"Beyond the Valley" by Rita Gerlach~Completes the Trilogy

SUMMARY :
When Sarah Carr's husband Jamie drowns, her young life is shattered and takes a turn that she never expected. Pregnant and now widowed, she reaches out to Jamie's family for help but they are unwilling. Instead they devise a plan to have her kidnapped and taken to the Colonies to live a life of servitude.

In the wilds of Maryland, Sarah endures the hardships of being indentured and the debasement of being a woman. In despair, she offers up faithful prayers that are answered. But Sarah's new life in the Colonies finds her surrounded by a family's whirlwind of secrets, while she hopes the young doctor she loveswill bring her freedom.

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :
Published by:  Abingdon Press
Pages:  336
Genre:  Historical Fiction/Inspirational
Author:  Rita Gerlach
Find Out More:  Scarlet Dawn Series


THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

Having just finished the long-awaited final book in The Scarlet Dawn trilogy, I'm a little sad.  I fell in love with the characters of these books, as I said in my earlier reviews (the most recent one just last week).  Rita Gerlach has a gift for writing historical fiction.  She never fails to entertain, but more than that, she doesn't fail to bring a note of truth and spiritual warmth to her stories.  I always come away feeling better for having read one of her books.

In "Beyond the Valley" we find the conclusion and story behind Sarah, the quiet and gentle helper Eliza found for her time of need in "The Scarlet Dawn."  Sarah was always a character that touched my heart and left me guessing.  I was so delighted to know that Rita was going to resolve her story.

Sarah is a rich character with strengths that only a young woman whose life is centered on God can come to terms with.  Her kidnapping and enslavement, as well as her loss of a child could have made her bitter and angry to the point of self-destruction, but Gerlach shows us another way out of Sarah's
nightmarish predicaments.  It is her faith in a God that makes this heroine memorable. Despite every odd that says otherwise, Sarah has faith that God will provide for her and show her loved one the way to her. She is the greatest of Ms Gerlach's creations.

This is a series that I highly recommend for hours of very enlightening and heartwarming reading.  Rita Gerlach only gets better as the years go by.  Her writing ranks with the best of historical fiction authors.

Please find her books here:  Barnes & Noble  and Amazon

Wonderful books for the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons!


5 stars      Deborah/TheBookishDame


 

"Beside Two Rivers" by Rita Gerlach~Inspiring Historical Fiction

SUMMARY :  A tale of love won and love lost, and the faith to find it again.From the banks of the Potomac to the misty moors of England, Darcy follows a path where the secrets of the past slowly rise to the surface in this dramatic saga that began in Before the Scarlet Dawn. She meets Ethan Brennan, an aspiring English horse breeder, who embraces her independent spirit and marvels at the simplicity of her faith. Ethan and Darcy fall in love, but are kept apart by a promise to another and a sworn oath to a dying woman whose long-hidden secret threatens Darcy’s and Ethan’s lives.

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :
Published by:  Abingdon Press
Pages:  326 (Including Bookgroup questions & recipe)
Genre:  Historical fiction/Inspirational
Author:  Rita Gerlach
Series:  "The Daughters of the Potomac"  Book 2
Find out more:  Rita Gerlach

ABOUT MS GERLACH:

Rita Gerlach lives with her husband and two sons in a historical town nestled along the Catoctin Mountains, amid Civil War battlefields and Revolutionary War outposts in central Maryland.

She was born in Washington D.C. and grew up in a large family in the Maryland suburbs. Her family claims that storytelling is their blood, handed down from centuries of Irish storytellers. Rita believes there just may be something to that theory.

"Romantic historical fiction that has an inspirational bent, is one way people can escape the cares of life and be transported back to a time of raw courage and ideal love," she says. "The goal of my writing is to give readers a respite from a stressful world.."

In many of her stories, she writes about the struggles endured by early colonists, with a sprinkling of both American and English history. Currently she is writing a new historical series set in the Gilded Age.

A quote from Rita:

"Ever since I was old enough to read, I have loved books. That is why I write inspirational historical dramas.

Inside the pages of my novels you will find romance, stories about relationships, forgiveness, redemption, faith, and loyalty. Each character has good points, but they are also flawed human beings that make mistakes and fall hard, and at some point struggle through the adversity, dust themselves off and move on—reminders that God never forsakes us, especially in our most trying moments."


The Bookish Dame Reviews:
Rita Gerlach is the best of historical fiction writers who gives us a slice of Americana and inspirational story together.  She is a wonderful author of human relationships, and she's a solid storyteller.  Her books simply wrap me up from the first sentence and keep me reading far into the night.  I've come to love the characters she's invented in "The Daughters of the Potomac" series, as well as their great attachment to our country in its early years.  Her knowledge and application of scripture bolsters her story but never becomes intrusive in the plot and development.  I can't tell you how much I look forward to reading her books!

In "Beside Two Rivers" we find the daughter of the first star-crossed lovers of "Before the Scarlet Dawn" (reviewed here a year or more ago...please search!) grown up in America and wondering what happened to a father who abandoned her as a young child to his brother and family.  As far as she knows, her mother is dead, and she has no way of knowing if her father is, too.  Darcy is a strong willed and strong minded young woman who gains the attentions of a dashing young man from England who visits to find horse stock.  They fall in love and off goes the book! 

This is not a sappy romance novel, rather the romance is beautifully and well-defined within the historical novel.  Darcy's story helps round out the story of her parents who I came to love in the first book in this series.  A story of redemption and forgiveness, this  is told from the perspective of a child whose heart might have hardened in being injured and rejected, but whose faith and love caused her to rise above it.

Rita Gerlach's characters are so loveable and  fully developed that they linger in the heart and mind long after her books are read.  I've never forgotten Eliza, the main character of "Before the Scarlet Dawn," nor had I forgotten and stopped worrying about what happened to Darcy!  I can't wait to read the next book in this wonderful series....which I'm going to do right away.  I'll be reviewing "Beyond the Valley" asap!

These books are available in paperback or ebook.  Please do yourself a favor and get the whole series.  You won't want to stop after the first book.  I can guarantee that much!

5 stars             Deborah/TheBookishDame

A view of the Potomac River where Darcy loved to climb and watch...

"The Exceptions" by David Cristofano~Hypnotic!

SUMMARY :  From David Cristofano, the Edgar^® Award-nominated author of The Girl She Used to Be, comes a poignant, darkly witty story about the ties that bind us together . . . and the choices that rip us apart.

THE EXCEPTIONS

No loose ends. It's the Bovaro family motto. As part of the Bovaro clan, one of the most powerful and respected families in organized crime, Jonathan knows what he must do: take out Melody Grace McCartney, the woman whose testimony can lock up his father and disgrace his entire family. The only problem: he can't bring himself to do it.

Had Jonathan kept his silence, Melody and her parents would never have been identified and lured into the Witness Protection Program, able to run but never to hide. So he keeps her safe the only way he knows how-by vowing to clean up his own mess while acting as her shield.

But as he watches her take on another new identity in yet another new town, becoming a beautiful but broken woman, Jonathan can't get her out of his mind . . . or his heart. From the streets of Little Italy to a refuge that promises a fresh start, Jonathan will be forced to choose between the life he's always known, the destiny his family has carved out for him, and a future unlike anything he's ever imagined.

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :
Published by:  Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group
Pages:  465
Genre:  General Fiction
Author:  David Cristofanto
Find out more about the author here:  David Cristofano
Purchase the book:  Barnes and Noble
Available as Hardback & ebook


ABOUT MR. CRISTOFANO :

David Cristofano has earned degrees in Government & Politics and Computer Science from the University of Maryland at College Park and has worked for different branches of the Federal Government for over a decade. He currently works in the Washington, D.C. area where he lives with his wife, son and daughter.

 

 

THE DAME'S REVIEW :

 

Absolutely hypnotic book!  This is one that had me fixed in my recliner for the weekend and then when I wasn't, carrying the book around with me to the kitchen and pacing as I craved Italian food and the company of people on the North End of Boston. A rich and sumptuous read.  David Cristofano knows his mafia and his art.   He also seems to know a lot about the inner workings of the federal government.  He's a master writer of the highest caliber.

 

All the characters live and breathe in Mr. Cristofano's hands.  For instance, protagonist Jonathan Bovaro is no caricature of a mafia don's son, he's the living example of one caught between the "lifestyle" and wanting to be straight.  This is a character who exemplifies what it means to love and to be obsessed with wanting to do the right thing. I was spellbound by his sensitive ways, his counterbalance of the dark and light - rage and romance; love and hate; violence and tenderness.  David Cristofano takes us through the gamut of emotions in Jonathan Bovaro.  His life-long fixation on Melody, the young girl he inadvertently wronged as a child and caused to be held in the Witness Protection Program, is believable and staggering in its heart crushing realism.  Melody is also a complex character, a woman whose feelings and situation we can respond to.

 

I was set down in a places so readily available by "The Exceptions."  The homes, restaurants and streets of NY, NJ and surrounding states were made familiar as the story progressed.  The Bovaro territory became real.  Cristofano gave the Bovaro home a realism such that I could smell the foods, see the tables set for dinner, hear and see the conversations of the mafia men as they gathered apart from their families at mealtimes, and I could place myself with Johnny as he walked the dimly lit rooms of his own restaurant, hearing dishes clatter and music from Sinatra playing.  There is a play in this book on every sense we have: sight, smell, taste, hearing, touch.  And on every emotion we can experience.

 

David Cristofano is a genius writer able to transport his reader into the heart and soul of  his characters.  He made me feel as if I were sitting with Jonathan Bovaro over a glass of wine listening to him pour his heart out about his life, his family and the love of his life. 

 

This is a book I will rank as one I'll never forget.  Rich as "The Godfather" in the traditions of the mafia, only written with a better hand and mind.  Touching as "I Know This Much Is True," by Wally Lamb.  Easily as good as anything Jonathan Franzen has ever written.  You can't miss this novel.  No loose ends here!

 

5 stars of perfection                Deborah/TheBookishDame