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From goodreads.com
A Name Unknown (Shadows Over England #1)
by Roseanna M.
White (Goodreads Author)
Rosemary Gresham has no family beyond the band of former urchins that helped her survive as a girl in the mean streets of London. Grown now, they concentrate on stealing high-value items and have learned how to blend into upper-class society. But when Rosemary must determine whether a certain wealthy gentleman is loyal to Britain or to Germany, she is in for the challenge of a lifetime. How does one steal a family's history, their very name?
Peter Holstein, given his family's German blood, writes his popular series of adventure novels under a pen name. With European politics boiling and his own neighbors suspicious of him, Peter debates whether it might be best to change his name for good. When Rosemary shows up at his door pretending to be a historian and offering to help him trace his family history, his question might be answered.
But as the two work together and Rosemary sees his gracious reaction to his neighbors' scornful attacks, she wonders if her assignment is going down the wrong path. Is it too late to help him prove that he's more than his name?
Leona's
Review:
I have enjoyed
Roseanna White's books and A Name Unknown was no exception.
When Rosemary is
offered a lot of money from Mr. V to find information that Peter Holstein is not
loyal to England. She knows this amount of money could help her "family" of
street thieves find a real home and a place the young children could go to
school. Peter's family is German and this is the beginning of talk of a war with
Germany in 1914.
She pretends to be
a librarian that will organize Peter's vast collection of books and is hired for
the job.
Unknown to her,
Peter is an author under another name. She wonders what he is doing daily at his
typewriter.
The author has
named a number of books in Peter's collection which includes Melville's Moby
Dick. Rosemary was not impressed about a book which is about a whale so she
chose a book that was written by Peter in his pen name not knowing he was the
author.
A young girl in
Rosemary's "family" was badly injured when she is pushed into the road and a
horse drawn carriage hits and seriously injures her.
Peter is very
religious and throughout the book the reader will see references to God and
Jesus. Rosemary asks Peter if he will pray for Olivia as she said "Perhaps God
will listen to you" and the meaning being "because he never listens to me."
Historical names
such as Queen Victoria, King George, Prince Edward, Winston Churchill, Conan
Doyle and Martin Luther are in the book. This book had many historical facts and
for those who want to learn something of the hardships of the poor, the problem
with having a German name in pre-war times and friendship this is a good read
that is full of mystery and a lot of history.
It is a clean
Christian book.
I received a
complimentary copy of A Name Unknown from Bethany House. The opinions are my
own.
It gets a 5 star
rating.
The reader may
find Roseanna M. White at www.roseannawhite.com
Leona
Olson
From the site of Aviva Orr:
When fifteen-year-old Heather Jane Bell is diagnosed with alopecia and her hair starts falling out in clumps, she wants nothing more than to escape her home in London and disappear off the face of the earth.
Heather gets her wish when her concerned parents send her to stay with her great-aunt in West Yorkshire. But shortly after she arrives, she becomes lost on the moors and is swept through the mist back to the year 1833. There she encounters fifteen-year-old Emily Brontë and is given refuge in the Brontë Parsonage.
Unaware of her host family’s genius and future fame, Heather struggles to cope with alopecia amongst strangers in a world completely foreign to her. While Heather finds comfort and strength in her growing friendship with Emily and in the embrace of the close-knit Brontë family, her emotions are stretched to the limit when she falls for Emily’s brilliant but troubled brother, Branwell.
Will Heather return to the comforts and conveniences of the twenty-first century? Or will she choose love and remain in the harsh world of nineteenth-century Haworth?
My review:
The Mist on Bronte Moor by Aviva Orr
I enjoyed this book about a 15 year old student who has alopecia, loss of hair. Heather Jane Bell does not want to go back to school so her parents send her to live with her Great-Aunt Elspeth in West Yorkshire. Heather takes a train from London to live in her new home.
Heather is taken back in time when she enters a mist. She is "found" by Emily and taken to the Bronte home. It takes Heather awhile to find she has gone back to the 19th century to 1833. The clothing is different as well as the home which is where there is no electricity and no indoor plumbing. The Brontes take her in and give her dress and food. Mr. Bronte said he would find her family or send her to an orphanage. He has to go out of town and Heather stays in the house.
The family consists of Mr. Bronte, Branwell, Emily, Charlotte, Anne and Mr. Bronte's sister, Elizabeth. The housekeeper is Tabby, or Tabitha, as Elizabeth Bronte calls her. Emily tells Heather her sisters are buried in the churchyard and "my mother lies in the church under the stone floor". They live in the town of Haworth.
I really liked this book as it has a lot of history about the time period and the Brontes. I did not realize there was a brother called, Branwell who had a problem with lanthanum.
Read to enjoy and go back in to another time era. A good read for young people as the facts hold true such as children dying at a young age. I especially liked it when Tabby had Heather wash her own muddy clothes.
At the beginning of each chapter there is part of a poem written by E. J. Bronte.
Chapter 7:
" And first and hour of mournful musing,
And then a gush of bitter tears,
And then a dreary calm diffusing
Its deadly mist o'er joys and cares:"
Chapter 10:
"Will the day be bright or cloudy?
Sweetly has its dawn begun;
But the heaven may shake with thunder
Ere the setting of the sun"
On a personal note about loss of hair. As an adult who has lost most of her of hair on top of her head because of a thyroid condition and unhappy, I can imagine a 15 year old and how devastated she would be.
I downloaded this book from Amazon. I give it a 5 star because it held my interest. Not a very complicated book but a good read. No bad language.
You may find Aviva Orr at www.avivaorr.com
Leona Olson
www.mnleona.blogspot.com (