The Man of Property
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The classic tale of a wealthy English family—and a jealous husband who will stop at nothing to...
A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding
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LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE Are we free to create our own destinies or are we...
Literary Fiction Mental Health
The Hollow Inside
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Sadie meets The Glass Castle in a smart, gripping, and twisty YA debut about a girl seeking to...
Their Castilian Orphan (The Castilian Saga, #4)
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It is 1294 and Eustace de Lamont is back in England after five years in exile. He will stop at...
Historical Fiction Romance Medieval England
ClareR (5667 KP) rated The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna in Books
Aug 26, 2019
As you can probably guess from the title, Stella’s 7 or 8 deaths feature quite prominently in this, as does her close relationships with her mother and sister. Her father as good as abandons them for the first part of her life, and then demands that his wife and children sell everything and join him in the US where he has been working. Stella hates her controlling, abusive father, but is very much restricted by tradition and religion. So, she lives under his despotic rule. There is quite a bit of abuse - both physical and mental - in this, but what is most admirable is Stella’s unbroken spirit. And she has spirit in spades.
I loved the style in which this was told: a family member researching and telling the story of her relatives, and trying to work out why Stella in her last 30 years refuses to have anything to do with the sister that she loved so much. I had to keep reminding myself that it was in fact fiction. There was a great balance of modern thinking (from the narrator) and the traditions of the older members of the family, complete with curses and spells to avoid the evil eye.
I’ll be honest, I thought I’d made a mistake by choosing this book. I really didn’t think I’d like it. I’m so relieved that I took a chance on this though, because I loved it, and I’d say that it’s well worth a read.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this book.
Afterlife (Afterlife Saga, #1)
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Afterlife… just some gothic nightclub where gossip is fuelled by the presence of a rich and...
Paper Girls: Volume 1
Cliff Chiang, Brian K. Vaughan, Matthew Wilson and Jared K. Fletcher
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From Brian K. Vaughan, #1 New York Times bestselling writer of SAGA, and Cliff Chiang, legendary...
The Real Peter Pan: The Tragic Life of Michael Llewelyn Davies
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Michael Llewelyn Davies was the fourth of five brothers who provided the inspiration for J. M....
Daughters of the Winter Queen
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From the author of The Rival Queens, a lively group biography of Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen,...
A Fire Sparkling
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After a crushing betrayal by the man she loves, Gillian Gibbons flees to her family home for a...
historical fiction women's fiction