Svetlana's Reads and Views

Book Description for Coins in the Fountain: Innocents Abroad collide with La Dolce Vita when the author and her husband arrive in the ancient city of Rome fresh from the depths of Oregon. While the author endeavored to learn the folkways of the United Nations, her husband tangled with unfamiliar vegetables in a valiant effort to learn to cook Italian-style. In between, they attended weddings, enjoyed a close-up with the pope, tried their hands at grape harvesting, and savored country weekends where the ancient Etruscans still seemed to be lurking. Along the way they made many unforgettable friends including the countess with a butt-reducing machine and a count who served as a model for naked statues of horsemen in his youth. But not everything was wine and wonders. Dogs in the doctor’s exam room, neighbors in the apartment in the middle of the night, an auto accident with the military police, a dangerous fall in the subway, too many interactions with an excitable landlord, snake...

Name of Book: Seeing America Author: Nancy Crocker ISBN: 9781605425771 Publisher: Medallion Press Type of book: 1910, Missouri, road trip, Model T, Kansas, small towns, travel, racism, boxing match, summer, coming-of-age, plans, blindness, Yellowstone Park, dealing with past, parent-child relationships, Colorado, unexpected opportunities, Wyoming, adventures, Utah, Midwest, colorful and quirky characters Year it was published: 2014 Summary: Missouri, 1910. John Hartmann is graduating from high school under the critical eye of his father and has no idea what options lie beyond the family farm and his small town. When Paul Bricken, nineteen and blind, buys a brand-new Ford Model T and suggests John drive him to Yellowstone National Park, John jumps at the chance. He’s less enthusiastic about inviting Henry Brotherton, who’s loud, crude, and a bigot—but Henry’s available both as a second driver and a tough guy who might be helpful in a tight spot. As the three ...

Name of Book:  Oliver and Jack in Axminster Workhouse Author: Christina E Pilz ISBN: 978-0-9897273-6-5 Publisher: Blue Rain Press Part of a Series: Oliver and Jack; Fagins Boy, Oliver and Jack At Lodgings in Lyme are prequels Type of book: Romance, Dickens, gay romance, England, 1846, workhouse, privations, exploration, secrets, healing, creative escape plans, arrest, thievery, Victorian Era, Year it was published: 2015 Summary: Genre: Historical, gay romance, adult content. In Victorian England, 1846, an ex-apprentice and his street-thief companion are confined inside a workhouse to await trial for a crime they did not commit. After the seaside interlude in Lyme Regis, Oliver and Jack are arrested and sent to Axminster Workhouse to await trial for the theft of books that they only meant to borrow. They are put in the less-than-tender care of Workmaster Chalenheim, who controls the quotas they must fill, the amount of food they are allowed to eat, and th...

Name of Book:  America's First Daughte Author:  Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie ISBN: 978-0-06-234726-8 Publisher: William Morrow Type of book: America, France, marriage, promises, father-daughter relationship, freedom, revolutions, heroes, 1781-1830, life, debts, Virginia, illicit affairs, duty vs personal happiness, hosting, politics, motherhood, death, disease Year it was published: 2016 Summary: In a compelling, richly researched novel that draws from thousands of letters and original sources, bestselling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson’s eldest daughter, Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph—a woman who kept the secrets of our most enigmatic founding father and shaped an American legacy. From her earliest days, Patsy Jefferson knows that though her father loves his family dearly, his devotion to his country runs deeper still. As Thomas Jefferson’s oldest daughter, she becomes his helpmate, prot...

Outrageous: The Victoria Woodhull Saga, Volume I: Rise to Riches by Neal Katz Publication Date: October 1, 2015 Top Reads Publishing Hardcover, Paperback, Ebook; 344 Pages Series: The Victoria Woodhull Saga (Vol I) Genre: Historical Fiction Historical fictionalized account of Victoria Woodhull's rise to presidential candidate and wealth, coming from poverty and abuse. What compels a woman and her youngest sister to overcome abject poverty and violent abuse to grow up to defy convention and obliterate every barrier to become the first women to own and operate a Wall Street brokerage firm and publish their own newspaper? How did Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1838 - 1927) become the first woman invited to speak to the United State Congress, and then the first female to run for president. What made Tennessee Celeste Claflin (1845 - 1923) so beguiling that the richest man in America, Cornelius Vanderbilt, fell completely in love with her? What caused the sisters to l...