Juliet Blackwell - The Lost Carousel of Provence

Long, lonely years have passed for the crumbling Château Clement, nestled well beyond the rolling lavender fields and popular tourist attractions of Provence. Once a bustling and dignified ancestral estate, now all that remains is the château's gruff, elderly owner and the softly whispered secrets of generations buried and forgotten.
But time has a way of exposing history's dark stains, and when American photographer Cady Drake finds herself drawn to the château and its antique carousel, she longs to explore the relic's shadowy origins beyond the small scope of her freelance assignment. As Cady digs deeper into the past, unearthing century-old photographs of the Clement carousel and its creators, she might be the one person who can bring the past to light and reunite a family torn apart.

Comment: Last year I've read another book by this author and I liked it enough to feel curious about some of her other titles. Meaning, some of the most recent, since I've seen she also wrote other genres which don't feel as interested in reading.

In this story, Cady Drake is a young woman who has had some loss in her life, especially the woman who took care of her and who helped her create some of her fondest memories, she was like the adoptive mother Cady has always wanted. Still somewhat mourning, Cady accepts the task of the magazine which will publish her photographic book on carousels if she travels to Paris to do this. Cady feels like trying not only because it will be a change of scenario but she also wants to investigate the little carved rabbit she owns, which might have been done by the same creator of carousels in France. There, she starts her work and gets to know about a carousel no one has seen for years, in Provence. Someone at a museum she visits to investigate puts her in contact with the grandson of the estate where the carousel is and this is just the beginning of her adventure...

Having read the other book and considering the blurb, of course I imagined Cady's research in France would also have the collateral of her falling in love. It's true, romance readers see romance in almost everything...however, this isn't the intention of the author so don't expect the romance aspect to be that important...in fact, it was rather underwhelming as I found pretty much the whole book.

There is, evidently, a lot of obvious details on how much the author has researched and learned in order to write about carousels and carvers and artistic /technical details on this field. This is always a fascinating part of historical stories, the fact we get to learn too, about a subject not very known or not known the way we should. I'd say all the content related to professional issues, or how competent the information on practical facts is feels certainly well done. To me, it's the fictional part that somehow disappointed me.

One detail I found a little annoying was how many times we would go "back in time" to know things from the past of the characters. It's a good tactic to avoid all that telling but it happened too often, I think. We go back to Cady's childhood, to her growing up days, we go back to the family who ordered the Provence carousel done, then also the POV of a woman who worked there, then to the past of the grandson of that family as he was part of the Resistance during WWII and I can't remember if there is another past section or not. This happens often throughout the story and I know this was done for the reader to understand how the mystery connected to the carousel came to be.

I found this too tiring and rhythm breaking... I'd have preferred for the author to stick to the present time, to exploit this better, especially Cady and those she interacts with now, and the past information to come in a different way, because it got to a point I felt there too many distractions and I lost some interest here and there. Certain things also became rather obvious so to keep delaying that from the present moment and having parcels here, then another information there just felt like repetitive.

Cady is a complex character and not only because she was in the foster system, her whole behavior and personality felt multilayered. I so wished she could be seen falling in love and how this would affect her perception of even her surroundings, especially as she learned about the lives of those involved in the carousel making, I thought this would be one of the author's goals, but there are some things about Cady which were mentioned but went nowhere, in terms of characterization or in how that would affect the relationships with others, not only a romantic one.

I liked she was so happy while photographing and that she cherished her rabbit so much for the sentimental value mostly, and I liked how she got to so easily be part of the French community of people she stayed near while investigating the carousel. I can only imagine the idea it to show how rewarding her life there could be and how happy she could be with the guy she becomes involved with and those she gets to befriend while there.

Suppositions, for while we do know how the carousel story came to be, the end is too open and vague for me to feel we actually have closure on Cady's journeys (both the emotional the the physical in France). Sure, i can think about scenarios in my head but I do wish the author had been bolder, more obvious in what her intentions had been in how this story would play out. I think this one ends up being a little weaker in that sense, for me, comparing to the other book. This was a nice book but not as amazing as I've certainly pictured when I started reading.

Grade: 6/10

Juliet Blackwell - The Vineyards of Champagne

Deep within the labyrinth of caves that lie below the lush, rolling vineyards of the Champagne region, an underground city of women and children hums with life. Forced to take shelter from the unrelenting onslaught of German shellfire above, the bravest among them venture out to pluck sweet grapes for the harvest. But wine is not the only secret preserved in the cool, dark cellars...
In present day, Rosalyn travels to Champagne to select vintages for her Napa-based employer. Rosalyn doesn't much care for champagne--or France, for that matter. Since the untimely death of her young husband, Rosalyn finds it a challenge to enjoy anything at all. But as she reads through a precious cache of WWI letters and retraces the lives lived in the limestone tunnels, Rosalyn will unravel a mystery hidden for decades...and find a way to savor her own life again, inspired by the hope and defiance of the women who toiled to bring in the grape harvest during the war.

Comment: I got interested in this book for the possibilities it seemed to imply in how the main character would change her life upon traveling to an area of France where so much happened during WWI. For me, this immediately read as "new romance" lol and besides I was intrigued by the fact there would be mention of WWI events, when so much in fiction tends to focus on WWII instead.

In this book we meet sales rep Rosalyn, as she reluctantly travels to France, to visit the region of Champagne so she can promote her boss' small wine company and check if the French producers want representation in the US. She is not in the best frame of mind, still mourning the death of her husband, but she feels she owes her boss for he has been a friend too. On the plane she meets Emma, someone also in the wine business and while talking, Emma shares some letters from the WWI era, for she discovered she might be related to someone who was in Reims at that time. To pass the time, Rosalyn reads one letter and is intrigued but soon put that aside as they arrive and part ways. However, they realize their paths connect again when other people they discover they have in common start sharing their knowledge of how the harvest was done during the war. Could it be that the things Rosalyn learns in France will help her cope with the loss she had in the US?

This was certainly an intriguing book to read but I have to confess it felt as if too many details were trying to have center stage. I think I'd have preferred the story to focus on Rosalyn now or on the WWI events because the way this was played, our attention is divided too long and neither element has the impact it could. Well, in my opinion.

I prefered the contemporary story, of how Rosalyn is supposed to learn a lesson, to try to be happy again. I think it as realistic to allow her to mourn and feel sad for quite a long part of the book, after all people don't just change their way of acting from one day to the other. However, at the same time, it did feel as if it took too long for the author to set things up in a way the reader would want to carry on reading. There were some moments in the story it felt the same things, the same emotions were being forced on Rosalyn and on us with her, so there was some dragging.

As one could expect, though, the romantic part of this book is precisely how Rosalyn learns to move on, to want to do it for real, by the people she meets, the lessons she learns from what happened in the past and, of course, the man she comes to care about. I liked Rosalyn and how she didn't jump from one state of mind/heart to the next too quickly...but in a book which is partially labeled romance, I expected some more page time on that too. I also liked he friendships she makes and how all the combined new things in her life make her want to have new goals. A big part of the story is about how she dealt and is dealing with mourning...this was realistically done I guess, but the ration with the "healing" part didn't feel as balanced as it could.

There's also the content related to the WWI events and how people back then still did the harvest to produce champagne while the fights happened. I think the letters, of which we have some complete ones included, and the chapters from a character's POV of that era help us have a better understanding of the efforts made and the losses those people suffered but I didn't feel these chapters/elements were as smoothly introduced in the plot as they could. It did feel there was a barrier between what was in the past and what is in the present plot. Due to this, for me, the events from the past didn't feel as sentimental as I thought they would be or as the author might have intended.

Obviously, there is quite a good amount of wine and champagne making content inserted in the plot. It was interesting to learn a few things (even the historical facts used in the past chapters) about this but I admit I still don't feel the need to run and taste French champagne lol. I think it shows the author has been there and probably saw some processes (as shared by her in a note at the end of the book) and it certainly added more impact to the character's actions and why they still do something they consider part of the tradition of that area.

The truth is I was rooting for Rosalyn and her achieving closure on her past life so she could embrace the present. It was also well thought how this part of the story related to the letters from the WWI time. All in all, this was a good enough read but a few details could have been edited differently. 

Grade: 7/10