All posts tagged historical fiction

The Fountains of Silence

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment
Fountains of Silence cover

I recently read The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys. Thank you Bookish First for the Advanced Reader Copy! Sidenote here: it’s a great way to get free physical ARCs! If you want to join and use referral code 56cf541090ca608b4 you can help me get free books and be on your way to getting free books too. Anyway, this book occurs during Franco’s Spain and I liked it a lot.

Maybe I wasn’t paying attention, but I don’t think Franco’s Spain got a lot of publicity (or maybe it’s because he died in 1975). I don’t remember ever learning about it in school, except for maybe a sentence or two. He was a brutal dictator for decades. It’s only been in the last year or so that I’ve started to hear details about how his people suffered under his rule. The Fountains of Silence paints a vivid portrait of what it might have been like to live during this time.

Ana was a maid at an upscale hotel that catered to Americans shortly after the Franco regime started to do business with them. Daniel is a son of an oil tycoon whose parents want him to follow in the family business. He wants to be a photographer instead. He needs to take some brilliant photos while in Spain in order to get a scholarship to go to the school he wants without his parent’s financial aid. Daniel stays at Ana’s hotel for several weeks while his parents conduct business. Ana helps him with his photographs, and they quickly discover that they are compatible. Unfortunately, Ana isn’t supposed to fraternize with hotel guests, and Daniel’s family would prefer him to be with someone in his class.

Ana and Daniel aren’t the only characters of note here. Ana’s cousin Puri works at an orphanage. Her brother’s friend Fuga wants to be a bullfighter. There are corrupt businessmen, a friendly photo developer, and people to watch out for at the hotel. All these characters work together to paint a picture that helps the reader see what it would be like to live in Spain during the 1950s.

I don’t want to give too much away, but there’s danger, love, and a satisfying ending. The book is well-written, and the characters are memorable. The puzzle pieces of this book come together at the end very nicely.

The Fountains of Silence comes out on October 1st (like so many good books are this year) and I highly recommend it.

Ghost Fire

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment
Ghost Fire cover

I recently read Ghost Fire by Wilbur Smith with Tom Harper (thank you to Bookish First and Simon and Schuster for the Advanced Reader Copy). Even though it was the first Wilbur Smith book I read, evidently, he’s written a lot of books. I really liked the book and would read more books by this author in the future.

Theo and Courtney grow up in India in the mid 1700s. Courtney is something of a wild child, and Theo always looks out for her. Until the death of their parents tears them apart. They spend the next several years growing into adulthood, without each other. Both of them go through a lot of adventures and travel the world, unaware of what the other is doing.

What I Liked

One of the things I liked about Ghost Fire was its historical accuracy. I’m a student of history, so I actually figured out ahead of time what one of the things the characters would have to go through would be (they were in Calcutta in 1756… I won’t give it away if you don’t know). Although I was expecting this event to occur, I didn’t know how it would affect the characters. Courtney and Theo were also affected by the French and Indian War. The book really emphasized to me how interconnected a world we live in. Even in the 1700s, something happening in Europe would affect both India and North America.

I also liked the characters. Courtney makes her own choices, even though it tends to go against the societal norms of the day. Although Theo doesn’t agree with them, towards the end of the book, he begins to accept them. Theo grows as a person too, from a cautious boy whose sister pushes him into doing things to a man who is willing to risk his life for the sake of others.

I’ve seen some comments that the book was misogynistic towards Courtney; however, I think the book reflects society’s attitudes well for the time period.

Other Things to Note

Ghost Fire is not a YA book even though the main characters are young adults for most of the book. Back in the 1750s, young adults often lived as adults, and the book reflects that. The vocabulary is more like that of an adult book as well (as in SAT-type words, military jargon, and Indian vocabulary) Trigger warnings you might want to be aware of: there’s an attempted rape and there’s widespread racism.

While I did enjoy Ghost Fire, I think it missed an opportunity with the ending (although in order to avoid spoilers I can’t say how). I wasn’t disappointed with the ending; I just thought there were a couple of things that would have made it more awesome. Nevertheless, if Wilbur Smith wrote more books about these two, I’d read them. This book doesn’t come out until September 3rd but you can pre-order it now.

Rebel by Beverly Jenkins

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

I was fortunate enough to have been given the opportunity to read Rebel by Beverly Jenkins (thank you Netgalley!). This was a great book! Since I’m sure I’m going to also love Marie Lu’s Rebel later on this year, it looks like there will be two amazing books with that title out in 2019.

Val is a black schoolteacher in the days shortly after the Civil War. Although originally from New York, she’s in New Orleans for a short time while her intended is away in France on a business trip. She’s teaching a group of newly freed slaves (both children and adults) how to read. She’s proud of all the progress that her students are making.

But even though the slaves have been freed, this is still a dangerous time to be black and live in the South. A lot of white people don’t like the idea of black people becoming better people. A group of supremacists decide to derail Val’s teaching plans and try to attack her.

Val isn’t the kind of person that will allow herself to be attacked without fighting back though. And that’s how she meets Drake LaVeq.

LaVeq is instantly attracted to her, but after he deters the thugs that are after her, he thinks that’s the last he’ll see of her — until she ends up at his brother’s hotel. You’ll have to read the book to find out how they find their happily ever after.

There were a lot of things I loved about this book. For one thing, I loved Val’s character. She was brave and willing to stand up for herself, yet at the same time, she was realistically constrained by the expectations that society had for her at the time. She wasn’t this Mary Sue kind of character that would kick the bad guy’s butt and then nobody would think anything of it. This did happen right after the Civil War. Even in the 1960s, that would have been unrealistic. LaVeq was also a well-written character. He was generous, yet still had his own demons to deal with (part of them having to do with being interested in a lady that was engaged to another).

I thought the setting portrayed the struggles that black people had to deal with after the Civil War quite well. There were a lot of white people at the time that didn’t want to see black people do well. Some former slave owners tried to force their former slaves to work for them again. Black people’s testimony wasn’t worth as much in a court of law, and some white people could get away with terrorizing black people. The first black people were elected to the US Senate around this time; this book really brings to life the struggles these people must have gone through. At the same time, Rebel doesn’t gloss over the fact the everybody was struggling at the time. There were poor whites in the South at the time too.

In addition to the amazing setting and the great characters, the romance aspect of this story was good too. LaVeq was respectful and tried to maintain his distance from Val (although that wasn’t easy to do). I loved how they resolved the situation with Val’s intended, and even with her father (who is an old-fashioned kind of guy). Val and LaVeq were great together and their story was compelling.

If you’re interested in a romance set in the post-Civil War era, I highly recommend Rebel by Beverly Jenkins. She’s an outstanding author and I would read other books by her in the future.

Remember Fawkes on the Fifth of November!

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

Fawkes coverRemember, remember, the fifth of November!  In 1605, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up parliament with a bunch of gunpowder located underneath the House of Lords.  When he was caught guarding the gunpowder, he ended up becoming associated with treason (and later fighting against the government) forever.  Fawkes is a story based on the Gunpowder Plot, with magic and a bit of romance thrown in.

The story starts with a great line: “I wasn’t ready to turn to stone.”  As a writer, I’ve started to pay attention to the first lines of books, and I love this one.

In the early 17th century, the England of Fawkes is troubled by a plague where people will turn to stone.  Thomas Fawkes has that plague.  His absentee father chooses not to give him his mask (your mask is the source of your color magic).  This effectively kicks him out of school, so he heads off to London to track down his father — and discovers that his father is in a plot to destroy parliament and install a new government.

In the world of Fawkes, the people are divided into two groups: Keepers, who will only listen to one type of color magic, and Igniters, who practice all kinds of color magic.  Both groups blame the other for the plague going on in the city.  It seems a lot like today, where there’s a lot of division (particularly in the United States); it seems like there are two main sides that want to blame the other.

Over the course of this story, Thomas Fawkes needs to figure out where he stands on the whole color magic situation.  It might even mean that he disagrees with his father.  He also reluctantly falls in love with Emma, who has a secret of her own (which I really like).

I agree with some of the other reviews on this book that it starts out slow.  I’m not sure what makes it seem that way.  Perhaps it’s because we’re still getting to know the characters at that point, and Thomas is still indecisive about the direction that he wants his life to head in.  Either way, the story really takes off towards the end.  It makes up for the slowness at the beginning.

There is a lot of actual history in this book, which the history buff in me loves.  Fawkes is a great story in itself though.  If you love both history and magic, I highly recommend it.  It might start slow in the beginning, but the book ends with a bang.  Not exactly literally.  The gunpowder plot was foiled, after all.  But it does end spectacularly.