A girl, Mayken, shipwrecked on an island off Western Australia and, three hundred years later, a boy, Gil, finding a home with his grandfather on the A girl, Mayken, shipwrecked on an island off Western Australia and, three hundred years later, a boy, Gil, finding a home with his grandfather on the very same island.
"The lives of two 9-year-olds—one in 1628 and the other in 1989—intersect across time in this moving examination of the real-life wreck of the Batavia...Her prose has an arresting simplicity that evokes fairy tales...An ambitious, melancholy work of historical fiction that offers two wondrous young protagonists for the price of one." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[I]ntriguing...Kidd effortlessly navigates between the two time periods, highlighting the similarities between Mayken's and Gil's lives and the increasing dangers they face. Readers will be swept up in this fast-paced narrative." - Publishers Weekly
"Kidd's latest weaves a spell around the reader, transporting them across centuries, between a doomed ship and a dying island. The result is a true work of magic, and one that will haunt me for years." - V.E. Schwab, international bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Entertaining and revealing. Based on a true story.
ATY Prompt Satisfied: 16. Three books, each of which is set in a different century: Book 2 Set in the 20th Century (1930)
I was extremely impressed witATY Prompt Satisfied: 16. Three books, each of which is set in a different century: Book 2 Set in the 20th Century (1930)
I was extremely impressed with this book: good guys, bad guys, a protaganist that adores his wife and shows his love in a protective, respectful way.
From the NYTimes review
..."Weldon Avery Holland, the hero of a big, broad, engagingly overstuffed new novel set with rousing confidence in midcentury Texas. “Wayfaring Stranger” isn’t a mystery, exactly, though it contains a whole lot of mysterious stuff. It’s more a sprawling narrative rumination on good and evil, with a plot conveniently attached. Like much of Burke’s fiction, it’s saturated with the romance of the past while mournfully attuned to the unholy menace of the present.
In this case, the present begins in the 1930s, when 16-year-old Weldon and his grandfather encounter Bonnie and Clyde hiding out on their property.
This opening sequence is extraordinarily taut and vivid, as are subsequent chapters in which Weldon, grown up and serving as an infantry lieutenant, survives a German onslaught during the Battle of the Bulge and finds himself trapped behind enemy lines with a sergeant named Hershel Pine."
So the story continues including Weldon, his grandfather, Hershel and Hershel's wife Linda Gail. A very relevant character is Rosita who Weldon and Hershel rescue during WWII. Rosita becomes Weldon's wife.
"Weldon and Rosita and Hershel and Linda Gail are beset by (many) business rivals, sadistic detectives, smarmy Hollywood talent scouts and anti-Communist witch hunters."
But Weldon, my hero, handles it all with resourcefulness and aplomb.
LOVED the book. Need to read more by this extremely talented author.
"There is so much writ upon the parchment of leaves, So much of beauty blown upon the winds, I can but fold my hands and sink my knees In theEpigraph:
"There is so much writ upon the parchment of leaves, So much of beauty blown upon the winds, I can but fold my hands and sink my knees In the leaf pages. —James Still, “I Was Born Humble”"
Very complex story of a Cherokee girl, Vine, who meets and falls in love with a white man. She leaves her family in Redbud to marry and live with Saul Sullivan in God's Creek. This is circa WWI. Saul's mother, Esme, loves her; Saul's brother, Aaron, lusts for her.
A story of family and events that occur because of emotion.
Very good family tale; more than historical fiction. I kept turning the pages because I wanted to see what happened next.
Title again mentioned: Vine is troubled because her parents have had to leave Redbud and are now far away in TN. She brings a redbud tree to God's Creek and plants it.
"Then I noticed the new leaves on the redbud tree." "I had always found comfort in the leaves, in their silence. They were like a parchment that holds words of wisdom."
Alienist: a psychiatrist who assesses the competence of a defendant in a court of law.
The book is not actually based on real events but does feature sAlienist: a psychiatrist who assesses the competence of a defendant in a court of law.
The book is not actually based on real events but does feature some real life historical figures.
The core characters are all fictitious except for the New York City police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt.
Real life New York detective Thomas Byrnes, who popularised the term "Rogues' Gallery", also appears in the series.
In the book other historical figures, including the financier J.P. Morgan also appear.
However the set of murders investigated did not actually occur.
This book and its successors have been made into a TV Mini Series, and it is quite popular.
Now that I know that most of this is fictional, I have rated it...
4 stars
ATY Prompt Completed: 17. Three books, each of which is set in a different century; 19th Century Events: 1896 Murders in NYC (Fictional); Teddy Roosevelt - Police Commissioner of NYC...more
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