What a Lady Needs for Christmas by Grace Burrowes

Lady Joan Flynn escapes from Edinburgh to avoid a scandal, but finds herself sad and alone at a train station after her maid suddenly becomes ill.  Seeing her distress, Dante Hartwell, his children and sister offer Lady Joan a ride on their private train car to her destination in the Scottish Highlands.  When they arrive at their destination, they discover they are all on the way to the same house party.  Dante is a mill owner that needs a wife with good connections to help him find investors, while Joan needs a husband before Christmas to avoid scandal.  The two realize that they just might solve each other’s problems, while also starting down a path towards love.

I enjoyed both Lady Joan and Dante as characters and I loved their story.  There were a lot of side characters from I’m assuming earlier books in this series that I was not as interested in.  They seemed to slow the story down for me.  I might have enjoyed their stories more if I had read those books, and I would have enjoyed this book more without them. It was a bit slow in the middle. A more interesting side story in this one involved Dante’s sister Margaret and I loved her story as well.

Overall, a very nice Christmas romance that will brighten your winter days.

Book Source:  Review Copy from Sourcebooks – Thanks!

The Traitor’s Wife by Allison Pataki

Title: The Traitor’s Wife

Author: Allison Pataki
Read by: Madeleine Maby
Publisher: Simon and Shuster Audio
Length: Approximately 16 hours
Source: Simon and Shuster Audio Digital Review Copy – Thanks!

Clara is an orphan and her Grandmother has just died.  She is happy to receive a new position as a lady’s maid for socialite Peggy Shippen.  It is quite a move from the Pennsylvanian countryside to bustling Philadelphia, but after a few missteps Clara becomes a great lady’s maid.  Her lady, Peggy, is a hard lady to please.  Peggy doesn’t seem to think about anyone but herself.  She has a great love for British Major John Andre, but after he leaves Philadelphia, she meets and falls in love with General Benedict Arnold.  In order to increase their wealth and status, Peggy uses Arnold’s fallacy to believe he has been wronged by the Continental Congress to set him up to be a spy with Andre.  As we all know, this doesn’t end well, but this is the often untold story of Peggy’s role in the affair and the imagined role of Clara the servant. 

I like the Downton Abbey aspect of the book showing what the life of the servants was like as well as the “upstairs” people.   It’s nice to know that in order to make it so that General Benedict and Peggy Arnold lived a comfortable life, there were others in the wings doing their cooking, laundry, mending, and dressing.  This reminded me of another excellent novel, Longbourn by Jo Baker about the story of the servants that make it so the story of Pride and Prejudice was possible. I just wish in The Traitor’s Wife, Clara would have had more story for herself.  I did love her romance and her inner conflict about the Arnolds treasonous role.  It was also interesting seeing the drama through her point of view, although Peggy was the clear heroine / villain of the novel.

Overall, I enjoyed this historical fiction novel.  I love the Revolutionary War time period and find the treason of Benedict Arnold to be a fascinating part of history.  The audiobook was narrated by Madeleine Maby who did a fine job, I soon thought of her voice as the definitive Clara.  She did a great job providing a unique voice for all of the other characters as well.

A Good Marriage by Stephen King

Title: A Good Marriage
Author: Stephen King
Read by:  Jessica Hecht
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: 3.5 hours (3 CDs)
Source:  Review Copy from Simon & Schuster – Thanks!

A Good Marriage is the perfect novella to listen to if you want to be terrified this fall.  It is an especially good read for Halloween.  It is a perfect tale of suspense that really freaked me out (in a good way) on my commute  A Good Marriage is a Stephen King novella, originally published as a part of Full Dark, No Stars four years ago.  

Darcy Anderson has a good marriage and a good life.  Her husband Bob, an accountant, and she have been married for 27 years.  They met over their shared love of vintage coins and besides Bob’s full time accountant business; they have a side business of buying and trading coins.  They also raised two wonderful children together.  They moved from a starter home to a big beautiful home.  Darcy has kept busy as a homemaker raising the kids, but the kids are now grown up.  Bob has always given back to the community, including being a Cub Scout leader.  

One day while Bob is gone on a coin collecting business trip, Darcy makes a run out to their garage to look for some batteries for the remote.  While she is there, she makes a surprising discovery that shakes the foundations of her world and her marriage.  Caught between a rock and a hard place, Darcy must make a momentous decision to right her world.

Overall, this was a perfect tale of suspense that had me terrified, but wanting more.  One of my favorite parts in the novel is Darcy pondering about the mirror side of Bob that she never knew, the dark side.  She discovers that she has a mirror Darcy as well and wonders how to get back through the mirror to the good side.  I loved this.

Jessica Hecht was a great narrator.  She was Darcy to me with Darcy’s “golly gee” attitude that became something frail, yet fearless when her world was turned upside down.

GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love by Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi

GI Brides is a non-fiction novel about four different British women who find love with American GIs during World War II. After the war, they travel to America and find that the romance of war hides various truths about the men they love.

Sylvia Bradley lost one love on D-Day, but is able to find love again afterwards.  Her family enjoys meeting American GIs she brings home on dates, but she leaves them behind for a new life in America.  Rae Brewer is a tom boy who becomes an ace welder during the war.  She isn’t interested in romance, but it finds its way to her when she meets and falls in love with Raymond.  Margaret Boyle is a beauty with a hard home life.  She meets the man of her dreams, but he isn’t ready for a stable relationship.  Crushed, she meets someone new and he may be the man of her dreams or maybe her nightmares.  Gwendolyn (Lyn) Rowe is a young girl who is excited by the Americans, dances, and fun.  She meets and falls in love with Italian-American, Ben, and they start a new life together in California after the war.

I loved reading about each woman and her experiences.  What I thought was most interesting was how the imminent danger they were all in under constant bombing by the Nazi’s and the romance of the GI’s in their uniforms hid a LOT of problems that they would discover when they returned to America with their husbands.  Being alone in a strange land with a man who wasn’t what he appeared to be in England would be terrifying.  These women found the strength to continue on and make a good life for them.  

I enjoyed the way this book was written, it was non-fiction, but read as fiction.  I loved the middle section of pictures of the women.  I also loved the extras at the end, including an interview with one of the authors, Nuala Calvi.  Her Grandmother was Margaret and she didn’t learn of her story until shortly before her death.  That put her on a search to find others like her Grandmother to learn their amazing stories to share with the world.  

Overall, I thought this is one of the best books I have read about WWII.  It dealt with the human aspect of what was going on in England during WWII, the terror and the triumphs, but also what happened after the war.  How did former soldiers cope when the battle was over?  I highly recommend this book.

Book Source:  Review Copy from William Morrow – Thanks!