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Trying to catch up again before the start of October!
 Bombay Time, Thrity Umrigar
In this moving novel, a group of families in Bombay come together for the wedding of one of their children. While there, they are all thrown into reminiscing about their past together and just how they got this far in the future.
I wish I’d reviewed this one earlier so I could look more deeply into it, but unfortunately it got a little lost in the shuffle as I tried to get reviews for actual review books out. I loved it, however, most particularly the depth of the relationships between the people and their all too human foibles. I found it gave me striking insight into some aspects of Indian communities and India itself, how it was growing and changing and the people either grew or didn’t grow with it. The relationships – both romantic and platonic – between all of these people are gorgeously drawn, and what I really appreciated was the fact that they weren’t over. This is a snapshot of lives, not an ending to them. Beautiful book and has me determined to read more by Thrity Umrigar.
 Splendour, Anna Godbersen
I actually haven’t reviewed any of the last three of this series, so this will stand as my summation of all of them. As a result I won’t bother with a summary here; let’s just say that the ladies of New York City are out and about yet again, as things are shifting and their lives are going slightly crazy as always. I have enjoyed this series; I still stand by my original assessment that it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure read as these girls’ lives are so scandalous and probably not quite accurate to history. Unfortunately I wasn’t quite satisfied by the ending, but I am glad I managed to read to the end, and would recommend the whole series to anyone who is interested in a very romantic YA series based around the lives of a few girls in early twentieth century New York City.
 Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne
I’d never read the actual Winnie the Pooh before, so when I found it was free for my Kindle, I decided to give it a read. I was thoroughly charmed, let me tell you; these stories are so enchanting and so quick to read. Even with the black and white screen, the illustrations are just gorgeous and bring the words to life. This is really the perfect book for children and if/when I have some of my own, I fully intend to get them this book for their very own. It was only missing Tigger; when does he show up??
 The School of Essential Ingredients, Erica Bauermeister
As a girl, Lillian uses food to express herself and to bring her mother back to her. As an adult, she runs a restaurant, and on Mondays holds a cooking class to bring other people together with food. The motley mix of students this time each have their own problems and varying degrees of happiness, and Lillian doesn’t offer them a solution. Instead she offers them a peaceful haven to rediscover themselves and to find connections with others that they’d feared lost forever.
This is one of those books I suspect I’d like more if I actually enjoyed fiction about people who have lives just like mine. Unfortunately I didn’t think it dug quite deeply enough; each person got a single chapter, which was just enough to get a taste of their lives and not much else. They were, for obvious reasons, all heavily tied in with food. Eventually they do start to link together, but without the community feel and thoughtfulness of a book like Bombay Time. This one just left me empty, although it did make me hungry as well with its luscious descriptions of food. I’d hesitate to recommend this but I know others have enjoyed it more than me, so it might just be my dislike of women’s fiction popping back up again.
I am an Amazon Associate. None of these books were sent to me for review.
 Sabine’s life hasn’t been easy since she fled from her career as a cushy opera star. She’s gone as far as offering sex for food; she ends up in a saloon sleeping with the proprietor and hiring other prostitutes to dance and sell drinks as well as sell themselves. When she was seventeen, however, her life was full of bright lights, scandal, and music she thought she couldn’t live without. When a little bit of that music comes back into her life, Sabine has to choose between the life she thought she’d left behind, and all its complications, and shutting away that life forever, if she still can.
Sabine’s story is told through alternating viewpoints; her adult life serves as the current narrative, while her more youthful diary regularly fills us in on the backstory behind her career and her more youthful life. At first, I had a really difficult time reconciling the two. The older Sabine, known as Marguerite to hide her past, is cynical and has closed off much of her personality. In vivid contrast, youthful Sabine is full of hope at the start, can’t imagine a life without music, and is almost unbearably teenage in her thoughts and emotions. She’s ridiculously self-centred, almost certain that the stage has an empty slot just waiting for her voice to fill it, and is prone to vivid imagination and silly delusions of love. I couldn’t help but like the older, more mature version better, even as I admired Chance’s skill in creating a teenager that recalled a little too clearly what it feels like to have everything be so brightly colored and full of drama.
The atmospheres of each location really drew me in. Seattle feels damp and grim, full of people who are mainly at the end of their ropes. It perfectly matches Sabine’s attitude at the same, where her own life has lot all of its former glitter. As she begins to open up again to music, so does Seattle; the first musical lands in town and Sabine begins to make a friend who tries her best to lighten up her life, when Sabine isn’t busy lying about her past. In vivid contrast is the soap opera-esque world of the stage, where Sabine is universally adored on stage but confused, in love, yet often very alone off stage. Everyone is sleeping with everyone else and the diary entries from this period are as high strung as Sabine herself. While I liked the back stage peek of the historical opera, I didn’t like the vast amounts of scandal that seemingly dripped from these pages; Sabine made choices I couldn’t condone and the entire world there was foreign and not particularly appealing to me. When Sabine herself grew uncomfortable with it, I felt I had judged it all rightly and wasn’t surprised that eventually she was driven to flee as she does in the beginning of the book.
The last thing that I didn’t like about the book – I liked most of it, honest – was the ending. I felt Sabine made the wrong choice. I couldn’t understand the logic behind it and while I liked that she was human and thus fallible, I suppose I hoped she would have learned in the way that I would have. But she didn’t, and so the whole book left me feeling a bit disappointed. The writing was beautiful and the story was well done, but I just couldn’t connect in that essential way with the characters or even truly understand their decisions. It’s wonderful for a backstage peek at opera houses of the period, and an atmospheric glimpse into a very youthful Seattle, but Prima Donna wasn’t the stand out historical fiction novel I hoped it would be.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from a publicist for review.
 Lady Julia and Brisbane may have tied the knot, but that doesn’t mean intrigue has absented itself from their lives. No, even on their honeymoon, there is a mystery which they are compelled to solve. When Julia’s siblings Portia and Plum turn up, asking Julia and Brisbane to come to see Portia’s former lover, Jane, who is pregnant and suspects her husband has been killed, the new couple simply cannot say no. When Brisbane stays behind and doesn’t immediately go to the estate with Julia, she is distressed but resolves to try and find the murderer out for herself. What she does find is a strange mix of people both old and new and a mystery she cannot begin to guess how to solve, if there even is one at all.
It’s not a secret that I’m a big fan of this series, so I was thrilled when I found it on Netgalley, saving me the cost of importing the book just to see what happened (although this is one I do intend to purchase a paper copy of). I was a little worried about how it would go once Julia and Brisbane were actually married. Although none of the books’ plots have revolved around their romance, it has been a big part of the series and the tension between them has been a main linking factor of all the books; no matter what they’re trying to figure out, these two people have been drawn to one another. As it turns out, they still are very attracted to each other, although Raybourn fades to black so we never witness any of their more intimate scenes, for which I was grateful. They have their arguments, but they are still very in love throughout this particular novel, and I didn’t feel the lack of their courtship too keenly.
The mystery itself in the book was an interesting one, with pieces I didn’t put together until the end, but I’m not sure I was meant to. I often could tell that the real culprit wasn’t any of the people Julia actually suspected but I didn’t guess who it was; I did assume there was a murderer or the book would have ended without any sort of climax. As it stood, however, quite a few things did happen at the end of the book, few of which were particularly happy, and Raybourn drops us off with a nice cliffhanger that has me ready for the next in the series immediately.
What I liked the most about this book, as I often do in series that earn themselves a place on my favorites list, was the fact that the relationships within the series continue to grow and change with each installment. I also love that we learn bits about each character as the series progresses. Bits and pieces of the past come back to haunt them and play a role in each new storyline, so we’re always tied neatly in to the past. The books themselves have storylines but the whole series is an arc as we learn more and more about each individual character.
I still love this series and I am already anxious for number five! Dark Road to Darjeeling is a fantastic installment in a series that is just pure pleasure. If you enjoy historical fiction and mysteries, you will enjoy this series.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for review through Netgalley.
 Mineko Iwasaki was the foremost geisha of her time, to the extent where she became a legend and was invited to entertain the highest levels of world society. When Arthur Golden wrote his novel, Memoirs of a Geisha, he consulted with Mineko but was apparently sworn to silence. Unfortunately, he then went on to tell people that it was Mineko who had spoken with him about the life of geisha in Japan; Mineko herself was upset that he had twisted what she said and as a result chose to write this book, her own memoirs, to explain to the world what geisha really are, what they do, and her own life story (much of which Golden borrowed for his own book).
I read Memoirs of a Geisha a long time ago, but I remember enjoying it thoroughly when I did. I was later dismayed to learn that Golden’s story wasn’t nearly so close to the truth as I’d imagined and that in fact he got a number of things wrong. (Yes, I have always been picky about historical fiction). I’d heard about Mineko Iwasaki writing her own book, and wanted to read it, but for some reason never actively sought it out. Then I saw it on the shelf in a charity shop and I was reminded that I really did want to read it and learn something a little closer to the truth than was portrayed in Golden’s book.
This isn’t the best written memoir I’ve ever read; Mineko Iwasaki has a ghost writer, Rande Brown, helping and presumably transforming her story into better English, but she definitely maintains a distance throughout and the book is very simple in tone. The story she has to tell, however, is far from simple and is completely engrossing. I did have the sense that Mineko purposely picked and chose which episodes to relate in order to emphasize certain facts about geisha (she splits them into two groups, maiko and geiko) which she knew that Golden got wrong or deliberately changed, but that didn’t lessen my interest in the memoir as a whole.
Sometimes, however, I had trouble believing what she’d said. For example, she first says that men rarely got very far into the okiya, the house in which a family of geisha lived. There were prescribed hours men were allowed in, and she uses this to argue that geisha are most certainly not prostitutes. But shortly afterwards she relates the fact that her older sister did bring men into the house and allowed them to sleep over, that she ran into them in the bathroom, and then was nearly raped by her own nephew in that same house. If men could not enter the house, why were these men permitted in?
She also begins the book when she is three years old and ascribes to herself adult thoughts and sayings. I couldn’t believe that a five year old child made the decision on her own to become a geiko, which led me to believe that in fact her parents were willing to sell her like they’d sold her sisters – all of whom became very bitter. Mineko seems like a much more driven and responsible girl, and since she did end up happy with her life, I wonder if she’s forgiven her parents and thus portrayed them in a much kinder light than she might otherwise have done. It is possible that at five she decided she wanted to be a geisha, but I would think her parents had a greater role in such a choice than either she knew or wanted to disclose.
Saying those things, I did thoroughly enjoy this memoir even if I took a few of her memories with a grain of salt. I knew little about the life of geisha and I was happy to be educated. Mineko is something of a rock star; she was the foremost geisha until she abruptly retired in the middle of her career, sick of the rules and restrictions that she couldn’t manage to change. She was so popular that no less than seventy other geisha retired within a few months of her, to pay her respect; she wanted to make changes, not endanger the profession, which is what may have ended up happening after her retirement.
As always, it was the little details that thoroughly captivated me. The clothes Mineko wore – backed up by the amazing photographs in which she looks astonishingly like a painting – the life she lived, the few skills she had as a normal human being. No one ever taught her any conception of money, for example, until she was in her twenties, so she worked constantly knowing she had to support the okiya but without any real conception of how much she was earning or how much money could buy certain things.
Despite my reservations, this was a truly fascinating book. I wish more geisha would write memoirs so I could compare and get a little closer to the truth, but for now, I would definitely recommend Geisha of Gion.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 This week, I posted a review of Shadow of the Swords, a book that I enjoyed but found too many historical accuracies in to be entirely comfortable with. I loved the idea of it, but worried that the doubts the changes would leave in readers’ minds would undermine the otherwise important story the author was trying to convey. The author, Kamran Pasha, dropped by, and left his opinion on my review; namely that fiction is an art and is still enjoyable despite changes made to history, that it’s more than a dry retelling of facts. You can read his comment in full here. I’ve really appreciated the fact that he left a comment because it led us to an interesting email discussion, which has given me the idea for this post and the desire to find out whether others agree or disagree.
In essence, my opinion of historical fiction when it involves mainly real characters and events is this; that it should follow historical fact as much as we know and use the author’s imagination to in effect fill in the blanks. I do think that sometimes minor changes are necessary, and fictional characters inserted into said history don’t bother me particularly, but I really dislike the changes of major events, the omission of important historical characters, and in general anything that could give a reader the wrong impression about the period, the event, or the person.
Undoubtedly a book can be a wonderful read even if it gets history wrong, but I know some people do read historical fiction and allow it to influence their beliefs and feelings about the historical period in question. Yes, this includes me, although I do try to read history about any period that I am really enjoying in fiction, to make up my own mind. I love that historical fiction has really taken off in the past few years, but I am often running into people who believe they know something but they’ve been misled by a book or a movie. Historians do get it wrong and historical understanding can change over time, which is why it’s important to read a few different sources in order to escape bias, but so few people do that and I dislike the fact that they could easily pick up and spread a mistaken belief because of a fiction book they read.
Even major politicians get history wrong and many people seem to have lost the ability to think for themselves; that probably doesn’t apply to anyone reading this blog, but I firmly believe we should get it right whenever we possibly can. Think about all the backlash against immigrants; how many Americans are from immigrant stock themselves? All of us who aren’t Native Americans, if you think about it. As an example, how many of us are proud to be Irish now, and how many of those have neatly forgotten the discrimination our grandparents endured and insist on perpetuating it by discriminating against others? This is why history is important, because it does profoundly affect what is happening today and can help us to determine how we react to the calamities of the future.
Finally, I also think a lot of my desire for history to be as accurate as possible in historical fiction is simply because I love history. I think it’s all fascinating on its own. I love historical fiction because it can bring that history to life, and I will admit that I feel misled and cheated if I believed what I read and the author had in fact changed things to suit his or her story without saying a word about it anywhere. In the book I first referenced in this post, Shadow of the Swords, Pasha does freely admit that he changed things in his author’s note, and in general if changes are necessary I like when they’re detailed somewhere. I still probably won’t agree with what was changed, but at least I know what to believe and what not to believe and I can respect the author’s desire to construct his or her own version of the story.
Perhaps I’m thinking too deeply about historical fiction, but I do believe an understanding of history is important in becoming an informed citizen of the world. Many of us do feel we’re learning from historical fiction; it’s not just mindless pleasure that is immediately forgotten. Fiction can be a powerful tool to inspire us to learn more, to understand the world that much better, to become better people. As a result I do feel we should get it as close to the truth as we can; the wonderful stories are there. They just need a clever mind to give them life and make them accessible to those who prefer not to read straight non-fiction. Obviously, much of my own personal preference as represented in this post is due to the fact that I think everyone should have some basic understanding of history. My own studies have massively expanded and drastically changed my own view of the world in ways that I appreciate on a regular basis; I wish that for everyone else, too, and I think historical fiction could be an important first step.
What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Am I missing the point of fiction? How much history do you like in your historical fiction?
I was excited to take part in Amanda’s read-a-long of Bleak House, but the book just isn’t drawing me in. I’ve been behind since the very first week and it doesn’t look good for me ever catching up! I normally just fail at challenges, but this one I think I’ll have to give up. I have so many other books to read that I’m going to put this firmly on the back burner for now. If everyone else starts to like it I may try again in the future. Quite frankly, I found it boring and a slog and my mind wandered too much so I had to keep reading over what I’d read already! I’d catch a moment of loveliness in Dickens’ writing, but then I’d just get frustrated all over again. It may have a lot to say but I’m not sure I’m ready to listen just yet.
 In the kingdom of Eltaria, the Tradition reigns supreme. So it’s virtually inevitable that young princess Rosamund will lose her lovely kind mother Celeste, and that she’ll have a fairy godmother, and that her father will marry an evil Stepmother to send a Hunter after her. The Tradition will always try to bend fate in the direction of a fairy tale – but it can be subverted. So when Rosa’s father does die, her fairy godmother disguises herself as an evil sorceress and makes a deal with Rosa’s father – but Rosa still flees and is captured by dwarves who are far from the kindly ones described in Snow White. This time, however, there are two princes wandering the forest; which way will the Tradition bend Rosa’s life next?
This was quite a clever and entertaining twist on traditional fairy tales. The author starts off, rather obviously, with Snow White, but also makes space for Sleeping Beauty which can also suit Rosa’s situation. I really liked the idea of a world which tries to obey the dictates of fairy tales – no matter which fairy tale – and each different kingdom in the world draws from different mythologies. Siegfried, who is pretty obviously Rosa’s main love interest as he’s the only male narrator, is haunted by a shield-maiden in a ring of fire straight out of traditional Nordic myths, as he is from the North.
The characters themselves were enchanting in their own ways. Rosa started off a little too whiny; she insists that she’s self-sufficient but requires rescuing from the evil dwarves nonetheless. However, as soon as she’s woken up with a kiss which she decidedly does not want, she gets a bit feistier which makes her easier to relate to. I felt the story was a bit less cohesive after the Snow White part ended, as it doesn’t really imitate any other fairy tales (that I know about) in so much detail, but it was still very much a fun book. People fall in love, fight battles, and solve riddles trying to win the princess’s hand in marriage; it’s all good stuff.
This is the fifth book in a series of similar fairy tale themed stories set in this world. This is the first that I’ve read and I had no trouble following along; I probably wouldn’t even have known it was a series if LibraryThing hadn’t told me so. I liked The Sleeping Beauty enough that I plan to seek out the earlier books in the series. It’s an intriguing world, and since I like fairy tales, I’m looking forward to see which other ones she’s played with so well.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for review for free through Netgalley.
 In the late twelfth century, Jerusalem falls to the Muslim world once again, to the shock of a Christian community used to claiming much of the holy land. Richard the Lionheart decides that the throne of England just isn’t enough for him and heads off with a large party of men to save the Christian kingdom and, perhaps, to crown himself King of Jerusalem. Meanwhile, in the holy city itself, sultan and chivalrous warrior Saladin worries about the oncoming Christian threat, especially when Richard starts to win. In the mix is thrown Miriam, a Jewish girl who lost nearly everything to the savagery of the Christians, and whose uncle is one of Saladin’s most trusted advisors. Will she bridge the gap between cultures?
Here is yet another book that has me torn in two. My first problem with it is historical inaccuracy, and I mean historical inaccuracy in a ridiculously large way. First of all, Pasha has the king’s children Richard, John, and Joanna at Henry II’s deathbed, with nary a mention of the man who was actually there, which was Henry’s bastard son Geoffrey. He conveniently neglects to mention that Henry was in fact at war with Richard at the time. Then, Richard claims that he wants the kingdom of England above all, which is clearly not true – it’s widely accepted that Richard was groomed to take Eleanor’s place as Duke of Aquitaine, a land with which he was better acquainted and mostly fought for. England was not a very important kingdom in comparison with France, and it’s only the dominance of England from Elizabeth’s reign onwards that made it of any real importance to the rest of the world. Secondly, the crusade Richard goes on is almost ridiculously simplified, with many of the major characters sidelined because they didn’t suit the story. For example, there is no Berengaria, Richard’s wife, and Guy of Lusignan is conveniently forgotten as soon as Jerusalem is captured. The story was originally a film script and the historical inaccuracy makes that pretty obvious, as it’s simplified to suit a movie time span and a novel could have been much more complex and accurate. The crusade is pretty exciting by itself; it doesn’t need all this editing. It also bothered me that Richard was constantly referred to as a boy and inexperienced when in reality, he was 32 and had been leading armies since he was 16 years old. 32 year olds aren’t even boys in the modern world; in the medieval world, this struck me as very out of place.
You can argue that this book is fiction, but I honestly just don’t see a reason to change so much of history in a historical novel.
On the other hand, this is one of the few books about the crusades that I can remember reading by a Muslim, and Pasha highlights many of the important aspects of Muslim culture which are so conveniently forgotten in the modern world. First and foremost, this is the fact that Muslims are peaceful people. They co-existed happily with all other religions, including Christians, until the Christians themselves decided to kill them to gain back Jerusalem – and even then, after the treaty was signed, the existing Christians were generally allowed to live in peace. The same is true of Jews, by the way, who were systematically persecuted by Christians everywhere but were mainly left alone by Muslims. This was also true in Muslim Spain. Saladin himself, as Pasha writes in his author’s note, was in fact an incredibly honorable man, and many of these bits that Pasha included were in fact accurate. He really emphasizes the fact that the crusades are the background of the conflicts we’re still experiencing today; the fact that Jews and Muslims used to live together peacefully seems almost remarkable to us today given current conflicts in the Middle East. He also provides an excellent list of follow-up reading for those who are interested in the crusades and this crusade in particular.
As a result, for all my complaints about its inaccuracy, Shadow of the Swords is a book that has something to say for those who’d like to look more closely at it. Unfortunately, I think its over-simplifying and changing of history will cause those who read it to also question the reality of the situation between Muslims, Jews, and Christians. As a result, I recommend it with reservations, and highly suggest that readers of this book also seek out an excellent non-fiction book written from a Muslim perspective, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free for review from the publisher.
 Known worldwide as “Bridezilla”, Chloe Turner just wants to get away from it all. Her former fiance faked his death to get away from her – meaning that she not only grieved for him but was forced to face the extremes to which he’d go to cancel their wedding. So her friend Jenn takes her to Virginia for a much needed beach holiday, where they meet the Sullivan brothers. Max Sullivan is afraid of almost everything and has a need to keep everyone safe; he’s drawn to Chloe and finds himself sharing his secrets with her almost immediately. Will he be pleased when he learns that the infamous Bridezilla is keeping secrets from him?
This was a fun, fast read that would be perfect for the beach or a lazy afternoon. Though the characters are somewhat tortured in various ways, their dialogue is snappy and it’s very easy to care for them. There are simultaneous love stories running in the book, but it’s really much more about Chloe and Max; the secondary love story provides a foil and another angle to the main romance.
I liked especially that Chloe and Max were both a little crazy, which I felt meant that they’d suit each other quite well. Max is a control freak, convinced that someone is going to die under his watch. He’s been responsible since his father left when he was very young and he just can’t turn off that responsibility. He stresses about diving, driving, fires, and even night time swimming, which is apparently very dangerous. I think he would have driven me mad, but his extra attention is perfect for Chloe, who seems mostly normal. It’s the paparazzi that have driven her mad and made her paranoid, and Max provides an oasis of calm in the middle of the storm her life becomes.
If there was anything I didn’t like about the book, it would have to be the in detail love scenes; Dahl’s books seem to be on the racier side, so it’s worth warning potential readers. You may like that, but I am not the biggest fan, especially when the hero and heroine hop into bed without much preamble. I did feel that their relationship grew over the course of the book, and would have done so anyway without these particular scenes.
Overall, I enjoyed this more than I did Victoria Dahl’s last effort, and I went forth and purchased a historical by her on my Kindle almost immediately after finishing this. So Crazy for Love was a success for me, and if you like contemporary romance, it may be with you as well.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free for review through Netgalley.
 Ellie is a rural Irish girl, born to the snobby family in the village. As a child she feels isolated from the other children, except for John, with whom she shares an immediate kinship. When they grow into adults, it’s only natural that they fall in love and get married; it’s been happening for their entire lives. What isn’t natural is John’s zest for the Irish revolutionary movement and the aim to take the country back from the British. When he is seriously injured and needs an expensive operation to walk again, Ellie faces the reality of heading to New York City for a year and working to pay for his medical care. Once she’s there, though, Ellie discovers that she might not want to leave.
I’m of two minds about this novel, again. It was quite engaging while I was reading it and I loved the depiction of New York City, particularly the differences between the big fancy city with electricity everywhere and rural Ireland with basically nothing. I did think it was a little peculiar that the novel is titled Ellis Island but Ellie spends about three pages there! Still, it was interesting to read about it in fiction now that I’ve actually walked the halls of Ellis Island myself. At least one set of my great-grandparents went through the famed immigration island and even though Ellie goes after the initial rush, it’s still an interesting depiction.
It doesn’t really hold up to Brooklyn, which may be my favorite book this year and which covers a similar theme of an Irish girl moving to New York City to make money, and that definitely colored my interpretation of it as well. Ellie and Eilis are completely different girls and lead totally different lives; unfortunately I related more to Eilis. Ellie seems almost vain at times, especially closer to the end of the book. Mainly I loved that she eventually decided to make something of herself and seize the old American dream.
Unfortunately, I disliked most of the ending and I felt she was giving in to a life she didn’t really want to lead. Others have interpreted her return to Ireland differently, but I saw a girl giving up her real dreams for a man, and that’s just something I can’t get behind. Even if she still retained her ambitious bent, she isn’t living the life she wanted out of guilt.
While an engaging read, Ellis Island lacks substance and doesn’t really satisfy the ambitious female reader. While some might say that Ellie found what she really wanted, all I saw was her giving up her newfound happiness for the sake of tradition.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
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