Tag: Jennifer Donnelly

Guest Review: The Wild Rose by Jennifer Donnelly

Posted August 10, 2011 by Ames in Reviews | 4 Comments

Ames’ review of The Wild Rose by Jennifer Donnelly.

The vast multi-generational epic that began with The Tea Rose and continued with The Winter Rose now reaches its dramatic conclusion in The Wild Rose.

London, 1914. World War I is looming on the horizon, women are fighting for the right to vote, and global explorers are pushing the limits of endurance at the Poles and in the deserts. Into this volatile time, Jennifer Donnelly places her vivid and memorable characters:

– Willa Alden, a passionate mountain climber who lost her leg while climbing Kilimanjaro with Seamus Finnegan, and who will never forgive him for saving her life.

– Seamus Finnegan, a polar explorer who tries to forget Willa as he marries a beautiful young woman back home in England.

– Max von Brandt, a handsome sophisticate who courts high society women, but who has a secret agenda as a German spy;

– and many others.

The Wild Rose is the engrossing conclusion to Jennifer Donnelly’s Rose Trilogy. I had the pleasure of reading The Winter Rose a few years ago and I absolutely loved it. The time period was different and the characters and writing were superb. The Wild Rose continues on with the same intricate layers of connectivity between engaging characters.

First the setting. The Wild Rose takes us from the foothills of the Himalayas to England and the deserts of Arabia. It starts right before World War I and takes us through to the end of that war. I am the first to admit that I don’t really care for books that take place during this time period. But it’s the mark of a truly gifted writer that still makes me pick up the book and read it as fast as I could. I had to know what happened to everyone. The time period is also a rich one – there’s not just the war. You also have the changing face of politics and women’s rights. The aristocracy doesn’t hold all the power anymore and now women from all walks of life want their voice to be heard. It’s all very interesting. There was one scene where one of the suffragettes was undergoing a force-feeding while in prison. If you’ve seen the movie Iron Jawed Angels, you’ll understand how grotesque a practice it truly was. *shudder*

Second are the characters. A few of the main characters are introduced in the previous two books but I feel that The Wild Rose could be read as a stand-alone if you didn’t have easy access to the previous two books. You’ll just end up getting the first two books anyway. LOL

So our main character is Willa Alden. Here is someone who has a lot going on. She’s in love with Seamie Finnegan, a man she grew up with. Seamie and Willa had gone climbing on Mount Kilimanjaro and hours after they revealed their love to each other, Willa fell and Seamie saved her life. Unfortunately, Seamie couldn’t save Willa’s leg and as soon as she could Willa ran away from him. Really though, she was running away from the fact that she could no longer climb. That was 8 years ago, now she’s in Tibet, roaming the foothills of Everest and taking pictures of that famous mountain. She also acts as the occasional guide, and that’s how she meets Max von Brandt, a german. Max falls for Willa, but he knows she loves someone else.

Meanwhile, Seamie has gone to the South Pole is something of an adventurer with a little bit of fame back in England. He is still in love with Willa as well but figures he’s never going to see her again. So when he’s back in England and crosses the path of Jennie, a suffragette with a heart of gold, he doesn’t fight his attraction to her. He is going to love her as much as he is able. And for a little while it is enough and they get married.

Unfortunately, Willa’s father is ill and she arrives back in England in time for the funeral. And a newly married Seamie cannot deny that he still loves her. And with the political climate in Germany so volatile, Max is also in town, and he’s not there for the reasons he says he is.

Ok, I’m going to admit it, I was shocked that Donnelly took the characters where she did – and here I’m referring to a married Seamie and Willa. I thought these two would painfully pine for each other from a safe distance but nope, the author totally went there. And that’s just the spark that set off a bomb. When the archduke of Austria is assassinated and world war I begins, our story really kicks off at that point. Willa is kind of forced to leave England by her brother and she sets off to France and from there ends up with freaking Lawrence of Arabia in the desert and doing her part in the war effort. Disguised as a man of course.

The Wild Rose was an engrossing, thrilling and thoroughly enjoyable conclusion to the Rose Trilogy. India and Sid from The Winter Rose make an appearance as well. Although I didn’t love this book as much as I love the Winter Rose, I still really enjoyed it. Fans of historical fiction definitely need to pick this one up if they enjoy excellent writing, intense drama and complicated characters. The Wild Rose gets a 5 out of 5 from me.

This book is available from Hyperion. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

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Review: The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly.

Posted February 3, 2009 by Rowena in Reviews | 9 Comments


Hero: Sid Malone
Heroine: India Selwyn Jones
Grade: 4.75 out of 5

When India Selwyn Jones, a young woman form a noble family, graduates from the London School of Medicine for Women in 1900, her professors advise her to set up her practice in London’s esteemed Harley Street. Driven and idealistic, India chooses to work in the city’s East End instead, serving the desperately poor.

In these grim streets, India meets -and saves the life of- London’s most notorious gangster, Sid Malone. A hard, wounded man, Malone is the opposite of India’s aristocratic fiance, Freddie Lytton, a rising star in the House of Commons. Though malone represents all she despises, India finds herself unwillingly drawn ever closer to him, intrigued by his hidden, mysterious past.

And before long, even as they fight hard against their feelings, India and Sid fall in love. Theirs is an unpredictable, passionate, and bittersweet affair, and it causes destruction they could never have imagined.

Oh man, last year Ames read and reviewed this book and loved it. It made me curious about the book and when we got another review copy of the book, I took this book on. I say that I took this book on because this sucker is over 700 pages. It’s filled with an exciting story with just a little bit of everything to make a story pop. The heroine, India Sellwyn Jones just graduates from college with her medical degree. So she’s a doctor in a time when it wasn’t yet common for women to become doctors. Women were fighting for their rights to vote and all of that. For India to graduate and become a doctor was quite the achievement for her, which came with a price. The price being that her parents disowned her.

Instead of going to work in a well known hospital or anything like that, Indie opts to go and work in Whitechapel and get her causes underway with the help of her fiance’ Freddie Lytton. She detests Sid Malone and what he stands for but when duties calls for her to heal him, she does and they talk and before she knows it, she’s fallen in love with him and that love sets off a chain of events that totally takes off.

This whole book was one adventure after the other. There’s so many characters that are rich in everything that it makes reading this 700 page book zip right through. It still took me a little bit to read but I hecka enjoyed myself while I was reading this. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to lose themselves in an epic love story that will pull every heart string you have inside your body. You will fall in love with the characters, you will want to murder the murderers in this story and all of those scheming politicians will make your blood boil, especially that Freddie Lytton. This book takes you all over the world and it makes you feel as if you’re apart of the story. It’s just a really good book to fall into. I dove right into this book and didn’t want to come up for air. This book rocked my socks and I totally think you should let it rock yours.

Jennifer Donnelly wove an intricate story that will leave you wanting more. This is the follow up book to The Tea Rose and though I haven’t read that book, I want to. This book was great and I hear that the first book was just as great, if not better. It’s made me totally anxious to read more by Jennifer Donnelly and I’m so glad that I took the time to tackle this big book. It was that good. You guys should definitely read it and meet India and Sid for yourselves, you’ll love them, I promise!

This book is available from Hyperion. You can buy it here.

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Guest Review: The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly

Posted April 8, 2008 by Ames in Reviews | 7 Comments

Guest Review: The Winter Rose by Jennifer DonnellyReviewer: Ames
The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly
Series: The Tea Rose #2
Publisher: Hachette Books
Publication Date: January 8th 2008
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 720
Add It: Goodreads
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five-stars
Series Rating: five-stars

When India Selwyn Jones, a young woman form a noble family, graduates from the London School of Medicine for Women in 1900, her professors advise her to set up her practice in London's esteemed Harley Street. Driven and idealistic, India chooses to work in the city's East End instead, serving the desperately poor.

In these grim streets, India meets -and saves the life of- London's most notorious gangster, Sid Malone. A hard, wounded man, Malone is the opposite of India's aristocratic fiance, Freddie Lytton, a rising star in the House of Commons. Though malone represents all she despises, India finds herself unwillingly drawn ever closer to him, intrigued by his hidden, mysterious past.

And before long, even as they fight hard against their feelings, India and Sid fall in love. Theirs is an unpredictable, passionate, and bittersweet affair, and it causes destruction they could never have imagined.

Wow.

That’s all I can say about The Winter Rose.

Never have I read a more surprising book than the Winter Rose. It was completely not what I expected! But in a good way.

First of all, London in 1900? I tend to shy away from that time period, preferring Regency England and earlier. But that time period, there was a lot of social change and Ms. Donnelly showed me, in great detail mind you, how fascinating it was at the turn of the century. There was the old clashing with the new. Members of the ton were clinging to their society while the majority of people, who were not titled, were striving to get their voice heard and their interests represented. Meanwhile, the old boys club was doing everything in its power to keep the working man down.

Amidst this atmosphere, there were women fighting for the right to vote – who were all for social change. And India fit right in there. After graduating medical school (for which her parents disowned her), she went to work in the poorest, roughest part of London in hopes of one day opening up her own clinic. But woah does she come upon old world attitudes in the form of her new boss. This old cracker wants women to suffer during childbirth and basically just hands out medication to dull the pain of the working poor, rather than advocate on their behalf for the right to good healthcare. And this is a passion of India’s. She knows that the average working man can’t afford good health care, thus the idea for her free clinic. And the big part of her free clinic would be the services available for women. The poor women, who can’t afford to have a baby every year, but who do because they can’t pay for birth control – which the dinosaur doctor that India works for refuses to hand out.

At over 700 pages, this part of the book is a drop in the bucket. There is so much more to India’s story. On top of her new career as a doctor, her fiance, is a politician. And he’s one of the dodgy kinds, who promises with his right hand and takes away with his left. But Freddie has some secrets he’s keeping from India. Freddie is a bad bad man.

Meanwhile, India sees Sid Malone as the true villain in her life. He’s the crime lord in London – and India despises everything about him. But her calling as a doctor means when his life is on the line, she still has to save him. And this entangles their lives in a way that has repercussions for everyone in the story.

Yes, dear readers, this is truly a sweeping love story that goes from London all the way to Africa and America. And what an incredible journey it was.

Not only was the setting fascinating, but so to were the plot and the characters. And I just absolutely loved how all the characters affected each other when they didn’t even know each other.

Needless to say, this book made me cry. How the hell could a gently-born doctor and a crime lord from the slums find their happily ever after? Let me tell you, it’s not easy. And that’s why I’m giving the Winter Rose an A. Once it hooks you, it doesn’t let go until the last gut-wrenching page.

5 out of 5

(p.s. I immediately went out and bought the Tea Rose, the first book in the Rose trilogy. And I can’t wait for the 3rd book, The Wild Rose. Hint hint, Jennifer! LOL)

five-stars

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