, white hair and older body, do I fade.into the background for people walking down the street?

Flower of Darkness

In some ways this book, Flower of Darkness,  is quite different than de Rosnay ‘s previous novels.  Though some themes run through this book that are similar, this book is more futuristic. 

Clarissa is leaving her husband and looking for a new apartment. This in the Paris of some future time, when everything is automated. You do not have to lift more than a finger to get anything done. A virtual being takes care of you. Just ask it a request and your wish is granted. From cooking meals to answering your emails. Look in the bathroom mirror and your health is checked. But sometimes too much of a good thing can be just that or maybe even a bit more sinister.

Author Tatiana de Rosnay has taken her previous theme of finding out what took place a particular building and brought into the future.  In this novel Clarissa loves old buildings.  She can stand in a building and the walls seem to speak to her.  She can see or feel what happened there in the past.  Now she is moving into this futuristic new building where no one has lived before her.  She is trying to escape the past. She has left her husband for an unspeakable transgression that she cannot even bring herself to speak about.  She is starting over on her own.  But when things start to seem very odd, she reaches out to her granddaughter to help figure out what is happening in her building  and to her friends.  

This was quite a fascinating plot that keeps you  on your toes to try and figure out what is happening and stay up to date on the technology and sci-fi futuristic ideas that are happening here.  Definitely a future I hope never really comes to fruition . 

Triple Chocolate Cheesecake Murder

 The perfect time to read this light mystery, Triple Chocolate Cheesecake Murder is not when you are hungry but after you have eaten and are relaxing for the afternoon.

Joanne Fluke has just shared her 27th mystery novel with us.  Not only is it amazing that she has come up with a new murder plot for Hannah Swenson who runs The Cookie Jar, coffee shop in Lake Eden, Minnesota along with her friend and with the help of her sisters, Andrea and Michelle.  They also are great at helping the local police solve murders.  Of course Andrea is married to the police detective, Michelle is dating his deputy and Hannah is sort of being courted by another detective on the force.  Hannah's other love interest is the town dentist, who also is always happy to assist in solving the current case.

This time it is the Mayor of the town who is not well loved and there are any number of suspects that would be happy to see him dead, including Andrea.  So Hannah is doubly interested in finding out what really happened to exonerate her sister.

The other amazing part of this series is that once again Fluke has included 27 recipes in the book, that Hannah and the others cook for each other throughout the story.  None of the recipes are repeated in all these novels.  That is quite a bit of cooking, testing and tasting.  They all always sound delicious but I must admit that I have never cooked any of them.  So many of them seem to have very high caloric levels.

These plots are no longer quite that unique, the dialog is not really snappy. So I guess what keeps me reading is that I know the characters so well that it is just like traveling to Lake Eden, sitting down for a visit with them and catching up on what's new.  

The Postscript Murders

 Elly Griffiths is on a roll with this new mystery series.  The first book in the series was The Stranger Diaries and now she has written book number two, The Postscript Murders.  

 This book has one of the best lines I have ever read in a murder mystery novel...

"That's how I know I am old, he thinks.  Because sometimes it does take him by surprise. He sees a wizened old man in the mirror and wonders whether a geriatric burglar has broken in."

I sometimes look in the mirror or at myself on the zoom screen and wonder that myself.  I will have to remember that line and use it myself one day.

The Detective Inspector of this series, Harbinder Kaur is an unusual personality for this protagonist. Harbinder,  a gay, Sikh woman working with her partner Neil, who is always getting on her nerves, make a entertaining duo as they are solving murders.  

In this novel we meet Natalka, an Ukraine caregiver at an elder care facility, who along with Benedict, an ex monk and Edwin, one of the residents of the facility play the amateur detectives when one of the other resident's death is suspicious.  This unusual cast of characters runs around trying to piece to together a wide variety of clues that will lead the reader on quite a wild ride. There are suspicious looking men with Russian accents following them.  There are old mystery novels that may have clues.  There is talk of World War II spies and innocent old ladies who sit around and make up murder schemes.

It all comes together for a entertaining mystery that keeps you trying to out the pieces together until the satisfying end.

I enjoyed this second novel even more than the first and look forward to getting to know Harbinder Kaur even more as Griffiths continues to develop this character and this series.

The Midnight Library

 What a fabulous plot!  This novel, The Midnight Library written by Matt Haig explores a topic I wrestle with on a regular basis.    The road not taken.... 

Quoting the poem from Robert Frost, walking down the road and coming to a fork, which road should you follow?  Whichever one you. choose you will always wonder what if I had taken the other route.  So many times I wonder what would my life look like now if I had done something differently.  Where would I be if I had made a different choice.  Even as a child I used to say to my mother, "if you had married a different father I could have had this kind of life." She would always explain, "then you wouldn't be you."

In this novel Nora Seed is the protagonist who gets to follow so many different roads.  Though the premise is different than mine wondering, the idea is still intriguing.   Nora is unhappy. with her life.  She has made choices along the way that have not brought her any. pleasure.  In fact, all she can see the the negativity of each choice.  Along the way. she has let people down and lost relationships.  

She ends up in the Midnight Library, a place where it is always midnight.  In this library the shelves are filled with the stories of her life.  She is given the chance to take a book off the shelf and live that life.  If she likes it she could stay there, if she does not she can come back to the Midnight Library and pick another book, life off the shelf.  

The question is can you really find the perfect ideal life.  Will there always be something that could be better? This book was so entertaining and fun to read, but also leaves you. with so many great morals and messages. to consider.  I think in the end I should be quite content with the life I am living and not look for the greener grass anywhere else.  

The Chanel Sisters

 Judithe Little has brought The Chanel Sisters to life in her new book.  What a wonderfully amazing story of how women who changed the fashion sense of the world started out and developed into the icons they became.

The Chanel Sisters starts out with four young sisters abandoned by their family.  Left in the capable hands of the nuns at the convent, after their mother's early death, by their father, the sisters have to rely on each other and their own strength and fortitude to succeed.  Each sister tries to cope with the circumstances in their own way.  The oldest daughter is not so successful and her life is difficult and ends young.

Antoinette and Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel always have felt they are destined for a better life.  Though the nuns explain that girls like them from impoverished homes, will be lucky to marry a shopkeeper or laborer, the girls have bigger dreams.

While living in the convent they learn the art of sewing.  They read romance novels and cut pictures out of the fashion magazines from Paris.  When they finally leave the convent they head to the stylish cafés of Moulins, the dazzling performance halls of Vichy—and to a small hat shop on the rue Cambon in Paris, where a boutique business takes hold and expands to the glamorous French resort towns.

Antoinette learns the hat business while working in a small shop, though she finds it hard to escape the gossip and hurtful behavior of friends.  Gabrielle tries to become an actress or singer, but cannot get a part. She tries to live as a kept woman, but has too much drive to succeed.  In the end the two sisters put their talents together and open their own hat shop, designing first simple hats, then dresses and finally perfume.  

Their simple different styles become the rage and they are famous.  World War One brings devastation to their relationships and love lives.  Though they are successful in the business world their personal relationships are  more difficult to navigate.   

This is a fascinating novel based on the true lives of this intriguing famnily.

 

Come Fly The World

 This is a very interesting book about the world of PAN AM airlines ... though I was alive during this time periods, my family was not a traveling family through the 1960s and 70s.  

It is very interesting to read about the privileged world of air travel and how the airlines built their reputations and business models.  Flight attendants were an integral part of the this experience.  Also very interesting story about how the airlines and Vietnam War intersected.  The flights of soldiers, and orphans back and forth across the globe was all new to me.

Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am.  by Julia Cooke was not really what I had expected.  This is a more serious in-depth look at the flight attendant and her role as a serious, educated woman, not just the attractive, flirting female that was portrayed in the airlines advertising at the time.

It was a new time in aviation history, we were flying around the country and across the ocean for the first time and the airlines were rivals for the business.  They served fancy meals on transatlantic flights, they wanted to use the flight attendants as an attraction to their companies. But flight attendants have always been the people who need to know the safety of the plane, how to handle an emergency and medical experts.  All that in addition to being friendly, serving food and drinks, and at the time looking a certain way.  Passengers were often surprised to find out these women were college educated and just working these jobs to be able to travel and see the world.

Murder Most Fowl

 Murder Most Fowl is a continuation of this long running mystery series. Amazing to be on book 29 with this time Meg Lanslow and her family hosting a traveling troupe of historic, medieval  reenactors and a Shakespearean play in production.  She seems to have her parents and visiting relatives cooking and cleaning for the actors.  Seems so unlikely.  her father is a retired doctor who can perform the autopsy.  Her husband is the college professor leading the play production.  Meg herself works as a blacksmith, forging tools or in this case a sword.  There are many farm animals that need to be taken care of.

Thrown in are some vandalism and of course a murder. There are many plots happening concurrently. There are also a few Shakespearean facts and historical tidbits to keep the reader interested, as you are waiting to see the reveal of the murderer and the reason behind it. The play is Macbeth and the three witches and their caldron are off in the woods casting spells.  There is a filmmaker who wants to make a documentary and keeps getting in the way and filming many turbulent scenes around the farm house.  Many characters and many distractions to keep you off balance and not sure who the killer is.

Interesting but not compelling. Very cozy mystery.

An Artful Corpse

 An Artful Corpse is the third in a series by Helen Harrison, but the first one I have read.  I love a good cozy mystery and it is always interesting when there is a new twist on who the amateur detective will be.

This time TJ a young college student is the amateur detective, though he is the son of two officers of the law.  His father and mother are both New York City police detectives, which gives them all an inside track on the murder case at hand.  Though a little unrealistic that the officers handling the case would give out information to a fellow detective not assigned to the case, who would share it with their child, is a bit of a stretch.  

Tj is in school to learn police training but still is exploring the idea of being an artist.  He is attending The Art Student's League .  This is a famous art school in NYC.  The main attraction of the book to me is that both my mother and my sister took classes at the school.  So reading about the history of the school, hearing the names of real teachers who worked at the school was interesting.  Also the descriptions of the art and artists that came through the school.  Imagining the picture of TJ and his love interest and friends attending classes and life drawing classes takes me back to family conversations at home.

Mystery wise this was way to easy to solve. I knew who did it even before they did it. So the most interesting par of this book was the history of the 1960s in New York.  The inclusion of real locations and what was happening around the Vietnam War at that time.  I am not sure I will go back to read the first two mysteries in this series.