Acquire Today The Gilded Hour (The Waverly Place, #1) Scripted By Sara Donati Readily Available As Digital Paper

made three serious attempts to write a review for this novel but just can't marshal my many thoughts into a definitive text.
So, so much of this book is addictive reading, the characters strong and likable, I cannot wait to read the next part of the series and more about the Quinlans, the Savards and Jack, Rosa and Lia.


I'm sharing with you a review I think mirrors my experience of the book, It is by the writer sitelinkJason Schmidt, His review: sitelink goodreads. com/review/show I have adored Sara Donati aka Rosina Lippi since the day I opened the first book in her Wilderness series so when I saw that this book was coming, it was an automatic read for me.
I have to preface this review by saying that she would have to write a pretty awful book for me to dislike it and I might be a little biased by love of her previous work.


This book plops you down right into the middle of the lives of two women at its center, as well as all the wonderful supporting cast around them.
A theme throughout the story is the strong foundation that this family provides for each other, Really, these people are so charming I just want to sit down and have dinner with them! Sophie and Anna are cousins, both orphaned at a young age and raised by their Aunt Quinlan Lily Bonner, nowsome y/o, for those who have read the Wilderness books.
Both are doctors and strong, freethinking women in a time where most people considered these to be “unnatural” traits in women,

There are a couple of plot lines to follow but, mostly, reading this book is like living for a span of aboutmonths in lateth century Manhattan.
Through everyday interactions in the story Donati paints a scary picture of how perilous life could be for women, African Americans, orphaned children and immigrants.
I hope that reading this will at least make people pause and really consider what life was like back then for people who were not privileged white males.
As a woman, I came away from this book feeling very fortunate to be living in the times that I do, In some areas weve come a long way and in other areas we still have so far to go, It does give me hope though!

I enjoyed this reading experience this from the very first chapter, Its so nice to learn history about different geographies and cultures without feeling like Im reading a text book, Even better, this is a book that makes you feel right at home with people who are determined to be kind and do good in a world that wont reward them for it.
I will be recommending this one and the entire Wilderness series to my reading friends!
I don't even know where to begin with this review.
I expected one thing, and it turned out to be another entirely,

As a general rule, I dread books that list characters on

the first pages, This is, in part, because when I see that the book hasplus pages it is a clear indication that the whole thing will be confusing in the extreme.
. . and it was.

I read somewhere that this book is intended to be a standalone novel in a series, . . it isn't. Unless you have some sort of idea of who the heck these people are when you start reading, you will get massively turned around as you go along.


Where does the confusion and profound desire to just see the damn thing END! come from Well, . . the author sets up this tremendous conflict between women in the medical profession and those who were completely against proper healthcare for women.
And then that story line, which flares up quite dramatically, is totally dropped,

Then you have the serial killer who is committing atrocities against women who seek abortions, The hunt is ON! Until it gets dropped like a hot potato and the crimes are never solved, . . there is this family picnic, see

And the missing children First the baby and his older brother, then the four boys of one of the victims of the serial killer.
. . Of course, in the last few pages we locate the last of the missing children, but oh, so wise for a doctor the solution is to take him in spite of his deep trauma to said family picnic where he will not only get reacquainted with his sisters, but also with a gazillion other people he doesn't know.
. .

The narrative starts in late March and by late June the grandest of all grand love affairs has resulted in the most passionate marriage with the most ridiculous sex scenes in the history of lateth century female doctors and Italian police officers.
The moment the words "turgid", "arching" and "weeping" figured in the same sentence I had to tell my husband "you have GOT to read this.
" He laughed. It WAS laughable. And pathetic.

One of my main pet peeves is that people in this book usually react by "waiting three breaths," or "waiting three heartbeats.
" Or, in one particularly impatient moment, "waiting two heartbeats, "

WHY did I waste my time with this book I thought it would be interesting, I was interested in Sophie Savard as a character, but she sailed away to care for her dying husband, . . we are supposed to think he's an awesome guy, and it's a great love story, . . the guy is an ass, He has TB, has shunned her for a year because she won't marry him to prevent his social status from being ruined by the fact that she is a free woman of color, and then he plots behind her to get a spot in a clinic in Switzerland where she will accompany him as his wife, but with the caveat that they can never be close.
Wonderful love story "here, darling, I will marry you because I've always been in love with you, but it does smack my family upside the head that I leave everything to you when I croak.
"

The author couldn't put any more characters into this book because it would have stood in the way of her verbose, ornate, overwhelming prose.
It's like a lateSeventies/earlyEighties Bgrade miniseries with lots of celebrities in the cast, but you only get to see them for five seconds, and they add nothing to the story.


The men, sad to say, are either tremendously enlightened or absolutely retrograde, There isn't a happy medium, We're supposed to think that all the women are totally awesome, and liberated, and role models, but whatever conflict they are going through is treated in such a superficial manner that it isn't worth getting invested in it.
. . Where do some of them come from One moment you discover there is an Italian niece that has basically moved in and is part of the household, but you cannot wading through the multiple layers of narrative cobwebs recall where the hell she came from, or when the hell she turned up.
Then you have characters who seem to be playing crucial roles, but suddenly they disappear,

Make a list of characters for clarity, but if you can't remember what it is you want them to DO in the story, you're wasting time and resources.
A map would have been more helpful,

This book was intended to have a happy ending, It does for the characters. The reader, on the other hand, ends up needing some antacid and the reassurance that their time the time they have invested and will never EVER get back isn't completely lost.
. . Never you mind that the male lead is'" and his father is a whole "half head taller", . . or that you keep hoping SOMETHING will happen with the whole serial killer thing, . . nope you are supposed to be titillated, entertained and satisfied with "turgid, arching and weeping" in one sentence, . .

Sigh

Never again.



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