I’ve decided that I’m too young to truly do justice to a review of this book. I didn’t live in the 1960s. I’ve never lived in the South. In my memory, normal has been happily coexisting with people of all races. And yet, maybe it’s people like me that need to read this book the most.

If you’re not familiar with the storyline of The Help, here’s the basics. It follows three women in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s. Two of them, Aibileen and Minny are black women, maids to the white women of the city. The third is one of those white women – Skeeter Phelan, whose plan for her own life is very different from her mother’s. She wants to be a reporter, a real writer. When a New York publisher tells her to write about something that bothers her, she comes up with the idea to write a book telling the maids’ stories. What is it like to work for the white women of Jackson? To be told that you are diseased so you can’t use the indoors bathroom? To be expected to clean the house perfectly while taking care of the children? Aibileen and Minny know how dangerous this project will be, while Skeeter is discovering a whole new side to what she thought was reality.

I grew up in a time and place where racism wasn’t really a problem. I know our country isn’t perfect now when it comes to this area. But I just was blown away by how far we’ve come in the past fifty years. I have no doubt that this was these women’s reality. They feared for their lives and for their families if they spoke out. I can’t imagine living like that, and I have so much respect for those that did.

The Help brings this time period to life for those of us who didn’t live through it. Kathryn Stockett views the issue of racism through so many people’s eyes – the fresh college graduate determined to change the world, the older generation that can’t see anything wrong with the way things are, the younger generation determined to keep the status quo no matter what, the maids who give their lives to these families only to be treated like nothing, the maids who love the white children as their own, and all who were determined to take a stand despite the danger and their fear. It was really this that sold me on this book. It’s not a one-sided look at life in the South in the 1960s. It covers as much ground and as many perspectives as it can. This is one of the many reasons why reading this book is most definitely worth your time. And there is no doubt of that – reading this book is most definitely worth your time. Everyone can learn something from this book, whether you lived through the 1960s or not. Kathryn Stockett’s story is one that needs to be read.

Honor Bright has left the home she knows and loves to move to America with her sister. When her sister Grace dies before they reach their destination, Honor is left to find her own place is this strange, entirely new world. She has to adjust to new animals, different building materials, and the opportunity to put her Quaker beliefs about helping runaway slaves to work.

I’m really just starting to learn to love the genre of historical fiction. I love learning about history, but I’ve usually gleaned my facts from nonfiction. Now that I’m really discovering historical fiction, I’m rather picky about the quality of the books I read.

Thus far, my model of wonderful historical fiction is Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland (my review).

Other end of the spectrum: Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini (my review).

Where does The Last Runaway fall, you may be asking? I’d say smack dab in the middle. It includes plenty of history without reading like a textbook. Yet I never really felt like I was there with Honor. I remained a passive observer from the 21st century. I’ve yet to pinpoint why exactly this is. In part, it could be that there was something just a little too flat in the character of Honor. She wasn’t as real as she could have been. And it could have been that the plot had the potential for epic events, but it remained limited to one town and just a few characters. That’s probably more realistic for actual people in that actual time period. But I expect fiction to go beyond that and tell me a big story.

I’m probably being much too picky. I’m just trying to figure out why I was left feeling slightly dissatisfied at the end of this book.

All that being said, I still recommend it. It’s an interesting look at Quaker culture in the 19th century, as well as the actual running of the Underground Railroad. And being written by Tracy Chevalier, it’s of course deeply researched and includes many details. The Last Runaway would make a good addition to a list of novels about the Underground Railroad – just make sure it isn’t the only one, because there’s a lot more to say on the subject!

Where has this series been my whole life? I had never even heard of it until a few months ago, and even then I only put it on my highly populated TBR list. I should have gone immediately to the closest library or bookstore and found myself a copy.

Several years ago, I discovered Georgette Heyer, who wrote Regency romances reminiscent of Jane Austen. They are wonderfully good stories about a time period I love. The Pink Carnation series is simply Georgette Heyer with spies! Could it get any better?

The story of the creation of the Pink Carnation, a British spy in Napoleon’s Paris à la the Scarlet Pimpernel, is perfectly framed by Eloise’s story, a young woman who is writing about the Pink Carnation for her doctoral dissertation. Except all of the myriad historical documents she’s looked through have no hint whatsoever of who exactly the Pink Carnation was. Until she gets permission to look through the documents of the Selwick family. There she discovers more than she bargained for.

Both Eloise and Amy (the main historical character) are fun narrators full of their unique voice and style. The book is replete with witty dialogue between the characters in both time periods. Overall, this is just an enjoyable read – the perfect escapist book for those moments when Regency spies are just your cup of tea.

After Rome is the story of Britain after the Roman soldiers left around 410 AD. The civilization that everyone is used to begins crumbling, and soon it becomes every man for himself. Cadogan and Dinas are cousins with a complicated family past and very different personalities. Dinas wants to get what he can from the lack of civilization. He begins recruiting men to become pirates. The riches he gains will then allow him to become king in a land where any ambitious leader could grab the right to be king. Cadogan takes a leadership role reluctantly when the Saxon army burns his hometown, and he becomes the de facto leader of the remaining citizens. They start life over in the wilderness, learning how to do everything on their own.

I’ve typically enjoyed books by Morgan Llywelyn, and this one was no different. She researches thoroughly and creates realistic characters that grab your interest. My only feeling of dissatisfaction with After Rome is the rushed ending. Forty pages from the end I was wondering if this was simply the first book in a series; there was so much story line to go, if told at the pace of the rest of the book. But nope! – it was all wrapped up by the time the pages ran out. It felt much too rushed to me. There was much more story potential there. It almost seemed as if Llywelyn got tired of writing the stories of these characters. Other than that, this book gave a great picture of what Britain would have been like in a time period that hasn’t been written about much. It was an enjoyable and occasionally amusing read.

Louisville, Kentucky in 1855 is a town faced with a lot of changes and is full of people who don’t want those changes to happen. Immigration is the issue of the day – keep those Irish and German immigrants out of here. They don’t belong. The two newspapers in town take sides and begin stirring the pot. The Tribune belongs to Wade Darcy, who has raised his only daught, Adriane, to be a newspaperwoman. She finds the stories, writes articles, and can even help to set the type on the printing press. All of this is frowned upon by “proper” society, so Wade arranges a marriage for her that would give Adriane some respectability. He chooses Stanley Jimson, the son of the richest man and leading political candidate in the Know Nothing(anti-immigrant) party in Louisville. Although she’s known Stanley for quite awhile, Adriane has no desire to get married. Neither her father nor Stanley will let her off the hook that easily.

The Herald, the other paper in town, is run by Blake Garrett, fresh from the North. His style of reporting is more controversial than the Tribune, tackling murders the police are reluctant to solve and taking on the Know Nothing party. Blake and Adriane, leaders of the two different papers, are certainly enemies – until they meet at a benefit and begin to get to know each other.

I found this book absolutely fascinating and very hard to put down. I love historical fiction that puts me in a place and time and actually teaches me something about it. This book did that. I had no idea of the controversy surrounding immigration in Louisville in the 1850s – so much so that there was even rioting in the city. Through this book, you learn many different viewpoints of this issue. The attraction between Blake and Adriane was very enjoyable to see unfold slowly. And Stanley Jimson is a character you are designed to hate from his very first appearance, and he only gets more disturbing as the book progresses. The characters were realistic and fascinating. You were dropped right into the time period. This is a wonderfully serious and very enjoyable book.

In honor of a patriotic weekend, I thought I'd review a book about one of our greatest presidents. . .


Mrs. Lincoln’s dressmaker is Elizabeth Keckley, a former slave and now the most sought-after dressmaker in Washington, D.C. She has made dresses for patrons as diverse as Mrs. Jefferson Davis and, of course, the First Lady, Mrs. Mary Todd Lincoln. This latter patron allowed her access to the White House to do much of her sewing of Mrs. Lincoln’s dresses there. Through that time spent together, they became close friends – so much so, that on  the night of President Lincoln’s assassination, there was no one Mrs. Lincoln wanted more than Elizabeth.

While I found the insights into the Lincoln family interesting, it took me a really long time to get into this book. In fact, if I hadn’t borrowed it from a friend, there’s a distinct possibility that I wouldn’t have finished it at all (which is extremely rare for me!). The first half of the book (the half covering the Civil War) felt rushed, each event given a paragraph or two. And the events were often no more than listings of historical facts. Perhaps the third-person narration was part of the problem. It seemed that if Elizabeth would have been a first-person narrator, the reader would have been drawn into her emotions and reactions more. As it was, she was a passive observer for much of the book. I have to be fair, though, and say that the second half of the book drew me in more.

In the spectrum of historical fiction, I found this book to lie at the opposite end from Clara and Mr. Tiffany (linked to my review). I was kept more at a distance from the events, rather than feeling like I experienced them myself.

Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker does not always paint a positive picture of Mrs. Lincoln, although the admiration and respect for President Lincoln is clear. In this, the book echoes Elizabeth’s own perception of the Lincoln family, sometimes ironically so. Anyone interested in the Civil War, emancipation, or the Lincoln family would probably greatly enjoy this book. I did learn a lot from reading it, as you should from historical fiction.. I just wish it occasionally felt less like a history lesson and more like being there myself.

Any high school English student can tell you that writing has one of several purposes: to entertain, to persuade, to inform, to describe, etc. But the best books encompass more than one of these. That’s what makes historical fiction such an enjoyable genre, and Clara and Mr. Tiffany such a good example of it.

Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland takes place around the turn of the 20th century in New York City. Clara Driscoll is head of the women’s department in the studio of Louis Comfort Tiffany, known for his stained glass. The book covers about fifteen years, and therefore, covers a lot of history. The issue of labor unions and women’s right to work is raised several times. Immigration and the living condition of immigrants is a foremost issue for awhile. Clara even witnesses the very first drop of the Times Square New Year’s ball! The reader also learns about the complicated process of making stained glass and the innovative techniques that Tiffany developed in this area. Through it all, we learn much about Clara Driscoll, Agnes Northrup, and the rise and fall of Louis Comfort Tiffany – all of whom were real people. It is the best of historical fiction: a novel that puts you in the time period and allows you to live there for a little while.

While reading this book (or rather, while listening to it; this was my first experience with an audiobook, which is a topic for another time), I was able to visit the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows on Navy Pier in Chicago. This museum houses examples of stained glass from all time periods, but has a couple of displays of Tiffany stained glass windows. Compared to the rest, it’s easy to see why Tiffany stayed at the front of his field through his many innovations. Seeing these windows in person helped the story to come alive even more. I’ve included some of my pictures below, so you can also enjoy these beautiful windows!