Read: The guest list by Lucy Foley 🇺🇸

 

A posh wedding celebration on a very remote island - good idea or a looming catastrophe?

Jules is a very successful publisher, her magazine “the download” ist doing amazingly.

Her finance Will is a handsome survival show protagonist 

Among the guests: Jules’ mother, her half-sister, her father with his very young second wife.

Will’s boarding school friends, his father, the former headmaster of the school.

Charly, Jules best friend, and his plus one, his wife Hannah.

Of course, everyone has to hide something. Some pretend to be more (successful, rich, happy) then they are, others don’t think this wedding is a good idea at all.

For Aoife, the wedding planner and owner of the island’s guest house, it’s very important that this wedding is a success.  She gave Jules and Will a big discount to hold the celebration on the remote island, and her future depends on follow up bookings.

And then, there is blood.

This book is told out of the perspective of different people from the wedding party, and, an top, not in chronological order, what is sometimes quite confusing.

It’s clear from the beginning that there is a lot going on behind the perfect surface, and that drama is prone to happen.

I liked this book well enough, and i thought the plot was good, but it ended super abruptly, what I found dissatisfactory.

Read: Chanel Cleeton - The Last Train to Key West 🇺🇸

 I waited for quite some time to get this book delivered by my library, and I totally get why.

Chanel Cleeton’s book “The Last Train to Key West” is really a wonderful book.

It is set to play on the Florida Keys, and inspired by a true historical event: 

The horrible Labor Day Hurricane in 1935.

It tells the story of three totally different women, all affected by “the Great War” and the 1929 depression in some ways.

Helen, a local, is waiting tables and married to Tom, who turned out to be the worst possible spouse. Drinking away all their small earnings, he is a wife beater on top.

Mirta comes to Key West from Cuba by Ferry. To secure her families wellbeing, she agreed to marry a total stranger, Anthony. Anxious and nervous about this marriage to a stranger that brought her to a far away country, she tries to navigate her life as a newly wed. 

Elizabeth is a New York socialite who’s family fell deep and out of grace during the depression. Her last rescue is to take the train to Key West to search for someone who is very important to her. Also, it brings her away from a man to whom her destiny ist tied - but she wants out.

For a short moment, both visitors meet Helen at Ruby’s diner in Key West, and their fates become entangled.

I really, really enjoyed reading this book, I loved the historical details, it brought back great memories of the Keys (I want there in the last century, folks...), and I also liked the writing. Though not terribly suspenseful, it was engaging and I really connected to all three women.

I will check out other books by Chanel Cleeton for sure.

Gelesen / Read: Elizabeth Lim: Spin the Dawn / ein Kleid aus Seide und Sternen 🇺🇸🇩🇪

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I had a good amount of advertisements on my feed for the new German translation of this book, but I got my hand on the English version through my library quickly, so  read it in the original version.

I really like to read YA, at least from time to time, because these are usually so easy, fun reads. This book is perfect for anyone who likes to sew, too.

Maia is the only daughter of a tailor, and unlike her brothers, really interesting in learning the trade. After her mother passes, she becomes her father’s apprentice.

Fate comes down hard on the family, but one day, en emissary of the emperor comes to take the tailor’s son with him to compete for the position of the emperor’s court tailor.

And so Maia decides to go as  her brother and to compote for the position.

But the competition is hard and not necessarily fair, live at court is treacherous and some serious magic is going on.

Maia is determined to success, no matter how crazy the designs she is asked to make. And so begins the journey to save herself and the whole country.

I  liked the book, though parts of it really reminded me of Trudi Canavan’s Black Magician World, but I really liked this one, so no problem.

The second part is already available, too. I am going to read it too.

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Ich hatte in meinem Instagram Feed viel Werbung für die neuerschienene deutsche Übersetzung des Buches, habe es dann aber doch im Original gelesen.

Ich lese ja ab und zu mal ganz gerne Jugendbücher, weil die sich meist so locker weglesen lassen....

Maia ist die einzige Tochter eines Schneidermeisters, und im Gegensatz zu ihren drei Brüdern wirklich interessiert daran, den Beruf von ihrem Vater zu erlernen.

Das Schicksal meint es nicht gut mit der Familie, doch eines Tages steht ein Abgesandter vor dem Schneideratelier um den Sohn des Schneidermeisters mit zum Hof des Kaisers zu nehmen, wo es einen Wettbewerb um die Position des kaiserlichen Hofschneiders geben soll. Und so verkleidet sich Maia als Junge und nimmt die Herausforderung an.

Das Leben am Hof ist allerdings ganz anders als erwartet, der Wettbewerb verläuft nicht unter fairen Bedingungen, die Aufgaben sind zum Teil unmöglich zu erfüllen, und auch Magie spielt eine große Rolle.  

Aber Maia will gewinnen, und so beginnt eine Reise, um sich selbst und das ganze Reich zu retten.

Tolles Buch, gerade auch für Leserinnen, die gerne nähen, und durchaus interessant und spannend, auch wenn einem einiges nicht unbekannt vorkommt - vieles hat mich an “die Gilde der schwarzen Magier” von Trudi Canavan erinnert, aber da ich die Trilogie wirklich gerne mochte, hat mich das nicht so gestört.

Der zweite Teil ist auf Englisch schon erschienen. Ich lese weiter.