Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Holliday, by Matthew Di Paoli (ends 7/30)

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

In Tombstone, the leaves had all turned canary, complementing the grass, which had burnt beige. Evergreens swayed in the distance, and the mountains loomed ash and golden like the clouds. It was mid-October and the weather finally dropped below eighty. The rotten stench of politics lingered in the air as Garfield made his final push against Hancock. Doc never voted because he always felt like he lost no matter who got elected. Still, he admired Garfield’s beard. It reminded him of a fashionable lady’s pubis.

Having been released under Wyatt’s supervision, Doc decided to pay Joyce a visit on his sickbed. He was holed up with his wife and a doctor in his house. Outside teetered a curlicue metal fence that Joyce had probably built himself. From his craftsmanship, thought Doc, it wouldn’t matter much if he had one hand or two. Doc could see Joyce on the bed through the dirt-caked window, so he climbed over the knee-high fence and knocked on the glass.

John Henry Holliday never meant to be a legend. He just was doing what he needed to do to get by while he searched for the miraculous fountain that would cure him of consumption.

Official synopsis:

Holliday follows the infamous 1880s gambler, dentist, and gunslinger, Doc Holliday. From the outset, Doc has been diagnosed with tuberculosis and is told to head to dryer climates and imbibe to prolong his life. He has also heard of a spring located somewhere along the frontier that could cure him—what he believes to be the mythical Fountain of Youth. The novel portrays Holliday as a rock star, a living legend, increasingly hounded by paparazzi, enamored by death, cards, booze, and women. Doc is a mixture of Clint Eastwood and Jim Morrison, and though he is able to help his friend, Wyatt Earp, exact revenge, his condition worsens, traveling from Arizona to Denver, and finally dying in a sanatorium in Colorado with his boots off. A slow and unfitting end for such a bombastic outlaw.

This was such an interesting read! The story starts some time after Doc Holliday left his childhood home in Georgia, where he buried his mother and caught the same consumption which killed her. His father, new step-mother, and love Mattie remained, but Doc was told to go to a hot, dry climate, and he hoped to find the fountain that could cure him. 

The author, in a unique twist, offers delightfully varied musical selections intended to go with each short chapter of the story. And his musical tastes sound pretty varied: Nine Inch Nails, The Killers, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Modest Mouse, The Pixies, and Kings of Leon, just to name a few. While the music is definitely a great addition, the book is obviously readable without it, too.

Overall, the story and the way it was told were engaging and entertaining, which was also enhanced with lots of potentially recognizable side characters. The book earned a high 3 out of 5 stars and would be enjoyed by those who like westerns and history from the era.

{click here to purchase via Amazon Affiliates link}

Becki Bayley is a wife, mom and theatre supporter Some of her favorite (non-musical) shows have included Radium Girls, Ashland Falls, and She Kills Monsters. See what else she’s been up to on Instagram, where she posts as SweetlyBSquared.

GIVEAWAY:

One of my lucky readers will win a copy of Holliday!

Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Tuesday, July 30th, at 11:59pm ET, and winner will be notified via email the next day and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen.

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

Holliday, by Matthew Di Paoli

Book Review and GIVEAWAY: The Radcliffe Ladies' Reading Club, by Julia Bryan Thomas (ends 7/24)

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

During her weeks at home, Merritt thought a great deal about book club and Alice Campbell, whom she had already come to admire. It was a daring and exciting prospect to have a business of one’s own, especially a bookshop. It seemed an ideal place to work. Merritt daydreamed about it from time to time, having no idea what she would eventually do with her life. She loved painting and drawing and was in fact good at it, but her passion for art couldn’t possibly support her and it was time to think seriously about what she could do that might. The alternative was succumbing to the pressure to get married and start a family. Personally, she was somewhere on the spectrum between Evie and Tess: not boy crazy like the former, but not impervious to love like the latter. However, she was certain of one thing: she was not ready to settle down with one man and raise his children, certainly not before she was twenty years old.

Tess, Caroline, Evie, and Merritt quickly became a pretty tight-knit group when they arrived in their adjoining rooms at Radcliffe, but they soon discovered there may be more differences than similarities between them, except for their privilege in attending college as women.

Official synopsis:

Massachusetts, 1954. With bags packed alongside her heavy heart, Alice Campbell escaped halfway across the country and found herself in front of a derelict building tucked among the cobblestone streets of Cambridge. She turns it into the enchanting bookshop of her dreams, knowing firsthand the power of books to comfort the brokenhearted.

The Cambridge Bookshop soon becomes a haven for Tess, Caroline, Evie, and Merritt, who are all navigating the struggles of being newly independent college women in a world that seems to want to keep them in the kitchen. But when a member of the group finds herself shattered, everything they know about themselves will be called into question.

When Tess enters Alice Campbell’s bookshop and grabs the flyer for her new fall book club, the new members don’t know how much Alice’s thought-provoking book choices will help the girls discover more about who they are and want to be. Whether the four new friends join to be a part of the group and belong, or to actually enjoy literature they may never have been exposed to at their childhood homes, there are always lessons to be learned from the books and from their relationships with the other girls and Alice.

Christmas break is what really precipitates the changes in the girls; either through going home and getting a reminder of where they’re from and who they were, or through the traumatic event for one of the girls that will soon affect them all. The book became an irresistible page-turner once everything started changing after their holiday break.

This story would be best enjoyed by those who enjoy reading about the evolution of women’s rights and experiences in the 1950s, as well as a classic story about a book store, which is always loved by so many readers. The book earned 3 out of 5 stars and would be a fun and distracting summer read as well.

{click here to purchase via Amazon Affiliates link - 35% off this week due to Prime Day/Week!}

Becki Bayley enjoys quiet, new cocktails, time to relax, and accomplishing items on her to-do list. See some of her adventures on Instagram, where she posts as SweetlyBSquared.

GIVEAWAY:

One of my lucky readers will win a copy of The Radcliffe Ladies' Reading Club!

Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Wednesday, July 25th, at 11:59pm ET, and winner will be contacted the next day via email and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen.

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

The Radcliffe Ladies' Reading Club, by Julia Bryan Thomas

Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Jackie, by Dawn Tripp {ends 7/22}

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

We talk about Eleanor Roosevelt’s funeral the week before. I mention the piece I read by James Baldwin in The New Yorker, “Letter From a Region of My Mind.” We talk about Thanksgiving plans, the children’s birthday parties, Palm Beach at Christmas. We talk about the opening of the Mona Lisa at the National Gallery in January. Jack laughs when I tell him that, every night, I dream of that painting heading toward us across the Atlantic.

The evening air is cool against my face. I’ve found a piece of land where we can build in Middleburg, Virginia, on Rattlesnake Mountain – acres of rolling hills and field, a dizzying stretch of expanse looking out outward the Blue Ridge Mountains.

“We have Glen Ora,” Jack says.

“We only rent that. This will be ours. The house will be modest, I promise.”

He rolls his eyes.

“And when it’s finished,” I say, “we’ll call it Wexford.” Wexford is the name of his family’s ancestral land in Ireland. I can tell it makes him happy I’d suggest that.

Jackie was always true to herself.

Official synopsis:

The world has divided my life into three:

Life with Jack

Life with Onassis

Life as a woman who goes to work because she wants to.

My life is all of these things, and it is none of these things. They continue to miss what’s right in front of them. I love books. I love the sea. I love horses. Children. Art. Ideas. History. Beauty. Because beauty blows us open to wonder.

Even the beauty that breaks your heart.

Jackie is the story of a woman—deeply private with a nuanced, formidable intellect—who forged a legacy out of grief and shaped history even as she was living it. It is the story of a love affair, a complicated marriage, and the fracturing of identity that comes in the wake of unthinkable violence.

When Jackie meets the charismatic congressman Jack Kennedy in Georgetown, she is twenty-one and dreaming of France. She has won an internship at Vogue. Kennedy, she thinks, is not her kind of adventure: “Too American. Too good-looking. Too boy.” Yet she is drawn to his mind, his humor, his drive. The chemistry between them ignites. During the White House years, the love between two independent people deepens. Then, a motorcade in Dallas: “Three and a half seconds—that’s all it was—a slivered instant between the first shot, which missed the car, and the second, which did not. . . . A hypnotic burst of sunlight off her bracelet as she waved.”

This vivid, exquisitely written novel is at once a captivating work of the imagination and a window into the world of a woman who led many lives: Jackie, Jacks, Jacqueline, Miss Bouvier, Mrs. Kennedy, Jackie O.

Truly enjoyable historical fiction reads like fiction, with a cohesive plot and compelling character development, and facts blended into the entertainment. Jackie definitely fulfilled all of the criteria. Without necessarily knowing which anecdotes were factual and which were created from knowledge of Jackie’s life, everything led to the development of Jackie from a young single girl making monumental decisions about how her life would go, to marrying JFK and contributing her insights to his political career and presidency, to her marriage to Aristotle Onassis, and finally her choices to continue the path of her life as she wanted to, regardless of the public’s expectations based on her previous relationships and persona.

The story also gave a glimpse into other well-known figures, like Joe (JFK’s dad) and Bobby (his brother), as well as potential impressions of other historical figures like Martin Luther King Jr.’s family and the Clintons. Overall, the book was both educational and enjoyable and earned a high 4 out of 5 stars. The book would be a good read for history buffs or fans of fiction from the era.

{click here to purchase via Amazon Affiliate link}

Becki Bayley is a wife and mother who likes just getting by. Reading is a great way for her to relax and escape, without leaving home. Check out what she’s up to when not reading on Instagram, where she posts as SweetlyBSquared.

GIVEAWAY:

Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Monday, July 22nd, at 11:59pm ET, and the winner will be notified via email the next day, and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen.

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

Jackie, by Dawn Tripp