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 Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth by Barbara O’Neal (TLC Book Tours)

 

Title:  The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

Author:  Barbara O’Neal

Narrated by:  Andi Arndt

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Length: Approximately 11 hours and 59 minutes

Source: Thank-you to Lake Union Publishing for a review copy of the paperback book as part of the TLC Book Tour and thank-you to @netgalley for audiobook review copy.

How do you communicate with friends?  Emails, texts, social media, or old-fashioned letters?  I would say all the above for myself.

Victoria is going through a divorce.  She and her husband had seemed closer than ever until he ended it all for a much younger woman.  Fifty and suddenly alone, Victoria must get a job fast to survive. She gets a job as a companion to Mariah, a young woman with an injury who is going to travel the world tracing the footsteps of her mother’s last unfinished project in London, Paris, Morocco, and India.  Her mother, Rachel, was a good writer, and she also left behind letters she had written her sister.  As Victoria and Mariah make their journey, they learn more about Rachel and themselves.

My thoughts on this novel:

·       The audiobook had a good narrator and was interesting to listen to.

·       I liked Victoria’s character growth throughout the novel.

·       I really disliked Victoria’s ex-husband.  He seemed to want his cake (new younger wife) and eat it too (keep his ex-wife on string.).  I kept wondering why he didn’t get in trouble for not paying his alimony.

·       Why can’t Victoria’s family change their tradition of skiing every year as a family so that Victoria gets to have a family Christmas at least every other year?  It’s strange to me that this is a family tradition since Victoria doesn’t ski or snowboard.

·       Rachel was killed in a mas shooting while grocery shopping with her daughter.  Mariah survived but can no longer snowboard (she was an Olympian) with her handicap.  The PTSD from this tragic even still impacts Mariah.

·       A handsome middle-aged photographer, Henry, accompanies them on the trip.  He is a father figure for Mariah (one of Rachel’s ex-boyfriends), and a love interest for Victoria.

·       I liked how both Victoria and Mariah had a coming-of-age storyline as they came to terms with their new realities and worked towards moving forward with new dreams.

·       I loved the descriptions of all the different countries, foods, and cafes.

·       I didn’t see how the cafes, countries, and Rachel’s story were all linked until the very end.

·       I am close to Victoria’s age of fifty and she gets picked on by her kids for being old and treated as an old lady a lot on their trip.  I suddenly felt very old!!

Overall, The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth by Barbara O’Neal was a great story with unforgettable characters, growth, and travel.  I enjoyed it!