[REVIEW] Worlds of Ink and Shadow

title: Worlds of Ink and Shadow
author: Lena Coakley
genre: young adult, fantasy
published: March 6th 2018 by Harry N. Abrams (first published January 5th 2016)
my copy: paperback, 352 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 4 / 5 stars
goodreads

Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne. The Brontë siblings have always been inseparable. After all, nothing can bond four siblings quite like life in an isolated parsonage out on the moors. Their vivid imaginations lend them escape from their strict upbringing, transporting them into the glittering, high society world of Verdopolis, literally. The children realize that crossing over comes at a steep price, but when they try to stop, their creations haunt them. They vow to travel to Verdopolis one more time to destroy it—and risk being trapped there forever. Gorgeously written and meticulously researched, Worlds of Ink and Shadow brings to life the upbringing of one of history’s most celebrated literary families.

recommended if you like the Brontës.

I cannot believe I was scared to read this because I blindly love the Brontë siblings (this also convinced me to really read their books soon!! Because I've only ever read Emily's works).

[MINI REVIEWS] Literary/Historical Fiction Edition #1

title: Lost in the Beehive
author: Michele Young-Stone
genre: literary fiction, historical
published: April 10, 2018 by Simon & Schuster
format: paperback, 320 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 4 / 5 stars
goodreads

From the author of Above Us Only Sky and The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, a touching new novel set in the 1960s about the power of friendship, love, and accepting your past in order to find a future. 

For nearly her entire life, Gloria Ricci has been followed by bees.  

They’re there when her mother loses twin children; when she first meets a neighborhood girl named Isabel, who brings out feelings in her that she knows she shouldn’t have; and when her parents, desperate to “help” her, bring her to the Belmont Institute, whose glossy brochures promise healing and peace. She tells no one, but their hum follows her as she struggles to survive against the Institute’s cold and damaging methods, as she meets an outspoken and unapologetic fellow patient named Sheffield Schoeffler, and as they run away, toward the freewheeling and accepting glow of 1960s Greenwich Village, where they create their own kind of family among the artists and wanderers who frequent the jazz bars and side streets.  

As Gloria tries to outrun her past, experiencing profound love—and loss—and encountering a host of unlikely characters, including her Uncle Eddie, a hard-drinking former boyfriend of her mother’s, to Madame Zelda, a Coney Island fortune teller, and Jacob, the man she eventually marries but whose dark side threatens to bring disaster, the bees remain. It’s only when she needs them most that Gloria discovers why they’re there.  

Moving from the suburbs of New Jersey to the streets of New York to the swamps of North Carolina and back again, Lost in the Beehive is a poignant novel about the moments that teach us, the places that shape us, and the people who change us.

[REVIEW] Between Shades of Gray (audio)

title: Between Shades of Gray
author: Ruta Sepetys; Emily Klein (narrator)
genre: young adult, historical fiction
published: March 22, 2011 by Penguin Audio
format: audio, 7 hours and 47 minutes
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
audiobook: Audible | Overdrive | Publisher 
rating: 5 / 5 stars
goodreads

Lithuania, June 1941: Fifteen-year-old Lina is preparing for art school and looking forward to summer. In the dark of night there is a knock at the door and life is forever changed. Soviet secret police arrest Lina, her mother, and her younger brother, tearing their family apart. The three are hauled from their home and thrown into cattle cars, where they soon discover their destination: Siberia. Separated from her father, Lina embeds clues in her drawings and secretly passes them along, hoping they will reach her father's prison camp. In this dramatic and moving story, Lina desperately fights for her life and the lives of those around her. But will love be enough to keep her alive?

Heartbreaking. Unforgettable. Enlightening.

I read Between Shades of Gray years ago. I LOVED it. It's my favorite historical fiction. It's heartbreaking and really brings out a story many do not know about. So when I saw AudioFile had it up for free download as part of SYNC, AudioFile's free summer audiobook program for teens 13+, I HAD to grab it.

[TOUR] Belle of Two Arbors

title: Belle of Two Arbors
author: Paul Diamond; Maria Buhr Grimes (poetry)
genre: adult fiction, historical fiction
publish: April 4, 2017 by Cedar Forge Press
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 3.5 / 5 stars
goodreads

Born at the turn of the twentieth century in Glen Arbor, near the dunes of Northern Michigan, young Belle is the first child of a gruff stove-works boss and a crippled mother who weaned Belle on the verse of Emily Dickinson. When a natural disaster results in her mother's death and nearly takes the life of her younger brother Pip, Belle creates a fierce, almost ecstatic farewell song. Thus begins her journey to compose a perfect Goodbye to Mama.  

At 21, Belle ventures south to Ann Arbor for university, with teenaged Pip in tow. There, she befriends Robert Frost, Ted Roethke and Wystan Auden and finds that her poetry stands alongside theirs, and even with that of her hero, Dickinson. Her lyrics capture the sounds, sights, and rhythms of the changing seasons in the northern forests, amidst the rolling dunes by the shores of the Great Lake.  

Despite the peace she finds, Belle also struggles in both homes. Up north, she battles her father who thinks a woman can't run the family business; and clashes against developers who would scar the natural landscape. In Ann Arbor, she challenges the status quo of academic pedants and chauvinists.  

Belle's narrative brings these two places to life in their historic context: a growing Midwestern town driven by a public university, striving for greatness; and a rural peninsula seeking prosperity while preserving its natural heritage. Through the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Post-War Boom, Belle's story is hard to put down. Her voice and songs will be even harder to forget. 

a beautifully written and informative historical fiction

I joined the blog tour of Belle of Two Arbors simply because: (1) I'm IN LOVE with all things historical fiction (you, guys, probably know his by now); (2) it covers a whole lot of events and this means more information for me (yay for that); (3) the combination of novel and poetry highly intrigued me because I was never a poetry reader but ya know, sometimes you just have to go for it (and the curiosity is killing me).

[TOUR] Duels & Deception

tour schedule can be found at: Xpresso Book Tours

title: Duels & Deception
author: Cindy Anstey
genre: young adult, historical fiction, romance
publish: April 11, 2017
purchase: Amazon | B&N
rating: 4 / 5 stars
goodreads

Miss Lydia Whitfield, heiress to the family fortune, has her future entirely planned out. She will run the family estate until she marries the man of her late father’s choosing, and then she will spend the rest of her days as a devoted wife. Confident in those arrangements, Lydia has tasked her young law clerk, Mr. Robert Newton, to begin drawing up the marriage contracts. Everything is going according to plan. 

Until Lydia—and Robert along with her—is kidnapped. Someone is after her fortune and won’t hesitate to destroy her reputation to get it. With Robert’s help, Lydia strives to keep her family’s good name intact and expose whoever is behind the devious plot. But as their investigation delves deeper and their affections for each other grow, Lydia starts to wonder whether her carefully planned future is in fact what she truly wants… 

cute romance in regency era

I joined the blog tour of Duels & Deception simply because: (1) I LOVE historical fiction and the Regency era is something don't think I've about (aside from the The Dark Days Club which will probably DNF at some point); (2) I've never read historical romance and Cindy Anstey sounds like a great place to start because I've read great things about Love, Lies and Spies, (3) OMG, lOOK AT THAT COVER!! It's too pretty!! 😍😍😍

[REVIEW] The Nightingale

title: The Nightingale
author: Kristin Hannah
genre: adult fiction, historical fiction
publish: February 3, 2015 by St. Martin's Press
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 5 / 5 stars
goodreads

The bestselling novel that has captured readers across the globe -- a story of two sisters, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France. 

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says good-bye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn't believe that the Nazis will invade France... but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in places that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne's home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food, money, nor hope, as danger escalates all around them, Vianne is forced to make on impossible choice after another to keep her family alive. 

Vianne's sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians match into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gaëtan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can... completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking everything she has to save her fellow countrymen -- even her own life.

a MUST READ WWII novel.

I've been hoping to read this book in like FOREVER because: (1) it's historical fiction (and you know my goal: read all those historical fiction!! no alternate history/fantasy history for me though, sorry); (2) it' set in WWII (probably the most widely written time period at the moment. probably); (3) I've SEEN this book recommended everywhere!! just EVERYWHERE!! (along with All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr).

[REVIEW] Girl in the Blue Coat

title: Girl in the Blue Coat
author: Monica Hesse
genre: young adult, historical fiction
publish: April 5, 2016 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 4 / 5 stars
goodreads

Amsterdam, 1943. Hanneke spends her days finding and delivering sought-after black market goods to paying customers, nights hiding the true nature of her work from her concerned parents, and every waking moment mourning her boyfriend, who was killed on the Dutch front lines when the German army invaded. Her illegal work keeps her family afloat, and Hanneke also likes to think of it as a small act of rebellion against the Nazis. 

On a routine delivery, a client asks Hanneke for help. Expecting to hear that Mrs. Janssen wants meat or kerosene, Hanneke is shocked by the older woman’s frantic plea to find a person: a Jewish teenager Mrs. Janssen had been hiding, who has vanished without a trace from a secret room. Hanneke initially wants nothing to do with such a dangerous task but is ultimately drawn into a web of mysteries and stunning revelations—where the only way out is through. 

Beautifully written, intricately plotted, and meticulously researched, Girl in the Blue Coat is an extraordinary, unforgettable story of bravery, grief, and love in impossible times.

a beautiful story of love, friendship, and bravery during war times

Girl in the Blue Coat was an auto-buy for me simply because: (1) it's historical fiction (because I HAVE to read ALL the historical books out there. lol.), (2) it's set in WWII (it may be the most widely written historical period but there are still too much we do not know about it!!), (3) that cover is too bEAUTIFUL (GAH! I just know I need this in my shelf the moment I saw it!!)!!