Category: historical fiction

Book Review: The Peaceful Village

June 7, 2022

Title: The Peaceful Village
Author: Paulette Mahurin
Genre: Historical Fiction
Year Published: May 27, 2022

Date finished: June 5, 2022

This is a story that takes place in a small village in France called Oradour-sur-Glane. Marguerite is the main character. She’s an older woman and married. She lives a simple and quiet life with her family. As the story moves along, SS soldiers start showing up in the village. They’re a little rough and tough but the villagers don’t back down. They’re not afraid of these soldiers and fight back but fighting back created more anger from the soldiers. Marguerite just wants the soldiers to leave but she knows it wasn’t going to happen and she finds her way to help those who were injured, putting herself in danger.

Overall, this was a good story. I loved the writing and the opening description of this small village. I was surprised at what happened to the people in this village since they kept to themselves. It was unfortunate and sad. The story itself moved a little too fast pace with too much going on and with lots of characters thrown in that I felt a little confused as to who each character was. I would have liked to know more about Marguerite’s husband, their youngest daughter, and the priests. I think the tension buildup wasn’t very strong and thus it lost me a little, but it’s definitely a story to check out.

What I found unique about this story was that SS soldiers infiltrated a laid-back, peaceful, small village. When we think of WWII and what Hitler did, we tend to focus on the big cities. This was a great way to show that even small towns were attacked.

Who should read this book: If you’re into WWII historical fiction, this is a good read to add to your list.

Book Review: Terror on the Deseret Trail

January 21, 2022

It’s been awhile since I posted a book review. I’ve been reading and reviewing on Amazon, just not on my blog and Goodreads. Those reviews were only requested on Amazon. I am extremely backed up so I won’t be able to take anymore request at this time.

This book I just finished, “Terror on the Deseret Trail,” was a shocking read, but it was written so well that I couldn’t resist sharing the review. Let me know what you think if you get the chance to read it. Be warned though. It’s over-the-top gruesome, gory, and just foul.

Title: Terror on the Deseret Trail
Author: Jack Hazen
Genre: Historical Fiction, Adventure Thriller
Year Published: March 13, 2021

Wasn’t sure exactly what to expect but what a wild ride! This story is about a bunch of people. The main ones being Reuben Taz and a paleontologist named Hannah Monroe, and her group. At first, you’d think this was your average wild west story, but the further you get into it, the more you realize it’s one really crazy grown-up story with a bunch of strange and unique characters. Everyone has somewhere to go, and out in the west there’s a lot of land and a lot of bad things going on. It’s wise to travel in a group or at least with someone who knows how to shoot a gun or use a knife.

Reuben Taz is the most interesting character in the story. He has an agenda, and it’s to find and kill his father’s killer. However, he’s not anything you’d think him to be. He enjoys eating a good set of dainty toes. Aside from traveling with a whore named Rhonda for some time, a Mark Twain joins them and then a couple of other men later on. The group with the paleontologist consists of assistants, a handicap named Tiny Tim, an Arapaho princess named Sweet Water, and a few others. There were dinosaur bones out there in Utah and Paleontologist Hanna wanted to find them first. Helen James, a Pinkerton detective and a trans, later joins Hannah’s group. The detective was on a case about a kidnapped Mormon daughter and was set to find her. With all the chaos in the Utah and Nevada lands in the late 1800’s it was a very scary time to be traveling, but somehow these people were brave enough to do it.

I loved everything about this story. It was dirty, gruesome, disgusting, there was satire, dark humor, etc., and I enjoyed it all. I wanted so bad to give it five stars but there were so many missing open/closed speech quotes that I struggled somewhat as to when someone was speaking and done speaking. There were also a few misspells but not enough to distract from the story (definitely should get it edited though, it’s such an extraordinary story that I’d love to see it turn into a movie!). Definitely give this book a read if you enjoy settings in the wild west and deep dark themes and conflicts.

Who should read this book: If you’re into super crazy books with no limits, go for this one. Once in a blue moon, I simply just dig this stuff. This kind of book is meant to be taken lightly because it pokes fun at humanity.

Book Review: The Tattooist of Auschwitz

July 1, 2021

Title: The Tattooist of Auschwitz
Author: Heather Morris
Genre: Historical fiction, Based on a true story
Year Published: 2018

Date finished: June 29, 2021

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris is a historical fiction story about a man named Lale Sokolov. He is a Slovakian Jew who was taken to a concentration camp to tattoo Jews being brought into the camp. His story is about survival and staying positive during this time of atrocious genocide.

Lale befriends some of the workers at the camp who were not Jews and begins to trade for food. He sees a girl that catches his eye and makes promises to himself and the girl that they would be together after the war ends, not realizing the extent of all that’s going on with Hitler’s motive.

I enjoyed this story. Even though it’s fiction, based on a Lale’s memory, I’m sure there was a lot of truth to it, even in scenes where it didn’t involve him. It makes sense that Lale didn’t see the big picture and I liked this point of view because it goes to show that when you’re inside the storm, you really can’t see how big the storm is. Lale had so much hope and positivity that you almost felt that if all fails, this story was going to be the saddest book out there. But on the other hand, I believe that his confidence helped him stay alive.

There is something special about the angle of this book. We follow Lale and get glimpses of other less fortunate Jews (and even some non-Jews) who ended up losing their lives, yet the glimpses are so powerful that without explaining all the details, you just know that the situation was beyond horrific.

Who should read this book: If you enjoy books about WWII and/or the holocaust such as The Nightingale, The Book Thief, All the Lights We Cannot See, The Whispers of War, etc., this one fits right in.

Book Review: The Whispers of War

May 18, 2020

The Whispers of War by Julia Kelley is a historical fiction about three friends during WWII in London. It is a story of unrelenting friendship during one of the hardest times in history.

Hazel, Nora, and Marie were roommates in school as young girls and continued their friendship into adulthood. Due to the war, Marie learns that she could be deported, or even worse, be removed to a camp for Germans who were a threat. The friends stick together and help Marie through this scary time.

I found the story a little too slow and not strong enough. The women didn’t have a lot of depth to them. The only one I felt had a strong story was Hazel. Her relationship with her husband was unstable and it was due to her trusting her friends more and spending a lot more time with them then him. I felt his frustration and felt bad for him. He tried to make it work and nothing he did could fix their marriage because she was already set on leaving him. I found it odd how easily he let her go though and how she did’t feel anything for him.

The writing was beautiful as always. The world building wasn’t bad. Loved the way the characters spoke and dressed. However, the characters really just weren’t created strong enough and that was unfortunate. There was a lot of back and forth and little things happening here and there without much movement forward dragging the story on. It felt like it was done purposely to fill the pages. I think the story could have been tightened up a little bit.

Book Reviews

February 29, 2016

I finished 5 books within the last half of the month:

Title: Drop Dead Gorgeous
Author: Elizabeth Lenhard
Genre: Children, fantasy, paranormal

DropDeadGorgeousThis book is about a girl, Rachel, who becomes friends with a girl who just moved into her town.  The girl who moved in is a zombie.  Rachel learns to accept the zombie girl as they go through trials and tribulations.

Read this with my 8-year-old.  I found the story line a bit boring.  My daughter wasn’t too into it as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Zeroes
Author: Chuck Wendig
Genre: Sci-fi, suspense, thriller, paranormal

ZeroesThis book is about the government kidnapping some hackers to eventually overtake a computer-human liquid robot who tried to overtake them.

It started out promising but then went all over the place about halfway.  Too many characters were thrown in in the beginning.  Each with their semi-detailed specialty.  I didn’t mind that so much because I liked how a chapter was given to a character.  Eventually though it just became a big mess of people.  I believe there was supposed to be a transition from computer hackers to paranormal computer activity but it didn’t happen the right way.  I was set on believing that it had something to do with hackers hacking some huge powerful database, and that if they didn’t hack into it, the data would fall into the hands of someone who would use it to destroy the world or something.  But it turned out that whatever they were supposed to hack into was obsolete and that some lady (she entered the story about halfway in) who was a very intelligent person decided to hook herself up to some strange machine that allowed her to upload data and become this liquid human machine thingy.  Her reason for it was because she had heart problems and the only way to keep her going completely dead was to hook up to a machine.  Aside from not wanting to be dead, it was quite unclear what her motives were.  Yeah, very confusing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: The Nightingale
Author: Kristin Hannah
Genre: Historical Fiction

TheNightingaleThis book is about two sisters who survived the Nazi invasion of France during WWII.  The sisters are a decade apart in age and very different in personality.  This is a story about war and everything that war creates.

This was a well written story.  It was a truly amazing experience reading this.  I had no idea that the Nazi’s invaded France and that the French leader surrendered.  And, it made me wonder if there were really good and kind Nazi soldiers who only did their job because they had no choice or that they didn’t realize what they were doing until it was too late.  The ending got me good.  There was a twist that I had no idea was coming.  I guess if I paid closer attention I would have caught it.

This is a story everyone should read.  It really pulls at your heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Zombie Dog
Author: Clare Hutton
Genre: Children, fantasy, paranormal

ZombieDogThis book is about a family who moved next door to a vacant home.  The family’s daughter learns that there is a zombie dog living in the vacant home and sets out to figure out why.  In the process she learns the story of the family who lived in the home and finds a way to send the zombie away.

This was a cute story I read with my 8-year-old daughter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Author: Philip K. Dick
Genre: Sci-fi, Post-apocalyptic, paranormal

DoAndroidsThe movie, “Blade Runner,” was based on this book.  I haven’t seen the movie yet but I will soon.

This book is about a bounty hunter who’s job is to track down and destroy human-like androids.  For each android he kills he gets a good sum of money.  For three androids he’d get enough money to buy a real animal.  In that post-apocalyptic time, it is rare to see a real animal, or own one.  To own one is a status symbol.  The androids are supposed to only live on Mars with their human owner and work for them but some find their way back to earth.  They are hunted down because they are harmful to humans.  There is really no way to differentiate a human from an android except for an empathy test because androids apparently have no empathy.

This was a very intriguing story.  I’m amazed that this book was written in 1966 about the far future…aka, January 3, 2021.  A lot of things were outdated but overall I got the feel for that bleak and dusty radioactive world they lived in.  There were parts of the story that didn’t make a lot of sense to me like the godly-like man, Mercer, Mercerism if you believe in him.  Or the double world in which the bounty hunter found himself in.  Overall though, I enjoyed it.

Neverhome Book Review

February 5, 2016

Title: Neverhome
Author: Laird Hunt
Genre: Historical Fiction

NeverhomeThe book is about a wife who leaves behind her husband to be a soldier for the Union army during the Civil War.  It is written in the first person through her eyes.  She gets captured and jailed by the Confederates but she outsmarts them and escapes.  Then she gets betrayed and thrown into an asylum by the Union where she’s tortured.  So much happens to her that she doesn’t know whom to trust anymore.  There is humor and sarcasm and great details of war.  The prose is wonderfully done.  The author did amazing research work creating true to life characters and atmosphere.

At first I was hesitant to read this story because when I read the synopsis, and it mentioned the Civil War, I just wasn’t ready to read into that part of history again, even if it was a fiction story.  But, what intrigued me was the fact that women went into the war secretly in disguise.  I wanted to know how they were able to do it and so the journey with this book began.

I find it odd that I never learned about this part of American history throughout my schooling.  I was very touched by it all that I felt compelled to do additional researching.  Not only were the women brave in making this choice but so many young boys (not even men yet!) fought for the emancipation of slaves in the South.  Over 620,000 lives were taken.  I think there could have been another way.  Not war.  Not all those lives.  It tears at my heart.

Overall, this was a wonderful read.  I cried and laughed and I came out with a whole new respect for the women who fought in the Civil War.  The only downside to this book was that it was too short.  I would have loved an additional 300 to 400 pages.

A quote from the book:

“You stand in a line in your bright blues with your filthy face and your lice and all the dead you now know and get shot at regular, your thinking takes a change.  You get to where you can do things you couldn’t have dreamed up the outline of before.”