Real quick! Before I get started with the actual post, I just wanted to drop in and mention that if after reading this post you decided to purchase any of these titles I ask that you consider doing so through the affiliate links provided. Doing so will not increase the cost of the book to you, and it is a tangible way you can support and help me be able to keep bringing you these posts each week! Thanks in advance, and now- on to the good stuff!
The Shape of Mercy
This was the first book I read by Ms. Meissner and it is about one of my favorite time periods—the Salem Witch trials!
Lauren wants to make her own way in the world; she does not want to rely on her family’s wealth and connections to cushion her life. This leads Lauren to take a job from 83-year-old Abigail Boyles transcribing journal entries of one of Abigail’s ancestors—a victim of the Salem Witch—Mercy Hayworth.
As Lauren starts to transcribe the journal entries, she finds herself enraptured with Mercy’s life. Lauren also realizes that the secrets contained in Mercy’s journal are still playing a part in Abigail’s life today. Lauren also realizes that she may, in a subtler way, be doing some of the same things that the accusers did to Mercy, to the people in her own life. How will she respond moving forward?
Secrets of a Charmed Life
Emily has dreams of becoming a wedding dress designer, a dream she is actively pursuing at the age of 15 when she lands a job in a local wedding dress shop. However, such dreams may have to wait as World War II is underway and Britain has come under attack with threats of bombing from Germany. Still being underage, Emily and her seven-year-old little sister, Julia, are sent to live in the country. This means Emily has to leave her job at the wedding dressmakers, which she is loath to do.
One day Emily receives a letter from her old boss inviting her to come to London to meet her boss’s brother who is a well-known costume designer and who may be willing to tutor Emily and enormously enhance her career opportunities. Emily determines to sneak away from this house in the country in the middle of the night to make this meeting—but problems arise when Julia discovers her plans and threatens to give Emily away, unless Emily takes Julia with her.
Having made their way back to England, Emily leaves Julia in their mother’s flat while she goes to her meeting. Part way through her meeting the blitz starts. Emily is frantic to get back to Julia but it is not easy to make way through a city being riddled with bombs. When Emily at last gets back to their flat, Julia is gone. Will they both make it through the blitz and will they ever be reunited again?
In America we remember the shortages and rationing those on the home front were forced to practice but the Brits had it far worse. Imagine sending away your child for their safely in a time of war not knowing if you would ever see them again, not knowing who you would lose in the nightly bombings. This novel brought to my attention more of the destruction of Britain than I ever gave thought to.
As Bright as Heaven
I devoted a whole post to this book, read As Bright As Heaven here, but to give you an overview, this is about a family who moves to Philadelphia right before the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918. The father has just taken a job working in his uncle’s mortuary. Then the influenza comes to their town. They are overwhelmed with the dead, dying and the ill people. It is hard to walk the line between caring for the ill and keeping themselves safe. The main character, young Maggie, and her mother try to do their part and go out delivering food to some of the people their town. It is on one of these excursions that Maggie finds an abandoned baby boy and falls in love; she wants him to replace the infant brother the family lost just before they moved. But this infant may not be as abandoned as Maggie first thought…. Will the past come back to haunt them?
As well as being a compelling story, I enjoyed the unique look at the 1918 influenza as told from the point of view of the undertaker’s family. It is so easy, when we look at past events such as this, to focus on the horrific loss of life, but we sometimes forget to look at the horrific events that the living had to endure during the same time.
The Nature of Fragile Things
The Nature of Fragile Things centers around the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. As the book opens, the main character, Sophie, is being interrogated by the U.S. Marshall concerning the whereabouts of her husband who has been missing since the day of the earthquake. The Marshall wants to know why Sophie waited so long to go to the police about her missing husband—what kind of wife waits six weeks to report that her husband is missing?
Sophie is an immigrant from Ireland, turned mail order bride. She answers an advertisement that a widower is in need of a wife to help him raise his young daughter. Sophie goes, excited to be a loving mother to young Cat, but things don’t seem quite right with her new husband. Sophie writes off his reticence as he is still grieving the loss of his late wife but as more and more things begin to surface Sophie finds it hard to ignore all of these things… . Moreover, Sophie is afraid that her husband’s secrets could be the undoing of her own secrets that she desperately wants to keep hidden.
I have always enjoyed the books I have read by Susan Meissner but this one pulled me into the story exceptionally quickly and held my interest! Over the years I have read a little about the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 but this book was a good peak into what life really looked like for the people living there in the days immediately following the quake.