Christmas with the Queen by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

 

Title: Christmas with the Queen

Author:  Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

Narrated by:  Fiona Hardingham, Gary Furlong, Esther Wane

Publisher: HarperAudio

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 15 minutes

Source: Audiobook Purchased from Audible

Have you ever wanted to visit somewhere else for the holidays?  I’ve always wanted to go to Germany and England at Christmas.

Jack Devereux and Olive Carter had a brief romance at the end of World War II that never took off.  Jack fell instead for Olive’s friend, Andrea.  Years later, Jack is a widower and the two meet again at Sandringham House at Christmas.  Jack is now a chef working for the royal family and Olive is a reporting on the royal family Christmas traditions when the two meet again. Will they ever be able to truly connect?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       There are three narrators of this novel.  Jack, Olive and Queen Elizabeth all narrate portions of the book.  The audiobook has three different narrators for these parts which works out great.  The primary narration is Jack and Olive.

·       The novel starts in the 1950s and goes through several Christmases in the 1950s.  I enjoyed that most of the action was during the Christmas season.

·       There are flashbacks showing how Jack and Olive met at the end of WWII.  Olive also has a brief meeting with then Princess Elizabeth celebrating the end of the war.

·       The near misses in romance drove me crazy at times!  I was like NOOOOOO – just tell him/her how you feel.  This story is two shy people afraid to ever say their feelings and rock the boat. 

·       The story was cozy. 

·       Jack is a Louisiana native and brings spice and new dishes to the palace.  He dreams of owning his own restaurant like his grandfather before him.

·       Olive is a single mother.  She lies that she is a war widow to hide the fact that she is an unwed mother.  Her journey was interesting working as a female in a man’s world while also trying to hide that she is an unwed mother

·       I liked the royal happenings throughout the story – it reminded me of The Crown.

·       The ending of this novel was perfect.

Overall, Christmas with the Queen by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb is a lovely slow burn historical romance set at the Christmas season.  I enjoyed reading this one!

Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

At the start of WWI, there was a general feeling in Great Britain that it was a lark that would soon be over.  As men headed overseas to France and started battling in the trenches, the feelings soon changed to hopelessness.  Will they ever be able to return home?  Will they ever be able to have a Last Christmas in Paris?

Thomas Harding is spending one last Christmas in Paris in 1968.  With him is a collection of letters from World War I between Evie Elliot, her brother Will, Will’s best friend Thomas Harding, and other friends and family.  As Thomas reads through the letters, he revisits the past, the heartache and loss of the war, and also the great love.

I love, love, loved Last Christmas in Paris.  I think epistolary novels are fun to read, it’s like discovering the story of your Grandparents told through their letters.  I loved the characters, especially Evie.  She lives a privileged youth growing up with Will and Thomas near London.  It all seems a lark when they first go off to war, but as the war progresses, Ellie longs to both become more involved and scared that she may never see Will and Thomas again. 

When going off to war, Thomas feels like it will be over soon, but also doesn’t want to settle into the family business of running a newspaper.  Only when he is overseas does he realize the importance of the paper and his father, and also the importance of his friend Will’s little sister.

I also appreciated that the novel faced a serious problem, PTSD or shell shock as they called it then, squarely on and talked about it as a major part of the story.  

Favorite Quotes:

“Life is forever changed without her without the sense of her somewhere near.  Empty hours wander by as I listen for the soft tread of her football on the stair and wait for her laugher to cheer these lifeless rooms.  When I close my eyes I can conjure her; the scent of her perfume, the feather-touch of her fingertips against my cheek, those intense blue eyes looking back at me.  But it is all illusion.  Smoke and mirrors that conceal the truth of her absence.”

“A new year lies ahead.  Though I am losing hope every day that I will ever return to England in one piece – or at all – at least time marches forward, paying no heed to the follies of men.”

Overall, The Last Christmas in Paris is a wonderful novel of love, life, and war.  I highly recommend it!

Book Source:  Review Copy from William Morrow. Thank-you!

The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor

Are fairies real?  Two cousins in 1917 England took pictures of fairies that astounded the world.  In a world that has just seen the greatest war known to mankind, the story of these fairies gave the world hope and something positive to dream about.  The girls took the pictures for themselves, but when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle learns of them, he publishes the story and the pictures and makes the Cottingley Fairies and the girls, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, famous.  Were the fairies real?

In the present day, Olivia Kavanagh has suffered a devastating loss at the death of her Grandfather at the same time she has found out a shocking medical prognosis about herself.  Unable to face her fiancé, Olivia works at reviving her grandfather’s bookshop she has inherited in Ireland while also taking care of her grandmother who has dementia.  She stumbles across a family heirloom which is Frances Griffith’s personal story and is entranced.  Can Olivia face her own demons and start a new life for herself?

I loved how these two stories were entwined perfectly.  Each story was an escape for me during this busy time of year and I love reading about them.  Gaynor had them perfectly set in two picturesque villages in both the past and the present.  I felt like I wanted to visit them both as well as meet all of the unique and vividly portrayed characters.

I also LOVED the extras at the end of the novel which includes the fairy pictures.  I found myself constantly flipping to look at them through the story.  Gaynor wrote a great background on the Fairies and I loved the essay by Frances’s daughter as well.  I had heard of the Cottingley Fairies at some point in the past, but I didn’t know that much about them.  I really enjoyed reading this story and leaning so much more about them.

Favorite Quotes:

“Fairies will not be rushed.  I know this now; I know I must be patient.”

“But like the soft breath of wind that brushes against my skin, the things we feel cannot always be seen.”

“With my arms wrapped around Rosebud, I dreamed of heather-topped hills and sleepy valleys and a pretty woodland stream where dragonflies danced across the water as I sat down among the ferns and the meadowsweet, waiting for the summer to find me.”

“Books were Olivia’s salvation once upon a time.”

“St. Bridget’s nursing home smelled of old chrysanthemums and loss.”

“Sometimes its betters to talk about the difficult things.  Ignoring them doesn’t make them go away, sure it doesn’t?”

“Oh, sweetheart.  Some wishes are just too big, even for fairies.”

Overall, The Cottingley Secret is an entrancing story of two fascinating heroines from two different time periods with intersecting stories.  It was a great escape read and I highly recommend it!

Book Source:  Review Copy from William Morrow.  Thank-you!