I found The Family Chao an interesting look inside an immigrant family who have been in this country for more than 35 yrs. Although they had three sons they put all their future in their firstborn son. According to the family that is the way Asian Families are. But what happens when things might not turn out the way their hopes and dreams aspired for him? Does it cause tension within the family? How do the parents feel after working very hard to have a restaurant business they built from scratch and their parents placed all their hope in the next generation taking on their dream? How do the other siblings feel with their parents putting more love and praise behind the eldest child? Do they feel abandoned? Reading The Family Chao will give you the real feeling of this very large in spirit family and the restaurant they run and how each person's feelings effect the others.

I really enjoyed reading this book about two sisters from the US who volunteered for duty during WWI in France one as a nurse and one as one of the many female ambulance drivers. I found the characters very interesting and surprised by some of the situations these women had to work through and think extremely fast on their feet. I really enjoy reading historical fiction, although this did have some true things that happened taken from diaries and notes kept during this period of time. This book also contained romances the sisters both found themselves in during the war. I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys reading historical fiction, those interested in life during WW I, book clubs and anyone interested reading a good book with more Women's views during WW I.

I really enjoyed what I would describe as a YA mystery. There was a good plot and background, lots of twists and turns in between the pages. I found the construction of the characters personalities very interesting. The dynamics of roommates at the school and friends was a great plot and mystery itself.

I really enjoyed this book. Her characters were very well developed and I had strong feels for each female and some male characters. I understood the feeling Patsy was feeling in every instance, missing a sister type friend, wanting to get away from a domineering mother, leaving a child she was forced to have, being lied to by a sister/friend, abuse, rejection, poverty. This book had it all. It also tells a story of immigration to the US by an illegal alien and what they go through to try and support themselves. They seem to be paid wages that are not enough to survive on but in their own country they had it the same way. The difference in the US is they want to do better but no one will tell them how. They may want to go to school to get a better job than the lowest paying ones but need to have a valid SS number to do so.

All families have some form of dysfunction but this family was in a dysfunctional state for a long time. The parents died and Althea the oldest was charged with the duty of looking after her brother and sisters. Althea marries and her husband agreed to help raise her siblings. They became persons who were looked up to in the community owning a restaurant and doing work within the community. For some reason they do something very illegal in their business and are sent to jail. Althea now has to rely upon the help of her now grown siblings to raise her children while in jail.

The book is told from the point of Althea and her sisters, alternating chapters. I think the dysfuntion in the family came from each sibling looking for something to fill the hunger left in their lives from the dysfuntion of their own family growing up and losing their parents and now the hunger has also been passed on to Althea's daughters. Each person in the book is looking for what they think will fill the void in them often making very poor choices.

I loved, loved, loved this book about a group of very wealthy summer residents on Winthrop Island, NY and their interactions with local year round residents of the island. The story begins in 1930 with the interactions of a local and the wealthy summer residents. Jumping to the 1960s the story is still interacting with locals and summer residents only in the second generation. There are underlying secrets and lies you can feel. There is a very palpable mystery running throughout the whole story which comes out in the end. The author has very well developed characters and lots of historical research which made me feel like I was part of the island. I could feel myself climbing down the rocky edge of the island and sitting at the waters edge watching the waves crash on the shore, the lobster boats coming in and out of the harbor and the flash from the ancient light house (which plays a huge part in the story). I highly recommend this well researched historical book which includes mystery, intrigue and romance. Beatriz Williams has a #1 hit coming out for the summer and I suggest you pick it up!

This book is a memoir. The author was excellent at making the reader feel what she was feeling at that particular moment. It takes the reader through her surprise pregnancy which her partner ran out on her, to the delivery of what looks like a healthy child to 24 hrs later finding out she has a very very sick child. You follow her through band-aid treatments, her returning partner and many more ups and downs until they find a permanent treatment that works and then follows until the end. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a great read, which I found hard to put down and wished the story didn't end.

This book is a memoir written by Neltje Doubleday. She was the daughter of the founder of Doubleday Books and Doubleday Publishing. Her memoir starts as far back as she can remember as a child, daughter of a self absorbed mother and a traveling father who when was present was usually found drinking and entertaining. Neltje and her brother were raised by a governess and the household servants. She had a traumatic childhood feeling unloved and not wanted which later in adult life had a profound effect on her marriages and her decision not to stay in the family business and ended up moving to Wyoming, becoming a rancher, an expressionist painter and where she still lives today well into her 80's.

I found this book with an enjoyable underlying story which gives you several hints throughout the book but the full story as to who Sophie really is and where her family came from does not come out to near the end of the book. To me, I felt the story might have been told in a shorter amount of chapters than what it took. Overall, I did enjoy the characters and if the first half of the book flowed as fast as the second half did I would have rated the book with 5 stars.

I had not previously read the first book written which began the story of The Witch in a book titled The Witch's Daughter. This book had well rounded fully engaging characters and took me on a race from present day to Merry Ole England, through various other eras and into a time when being a woman or man who healed the sick and injured with various herbs cooked down to slurries and poltices could be deadly. Reading the previous book first though not a necessity, would have given me more background on the characters. I loved this fast paced, exciting, historical time traveling character book from the first page and plan to go back and read the first book..

I found this book very interesting but it took me longer than normal to read it. I don't know if it was me or some of the areas to get over wordy and over dialogued about some subjects. I will never give up on a book and after reading through those areas it became interesting from a historical standpoint and some others I found rather humorous.

I enjoyed reading this book which I would recommend for mature Jr High on up. Having lived through a family member with the same type of transplant the girl in the story goes through, the author, Amy Hatvany, hit all the marks as far as right terminology, feelings from both the donor family and the recipient and how information is handeled through the National Transplant Registry. This book made me smile, cheer on and made me cry quite often. Safe with Me may be more suited to females and could in some ways be defined as "chick lit" but might also be enjoyed by males who are interested in this type of fiction.

I was impressed with the amount of research that went into the writing of this novel and at times wondered if the writer herself had been through the intense situations in the book as she had the feelings coming through so strongly that it felt at times as if I was reading an autobiography. I strongly recommend reading this book and look forward to reading more of her work.

Amazing historical fiction read. If you are a lover of historical fiction, which I am, this is the book for you. I learned so much from this book about the Ottman Time Frame in history (1600's). This was a time period that glanced over in my history classes in school so I was in for a real treat with the amount of research that this author has supplied for the book. It is based on a little known true story of the rulers of that time, part of the Hapsburg Monarchy. There were medical issues with the family that the Royal Doctor treated and when the patient was moved to a part of the empire far from the city of Prague he had to rely on the local barber/bloodletter to treat him. Bloodletting was one way of treating certain diseases if you were wealthy enough. The poorer folks relied on herbs and natural offerings they could easily gather from the earth. The Bloodletter's daughter tells the story of the local bloodletter's daughter, Marketa who was interested in the study of science like her father but could never be more than his assistant because in that time females were not allowed to study or learn. She was considered ahead of her time because she was taught to read and write which was something only the more wealthy and schooled males knew how to do. I had a hard time putting the book down, reading through most of the night sometimes. It is something I will remember and go back to again to read.

An amazing book with little known facts about an underground movement during WWII to move the Jewish people out of German by the German women, some of whom their husbands, sons and brothers or lovers were serving in the German army. They risked their lives under the darkness of the air raid sirens and the blackouts, secret meetings with sympathetic German Government officials for traveling documents, and roaming troops of German soldiers to move the Jewish people from house to house, room to room and train to free country without thought of being found out and facing the firing squad and certain death. Amazing read.