Really enjoyed this one. It was hard to put down, as I followed the stories of Nella and Eliza in the Apothecary, and then Caroline trying to unravel them while dealing with her own story. I loved the friendships with other women they all had, and Nella’s desire to help women, who had no recourse against injustice during a very mysoginystic time period.

Not that I’m advocating for assassination of course, but I really love how the women in the 18th century were so underestimated that they found ways to use the earth and natural things to accomplish what they needed without anyone realizing it for decades. I think it speaks a lot to how much women can do when serving each other and themselves behind the scenes.

Excellent. The writing was immersive and captivating, and the story and Jimmy’s character were relatable and easy to identify with. The friendship and brotherhood between the 3 young men was powerful and moving, with the love, loyalty and forgiveness they had for each other.

The setting of WW2 in Bataan and Corregidor is getting much-needed notice lately, as more books are being written, highlighting that horrendous time there. I had not heard of the death March there or some of the guerrilla groups in the Philippines at the time, and it fleshed out more of the environment and circumstance for me in addition to other perspectives I’ve read about. So much of the book was heartbreaking of course. It’s unbelievable what the men and women endured. By the end of the book I was in tears it was so moving and beautiful and yet so sad.

Also loved the way the dual timeline was threaded in to round out Jimmy and his friends. Really well done.

Was just ok. The story line was good but the writing style was really clunky and detached. Quite often it felt more like reading an essay than a novel.

Such a beautifully weaved story about love and grief, risking hope and relationship, along with some mystery into lost stories of bravery.

It was interesting to learn about how the US used propaganda to sabotage the Nazi’s, and rather brilliant, though a little frightening when you think about it. The book itself is more event driven than character driven - there just wasn’t a ton of character development and some of it felt gap-ish in how the characters related or just felt very stilted beyond Niki’s character. Also the chapters with Paloma were just weird and didn’t fit well. Overall tho, it was a good story and piece of history to learn.

I liked the overall concept of the story itself, the action and suspense of kidnapping on the Serengeti. But there were so many characters and each chapter with each character not only dealt with the present but flashbacked to some memory before the trip. It was just so much work to follow and remember which character was who and what was going on since the last time you dealt with them 6 chapters ago…

While it was fairly sad, I enjoyed the look at Ireland/England and Rhode Island, as I have a lot of history in both, and the strong women that forged their lives and devoted themselves to their families. The sacrifice the women had for each other was commendable. Parts of the book I wish were done differently but they weren’t unrealistic so I can’t complain.