Tag Archives: historical fiction

Review: Born of Gilded Mountains, by Amanda Dykes

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Born of Gilded Mountains, by Amanda Dykes (Bethany House, 2024)

To open an Amanda Dykes story is to step into an exquisitely crafted tale of diverse, well-crafted characters that is at once poignantly real while evoking wonder and a feel-good ending.

Born of Gilded Mountains is a historical novel of friendship, loss, loyalty, and resilience set in a small town in the mountains of Colorado.

Schoolgirl pen pals Marybeth Spatts and Rusty Bright forge a deep bond that shapes the rest of their lives. Through their letters, each encourages the other through some dark, painful times. And Rusty leaves Marybeth with a challenge to solve a mysterious puzzle.

It’s a split-time novel, with the girls’ childhood letters interspersed with the “present” (1948) as Marybeth (now known as Mercy Windsor, famous but disgraced movie star) attempts to pursue Rusty’s quest. There are also snippets from a reporter claiming to be writing Mercy’s biography, from a stage play, and other scenes and “documents” from the past.

The inclusion of such various elements initially made it difficult for me to latch onto the story, but I knew from the author’s previous works that it would be well worth my effort. (It was.)

Everything comes together to make one cohesive whole in the end. And I loved the book. As well as the ending, I loved the hope-giving theme of light in the darkness.

“…knowing it came after a tragedy too great for any person to bear… it’s a daily reminder that light will break into our darkness.” [Ellen, in chapter 9, about a beautiful sight she’s just shown Mercy.]

The narrative is lyrical, Rusty in particular is an irrepressible delight, and there’s humour to balance the hardship. While there may be romance, there are other characters who are single by choice.

Mercy/Marybeth asks Rusty, “…didn’t God create each and every story—singleness and marriage alike—with just as much care and meaning?” [Chapter 23]

And I have to call out the fun moment of seeing characters mentioned from one of the author’s previous novels. No spoilers—you’ll have to find it for yourself.

Amanda Dykes is an Christy Award Book of the Year winner. Her previous novels are Whose Waves These Are, Set the Stars Alight, Yours is the Night, and All the Lost Places. She’s also written a number of novellas and short fiction. For more about the author and her work, visit amandadykes.com.

[Review copy from the public library.]

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Review: A Quiet Life in the Country, by T. E. Kinsey

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Book cover. A stately British manor house, silhouettes of Lady Hardcastle and her maid. Title: A Quiet Life in the Country, a Lady Hardcastle mystery, by T. E. Kinsey.

A Quiet Life in the Country, by T. E. Kinsey (Thomas & Mercer, 2016)

From the back cover:

Lady Emily Hardcastle is an eccentric widow with a secret past. Florence Armstrong, her maid and confidante, is an expert in martial arts. The year is 1908 and they’ve just moved from London to the country, hoping for a quiet life.

With the subtitle, “A Lady Hardcastle Mystery,” we know the quiet life won’t materialize as intended. Emily and Flo quickly find a body and insert themselves into the investigation.

They’re a fun pair of protagonists (the narration is from Flo’s point of view) with some definitely atypical behaviours and conventions. Although they try to maintain proper employer-employee conventions in public, in private they eat together and banter like the good, long-term friends they are. And this may have been intended as retirement, but we learn near the end of the book that Lady H is only around 40. Flo is likely a little younger.

This is a gently-paced, light-hearted look at historical British country life of the period, with the refreshing take that these two characters bring it.

It’s always a treat to discover a new series to follow, and I expect to read one of the Lady Hardcastle mysteries every so often until I catch up. I think they’re on book 11 now (plus there’s a bonus book 3.5).

T. E. Kinsey is the British author of two series of historical mysteries, the Lady Hardcastle Mysteries (1908) and the Dizzy Heights Mysteries (1925). For more about him and his work, visit tekinsey.uk. And if you visit this page on his site, tekinsey.uk/about.html, you’ll find brief bios not only of the author himself but of Lady Hardcastle and Flo. Well worth the read—then go pick up book 1 in the series 😊

[Review copy from the public library.]

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Review: The Scent of Water, by Elizabeth Goudge

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Book cover with a home's windows and door visible among pink flowers.

The Scent of Water, by Elizabeth Goudge (ebook version: Hendrickson Publishing Marketing, 2011; original print edition copyright 1963)

Why would practical, sensible Mary Lindsay leave a satisfying job in London and move to a country village to live in a house she inherited from a relative she’d met only once as a child? She doesn’t know, but it feels like the right decision.

The inheritance brings back memories: of that one meeting with her father’s cousin, also named Mary Lindsay. Of the instant connection with the house and then with the unusual Cousin Mary. Of the lady’s treasured collection of “little things” – miniatures that delighted them both.

The move triggers other memories: of her fiancé John who died before their wedding. In some unknown way, she hopes to understand him better now – and also to get to know Cousin Mary through the journals she finds in the house.

The characters, both living in the village and as found in the journals, are portrayed with an honest compassion, not glossing over their flaws or hiding their emotional struggles. Cousin Mary endured bouts of mental illness. A prayer, shared with her by a fellow sufferer, is the one thing that stuck with me through the probably 40 years since I first read the story:

“My dear,” he said, “love, your God, is a trinity. There are three necessary prayers and they have three words each. They are these, ‘Lord have mercy. Thee I adore. Into Thy hands.’ ” [chapter 5]

That covers most things, doesn’t it?

Two other favourite lines, one evocative and one amusing:

“…what I seek is the goodness of God that waters the dry places.” [chapter 5, Cousin Mary in her journal]

“He has a two-track mind, which is more than most of us have, but the tracks are narrow.” [chapter 10]

One caution: this book was originally published in the early 1960s and refers (positively) to North American First Nations and Romany peoples using terms that are now considered offensive.  

Causing offence would never be the author’s intent. This is a novel that embraces readers, drawing us in like the welcoming door that invited the child Mary into the house. It offers charming descriptions of settings both in nature and in the houses, gentle conversation, and people allowed to make the wrong choices in the hope they’ll find some good in themselves.

Elizabeth Goudge was a beloved British writer. I appreciated her books many years ago and am delighted to find some of them now in digital form when I’d assumed they’d be out of print and gone. The Scent of Water was the one I remembered most fondly by title, due to the prayer which strengthened me through some difficult days.

For more about the author, visit the Elizabeth Goudge Society website.

[Review copy from the public library via the Hoopla Digital app.]

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Review: Lilly’s Promise, by Terrie Todd

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Book cover: Lilly's Promise, by Terrie Todd

Lilly’s Promise, by Terrie Todd (Word Alive Press, 2022)

In 2019, Diana has a perfect life—if you don’t count the recurring nightmares of her disastrous wedding. She’s single, with a successful career and a meaningful Big Sister relationship with a needy teen girl, Carly. And her best friend Shane is as happy as she is to leave romance off the table.

Discovering a twist in her family tree and learning the story of her grandmother Lilly will affect Diana’s present—and her choices for the future. When Diana quizzes her father, Dale, he decides to write the story for her as a book, one tantalizing chapter at a time.

Diana’s portion of the story is told in first person, present tense and Lilly’s in third person past (1922-1944). In the 1920s, children Lilly and Tommy commit a crime with devastating consequences. Bound together by the secret shame of what they’ve done, they spend their lives trying to atone.

Richly told with settings solidly anchored in present and past, Lilly’s Promise is a thought-provoking book that touches on a number of hard topics including infidelity, abortion, and wartime injuries and trauma. Yet it’s a hopeful story, pointing toward God’s love, encouraging its characters (and readers) to choose life, forgiveness, and freedom from fear.

This is one of those books where the characters stayed with me between reading times. And even as Lilly’s choices went from bad to worse, the present-day presence of her now-elderly son, Dale (Diana’s father) gave hope that her story would turn out.

Lilly’s Promise is a Braun Book Awards Winner. Canadian author Terrie Todd writes heartfelt historical and contemporary women’s fiction and has a nonfiction book as well. She is the author of The Silver Suitcase, The Last Piece, and more. For more about her books and to read her blog, visit terrietodd.blogspot.com.

[Book provided by the author. My choice to write a review.]

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All the Lost Places, by Amanda Dykes (Review)

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I’m joining the First Line Friday link-up again, hosted by Carrie at Reading is My Superpower. And I cannot say enough good things about this week’s book: All the Lost Places, by Amanda Dykes.

First line:

Once upon the dawn of time, there was water.

[Prologue]

And because some people disrespect prologues, here’s the first line of chapter 1 as well:

I only ventured out at night, and all the better if it rained.

[Chapter 1, Daniel, 1904]

All the Lost Places, by Amanda Dykes (Bethany House, 2022)

Lyrical, beautifully crafted, and luminous with hope, All the Lost Places is a dual-timeline historical novel. Rather than my stiff summary, here’s the official back cover copy:

When all of Venice is unmasked, one man’s identity remains a mystery . . .

1807
When a baby is discovered floating in a basket along the quiet canals of Venice, a guild of artisans takes him in and raises him as a son, skilled in each of their trades. Although the boy, Sebastien Trovato, has wrestled with questions of his origins, it isn’t until a woman washes ashore on his lagoon island that answers begin to emerge. In hunting down his story, Sebastien must make a choice that could alter not just his own future, but also that of the beloved floating city.

1904
Daniel Goodman is given a fresh start in life as the century turns. Hoping to redeem a past laden with regrets, he is sent on an assignment from California to Venice to procure and translate a rare book. There, he discovers a city of colliding hope and decay, much like his own life, and a mystery wrapped in the pages of that filigree-covered volume. With the help of Vittoria, a bookshop keeper, Daniel finds himself in a web of shadows, secrets, and discoveries carefully kept within the stones and canals of the ancient city . . . and in the mystery of the man whose story the book does not finish: Sebastien Trovato.

This is a gentle, luxurious read best enjoyed slowly like a fine dessert. Having said that, I admit to reading parts too fast because I had to know what happened next. Daniel and Vittoria, Sebastien and Mariana and their friends… these characters mattered to me. And I knew I could trust author Amanda Dykes to treat their story carefully even when they couldn’t see the way forward.

All the Lost Places reads in part like a fairy tale, understandable perhaps since Sebastien’s story is birthed in the pages of the book Daniel is assigned to translate. Daniel and Sebastien are both men haunted by the broken places in their lives. As they grapple with this, they discover that perhaps a lost or broken place is an opportunity to be filled with light.

Daniel is an artist, living now with an injury that prevents him from picturing in his mind what he wants to draw. As he tries to discover how to move from who he was and how he worked to who he is—and can he work this way?—he must also learn how to find redemption when restitution is not enough.

Such serious themes don’t weigh the story down. Readers will enjoy a detailed vicarious tour of Venice as the men in both times engage with a variety of engaging characters. Sebastien’s multiple adoptive guardians, Daniel’s bookseller and gondolier, these and more are delights. And oh, the settings!

This is a novel with far too many favourite lines for me to quote. I encourage you to read it for yourself and discover your own.

Amanda Dykes is the author of the 2020 Christy Award Book of the Year for her debut novel, Whose Waves These Are. Her more recent books are Set the Stars Alight and Yours is the Night. For more about the author and her work, visit amandadykes.com.

[Review copy from the public library.]

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Leave a comment with the (clean!) first line of the book closest to you, and then click on the image below to visit more First Line Friday participants!

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Review: Out of the Storm, by Janice L. Dick

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Out of the Storm, by Janice L. Dick (Tansy & Thistle Press, 2021)

As conditions grow increasingly more dangerous for Russian Mennonites (and everyone else who’s a common citizen in South Russia during the revolution following the Great War), Katrina and Johann Sudermann and their friends and loved ones struggle to stay alive. Emigration seems their only hope, but the government officials block them at every turn.

It’s a difficult book to read because of the suffering the characters endure, yet it can give readers hope and encouragement that we, too, can continue on and not be crushed by our personal hard times. And it reminds us that things can always be worse.

The characters in the Storm series are the kind who stick with readers after the reading is finished. Some have faith, others have none, but they’re all honest in asking the hard questions of “why” and “how”. Some aspects of the answers they find may help us with our own questions.

Favourite lines:

Mrs. Franz carried the news like a pelican carries rotting fish in her sagging bill. She had caught it and needed to get rid of it. [Kindle edition, page 24]

Thus far we have been spared, and now I look around me, and in spite of all the fighting and terrors, the Lord still takes time to coax the buds out on the trees and to paint the grass green. [Kindle edition, page 56]

That second quote reminds me to look for even small good things no matter how difficult the circumstances. They don’t change the pain, but they do bring a measure of peace and a reminder that God is present in the darkness.

Readers who’ve followed the series from the beginning (Calm Before the Storm) will be satisfied with the way it wraps up, despite the grief along the way. I appreciated the author’s sensitive touch with the most painful moments. There are enough details for readers to understand without being traumatized themselves. This was a terrible time to live and I’m so grateful not to have been there.

Out of the Storm is book 3 in Janice L. Dick’s Storm series, originally published by Herald Press and now re-releasing as part of The Mosaic Collection’s historical line. For more about the author, visit janicedick.com. For more about The Mosaic Collection, visit mosaiccollectionbooks.com.

[Review copy from my personal library.]

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Review: Under the Cloud, by Violet Nesdoly

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Under the Cloud, by Violet Nesdoly (SparrowSong Press, 2020)

What would it be like to be a young girl growing to womanhood in ancient Israel during the wilderness years? With the excitement of the Exodus behind you and the Promised Land not as immediate as everyone had hoped?

Under the Cloud is Zamri’s story. Instead of dreaming of marriage, Zamri longs to become a leader like Moses’ sister, Miriam. She is, however, a daughter in a time when parents are to be obeyed—even when they arrange their daughter’s marriage.

Follow Zamri from girlhood to middle age, and see how she discovers herself able to lead in a very different way than she’d hoped as a child.

I confess when I think of the biblical account Israel’s liberation from Egypt and trek to the Promised Land I don’t have much sympathy—or patience—with their continued doubt. After all, they had the visible Presence of God with them, by day and by night. They saw the Red Sea part, after witnessing all the plagues in Egypt. Yet they grumbled, they disobeyed, and an entire generation ended up dying in the wilderness because of it.

Reading this novel helped me understand some of the fears and influences that make it believable that this rescued people would behave as they did. The faithful knew it wasn’t right, but there would have been many who were still sorting out what it meant to belong exclusively to this One True God.

Under the Cloud is the sequel to Destiny’s Hands, which told the story of Bezalel, a gifted craftsman commissioned by God to craft the holy Tent of Meeting. Zamri is his younger sister. The ending of book two leaves room for a third instalment.

As well as writing biblical fiction, Violet Nesdoly is a poet, artist, and book reviewer. For more about the author and her work, visit violetnesdoly.com.

[Review copy from my personal library.]

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Review: Eye of the Storm, by Janice L. Dick

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Eye of the Storm, by Janice L. Dick (Tansy & Thistle Press, 2020)

During the turbulence of the Great War and the Russian Revolution, Eye of the Storm continues to follow the lives of the Hildebrandt family, Russian Mennonite landowners in an era of upheaval, and of Paul Gregorovich Tekanin, revolutionary and journalist.

Setting and circumstances unfold in sweeping historical saga style, giving readers a glimpse into the turmoil of Russia in 1917-1919. We see urban and pastoral, slum and estate, tragedy and hope… and the occasional flash of humour to keep the story from becoming too heavy.

Like the Amish in North America, the Mennonites’ faith teaches pacifism—a choice for which many have been persecuted or killed over the years. Here in this part of Russia where they’d been promised peaceful haven, some are now considering the desperate step of taking up arms to protect their families. Others press into the way of peace with the knowledge that it may cost their lives.

Favourite lines:

“Life is demanding. I believe when once one accepts the fact that it is so, one becomes much freer to make the best of it.” [Maria Hildebrandt’s grandmother, Chapter 2]

“No matter how insignificant or overwhelming our contributions may be, if we act in obedience to God and our conscience, we can make a difference.” [Johann Sudermann, Chapter 3]

The ideas were raw and unchewed, but Paul swallowed them whole, starved as he was for something to fill the enormous void in his life. [Chapter 14]

Reading this novel in the middle of the uncertainty of a global pandemic helped me draw courage from the Hildebrandts’ example. As they struggled to make sense in the darkness and to see their way forward, relying on their faith, I was reminded that for all that changes, much remains the same. Every generation faces difficulties, and somehow that perspective can give us hope.

Eye of the Storm is book 2 in Janice L. Dick’s Storm series, originally published by Herald Press and now re-releasing as part of The Mosaic Collection’s historical line. For more about the author, visit janicedick.com. For more about The Mosaic Collection, visit mosaiccollectionbooks.com. [Note: for my review of the 2003 edition of this book, click here.]

[Advance review copy provided by the author.]

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Review: Calm Before the Storm, by Janice L. Dick

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Calm Before the Storm, by Janice L. Dick (Tansy & Thistle Press, 2020)

Family dynamics, faith, coming-of-age, and gentle romance, all set in the turbulent days leading up to the Russian Revolution.

From a haven-like estate in Crimea to impoverished rooms on the wrong side of town in St. Petersburg, from starving soldiers near the front lines of World War 1 to a private hospital for the mentally ill, and with other settings along the way, Calm Before the Storm evokes 1914-1916 Russia as experienced by the Hildebrandt family and their friends.

The Hildebrandts are Russian Mennonites, people of German heritage whose ties to this land only go back a hundred or so years. As the poorer classes grow more desperate for political reform, hostility also brews toward these “German” Russians.

Katarina Hidebrandt is a young woman who sees the best in everyone, yet she must acknowledge the growing tension and the sense that life is about to change. As her family separates and the young teacher she loves is sent to serve in the hopeless war effort, she learns to rely on her faith and to make what difference she can in her world.

What could be a depressingly heavy tale is instead told with a careful touch, beautiful descriptions, and traces of humour. The characters are honest in their questions and their choices, and somehow despite the pain they find hope (most of them).

As well as providing a fascinating glimpse into this period of history, the novel resonates particularly well with the brooding uncertainty of 2020. Katarina’s struggles in the face of unwanted change and trouble can help readers who are feeling the same concerns even if our situations are different.

It’s not a preachy story, but Katarina’s and others’ examples of living out their faith give us clues we may take to heart. I feel a bit better-equipped to face my own doubts when they sneak up on me again.

Some favourite lines:

The Juschanlee River wandered westward over the Russian steppes, collecting little villages on its meandering way… (Chapter 1)

“The air is so clean and clear, like it’s been washed and left to dry in the sun.” (Johann, in Chapter 5)

“In political crises people cease to view others as people, and instead consider them merely a means toward an end or, in this case, an obstacle to a desired end.” (Heinrich, Chapter 6… timely, no?)

“Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is in God’s hands. No regrets, no worries. I can put all my energies into this day.” (Katarina, Chapter 8, but this peace was not easily won)

Calm Before the Storm is book 1 in Janice L. Dick’s Storm series. Book 2, Eye of the Storm, is expected to release in December 2020. The series was originally published by Herald Press and is now out of print. I’m glad to see new editions being released in print and ebooks as part of The Mosaic Collection. For more about the author and her work, visit her website.

[Advance review copy provided by the author. My opinions are my own.]

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Review: Set the Stars Alight, by Amanda Dykes

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Set the Stars Alight, by Amanda Dykes

Set the Stars Alight, by Amanda Dykes (Bethany House, 2020)

Lyrical, beautiful, heart-warming and satisfying, Set the Stars Alight is a must-read.

Page one welcomed me in like I was coming home.

Before I even reached that page, the dedication spoke to me—the part about wonder:

Hang on to it, brave ones.
And more—hang on to the Giver of it.
Though darkness may fall and times grow hard,
hold fast to this given light. [Kindle location 45]

Timely words for a hard year like 2020.

The novel follows two timelines: 1987 – 2020 and the 1800s during the Napoleonic wars, each revealing what’s needed to understand the other. It’s not choppy, switching timelines each chapter; instead, the story flows in segments with time enough to settle in place and care about the people involved.

In the contemporary thread, childhood friends Lucy and Dashel reunite as adults in a quest to locate a legendary shipwreck in the English Channel. The historical thread follows Frederick, a landowner’s son, and the young lovers Juliette and Elias.

Some of the many lines I highlighted in the book are sparks of light to hold close:

Taking note of the good, the true, the just, the miracles hidden at every turn is like…a deliberate act of defiance against the darkness. [Lucy’s father, Kindle location 431]

Such freedom, to know our limits. And to know the God who has none. [Clara, Kindle location 3347]

Others are just beautiful:

The woman had a way of almost gliding—not in the graceful, practiced way of the ladies of gothic novels, but rather more like an apparition gliding over ice. [Kindle location 1625]

Set the Stars Alight is a novel of love and loyalty, friendship and faith, that encourages wonder and affirms the value of everyday actions and individual lives. As an added bonus, readers who loved Amanda Dykes’ debut novel, Whose Waves These Are, will welcome the quiet nod to that book in chapter 25.

For more about author Amanda Dykes, visit amandadykes.com.

[Review copy provided by the publisher via #NetGalley.]

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