Saturday Review of Books: The Silent Governess

I had read at least one other book by Julie Klassen, so when I saw The Silent Governess at my local public library, I was excited to read it.

I wasn't disappointed. The book begins with the heroine in a desperate plight, and the tale never loses the reader's interest.

Olivia Keene is a lovely, gracious and sympathetic heroine, and Edward is an attractive but subtle love interest.

This summary from amazon.com:

"When Olivia Keene arrives home to find her father strangling her mother, she picks up the nearest blunt object and bashes him on the head. Fearing that she will be charged with murder, Olivia, with her mother’s help, flees. While en route to a potential position with an old friend of her mother’s, Olivia finds herself caught up in a series of dangerous adventures culminating in her arrival at Brightwell Court, where she accidentally eavesdrops on a conversation between Lord Edward Stanton Bradley and his father, the Earl..."

Initially speechless due to an injury, Edward hires Olivia to help in the nursery, but demands she remain silent about what she knows, even when her speech returns.

This story has fully enough romance, suspense, and Gothic atmosphere to please any Jane Eyre fan, and I am certainly that!

One of the many things I love about Julie Klassen's writing is that her characters AND her narrative have a voice that's authentic to the period she's writing about. You won't find Klassen's 19th-century characters poppping up with any modern-day slang, and not only the dialogue, but the narration, use language befitting the era.

Klassen also seems to find a way to put an extra twist or two into the story to make sure it's not a cookie-cutter tale.

This is the perfect book to snuggle up with on a chilly fall evening with a cup of hot tea or cider. I highly recommend it!

To participate in Semicolon's Saturday Review of Books, click on the icon!

Club Sandwich: My 2005 Interview with Lisa Samson

Lisa Samson is one of my favorite writers, and I had the pleasure of interviewing her a handful of times during my radio career.

In June 2005, Lisa was promoting her then-latest book, Club Sandwich.

If you've never read anything by Lisa Samson, you must. Her books are infused with a quirky humor, fresh originality and disarming transparency. She is definitely one of the most authentic voices in Christian fiction, and her books are always immensely readable and engaging.

Go here to read my 2005 interview with Lisa Samson.

Flashback: My 2005 Review of Liz Curtis Higgs' Whence Came a Prince

"Higgs' sensitive empathy with her characters brings them to life and makes us feel their pain, their joy, their faith, transporting us into their world to the point that we're sad when the story is over and we have to close the book"

Continuing my practice of flashing back to my reviews and interviews about some older, but still perfectly worthy books....

I've already posted here my interview with Liz Curtis Higgs about the first two books in her Lowlands of Scotland series, Thorn in My Heart and Fair is the Rose,so you know I'm a huge fan of this amazing author.

In April 2005, I reviewed the third book in the series, Whence Came a Prince.

Go here to read my review of this wonderful book.

Do you participate in the Saturday Review of Books?

To be honest, I haven't yet, but I'm going to!

Sherry's Semicolon blog is one I've been following for years. She posted this about her Saturday Review:

If you’re not familiar with and linking to and perusing the Saturday Review of Books here at Semicolon, you’re missing out. Here’s how it usually works. Find a review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week of a book you were reading or a book you’ve read. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can just write your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review.

Go here to read more about Semicolon's Saturday Review of Books.

I plan to start participating in the review myself. As Sherry says, "After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read."

What a great idea!

I'm going to go ahead and link to the Saturday review to let others know about this book blog...if you're followed the link here, scroll down and enjoy some of my flashbacks to older reviews and author interviews.

Flashback: My 2004 review of The Poisonwood Bible

"...as far as Christian missionaries go, I've had a great deal of experience with them. The vast majority are gentle, sacrificing souls who have devoted their lives to bringing Christ's love to others. They have done an immeasurable amount of good, much of which will endure for eternity, and they are true heroes of the faith, in my opinion." --from my review of The Poisonwood Bible

I rarely publicly review secular books, although I read plenty of them. However, The Poisonwood Bible struck a nerve with me, and I felt a strong urge to respond to the book.

It had already been out for quite some time by the time a read the book by Barbara Kingsolver, and while I found it fascinating and Kingsolver a truly gifted writer, I had serious problems with the book.

You can read my review of the book here, and read reactions to the review here.

Tagged: 15 Authors in 15 Minutes

My friend Linda tagged me on Facebook with something titled "15 Authors in 15 Minutes." I'm assuming this is supposed to be a list of 15 of my favorite authors, so here goes!

By the way, I'm going to be doing this completely off the top of my head, in no prticular order...

1. Charlotte Bronte--Jane Eyre is my second favorite book of all time, after the Bible.


This is the cover of the paperback of Jane Eyre that I wore out in high school and college

2. Emily Bronte--for Wuthering Heights, of course.

3. Jane Austen--mainly for Pride and Prejudice, but I've read most, if not all, of her other books. (Interestingly, Charlotte Bronte couldn't stand Jane Austen's writing!)


A scene from the 2005 film version of Pride and Prejudice

4. Charles Dickens--mainly for Great Expectations, but he's pretty much incomparable.

5. C.S. Lewis--first fell in love with the Chronicles of Narnia, but love everything else I've read by him.



6. Rosamunde Pilcher--she just has a way of making you completely at home in her stories.

7. Maeve Binchy--ditto.

8. Mary Stewart--for everything she ever wrote, except for her Merlin books, which I never read.


One of my favorite Mary Stewart books, which deftly combined suspense and romance in breathtaking settings

9. Victoria Holt--AKA Elinor Hibbert, Jean Plaidy, Philippa Carr--yep, I'm not real sophisticated. I loved these books as a teen, and they were romantic and suspenseful without being offensive.

10. Francine Rivers--for everything she's written, and I've read all of it.

11. Jane Kirkpatrick--her beautiful writing transcends the limits of Christian fiction.

12. Liz Curtis Higgs--ditto.

13. Madeleine Brent--I devoured "her" books as a teen, not realizing that Madeleine Brent was a pen-name for an author who was actually--a dude!

14. Agatha Christie--I went on a spree of reading her books several years ago, and now I don't remember which ones I have and haven't read...bummer.

15. B. J. Hoff--especially for her Emerald Ballad series, which made Irish history come alive for me.

Flashback: An interview with the inimitable Liz Curtis Higgs

When I did a radio interview with Liz Curtis Higgs in March 2004, she had already written two very engaging contemporary novels, and was now launching into an amazing venture into historical fiction that would keep going for quite some time.

When I first started reading Thorn in My Heart, it didn't take long for me to think, "OK...wait a minute...this story sounds VERY familiar."

Who but Liz Curtis Higgs would think to set the story of Jacob, Leah and Rachel in 18th-century Scotland? And not only make it work, but make it riveting?

Go here to read my interview with Liz, and go here to find out all about her and catch up with the many wonderful books she's written since then.