Author Archives: sandradan1

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About sandradan1

Novelist. I blog about writing, reading and everything to do with books and writing them at http://www.sandradanby.com/. Come and visit me!

#BookReview ‘The Garden of Angels’ by David Hewson #WW2 #thriller

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David Hewson is a new author for me. The Garden of Angels is a combination of historical novel and World War Two thriller, written in a patient, multi-layered style which explores a moment in history through the lives of a small number of people. Hewson makes wartime Venice come alive in all its stench, beauty, cruelty, fear and starvation. David HewsonIt is 1943 and the locals are watching the news, following the Allies’ progress towards Rome, wondering how much longer they must wait to be free once more. Meanwhile the Germans search amongst the locals for partisans, traitors, communists. But most of all they search for Jews. A teenage boy, alone after his parents are killed in a bombing raid, must continue the business of the family firm, jacquard weavers of the most beautiful velvet. He must complete the commission his father won just before he died. He stays within the four walls of his home, whilst on the streets outside people are being killed. Until one day Paulo sees something that makes him determined to do something rather than stand by.
The story hinges on the modern-day relationship between a boy and his grandfather, encapsulated from page one as Nonno Paulo reads a bedtime story to five-year-old Nico. He reads from a true story from a history book and they discuss the nature of truth, the truth of death. Ten years later, in 1999 when Nonno Paulo is dying, he gives to Nico a series of letters telling the truth of his life in Venice in 1943 during the German occupation. No one knows Paulo’s real story.
In 1943, Venice is a closed city, tight-knit, full of secret spaces and places the Germans don’t know. It is both a place for hiding and a place for living under the eye of the Nazis and Black Brigades. Paolo shelters two partisans who are on the run. Brother and sister Vanni and Mika Artom are not hunted solely because they have killed Germans, but because they are Jews. Mika, unable to sit quietly by, finds a local resistance group and agrees to take part in a plot to murder a visiting VIP, Salvatore Bruno, a Jew who is betraying other Jews. Vanni, injured and hardly able to move, helps Paolo and his assistant Chiara to weave.
This is a powerful story that hooks you from the beginning and draws you in. I was still thinking about the book days after finishing it. It is not a regular war thriller though it has all the usual conventions. It is more about how we as humans act under extreme circumstances, what we do to survive, where we draw our red lines, when to stand aside and when to step in, how far we will go to win; surprisingly similar dilemmas for the occupiers and the occupied when all are ultimately ordinary people.

If you like this, try:-
‘A Beautiful Spy’ by Rachel Hore
‘The Heat of the Day’ by Elizabeth Bowen
‘Midnight in Europe’ by Alan Furst

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#BookReview THE GARDEN OF ANGELS by David Hewson https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5pi via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Plague Land’ by @SD_Sykes #historical #plague

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I’ve realised that when I start reading the first book in new series, I should have different expectations. It will not be a standalone novel so there will be continuing threads, unanswered questions and seemingly unrelated sub-plots which all come good in later books. In other words, I wear my ‘be patient’ hat. Plague Land by SD Sykes is first in the historical mystery Oswald de Lacy series. Set in 1350 in countryside ravaged by the plague, teenager Oswald reluctantly finds himself called home from the monastery to be lord of the manor. For almost the whole of the book, he is out of control of events. SD Sykes

This is a historical mystery with an uncertain, inexperienced young lord at its centre. Oswald’s mother and sister are rude to him, the locals simply ignore him, his servants show a lack of respect. A neighbouring lord and the local churchman see him as easy to manipulate and when he is new to his role, Oswald agrees with them. He longs to return to the monastery with his mentor, Father Peter, who returned to Somershill Manor with Oswald. Sykes does a good job portraying a young adult trying to occupy a mature man’s role. What drives him on is an incurable determination to find the truth and an endearing bravery which makes him ask awkward questions and takes him to places he probably shouldn’t be.
When one young woman from the village, then another, are killed in mysterious circumstances, Oswald doesn’t so much lose control of the situation as never hold control in the first place. Rumours of dog-headed monsters rip through the community despite Oswald’s attempts to engage the villagers in logical analysis. Superstition, fear and myth abound in a countryside empty of people; understandable following the horror of death, disease and poverty of the plague.
Many people are not how or who they seem and Oswald learns the hard way not to take appearances or counsel for granted. His questioning of everything and everyone inevitably leads to conflict, and conflict is the beating heart of fiction.
I connected more with Oswald as the story progressed and he was less naive, and now anticipate reading the rest of the series. Coming soon, my review of The Butcher Bird, second in the five-book Oswald de Lacy series.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

If you like this, try:-
‘The Almanack’ by Martine Bailey, #1TabithaHart
‘Winter Pilgrims’ by Toby Clements #1Kingmaker
‘Gone are the Leaves’ by Anne Donovan

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PLAGUE LAND by @SD_Sykes #bookreview https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5nv via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The War Child’ by @RenitaDSilva #WW2 #historical

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Two women, two generations apart. In The War Child, Renita D‘Silva explores the connections between a mother and child, through danger and separation, self-sacrifice, unstoppable events and the pressures of modern life. Renita D‘SilvaD’Silva tells the dual timeline stories of Clara and Indira over many decades, setting the strength and promise of women across four decades against the twentieth century prejudices of chauvinism and racism. In London, 1940, teenager Clara is woken by her mother as their home is bombed. Her mother presses into Clara’s hand a necklace, a St Christopher’s medal, with the promise that it will always protect her. Orphaned, Clara is taken in by her aunt and begins helping at a local hospital treating injured soldiers. When nurses and doctors ignore a wounded Indian soldier because of the colour of his skin, Clara nurses him to health. When the war ends, she decides to fulfil a long-held promise to herself. Inspired by sitting on her father’s knee and listening to his stories of India, Clara takes a job as nurse companion to a delicate boy whose parents are re-locating to India. And there, she falls in love.
In India, 1995, 33-year old Indira is chairing a board meeting when she gets a message to ‘go to the hospital’. Fearing her young son is dying – he is in hospital for a minor surgical procedure – she finds her husband and son both well. The message refers to Indira’s father who has had a heart attack. Indira returns home to her parents, somewhere she hasn’t been much of late as she seeks to avoid their simplistic boring life, resenting their dissatisfaction with her life choices.
Sometimes raw and painful, always emotionally complex with surprising twists that make you gasp, The War Child is another brilliant book by my first-choice author for Indian historical romance. D’Silva is such a visual writer that India is a real place on the page, the colours and scents are both beautiful and challenging, her descriptions as full of contrasts as fresh guava sprinkled with chilli powder.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Renita D’Silva:-
A DAUGHTER’S COURAGE
A MOTHER’S SECRET
BENEATH AN INDIAN SKY
THE GIRL IN THE PAINTING
THE ORPHAN’S GIFT
THE SPICE MAKER’S SECRET

If you like this, try:-
‘The Tea Planter’s Wife’ by Dinah Jefferies
‘Call of the Curlew’ by Elizabeth Brooks
‘The Sapphire Widow’ by Dinah Jefferies

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#BookReview THE WAR CHILD by @RenitaDSilva https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5mW via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman’ by Julietta Henderson @JuliettaJulia1 #contemporary

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The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson is one of those delicious books you stumble on, not sure what to expect and end up loving. The Norman of the title is almost twelve and part of a future comedy duo with a five-year plan to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe. But when his comedic partner and best friend Jax dies, Norman has to think again. Julietta HendersonThe catchy first paragraph drew me straight in although I admit to being slightly disappointed when I realised it was by Sadie, Norman’s mum, and not Norman himself. But this feeling disappeared as I settled immediately into the two voices – single mum Sadie and psoriasis sufferer Norman – distinctive, real and very funny as they tell the tale of their two-person family as they face their grief and the Jax-sized hole left in their lives.
The five-year plan – Get to the Edinburgh Fringe, baby! Get famous. Get rich – was meant for a comedy duo. Norman’s problem is that Jax was the funny one. Norman is more Ernie than Eric and Sadie fears he will fail and emulate her own father who was a not very good comedian. But when she reads Norman’s re-written plan – Look after Mum. Find Dad. Get to the Edinburgh Fringe – she is stunned. ‘Finding out Norman wanted to find his father was almost as much of a shock to me as finding out I was pregnant had been. In fact, it managed to evoke pretty much the same feelings, from what I can remember. Same order, even. Bewilderment, denial, terror, followed by how the hell did this happen.’
Aided by the never-say-die attitude of Leonard, octogenarian old soldier and part-time cleaner at the garage where Sadie works, the trio embark on a road trip to Edinburgh in Leonard’s 1971 teal Austin Maxi. The route has various detours to meet the men who may, according to Sadie’s rather hazy memory, be Norman’s father. Various adventures are had along the way, their setbacks and triumphs aided by Leonard’s widespread knowledge gained at assorted classes at Penzance Community Centre.
This is a funny, sad, emotional story about grief, love and what family really means, with lots of laugh out loud moments. It’s about how prejudices and first impressions can lead you to make judgements about people you haven’t yet met. How those old-fashioned notions of determination, plodding on, making the best of it and being brave enough to take a chance, can lead to unexpected conclusions. Ultimately, it’s about how family is less about blood and more about who you let into your life.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry’ by Rachel Joyce
‘The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy’ by Rachel Joyce
‘The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly’ by Sun-Mi Hwang

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#BookReview THE FUNNY THING ABOUT NORMAN FOREMAN by Julietta Henderson @JuliettaJulia1 https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5my via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Man in the Bunker’ by Rory Clements #thriller #WW2

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The Man in the Bunker by Rory Clements gripped me from beginning to end. It starts at the end of the Second World War when spy Tom Wilde thinks real life is beginning again. But the dilemma is in the book’s title. Who was the dead man in the bunker in Berlin? Were the burnt remains really that of Hitler? If not, where is he? Rory ClementsThis is the sixth in Clements’ thriller series about American historian-turned-spy Wilde who spends the war working for the English and American secret services, and each of them has been unputdownable. It is now late summer 1945 and the European war is over. Germany is defeated, in ruins, starving and with millions of Holocaust survivors, displaced people and refugees. The country has been carved up between the allied forces to bring security and discipline but it is a world in which it is easy to disappear, to reinvent yourself. It is a world in which lies are told for survival. As in the previous Wilde books, it is difficult to know who is telling the truth, who is lying and why. Clements is a consummate thriller writer who writes with emotional depth, political intrigue and historical research.
The action starts at a running pace and never stops. Two men are killed on a remote road in southern Bavaria. In Cambridge, history professor Tom Wilde is anticipating the arrival of new undergraduates and his wife Lydia is applying to study medicine. Then three visitors arrive with an incredible request. Wilde must find Adolf Hitler. At first Wilde laughs, then he refuses. That night, Lydia says he will regret refusing. The next day Wilde changes his mind. First, he questions some German scientists who are imprisoned near Cambridge, their rooms bugged, their conversations and gossip recorded. A clue leads Wilde to Garmisch where he teams up with the unpredictable Lieutenant Mozes Heck, a Dutch Jew who hates the Nazis. As they identify Nazis who were close to Hitler, their progress is continually impeded by the conditions in defeated Germany; starvation, bomb damage, medical crisis and the flood of Holocaust survivors and misplaced citizens. And by Heck’s secret, personal mission.
The ending is particularly intriguing. Is The Man in the Bunker the final book of the Tom Wilde story or will it morph into a Cold War series?

Click the title to read my reviews of the other books in the Tom Wilde series:-
CORPUS #1TOMWILDE
NUCLEUS #2TOMWILDE
NEMESIS #3TOMWILDE
HITLER’S SECRET #4TOMWILDE
A PRINCE AND A SPY #5TOMWILDE
THE ENGLISH FUHRER #7TOMWILDE

And from the Sebastian Wolff series:-
MUNICH WOLF #1SEBASTIANWOLFF

If you like this, try:-
‘Exposure’ by Helen Dunmore
‘V2’ by Robert Harris
‘The Second Midnight’ by Andrew Taylor

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#BookReview ‘Underland’ by @RobGMacfarlane #nature #science #travel

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Robert Macfarlane is a nature writer who gives you so much more – science, geology, landscape, history, folklore, myth, environment, oral history. Tempted by the amazing cover – a detail of ‘Nether’ by Stanley Donwood – I bought Underland and was hooked from the first sentence. ‘The way into the underland is through the riven trunk of an old ash tree’. Robert MacfarlaneMacfarlane goes underground – into the catacombs of Paris, remote Arctic sea caves, down moulins in Greenland glaciers, follows underground rivers through the Karst in Slovenia, ending in Finland where a tomb is being constructed to house nuclear waste – discovering stories about our ancestors and the world they lived in. A wide-ranging book, informative as well as interesting, Macfarlane writes with a feeling for language that locks into your emotions. As the chapters progress – each setting is underground, extreme and challenging – Macfarlane consults experts and explores inaccessible places. Juxtaposed with the examination of nature and science, he writes a travel story involving caving, mountaineering, exploration and survival skills. He writes of places the reader is unlikely ever to visit. Such as the calving face of the Knud Rasmussen glacier in Greenland, ‘Birds gather on the silt blooms, feeding on their richness. They are the only scale-givers at this distance, and they are as small as flies.’
Definitely one for re-reading. Some chapters I expected to enjoy, others I was less sure about – but I enjoyed them all, some new territory for me. Such as ‘The Understorey’ about the ‘wood wide web’ of tree-fungus mutualism underground. Macfarlane weaves a story of multiple stories, asking the question – what sort of ancestors will we be?
Fascinating. A non-fiction book to be dwelled upon, rather than rushed.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

If you like this, try:-
‘Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees’ by Roger Deakin
‘English Pastoral’ by James Rebanks 
‘The Wild Silence’ by Raynor Winn 

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#BookReview UNDERLAND by @RobGMacfarlane https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4St via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Camomile Lawn’ by Mary Wesley #WW2

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It’s many years since I first read The Camomile Lawn by  Mary Wesley. I remember liking it, and that one of the characters is called Calypso, but nothing else. So it was with delight that I read the wartime story of Calypso and her four cousins – Oliver, Polly, Walter and Sophy. It renewed my intention to re-read all Wesley’s novels. Mary WesleyThe story is enrichened by the mode of telling. It starts in Cornwall in the summer of 1939 as the cousins of assorted ages gather for what will be the last time. There is a poignancy hanging in the air as the run their ritual race, The Terror Run, along the clifftop path, joined by their neighbours, the Floyer twins.
The cousins are the children of the three Cuthbertson siblings – we see the parents only fleetingly, if not at all – but they are gathered at their Uncle Richard’s house and picnic on the camomile lawn. What follows are the piecemeal stories of individuals and how they overlap with each other as the war progresses. Overlaid, are short passages from the Eighties as they travel independently to Cornwall for a funeral. Drawn into the cousins’ stories are their neighbours, in Cornwall and London, wartime acquaintances, lovers, and refugees Max and Monika. Amidst the bombings, the rationing and the worries about loved ones fighting, Wesley tells a story of a family both united and separated, as individuals strike out on their own, liberated by wartime urgencies. There are affairs, unexpected babies, hints of underage sex, all without accusations of blame or betrayal. Each makes assumptions about the others, assumptions the reader may know are misplaced given we are privileged to see into the minds of each cousin, and sometimes assumptions which are proven right or wrong only at the very end of the novel.
Paths cross, diverge and cross again. Not everyone is nice, not everyone is honest. They are people getting through the war, trying to keep things together; some turn to drink and partying, one keeps guinea pigs, most feel emboldened by the openings presented to them by war. And all the time, fear lurks in the pit of their stomachs. And through it all, the house in Cornwall and memories of that last party on the camomile lawn, remind us of pre-war normality. At a time when ‘normal’ ceases to exist.
Very different from other wartime novels. Now a classic.

Read the first paragraph of THE CAMOMILE LAWN.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
‘Half of the Human Race’ by Antony Quinn
‘My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You’ by Louisa Young 

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#BookReview ‘The Dream Weavers’ by @Barbaraerskine #historical

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I like the timeslip construction and so The Dream Weavers by Barbara Erskine caught my eye. Although well-established, she’s a new author for me as I explore more historical fiction. I admit to looking for more novels without technology and the mores of the modern world. A bit of escapism. Barbara ErskineSet in two different centuries – Anglo-Saxon England 788AD and the English/Welsh border in 2021 – The Dream Weavers is about the romance of a young English noblewoman and a Welsh prince who meet as Offa’s Dyke is being built. Eadburh and Elisedd are sent by their fathers to ride out along the construction line and report back on progress, but over a few days they fall in love. The dyke is a symbol throughout the book, of rivalries and divisions, of tribes seeking separation rather than acceptance of differences. Eadburh’s father King Offa meant it to be a permanent border line between the two countries but in the centuries after it was built it fell into disrepair. In the modern strand of the story – told by Beatrice Dalloway whose husband Mark is canon treasurer of nearby Hereford Cathedral – the dyke is a bit of a mystery, difficult to find, often missing or destroyed, invisible in the rural landscape.
I liked the history, the myths, the hunting down of secrets and particularly the exploration of how history’s perception of the past can be mistaken. Historians make judgements based on the information available to them at the time, but often they may be unaware that what they believe are historical facts are in reality assumptions, lies, cultural misunderstandings, political interpretations or written by chroniclers with personal agendas. This theme is embodied in the character of historian Simon Armstrong, a specialist in the Anglo-Saxon period, who has rented a cottage in the isolated countryside near the dyke to finish writing his latest book. But Simon has a problem, his cottage seems to have a ghost and his landlady calls Bea for help. Bea is a mystic who has an affinity with ghosts and has studied folklore and the supernatural, a hobby which sits uneasily alongside her husband’s job. As Bea investigates the mysterious voice and noises in and around the cottage, Simon’s two children arrive to stay. Teenager Emma seems delicately susceptible to the supernatural and is drawn into Bea’s dreaming. The connections between Bea and Emma with the Welsh borders of 788AD strengthen and both find it difficult to stay in the 21st century, at increasing danger to themselves.
This felt like a long read but when I finished it and checked I was surprised to see it is only 512 pages. Nowhere near the books I think of a ‘long read’ – Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life [737 pages], Kate Mosse’s Labyrinth [752] and itself a timeslip tale, or Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth [a stonking 1104 pages]. The links between the timeslip sections became repetitive with Bea sitting down, falling asleep and dreaming a lot of times and at all times of day. This stop-start rhythm took me away from the historical story. I enjoyed all Eadburh’s sections, following her from the first meeting with Elisedd through their whirlwind romance to all that followed. So the modern-day sections of Bea seemed intrusive. But of course this is a timeslip story so it is set in two different time zones, and today’s accepted storytelling method is to introduce a threat to your key character. Bea’s modern-day strand features a cathedral volunteer who at first seems a nosy woman, interfering, disliking the new canon’s wife and possibly fancying Mark herself. But Sandra Bedford is not all she seems and her role towards the end was not what I was expecting.
I was held to the last page by the telling of a tragic love story set in Anglo-Saxon times. I wanted to know what happened to Eadburh and Elisedd – did their love last, did they meet again – and cared less for the other characters.
Having discovered a new author, I plan to go back to the beginning and read Erskine’s debut novel, The Lady of Hay.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Crows of Beara’ by Julie Christine Johnson
‘The Evening and the Morning’ by Ken Follett
‘The Ninth Child’ by Sally Magnusson

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#BookReview THE DREAM WEAVERS by @Barbaraerskine https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5md via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘An Englishwoman’s Guide to the Cowboy’ by @june_kearns #romance

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The opening chapter of An Englishwoman’s Guide to the Cowboy by June Kearns is a vibrant introduction to Annie Haddon, the Englishwoman of the title. She’s travelling from California to Texas in a stagecoach with her over-bearing aunt and superior cousin who both tell her what not to do. ‘Mustn’t, mustn’t’, Annie mutters to herself. She copes stoically until the bombshell is dropped that the real purpose for their journey across America is to meet Annie’s intended. June Kearns ‘Henry Chewton Hewell,’ thinks Annie. ‘Even his name sounded like something stuck between his teeth.’ Like all the best first chapters it introduces the key character, makes you care about her and then ends in the most unexpected way. Described as Jane Austen meets Zane Grey, Kearns has created a must-read story populated by a heroine to root for, a hero to swoon over and nasty characters to dislike. That’s where the romance formula ends. Kearns portrays an 1867 Texas full of desert dust, coyotes, unhappy Comanche and Sioux, the arrival of the railroad, arrogant cavalry and rowdy townsfolk; fresh and challenging circumstances for the ‘out of her comfort zone’ heroine. It’s a faraway world so alien from today in its customs and culture but surprisingly close in its emotions. An Englishwoman’s Guide to the Cowboy is about first impressions – the cast includes a silent native named Grey Eagle, Clarice the owner of a rowdy saloon, a puppy called Dog – challenging mistaken assumptions and long-held beliefs and prejudices.
What a visual film this would make. It made me chuckle out loud. If you need an escape from the stressful real world, try this. It doesn’t matter that you know how it will end, it is a romance after all and we love a happy ending, but it is the how and why that are intriguing and Kearns kept me guessing to the end.
Hilarious, joyful stuff.

Click the title to read my review of THE 20S GIRL, THE GHOST, AND ALL THAT JAZZ also by June Kearns.

If you like this, try:-
‘The House on the Shore’ by Victoria Howard
‘Butterfly Barn’ by Karen Powers
‘The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon’ by Sarah Steele

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#BookReview AN ENGLISHWOMAN’S GUIDE TO THE COWBOY by @june_kearns https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5m0 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Rose Garden’ by @AuthorTracyRees #historical

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I just loved The Rose Garden by Tracy Rees. The characters start off isolated from each other and are gradually threaded together as their separate challenges and crises become interlinked. When I finished it, I wanted to start reading it all over again. Tracy ReesThe Rose Garden is the story of Mabs, Ottie, Olive and Abigail. Four completely different women who live near Hampstead Heath as the 20th century approaches. It is a time of societal and family change when women are beginning to show strength in changing their lives but when traditional barriers erected by male society and assumptions still remain.
Mark is eighteen and works in the Regent’s Canal, moving huge lumps of ice from underground storage up to the fresh air. It is a dark, dangerous job. But Mark is really Mabs Daley, working to support her brothers and sisters and Pa, who hasn’t worked since being widowed. The family lives in one room, dirty and dishevelled, but with an underlying spirit that Mabs fears won’t last much longer. Things change when she hears of a job as a lady’s companion at a house on nearby Hampstead Heath. Mabs is full of hope and plans that at last she’ll be able to raise the fortunes of her family. But though her employer Mr Finch is sanguine about her lack of experience and unpolished manners, Mrs Finch locks Mabs out of the room.
When Olive Westallen, a single, educated, wealthy woman in her late twenties, decides to adopt a child from a nearby children’s home, even her liberal parents are concerned. She calls her new daughter Clover and for the first few weeks everything seems delightful until Clover’s behaviour inexplicably changes.
Twelve-year old Otty is bored. Stuck at home waiting to start her new school, her father is at work, her mother keeps to her room while her older brothers and sisters live their own lives. Recently moved to London from Durham, she has no friends so starts exploring the local area alone. In a spot of bother by the canal she’s rescued by Jim, a young ‘darkie’ who reveals himself to be Jill. As Jill explains the problems living as a black girl in the city, Otty struggles to understand the reasons for this inequality and prejudice.
To say how Mabs, Olive, Otty and Abigail become acquainted is to give away too much of the plot. Tracy Rees is wonderful at creating a small world with a world [as she did in the South Yorkshire mining villages in The House at Silvermoor] and populates them with struggling, flawed characters who you just want to succeed.
Ultimately a story of friendship, at the heart of The Rose Garden are women who want more to life than marrying a man and becoming his property. They want the freedom to make their own life choices, to work, to marry, to be educated, to move around freely and unthreatened, to own what is rightfully theirs. Independently and together, they fight back against injustice, control, expectations and the law of the time.
Don’t miss it.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Click the title below to read my reviews of other novels by Tracy Rees:-
AMY SNOW
DARLING BLUE
THE ELOPEMENT
THE HOUSE AT SILVERMOOR

If you like this, try:-
‘Birdcage Walk’ by Helen Dunmore
‘The Orphan Twins’ by Lesley Eames
‘The Clergyman’s Wife’ by Molly Greeley

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#BookReview THE ROSE GARDEN by @AuthorTracyRees https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5lW via @SandraDanby