Summer Reading

I recently flew through 3 books by Siri Mitchell.  I have read 2 of her other books (The Messenger and She Walks in Beauty) and liked them both, so I cleared her out at the library.  She writes Historical Fiction...which is great because I LOVE learning about history.  She is also a Christian author...but I like that she does not BEAT YOU OVER THE HEAD with churchy stuff---I can only take SOOO many people finding themselves and being saved...no offense:)  I also looked her up and found out that she graduated from University of Washington...pretty cool!!

 First was A HEART MOST WORTHY.  This one took place in Boston in the early 1900's.  I learned a lot about the prejudice of other immigrant Americans towards Italians...it seemed a lot like the way Hispanic people are often treated now.  I had not known that about American history.  This book follows 3 Italian immigrant girls who work in a dress shop---one falls in love with a boy from across the street (which is a street that cannot be crossed by "good" Italian girls), one starts running around with a anarchist/assassin, and the third girl is an heiress in hiding.  This book did not disappoint as all 3 stories begin to intertwine...LOVED IT!!

 LOVE'S PURSUIT takes place in early colonial America.  The main character, Susannah,  is a Puritan who is preparing to marry and start her life as an adult.  She is not CONVERTED to the Puritan faith yet, but lives and believes as they do....mostly.  A soldier for the KING comes to their village to help them learn to fight off the "savages" and he teaches her about how life is outside of the confines of the Puritan faith.  THEN she is forced into a betrothal with the most wealthy and powerful man in the village...who also happens to scare the living daylights out of her...he is a bit of a creeper.  Once again this was a very good book...although the ending was not the happy ending I had hoped for...bummer!!

A CONSTANT HEART takes us back to the court of Queen Elizabeth I.  Marget (the main character)  is married off to a COUNT who she has never met and who is NOT very nice to her.  He takes her to the court of Queen Elizabeth, where she is HATED.  The Queen is jealous of her youth and good looks and none of the courtiers will help her or welcome her.  SOOO she learns to adapt and begins copying the rest of the court.  She begins painting her face white, dying her hair read, and frizzing her straight hair to look like the Queen's.  I found this book SUPER interesting because I did not know that the paint used by Elizabeth and her followers was LEAD paint.  So by putting it on, they were poisoning themselves little by little.  Many of the ladies had miscarriages, discolored dry itchy skin, numbness in hands and arms, and other horrible symptoms...including early death caused by wearing the horrible white make-up.  Crazy that is was supposed to make them look younger, but only aged them quicker....GROSS!!! 

I am anxiously awaiting Siri Mitchell's next book...not out until NEXT SPRING!!! 

Get this....it is about feuding CANDY SHOPS!!  YUM:)