Historical Fiction
Last Christmas in Paris
Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb
What an enchanted tale told through correspondence between 1914-1918!
This was a really unique way of telling a love story. Two people, Evie Elliot and Thomas Harding spend the Great War corresponding from a distance. They both deal with grief and loss. Evie becomes a voice for women as a reporter, and Thomas goes to war to escape his legacy in the newspaper business.
Their romantic anticipation of meeting up in Paris after a short stint in the war falls short of the reality they both endure.
This was a tear jerker but a wonderful story that took place during WWI.
I really enjoyed the way it was told and how the letters let the reader connect intimately with the characters and their story. 4/5⭐️
Christmas With the Queen
Christmas with the Queen (audiobook) by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb
This was an intriguing love story!
Jack Devereaux has a history with Olive Carter. They were once friends, a lifetime ago. For Christmas 1952, the two find their paths crossing in the midst of the young Queen Elizabeth II.
Jack, an aspiring chef lands in the kitchen at the Queen’s residence, Sandringham. Olive is an aspiring writer working with the BBC as a trainee reporter. Both are thrown in their current position by chance.
Over several years the two cross paths repeatedly and end up spending Christmas with the Queen, over and over.
Jack realizes that he has important things that he left unsaid and Olive is carrying a big secret. Can the friendship survive if they come clean with one another?
I thought this was a creative story of love, resilience, forgiveness, and chance.
I really enjoyed it!
The narrators did a wonderful job, although I did find the male voice for Jack a little rushed and clipped, it affected my perception of the character.
For content I would give this one a 4/5⭐️ and for narration a 3/5⭐️
Surviving Savannah
Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan
This is a beautiful story of uncovering hope in a dismal situation and of survival, told in a dual timeline 180 years apart.
Everly Winthrop, a Savannah history professor has a gift curating exhibits. She brings a personal connection to the pieces. When Everly is asked to curate a special new exhibit of a recently recovered shipwreck, the Pulaski, she has a difficult time working with an old friend.
The tragedy of losing her best friend has trapped her with survivors guilt. The debilitating condition actually allows her to connect with ghosts of the past and work through her present distress.
The ship sank in 1838 off the coast of North Carolina with some of Savannah’s most elite citizens on board. Some survived and many secrets were hidden until the ship was recovered. As secrets spill from the relics of the sea, so do connections that Everly never saw coming. She connects the past with her present.
This is a beautifully written story with phenomenal research and background. You get a little bit of everything, grief, loss, tears, laughter, and recovery.
I really enjoyed this book, Patti Callahan is a talented story teller with a gift in historical fiction. 5/5⭐️
