Hannah G

Another great little book about the same family from two of Richmond's other Christmas stories. A delight to read!

I knew before I even found this book that it was just the sort I would love. The old-fashioned ads for it in the back of other books made me resolve to buy as soon as I should find a copy, and I did at last, this May...for only $5. I saved it for a time when I really would enjoy it, and indeed only put it down to sleep.
There's intrigue, a Princess, a doughty Englishman...a book for pure fun.

A powerful, thought-provoking story told from the perspective of a man who carries his sword for the cause of Navarre and carries his Protestant faith even closer. He meets many a trial along the way.

3.5 stars
Most of it was four stars, but the reveal was a bit flaky for me. I'm not fond of info dump from villain types of denouements, and this one wasn't explained enough to make me quite believe it would happen.

I liked the main characters, especially Birdie, and have an interest in old homes and bed and breakfasts, so that added to my enjoyment.

4.5 stars
I loved this one! Sarah's story is interesting and very hard to put down. The ending did keep me up at night.
I really liked Jett's POV and spiritual awakening. He was an interesting character and I loved his reckless courage.
There were lots of nail-biting scenes in this one!!

4.5 stars
An excellent mystery-adventure set in England, the Seychelles, and India in the year 1802. Exotic locales, a legendary jeweled throne to discover, and a spy of Napoleon's to discover lend this story an air of adventure nearly reminiscent of an Indiana Jones tale.

Miss Lydia Garrett is the orphan of a vicar and a disowned earl's daughter, and had been given the training of a lady before her parents died in a carriage accident. Afterward, she is sent to her cousin's home for shelter, and ends up working as a maid in the man's coffee shop, with not even belongings of her own. But when her cousin is brutally murdered, she seeks out the man who the cousin once served under—to find that man also brutally murdered, and his son Anthony ready to do anything to find the killer.

British spy Marcus Harting knows he has to catch the French agent before the tenuous international treaties unravel and the country is thrown back into war. His only lead in in these two murders, so he joins the adventure to find the Peacock Throne in order to find the French agent, who he has reason to believe is also in pursuit of it for reasons of disturbing the peace in India.

There are more murders and a kidnapping and even a thrilling sea battle. And I did not figure out who the agent was until exactly one chapter before the big reveal!

Note on genre: Yes, this author does write Christian books. However, this one is secular. The heroine has faith in God but relies upon herself for the most part, and there is not much talk of God at all. If you aren't Christian, you won't be offended, and if you are Christian, don't look for a sermon in these pages.

3.5 stars, rounded up.
These three stories each carry the flavor of the old west, and it's hard to pick a favorite. The strong evangelistic flavor of these three stories was a plus; it wasn't fake but seemed real to the characters. It's rare that I find an entire collection (albeit only three stories) that all the authors are able to pull off having that amount of faith content and not be preachy.

Content: squeaky

I feel like squealing about this one, honestly! I'm so happy to see my dear friend Patience's book ready to launch out into the world. I got to hear about all the scenes as they were being written and then got to be a first reader. One of the most delightful feelings when your friend is a writer is expecting the book to be good and then being blown away by how excellent it really is.

There's a poetic life to many of the descriptions, which are vivid without becoming pedantic. There are bad guys worthy of the best sort of John Wayne movie. There are circumstances playing against the MCs that are quite obviously not going to end well. And there are some of the most real, lifelike characters that have crossed a book's page in a long while!

Marion will grab your heart from the beginning as she longs to find a better future for herself. Tragedy robbed her of her family too young, and she is alone in the world. Despite having to support herself at a young age, she didn't give up on dreaming of a better future. She simply had no idea her dream was going to turn out the way it does when she embarks to find it! What if she has to give it up for something else—better or worse?

Anyway, I'll stop now before blabbing any good spoilers. :) Suffice it to say that this story will keep you on the edge of your seat as a strong young woman encounters the Old West with results she never dreamed of and dangers at every turn.

This book touched so close to my heart that it is impossible to say anything more than how much I adored it!

Fun, retro-feeling short story, set in a diner. Young Canary and her family are pleasant characters, and this is the sort of story the whole family is sure to enjoy.

I'd have preferred a few more descriptions of the people in the story, so they were left a trifle faceless in my imagination, but everything else is well described, and the story comes to a pleasant close.

3.5 stars

This was my first Rinehart book. In comedic elements it is reminiscent of Frank Stockton or Harold MacGrath, and a couple times I found myself chuckling audibly. But there's also a strong mystery thread running beneath it, as nine people are quarantined in a house together and a pearl necklace vanishes. The mystery will definitely keep you guessing.

There's also a romantic thread. It's rather funny, as each is baffled by the lies they began to tell at the beginning of the ill-fated dinner party. It's definitely a good lesson on what horrid complications can result from a “tiny bit of help to a friend,” otherwise known as a great lie.

I listened to the Librivox version, and the narrator had some odd opinions of pronunciation. “Excape” for escape, “comferably” for comfortably, “yoomer” for humor, “yowers” for hours...that got on my nerves a bit. Otherwise, I liked her slower Southern voice.

An atmospheric and absorbing story of two sets of characters and the threads that tie their stories together.

I tried several times to get into the story and each time the 2020 timeline totally threw me off because of the book being written beforehand and completely being unaware of the whole covid mess. England with meetings and people hopping from town to town to visit each other was just a bit much. Pet peeve anyway, because authors setting stories gently in the future can't drop little realistic hints about the current times, and the story feels more generic than realistic. I had to keep pretending it was 2019 to get through the story. This continual “check the facts at the door” every time we flipped back to modern day kept snapping me out of the story and is part of the reason I didn't add a fifth star.

I love the cover...it's the sort of cover you buy a book for, and it's even prettier in person.

I identified most with Lucy and Dash. The historic timeline was occasionally vivid but incomplete, and having to infer certain things happened was a bit of a letdown at the end.

The writing style is beautiful and carries much of Dykes's trademark poetic touch in the prose. I'm eager to read her next book and already preordered a copy at the bookstore.

Thanks to the publisher for a free reading copy. A favorable review was not required.

3.5 stars

My description:
McKaye is a Pacific-Northwest lumber baron who's built his own idyllic town around his sawmill. He owns everything in the town and all his employees rent at low rates, plus free healthcare at the local hospital he's had built, and zero taxes. Sounds perfect, right? But McKaye isn't a happy man, because his own family is ready to discount or outright ignore his wishes and authority. His daughters are one thing, but when the son of his heart goes against his edicts with every ounce of his own type of courage, something's got to give.

Review: An interesting old book with lots of things going on. Donald McKaye is a great hero and an upright one. I really disliked the bombastic father, “The Laird” McKaye, and his short-sighted hypocrisies. He needed to learn some humility! Especially after having told his son to “sow your wild oats while you're young” and not caring about consequences, but when the son falls in love with a good girl whose name is of ill repute (but whose life is not) he'd honestly rather his son die than marry her? Ugh. Nan is a charming heroine and I loved it when she found her spunk when it was most needed.

Content: lots of swears of the garden variety; think PG-13 level, freely sprinkled.

An old-fashioned doctor/nurse story with a small girl who needs love. It's quirky and a little odd but overall is heartwarming and memorable.

Content: some profanity

Loved this old historical fiction with its setting just after the English Civil War with Jeffreys and the brutal, unjust aftermath of the “rebellion.” No historian can whitewash the travesties of justice that occurred with Jeffreys promoted to Chancellor, and this is what happens when an upright English Protestant family—who didn't even take part in the uprising—is caught in some of the aftermath. I also enjoyed the subplot with Simone and loved getting a glimpse of the Cornish coast of long ago.

Got my ebook copy from Project Gutenberg and will be on the lookout for a hard copy.

I recently bought this book and could not put it down. The narrator is hired by the mayor of her town to become a companion to his wife, who has recently become haunted by some great fear. He asks that she attempt also to discover what is troubling his wife so he can mend it, if possible. Usually I am good at guessing mysteries, but this one baffled me right to the end. Highly recommended!

I loved this story! I didn't know Hill wrote anything so edge-of-your-seat, and I loved the suspense of wondering if Cyril's pursuers would catch up with him before he got his unintended bride to safety. It was an unusual and unpredictable plot, and the ending was downright pleasure.

I listened to the free Librivox recording.

I always love a good historical fiction that includes loads of great research! I truly enjoy travelling to different eras through the books I read, and this one got me fully immersed in frontier Kentucke. Cass and Roxanna were both vivid characters, and I loved seeing this hero fight to become the man Roxie needed. I also love stories of older heroines, so it was nice to have Roxanna a mature young lady of twenty-eight. The ending especially had me on the edge of my seat!

The story's pace is dictated by the historical timeline, and Sabatini keeps it short and basic. This leaves the characters a trifle high and dry, and we don't interact with the hero until halfway through, thus ending with a super hasty romance. What's missing is the usual sparkle and dash Sabatini's earlier novels offered. So, while I enjoyed the careful historical slant, it didn't capture my heart and give me characters to love as I have loved some of his subjects in other novels.

This one's a bit different from the usual Williamson fare. The main similarity is in a car and in travel, but we have a bit of a Romeo-and-Juliet scenario here, with even an unscrupulous rival who will stop at nothing to keep Ramón from getting Monica. A king and his bride even take a hand in events, as well as rich American Dick Waring, Ramón's best friend, his chauffeur Peter Ropes, and Mr. and Miss O'Donnel, Irish-Spaniards, otherwise known as the Cherub and Pilar. Even the brave bull Vivillo has his part to play.
A colorful story with a satisfying conclusion!

Edit: 8/2/18 I got a hard copy of the story this week, and it's actually a stand-alone volume of 170 pages. My copy is very well edited and beautifully bound. The main objection that I have is because of the rather large number of German swears that pepper the pages. Otherwise, it's a very sweet little love story, set first in the days of the Prussia vs. Saxony conflict (name escapes me at the moment) and second during the Franco-Prussian war.


Old review: 10/3/13
The title story was an interesting little love story set in Saxony in the late 1800s. If it had been written better, I think I would have enjoyed it more; but inconsistencies like changing the spelling of someone's name partway through the story and other such sloppiness was difficult to ignore. The same held true for the other stories in the book, which must mean there was little to no editing before publication.
The story lines themselves were good, and it's a pity they were published before they were polished. I enjoyed the concepts and the better parts of all the stories.

I have no words. This book yanked my heart out and turned it over and inside out by the time I reached the last page.

There can be no peace while tyranny roams. Freedom is the only way that peace can exist in the world, for tyranny never allows for the peace of the individual. Freedom to think one's own thoughts and choose one's actions are always a threat to a society ruled by a Collective Mind or a dictator or a theocracy. But tyranny is ever a coward; the right to keep and bear arms, an American tradition, is one of the first things a conquering government wishes to suppress, followed quickly by a dictate of religion and a taking of personal property.

Few books illustrate this so boldly as this one. Dr. Worth and his friends recognized that the order to disarm the Americans was but the prequel to the outlawing of their religious rights and of their right to hold their personal property. He who had been all his life a peaceable man, friends with many, has to make the stand and begin to arm himself in public.

Next, after the order to disarm the Americans, an army is sent against them. After an initial repulse comes Santa Anna, with his famous march against the Alamo. Do you know the significance of the last stand at the Alamo? Men went in, knowing they would die, prepared to give as good an account of the enemy as possible. Americans had settled in the area under the treaty of 1824 and now were being required to submit to a disarming that left them unable to defend their homes and families against attacks by Indians and marauders. Rather than give in to a breaking of this treaty, they would fight overwhelming numbers and freely give their lives to defend their homes and families. These men were heroes, and because of their stand, the despot Santa Anna was tumbled from power.

This book will wring your heart with what the people faced and what a choice was made. A must-read for anyone interested in American history, but especially for anyone who wishes to visit the Alamo.

2021: finally found a copy for $3 and gave it a quick reread. 3.5 stars.

2016: Short, light comedy. Hopefully the preacher can help Miss Philura realize that it wasn't metaphysics that brought her what she wanted?? I read the Gutenburg copy to see if it was worth $12 for a copy, and after reading the whole thing in fifteen minutes I did leave the book behind—but I will recommend it as a pleasant diversion for a) a short waiting time, or b) for those behind on their yearly challenges!

A perilous adventure set during the days of the French Revolution. I've always enjoyed stories about fencing-masters, for some reason, and this fellow definitely needs every skill he's got.

This is one of the very first old books I began collecting. This charming story of Timothy Jessup, aged about ten, setting out to rescue two-year-old Lady Gay from the orphanage after the death of their foster-mother is one of the sweetest I've ever read. Accompanied by faithful Rags, the dog, they set out on the road to find a home worth staying in. It's liberally sprinkled with tiny pen and ink illustrations that add perfectly to the story.

Recommended for everyone.