BLOOD AND SILVER BY VALI BENSON
Author Jodie Toohey
by WordsyWoman
1y ago
I received a free Kindle copy of this book for the purposes of giving my honest review. Set in 1880 in Tombstone Arizona, Blood and Silver tells a story of something that could have happened during the area’s silver rush. Carissa arrives in the silver boom-town with her mother, her mother’s boss, and her mother’s coworkers, and conflict immediately ensues when a murder occurs in her new home. She makes many friends, several unlikely for anyone else without Carissa’s wit and charm, who help her try to get her mother off Laudeman and away from her abusive and dangerous situation. She meets seve ..read more
Visit website
Hannah’s war by Jan EliasbErg
Author Jodie Toohey
by WordsyWoman
1y ago
In Hannah’s War, Jan Eliasberg, uses two mysteries from World War II – the woman who discovered nuclear fission and why the Germans never developed an atomic bomb – to create her own story of explanation. Both events led to the war’s conclusion to some degree – at least part of the motivation to create the atomic bomb was due to fear that the Germans were developing one, and the atomic bomb wouldn’t have been possible without nuclear fission. Jack has been assigned to find the spy in their midst who’s suspected of collaborating with the Germans, and like with any good spy story, he finds and ..read more
Visit website
BEFORE WE WERE YOURS by Lisa Wingate
Author Jodie Toohey
by WordsyWoman
1y ago
Before We Were Yours is another title that came to me via my fellow-historical-fiction-loving aunt. It’s a multi-period novel involving main characters Avery Stafford in the present and May/Rill around 1939. The mystery of the story is how they (and other characters) are related. This book started off strong and pulled me right in. The Rill/May character seemed to me to have a more unique voice, but since hers was a child viewpoint, this might be expected. Avery’s sections seemed a bit too Nicolas Sparksesque, romance novely for my taste, and that part of the story was predicta ..read more
Visit website
THE SECRETS OF HEAVENLY by Teresa Robison
Author Jodie Toohey
by WordsyWoman
1y ago
The Secrets of Heavenly tells the story of main character, Willa, as a slave until almost a decade prior to the civil war, through hers and other characters’ points of view. The story takes place from 1842 to 1852 and hints to the impending end of slavery as newer generations blur the lines between master and friend and slowly turn against it. I imagine this is how abolitionism in the south might have evolved. The story is good and seems to realistically depict slavery, as much as I can imagine of course. There were several typos and punctuation errors in the book, but since the story wa ..read more
Visit website
SOME LUCK by Jane Smiley
Author Jodie Toohey
by WordsyWoman
1y ago
Jane Smiley is a fellow Iowan and I’d always meant to read her books but hadn’t had the chance. While browsing cheap books at the online book outlet store, I stumbled across Some Luck and ordered it. Right away I could tell Some Luck was going to be different from other books I’d read as early in the book, Smiley includes a chapter told from an infant’s point of view. The book is also different in that each chapter is one year; I wondered if this may have signified there would be more telling than showing, but it didn’t. The book still tells an engaging story, ev ..read more
Visit website
QUEEN OF AMERICA by Luis Alberto Urrea
Author Jodie Toohey
by WordsyWoman
1y ago
When Luis Alberto Urrea was appearing as a keynote speaker at a conference for an organization I volunteer with (mwcqc.org) in June of 2017, I read his The Humminbird’s Daughter. I enjoyed it so read the sequel, Queen of America. Since it had been several months since I read the first book in the series, I greatly appreciated the Prologue which reminded me of what happened in the first book and brought me up-to-date in a natural way. The story starts in 1900, picking up where the previous book left off and following the rest of Teresita’s life in America. It’s one answer to the ques ..read more
Visit website
ORPHAN TRAIN by Christina Baker Kline
Author Jodie Toohey
by WordsyWoman
1y ago
This is another book that came to me courtesy of my fellow historical-fiction-loving aunt. She read it, and thinking I would enjoy it, loaned it to me. She was correct. Orphan Train is one of several books written about the practice of transporting orphaned children from New York City to the Midwest for adoption. Though the book was characterized as literary fiction, it read more like a young adult book to me. That isn’t saying anything against the story, however. There is a strong element of mystery throughout the story as I wondered how Niamh went from being an orphan to owning a store ..read more
Visit website
GRAND CENTRAL: ORIGINAL STORIES OF POSTWAR LOVE AND REUNION by Various Authors
Author Jodie Toohey
by WordsyWoman
1y ago
Photo from Amazon I purchased Grand Central: Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion after reading Diy MFA by Gabriela Pereira because she suggests reading short stories in your genre. Though the subtitle states the stories are about postwar love and reunion, don’t expect all mushy, happy-ending stories. In many cases, the stories are heart breaking and don’t involve the typical reunion of separated lovers as you might expect. Sometimes the reunion is with something or someone entirely different.  The stories in Grand Central take place after World War ..read more
Visit website
LINES by Geralyn Hesslau Macgrady
Author Jodie Toohey
by WordsyWoman
1y ago
Photo from Amazon Geralyn Heslau Macgrady, winner of the Soon to Be Famous (TM) Illinois Author Project, was a co-panelist with me and some other authors/publishers at the Galena (IL) Lit Fest in January 2016. Due to my love of historical fiction and Chicago, I purchased Geralyn’s novel, Lines, set in 1871 prior, during, and after the great fire. Lines is a story of love, loss, and how humans often are required to surrender to unforeseen circumstances, particularly in the last quarter of the 19th century, where family obligations were different, especially the tradition of marrying y ..read more
Visit website
THE GHOST IN THE LITTLE HOUSE by William Holtz
Author Jodie Toohey
by WordsyWoman
1y ago
Photo from Amazon I purchased The Ghost in the Little House: A Life of Rose Wilder Lane by William Holtz during my visit to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Rocky Ridge Farm homesite in Mansfield, Missouri. Of course, I knew that Rose was Laura’s only surviving child, was an author on her own, and more well-known at the time her mother started writing, but most of what I’ve read about her was through the lens of her mother’s eyes, so I was interested in a book that focused on her as her own person. The Ghost in the Little House is a detailed chronical of Rose Wilder Lane’s life from essen ..read more
Visit website

Follow Author Jodie Toohey on FeedSpot

Continue with Google
Continue with Apple
OR