All For a Song

All For a Song
Allison Pittman 
Tyndale House Publishers
February 2013
Fiction, Historical 

 Dorothy Lynn Dunbar has everything she could possibly want in her hometown of Herron's Nest. She's engaged to be married to the young pastor that's she's deeply in love with. She also has her music. With her guitar in hand and time alone in the woods Dorothy pens and sings beautiful worship songs. With all she could ever want she still longs for something more. When Dorothy heads to St. Louis so her older sister can help her find a wedding dress a whole new world is opened up to her. 

Dorothy is enraptured by movies, music, new fashions, cars, different foods, and dancing. While exploring the city she encounters the dynamic and charismatic evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. When she's asked to join the crusade team she can't say no. She tells her fiancee she'll see him at the wedding and heads off across country. Beyond the allure of singing in front of thousands is also her desire to track down her long lost brother who disappeared after World War I.

The crusade and her ultimate arrival in California is more than she could have ever imagined. She's faced with very hard to resist temptations. Money, men, fame, clothes, and more all pull for her attention. She has to decide who she's going to be and where her heart really belongs. 

Seeing the Roaring Twenties through Dorothy's eyes was really quite fun. Her arrival in the city and being thrust into the "world" was as startling for the reader as I'm sure it was for Dorothy. As a character Dorothy was not overly intriguing. She was wishy washy and that actually translates into annoying. She didn't know who she was and as a reader it was not a fun journey. Her fiancee both irritated me and endeared himself to me. 

Aimee Semple McPherson is an actual historical person. I found her completely unlikeable. Typically a historical fiction book should make you want to know more about that time period or character. In this case, I had absolutely no desire to know more. In fact, I almost quit reading the book at one point because I so disliked her. 

Pittman is typically a very good author so I was a bit disappointed with this book. She writes the time period well, however, and I felt like I could easily picture the 1920's. The best part of the book was near the end as Dorothy made her decision. It was a lovely story of love and forgiveness. 

This was not my favorite book from Pittman but it's still worth a read. It moves a bit slow at times but there is just enough to keep you reading and interested. 

My thanks to Tyndale Publishing for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for my real and honest review. 

Baroness by Susan May Warren

Baroness
Author:  Susan May Warren
Publisher: Summerside Press
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Romance
Date: March 2012


Lily and cousin Rosie are coming of age in the Roaring Twenties. Both belong to families of great wealth the world is their oyster. The beginning of a summer in Paris opens their eyes and ultimately alters their lives. Lily discovers her love for flying and the interest of a man and Rosie discovers what she believes to be love. Before they can both blink they find themselves whisked back stateside and their lives part for a number of years.

Lily returns home to a dying mother and a step-father she wants nothing to do with. She sneaks away without telling anyone and heads as far west as the money in her pocket will take her. It doesn't take her very far west but it does take her to an airshow. Her love of flying reigns supreme and eventually she becomes a wing walker. She also takes great notice of her pilot, a handsome man named Truman.

Rosie enters New York and sets out to see her name in lights. She unknowingly gets into a relationship with a mob boss that will prove to be deadly. In her haste to escape his hold she runs away with a baseball player who turns out to be the love of her life. They settle in Chicago and make a home for themselves.

4 years pass.

Lily is divorced and working for her mother's newspaper. Rosie is married and pregnant and moving back to New York with her husband. Lily's "ex"-husband is on his way to New York and Rosie's ex-boyfriend the mob boss knows she's back in town. Drama and tragedy are on the horizon. Great healing and beauty are also very near.

I have to stop with my synopsis there are I might give the whole plot away. Just when I think I have  Susan May Warren all figured out she surprises me. Taking a giant step away from the familiarity of the other books from her I have reviewed she plunges her readers into a entirely different age. This is not your run of the mill romance book. Watching Lily and Rosie for this span of years is both enlightening and painful. You feel all of their angst right along with them. I applaud Warren for her superb character development. I also thoroughly enjoyed her handling of the time period down to the clothes worn, current events, and trends of that era. The wing walking aspect terrified me and intrigued me.

What I always love about Susan May Warren is her ability to reveal healing and God's hand in each of her books. I found the path that Lily took to healing and reconciliation with her step-father to be truly beautiful. It perfectly rounded out this book for me. 

I had a hard time getting into the first couple of chapters but once I was in, I was all in. This one definitely had me reading late into the night. This is the second book in the Daughters of Fortune series and I'm not sure how I missed the first one. I plan on remedying that immediately. You can read it as a standalone but why would you want to? I am anxious to read the one that follows Baroness because it ended on a bit of a cliff-hanger.

An excellent read I highly recommend!

Rated Pg-13 for adult content. 

Thank you to Summerside Press and my friends at Radiant Lit for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.