I finally had to stop after a rape scene and a sex scene, neither of which meet my personal content policy. I felt the pendulum swung too far in the other direction with this book. Jan 23, Renee Rosen added it. Meissner's storytelling skills have never been sharper. This was a great complex novel with many layers and superb pacing.
Part mystery, part ghost story, part self discovery and all with a spectacular twist that I never saw coming. Full review to come! Feb 13, Laura Rash rated it really liked it. Jun 10, Mary Fabrizio rated it it was ok. I'm bucking all the great reviews on this one, but I found this book sophomoric. The 2 stars are because the stories of the women during WWII were interesting.
The ghost story was just silly and the "mystery," when it was solved, was beyond ridiculous. The beginning chapters can be a little confusing so I would recommend setting aside a good amount of time to get into the characters and the flow of the book. Simone Robinson fled her home after seeing her father and brother killed by the Gestapo and found shelter in the cellar of a vineyard. Her father had told her the name and address of the place she should go if anything were to happen to them. While in shelter she comes to care for an American pilot shot down while photographing the topography of the area for the incoming Allied troops.
She eventually grows to love and marry him and they make plans for their reconnection in the US when the war is over. Annaliese is a young German girl forced to marry a sadistic Nazi when her parents feel there is no other option. She tries to comply with whatever he wants but she is still badly abused by her husband. She finally makes her escape because an accident claims the life of her best friend who was already documented to leave the country and sail to the US on the Queen Mary.
At that time the ocean liner was being called the ship of brides because it was taking many war brides to be united with their husbands. The novel takes a while to get going but by the end of the first third I had a good idea of what was going on and was enjoying the read.
The connection with the present day story of Brette and the idea of the Queen Mary itself as a character is what made the book interesting to me. Apr 11, Christina DeVane rated it liked it Shelves: books-read-in Life will send 3. Life will send us across a bridge we did not want to cross, but when we finally open our eyes on the other side, we see that there had been nothing to fear after all. Some great plot twists that kept me wondering.
A different kind of story with ghosts entwined, but still classic Meissner. Some language and adult themes with the war stories hence the 3. Dec 03, Toni rated it liked it. Book clubs will love this book. We have two war brides that have been through very tough times, and they manage to get aboard the Queen Mary. But we will learn in a few Flashbacks that their destinations are quite different. As with any good story we don't find out until the end. Another story is entwined with the bride's, and it involves spirits, not the ones you drink, but the ones some see.
Yes, one of our main characters sees an occasional ghost, in the present day, They like to find he Book clubs will love this book. Yes, one of our main characters sees an occasional ghost, in the present day, They like to find her on the docked Queen Mary. Get ready, you will want your book club to read this one! Thank you Netgalley and the Publisher. Mar 07, Leah rated it really liked it Shelves: time-periods , setting-america , genre-historical-fiction , ghosts , standalone , for-review-netgalley , setting-england , setting-france , all-the-feelings , time-period-wwii.
A Bridge Across the Ocean was a total surprise. Please don't let the supernatural element turn you off - not for a second does this ever stray into Sookie Stackhouse or Patricia Briggs territory. I'm slightly appalled that this is my first time reading Meissner's work but am absolutely delighted to have found such a fantastic author to devour!
For the full review and more, head over to The Pretty Good Gatsby! Dec 06, Christy rated it it was ok Shelves: historical. I picked up this dual time line read for the maritime history. While modern day writing isn't a favorite for me Brette's sole purpose in this story is to drive the ghost theme which really hasn't much at all in the end to do with the historical point of views of Simone and Annaliese. The story of these two women would have come together better without the modern Brettes point of view.
Honestly the historical side lacked th I picked up this dual time line read for the maritime history. Honestly the historical side lacked the historical feel and in the end the overall dramatic drive the story was aiming for. That along with the sprinkles of profanity left me just completely underwhelmed and disappointed! Apr 13, Teresa rated it really liked it.
Dec 11, Annie rated it it was amazing. This book hooked me right from the start. Another woman lives in the present day and has the gift of being able to see ghosts. The author's style of writing really captured my attention. The chapters were short and moved the story along smoothly. Each of the characters and their stories were engrossing, and although it deals with WWI This book hooked me right from the start.
Each of the characters and their stories were engrossing, and although it deals with WWII, it didn't get depressing.
This is the same author who wrote the well-rated Secrets of a Charmed Life. I read this one first because it is the book-of-the-month on the FB page Readers Coffeehouse. They have had some good reads since I joined them.
The author will discuss the book at the end of the month with us. So if you want to join in, I highly recommend this book and the FB page.
Mar 11, Meg - A Bookish Affair rated it really liked it Shelves: fiction , , historical-fiction , paranormal. This is a historical fiction with the present day story line having a healthy dose of paranormal activity for interest. This was an engaging story with a memorable mystery at its center that kept me on my toes. This is a great release from Meissner! The characters in this book are great.
They are all different but at their center, all three of our main characters are just trying to figure themselves out. In the past timeline, Simone is running away from her difficult life in France during the war. She is ready for a fresh start where she can be her own person. Annaliese takes the name and papers of a beloved friend who is now dead in order to buy her freedom on passage to America, far away from her Nazi husband.
In the present, Brette is trying to come to terms with the fact that she can see the dead. It is something that she has known since she was little but until she is called on to help a friend, it is something she does not want to admit.
These characters were so memorable and the author really makes you feel for each of their plights. Books told in two or more as in this case times are often uneven for me. This one was not! Simone and Annaliese's stories are engrossing on their own because of the implication that historical events had on both of them. Brette's story is totally different because of the paranormal bend to it. I knew nothing about the RMS Queen Mary before reading this book and I loved how the author wove not only the real history of the ship but the rumor of it being haunted btw, it's much more than a rumor in this book.
The ship itself has a really amazing history. He sat there in the little hot damp Mexican square, a dog at his feet, with an air of. Walking across the narrows bridge in tacoma - tripsavvy How to walk across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge - where to park, how to get to the bridge path, and what you'll see and experience along the way.
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Bridge crossing - play it now at coolmath-games. I get lots of emails about this one from classes that can't solve it. I promise you - there IS a. What she learns could devastate her—or free her. Then a long-lost photograph appears in a national magazine, and she is forced to relive the terrible day her husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Towers Touching and inspirational.
For generations it has served as a bedtime story for Indian children, while at the same time engaging the interest of philosophers and theologians. Believed to have been composed by Valmiki sometime between the eighth and sixth centuries BCE, the Ramayana tells the tragic and magical story of Rama, the prince of Ayodhya, an incarnation of Lord Visnu, born to rid the earth of the terrible demon Ravana.
An idealized heroic tale ending with the inevitable triumph of good over evil, the Ramayana is also an intensely personal story of family relationships, love and loss, duty and honor, of harem intrigue, petty jealousies, and destructive ambitions. All this played out in a universe populated by larger-than-life humans, gods and celestial beings, wondrous animals and terrifying demons.
With her magnificent translation and superb introduction, Arshia Sattar has successfully bridged both time and space to bring this ancient classic to modern English readers.
A delightfully straightforward and lyrical retelling of the ancient Indian epic of loyalty, betrayal, redemption, and insight into the true nature of life -- one of history's most sacred ethical works, rendered with completeness and sterling accuracy for the modern reader. Here is one of the world's most hallowed works of sacred literature, the grand, sweeping epic of the divine bowman and warrior Rama and his struggles with evil, power, duplicity, and avarice.
The Ramayana is one of the foundations of world literature and one of humanity's most ancient and treasured ethical and spiritual works. Includes an introduction by scholar Michael Sternfeld. From the acclaimed author of The Last Year of the War comes a novel set during the Spanish flu pandemic of , telling the story of a family reborn through loss and love.
In , Philadelphia was a city teeming with promise. Even as its young men went off to fight in the Great War, there were opportunities for a fresh start on its cobblestone streets. Into this bustling town, came Pauline Bright and her husband, filled with hope that they could now give their three daughters—Evelyn, Maggie, and Willa—a chance at a better life. But just months after they arrive, the Spanish Flu reaches the shores of America. As the pandemic claims more than twelve thousand victims in their adopted city, they find their lives left with a world that looks nothing like the one they knew.
But even as they lose loved ones, they take in a baby orphaned by the disease who becomes their single source of hope. Amidst the tragedy and challenges, they learn what they cannot live without—and what they are willing to do about it. As Bright as Heaven is the compelling story of a mother and her daughters who find themselves in a harsh world not of their making, which will either crush their resolve to survive or purify it.
From the acclaimed author of Secrets of a Charmed Life and As Bright as Heaven comes a novel about a German American teenager whose life changes forever when her immigrant family is sent to an internment camp during World War II. In , Elise Sontag is a typical American teenager from Iowa—aware of the war but distanced from its reach.
Then her father, a legal U. The family is sent to an internment camp in Texas, where, behind the armed guards and barbed wire, Elise feels stripped of everything beloved and familiar, including her own identity. The only thing that makes the camp bearable is meeting fellow internee Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American teen from Los Angeles, whose friendship empowers Elise to believe the life she knew before the war will again be hers.
Together in the desert wilderness, Elise and Mariko hold tight the dream of being young American women with a future beyond the fences. But when the Sontag family is exchanged for American prisoners behind enemy lines in Germany, Elise will face head-on the person the war desires to make of her. In that devastating crucible she must discover if she has the will to rise above prejudice and hatred and re-claim her own destiny, or disappear into the image others have cast upon her. The transition to a new regime has been difficult for many states, most notably Japan, whose rights to use the entire ocean were well protected by the traditional regime.
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Ambar's rise from slavery in East Africa to ruler in South Asia sheds light on the diverse mix of people, products, and practices that shaped the Indian Ocean world during the early modern period. Originally from Ethiopia--historically called Abyssinia--Ambar is best known for having defended the Deccan from being occupied by the Mughals during the first quarter of the seventeenth century.
His ingenuity as a military leader, his diplomatic skills, and his land-reform policies contributed to his success in keeping the Deccan free of Mughal imperial rule. We live in a global age where big concepts like "globalization" often tempt us to forget the personal side of the past. The titles in The World in a Life series aim to revive these meaningful lives.
Each one shows us what it was like to live on a world historical stage. Brief, inexpensive, and thematic, each book can be read in a week, fit within a wide range of curricula, and shed insight into a particular place or time.