Friday 5ive- September 9, 2022

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. Ive been off for the last few weeks, my family took a trip to Scotland and Ireland, and I will be posting about that separately. (It was an amazing trip!)

1)  I visited the new location of Bookstore1 in Sarasota, Florida last week. It's a wonderful bookstore, and the most inpressive part of the store is their Staff Recommends display. It is the largest Staff Recommends display I've ever seen. They have a huge two-sided unit filled with books and as you wander the store, you'll find more recommendations throughout mixed in with their regular displays. They must be a very literate staff! I chatted a bit with Roxanne, and picked up a Staff Recommended novel- Carter Bays' The Mutual Friend. If you ever visit Sarasota, you must stop by.

2)  Everyone in NYC loves to watch the US Open, and I confess that I have not been bitten by that bug- until this year. Watching Serena Williams win her match against the number two ranked player was thrilling, one of the most exciting sporting events I have ever seen. Now I am pulling for Frances Tiafoe to win on the Men's side, he has an incredible story. 

3)  Like everyone else I was saddened to hear of the death of Queen Elizabeth II. She had a remarkable reign spanning 70 years and her devotion to duty and her country will long be remembered. When we were at Edinburgh Castle a few weeks ago, we saw not only the Crown Jewels, but also the Stone of Destiny. The stone will be placed under the throne at Westminster Abbey at King Charles III's coronation as is tradition. And we saw it in person! (But we couldn't take photos.) 

4)  We're watching Five Days at Memorial on Apple TV+, based on the book by Sheri Fink. (We both thought the book was so powerful.) The true story takes place in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, when Baptist Memorial Hospital was left to fend for themselves after New Orleans flooded. They lost power, ran out of food and water, and had no plan or way to evacuate their hundreds of patients, staff and community members who sought safety from the hurricane. When the New Orleans Police Department finally shows up after five days, they are there to enforce an evacuation order, and doctors and nurses are forced to leave patients behind who cannot be evacuated. How some of these patients died is the question to be answered. It's riveting television with amazing performances led by Vera Farmiga and Cherry Jones. 

5) I've read alot recently, including some terrific historical novels based on real people and events from two books I loved in 2021. Lauren Willig's Two Wars and a Wedding  follows a character from last year's Band of Sisters (one of my favorite books from 2021). Smith College graduate Betsy Hayes studies archeology at the American School in Greece in 1896 and desperately wants to go on a dig, but women are not allowed. When a war breaks out between Greece and Turkey, Betsy ends up as a nurse and proves herself to be an outstanding nurse. Having seen the horrors and dangers of war up close, Betsy travels to Cuba in 1898 to stop her best friend Ava from joining Clara Barton's Red Cross nurses, but ends up again in the throes of war as a nurse. Once again, Lauren Willig's brilliant writing and detailed research into historical events I knew little about had me enthralled. Betsy is an unforgettable character, and watching her grow from a single-minded young student into a strong, brave and caring woman was a wonderful journey . I'll be buying this book when it publishes in March of 2023. 

Susan Elia MacNeal's Maggie Hope WWII mysteries is one of the few series I will always read, and her latest book, Mother Daughter Traitor Spy, is a standalone novel. The last Maggie Hope novel, The Hollywood Spy, had Maggie in WWII Los Angeles, where Maggie tangled with Nazis. Mother Daughter Traitor Spy tells the story of Veronica and her mother Violet during WWII. When Veronica makes a bad personal choice, she loses her job in New York and she and her widowed mother move to Los Angeles. Veronica unintentionally finds herself as secretary for someone who is heavily involved in the Nazi movement in the United States. Meanwhile, Violet's lovely embroidery catches the eye of a Nazi leader's wife, and soon she is designing and sewing clothes for many of the women's friends. Horrified by the things they are hearing, Veronica and her mother go to law enforcement and end up working as spies for the US military. I found myself wanting to know more about this time period in Los Angeles after reading The Hollywood Spy, and was so happy to see that Susan Elia MacNeal was continuing this fascinating story in Mother Daughter Traitor Spy, based on two real women. As I read this terrific story, I could not help but see the connections between what was happening politically in the 1940s and what is happening in our country in the last few years, and that adds to the importance of this book. This one publishes on September 20th, and if you like historical fiction, this is one you must read. 

Have a good, safe, healthy week.

New in Paperback- Band of Sisters by Lauren Willig

Band of Sisters by Lauren Willig

Published by William Morrow Paperbacks ISBN 9780062986160

Trade paperbacks, $16.99, 544 pages

I enjoy historical fiction most when the story is one that I am unfamiliar with, and it is based on real people. In this vein, author Lauren Willig introduces the reader to The Smith College Relief Unit, a group of women from the Smith College in the United States who volunteered to go into the Somme in France during WWI, working to help French viilagers displaced during the war in her novel "Band of Sisters". 

These young women, who didn't even have the right to vote yet, got on a ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean to go to a war zone, to help people they didn't know. Willig discovered this in a memoir titled "Ladies of Grecourt" by Ruth Gaines, a member of the unit. Then she found a cache of letters and journals written by the young women of the unit. Many of the stories in those letters ended up fictionalized in this fascinating novel that I could not put down.

I got so caught up in the individual stories of these interesting young woman, like Kate, the Irish young woman, a school teacher who was recruited by Emmie, her former roommate at Smith. Julia, Emmie's cousin, is a doctor with a serious demeanor. Mrs. Rutherford is the formidiable woman who was the driving force behind this enterprise. 

Mrs. Rutherford told the ladies that they will be planting food, helping to build new shelters and schools, whatever was needed. The women drove huge trucks, learned how to give first aid, procured supplies by any means they could, and figured out how to get it to the people who needed it. They did all that and more in a time before Excel spreadsheets and Google docs, and did it in extremely uncomfortable clothing.

Willig drops the reader right into the war zone along with these brave, enterprising women. We see them at the best, working together to help people who were much worse off than they were led to believe, and at their worst, as close quarters during a crisis can cause some people's behavior to deteriorate. 

When the war comes to their doorstep, the tension rachets up as the women work to save as many villagers as they can. I bit my nails to the quick as I was reading this section. 

I also enjoyed the callback to the most recent novel by Lauren Willig, Beatriz Williams and Karen White, All The Ways We Said Goodbye, with a character and setting from that collaboration making an appearance here.

Readers of Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series should definitely put Band of Sisters on their TBR list and buy it now. I know so many women who would love this book. This is Lauren Willig's best book yet, I can't wait to see what research she stumbles upon for her next book.

My review of All The Ways We Said Goodbye is here.

Two Great Women's History Month Reads

Reprinted from auburnpub.com:

March is Women’s History Month, and if you prefer novels to reading nonfiction historical accounts about women, there are two newly published excellent books that will satisfy you.

While researching another novel about WWI, author Lauren Willig found letters from alumni of the all-female Smith College about their time in France during WWI. A group of young women were recruited to travel to France and provide aid to villagers whose homes and communities were damaged or destroyed by the Germans.

That research turned into her latest historical fiction, Band of Sisters. When Kate, a Smith College alumni, gets a letter from her former college friend Emmie asking her to join up with the alumni group going to France to aid villagers, she is intrigued. 

Kate was a scholarship student at Smith, and she stood out from most of the daughters of wealthy and influential families there. She was smart and worked hard, but she felt different from the other young ladies of privilege.

She and Emmie were best friends, until something happened that ended that. Still, Kate is looking for more in her life than teaching at a girls’ school, and she agrees to join Emmie in this endeavor.

When the young women arrive in France, their situation is not what they expected. The chateau that is their headquarters and living quarters is dilapidated, and they are expected to do things like drive and repair huge supply trucks, and purchase livestock, things they were not trained to do. The woman put in charge of purchasing chickens bought roosters instead, a mistake that led to no eggs and endless teasing.

The women were shocked at the conditions of the villages they were to help. They weren’t just there to throw Christmas parties and help them replant crops, they had to rebuild entire villages. They aided in medical care, (there was a female Smith alumna doctor with them), and had to figure out how allocate the little supplies they had to to do the most good.

The characters in Band of Sisters feel so real because Willig based them on real women- the writers of all the many letters she read, written by the actual alumni who went to France. These women rose to the occasion, and because the eyes of the world were upon them, failure would be a major setback for women just at the time that women’s suffrage was taking hold in the United States. 

Band of Sisters is one of the best historical novels I have read because it is based in reality. The writing pulls you in immediately, and you care about these young ladies who leave the safety of their comfortable homes to come to the aid of people they don’t know. Lauren Willig drops you right into the middle of a war zone with these intrepid young women. 

Kristin Hannah’s newest novel, The Four Winds takes the reader from the Texas panhandle in the 1920s to the agricultural fields of California in the 1930s during the Great Depression. 

Elsa is a lonely young woman from a wealthy family in Texas. When she finds herself pregnant by the son of Italian immigrants, her family disowns her and she is reluctantly taken in by her new husband’s parents, who had hoped that their son would be able to leave their family farm and go to college.

Elsa is accepted by her husband’s family, and she grows to love them and the farm. She now has a teenage daughter who is openly hostile to her, and a husband who is growing increasingly distant and unhappy.

When the dust storms roll across Texas and Oklahoma, devastating the farm, and the Great Depression destroys the economy, Elsa is forced to take her two children and flee to California, where they have been told there is work for them picking crops.

The reality of the situation is very different. There are many thousands of refugees like Elsa who are forced to live in tents, and if they can get work on farms, the pay is so little that they can barely subsist.

Although Hannah’s story is set during the 1930s, it resonates with what has been happening today. The refugee situation at the border, the growing inequality between workers and owners, the despair of people in difficult situations. Like Jess Walters’ novel, The Cold Millions, the story of the growing workers' movement is brought to life. The Four Winds puts the reader right in Elsa’s shoes.

Band of Sisters by Lauren Willig- A+

Published by William Morrow

Hardcover, $27.99, 538 pages

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah- A+

Published by St. Martin’s Press

Hardcover, $28.99, 464 pages

Friday 5ive- March 5, 2021

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post about five things that caught my attention this week. I cannot believe it is March 2021, it seems like yesterday it was March 2020.

1)  I saw Clinton Kelly on the Rachael Ray Show making a no-bake dessert that I knew my husband would enjoy- Banoffee Pie. It's a simple dessert, but one part is time consuming. You need dulce de leche, and since I couldn't find any premade in the four grocery stores I looked, I had to make my own. You take one can of sweetened condensed milk, place it in a large pot of boiling water (completely covering the can), bring it to a simmer for 2 1/2 hours. After letting it cool, (which I apparently did not do long enough because when I opened the can, caramel sauce sprayed my hair) it is ready to pour over a pretzel crust with sliced bananas on top. Top with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. My husband loved it and we both decided it was worth the caramel sauce that I had to wash out of my hair. The recipe is here.

2)  We purchased a wine credenza from Wine Enthusiast to organize all of our wine accessories (glasses, knickknacks, too many wine bottles) and it arrived this week. It looks good in our foyer, and now I have much-needed cupboard space in my kitchen.

3)  I joined a fascinating book Zoom this week- William Morrow presented A Celebration of Women's History Month to launch Lauren Willig's new historical fiction Band of Sisters, based on the true story of a group of the all-women's Smith College alumni who went to France during WWI to aid French villagers displaced by the Germans. The book is fabulous, it will be one of my best of 2021 I can already tell (my review is here), and the Zoom was fantastic. Carol Fitzgerald from BookReporter.com moderated a panel of female historical fiction writers Lauren Willig, Vanessa Riley (her book The Island Queen will publish in July), Kristin Harmel (The Book of Lost Names), and Marie Benedict (The Mystery of Mrs. Christie) discussing determined women in history, and researching and writing historical fiction, and I could listen to them talk all night. 

4)  I'm watching reruns of 1990's sitcom Designing Women on Hulu on my Echo Show while I make dinner at night. (I guess that is appropriate for Women's History Month). I love that show! We used to watch it every week, back when you used to watch a show on TV once a week. I laugh all throughout dinner prep, and I every time Julia Sugarbaker goes off on one of her rants, I know them word for word. Dixie Carter, Delta Burke, Jean Smart, Annie Potts and Meshach Taylor (as delivery man Anthony) were expertly cast. 

5) I started and finished one book and am halfway through another. J.T. Ellison's thriller Her Dark Lies. is set on an isolated island off the coast of Italy, where Eliza, an artist, is preparing for her wedding to Jack, a scion of one of the America's wealthiest families. From the beginning things go wrong, people are being killed, and clues are dropped about Jack's first wife,who died three weeks after her their wedding. There is a lot going on here, people are not who they seem to be. It's a cross between Rebecca and a soap opera. My full review publishes Tuesday. 

I'm a big fan of Kate Quinn's historical fiction books (The Alice Network, The Huntress), about women doing their part during war to serve their country, even putting themselves in jeopardy. Her latest, The Rose Code, is about three British women who work at Bletchley Park trying to break the German secret war communication codes. Set in two time periods, one in 1939, where three women- Mab, Osla, and Beth- work on the top secret project, and then seven years later when one of the women is locked away in a sanitarium because she knows there was a spy at Bletchley and seeks the assistance of the other two to prove it. It's vintage Kate Quinn, and I can't put it down. 

Stay safe, socially distant, wear a mask, wash your hands, get the vaccine when it's your turn, and we'll get through this sooner rather than later.

This post was shared with Marg at The Intrepid and Baker on her Weekend Cooking posts here.

Band of Sisters by Lauren Willig

Band of Sisters by Lauren Willig

Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062986153

Hardcover, $27.99, 528 pages

I enjoy historical fiction most when the story is one that I am unfamiliar with, and it is based on real people. In this vein, author Lauren Willig introduces the reader to The Smith College Relief Unit, a group of women from the Smith College in the United States who volunteered to go into the Somme in France during WWI, working to help French viilagers displaced during the war in her novel "Band of Sisters". 

These young women, who didn't even have the right to vote yet, got on a ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean to go to a war zone, to help people they didn't know. Willig discovered this in a memoir titled "Ladies of Grecourt" by Ruth Gaines, a member of the unit. Then she found a cache of letters and journals written by the young women of the unit. Many of the stories in those letters ended up fictionalized in this fascinating novel that I could not put down.

I got so caught up in the individual stories of these interesting young woman, like Kate, the Irish young woman, a school teacher who was recruited by Emmie, her former roommate at Smith. Julia, Emmie's cousin, is a doctor with a serious demeanor. Mrs. Rutherford is the formidiable woman who was the driving force behind this enterprise. 

Mrs. Rutherford told the ladies that they will be planting food, helping to build new shelters and schools, whatever was needed. The women drove huge trucks, learned how to give first aid, procured supplies by any means they could, and figured out how to get it to the people who needed it. They did all that and more in a time before Excel spreadsheets and Google docs, and did it in extremely uncomfortable clothing.

Willig drops the reader right into the war zone along with these brave, enterprising women. We see them at the best, working together to help people who were much worse off than they were led to believe, and at their worst, as close quarters during a crisis can cause some people's behavior to deteriorate. 

When the war comes to their doorstep, the tension rachets up as the women work to save as many villagers as they can. I bit my nails to the quick as I was reading this section. 

I also enjoyed the callback to the most recent novel by Lauren Willig, Beatriz Williams and Karen White, All The Ways We Said Goodbye, with a character and setting from that collaboration making an appearance here.

Readers of Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series should definitely put Band of Sisters on their TBR list and buy it now. I know so many women who would love this book. This is Lauren Willig's best book yet, I can't wait to see what research she stumbles upon for her next book.

My review of All the Ways We Said Goodbye is here.