Over the summer, I dedicated my leisure time to the joy of reading, definitely one of my passions. I have devoured many and wish to share a few with you.
When The World Fell Silent by Donna Jones Alward. I didn’t quite know what to expect because I had not heard of this event. It is a novel set in Halifax, Nova Scotia during WWI. It is inspired by a devastating man-made explosion when the French munitions ship, SS Mont Blanc collided with the Norwegian relief ship, in Halifax Harbor. December 6, 1917. The explosion and subsequent fires nearly killed two thousand people, injured nearly nine thousand others and left tens of thousands homeless.
The story is centred around two sisters whose lives become entwined by this tragedy. One sister, a wife and mother whose husband lost his life in the trenches and lives with his family. The other, a lieutenant in the Canadian Nursing Corps. Their paths will cross in an unexpected way and nothing for these two sisters will ever be the same again.
Donna Jones Alward currently resides in Halifax and has written and enchanted her readers with happy endings and homecomings.
The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry. It is a novel spanning three generations of women about a famous lost book, a famous lost mother and an artist searching for both. The story begins in 1927 in South Carolina when a former child prodigy disappears abandoning her child and husband. She leaves behind a sequel to her children’s blockbuster fantasy, however, the sequel is written in the author’s secret untranslatable language. In 1952, the author’s lost words are discovered in a private library in England. I will leave you in suspense and not say more. It is definitely worth the read.
Patty Callahan Henry is the best-selling author of seventeen novels. She is the recipient of the Christy Award 2019 Winner of the Book of the year; also in 2019, the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year and in 2020, the Harper Lee Distinguished Writer of the Year. She lives in Mountain Brook, Alabama.
On Isabella Street by Genevieve Graham. As two of her previous novels, Bluebird and The Secret Keeper that I read, On Isabella Street had the same effect on me. I could not put it down! She has the ability of blending real historical facts and fiction in such a way that you are transported when reading and feel you are there with the characters.
Circling around Canadians in the Viet Nam War or “Unknown Veterans” as they became known, Genevieve delves into so many subjects, the ’60s, Mental Health, PTSD, Protests etc. The novel is set in both Toronto and Viet Nam during the sixties. There are two main characters who meet as neighbours on the same floor of an apartment building on Isabella Street in Toronto. Dr. Marion Hart, is a psychiatrist, working in a mental institution and Sassy (Susan) Rankin is a hippie folk singer from a privileged family. The enduring bonds of friendship and family and the devastating cost of war are very well represented On Isabella Street.
A graduate from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Music, she worked in advertising, marketing and fundraising. In 2007, Genevieve decided to try writing historical fiction. Upon moving to Nova Scotia, she found herself surrounded by Canadian history she knew nothing about. She then made it her mission to bring Canadian history to life writing one book per year and has written a dozen novels.
I hope I have tempted you with my reviews if you haven’t already read them. Please feel free to send me suggestions for future reads.