Chasing Impossible (Pushing the Limits, #5)
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Tough and independent, 17-year-old Abby lets very few people into her inner circle. It’s common...
Katie McGarry Chasing Impossible Young Adult Young Adult Fiction
Destiny: Child of the Sky (Symphony of Ages, #3)
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A FELLOWSHIP OF THREE To stand against the F'dor-- an ancient, vile being intent on destroying...
Wilderness Bound (The Wilderness Series Book 3)
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Love is the silver lining in a cloud of woe. The legacy continues… A grand adventure where the...
Pamela Ackerson series fiction adult historical fiction historical romance
Sleep in Heavenly Pizza
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Sleep in Heavenly Pizza is the fourth book in Mindy Quigley's delectable Deep Dish Mystery series,...
Death by Haunted House
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When new neighbors move in next door, Hayley Powell is finding the Halloween spirit a little too...
Devotion
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1836, Prussia. Hanne is nearly fifteen and the domestic world of womanhood is quickly closing in on...
Historical fiction Australia Prussia
The Scout (Legends Of Pern Coen: Fated #2)
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Can they survive Fianna's flames? Seren has saved Bran's life, but their hardest battle is yet to...
Fantasy Romance
All About Evie
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1972. Ten years on from the events of The Miseducation of Evie Epworth and Evie is settled in London...
Feminism 1970’s
Suswatibasu (1703 KP) rated A Life of My Own: A Biographer's Life in Books
Nov 29, 2017
From an unstable childhood, moving from place to place during the war, with her family living across several countries, to having an unstable marriage. She describes her unusual relationship with her first husband, the renowned journalist Nick Tomalin, who was killed while covering the Yom Kippur war in 1973. His constant fleeting from his family to other women, and abusive behaviour is dark and quite a difficult read. In this instance, Tomalin appears to be stuck in a pattern of staying with her abuser for the sake of her children, a common occurrence in the 1960's. In between the chaos of her life, she loses a baby only one month old and has another who is permanently disabled.
In the same way, the dark, inexplicable suicide of her youngest daughter is laid bare, but out of it comes a change of direction of life dimension as Claire's vocation as a literary biographer floods in to fill the gap. These are, ironically, the most touching and well-written scenes. Through her own writings of women such as Mary Wollstonecraft, and Charles Dickens' affair with Ellen Ternan, we see Tomalin's own creativity and resilience. She copes because she must, and because she can.
The literary name dropping is everywhere because it is woven into the huge patchwork quilt of her long life. The candour of her resentment for the Murdoch empire is matched by the awe and admiration she has for Harold Evans and her mother.
One of the final scenes, in which she describes her father's great grandchildren dancing unknowingly on the bed, where he himself lay dead in his coffin only hours before, encapsulates the spirit of this beautiful book. A truly wonderful look into her life.
Bookapotamus (289 KP) rated House of Rougeaux in Books
Jun 10, 2018
House of Rougeaux was a wonderful story of a family spanning across the globe and across generations. The saga is non-linear, so it jumps around a bit. I had a hard time following in the beginning and there are quite a few characters to keep straight. But once I got a few chapters in, it was fairly easy to keep track. The family tree illustration in the beginning is super helpful and I fell in love with this family - and the way the author connected the generations was clever and didn't feel forced at all.
From the early 1800's at a sugar plantation in Martinique with Abeje, a healer, and her brother - facing tremendous brutality and loss - only to survive and start the legacy of this story and this family. To more present day with Eleanor, a musician in Canada - faced with a harrowing situation and tough choices, coming full circle.
There is magic and wonder, healing and suffering, as well as music and love. You see these aspects reflected across bloodlines, across generations, from slavery to freedom and across the world. Things are passed down, and you see a bit of some characters in other, through an intricate weaving of layers. But it's easy to see how this family changed and progressed over 100 years, and the spirit that lives within them all.
The story was captivating and the writing, eloquent. Thanks to Goodreads, Jenny Jaeckel and Raincloud Press for the opportunity to read and review.