SURVIVING SAVANNAH BY Patti Callahan COVER REVEAL! And Advanced Digital Copy Giveaway!

About the book

 

New York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan delivers a breathtaking novel based on true events.
It was called "The Titanic of the South”—the luxury steamship that sank in 1838 with Savannah's elite on board. Through time, their fates were forgotten—until the wreck was found.

Now their story is finally being told. 

When Savannah history professor Everly Winthrop is asked to guest-curate a new museum collection focusing on artifacts recovered from the steamship Pulaski, she's shocked. The ship sank after a boiler explosion in 1838, and the wreckage was just discovered, 180 years later. Everly can't resist the opportunity to try to solve some of the mysteries and myths surrounding the devastating night of its sinking.

Everly's research leads her to the astounding history of a family of eleven who boarded the Pulaski together, and the extraordinary stories of two women from this family: a known survivor, Augusta Longstreet, and her niece, Lilly Forsyth, who, along with her child, was never found. The women were part of Savannah society, but when the ship exploded, each was faced with difficult and heartbreaking decisions. This is a moving and powerful exploration of what women will do to endure in the face of tragedy, the role fate plays, and the myriad ways we survive the surviving.

Perfect for fans of Before We Were Yours, Sold on a Monday, and Orphan Train, Callahan’s highly anticipated novel tells the story of a little known chapter of history that has long deserved a spotlight. This transformative tale told from alternating past and present perspectives will sweep readers away and move them to their core.

 

Q&A with Patti Callahan

 

What inspired you to write Surviving Savannah? 

 

Originally I was inspired by the Pulaski tales of survival, how the city of Savannah was part of this story, and how the Lowcountry was affected by this tragedy. I was also inspired and curious about the transformation of each passenger and the ways that each survivor not only lived through the explosion, but also how they chose to live their lives after the sinking.

How, I wondered, do some come to live better lives and others turn toward bitterness and cruelty? Who do we become after such great loss?

AND then!, everything shifted because after a hundred and eighty years, along came a shipwreck hunting crew who found the remains of the Pulaski a hundred feet beneath the waves, thirty miles off the coast of Wilmington, North Carolina. While the team went deep to bring up the artifacts and treasure of this beautiful ship, I dug deep to bring up the stories.  

My exhilarating hunt for the forgotten story began.

 

What kind of research was required to write the novel? Did anything surprise you?

 

The research was as fascinating as it was extensive – from the archives at the Georgia Historical Center in Savannah and the Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum to books, newspaper archives, personal accounts and letters, I read everything that I could get my hands on. I devoured books on steamships and Savannah in the 1800’s. I read about the rich history of the colonization of Savannah with General Oglethorpe. I walked the streets of Savannah and visited museums and artifact collections. I interviewed shipwreck experts and became enchanted with the world of wreck salvaging and treasure hunting.

During this journey, I was surprised over and over, but one surprise that opens the novel is the true narrative about a fifteen-year-old passenger named Charles who survived the sinking to become a slave trader with a horrific reputation. As he grew into a man, he earned the nickname “the Red Devil”. How had this young boy survived to become so cruel? I wanted to know. 

Finally, after years of research, I put together a complete story of that calamitous night, and one family in particular.

 

Your story follows three women – Lily and Augusta on the ship in 1838, and Everly in present day. Which of the three women did you relate to the most and why?

 

While I was writing each section I always felt the most connected to the woman I was writing about at the moment. I don’t think I felt more for one woman than another but of course our modern-day character, Everly felt more relatable only because I know today’s Savannah and I know today’s southern norms and ideas. The historical narratives were almost two hundred years old, and yet I still felt as close to Lilly and Augusta because their plight and their desires and their inner lives feel familiar. As far as women have come in their roles in society, there is still the struggle for independence and agency. There remains the need to burst through familial and collective norms to build a life of one’s own. 

All three women had their own tragedies, hardships and losses to navigate. All three needed to discover how they would make meaning and purpose out of their situation. All three found out what they were truly made of and if they wanted to merely survive or if they wanted to thrive and build new lives.

 

Advance Digital Copy Giveaways

You can enter for a chance to win an advanced digital review copy of the book here: https://sweeps.penguinrandomhouse.com/enter/surviving-savannah-cover-reveal-sweeps

(NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. US Residents, 18+. Ends August 17, 2020. See official rules at official website.)

 

Additional Links

 

Add SURVIVING SAVANNAH to your shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54306882-surviving-savannah

 

Visit Patti online: https://www.patticallahanhenry.com/surviving-savannah

Pre order link: https://bit.ly/3i9VQ4Y

#survivingsavannah #patticallahan #historicalfiction

AND THEY CALLED IT CAMELOT: A Novel of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis by Stephanie Marie Thornton REVIEW

An intimate portrait of the life of Jackie O…

Few of us can claim to be the authors of our fate. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy knows no other choice. With the eyes of the world watching, Jackie uses her effortless charm and keen intelligence to carve a place for herself among the men of history and weave a fairy tale for the American people, embodying a senator’s wife, a devoted mother, a First Lady—a queen in her own right.

But all reigns must come to an end. Once JFK travels to Dallas and the clock ticks down those thousand days of magic in Camelot, Jackie is forced to pick up the ruined fragments of her life and forge herself into a new identity that is all her own, that of an American legend.



Opening line:
"The pink pillbox hat and Chanel-inspired bouclè suit awaited her on the bed." 

I've often wondered what life was like for Jackie. This book gave me some idea what her years as JFK's wife and beyond might have been. 
I had a hard time putting this book down! I kept reading, wondering when we were going to get to one of the worse days in the Kennedy's, and possibly, America's lives. But taking the ride to get to that moment was worth the time. 
There are four parts in this story, one for each era, the fourth happening after Bobby's assassination. 
The book starts by introducing Jackie in her earlier years and when she met John. I throughly enjoyed the insights Ms. Thornton researched and added. Every time a dress or an event was mentioned, I goggled it so I could really 'see' what she was writing. In my opinion, that makes for a good historical fiction book!
Jackie was very protective of family and took care to involve her kids as much as possible. She tried to stay involved in everything her husband did as well.
My favorite parts of the book was when Jackie stood up for herself. She made a vow to the patriarch of the Kennedy's that she would never leave John's side, and she didn't right up to the time he was placed in a coffin. When women didn't step into the politcal or campaigning spotlight, Jackie was there, even when men told her she couldn't. She was with John in the hospital when he had back surgery and had the nurse teach her how to take care of John, even when he didn't want Jackie to see him so weak.
She was told she was told young and fresh for the campaign trail, that everyone wanted to see the grandmotherly types from the last few presidencies. Several times after John was shot, people tried to get Jackie to change her blood-splattered clothes, but she refused. "Let them see what they've done." 
The very last part of the book, Part Four, didn't seem to be in the same vein as the rest of the book. I wondered if the author, like me, was disappointed in Jackie for having affairs, after she vehemently held John to their marriage. Part Four helped me to understand why Jackie possibly married Onassis, and the good she did in the last days of her life, but I was a little let down. 

There are several 'F' bombs and swear words, but they are scattered throughout the book.
Thanks to netgalley for the early read! 

WINTER WAR AWAKENINGS (Blood Rose Rebellion #3) by Rosalyn Eves

Rosalyn's third book comes out today! And you couldn't meet a nicer person. She's sweet, witty and smart. If you ever get a chance to meet her, do it!

Do you like historical fiction? How about alternate history with some magic? Curious?? You could  read the BLOOD ROSE REBELLION series by Rosalyn Eves.
The covers are gorgeous! You might want to buy the series just for the prettiness, but the writing is excellent and the story is amazing.


WINTER WAR AWAKENING (#3)

The Binding is broken. Mátyás is alive. And Anna Arden is on the run.

It seems, yet again, that breaking the Binding has shattered the world. And the only hope of mending it is Anna and Mátyás, working together. But it’s never that simple, is it? The praetheria, the creatures once held captive by the spell, are now waging war against the Austro-Hungarian empire. And they are holding Noémi hostage–using her life to manipulate Anna and Mátyás, like marionettes on a string.

Gábor has elected to stay behind, to fight in the Hungarian army’s resistance, while Anna and Mátyás search for their beloved Noémi–a mission doomed from the start, cloaked in praetherian magic. Magic that relies on illusion and misdirection. Eventually, there’s only one way to save her: to split up. And to walk right into the lion’s den.

When everyone thinks they’re fighting each other for the same thing–freedom–can anyone truly win?

 LOST CROW CONSPIRACY (#2)

 Sixteen-year old Anna Arden was once just the magically barren girl from an elite Luminate family. Now she has broken the Binding—and Praetheria, the creatures held captive by the spell, wreak havoc across Europe. Lower-class citizens have access to magic for the first time, while other Luminates lose theirs forever. Austria and Hungary are at odds once more.

Anna Arden did not know breaking the Binding would break the world.

Anna thought the Praetheria were on her side, content and grateful to be free from the Binding. She thought her cousin Matyas's blood sacrifice to the disarm the spell would bring peace, equality, justice. She thought her future looked like a society that would let her love a Romani boy, Gabor.

But with the Monarchy breathing down her neck and the Praetheria intimidating her at every turn, it seems the conspiracies have only just begun.

As threat of war sweeps the region, Anna quickly discovers she can't solve everything on her own. Now there's only one other person who might be able to save the country before war breaks out. The one person Anna was sure she'd never see again. A bandit. A fellow outlaw. A man known as the King of Crows. Matyas.

  Opening line:
"There is a feeling a hunted creature gets: a prickling of fine hairs at the back of the neck, a sense of unseen eyes crawling across one's spine, a shift in the air."

The book goes between Anna's point-of-view and the Crow King's (loved it). So many characters--both new and familiar to the reader--to distinguish and learn from and come to hate/love.

I loved this quote:
"There was no conduct manual for how to live with oneself after changing the world." 


BLOOD ROSE REBELLION (#1)
 

 In a world where social prestige derives from a trifecta of blood, money, and magic, one girl has the ability to break the spell that holds the social order in place.

Sixteen-year-old Anna Arden is barred from society by a defect of blood. Though her family is part of the Luminate, powerful users of magic, she is Barren, unable to perform the simplest spells. Anna would do anything to belong. But her fate takes another course when, after inadvertently breaking her sister’s debutante spell—an important chance for a highborn young woman to show her prowess with magic—Anna finds herself exiled to her family’s once powerful but now crumbling native Hungary.

Her life might well be over.

In Hungary, Anna discovers that nothing is quite as it seems. Not the people around her, from her aloof cousin Noémi to the fierce and handsome Romani Gábor. Not the society she’s known all her life, for discontent with the Luminate is sweeping the land. And not her lack of magic. Isolated from the only world she cares about, Anna still can’t seem to stop herself from breaking spells.

As rebellion spreads across the region, Anna’s unique ability becomes the catalyst everyone is seeking. In the company of nobles, revolutionaries, and Romanies, Anna must choose: deny her unique power and cling to the life she’s always wanted, or embrace her ability and change that world forever.


 Opening line:
"I did not set out to ruin my sister's debut."

I couldn't put this book down. I even tried to read it in church...

I loved the writing, the Hungarian folklore and history and the magic.

Anna Arden is a blight on her family, at least that's what her mother says to her often enough. The older sister is the cherished one and has the talent with magic. After Anna ruins her sister's debut, Anna is sent off to Hungary with her grandmother. She loves her grandmother and all her tales. But in Hungary, the tales just might be true.

She meets family she's never met, makes friends with people she shouldn't have and finds herself in the middle of a revolution. One side wants her to help, another side wants her to desist and other's want her to stay away from magic all together.

There are choices she needs to make and she's overwhelmed by wanting to make things right.

Stuck in a reading rut? Read on!

I visited theartofwhynot.com when I was reading WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES by Georgia Hunter. I wasn't loving the book at first, so I googled the title so I could understand the story better, or even, find book club questions.

After reading about how the story was based on the author's family, I went back to reading it with more enthusiasm. I loved how the author visited relatives on three different continents, recorded their stories and researched everything for almost ten years.

But this point of this post was to ask if you have ever found yourself in a reading rut? Do you find yourself reading in one genre?

At The Art of Why Not, I found this 12 month reading guide to help anyone get out of a reading rut. I loved it so much, I wanted to share it with you.

What do you think? (I guess I can mark off historical fiction set in country other than my own, and maybe cheat a bit for the memoir book with WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES). :)

Awesome Historical Fiction reads

Do you like to read historical fiction? 

I feel like sometimes I learn more history through the fictional weaving of the tale. 

What about you? 

Do you have a favorite era you like to read?

My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Bordi Ashton, Jodi Meadows

The comical, fantastical, romantical, (not) entirely true story of Lady Jane Grey. In My Lady Jane, coauthors Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows have created a one-of-a-kind fantasy in the tradition of The Princess Bride, featuring a reluctant king, an even more reluctant queen, a noble steed, and only a passing resemblance to actual history—because sometimes history needs a little help.

At sixteen, Lady Jane Grey is about to be married off to a stranger and caught up in a conspiracy to rob her cousin, King Edward, of his throne. But those trifling problems aren’t for Jane to worry about. Jane is about to become the Queen of England.

  CLEVER!

That's what this story is all about! It's clever. Funny. Smart. Hilarious at times. Intriguing all the time. The story of Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Day Queen, is told from the three different, rich viewpoints, thanks to three great writers. So many awesome quotes. Here's one that made me laugh out loud (I was listening to the audio book which made my laughter even more startling) and caused my children to look askance at me:
"Your mother was a hamster and your father reeked of elder berries!"

A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-32 by Joan W. Blos

This novel, written in diary form, tells of "a pivotal year for 19th-century New Englander Catherine Cabot Hill--one of change, loss, and leave taking . . . a low-key, intense and reflective book."--School Library Journal, starred review. 1980 Newbery Award book.

First line:
"I, Catherine Cabot Hall, aged 13 years, 7 months, 8 days, of Meredith in the State of New-Hampshire, do begin this book."

And thus begins the journey we take with Catherine. From harsh winters, sweltering summers, best bosom friends, school, new mamann's and death.
I enjoyed the historical events woven into a story from the viewpoint of a thirteen-year old girl.
Catherine, her sister Matty and their father live in a small home where Catherine is in charge, her mother having died after giving birth to a son, who also died. The reader gets a glimpse of life in New England in a hard time. I enjoyed the stories Uncle Jack told, the innocence of life in this era and uplifting way most people treated each other.

Liked:
Stories from 1830's
History woven into story

Disliked:
Wanted to know more about Catherine after 1832!

4 STARS