Compilation: 14 Books Set in Estate Houses

This month's compilation offers books that are set in estate houses (mostly British). If you love Downton Abbey, these are books you might find equally appealing. The books are listed from most recent to most distant read:

1. The Birdcage by Eve Chase
2. The Hollow by Agatha Christie
3. The Banishment by Marion Chesney (M. C. Beaton)
4. The Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly
5. They Do It With Mirrors by Agatha Christie
6. Longbourn by Jo Baker
7. Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase
8. The Duchess by Danielle Steel
9. The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian
10. The House at Tyneford by Natasha Solomons
11. The Song of Hartgrove Hall by Natasha Solomons
12. Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty
13. Blackmoore by Julianne Donaldson
14. Fablehaven by Brandon Mull

This is a theme well-worth sticking to and these authors deserve further exploration. Next up, I might select The Daughters of Foxcote Manor by Eve Chase, or The Light Over London by Julia Kelly, The Telling by Jo Baker, or House of Gold by Natasha Solomons (one I intended to read back in 2018). There are 3 more books in the Serafina series, and 5 total in the Fablehaven series. I could select one of Chris Bohjalian's 20 novels or from the almost endless supply of M. C. Beaton or Agatha Christie novels.

Christmas Book Sale

For a limited time, I am running a Christmas sale:

Perhaps you wish to skip the autograph -

It is also easy to gift someone a Kindle book on Amazon. Even if they don't own a Kindle, they can upload Kindle for PC (that is how I read most of my eBooks). 1) Make sure you are on the Kindle book page. 2) Click the Give a Gift button. 3) Enter the email address for your recipient (make sure it is the Kindle email address associated with their account). 4) Enter a delivery date. 5) Enter an optional gift message.

Or, if you wish to gift me while gifting a friend/relative, purchase my book from Book Baby (I receive the most return on books purchased directly from my publisher). If you verify your Book Baby purchase, I will send a small poetry print to the recipient/address of your choice.

Book Review: The Storyteller's Secret

I believe I came across this book in an e-book advertisement. Thrity Umrigar is a favorite Indian author of mine and I hoped it would be as moving as her books. I still prefer Umrigar's books, but this one was quickly absorbing. It held all the usual seductions: family secrets, relational struggle, forbidden love, loss, and redemption. India became a living entity. Their cultural beliefs and behaviors gave insight into a different world. The Storyteller's Secret held just enough conflict to keep an enticing pace and just enough promise to nurture hope in the reader. Though it didn't live up to an Umrigar novel, it provided a unique dip into Indian culture and norms.

Content Caution: 📒 - sex

Book Review: The Deep Places

Several years ago, persistent car issues forced me to withdraw from my book club (an hour's drive away). I considered joining a more local book club through the library. Then the pandemic hit and all desire to join in groups disappeared. I've missed the intellectual stimulation of group discussion. One of my library's book clubs announced their scheduled read: The Deep Places by Ross Douthat. The book sounded intriguing (especially since my sister has been dealing with unexplained health issues). Thankfully, it was short, as I only picked up the book two days before the group meeting.

Ross Douthat was about to embark on a new adventure when his life derailed. His family uprooted from their home in Washington, D.C. and moved to a farmhouse in Connecticut. But their visions of gardens and a cozy country life blurred when Ross came down with an inexplicable illness. After many fruitless doctor visits, the diagnosis of Lyme disease seemed the best explanation. His lengthy journey through a disbelieving and ineffective medical establishment pushed him to try his own remedies, as the illness sucked the life from him.

I guess I hoped for more spiritual insights. Suffering opens eyes to things we take for granted and helps us see our lives with fresh perspective. I assumed, given the title, The Deep Places, that the illness would lend spiritual lessons. Alas, it lent more despair than hope, more frustration than redemption. As I closed the book, I considered nixing my plans to attend the meeting. 

I'm so glad I went. What a wonderful bunch of women! We had a lively discussion. They reminded me he ended the book with the positive sentiment that he is still alive, blessing of all blessings. If I were more outdoorsy, the book might have spooked me (especially given our wooded property that often brings deer right up by the house).

Frankly, I'm more fearful of the bobcat we saw in our backyard a while back (not for me, but for my little dog). Of course, the more houses spring up around us, the fewer deer and bobcats we will encounter. We don't plan to tear down our woods, but the wildlife might disappear with all this encroaching. And I have my own deep places, without the bite of a tick.

Book Review: The Book of Lost Friends - Highly Recommend

Back in the day, before cell phones, I spent a stressful, terrifying few hours with no idea where my husband was or what had happened to him. It was gut-wrenching and distressing. Here's my best recollection of the events of that day: On a snowy winter morning, we took the highway, headed for a marital counseling session. As I drove, a neighboring driver began gesticulating wildly, attempting to get us to pull over. We had no idea who this was. I took our expected exit and kept driving (the guy following) until I pulled up behind a police car on the side of a road. The guy claimed a piece of ice from the top of our vehicle struck and cracked his windshield. The officer directed us to take the matter to a court building very near our counseling site. Why didn't we insist on staying together? John told me to drop him off and go to the session, then return for him afterwards. I spent the next hour "on the couch," so to speak, and returned to the court building but found no trace of my husband. I think I asked around and a person saw him get into a vehicle with another man.

After endless waiting, I was unsure what to do. How helpless you feel when you've no idea where your loved one has vanished to, if you will ever find them again, or if they have come to some sort of brutal end. Because I was younger then, I don't think my mind played out all the worst-case scenarios as it would now, but I was beyond distressed. After several hours, a cab pulled up and my husband stepped out.

The relief was palpable. During the drive home, he explained. Someone at the court building said they had to file an accident report at the highway's toll booth. The man with the cracked windshield, eager to get his desired resolution, took John there, but then claimed he had to get to work and could not drive John back to the court building. Someone in the toll booth allowed my husband to use the phone, and he attempted to call to leave a message for me with his location. The counseling center, bound by confidentiality laws, refused to pass any message on to me. The next dilemma? He had insufficient funds to hire a cab to take him back to the court building. He called one anyhow and a kind-hearted cabbie provided the fare for free. In the end, they labelled the shattered windshield as "a road hazard," so the whole episode had been a pointless venture into terror and grief.

Thus, I could relate to The Book of Lost Friends. Although I didn't face the intensity the slaves experienced, I walked a mile in their shoes. This book is based upon factual accounts taken from advertisements in a Southern paper, where slaves sought information about lost family members ripped away from them. Lisa Wingate does a marvelous job of weaving two time periods into a cohesive and impactful tale. In one story line, it is 1875 and the slave Hannie Gossett follows her owner Lavinia (with Juneau Jane, Lavinia's half-sister from the father's second side-family) on a quest to find information about the missing plantation owner. Each girl has a unique story to share as they grow together on their journey. When they happen upon the pages of the book of lost friends, Hannie determines to find her people.

In the second story line, it is 1987 and Bennie Silva begins a new teaching career in a dilapidated community in Louisiana, on the heels of a failed engagement. She is unsure she has what it takes to nurture a vision for a better tomorrow in the hearts and minds of her young students. Finally, a history project about the local Goswood plantation lights a fire in both teacher and her students. Of course, there are those who do not want the truths of the past revealed. Can Bennie push through this obstacle? Will the book they find in the plantation house bring lives together? Might she have a future with Nathan Gossett? Or will the same mysterious piece in her past that foiled her engagement hinder her new love interest?

Once again, I'm so glad I took a gamble on a longer audio book. The narration was outstanding, and the story was important. This book brings to life so many historical truths and dreadful realities of our American past. Each character, and unique story, will move you. I highly recommend this Lisa Wingate book. It will wrench your heart out, but piece it back together again. It didn't stop with the pain, but brought that painful past into a present resolution and redemption. This is historical fiction at its finest!

Book Review: What You Wish For

I've never read a book by Katherine Center before. Someone billed her as "the queen of comfort reads." Now that I've read and adored What You Wish For, I'll be looking for more. Normally, I'm not drawn to romance novels, and in today's world, chances are slim for a clean read. This was outstanding! It might even turn me into a romance reader.

Two individuals who are not who they once were (I can relate because life changes you) intersect in an inspiring way. Samantha Casey has left behind her mousy ways to assert a more colorful life. Now, Duncan Carpenter, an old colleague and crush, is coming to serve as principal at the school where she works as a librarian. She is nervous to see him again, but sure everyone will love him. However, his plans to safeguard the students and faculty don't sit well with any of them. Indeed, he is sucking all the joy out of the school (forbidding field trips, sending endless security memos, and covering the beautiful butterfly mural with drab paint). When Samantha gets a small glimpse at what provoked the changes in Duncan, she sets Operation Duncan in motion. In the midst of trying to encourage him to reclaim joy, she kindles love and joy of her own.

This book! What a gem! It is inspiring and entertaining. Teachers and librarians will love it. The message sings clearly: books are powerful, everyone's story matters, and joy is worth fighting for. So many characters facing adversity. So many claiming victory. Even while tackling difficult contemporary issues, the story sings out words of optimism and cheer. Don't let danger drown delight! Hang on to hope amid heartbreak. Sadly, our world needs this message more than it knows. I can't wait to find another Katherine Center novel!

Book Review: From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

I know I read this book when I was younger. Perhaps I liked it better the first time around. It wasn't regrettable, yet I expected so much more (both from its reputation and my memory). I'm guessing it was a read-aloud in one of my elementary classrooms. Fitting.

Claudia Kincaid is running away. She selects her younger brother Jamie to come along (he's thrifty with his money and has amassed enough to finance her venture). They execute her plans, from hiding in the Metropolitan Museum of Art to bathing in the fountain (and making off with the coins in the fountain). She seeks to change somehow, yet finds the little adventure not as fulfilling as hoped. They stumble upon a mysterious statue. Is it truly a famous work of art purchased by the museum for a pittance, or is it just an ordinary statue of an angel?

I enjoyed the sections on sneaking in and living in the museum. The parts about bathing and washing their clothes entertained. Sadly, when they came to the climax of the story (the mysterious statue), it fell flat for me. Thus, I'd say the beginning and middle were strong, but the end felt contrived and dissatisfying. I loved the glorious name of the elderly woman (and the title of the book). The interesting idea of children hiding out in a museum will still appeal to elementary students.

Book Review: The Radium Girls

At one time, I pursued a graduate level history degree. Although I focused on British history, this American tale is the very kind of story I dreamed of chasing down. Kate Moore, author of The Radium Girls, does an outstanding job of integrating material from diaries, letters, court transcripts, and modern oral history interviews (another focus of mine). Plus, it takes place in a familiar neck of the woods (Ottawa, Illinois) and even mentions one of our favorite family destinations (Starved Rock). As the back cover proclaims, "It is the powerful tale of a group of ordinary women from the Roaring Twenties, who themselves learned how to roar."

On the battlefields of World War I, the soldiers' watches, clocks, and military dials needed illumination. The girls back home, eager to do their part, worked in factories, painting these instruments with a luminous paint made from radium. When their brushes thickened with the material, the bosses instructed them to place the paint brush into their mouths to thin it out again. Thus, most of their days followed a routine of "lip, dip, paint." It was fun. The girls went home from work covered in the glowing dust. Sometimes they even painted their fingernails with the paint. On dark streets, they shone on their walk home. Their employers assured the girls it was safe. Indeed, it would give them rosy cheeks.

The level of corruption displayed by these companies, eager to continue raking in their profits, was sickening. They knew the dangers and refused to inform the girls. Despite medical mysteries (disintegrating jaws, diminishing leg bones, anemia, and various sarcomas), the companies hid their inside knowledge and refused to make payments to assist the afflicted women. If only I could rest in the thought that this was a tragic tale from the past. Alas, this story plays out repeatedly. Profits trump people. The bottom line is more important than integrity and easing illness. Companies today do the same thing: they push unproven substances on unwitting individuals while exempting themselves from liability. When the consequences show up, they refuse to foot the bill. Maddening! Criminal!