Let No Man Divide by Elizabeth Kary

St. Louis, Missouri 1861. Leigh Pennington is the daughter of a divided household. Her father supports the Union cause, while her southern born mother supports the *home team*. Leigh meets Yankee Hayes Banister when he saves her from injury when a crowd runs amok, and there’s sparks a-flying between the two, but this being a romance novel and all there are complications. Leigh’s engaged to her childhood friend who has just left to fight for the Confederate army, and Hayes was bit hard by a female viper and he’s not about to fall in love again and risk another broken heart. Leigh has a gift for nursing, and she plans to devote herself to helping the wounded soldiers, and it doesn’t matter which side of the conflict they’re on. Hayes is a shipbuilder working with the Union Army developing Ironclad warships for control of the Mississippi River. Hayes is also doing a bit of spying on the side (but for which side is he spying?), which of course contributes to misunderstandings between the two.

The step-back

I enjoyed this, and even at 460+ pages it was a fairly quick, easy read. Hayes was a seriously yummy hero, and Leigh’s independent nature was handled well without going OTT and her being one of those foot-stomping-until-I-get-my-own-way heroine. There are some pretty steamy sex scenes, but you won’t be finding them on every page – war does tend to get folks separated at times. I hadn’t realized how much military activity there was off to the *west*, so there were a lot of new factoids for me in this one. I thought the author did a good job of mixing in her characters with known historical events and people (although the Quantrill episode kind of stretched credulity), which are noted in the author’s notes at the end.

Now for the quibbles – and that is the over-analyzing that goes on in Hayes’ and Leigh’s heads and it comes across as telling instead of showing. Similar to what Roberta Gellis is like when she’s at her explainatory worst (not knocking Gellis, she’s put out some very good novels). If they would just talk to each other. Argh. A worthwhile read for fans of Civil War romances. 3.5/5 stars.

Omamori by Richard McGill

This novel is set around events that are historical facts and will be freely discussed in this review. In the event that you weren’t paying attention during history lessons and are not familiar with what happened in Nazi Germany, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima and Nagasaki then this review might be a bit spoilerish.

I just love scrounging used book stores and library sales, you never know what long forgotten treasures you’ll find and this is one of the best yet. I’m very glad I picked this one up despite the fairly unattractive cover, just look at what is on the step-back inside.

Is that artwork gorgeous or what? The story is centered around Hosokawa-Napier Limited, a silk weaving dynasty that was founded in 1871 between American and Japanese partners. The Great Depression has had its impact on the silk trade, and the current partners, Douglas Napier and Baron Tadashi Hosokawa have to look to new ways to keep their business alive.  Manufacturing and selling silk parachutes seems the perfect answer, but the only country currently spending money to build up their military in 1936 would be Germany…

A  difficult choice. Do you bankrupt the business, lay off your workers, close the doors and walk away? Or sleep with Hitler the devil? Along with those complications, there’s also the little matter of the children of these two great friends and partners. Maxwell (Max) Napier comes home from school and finds Hosokawa’s fifteen year old daughter Shizue a beautiful young woman and the pair are head over heels in love, but interracial marriage is not the done thing, especially for an old Samurai family like Hosokawa.

That’s the basic set-up and I don’t want to give away more, just fasten your seatbelts ’cause it’s going to be a bumpy ride. I loved this book, the writing and most especially the way the author put his characters into known historical events, giving the reader an up close look at those events through their eyes. No long-winded info dumps here, instead you’ll get a lively discussion at a business dinner to get you up to speed on Hitler’s Germany in 1936. An illegitimate child is added so that the reader can see first hand at how the Japanese shun those of mixed blood. You get to witness Kristallnacht though the eyes of one of the characters, and you’ll experience the terror of trying to get out of Germany (and Japan!) before it’s too late. Most compelling horrifying of all is putting one of the main characters directly at the center of the bombing of Nagasaki and seeing it through his/her eyes (I’m not telling you who). Terrifying stuff. I don’t know when I’ll emotionally recover.

I loved every one of the 750+ pages in this book and had a hard time finding an excuse not to call in sick to work so I could keep reading. There’s plenty of tragedy, heartbreak and nail-biting until the very last pages. According to the brief bio at the back, McGill took seven years to write Omamori and it shows on every page; and for a male author he really does a nice job with his female characters. This book was written in 1987 before the days of all things politically correct, so if you’re touchy about certain racial terms this book might not suit. The author doesn’t pull any punches with the details about the Japanese wars in China (a great touch sending Paul there as a journalist to witness it firsthand), and of course the bombing of Nagasaki, so if you’re a bit squeamish I’d recommend giving this a pass. This book is very much suited to fans of big fat family sagas with plenty of drama, angst and history. 5/5 stars.

Daughters of the Storm by Elizabeth Buchan

It was too much,’ she murmured. “Too much of everything. Blood. Death. Fear. Wasted hope…

Paris, 1789. Sophie Lutrell leaves her comfortable life in the English countryside behind for an extended visit with her cousin Héloïse de Guinot. The two cousins are more like sisters, and they’re soon swept up in the romance and glamour of the Parisian court – and Sophie might forget her almost-fiance from home and let herself be swept off her feet by the dashing American William Jones (a secret spy for the American government). Héloïse is unhappily married off to the Comte de Choissy, but she soon finds love in the arms of a French soldier, Louis d’Epinon. The third female in this story is that of Héloïse’s maid, Marie-Victoire Bonnard, who finds love in the arms of a revolutionary – but that love comes at a great personal cost.

They threw their hats into the air, screamed their joy and fought to dip their handkerchiefs into the blood.

Sophie is so caught up in the glitz and glamour of her life in Paris that she hides her head in the sand ignores the warnings to leave France while she still can, and when madness takes over and The Terror begins, it just might be too late…

You have heard what they say about the Conciergerie? The hell from which there is no route save by the little window of the guillotine.

Let me tell you, that was some pretty intense stuff at the end. I did have a pretty rocky start with this one, the early chapters were very short and there was a lot of head hopping (third person, but still annoying), and I admit to thinking about bailing out of this, and glad I hung on. The different POVs give the reader a bird’s-eye view from multiple perspectives, from the glitz of Versailles to the underbelly of Paris. I’ll just add one word of caution – this is not a fluffy, feel good, romantic HEA kind of book, so if that’s your cuppa tea I suggest you move along. One word of caution for cover geeks, my copy ISBN #0-553-28448-7 has the cover posted above, but when you search swap/seller sites by this number it pulls up the so-ugly-I-won’t-even-post-it-here cover. I have no idea which cover you’ll get, so don’t blame me if you get that other one.

One odd thing is the author’s Afterward. She writes as if some of the characters in the novel were real historical people, yet I’ve not had a hit on any of them on Google. Any one out there have an answer for me?