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The Garden of Letters by Alyson Richman

Source: Penguin
Paperback, 384 pgs
On Amazon and on Kobo

The Garden of Letters by Alyson Richman is an emotional tale of finding the strength to do what’s right even if it places you, your dreams, and your family in danger.  Elodie Bertolotti is a young, virtuoso with the cello, and her father teaches violin at the local music school in Verona, Italy.  She has the musical talents of her father, and they often connect with just the music around them or speak through minimal glances and facial expressions.  But like her mother, she can memorize things instantly. She has the best gifts for a musician — the ability to memorize entire scores and the ability to play them with passion.  However, she is mild compared to her friend, Lena, who is outspoken against the Fascists and eager to get involved in the Italian resistance.

“His playing was the lullaby of her childhood.  She knew when he played Mozart that he was savoring good news; when he was nervous, he played Brahms; and when he wanted forgiveness from her mother, he played Dvorak.  She knew her father more clearly through his music than she did through his words.”  (page 19)

The Venetian blood running through Elodie’s veins and her gift of memorization are things that she had little thought for beyond her music, but she soon realizes that they can be of great use.  Richman has created a novel in which a young music student finds that she’s passionate about more than the scores she learns in class; she is eager to be noticed by Luca who catches her eye, but she also wants to take action against the Nazis who have come to lay a heavy hand on her country.  Things are not what they once were in Verona, and she must learn how to either blend into the background or stand up for what she believes in.

The Garden of Letters by Alyson Richman is stunning, and a real treat for those interested in the Italian resistance during WWII.  But the novel also offers a coming of age story and a story of second chances.  Richman has created an emotionally charged, suspenseful, historical fiction novel that at its heart speaks of redemption and new beginnings.  Weaving together music, art, books, and war, Richman’s story transcends time through the lives of her dynamic characters.  Another for the Best of List 2014.

About the Author:

Alyson Richman is the internationally bestselling author of: The Garden of Letters, The Lost Wife, The Last Van Gogh, The Rhythm of Memory (formerly published as Swedish Tango), and The Mask Carver’s Son. Her books have received both national and international critical acclaim and have been translated into eighteen languages.  The Lost Wife was nominated as one of the best books of 2012 by the Jewish Journal of Books and was The 2012 Long Island Reads Selection.  The novel is now a national bestseller with over 200,000 combined print/ebook copies sold and is in development to be a major motion film. Her forthcoming novel, The Painted Dove, centers around the French courtesan Marthe de Florian and the mystery of her Paris apartment that remained locked for 70 years.  It will be published by Berkley/Penguin in September 2016.  A graduate of Wellesley College and a former Thomas J. Watson Fellow, she currently lives with her husband and children in Long Island, New York.

37th book for 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

 

 

 

 

33rd book (WWII) for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

 

 

 

 

28th book for 2014 European Reading Challenge; (Set in Italy)

Mailbox Monday #283

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia at To Be Continued, formerly The Printed Page, has a permanent home at its own blog.

To check out what everyone has received over the last week, visit the blog and check out the links.  Leave yours too.

Also, each week, Leslie, Vicki, and I will share the Books that Caught Our Eye from everyone’s weekly links.

Here’s what I received:

1.  The Paradise Tree by Elena Maria Vidal for review in October for Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.

The year is 1887 in Leeds County, Ontario. The O’Connor clan is gathering to mourn the loss of its patriarch Daniel O’Connor, an Irish immigrant. The story of Daniel and his wife Brigit is one of great hardships, including illness, ill-starred romances, war and political upheavals, as well as undying love and persevering faith. As Daniel is laid to rest, his grandson Fergus receives a piercing insight into what his own calling in life will be.

2. Giggle Poetry Reading Lessons: A Successful Reading-Fluency Program Parents and Teachers Can Use to Dramatically Improve Reading Skills and Scores by Amy Buswell and Bruce Lansky, illustrated by Stephen Carpenter from LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

Many struggling readers are embarrassed to read aloud. They are often intimidated or bored by texts that conventional programs require them to practice. So, instead of catching up, they fall further behind. Currently 67% of American fourth graders can’t read grade-level text. Reading specialist Amy Buswell has spent eight years looking for remediation methods that work. “What is needed,” Buswell explains, “is a program that improves the motivation of struggling readers, because that accounts for 90% of the problem.” Four years ago, Buswell came up with a brainstorm. She knew her best readers enjoyed reading Bruce Lansky’s poetry books for pleasure. The more poems they read, the better their reading got. Why not use Lansky’s kid-tested poems as texts struggling readers could practice on to improve their reading—using six research-based strategies: choral reading, echo reading, paired reading, repeated reading, sustained silent reading and “say it like the character” reading. — This book is the result of that brainstorm and the resulting collaboration between Buswell and Lansky. It gives teachers and parents everything they need to help children improve their reading: -35 kid-tested poems by Bruce Lansky -35 customized reading lessons by Amy Buswell -35 off-the-wall illustrations by Stephen Carpenter -35 sets of zany performance tips by Bruce Lansky …all of which is designed to make the process of reading improvement more like fun than work. Parents will enjoy Lansky’s funny poems and Stephen Carpenter’s delightful illustrations as much as their children.

3.  The Garden of Letters by Alyson Richman for review in September.

Portofino, Italy, 1943. A young woman steps off a boat in a scenic coastal village. Although she knows how to disappear in a crowd, Elodie is too terrified to slip by the German officers while carrying her poorly forged identity papers. She is frozen until a man she’s never met before claims to know her. In desperate need of shelter, Elodie follows him back to his home on the cliffs of Portofino.

Only months before, Elodie Bertolotti was a cello prodigy in Verona, unconcerned with world events. But when Mussolini’s Fascist regime strikes her family, Elodie is drawn into the burgeoning resistance movement by Luca, a young and impassioned bookseller. As the occupation looms, she discovers that her unique musical talents, and her courage, have the power to save lives.

4.  In Real Life: Love, Lies, & Identity in the Digital Age by Nev Schulman, a suprise review copy from Grand Central.

Now Nev takes his investigation to the page, providing readers with an essential roadmap to better connect their digital personas with their true selves. Woven throughout with Nev’s personal stories, this book explores relationships in the era of social media. Specifically the book tackles:

-what motivates catfish
-why people fall for catfish
-how one can avoid being deceived
-online accountability
-Nev’s rules for dating
-how to connect authentically with people over the internet
-how to turn an online relationship into a real life relationship, and much, much more.

Nev delves deeply into the complexities of dating in a digital age, and continues the cultural dialogue his show has begun about how we interact with each other through social media versus in person — specifically in relation to millennials, who have never known a world without Facebook.

5.  My Mother’s Secret: A Novel Based on a True Holocaust Story by J.L. Witterick for review in September.

Franciszka and her daughter, Helena, are unlikely heroines. They are simple people who mind their own business and don’t stand out from the crowd. Until 1939, when crisis strikes. The Nazis have invaded Poland and they are starting to persecute the Jews. Providing shelter to a Jew has become a death sentence. And yet, Franciszka and Helena decide to do just that. In their tiny, two-bedroom home in Sokal, Poland, they cleverly hide a Jewish family of two brothers and their wives in their pigsty out back, a Jewish doctor with his wife and son in a makeshift cellar under the kitchen floorboards, and a defecting German soldier in the attic–each group completely unbeknownst to the others. For everyone to survive, Franciszka will have to outsmart her neighbors and the German commanders standing guard right outside her yard.

6.  Chasers of the Light by Tyler Knott Gregson for review in September.

One day, while browsing an antique store in Helena, Montana, photographer Tyler Knott Gregson stumbled upon a vintage Remington typewriter for sale. Standing up and using a page from a broken book he was buying for $2, he typed a poem without thinking, without planning, and without the ability to revise anything.

He fell in love.

Three years and almost one thousand poems later, Tyler is now known as the creator of the Typewriter Series: a striking collection of poems typed onto found scraps of paper or created via blackout method. Chasers of the Light features some of his most insightful and beautifully worded pieces of work—poems that illuminate grand gestures and small glimpses, poems that celebrate the beauty of a life spent chasing the light.

7.  Pies & Peril by Janel Gradowski from my friend and the author.  Thank you!  Check out my review.

When Amy Ridley decided to compete in the Kellerton Summer Festival Pie Contest, the last thing she expected was to find the reigning pie queen, Mandy Jo, dead—a raspberry pie smashed on her face! Mandy Jo made fantastic pies, but she accumulated more enemies than baking trophies. But when Amy receives a note threatening her own life, she decides to do some investigating herself.

It seems that half the town has a reason to kill the mean pie queen, and Amy finds herself sifting through a list of suspects that’s longer than her list of recipes. Not to mention playing cupid for her love-shy best friend, fending off a baker intent on finding out her prize-winning culinary secrets, and ducking the deadly attentions of Mandy Jo’s killer. If Amy doesn’t find out who wanted the pie queen dead soon, her own goose may be cooked!

8.  One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez from the library sale for 50 cents.

The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.

Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility — the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth — these universal themes dominate the novel. Whether he is describing an affair of passion or the voracity of capitalism and the corruption of government.

9.  The Best of Us by Sarah Pekkanen from the library sale for 50 cents.

Following a once-in-a-lifetime invitation, a group of old college friends leap at the chance to bring their husbands for a week’s vacation at a private villa in Jamaica to celebrate a former classmates’ thirty-fifth birthday.
All four women are desperate for a break and this seems like a perfect opportunity. Tina is drowning under the demands of mothering four young children. Allie needs to escape from the shattering news about an illness that runs in her family. Savannah is carrying the secret of her husband’s infidelity. And, finally, there’s Pauline, who spares no expense to throw her husband an unforgettable birthday celebration, hoping it will gloss over the cracks that have already formed in their new marriage.

The week begins idyllically, filled with languorous days and late nights of drinking and laughter. But as a hurricane approaches the island, turmoil builds, forcing each woman to re-evaluate everything she’s known about the others—and herself.

10.  The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis with an introduction by Caroline Kennedy from the library sale for $1.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis loved literature, especially poetry. Once you can express yourself, she wrote, you can tell the world what you want from it. Now, Caroline Kennedy shares her mothers favorite poems by such renowned authors as William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, e.e. cummings, and Robert Frost. The book also includes a poem written by Jacqueline Kennedy and is illustrated with photographs of the Kennedy clan. This is a wonderful volume for reading aloud or by yourself and a meaningful gift or keepsake for Mothers Day.

 

11.  Best-Loved Slow Cooker Recipes from the library sale for $1.

Crock Pot Best Loved Slow Cooker Recipes includes more than 100 recipes for your Crock Pot Slow Cooker. Whether you need to whip up main dish meals, party time appetizers or sweet tooth threats, the Crock Pot slow cooker helps to easy your busy day.

 

 

 

12.  The Winter Guest by Pam Jenoff from Anna at Diary of an Eccentric who had an extra copy.

Life is a constant struggle for the eighteen-year-old Nowak twins as they raise their three younger siblings in rural Poland under the shadow of the Nazi occupation. The constant threat of arrest has made everyone in their village a spy, and turned neighbor against neighbor. Though rugged, independent Helena and pretty, gentle Ruth couldn’t be more different, they are staunch allies in protecting their family from the threats the war brings closer to their doorstep with each passing day.

Then Helena discovers an American paratrooper stranded outside their small mountain village, wounded, but alive. Risking the safety of herself and her family, she hides Sam, a Jew, but Helena’s concern for the American grows into something much deeper. Defying the perils that render a future together all but impossible, Sam and Helena make plans for the family to flee. But Helena is forced to contend with the jealousy her choices have sparked in Ruth, culminating in a singular act of betrayal that endangers them all and setting in motion a chain of events that will reverberate across continents and decades.

What did you receive?

Grand Central: Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion

Source: Penguin
Paperback, 368 pages
On Amazon and on Kobo

Grand Central: Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion is a collection of short stories by a number of great authors from Karen White to Sarah McCoy and Pam Jenoff in which the linchpin is Grand Central Station in New York City.  What makes this collection a solid five stars (a designation I never use in reviews) is the connections — small as they may be — between the stories and characters.  You’ll find one character from a story early on is in the background and evokes an emotion in a character in a story later on.  This collection is so strong and examines that various aspects of reunion and love after World War II — whether that is love between father and daughter or an instant connection between strangers in a train station.

From “Going Home” by Alyson Richman

“But no matter the style, the clocks all gave a sense that one had to keep moving, and Liesel liked this.  It enabled her to focus on her responsibilities.  When she wasn’t dancing, she was sewing.  And when she wasn’t sewing, she was dancing, either at her ballet studies or performing at the supper clubs that helped pay her bills.” (page 14)

In these talented ladies’ hands, Grand Central comes to life with the bustling passengers on their way to trains and coming from trains and the subway, the people earning a living with their art in the hallways, and those waiting for their soldiers to return from war.  World War II was a pivotal time in history, but it also was the last time that the country was truly united behind a cause — the cause against a pervasive evil that must be vanquished.  These stories are about what happens when that cause is complete and those who fought and those left behind have to pick up what’s left of their lives.  What does it mean to be lucky, especially when you are all that’s left of your family — like Peter in “The Lucky One” by Jenna Blum?  Or what does a mother do after the Lebensborn program ends when her children are gone and the Nazis are vanquished in Sarah McCoy’s “The Branch of Hazel.”

From “The Harvest Season” by Karen White:

I glanced down at my ruined hands, thinking of Johnny and all the boys in the county who would never be coming home.  I wanted desperately to hold on to this moment for Will, to allow him to believe that while he’s been away we’d held on to the life he remembered so he could slip back into it like a familiar bed.  But time could not be fenced no matter how hard we tried.”  (page 336)

Some of these men and women face pivotal moments in their lives in Grand Central Station, while others are merely passing through onto that moment that will change their lives forever, but all together these are tales of strong people living beyond the hurt of the past to seek out the hope of the future.  Grand Central: Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion is stunning, an emotional collection tied together by love, sadness, loss, and Grand Central Station. No matter who passes through their lives, there is an indelible impression left behind.

22nd book for 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

 

 

 

 

15th book (WWII) for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

The Last Van Gogh by Alyson Richman

Book Source:  Library
Paperback: 308 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate:

The Last Van Gogh by Alyson Richman, which was our May book club selection (unfortunately, I missed this meeting due to obligations at the 2013 Gaithersburg Book Festival), is based on true events in near the end of Vincent Van Gogh’s life in Auvers, France, in the 1890s.  Told from the point of view of Marguerite Gachet, a story unfolds not so much about Van Gogh but about the cloistered life of a young woman trapped inside her own family home by not only an overbearing and controlling father, but also family secrets.  More than that, it is a tribute to an artist and the tension between that art and the desire to have a normal life, as well as the struggle between family obligation and one’s own desires.

“For a home that had so many colors and vibrant paintings on its walls, there were still so many shades of gray between us.”  (page 182)

Richman does really well in using painting techniques and colors to describe the scenes in Auvers, and it is almost as if the reader has stepped inside one of Van Gogh’s paintings and is walking around among the village’s people.  Another surprising element is that the chapter headings, which often appear in some translated works, are less in-your-face about each chapter’s contents.  The headings also add to the atmosphere of the novel, reinforcing the painting and French aspects of the novel.

“I had gone out to do my errands, as I always did in the early afternoon.  It was a warm, radiant day in May.  The sky was cornflower blue, the sun the color of crushed marigolds.  I have to confess that I walked a little slower that day when I passed by the station.  I knew approximately which train he would be arriving on.  So I walked with smaller steps than usual, carrying my basket of eggs and my loaves of bread.”  (page 1)

From the moment readers meet Marguerite, they can see her rebellious nature, even though her daily tasks showcase her obedience to her father at every turn.  When the secrets begin to unravel, she finds herself less torn between duty and desire and more willing to follow her own mind and heart, even if it means getting caught.  Her father is the most irritating and self-absorbed character as he seeks to ingratiate himself into the artistic community by claiming his tinctures are actual cures.  And the son, Paul, is just as bad as he attempts to please his father at every turn and garner his favor.  The only way he can gain that favor is through Marguerite’s downfall, which she brings about on her own during her fateful meeting with Van Gogh.

The Last Van Gogh by Alyson Richman is a rich story in character, setting, and nuance.  Van Gogh’s perceptive nature as an artist shines through in his painting of Dr. Gachet as an aging man with sallow features, but it also shines through in his paintings of Marguerite at the piano and in the garden.  A love story in painting that comes alive with each brush stroke, only to be mired by the rain streaked canvases touched by tinctures that are misused and the controlling desires of a man torn between propriety and his obsession with art.

About the Author:

Alyson Richman is the author of “The Mask Carver’s Son,” “The Rhythm of Memory (formerly published as Swedish Tango),” The Last Van Gogh,” and the national best-seller, “The Lost Wife.” She loves to travel, cook, ride her yellow bicycle, and do ballet. She currently lives in New York with her husband and two children.

This is my 33rd book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

Mailbox Monday #139

Mailbox Mondays (click the icon to check out the new blog) has gone on tour since Marcia at A Girl and Her Books, formerly The Printed Page passed the torch.  This month our host is Life in the Thumb.  Kristi of The Story Siren continues to sponsor her In My Mailboxmeme.  Both of these memes allow bloggers to share what books they receive in the mail or through other means over the past week.

Just be warned that these posts can increase your TBR piles and wish lists.

Here’s what I received this week:

1.  Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington from the author for review and her BookCrossing.com experiment.

2.  The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman from Penguin for review.

3. Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins, which I purchased for myself after I read it from the library.

4. Bloody Valentine by Melissa De La Cruz, which I purchased from Borders.

5. The Boat by Nam Le, which Anna bought for my birthday gift.

What did you receive this week?