Review: The Forgotten Seamstress by Liz Trenow

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Summary
A shy girl with no family, Maria knows she’s lucky to have landed in the sewing room of the royal household. She can’t afford to lose her place, and, like any good servant, she keeps downstairs. 

That is, until the Prince summons her. Their chance meeting sets in motion a series of events that rip Maria’s life away from her. Broken, lost, and searching for a way to understand what has been done, Maria turns to what she knows best. 
Can a beautiful patchwork quilt, discovered decades later, reveal the truth about what happened to Maria?

Review
What a page turner this novel is. From the very beginning, you are thrown into a world unlike your own, in a time period long gone but not forgotten. We begin with a woman, who has a raspy voice and a cough that won’t quit. She is speaking from a cassette tape of her session with a therapist, trying to prove her sanity as she relives her life from the beginning to now. This woman is Maria, and when she was younger, she and her best friend Nora, left their orphaned lives behind to work as servants in Buckingham Palace for the new royal family. Unbeknownst to Maria, her life would be nothing like she dreamed.

Fast forward to the year 2008, we meet Caroline, your typical Londoner with a job she hates, an aging mother with Dementia and boyfriend she just broke up with. Suddenly Caroline is let go, finds out she is pregnant and is faced with the decision of having to put her mother into a nursing home. Yet there is light at the end of the tunnel. While digging around the third level of her childhood home, Caroline finds a quilt made of fine silks, immaculate stitches and intricate patterns. Not only is she intrigued enough to find out its origins, Caroline is motivated enough to re-pursue her passion for design. Could this quilt be the answers to all her prayers?

Back in the past, Maria is with the therapist again, regaling her tale of woe. Here she has met the prince and she has been called up to his dressing room to tighten his pants. And the prince takes a liking to her. Could this be her lucky day or is she just a fool in love? According to Nora, she is a fool and Nora warns not to let her heart lead her head. Unwilling to listen, Maria indulges this girlish fantasy and she becomes pregnant with child. Unfortunately for Maria, she is whisked away, never to see the palace or Nora again. This place is Helena Hall, but it is no palace. The she is forced into labor and told she has lost her child but Maria knows better. Tragically, she is pumped with meds and left to go insane in an asylum with only her quilting to comfort her.

Returning to the present, Caroline finds out that the quilt she found was made by a friend of her grandmother’s. Caroline also finds out that this friend was with her granny when she stayed in an asylum. She discovers this place to be Helena Hall and there is record after record of scandal behind it’s treatments of patients and its connection to the palace. Needing further information, Caroline also uses some of her connections and finds out that there are recordings of the patient’s sessions at the university where her father used to work. There she learns the identity of her grandmother’s friend, Maria, or Queenie, as she was called, who used to tell stories of how she worked in the palace and how she knitted to stay sane with the materials she “borrowed” from the palace. All to make a quilt for the child and the life she lost.  Caroline is thrilled that she can give this quilt and Maria some restitution when the quilt is stolen! With no quilt, Caroline falls into despair and loses hope for her future as well as Maria’s. Will she ever find the quilt? Will her design career ever take off? Can she handle having a baby on top of it all? And will she be able to clear Maria’s name and allow her to finally rest in peace? 

The Forgotten Seamstress isn’t a fitting title for this novel because no one is ever truly forgotten. We are remembered through the memories of others as well as through the things we create and leave behind. We can only be forgotten when people choose to ignore or discard our life. Also, this tale as old as time is about time itself, and how it heals all wounds and yields to understanding and truth when we take our time through life. Rushing or wasting moments and events never solve anything, yet if we live through the time as it comes, answers are revealed and knowledge is gained. Most importantly, The Forgotten Seamstress teaches us that it is never too late in life to regain a life. While we may miss a train or a window of opportunity when we’re young, it is only to help us mature and rise to the occasion when it comes. 

Reviewed by Camia Rhodes

Review: Night Ringing by Laura Foley

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This is a collection of poetry so quiet that it rings in your ears for a couple hours after. This collection is very personal, using situations most likely autobiographical, but still entirely relatable in feeling to the reader.

If you come from a dicey background when it comes to family, you will especially relate, as there are moments of cruelty and moments of love, which serves as a dire reminder of the implacable nature of family; so much pain but also a genuine acceptance. Her parents are both shown in equally unfortunate and loving lights and this  is as honest as family life can get.

The writing style and diction of this poetry was at times biting, but mostly floated along on a gentle breeze. It was incredibly familiar and conjured up strong feelings, strong images of life, ones that are precious when you take the time to look at them.

There's a strong theme of love and losing sight of love throughout the collection and the author's many different excursions with the many different people really goes to show the weight of all these experiences growing overtime, as the poems progress through time.

Overall, I thought it genially touching read and I especially enjoyed the rhythm of her prose poems. This is an excellent collection to read on a quiet day with an open heart.

Review: Affective Needs by Rebecca Taylor

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2.9 Stars
I have highly conflicting feelings about this book. I’m going to attempt to express them in a way that does not spoil the book or bash it in anyway. 

It took me a while to finish this book. It is only 235 pages, but I swear it dragged on. I found myself wanting to put it off because of the lack of interesting material. I kept waiting for the plot to pick up. 

The book attempts to establish a mystery of some sort by having the main character wonder about the new kid, Porter. However, I don’t think it was ever explained why she was fascinated with him in the first place. 

Another problem I had was that while reading, it was hard to follow. I’m not sure how to describe it but the author jumped to various settings without describing when the characters moved. One sentence they were at the library and the next they were in the classroom. It made the story seem sporadic. And at some points I had to read certain parts again, because I felt like a paragraph was missing. 

Another thing that the book lacked was descriptions. It felt like a lot of telling instead of showing. Settings and character descriptions were not there. The only physical characteristic that I know about the main character is that she is short. 

Characters
Ruby had potential. I enjoyed her character in the beginning, but as the story progressed, her likeable factor decreased. She was so set on her goal, but at the end she sort of let it slip through her hand. It felt a little out of character that she would not be too upset with how things had happened. 

I didn’t really know Porter, so I’m a little conflicted about him too. He was not as flushed out, and again, I honestly have no idea what he looks like because of the lack of descriptions. I know that he is hot. But that doesn’t cut it. 

A part of me felt like their relationship was problematic. The sacrifices were not worth it; and both parties involved seemed distant from friends and family while they were in the relationship. I was actually hoping that the book would end with them not together. Unfortunately for me, that was not the case. 

All and all, the relationship was a little rushed, and I saw little chemistry between the two leads. The book jumped a few months, so this could possibly be the reason why I felt like the development was nonexistent and the ending was rushed. 

Final Analysis
In conclusion, Affective Needs is a book where everything feels rushed. The lack of descriptions leave the book feeling very two dimensional, and the romance falls short. 

Review: Collecting the Constellations by Emily Steers

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About the Book

Charlotte Daly is goal-oriented, inquisitive, and tireless— everything one needs to be a successful researcher at a prestigious museum. She is well-known amongst her colleagues as an up-and-coming talent. She just wasn’t expecting her most intriguing find to come from her great aunt’s basement.

Charlotte’s befuddled by the new treasure—a dagger as long as her hand made entirely of blue sapphire, flawless except for a few specks in the handle. With an unstoppable desire to get the to bottom of her mystery, Charlotte convinces her boss to let her re-trace her aunt’s travels to its source– with the company of longtime friend and co-worker, Rory Hobbs.

Charlotte’s clues take them to Kathmandu, where they discover Charlotte’s aunt may not have been the noble adventurer she imagined. Conspicuous wealth, violent attacks, and grand myths plague the pair as they jump into a world of secret societies and treasure hunters they never knew existed.

Review

Charlotte is particular, pragmatic, and thoroughly organized. She is Wiley inquisitive and a self appointed history detective. And this book is about her getting down to the nitty gritty of her great aunt's maybe not so clean past.

It all starts out with a dagger and unravels gracefully from there. I found the book intriguing and overall I thought the writing style matched Charlotte's way of particularity. There were quite a few times where I felt overwhelmed by the monotony of description, it began to feel almost obsessive at some points, but at the same time I thought it added a unique aspect to what I expected to be a fairly straight forward mystery novel.

At times the dialogue was clunky but mostly had a natural flow to it as you hope for in these kinds of settings. I felt an almost Sherlock Holmes vibe to the novel, with the intense pragmatism and overall theme and pacing of it.

It's hard for me to fully describe my experience reading this novel, which is strange, considering its genre and first person narrative, but I think mostly it was a positive one. There was something very endearing and relatable about Charlotte although I felt there could've been more said about her personally, but alas. Overall, I thought it was a fine novel, one that does actually stick out among other mysteries for reasons I just can't put my finger on.

Review: Sky Lantern by Matt Mikalatos

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Synopsis

Matt Mikalatos offers a poignant and compassionate look at a father’s relationship with his children, the healing power of a small act of kindness, and the certainty that even death can’t stop love in a deeply moving memoir inspired by a sky lantern with a scribbled note and the journey to find the child who wrote it.

“Love you, Dad. Miss you so much. Steph.”

A brokenhearted daughter scribbled those words on a sky lantern before setting it aloft. She had no way of knowing the lantern would fly halfway across the country.

Matt Mikalatos found the lantern, broken and crushed, the words still legible. As a father of three daughters, Matt could not let Steph’s heart-wrenching note go unanswered, but he wasn’t sure where he could find her. So he posted an open letter to her on his blog, which went viral overnight. Little did he know how that small act of kindness would lead him to the real Steph and change his family’s life in remarkable ways.

A poignant and lyrical account of the beauty and wonder of domestic life, Sky Lantern tells the miraculous events that followed Matt finding the sky lantern in his yard—of meeting Steph and forming a friendship that impacted him and his family—proving that the bond between a parent and their child is lasting and far-reaching.

Sky Lantern will bring a tear to your eyes and a smile to your face as you fall in love with Matt and his family in this heartwarming, beautifully written memoir.

Review

Inspired by a sky lantern with a scribbled note, Sky Lantern by Matt Mikalatos is a memoir of his journey to find the person who wrote it. In its simplest form, the book took on much more of a meaning than that. Matt, father of three girls, stumbled upon a sky lantern in his yard one day and teetered on whether or not he would leave it alone or search for the person who wrote. Putting himself in the situation, he decided to take a chance, wrote a letter to Steph on his blog and waited to see if anything would happen. The impact of the letter and the journey that transpired over a series of events not only impacted his life but through this act of kindness inspired and transformed so many others.

If you are a parent, this is definitely one that will reinforce the love you have for a child. If you are someone who lost a parent, it is definitely one that will give you comfort and leave you feeling loved. Life is so short and many people never get the chance to say “I love you” or share how they feel about a person. Many times, you just don’t get a chance to tell a person how you feel about them. There is for so many that one hope that reflects back if only and then you encounter a moment of the concept of how people or things come into our life to show you something, this is what this book is all about. You have Steph who lost her father and sends this sky lantern to tell him how much she loves him and ironically the person who received it is a father who has all the love in the world for his girls and through this encounter is driven and inspired to make sure they know. What makes this book so special is not only when he wrote a letter to Steph but how this experience inspires letters to his own daughters that will make your heart leap and appreciate that bond between a parent and a child.

This is a quick, easy read that you will find easy to connect with. This is such a beautiful story with a great message that will resonate and hopefully inspire you in your own life. I highly recommend and will say you will probably need to grab the Kleenex box. To sum this up, there is a passage from the book that I think says it all, “This book is for people with questions about what it means to love, to be loved, and to love well. It’s for anyone who has had a parent relationship: absent, complicated, or amazing. It’s about embracing the truth about ourselves: that we are worthy of love, and that love makes our lives worth living.” 

Review: The Practice Proposal by Tracy March

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Synopsis

Practice makes perfect, but can a fake romance lead to real love?

Liza Sutherland isn’t looking for love. Not from a charity-auction date she didn’t even bid on and especially not with Nationals first baseman Cole Collins, the guy she obsessed over as an awkward teenager. She won’t get involved with a notorious player, no matter how attractive Cole is.

Cole Collins is up for contract renegotiation, but after too many late-night parties, he’ll need some positive publicity before he can make the roster. His agent, Frank, pitches Liza as the perfect prop…only Cole didn’t account for Liza no longer being just a teenager with a crush. She’s gorgeous and smart and he’s instantly hooked.

When Frank makes Liza a deal she can’t refuse—a bet she will fall in love with Cole or a cool half mil goes to charity—the game is on. But neither bet on the real feelings that surface. Could a fake fling turn into an official forever?

Review

If you are a baseball fan and love a sweet romance, then this is definitely one you will enjoy.  It’s so refreshing to come across a nice novel with a plot that wasn’t too predictable or cliché. It’s definitely a novel that you will completely immerse yourself into the characters because you can’t help but fall in love with them. Not only one of my favorite aspects of the book was this a clean romance, but it was awesome being able to just appreciate a character, emotional driven romance that gives you that feeling like they are the only two people in the room. Once you start reading, you will find that it will go by rather quickly and not want to put it down.

So, this book literally hits home for me because I coincidentally live in the area of the story so it made it made me feel a little more connected to the book. So, let me give you a bit of background about the characters. The book centers on Liza and Cole. They aren’t total strangers to each other and have a little history between them. When they were teenagers, Liza’s father had a baseball camp where Cole spent his summers. Over time Liza, developed a little bit of a crush on him but then he was too stuck on himself to notice. Her parents took interest in him while he was a teenager because he didn’t have those parental role model figures in life until one day that all changed. Not going to ruin it for you but when you find out why, oh goodness, grab the Kleenex box. 

Well, with her best interest at heart, Liza’s mother bids on an auction to get a date with Cole. After losing her fiancé, the last thing she wants is to date. The fact that it’s Cole, doesn’t make it any better because not only does he have a reputation as a well-known player on the field but off the field as well. Guess who won? You got it? I mean really, how much more awkward can it get? You are not only stuck going on a date with a person that you had a major crush on but he grew up to be ever more delicious. The problem is, Cole has a contract that needs to be resigned and he could use some positive headlines for a change instead of his late night parties and womanizing. So, his agent decides a great plan to take this opportunity use this to start “dating” a good woman and use it for positive publicity. There’s one problem, Cole hasn’t seen Liza since she was a teenager so what a surprise for him after agreeing to do this. Doing his homework, he knows Liza needs money for her foundation, the same one that helped Cole, proposes a challenge to get five hundred thousand dollars if she doesn’t fall in love with him. So do you think this fake romance can become a happily ever after? You’ll have to read to find out! 

Let me tell you, this book was so much fun to read. Overall, I thought the book was sweet, well written for such a quick read and definitely one that if you are baseball fan will be excited for all the scenes that make you feel part of the action. Loved the characters and found their storylines such an easy transition to give you everything you needed to know about them that made a great cohesive plot. If you haven’t read this one already, add it to your pile because this is one that will make your heart smile.