The Lost Girls of Paris

Jenna Blum has written another fascinating historical novel.  I just finished reading the
The Lost Girls of Paris.  Again I have been able to learn something new while enjoying a compelling novel. I really appreciate the authors who are taking the history lessons that have remained undiscovered and bringing them to the forefront in an easily readable way.  Then we the readers should go and learn more about the topics after finishing these novels.

This time Blum takes us on a time travel back to the early days after World War II , in New York City.  We meet Grace Healey, a young woman getting back on her feet after the death of her husband.  She is escaping the memories and her family, taking an apartment in the city and finding a job working in a small office.  Day to day she is assisting families who have come to America get established with apartments, jobs and daily necessities after the war.

One day she walks through Grand Central train station and finding an abandoned suitcase, her life changes.  Finding pictures of young women in the suitcase she begins to uncover the mysterious disappearance of not only the person who owned the suitcase but of the girls whose pictures Grace has discovered.  At the same time she has reconnected with an old friend of her husband's who is a lawyer in Washington DC.  Grace is trying to work out her feelings for this man as he helps her uncover the truth about what happened during the war to these women.

Interspersed with Grace and her story is the back story of the British SOE special agents who were all young women, trained in Britain and sent to France joining the resistance fighters to spy on the Germans and send messages back to England.  They were trained in radio operations and combat then sent on dangerous missions without proper preparation or support.  As Grace is uncovering their stories and names we learn about,  Eleanor Trigg, who was the woman who was in charge of recruiting and training the secret agents.  We follow the stories of Josie and Marie who are trained and sent to join the Vesper team in Paris.  We learn of the fates of many of the women both real and imagined who were brave and courageous and who the Nazis tried to erase from history.

This is an incredible story of friendship, valor, and betrayal.  It shows how these heroic women had the strength to survive in the worst circumstances.  They put their mission first before their personal lives.

The Dough Must Go On

The Dough Must Go On, is a simple, entertaining mysteries that are a fun way to spend a rainy afternoon.  Clever title and contemporary theme to the mystery as Gemma joins a Who's Got Talent type TV show filming in her village and "The Old Biddies"  are right there taking center stage.

The H.Y. Hanna Oxford Mystery series continues as Gemma is pulled into a catering job for a TV reality entertainment show comes to town to videotape.  Local talent and delicious scones lead to murder. Gemma and now her love interest, Devlin, the local police detective are on the case, figuring out who could have done it.  Stay around to the end of the book for a scrumptious recipe for scones which is just the finishing touch needed to a nicely packaged ending, gathering up all the crumbs of the mystery into a tidy bundle.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Taylor Jenkins Reid has a box office hit with this novel, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.  Somehow it missed my radar when it came out in 2017, so I really glad it was recommended for  one of my book discussion groups.  What a fun and enticing read.  Once you pick it up you will not want to put it down, until all is revealed.

Evelyn Hugo has moved herself out of Hell's Kitchen in New York City and across the country to Hollywood to become a movie star.  At the young age of 18 she reinvents herself and using every trick in the book she launches herself to stardom.  Along the way she marries seven times sometimes for love, sometimes for fame and at least once get herself out of Hell's Kitchen.  She breaks hearts and changes the way people view movies.  Now she is at the end of her life, nearing 80 years old, alone in her New York apartment, having lost all her family and close friends.  She has not been in front of the camera or done any interviews for decades.  She contacts a magazine, requesting only Monique Grant, a new fledgling journalist to do a cover story on her donation to Chrisitie's Auction
House of her famous dresses for charity. 

Monique Grant, whose husband has left her and whose professional life is going nowhere, is surprised by the request but shows up to find that Evelyn has a different plan in mind.  She is going to give Monique the exclusive rights to her life story.  Evelyn will tell Monique all the secrets, good and bad about her life, coming to Hollywood, all her seven husbands, and the love of her life.  Also all the terrible things she did throughout her life to get ahead and keep her fans attention and love.

Wonderfully told, incredibly descriptive of the lifestyle and feelings of the motion picture industry.  The characters pull you right in and leave you drained at the end.  You can relate to Monique's reactions to Evelyn's story because you also are unsure of how you would react in similar circumstances.  You have been totally pulled into the story.

My Oxford Year

Sentimental is the best word to describe this novel.  Julia Whelan tugs at your heart strings as you read through the plot of Eleanor Durran fulfilling her childhood dream to spend a year at Oxford.

Eleanor is presented as a modern young woman.  She is getting off the plane in England as she begins her adventure at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar student.  This is accomplishing both the success of being named a Rhodes scholar, very prestigious and attending Oxford, which she promised herself she would do when she was 13 years old.

Right away two things happen, first a call with an incredible job opportunity to help run the election campaign of a woman running for Unites States president.  She accepts and as she works from England, while attending classes she agrees to return at the end of term to the US.

Then she meets a man who almost hits her with his auto and then spills condiments on her dress.
Of course she hates him, which will mean later she loves him.

As the story progresses Eleanor must come to terms with being her own person and also falling in love.  Being independent and wanting to continue to pursue her career path, or is it really what she wanted ??  Where does love fit into this life she has created for herself?

Whelan gives the reader a chance to see Eleanor and her love interest, Jamie deal with hard choices.  Also as they deal with the present hard choices they are both able to sort out mistaken ideas they have harbored that have led them to how they perceive the present situation.  Letting go and letting life take you on its daily journey may be the message of this book.

The Emperor of Shoes

The Emperor of Shoes written by Spencer Wise was a surprisingly interesting novel.  It did move a little slowly for me and at a few points I wanted to put it down but I kept going and in the end it was quite good.

We travel to China with  twenty six year old, Alex Cohen, a Jewish Bostonian, the son of Fedor who has made his career as a shoe manufacturer running a shoe factory in China.  Fedor  left his family to save the family business, by moving the American shoe company his father started to China.  Now it is Alex's turn to start preparing to take over the family business.  He comes to China to learn from his father. 

Alex is of a new generation.  He falls in love with a factory worker and learns of the Chinese Revolution that is starting to work behind the scenes.  He is more sensitive to the workers than his father.  He starts to want to help the workers instead of paying off the bribes to protect the bottom line.  Alex and his father collide over their differing viewpoints,   "I was staring straight ahead, but I could feel Dad side-eyeing me. I knew he was thinking I created you.  Like how the old rabbis would mold a mythical golem to follow orders-  I honestly think that is how Dad saw fatherhood.  And now he was worried that his divine creature was beginning to turn against him."

As tensions build we see Alex come into his own, building strength of character as he stands up for what he believes in.  His father, sees that the business he built is failing as times change, and he ages out.  The Jewish values Alex learned give him the convictions to challenge his father.