Book Review: Two Fatherlands (A Reschen Valley Novel Part 4) By Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger

Two Fatherlands 

(A Reschen Valley Novel Part 4)

By Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger

Publication Date: April 13, 2021 Publisher: Inktreks/Lucyk-Berger Page Length: 636 Pages Genre: Historical Fiction (WW2).

It's a dangerous time to be a dissident...

1938. Northern Italy. Since saving Angelo Grimani's life 18 years earlier, Katharina is grappling with how their lives have since been entwined. Construction on the Reschen Lake reservoir begins and the Reschen Valley community is torn apart into two fronts - those who want to stay no matter what comes, and those who hold out hope that Hitler will bring Tyrol back into the fold.

Back in Bolzano, Angelo finds one fascist politician who may have the power to help Katharina and her community, but there is a group of corrupt players eager to have a piece of him. When they realise that Angelo and Katharina are joining forces, they turn to a strategy of conquering and dividing to weaken both the community and Angelo's efforts.

Meanwhile, the daughter Angelo shares with Katharina - Annamarie - has fled to Austria to pursue her acting career but the past she is running away from lands her directly into the arms of a new adversary: the Nazis. She goes as far as Berlin, and as far as Goebbels, to pursue her dreams, only to realise that Germany is darker than any place she's been before.

Angelo puts aside his prejudices and seeks alliances with old enemies; Katharina finds ingenious ways to preserve what is left of her community, and Annamarie wrests herself from the black forces of Nazism with plans to return home. But when Hitler and Mussolini present the Tyroleans with “The Option”, the residents are forced to choose between Italian and German nationhood with no guarantee that they will be able to stay in Tyrol at all!

Out of the ruins of war, will they be able to find their way back to one another and pick up the pieces?

This blockbuster finale will keep readers glued to the pages. Early readers are calling it, "...engrossing", "...enlightening" and "...both a heartbreaking and uplifting end to this incredible series!"

Book Rating:

📚📚📚📚📚 ⭐ = A book in a million.

📚📚📚📚📚 = I could not put this book down. I Highly Recommend.

📚📚📚📚 = A really great read.

📚📚📚 = It was enjoyable.

📚📚 = It was okay.

📚 = Um...! 😕

My Review

Two Fatherlands 

(A Reschen Valley Novel Part 4)

📚📚📚📚  

Before reading this novel, I knew nothing about the history of Lake Reschen, in fact, I had never even heard of it. So, I Googled it, and as I stared at the most hauntingly moving image of a bell tower rising out of the water, I could not help but think about what it must have been like to live in this small town during the era this book is set in. While the 14th century church tower still reaches for the heavens, the homes, farms, and land would be forever underwater. A ghost town where only fish and eels enter homes without knocking. I can understand why Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger's chose to write about this place during this era.

I certainly jumped in the deep end when I agreed to review this novel, and I did struggle initially to get to grips with all the characters and what part they had to play. However, once I had figured who everyone was then I really began to enjoy it.

Katharina was a character that I really enjoyed reading about. She has so much on her plate, her daughter runs away in the hope of becoming an actress and her very wayward son courts trouble. On top of that is the realisation that her community will be sacrificed to make way for the dam. But that is not all Katharina has to worry about. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but I think it is sufficient for me to stay that this she was a character that I really came to adore, and I enjoyed reading about her.

The other character central to this story is Angelo. He is unhappily married and really wants a divorce. He is wealthy and has some influence, and it is with that influence which he tries to use to help Katharina, the mother of his illegitimate daughter. Angelo was a character that I was always in two minds about. On the other hand, his daughter, Annamarie, certainly knows how to court trouble and ends up being swept away by her determination to fulfil her dreams.

I thought this novel's historical backdrop was very realistic in the telling, and the characters were very believable. However, I wish that I had started with book 1, as I felt that there were many backstories that I had missed out on. Nevertheless, this novel is certainly an enthralling read and one I would recommend. 

You can find this book at your favourite online bookstore.

Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger is an American author living in Austria. Her focus is on historical fiction. She has been a managing editor for a magazine publishing house, has worked as an editor, and has won several awards for her travel narrative, flash fiction and short stories. She lives with her husband in a “Grizzly Adams” hut in the Alps, just as she’d always dreamt she would when she was a child.

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Read my #BookReview of Thunder on the Moor by Andrea Matthews #timetravelromance #Historical @AMatthewsAuthor @maryanneyarde

 

Thunder on the Moor
By Andrea Matthews

Publication Date: October 30, 2019 Publisher: Inez M. Foster Page Length: 430 Pages Genre: Historical Romance

Maggie Armstrong grew up with tales of blood feuds and border raids, but when her father takes her back fourth hundred and fifty years to his Scottish home, will she find the hero she’s always dreamed of or will betrayal, treachery, and a tragic murder shatter her dreams forever?

Book Rating:

📚📚📚📚📚 ⭐ = A book in a million

📚📚📚📚📚 = I could not put this book down. I Highly Recommend.

📚📚📚📚 = A really great read.

📚📚📚 = It was enjoyable.

📚📚 = It was okay.

📚 = Um...! 😕

My Review 

Thunder on the Moor

📚📚📚📚📚 ⭐

The past is… Let’s just roll with the idea that Hartley was right. Maggie Armstrong is about to go on a trip of a lifetime, a trip that cannot be found among the pages of a holiday broacher. Oh, no. Maggie is going back in time.

The prodigal son has returned, but he is not alone for Robert brings with him his nineteen-year-old daughter, Maggie. Maggie at last has the family she had always longed for, but although her father rejoices in being back where he belongs, Maggie is left a little bemused. The seemingly far-fetched stories her father had told her were actually true and now she was a part of, living in, that narrative.

I love the whole concept of this novel and the author has skillfully portrayed not only the confusion, the bafflement, and at times the horror of living in this volatile period of history, she has also depicted the majestic scenery and has paid close attention to the history of this era. The attention to every little historical detail meant that, like Maggie, I fell through time.

Maggie’s journey throughout this novel makes her the kind of protagonist that a reader can really get behind. She is, as one would expect, not accustomed to the ways or the traditions of this era, nor does she like having her life dictated, especially when it comes to who she will wed. I have to be really careful as I am always a little nervous that when I love a book as much as this one, that I am going to give away spoilers and the very last thing I want to do ruin the enjoyment of this novel for another reader. So let me finish my review by saying that this is one of the best time-travel novels that I have ever read. It really is a book in a million!

You can find this novel over on Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon CA and Amazon AU. You can also pick up your copy of this book over on Barnes and Noble.

Andrea Matthews is the pseudonym for Inez Foster, a historian and librarian who loves to read and write and search around for her roots, genealogical speaking. In fact, it was while doing some genealogical research that she stumbled across the history of the Border reivers. The idea for her first novel came to mind almost at once, gradually growing into the Thunder on the Moor series. And the rest, as they say, is history…

Connect with Andrea: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, BookBub, Amazon Author Page, Goodreads.

 

 

Read an excerpt from Forsaking All Other by Catherine Meyrick #HistoricalFiction #ForsakingAllOther #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub @cameyrick1 @maryanneyarde

 

Forsaking All Other

By Catherine Meyrick

Publication Date: 16th March 2018. Publisher: Courante Publishing. Page Length: 308 pages. Genre: Historical Fiction/Historical Romance.

England, 1585.

Bess Stoughton, waiting woman to the well-connected Lady Allingbourne, has discovered that her father is arranging for her to marry an elderly neighbour. Normally obedient Bess rebels and wrests from her father a year's grace to find a husband more to her liking.

Edmund Wyard, a taciturn and scarred veteran of England’s campaign in Ireland, is attempting to ignore the pressure from his family to find a suitable wife as he prepares to join the Earl of Leicester’s army in the Netherlands.

Although Bess and Edmund are drawn to each other, they are aware that they can have nothing more than friendship. Bess knows that Edmund’s wealth and family connections place him beyond her reach. And Edmund, with his well-honed sense of duty, has never considered that he could follow his own wishes.

With England on the brink of war and fear of Catholic plots extending even into Lady Allingbourne’s household, time is running out for both of them.

Love is no game for women. The price is far too high.

Excerpt

The room was unusually quiet. All that could be heard was the slither of thread through cloth and, outside, the sleepy cooing of doves. Eloise rose from her seat and wandered to the window. She stood, both hands in the small of her back, arching backwards, the swelling of her belly obvious through the folds of her gown. She leant forward, resting her hands on the windowsill, a frown on her usually cheerful face.

‘What is it, Eloise?’ Dame Margaret asked, her voice sharp with concern. ‘It is far too soon.’

Eloise turned back to the room and brushed her hand impatiently through the air. ‘No, nothing like that. We have visitors. One is the image of Sir Christopher.’ She smiled at her good-mother. ‘Perhaps I should go down and greet them.’

Dame Margaret concentrated on her sewing. ‘Wait here—let whoever it is seek you out.’

Eloise returned to her seat and took up her sewing. After a few stitches she put it aside once more and sat back, her fingers spread on her belly, smiling to herself.

Dame Margaret held her needle still in her fingers and waited as the door to the solar swung open and her youngest son, Edmund, was led in by the footman. So like his father! He had Sir Christopher’s build and light brown hair. He would have been as handsome too but for the discoloured pockmarks spread across his forehead and his cheeks above his neatly trimmed beard.

Dame Margaret did not rise to greet him.

Edmund stopped six feet from her chair and bowed formally. He was still in his dusty travelling clothes, the faint smell of sweat and horse a sharp reminder of his father too.

Dame Margaret wrinkled her nose. ‘You have arrived, finally.’

‘I came as quickly as I could, Mother.’

‘But a month?’ she asked, incredulous.

‘I could not walk away from my responsibilities at a moment’s notice. Travel from Ireland is nothing like an unhurried ride from London.’ Edmund scowled at his mother, ‘I supposed Father had been buried long before I even received the news.’

The other women watched him from beneath their lashes while pretending to sew. Only Hester Shawe, Dame Margaret’s woman, stared openly at him.

‘I have been to the church. Is that all that will be done for Father—a flat stone in the floor?’

‘Oh, no,’ Eloise said as she rose from her chair. ‘John will explain when he returns home.’ She laid a hand on his arm and smiled. ‘I am John’s wife, Eloise, and I am delighted to meet you, Edmund.’ She stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. ‘John has organised a mason to come from London and is planning a monument with both your parents and all the children on it. He is certain your father would have approved.’

Dame Margaret watched as Edmund turned his attention to Eloise, saw him take in the glowing skin, the reddish-blond hair, dark eyebrows and smiling eyes. She pressed her lips together in a tight line. All men were the same—it was the nature of the beast.

‘Father would indeed be pleased,’ Edmund said.

‘Now Edmund, you must come and meet your nephews.’ Eloise linked her arm in his and guided him through the door.

Dame Margaret glared after them. Eloise should not have pushed herself forward and drawn attention to herself. She would need to remind her, yet again, of the standard of behaviour expected of her as John’s wife.

You can find this novel Amazon UK • Amazon US • Amazon CA • Amazon AU • Barnes and Noble • Kobo • Apple Books

Catherine Meyrick is a writer of historical fiction with a particular love of Elizabethan England. Her stories weave fictional characters into the gaps within the historical record – tales of ordinary people who are very much men and women of their time, yet in so many ways are like us today. These are people with the same hopes and longings as we have to find both love and their own place in a troubled world.

Catherine grew up in regional Victoria, but has lived all her adult life in Melbourne, Australia. Until recently she worked as a customer service librarian at her local library. She has a Master of Arts in history and is also an obsessive genealogist. When not writing, reading and researching, Catherine enjoys gardening, the cinema and music of all sorts from early music and classical to folk and country and western and, not least of all, taking photos of the family cat to post on Instagram.

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Read an excerpt from Chateau Laux by David Loux #HistoricalFiction @ChateauLaux @maryanneyarde

 

The Book Bandit has become a tour host for The Coffee Pot Book Club in the hope that I can introduce you to some fabulous authors—some you may have heard of and some you may have not. So, join me on the highway and let's gets these books onto the shelves of our library where they belong! 

Chateau Laux

By David Loux

Book Title: Chateau Laux
Author: David Loux
Publication Date: April 6, 2021
Publisher: Wire Gate Press
Page Length: 292 Pages
Genre: Historical/Literary Fiction

A young entrepreneur from a youthful Philadelphia, chances upon a French aristocrat and his family living on the edge of the frontier. Born to an unwed mother and raised by a disapproving and judgmental grandfather, he is drawn to the close-knit family. As part of his courtship of one of the patriarch’s daughters, he builds a château for her, setting in motion a sequence of events he could not have anticipated.

Excerpt

It was one thing to be alone in the woods, where no one had any knowledge or expectations of you, and quite another to be in a space owned and controlled by someone else, where the surrounding structures had been shaped by hands other than your own, and where human breath and blood gathered and coursed in unknowable fashion.  Lawrence stood in momentary dejection, his feet planted wide and his shoulders slumped.  All over again, he felt like a child with a dead mother, standing on the doorstep of an old man he had never met, a note of introduction in his hand.  His mother had not spoken to her father since the unfortunate birth of her child, and the note was the only provenance Lawrence had.  He sometimes felt as if he still stood on that doorstep, waiting, waiting.

The barn had darkened, and he struck his flint to light the lantern.  The shadows cast by the glow loomed large.  He could still hear the thudding draw of the bolt on the other side of his grandfather’s door, the shudder of wood and the squeal of hinges, and as much as he appreciated the shelter of the barn, he already regretted the position he’d put himself in.  He hated to feel beholden to his grandfather, to this man Pierre, or to anyone else.

Hearing a sound behind him, he whirled around, his heart in his throat.  A boy of about thirteen stood there, his face glowing in the lantern light.  He had sandy hair and ruddy cheeks.  Another boy ranged past him, swinging wide.  He looked a year or so older, with darker hair and a fuzzy lip.  Both were unusually tall, lanky, and well-proportioned, with coltish insouciance, and Lawrence’s surprise at their sudden arrival was soothed by their youth and the friendly curiosity in their frank gazes.

“Ma sent us,” the younger brother said.  “Pa told her about you and she said to invite you to supper, but that anyone who’s spent time in the wild would have to take a bath before coming into any house of hers.  Pa was all for sending you down to the creek, but Ma said you’d get struck by lightning for sure and she wouldn’t have it.  Pa said go ahead and use the horse trough.  Just be sure to pull the plug when you’re done and then pump in some fresh water.” He held out a bundle that included a clean linen shirt and a pair of woolen breeches, in addition to a towel, a washcloth, and a big bar of soap.

The older brother appeared to be the more reserved of the two.  He studied Lawrence with obvious interest but came no closer.  “Come on,” he finally said, tersely, to the younger boy.  “Ma said we shouldn’t linger.”

“I’m not lingering,” the younger one said, stoutly.

The older one gave Lawrence a look that begged his indulgence.  “He always dillydallies,” he said, as if in answer to a curiosity Lawrence may have had.

“I do not,” the younger brother said.

A sudden light flickered, followed by a thunder crack.  A deluge of rain hit the barn.

The brothers turned to leave, but Lawrence stopped them.

“Aren’t you going to tell me who you are?” he said.

The younger face brightened.

“I’m Georgie and this here’s my brother, Andrew.  You haven’t met Jean yet.”

“Jean?” Lawrence said.  But the brothers had turned again and disappeared like phantoms.  Their silhouettes appeared at the doorway of the barn, and a flash of lightning revealed a third youth who appeared taller and leaner than the other two.  He carried a musket, and Lawrence realized the boys had taken no chances and that he had been under a watchful eye the whole time.  He shook his head with admiration.

Rain poured from the dark sky and thundered down against his shoulders and head as he took his cold bath, his bottom slick against the slippery surface of the horse trough.  Scrubbing the bar of soap furiously against his hands, he then ran his fingers through his hair and down his face, startled at the extent of his beard.  He had had the beard for two weeks and hardly given it a thought.  But now that he was about to share a meal with people he didn’t know, he wondered what they would see when they looked at him.  Returning to the barn, he toweled off and dressed in the borrowed clothes, then swiped at his hair and whiskers, hoping it was enough to make him presentable.

Then, it seemed miraculously, he found himself in a kitchen banked with the smells of meat and freshly baked bread.  A young woman with braided chestnut hair knelt in front of the hearth, using a wooden spoon to scrape at the browned bits that had collected in an iron pot.  An older woman set a plate of scallions and radishes on the table.  She hardly seemed old enough to have children nearly grown.  There were eight place settings, and Lawrence saw the two boys he had already met and the third, whom he had seen only in silhouette, all seated at the table and looking at him with the quiet enthusiasm of country folk, who rarely got to spend time with someone from outside of their small community.  The man who had earlier introduced himself as Pierre sat beside a little girl of about four, with blue eyes and red curls, dimpled cheeks. 

Lawrence’s eyes swam the length of the room, trying to take it all in.

“Welcome,” Pierre said, gesturing toward an empty space at the opposite end of the table.  His earlier gruffness seemed to have evaporated.  “My boys you already met.  That’s my eldest, Catharine, over there, and this here’s our little Magdalena.  The stern one is Beatrice,” he said, smiling.

“I’ll show you stern if you’re not careful,” said the woman named Beatrice, digging at her husband with a look that told him he had better watch out or there would be a price to pay for such teasing.  Her brown hair was braided like her daughter’s and her eyes were honey-colored, her back long and straight.  She wore a simple linen dress, an apron, and wooden shoes.

Lawrence felt the need to apologize, at the outset, that he was dressed in someone else’s clothes, and the two youngest brothers jostled each other, as if sharing a private joke.  Beatrice quickly took charge.  

“Just go on now and sit yourself down,” she said, with a touch of bluster.  “Boys, pass our guest the radishes and salt.  The bread is ready and the roast is taking a rest.  Pierre, maybe you should go to the cellar and fetch some of the better wine.”

“You see who gives the orders around here,” Pierre grumbled, giving Lawrence a wink.  He stomped out of the kitchen.  A door opened and Lawrence heard heavy foot treads on wooden steps.

“He’s not really mad,” the little Magdalena piped up, with an authority that belied her age.  She raised her cream-colored chin and gave her red curls a toss.  “He acts like he is but he’s not.”

You can find this novel over on Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Barnes and Noble, Kobo

David Loux is a short story writer who has published under pseudonym and served as past board member of California Poets in the Schools. Chateau Laux is his first novel. He lives in the Eastern Sierra with his wife, Lynn.

Social Media Links:

Website • Twitter • Goodreads • Amazon Author Page

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