Category: General Fiction

Title: The Peacock Feast

Author: Lisa Gornick

Publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Sarah Crichton Books)

Rating: 3/5 ***

Release Date: February 5th, 2019

A big thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review

The Goodreads summary reads as follows:

The Peacock Feast opens on a June day in 1916 when Louis C. Tiffany, the eccentric glass genius, dynamites the breakwater at Laurelton Hall—his fantastical Oyster Bay mansion, with columns capped by brilliant ceramic blossoms and a smokestack hidden in a blue-banded minaret—so as to foil the town from reclaiming the beach for public use. The explosion shakes both the apple crate where Prudence, the daughter of Tiffany’s prized gardener, is sleeping and the rocks where Randall, her seven-year-old brother, is playing.

Nearly a century later, Prudence receives an unexpected visit at her New York apartment from Grace, a hospice nurse and the granddaughter of Randall, who Prudence never saw again after hcre left at age fourteen for California. The mementos Grace carries from her grandfather’s house stir Prudence’s long-repressed memories and bring her to a new understanding of the choices she made in work and love, and what she faces now in her final days.

The plot/characters:

Prudence is able to perform a life review and find validation through Grace. We hear the stories about Tiffany and the satellite characters in his life; quite an unflattering portrayal but he was such a bizarre character! We learn about Randall’s side of the family from Grace: the adventures of his dysfunctional son, the also slightly dysfunctional grandchildren, and all of those family members. Honestly there were too many characters, I had to draw a family tree and make a separate list of who was who. It was hard to keep track of Tiffany’s friends, cohorts, and employees the most. I also don’t feel like bringing the Freud’s in did much for the story. There is no grand overarching plot that I can discern but the themes carry the book across generations.

The Themes:

The grand theme throughout the book could be adapting to and accepting grief, death, and reconciliation with your life choices. These themes appeared across and united all of the story lines. Grace, the great-niece and hospice nurse, was the shining star of this book for me due to her breathtakingly accurate descriptions of her career. Even as an ICU nurse I can appreciate her ongoing assessment of everyone’s health. I would almost think Gornick is or was a nurse! Outside of Grace, the book had solid but generally unimpressive writing and descriptions.

Other Random Bits and Wrap up:

It was very cool that Anais Nin got a mention. My dad reviewed a few of her books and had ongoing correspondence with her. She was a lovely and under-hyped writer. I thought Anna Freud was going to uncover Prudence’s memory but she really had no main role. Overall the book did have some interesting parts, but other times it was hard to stick with, depending on what story lines one enjoyed most.

I gave it 3/5 stars and would recommend to fans of general fiction, any design gurus, quite a few nurses would enjoy it as well! Thank you again to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy!

Title: Turning Point

Author: Danielle Steel

Length: 288 pages

Release date: 1/8/19

Rating: 4/5 stars

First off, a huge thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, for the eARC of Turning Point in exchange for an honest review! I normally love Danielle Steel and was not let down by her current effort!

The Amazon description reads:

In Danielle Steel’s powerful new novel, four trauma doctors—the best and brightest in their field—confront exciting new challenges, both personally and professionally, when given an unusual opportunity.

Bill Browning heads the trauma unit at San Francisco’s busiest emergency room, SF General. With his ex-wife and daughters in London, he immerses himself in his work and lives for rare visits with his children. A rising star at her teaching hospital, UCSF at Mission Bay, Stephanie Lawrence has two young sons, a frustrated stay-at-home husband, and not enough time for any of them. Harvard-educated Wendy Jones is a dedicated trauma doctor at Stanford, trapped in a dead-end relationship with a married cardiac surgeon. And Tom Wylie’s popularity with women rivals the superb medical skills he employs at his Oakland medical center, but he refuses to let anyone get too close, determined to remain unattached forever.

These exceptional doctors are chosen for an honor and a unique project: to work with their counterparts in Paris in a mass-casualty training program. As professionals, they will gain invaluable knowledge from the program. As ordinary men and women, they will find that the City of Light opens up incredible new possibilities, exhilarating, enticing, and frightening.

When an unspeakable act of mass violence galvanizes them into action, their temporary life in Paris becomes a stark turning point: a time to face harder choices than they have ever made before—with consequences that will last a lifetime.

At first I thought that keeping track of eight characters would be confusing, but it really was not. Each character got equal time in the novel and although it hopped around a lot, the style kept the pace moving right along. The doctors are eight very different people that end up bonding and becoming friends over common interests and the terrible tragedy in Paris. Those relationships and blooming romances are the primary focus of the novel, although thankfully for my tastes the romance is a small portion and not overdone.

Dealing with work-life balance is difficult, I am a nurse and know how hard it can be. The characters face realistic and relate-able issues while juggling family, kids and career goals. The plot just kept moving along, using these struggles, relationships and tragic events as hooks that kept me engaged for the entire read. I found it to be a fairly quick book but thoroughly enjoyed it.

Overall I give this a solid 4/5 stars and would not hesitate to recommend to anyone who likes Danielle Steel, women’s fiction, anyone who can relate to the work vs. life struggle, and anyone looking for a good book in general.

Title: The Rain Watcher

Author: Tatiana de Rosnay

Release date: 10/30/18

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Length: 240pages

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the free eARC in exchange for an honest review!

This is the story of the Malegarde family, told through Paul(the father)’s written account and Linden(the son)’s memories. There is a terrible flood in Paris where the core of the family is convened for Paul’s birthday. As the waters rise, so does the tension as the family deals with illness, tragedy, and coming to terms with past traumas.

Once I figured out the flow of who was narrating at what time, this became a lovely read. Paul’s voice is so unique, here is a brief quote just because I love it:

” I played with the trees. They were like living things to me, as alive as humans. They seemed to whisper secrets. Maybe I was the only one who heard them . Trees were at the heart of things. I was four years old, but I sensed that already.” – from Paul’s transcript.

While I was not fully engaged in the story at times, the writing is truly beautiful. Linden’s descriptions of people, places, and the flood are amazingly vivid. I would have enjoyed the story more if I knew Paris – I skimmed some of the tales about the city but I could see French people truly loving this book.

The characters are very real, well developed, and likeable. Each Malegarde faces and comes to terms with a past or present trauma in the novel. The dialogue is also very well done except some times the book switches from conversation to a third person telling, right in the middle.

As a nurse I also really liked the hospital evacuation scenes, how cool would it be to work disaster relief!

I would 100% recommend this to anyone with even a vague knowledge of Paris, lovers of language, and a good fiction. 4/5 stars only because the author lost me at times in the pages of stories!