EFR REVIEWS

  LOVE NOTE Focused on a career in medicine and not on romance, Willa Duvall is thrown slightly off course during the summer of 1865 when she discovers a never-opened love letter in a crack of her old writing desk. Compelled to find the passionate soul who penned it and the person who never received it, she takes a job as a nurse at the seaside estate of Crestwicke Manor.  Everyone at Crestwicke has feelings--mostly negative ones--about the man who wrote the letter, but he seems to have disappeared. With plenty of enticing clues but few answers, Willa's search becomes even more complicated when she misplaces the letter and it passes from person to person in the house, each finding a thrilling or disheartening message in its words.  Laced with mysteries large and small, this romantic Victorian-era tale of love lost, love deferred, and love found is sure to delight. ★ ★ ★ ★1/2 In the summer of 1865, medical student Willa Duvall, of Brighton, England, discovers an unopened l...

  WONDER SHOW Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, step inside Mosco’s Traveling Wonder Show, a menagerie of human curiosities and misfits guaranteed to astound and amaze! But perhaps the strangest act of Mosco’s display is Portia Remini, a normal among the freaks, on the run from McGreavy’s Home for Wayward Girls, where Mister watches and waits. He said he would always find Portia, that she could never leave. Free at last, Portia begins a new life on the bally, seeking answers about her father’s disappearance. Will she find him before Mister finds her? It’s a story for the ages, and like everyone who enters the Wonder Show, Portia will never be the same. ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ Not even gonna lie, definitely the cover that initially sucked me in... that, and me being a sucker for a story set in a circus community! Growing up in the 1920s-30s, Portia Remini, having been abandoned by her parents, is left in the care of her Aunt Sophia. By Portia's teen years, Sophia decides she's not equippe...

  It's just shy of "Football & Turkey Day", my readers, so let's chat about some football memoirs I've "tackled" recently (I'll just show myself out on that one...) Strength of a Champion : Finding Faith & Fortune Through Adversity by O.J. Brigance, with Peter Schrager. Foreword by Ray Lewis As the Baltimore Ravens made their improbable march to victory in Super Bowl XLVII, they turned to their senior advisor of player development, O.J. Brigance, for inspiration each and every Sunday.  Following a stellar twelve-year career as a linebacker, including a Super Bowl win with Baltimore in 2000, O.J.Juice Brigance joined the Ravens front office. But in 2007, O.J. was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis also known as Lou Gehrig's disease and told he had only three to five years to live. As a player, he'd battled hundreds of injuries and setbacks. None of them prepared him to face ALS.  With faith and determination in his heart and ...

  KEY TO LOVE The only thing Bri Duval loves more than baking petit fours is romance. So much so, she's created her own version of the famous Parisian lovelock wall at her bakery in Story, Kansas. She never expects it to go viral--or for  Trek Magazine  to send travel writer Gerard Fortier to feature the bakery. He's definitely handsome, but Bri has been holding out for a love story like the one her parents had, and that certainly will not include the love-scorned-and-therefore-love-scorning Gerard.  Just when it seems Bri's bakery is poised for unprecedented success, a series of events threaten not just her business but the pedestal she's kept her parents on all these years. Maybe Gerard is right about romance. Or maybe Bri's recipe just needs to be tweaked.  Novelist Betsy St. Amant invites you to experience this sweet story of how love doesn't always look the way we expect--and maybe that's a good thing. ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ Baker Bri Duvall has a job she loves, wor...

  Something Worth Doing In 1853, Abigail Scott was a 19-year-old school teacher in Oregon Territory when she married Ben Duniway. Marriage meant giving up on teaching, but Abigail always believed she was meant to be more than a good wife and mother. When financial mistakes and an injury force Ben to stop working, Abigail becomes the primary breadwinner for her growing family. What she sees as a working woman appalls her, and she devotes her life to fighting for the rights of women, including their right to vote. Following Abigail as she bears six children, runs a millinery and a private school, helps on the farm, writes novels, gives speeches, and eventually runs a newspaper supporting women's suffrage,  Something Worth Doing  explores issues that will resonate strongly with modern women: the pull between career and family, finding one's place in the public sphere, and dealing with frustrations and prejudices women encounter when they compete in male-dominated spaces. Bas...

schoolhouse icon Ok, we're going to be doing the series talk a little flipped this time around. Prior to Book #2 being sent to me for review, I somehow missed that this was part of a series. So I'll go ahead and discuss Book 2 now, I have Book 1 on order, we'll come back to it shortly. From what I've read so far, it seems like this is one that does have light crossover with characters, but for the most part can easily be read as standalone works. But anyway, to start....  UNTIL I MET YOU (RESTORING HERITAGE #2) When she hears that the small town of Heritage, Michigan, is looking for a new librarian, Libby Kingsley jumps at the opportunity. Little did she know the library is barely more than a storage closet stuffed with dusty, outdated books. What the community really needs is a new building. But the only funds available are those being channeled into the new town square, and the landscape architect in charge of the project wants nothing to do with her plans. All Austi...

  THE OTHER MRS Sadie and Will Foust have only just moved their family from bustling Chicago to small-town Maine when their neighbor Morgan Baines is found dead in her home. The murder rocks their tiny coastal island, but no one is more shaken than Sadie. But it’s not just Morgan’s death that has Sadie on edge. And as the eyes of suspicion turn toward the new family in town, Sadie is drawn deeper into the mystery of what really happened that dark and deadly night. But Sadie must be careful, for the more she discovers about Mrs. Baines, the more she begins to realize just how much she has to lose if the truth ever comes to light. **Potential Trigger Warning : child abuse and suicide repeatedly mentioned throughout this novel; detailed descriptions of hanging death ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ After getting news of the death of his sister, Will Foust and wife Sadie, along with their two sons, trade big city Chicago life for small-town island residency in Maine. The Fousts not only take over the care of...

ANN GABHART *As far as I know, these are the only two in the FNS series so far, but feel free to let me know  if there are, in fact, others.   Francine Howard has her life all mapped out until the soldier she planned to marry at WWII's end writes to tell her he's in love with a woman in England. Devastated, Francine seeks a fresh start in the Appalachian Mountains, training to be a nurse midwife for the Frontier Nursing Service.  Deeply affected by the horrors he witnessed at war, Ben Locke has never thought further ahead than making it home to Kentucky. His future shrouded in as much mist as his beloved mountains, he's at a loss when it comes to envisioning what's next for his life.  When Francine's and Ben's paths intersect, it's immediately clear that they are from different worlds and value different things. But love has a way of healing old wounds . . . and revealing tantalizing new possibilities. ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ In the summer of 1945, wanting to distance her...