A Thousand Painted Hours by Barbara O’Neal

 

Title:  A Thousand Painted Hours

Author:  Barbara O’Neal

Narrated by:  Sneha Mathan

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Length: Approximately 15 hour and 22 minutes

Source: Thank-you to @barbaraonealauthor @amazonpublishing @tlcbooktours for both the audiobook and physical review copies.

Do you have a favorite artist?  I enjoy art, and Monet’s paintings have always been “happy place” art that lifts my spirits.

Elsie Turner grew up in India in the early 1900s and was separated from her great love Tanveer, when her parents moved back to England during her teenage years.  The one bright spot was that she was able to go to art school and make new friends.

In a second timeline in 1940, the London Blitz is ongoing and Elsie remembers the past and what has led her up to that moment in time.  Will Elsie survive?  And can she thrive and have the future she longs for?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       The novel was written in short chapters which I found easy to read.  Many of the chapters were letters written primarily between Tanveer and Elsie.

·       Tanveer and Elsie had an epic love story that stretched through time, distance, and marriage to other people.  They respected each other’s minds, while also being wildly attracted to one another.

·       I loved the descriptions of India, especially the tigers.  It was a great setting.

·       The Blitz was horrifying and seemed to parallel Elsie’s careful life imploding with her precarious relationship with her husband and mother.

·       It was an interesting look into the prejudice at the time that would not allow a relationship between an Indian man and an English woman.

·       I loved how all the pieces of the puzzle of Elsie’s life came together perfectly at the end.

·       I listened to about half the book on audio and read half of the book in the physical copy. Both were enjoyable and I liked the audiobook narrator.

·       The book included discussion of the Indian independence movement which I enjoyed.

·       I would classify this book as slow burn, character driven, first love, historical fiction, and historical romance.

Overall, A Thousand Painted Hours by Barbara O’Neal was a beautifully written novel set in India and London during the first half of the 20^th century that told the story of an enduring forbidden love.

The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @eccobooks for the review copy of The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez.

Are you a mood reader? Or do you make elaborate plans before you choose reading?  I do make elaborate plans on what I’m going to read, but I do veer off with varying moods.  The Great Divide was a late book added into my March reading and I veered into reading it as I was greatly intrigued by the premise.

In 1907, people are all gathering in Panama to work on one of the wonders of the world, the Panama Canal.  Ada left her home in Barbados to look for a job to earn money to pay for medical procedures to help her sister.  John Oswald hires her to be a caregiver to his wife, Marian.  Marian and John had traveled to Panama from Tennessee.  John is a scientist that is working on the cure for malaria.  Marian is a scientist herself.  Omar does not want to be a fisherman like his father and has set off on an adventure of his own.  How will these characters’ stories intertwine?  And how will they intertwine with the many other characters in this novel?

My thoughts on this story:

·       The Great Divide gave a great overall sense of how many people from all different places and walks of life that it took to build the Panama Canal, and how it impacted the people that lived there.

·       Sickness was very prevalent and terrifying.  Malaria killed so many people that were working on or supporting the work on the canal.

·       There were a lot of characters in this story, and it took awhile to build up the story and figure out how they were all together.  I liked learning the connections.  It was like an interwoven tapestry of life.

·       As there were a lot of characters, I wish there would have been a character list and family trees at the start of the book for me to reference as I was first getting into the book.

·       This was a great character driven novel and I found it to be intriguing.  It was not plot driven, so it was a slower read for me.

·       The description of the location made me feel like I was there.  I would love to visit Panama someday.

·       I wish there would have been details about the engineering and construction of the canal.  I’m an engineer and I was first attracted to this book because the back of the cover described the Panama Canal as a major historical engineering feat.  That is about as much engineering as you will get with this book.  It’s all about the characters.

·       The Great Divide made me think about how many people it takes to build such great engineering marvels and how they are the unsung heroes that don’t usually get their story told.

·       Speaking of unsung heroes, I don’t want to spoil a plot point, but I thought it was interesting when a female character passed away and how her obituary only really discussed her husband.  It makes you wonder how many stories we don’t know about people after they passed, especially women.

Overall, The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez was historical fiction as its best, telling the interwoven stories of many people at a key point in history.

 This book was published on March 5, 2024.

Christmas on the Island by Jenny Colgan

I just love Jenny Colgan books, her characters, and settings are fabulous.  Christmas on the Island is the third in a series of books that started with The Café by the Sea and The Endless Beach.  The Endless Beach ended with a bit of a cliff hanger this summer and I was very much looking forward to seeing how the story continued in Christmas on the Island.

On the beautiful northern Scottish island of Mure, our favorite characters find themselves in the midst of trouble. Flora has found out she’s pregnant, but she’s afraid to reveal the truth to her boyfriend Joel.  Joel had a troubled childhood and they’ve never discussed starting a family of their own.  Meanwhile Flora’s brother Fintan has finally come out to his family and has married the love of his life, American billionaire Colton.  Unfortunately, Colton has cancer and his prognosis is not good.  Colton is estranged from his family because of their treatment of him over his lifetime, but his brother Tripp has arrived on Mure to check on him after seeing troubling reports in the news.  Will Colton be able to forgive his family? 

Flora’s best friend Lorna is in love with Saif, a doctor and Syrian refugee.  Saif lives on the island and has newly been reunited with his two young sons, but his wife is still missing after two years.  Waiting for her and not knowing drives Saif to distraction.  He grows close to Lorna and begins to have feelings for her – but is his wife still alive?  Will Saif’s inner conflict tear him apart?

I love how the novel started with farm dog Bramble ambling around the island observing everyone and ended the same way.  I love Bramble and it made for an interesting way to start and conclude the novel.  I am a great fan of character novels and Jenny Colgan knows how to write compelling characters.  I feel fully vested in these characters from the last two novels and I hope that Colgan continues the journey on Mure with another novel. 

The novel is set at Christmas time, but does contain characters and their dilemmas from the previous two novels.  I would recommend reading the first two books before you read Christmas on the Island.

I enjoy that modern twists are in the story such as getting into the plight of Syrian refugees and having a compelling love story between the first gay couple to marry on the island of Mure, Fintan and Coltan.  This was a tragic end to their love story, but I love how it brought in Colton’s broken family and some of his back story.  I wish they could be the heroes of their own book.

Favorite Quote:

“But otherwise this was his vigil:  he would stand watch.  Until the end.  The beautiful house was his prison, and he was his own guard.”

Overall, Christmas on the Island is a compelling novel with great characters.  I recommend reading it as a third book in the series and not on its own. 

Book Source:  Purchased from Amazon.com