Marcia M

We know the main characters--Anne Morrow and Colonel Charles Lindbergh. We learn more about the highs and lows of their complicated marriage at the hand of Melanie Benjamin in this far-reaching historical fiction story spanning the late 1920s to the mid 1960s. Excellent reading experience that now has me searching out more about this couple--especially Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

Having heard so much about Gail Tsukiyama's writing, I was very excited to receive this ARC of A Hundred Flowers. I really wanted to like this story set in the China of 1957; but alas, my excitement faded as I plodded through this book. I never really connected to these characters, and I felt these characters never really connected to (or convinced me about) the social horrors going on around them. Perhaps this was not just the right time for me and this book to meet. For now, I'll put in in the "have to reread" this pile. Maybe I'll get it the second time through.

I really wanted to like this book; after all, my favorite cover icon (an adirondack chair) is right there…on a dock…at sunset. However, I just couldn't warm up to this cast of self-absorbed characters and all of their various past loves and past lives.

There were two quote snippets that summed things up for me. The first, "Oh well, what's the point of having a heart, if you're not going to use it?," made me wonder why these characters were always mistaking their heads for their hearts. The second (found very near the end of the book), "I wish we stopped turning everything we say indisde out...Turning each other inside out," made me wonder why one of them hadn't thought of this sooner.

There were small, setting-related details of the story that I found very touching; but overall, this book fell a little short of hitting my reading bliss spot.

In The House of Velvet and Glass author Katherine Howe takes readers back to the early 1900s of Boston and, as further background, to the opium dens of China in the late 1800s. Readers travel through the eyes, thoughts, and actions of Sibyl Allston as she learns truths about her family and deals with the ever-changing reality of a new century--all in the tragic shadow of the sinking of the Titanic.

This reading experience, for me, started slowly. It took a good 100 pages to become invested in these characters and their stories. There were times that I wanted the story to just move along; other times, I loved the long, descriptive paragraphs that put me right into the front parlor of a Beacon Hill mansion.

All in all, I rate this a solidly positive reading experience, and I thank the First Impressions program at BookBrowse for making the ARC of The House of Velvet and Glass available to me.