Fall of Poppies edited by Heather Webb + a Giveaway

Happy Monday, readers! Today I'm a stop on the TLC book tour for Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War.

Since this is an anthology, I'm going to go ahead and use the official synopsis here for you before diving into my review:

Top voices in historical fiction deliver an unforgettable collection of short stories set in the aftermath of World War I—featuring bestselling authors such as Hazel Gaynor, Jennifer Robson, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig and edited by Heather Webb.

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month...

November 11, 1918. After four long, dark years of fighting, the Great War ends at last, and the world is forever changed. For soldiers, loved ones, and survivors the years ahead stretch with new promise, even as their hearts are marked by all those who have been lost.

As families come back together, lovers reunite, and strangers take solace in each other, everyone has a story to tell.

In this moving anthology, nine authors share stories of love, strength, and renewal as hope takes root in a fall of poppies.

As you all may know we are in the midst of the 100 year anniversary of WWI, which began in the summer of 1914 and stretched through to November 11, 1918 - Armistice Day. As such, there's been a bevy of new fiction, non fiction, movies, and tv shows based around that era to satisfy even the buffest of WWI history buffs. I can't claim to be a HUGE history buff (I do have to look up dates and such), but I do absolutely love stories of love, heroism, and the people of this era, which makes this particular anthology quite perfect reading.

The book features nine tales by (as the synopsis promises) top voices in historical fiction, some of whom have been featured here on the blog before:

"The Daughter of Belgium" by Marci Jefferson (The Girl on the Golden Coin) kicks off the collection, introducing readers to a brave and formidable woman whose life in Belgium has been greatly affected by the war. A tragedy has forced her to hide away in a former clinic where one last patient tests her every resolve.

Marci Jefferson - Website | Facebook | Twitter

"The Record Set Straight" by Lauren Willig (the Pink Carnation series, That Summer, and The Other Daughter) takes readers to Kenya in 1980 where an elderly woman is faced with a reunion she's long avoided and a truth that's been buried for over sixty years.

Lauren Willig - Website | Facebook | Twitter

"All for the Love of You" by Jennifer Robson (Somewhere in France, After the War is Over, and Moonlight Over Paris) is set seven years after the war when a woman makes a discovery that brings her back to Armistice Day and a lost love.

Jennifer Robson - Website | Facebook | Twitter

In "After You've Gone" by Evangeline Holland (author of, amongst others, the Bledington Park series) a widow with nothing left to lose finds out this isn't the case at all.

Evangeline Holland - Website | Facebook | Twitter

"Something Worth Landing For" by Jessica Brockmole (Letters From Skye) is a sweet read about a pilot who comes to a stranger's rescue just one day before heading to the front.

Jessica Brockmole - Website | Facebook | Twitter

"Hour of the Bells" by Heather Webb (Becoming Josephine and Rodin's Lover) finds a mother stricken by loss considering a most desperate act of revenge.

Heather Webb - Website | Facebook | Twitter

"An American Airman in Paris" by Beatriz Williams (A Certain Age, Along the Infinite Sea, Tiny Little Things...) tells the story of a pilot who carries a picture that's very near and dear to him. But while everyone believes it's a picture of his sweetheart, only he knows the truth.

Beatriz Williams - Website | Facebook | Twitter

"The Photograph" by Kate Kerrigan (the Ellis Island trilogy, Recipes For a Perfect Marriage, and The Miracle of Grace) is set around the Irish uprising and war for independence and a picture of a soldier in enemy uniform. Who the man was and why his picture was held onto for so many years makes a descendant ponder exactly what that means for her own family history.

Kate Kerrigan - Website | Facebook | Twitter

And finally, in "Hush" by Hazel Gaynor (The Girl Who Came Home, A Memory of Violets, and The Girl From the Savoy) two boys fight for the lives in the same last moments of the war.

Hazel Gaynor - Website | Facebook | Twitter

As I said above, this is quite the perfect anthology for fans of WWI fiction as well as fans of the contributing authors. But do be prepared, these are some emotional stories! You may need tissues nearby (Something Worth Landing For was the one that got me!).

Rating: 4/5

As a little bonus today, I do have a copy of Fall of Poppies to give away to one of you lucky readers. To enter simply fill out the Rafflecopter below before Monday, March 21. Open US only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


To see more stops on the tour be sure to check out the official TLC tour page here.

Purchase Links: HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

PS: last year I was lucky enough to be able to feature the cover and an excerpt from the anthology. You can check that post out here if you'd like a little taste of what's inside (the excerpt is from Heather Webb's fabulous "The Hour of the Bells.")

The Miracle of Grace by Kate Kerrigan

When Grace learns that her mother has stage IV ovarian cancer and that it's likely terminal, she's shocked. Frankly, though, it's not so much the cancer that sets her reeling as the way she finds out about it - an innocuous notation, number eight in fact, on one of her mother's to do lists: 

8. Tell G have ov cancer. Prob term. 

Eileen's cancer should bring the two together, unite them against a fate that is almost inevitable. Instead the note, the illness, the whole situation stresses the relationship between mother and daughter. But as time progresses and Grace's life spirals even further out of control, she comes to realize that her mother is the one who has always been there. In time, she also comes to learn that there's much about her mother she's taken for granted and stories she's never been told... 

Oh, Eileen is wonderful! Her story, her journey from a bright-eyed, devout child enamored with a pair of red slacks to the mother she becomes was my absolute favorite part of this book. It's likely in part due to the fact that she reminded me just a bit of another character I'd recently become attached to whose relationship with her husband was similar to how Eileen's turned out. Just a smidge of reminiscence but enough to make her that much more of a favorite of mine in the reading.

Grace on the other hand took much longer to become attached to. It was her stubbornness and anger over the note that I just couldn't reconcile! It's hard to imagine (though I know it happens) turning anger and hurt over such a revelation onto the person who's suffering rather than the situation itself.

Don't worry, that's part of Grace's story.

The dual narrative gives readers a chance to really get to know both Grace and Eileen AND illustrate the true differences between their generations. This was another aspect I really, really loved about The Miracle of Grace. Eileen is somewhat trapped by her situation thanks to the time and place she's grown up in. Grace's own coming of age, however, is much different - again thanks to the era in question. There was so much social change, some of which Grace acknowledges in her own chapters, between when the two woman lived that it's quite easy to see how there would be such a disconnect between them.

Where Recipes for a Perfect Marriage also explored those generational differences, The Miracle of Grace is focused on the mother/daughter relationship rather than a spousal one. The style and elegance of Kerrigan's writing is always present but I do appreciate how different the two stories are from one another and even from the Ellis Island trilogy as well. Kerrigan has a great range and is a wonderful storyteller!

Rating: 4/5

Recipes for a Perfect Marriage by Kate Kerrigan

If you checked out the blog on Sunday then you know that I've been super excited about the first time ever US ebook release of two of Kate Kerrigan's earlier titles, Recipes for a Perfect Marriage and The Miracle of Grace. I also featured an excerpt of Recipes and promised a follow up review for you. Well, here it is!

Tressa is a successful food writer and kitchen designer living and working in Manhattan. But while her professional life is flourishing, her personal life is lacking. Tressa wants a husband and a family but still hasn't met the right man. And considering her flings with arrogant chefs in the industry are leading nowhere fast, she doesn't have much hope of meeting anyone anytime soon. 

Until she does. 

Dan, the super at her building, is hot. And he's into her. REALLY into her. And when - just a few months after beginning their relationship - he proposes, Tressa feels she has to say yes. But by the time they return from their honeymoon she realizes she's made a huge mistake; Tressa doesn't love Dan. 

Tressa's ideal marriage is based on the one her grandparents had. One of such passion that they lasted for fifty years. But Tressa doesn't know the whole story about her grandparents' relationship. She doesn't know, for example, that her grandmother wasn't in love when she got married either...

I'm going to go ahead and admit that I kind of (really) didn't like Tressa when Recipes began. All of her time and energy focused on how much she hated Dan was mean! I sympathized with her. I definitely sympathized with her! I'm sure everyone can relate to realizing a relationship is wrong. And I'm sure plenty of people (based on the statistics out there) have come to that conclusion after getting married.

But Dan's a nice guy. A really nice guy who's trying in spite of the fact that Tressa is making it so hard on him. Part of me wonders if he would have seriously considered her having some sort of mood disorder based on the abuse he takes from her!

And Tressa's grandmother, Bernadine, isn't much better with her husband James. At least there she's still harboring hurt over losing the man she really was in love with. But James, too, tries. And puts up with a lot.

I should point out that I don't need to fall in love with a character in order to enjoy their story. This is one perfect example why: the characters' evolution is the story.

While Tressa is trying to decide what to do about her marriage, how soon is appropriate to begin talks of divorce, she's decided to write a cookbook using her grandmother's old recipes. Each section of the book begins with one of those classic recipes, adding more to the theme of "Recipes for a Perfect Marriage." It's right there in the beginning of the book with the first lines:

The heart of a recipe, what makes it work, is a mystery. Taste is such a personal thing and yet the right recipe can open a person’s mind to a food they thought they didn’t like. Then again, you can put all the right ingredients together, follow the instructions exactly, and still have a disaster on your hands.

And it's there in the recipe for Tressa's grandmother's rhubarb tart with the comment that the rhubarb alone is too bitter to be palatable. Tressa and her grandmother both are like that rhubarb - bitter. For Tressa, it's of her own making. For her grandmother it's because of an unfortunate series of circumstances. But their husbands, to my mind, are the sugar (even for the reader, considering they're both more likable in the beginning than their wives are!). 

How or whether their relationships come together in harmony or become the disasters Tressa notes in the lines above is for you to find out. I can promise you that even if you don't like rhubarb, though, you'll love following both Tressa and Bernadine's stories!

Recipes for a Perfect Marriage by Kate Kerrigan - Excerpt

Hi, everyone! Today, this first day of November, I have a very special post-Halloween treat for you. I know some of you might have grown tired of all the horror posts from the end of last month, so this will be a welcome change for you  especially, I expect :)

This is quite an exciting post for me. You may recall when I read and reviewed Kate Kerrigan's Ellis Island trilogy; I loved this series and was quite sad when all was said and done. So you can imagine how truly pleased I was to find out that UK publisher Head of Zeus would be releasing two of Kerrigan's earlier titles in ebook here in the US. This is the first time these titles have been available Stateside! I'll be covering them both here on the blog this month. Today I've got an excerpt of Recipes for a Perfect Marriage to share with you, but before we dive into the excerpt here's a bit about the book from Goodreads:

New York food writer Tressa returns from honeymoon worried that she has married her impossibly handsome new husband Dan out of late-thirties panic instead of love.

In 1930’s Ireland, her grandmother, Bernadine, is married off to the local schoolteacher after her family are unable to raise a dowry for her to marry her true love, Michael.

During the first year of her marriage, Tressa distracts herself from her stay-or-go dilemma by working on her grandmother’s recipes, searching for solace and answers through their preparation.

Through the stories of these two women Recipes for a Perfect Marriage challenges the modern ideal of romantic love as a given and ponders whether true love can really be learned.

And now, here's a taste of Recipes for a Perfect Marriage.  

Prologue

The heart of a recipe, what makes it work, is a mystery. Taste is such a personal thing and yet the right recipe can open a person’s mind to a food they thought they didn’t like. Then again, you can put all the right ingredients together, follow the instructions exactly, and still have a disaster on your hands.

That’s how it has always been with me and my Grandma Bernadine’s brown bread. I would do exactly as she showed me, but it would always come out a little too crumbly or doughy or hard.

“You’re too fussy,” she’d say. “Put some jam on and just eat it anyway. It’ll be different again tomorrow.”

And it was always different. But it was never right. Like my marriage to Dan.

They say you just know the man you are going to marry. That’s how it’s supposed to work. You date guys, sleep with them, live with them—get through your twenties having fun falling in and out of love. Then one day you meet this man and you just know he is “The One.” He’s different from everyone else you have ever met. You feel happier, more special, more alive when you are with him. So you get married.

For two weeks you are Barbie and Ken. There’s a big showoff wedding at the Plaza, and you wear a white meringue of a dress even though you are over thirty. You spend what should be the down payment for your first home on fourteen days in the Caribbean.

Then, when you get your “Ken” home, you realize he was an impulse buy. You wanted the “married” label so badly that you didn’t think it through, and now he doesn’t look as good as he did under the spangly lights of singledom. He doesn’t fit you properly, either; although you convinced yourself he’d be suitable for everyday use, you now find him uncomfortable and irritating. He has cost you your freedom; he is the most expensive mistake you will ever make. You have been married for less than three months and everything he does and everything he says makes you scream inside: For the rest of my life! I can’t live with this for the rest of my life!

But you don’t say it out loud because you are ashamed of having made such a terrible, terrible mistake. Even though you despise him for the way he clips his toenails in bed, you know it is not grounds for divorce. You know that this silent torture you are living with is entirely your fault for marrying him when you didn’t really love him. Not enough, certainly. Now that you think back on it, did you ever love him at all, or was it all just about you desperately wanting to get married? Because surely love is too strong to allow these petty everyday annoyances to turn it into hatred. Love is bigger than that. Love doesn’t make mistakes. Not real love. Not the kind of love that makes you marry someone.

by the seventh week of married life the statistic that one in four marriages ends in divorce cheers you, and you have decided that six months is a respectable amount of time to be seen trying to make it work.

Except that you know you haven’t. Tried, that is. And you can’t help thinking that perhaps you are just part of a generation of women who finds marriage a challenging and difficult state of being.

Or perhaps there is no universal group, no zeitgeist-y cliché to hide behind.

In which case I am just a woman who married the wrong guy and is trying to find a way out.

I hope y'all are as excited about this one as I am! I'll be posting my review of this one Friday and I'll be covering Kerrigan's The Miracle of Grace next week as well. 

Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War - Cover Reveal, Excerpt, + a Giveaway

As you can tell from my recent Charles Todd post and today's Cat Winters post, I'm one of many readers who finds WWI (and WWII) an irresistible subject/setting in novels. Which is why I'm taking part in today's cover reveal for next spring's Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War.

Thanks to the publisher, I've got not only the cover to show you but a bit about the book to share (with preorder links):

Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War 

by Heather Webb, Hazel Gaynor, Beatriz Williams, Jennifer Robson, Jessica Brockmole, Kate Kerrigan, Evangeline Holland, Lauren Willig, Marci Jefferson 

William Morrow Trade Paperback; March 1, 2016; $14.99; ISBN: 9780062418548 

Barnes & Noble / Amazon / IndieBound / Books-a-Million 

Top voices in historical fiction deliver an intensely moving collection of short stories about loss, longing, and hope in the aftermath of World War I—featuring bestselling authors such as Hazel Gaynor, Jennifer Robson, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig and edited by Heather Webb.

A squadron commander searches for meaning in the tattered photo of a girl he’s never met…

A Belgian rebel hides from the world, only to find herself nursing the enemy…

A young airman marries a stranger to save her honor—and prays to survive long enough to love her…The peace treaty signed on November 11, 1918, may herald the end of the Great War but for its survivors, the smoke is only beginning to clear. Picking up the pieces of shattered lives will take courage, resilience, and trust.

Within crumbled city walls and scarred souls, war’s echoes linger. But when the fighting ceases, renewal begins…and hope takes root in a fall of poppies.

and an excerpt: 

Excerpt from “Hour of the Bells” 

A short story included in Fall of Poppies 

Beatrix whisked around the showroom, feather duster in hand. Not a speck of dirt could remain or Joseph would be disappointed. The hour struck noon. A chorus of clocks whirred, their birds popping out from hiding to announce midday. Maidens twirled in their frocks with braids down their backs, woodcutters clacked their axes against pine, and the odd sawmill wheel spun in tune to the melody of a nursery rhyme. Two dozen cuckoos warbled and dinged, each crafted with loving detail by the same pair of hands—those with thick fingers and a steady grip.

Beatrix paused in her cleaning. One clock chimed to its own rhythm, apart from the others.

She could turn them off—the tinkling melodies, the incessant clatter of pendulums, wheels, and cogs, with the levers located near the weights—just as their creator had done before bed each evening, but she could not bring herself to do the same. To silence their music was to silence him, her husband, Joseph. The Great War had already done that; ravaged his gentle nature, stolen his final breath, and silenced him forever.

In a rush, Beatrix scurried from one clock to the next, assessing which needed oiling. With the final stroke of twelve, she found the offending clock. Its walnut face, less ornate than the others, had been her favorite, always. A winter scene displayed a cluster of snow-topped evergreens; rabbits and fawns danced in the drifts when the music began, and a scarlet cardinal dipped its head and opened its beak to the beauty of the music. The animals’ simplicity appealed to her now more than ever. With care, she removed the weights and pendulum, and unscrewed the back of the clock. She was grateful she had watched her husband tend to them so often. She could still see Joseph, blue eyes peering over his spectacles, focused on a figurine as he painted detailing on the linden wood. His patient hands had caressed the figures lovingly, as he had caressed her.

The memory of him sliced her open. She laid her head on the table as black pain stole over her body, pooling in every hidden pocket and filling her up until she could scarcely breathe.

“Give it time,” her friend Adelaide had said, as she set a basket of jam and dried sausages on the table; treasures in these times of rations, yet meager condolence for what Beatrix had lost.

“Time?” Beatrix had laughed, a hollow sound, and moved to the window overlooking the grassy patch of yard. The Vosges mountains rose in the distance, lording over the line between France and Germany along the battle front. Time’s passage never escaped her—not for a moment. The clocks made sure of it. There weren’t enough minutes, enough hours, to erase her loss.

As quickly as the grief came, it fled. Though always powerful, its timing perplexed her. Pain stole through the night, or erupted at unlikely moments, until she feared its onslaught the way others feared death. Death felt easier, somehow.

Beatrix raised her head and pushed herself up from the table to finish her task. Joseph would not want her to mourn, after two long years. He would want to see her strength, her resilience, especially for their son. She pretended Adrien was away at school, though he had enlisted, too. His enlistment had been her fault. A vision of her son cutting barbed wire, sleeping in trenches, and pointing a gun at another man reignited the pain and it began to pool again. She suppressed the horrid thoughts quickly, and locked them away in a corner of her mind.

With a light touch she cleaned the clock’s bellows and dials, and anointed its oil bath with a few glistening drops. Once satisfied with her work, she hung the clock in its rightful place above the phonograph, where a disk waited patiently on the spool. She spun the disk once and watched the printed words on its center blur. Adrien had played Quand Madelon over and over, belting out the patriotic lyrics in time with the music. To him, it was a show of his support for his country. To Beatrix it had been a siren, a warning her only son would soon join the fight. His father’s death was the final push he had needed. The lure of patrimoine, of country, throbbed inside of him as it did in other men. They talked of war as women spoke of tea sets and linens, yearned for it as women yearned for children. Now, the war had seduced her Adrien. She stopped the spinning disk and plucked it from its wheel, the urge to destroy it pulsing in her hands.

She must try to be more optimistic. Surely God would not take all she had left.

Reprinted Courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers

Given not only the subject but the fabulous list of contributing authors, you can probably tell that this is one that's already on my list of books to buy for 2016! 

Now, it is quite a while before the book is out but the publisher is offering up a great giveaway to celebrate the reveal. This is a reveal wide giveaway so you can enter on any of the participating blogs. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Land of Dreams by Kate Kerrigan

Hi, everyone! Today I'm a stop on the TLC book tour for Kate Kerrigan's Land of Dreams, the third part of her fabulous Ellis Island trilogy!

It's 1942 and the now twice-widowed Ellie Hogan has carved out a nice niche for herself in New York. She's raising two adopted sons and is an up-and-comer in the art scene as well. When her eldest boy, Leo, decides to take off for Hollywood in pursuit of fame and glory, Ellie has no choice but to follow. Initially, her plan is to retrieve her son and return to New York, but when it looks as though stardom might be a reality for Leo, Ellie's plans change. 

But Hollywood is a far cry from New York or even Ireland. 

I was so anxious to get to get back to Ellie's story with Land of Dreams. It's been on my must have list since I turned the final page on City of Hope last year. Seriously, I even considered ordering it from the UK so that I wouldn't have to wait!

That said, I was surprised that the first third of the book is basically backstory to get us up to 1942. It glossed over Ellie's years with Charles and Leo all in order to catch us up on what happened after the last book and get us to the point where the story actually begins. It was disappointing and dragged the momentum of the first part of the book quite significantly.

This start was doubly disappointing because I'd found City of Hope particularly easy to get into even if you hadn't already read Ellis Island and I felt that Land of Dreams didn't have that same approachability. I've so adored each part of Ellie's story that it's become one of my favorite things to recommend to readers. But where readers could start easily with either City or the actual first installment, Ellis, I don't think Land would serve well at all as a diving off point.

Now that that's out of the way, I will tell you that I still greatly enjoyed returning to Ellie. She's a character readers can't help but fall in love with! Her struggles in this book are centered around her kids and her identity. She worries about stifling Leo's dreams but Los Angeles proves to be less than inspiring for her own art and that's something that scares her.

I was glad Bridie traveled to LA in Land! Ellie's friends have always played a big role in her story and while she does make friends in California, Bridie is a favorite from the previous installments. She's feisty and funny and I would have missed her and the way she supports Ellie and her family.

Land of Dreams is a nice close to Ellie's tale but I do recommend reading at least City of Hope beforehand.

Rating: 3.5/5

To see more stops on the tour be sure to check out the official TLC tour page here.

For more on Kate and her work you can visit her website here. You can also like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.

Pre Pub Book Buzz: Land of Dreams by Kate Kerrigan

This one is a bit far out - due out from William Morrow October 7 - but having read the first two (and LOVED them), I've been highly anticipating this one. And it's been out in the UK all this time!

Here's a bit about the book from the company's catalog on Edelweiss:

Irish immigrant Ellie Hogan has finally achieved the American Dream. But her comfortable bohemian life on Fire Island, New York, is shattered when her eldest adopted son, Leo, runs away, lured by the promise of fortune and fame in Hollywood. Determined to keep her family intact, Ellie follows him west, uprooting her youngest son and long-time friend Bridie.

In Los Angeles, Ellie creates a fashionable new home among the city’s celebrities, artists, and movie moguls. She is also drawn into intense new friendships, including talented film composer Stan, a man far different from any she has ever met, and Suri, a beautiful Japanese woman and kindred spirit, who opens Ellie’s eyes to the injustices of her country.

While Leo is dazzled by Hollywood’s glitz, Ellie quickly sees that the golden glamour masks a world of vanity and greed. Though she tries to navigate them around the dangers of their new home, she will not be able protect them from an even more terrifying threat: war . . .

If you're intrigued, I do highly recommend checking out the two previous books in the trilogy, Ellis Island and City of Hope.

City of Hope by Kate Kerrigan

Good morning, readers! Today I'm a stop on the TLC book tour for Kate Kerrigan's latest, City of Hope.

The story picks up in 1934, Ellie has expanded beyond her country store and now owns a typing school and salon. Because the couple has never been able to have kids Ellie has thrown herself into work, and while John isn't necessarily happy about it, he is supportive and understanding of her needs. But when John suddenly dies, Ellie finds herself fleeing back to New York. Things have changed since she left and the Depression has left the city a shadow of what it once was. Here, Ellie finds a new purpose in helping those who have suffered the most. 

John freaking dies?! Agh!

Now that I've got that out, I'm all good. You'll notice that I elected to read both Ellis Island and City of Hope for review today; it actually isn't really necessary to read Ellis Island in order to jump into City at all, though I do recommend it, simply because I love Ellie and her story.

So Ellie returns to New York City, in a rush, and finds that her salvation isn't quite as she remembered it. And while she's doing well thanks to her business savvy in Ireland, many of those around her are not. She immediately looks up some old friends and finds that Mrs. Flannery has lost her husband as well and is living in not so great conditions while working full time at a laundry. The many homeless throughout the city gives Ellie an idea, however, one that she quickly recruits Mrs. Flannery for as well.

City of Hope has an all new cast of characters, which once again illustrates Kerrigan's strength in building real and believable people to fill out her story. Again, Ellie comes across as admirable and adaptable, but again throwing herself into another project to avoid facing her husband's death.

I also thought that Kerrigan did a great job capturing the spirit of the time and place: New York just after Roosevelt has come into office. The desperation and strength that those who suffered most must have felt - something that's represented best through the male characters in the book. And Ireland in the 1930s, too. The place that Ellie longed to escape so badly offered her the success she needed to be able to tackle her projects in New York City.

The end by no means wraps up Ellie's story, there's a whole new book for that! If you're in the UK, you get an earlier stab at it than we will since Land of Dreams is out now in hardcover (due out in paperback this fall - I'm jealous! I really would have jumped immediately into book three after turning the final page of City of Hope had that been an option for me!

Rating: 5/5

To see what others on the tour thought, check out the official TLC tour page here.

For more on Kate Kerrigan and her books, visit her website here. You can also like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.

Ellis Island by Kate Kerrigan

I'm part of the TLC book tour for Kate Kerrigan's City of Hope today, but first I decided to dive into it's prequel, Ellis Island.

Ellie has loved John almost since the day she met him. When they finally came of age, they married and started a life together. Times were hard and their country was at war, but they were confident it would all work out in the end. Then John was shot. His hip was shattered and without surgery it's possible he would never walk again. Ellie takes a drastic step and travels to America where she's hired on as a maid in the Adams home. Things in America are so different from the life she's always known, and Ellie misses her husband fiercely. Her goal was to stay for just one year, earning enough for John's surgery and then returning home. But things don't quite work out the way she'd planned.

The story takes place between 1908 and 1924-ish. It touches on - amongst many things - the war in Ireland and the resulting Home Rule (the agreement that gave ruling power of the majority of Ireland back to Ireland - if you're a Downton Abbey fan you'll recall arguments about Irish Home Rule between the Earl of Grantham and his new son-in-law, Tom Branson). This is the movement that John is fighting for in Ellis Island.

Ellie is raised in a household that really shows no affection at all, so it seems fortunate that John and his adoptive parents come into her life when they do. Kerrigan has a real talent for creating heartwarming characters and Maidy and Paud are two exceptional examples. In all honesty, though, all of her characters are wonderful! Even Ellie's mother and father, as cold and untouchable as they are, are so well drawn through Kerrigan's prose!

The favorite, though, is definitely Ellie. By the time she makes it to New York, we really start to learn just how resourceful and strong she is. Every hurdle that's thrown at her is met with admirable resolve. From the beginning, Kerrigan captures Ellie's voice, bringing her to life in such an amazing way. The joys and horrors of her life felt so completely real. What's more, the settings that Ellie moves through are so detailed and vivid that it felt like I was right there alongside her.

Ellis Island is such a wonderfully told story. I stayed up late reading two nights in a row and immediately started City of Hope so that I could continue Ellie's story.

Rating: 5/5