The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of "No Names To Be Given" by Julia Brewer Daily, Served with Two "Egg in the Hole" Recipes

I am happy to be on the TLC Book Tour for No Names To Be Given by Julia Brewer Daily. Accompanying my review are links to some favorite Egg-In-the-Hole recipes inspired by my reading.

Publisher's Blurb

1965. Sandy runs away from home to escape her mother’s abusive boyfriend. Becca falls in love with the wrong man. And Faith suffers a devastating attack. With no support and no other options, these three young, unwed women meet at a maternity home hospital in New Orleans where they are expected to relinquish their babies and return home as if nothing transpired.

But such a life-altering event can never be forgotten, and no secret remains buried forever. Twenty-five years later, the women are reunited by a blackmailer, who threatens to expose their secrets and destroy the lives they’ve built. That shattering revelation would shake their very foundations-and reverberate all the way to the White House.

Told from the three women’s perspectives, this mesmerizing story is based on actual experiences of women in the 1960s who found themselves pregnant but unmarried, pressured by family and society to make horrific decisions. How that inconceivable act changed women forever is the story of No Names to Be Given, a heartbreaking but uplifting novel of family and redemption.

Publisher: Admission Press (August 3, 2021)  

Paperback: 334 pages

My Review:

There are many things to like about No Names Given. I think the idea of this book is a good one and liked that as an adopted child with a similar backstory, the author wrote this book about the experience of three young women who came from different circumstances and found themselves pregnant and sent to a maternity home in New Orleans in 1966, a time when the consequences of unwed motherhood were devastating and often covered up with the babies adopted out. I like that it delved into what circumstances were like for these women feel like that seems realistic. While the individual stories of Sandy, Becca, and Faith were compelling, it was hard to delve deep enough into their characters to feel connected and I found the dialogue clunky at times which pulled me out of the story. Midway through the book, it switches to twenty-five years later and more of a mystery vibe for the women to figure out who knows their secrets and wants to expose them and destroy their lives and careers, but that part of the story didn't have any real teeth to it. There were several plot points that felt too convenient and coincidental and that made it hard for me to believe it would have played out the way it did and left me somewhat disappointed in the ending. This is a debut novel, so points for that, and I imagine that it was cathartic for the author to write given the tie to her own history. I'd love to read more about her personal, real-life journey to learn about her past someday. 

-----

Author Notes: Julia Brewer Daily is a Texan with a southern accent. She holds a B.S. in English and a M.S. degree in Education from the University of Southern Mississippi. She was the founding director of the Greater Belhaven Market, a producers’ only market in a historic neighborhood in Jackson, and even shadowed Martha Stewart. As the Executive Director of the Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi (300 artisans from 19 states) which operates the Mississippi Craft Center, she wrote their stories to introduce them to the public. Daily is an adopted child from a maternity home hospital in New Orleans. She searched and found her birth mother and through a DNA test, her birth father’s family, as well. A lifelong southerner, she now resides on a ranch in Fredericksburg, Texas, with her husband Emmerson and Labrador Retrievers, Memphis Belle and Texas Star.

You can connect with Julia on her website,  Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

-----

There was quite a lot of food and a lot of southern food in the book. Mentions included catfish, corn, dumplings or a stew, chicken pie, bakes sweet potatoes, onions and bell peppers sizzling on a griddle, a hot dog and a bottled strawberry drink, eggs in a hole, French toast, point cake, chocolate chess pie, mason jar of pimento cheese slathered on crackers, Salisbury steak with hot brown gravy, dinner rolls, green salad with blue cheese dressing and bacon bits, black coffee, strawberry cake with cream cheese icing, roast, gravy and peas, hamburgers, hot chocolate, cherry snow cone, French pastries with layers of fillings, coffee with chicory, cold cuts, grape soda, bread, pears, petit fours, mixed nuts, tiny cucumber sandwiches and fruit punch with vanilla ice cream floating in it, seafood, brandy, muffulettas, shrimp and oyster po'boys, beignets, turkey and oyster dressing, glass bottles of Coca-Cola and moon pies, club sandwiches, pecan pie, fresh fruit, shrimp cocktails, beef stew, peanut butter crackers, sherbet pushup, chips, ginger ale and saltine crackers, potatoes, sweet ice tea, blackberry cobbler, fried chicken, tiny quiches, stuffed mushrooms, grilled cheese sandwich, banana popsicle, soup, baked ham with pineapple rings and whole cloves, birthday cake, crawfish étouffée, cupcakes, peanuts poured into a glass bottle of coke, turtle soup, ham and cheese croissants, potato salad, fresh lemonade, chicken salad, tenderloins from the grill, peanut butter on every table as an appetizer, scrambled eggs, champagne, tiny crab cakes and oysters on the half shell, grits and biscuits, shrimp salad, Angels on Horseback (grilled oysters wrapped in bacon), hot crab dip with toast points, tiny grits cakes topped with Mississippi sausage, and a meat and three (southern special of meat, three sides, cornbread and sweet tea).

For my bookish dish, there wasn't one dish that really stood out for me except the eggs in a hole that Becca's housekeeper and mother-figure growing up makes her. It's a small mention but since I grew up with it myself (it was called "ding-dong eggs" at my house) and it's a favorite nostalgic breakfast or occasional dinner for me. I have featured it on the blog a few times and would have made it this week but work and some new COVID-related duties have really kicked my butt this week and I have been coming home, eating things I can heat up quickly and falling asleep before 8:00 PM most nights and just didn't have the energy to make a pretty dish and take pictures of it.

So, here are two favorites from the past--one a classic, eggs in a bread frame and the other a grilled cheese (also mentioned in the book) combination. The links in each lead to the recipe post. 

First up, the Grilled Cheese Egg in a Hole that combines two favorite classics. 

Then a more classic Egg In a Hole.

You can't go wrong with either of these! 

 

I'm sharing this post with the Weekend Cooking event  being hosted by Marg at The Adventures of An Intrepid Reader. It's a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. Here's a link to last week's post. 

Note: A review copy of No Names to Be Given was provided to me by the author and the publisher via TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for this review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.    

You can see the stops for the rest of this TLC Book Tour and what other reviewers thought about the book here. 

 

The Book Tour Stops Here; A Review of "Why I Never Finished My Dissertation" by Laura Foley, Served with the TikTok Egg Sandwich Hack

I am happy to be today's stop on the TLC Book Tour for Why I Never Finished My Dissertation by Laura Foley, a book of poetry. Accompanying my review is a version of the popular TikTok Egg Sandwich Hack that made the rounds last year.  

Publisher's Blurb:

Named one of seven Best Indie Poetry Books of 2019 by Kirkus.

Foley’s writing may appear sparse and reserved but it harbors a subtle power. The poet’s greatest strength is her acute sense of observation. She possesses the ability to thread sensuousness into the fabric of everyday life. . .This is a dazzling volume of poetry that delights in crisp imagery and tender recollections.
—Kirkus Reviews

Eric Hoffer/Montaigne Medal Finalist
Eric Hoffer/da Vinci Eye Finalist
Eric Hoffer Book Award Honorable Mention

The quest to discover why this poet does not complete a dissertation, leads to an astonishing read. This collection reveals a wide range of life-changing experiences beginning with a marriage to a hunchback Moroccan, almost twice the writer’s age. Other poems express revelations and observations that arise out of travels, such as a trip to Tehran, where the poet stands on a bullet-riddled balcony watching a hurried crowd “spill Khomeini from his coffin.” The signature poem unveils a suddenly busy domestic life in a second marriage with three young children and puppies. Toward the end readers experience love which results in marriage with a same-sex partner. No matter one’s personal story, what makes a story great is how it is told.

—The US Review of Books

Publisher : Headmistress Press (August 18, 2019) 

Paperback : 108 pages

 

My Review:

I enjoy poetry but I find that I don't read books of it very often. April is National Poetry Month so I get a poem delivered to my email daily and I write haiku about random things--including summarizing chapters of Jane Austen's novels for one of my virtual buddy read-alongs (yes, I am that strange), but don't think I am qualified to review it at all critically, I can just tell you whether I like a poem or not and if it speaks to me in some way. Laura Foley's poems do. This is the second of her books that I have read and reviewed (see my review of Night Ringing here). Her poems are simple, not especially flowery, and she choses her words with care and percision. The poems are about everyday moments on one hand, but Foley's life has been an interesting one so I find myself somewhat fascinated by it. We don't have a lot in common on paper but I find when a poem leaves me satisfied in its beauty but still wanting to know more about the story behind it, it has done its job. Like Night Ringing, there are strong ties to nature and the poet's observations of the beauty, which I loved. 

Below is one of my favorite short poems from the book. I love the imagery of the amiable maple as it conjured up sitting under a favorite tree and enjoying its shade with a good book. With everything that went on in the world over the last year, I found myself often glued to reading and watching the (usually bad) news and I like the point Foley makes that these wonderful parts of life--happy dogs, autumn leaves, holding babies and amiable trees are the current events to be attentive to. (At least that's how it resonated with me!) 

One Day

I didn't read the news.

I raked a rainbow

of pungent autumn leaves,

played abroad with happy dogs, 

held my granddaughter in my arms,

and sat beneath an amiable maple,

attentive to current events. 

If you love poetry and poetry that is biographical you will enjoy Why I Never Finished My Dissertation, and if you are new to poetry, it's a great place to start diving in. 

-----

Author Notes: Laura Foley is the author of six poetry collections, including Joy Street, Syringa and Night Ringing. Her poem “Gratitude List” won the Common Good Books poetry contest and was read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac. Her poem “Nine Ways of Looking at Light” won the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest, judged by Marge Piercy. For more information on Laura’s work, please visit her website.

------

Food Inspiration:

So yeah, it's poetry so our food inspiration is a bit limited. But considering that for her last book of poetry, I just bought a cappuccino from my favorite local coffee shop,  I can't help feeling I am ahead of the game here!  ;-) The food I tagged throughout the book was pomegranates, caviar by the pound, fresh-squeezed red juice, sauerkraut, onions, painting egg whites on rolls, vegetarian, dinner, coffee, an egg sandwich, endless cocktails, a garden harvest of chard, tomatoes, onions and a host of potatoes, champagne, green tea with honey, bread dipped in the finest olive oil, and fried eggs. 

I decided to go with a combination of the egg sandwich, fried egg, bread and olive oil mentioned in two of the poems, and also to finally try out the "one-pan egg sandwich" that made the rounds of TikTok a while ago. You basically pour eggs in a pan, top them with bread, turn them over and fold everything into the bread. Not going to lie, the appeal is that it's simple, and having bought a loaf of black pepper Swiss cheese bread last weekend, I had all I needed to make. 

I was going to take pictures of the process as I cooked but I realized I didn't bring my phone into the kitchen with me and was too lazy to go get it. If you want to see the technique, here's a good article from Taste of Home that shows the steps. shows.

TikTok Egg Sandwich Hack

Recipe by TikTok and the World

(Serves 1)

olive oil

2-3 large fresh eggs

2 pieces of your favorite bread, sliced

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

cheese and other things like bacon, grilled veggies, herbs (optional)

Heat a light coating of  olive oil in skillet over medium heat. Whisk eggs in a bowl, then pour them into skillet. Place two sliced of bread on top of the eggs, lining them up so they are aligned vertically in the pan (they need to be lined up like thus since you are folding one piece over the other to make a sandwich). Once the eggs are cooked, carefully flip both the slices of bread over at the same time (so the eggs are now on top). Fold the overlapping edges of egg onto the bread, place a slice of cheese on each piece of bread, then flip one slice of bread onto the other to finish off your sandwich. Reduce heat and let sandwich cook another minute or two to melt the cheese.  

Notes/Results: Like reading poetry after a long while, when I eat a good egg sandwich I ask myself why I don't eat them more as a quick dinner. Made this way it is a quick, no mess process that tastes great. I probably over-egged for my small bread but when eating it, I didn't mind. The bread has good flavor on it's own with the Swiss cheese and black pepper and so I used a mild creamy Muenster cheese. I will make it again.  

Speaking of books, did you know it's World Book Day and you can get 10 free Kindle books from Amazon for the next 10 days? Read my post about it and find the links here. 

I am linking up this post to Souper Sundays here at Kahakai Kitchen where each week I share a soup and also feature soups, salads, and sandwiches from other bloggers. Here's the link to this week's link up.

. 

I'm also sharing this post with the Weekend Cooking event  being hosted by Marg at The Adventures of An Intrepid Reader. It's a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. Here's the link to this week's post. 

Finally I am linking up to the National Poetry Month Link Up at Savvy Verse & Wit. Where you can share poetry-related posts this month. Here's the link to the link up post.

Note: A review copy of Why I Never Finished My Dissertation was provided to me by the author and the publisher via TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for this review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.   
 
You can see the stops for the rest of this TLC Book Tour and what other reviewers thought about the book here. 

  

Tarragon with the Wind Blender Béarnaise Sauce Over Poached Egg on Crispy Hashbrown Cakes for #BlendsBash2021

For my fourth and final recipe developed for #BlendsBash2020, I may have saved the best for last. That's claiming a lot, since I am pretty happy with the recipes I have created so far (see the bottom of the post for links) but I have a special place in my heart for tarragon and for the easy Tarragon with the Wind Blender Béarnaise Sauce Over Poached Egg on Crispy Hashbrown Cakes that I made using The Book Club Cookbook's Book Blend.

Tarragon with the Wind gets it moniker from the 1936 book Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. More than 30 million copies of this beloved and often controversial book have been sold over the years. I watched the movie multiple times as a child with my mom and made my way through the book but never finished it a few years ago, so to be honest, my choosing the blend to work with had more to do with the tarragon than the title. On the bottle it says, "A bittersweet herb to help you survive difficult days." which couldn't be more timely right now. The bottle also notes, "A warm, sweet anise/minty aroma, very popular in many European cuisines. Good to use in dressings, sauces, and on salads. Works well in combination with basil, bay leaves, chives, dill, and parsley."

Similar to Gone with the Wind, tarragon  is not without controversy. It is one of those herbs like cilantro or dill, that people either seem to love or hate. I like the intensity and bite of anise flavor it gives a dish, it feels chic and French, and it is a featured ingredient in one of my favorite sauces, Béarnaise, the child of the French mother sauce Hollandaise. You see it served with steak a lot as it is strong enough to stand up to red meat, but as I only rarely eat meat, my favorite pairings for it are potatoes and eggs.

Made of butter (LOTS of butter), shallots, vinegar, egg yolks and tarragon, Béarnaise sauce is not too difficult to make but it can be finicky, separating easily and takes a fair amount of whisking which frankly, I am too lazy for. Having had great success with Hollandaise made in the blender (this one is a favorite), I assumed Béarnaise would be just as easy and indeed, there are plenty of recipes for Blender Béarnaise from Food Network to food sites and blogs. Some use fresh tarragon which can be difficult to find regularly here, so a good quality dried French tarragon like Tarragon with the Wind is a must in my kitchen.

My egg *needed* to be poached and rather than bread or an English muffin to rest it on, I wanted to work potatoes in. My friend gave me a mini electric grill for my birthday this year, so I cooked some hashbrowns into crispy rounds in it.  

I'm not going to give you recipes for the poached eggs (many people make them better and prettier than I do) or the potato cakes as not wanting to to add eggs, upon eggs, upon eggs, I simply packed packaged (non-frozen) hashbrowns into my greased and preheated mini grill pan and make two cakes for my individual serving. If you want, you can make potato cakes or just serve your egg and sauce on top of a pile crispy hashbrowns & it would be easier, faster, and taste just as good.

I will give you my recipe for the Blender Béarnaise which is pretty similar to the many recipes you find online. I just use Tarragon Vinegar for an extra punch but champagne vinegar will do nicely.

Tarragon with the Wind Blender Béarnaise Sauce

By Deb, Kahakai Kitchen

(Makes about 1 1/2 cups)

 

1 medium shallot, finely diced

1/4 cup white wine

1/4 cup tarragon vinegar (or white wine vinegar or champagne vinegar)

2 tsp Tarragon with the Wind French Tarragon, or to taste

3 egg yolks

 salt and black pepper to taste

1 1/4 cups butter (2 1/2 sticks)

 

Place the shallots, wine, tarragon vinegar, and Tarragon with the Wind in a small pan and bring to a simmer. Simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated down to about 2 tablespoons, about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the butter in a small pan or in the microwave until hot and bubbling but not brown and set aside.

Place shallot mixture in blender jar. Add egg yolks, salt and pepper and blend on high speed until smooth. With blender running, remove the small hole covering and slowly pour in melted butter in a very small, slow and steady stream. Blend until smooth and luxurious. Serve warm.

  

To assemble my dish, I placed one hashbrown cake on the plate and topped it with some sauce, they layered the second cake on top.  I then carefully slid my poached egg onto the top of the second hashbrown cake and topped generously with more sauce. I ground fresh black pepper and sprinkled a tiny bit of the Tarragon with the Wind on top to garnish. Eat right away and enjoy.

Notes/Results: I am in love with the sauce; rich, smooth and creamy with the pop of acidity and the sharpness of the tarragon, I could pretty much eat it with a spoon, but why do that when you have crispy hashbrowns and yummy runny egg yolks to enjoy  it with?  This dish is not complicated but you do need to multi-task and have all three components ready so it is all fresh and warm. An indulgent dish but so worth it! I'd happily make it again.

Many thanks to Judy and The Book Club Cookbook for providing me with this fun and delicious seasoning and for letting me join in the fun. I received no compensation for taking part in the virtual 2020 #BlendsBash party and my thoughts and experience using the blends are my own.

I was very excited to contribute four recipes this year, joining  more than 30 other bloggers as part of the 2020 Blends Bash!  You can check out all the bloggers participating in the #BlendsBash and their delicious recipes here.

Here are the links to the other three recipes I developed:

• Dukkah Earl Grilled Eggplant Toasts with Whipped Feta & Dukkah

• One Flew Over the Couscous Nest Middle Eastern Minestrone with Chickpeas & Israeli Couscous 

• Lord of the Fries Seasoned Pan-Fried Gnocchi in Creamy Garlic Soup

Here's a sneak peek the blends I featured in their adorable packaging. These blends are so delicious and fun--they make wonderful gifts for your foodie friends and fans of the many book, TV and song blends they feature. Check out a list of blends here.

The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of "Masquerade at Middlecrest Abbey" by Abigail Wilson, Served with Oatmeal with Cinnamon-Apple Compote

Happy Thursday! It's been such a crazy week work-wise that I am just counting down the minutes until Friday afternoon and the weekend. To distract me, I am happy to be on the TLC Book Tour for  Masquerade at Middlecrest Abbey, a delightful new Regency romance by Abigail Wilson. Accompanying my review is a recipe for Oatmeal with Cinnamon-Apple Compote, inspired by my reading.

Publisher's Blurb
In this new Regency romance, Elizabeth knows she must protect her heart from the charm of her new husband, Lord Torrington. She is not, however, prepared to protect her life.

When the widowed Lord Torrington agreed to spy for the crown, he never planned to impersonate a highwayman, let alone rob the wrong carriage. Stranded on the road with an unconscious young woman, he is forced to propose marriage to protect his identity and her reputation, as well as his dangerous mission.

Trapped not only by her duty to her country but also by her limited options as an unwed mother, Miss Elizabeth Cantrell and her infant son are whisked away to Middlecrest Abbey by none other than the elder brother of her son’s absent father. There she is met by Torrington’s beautiful grown daughters, a vicious murderer, and an urgent hunt for the missing intelligence that could turn the war with France. Meanwhile she must convince everyone that her marriage is a genuine love match if her new husband has any hope of uncovering the enemy.

Determined to keep her son’s true identity a secret, Elizabeth will need to remain one step ahead of her fragile heart, her uncertain future, and the relentless fiend bent on her new family’s ruin.

 Paperback: 336 Pages

Publisher: Thomas Nelson  (May 26, 2020)

My Review:

Masquerade at Middlecrest Abbey was tagged as a historical romance with some suspense and mystery which sounded light and perfect for my mood. Although Regency romance is not necessarily my go-to genre outside of Jane Austen and retellings of her work, I found myself quickly caught up in the story and intrigue. Elizabeth is on her way to a governess position with her toddler son when her coach is waylaid by a highway man and tips over. When she awakens in an inn with him by her side, and finds out he is instead, working for British Intelligence and was sent to intercept her carriage, she accepts his proposal of marriage to cover up the incident. He's a widower with two nearly grown daughters and she is a young, unwed mother protecting her son with secrets of her own, but soon they are working together to find a murder, stop the French and find out what was on the carriage that both the French and English want. 

I was a bit bummed to find out that this book was part of a series with two books preceding it as I have an obsession for reading books in order and it seriously bugs me when I don't have all of the history and backstory. I became willing to overlook it in this case because I really enjoyed Elizabeth and Lord Torrington and there was a little recapping done of some of the characters that were mentioned from the other books, so it is possible to read and enjoy this one on its own. That being said, I will likely try to find the previous books when the library opens up again and read them. At 336 pages, it is a fairly quick read and it's paced well, so I found myself speeding through it. I did have the mystery figured out fairly quickly, causing me to yell in my head at Elizabeth and Adrian. (Oh why do book characters never listen to me?!) ;-) Overall it was an engaging book with clean romance, and likable and interesting characters--a nice escape.

-----

Author Notes: Abigail Wilson combines her passion for Regency England with intrigue and adventure to pen historical mysteries with a heart. A registered nurse, chai tea addict, and mother of two crazy kids, Abigail fills her spare time hiking the national parks, attending her daughter’s gymnastic meets, and curling up with a great book. In 2017, Abigail won WisRWA’s Fab Five contest and in 2016, ACFW’s First Impressions contest as well as placing as a 2017 finalist in the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense. She is a cum laude graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and currently lives in Dripping Springs, Texas, with her husband and children.

Connect with Abigail on her website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 

-----


Food Inspiration:
There was not a tremendous amount of food in Masquerade at Middlecrest Abbey but there were mentions of rosemary, hot chocolate, bread and spices, sandwiches, kneading dough, tea and cakes, plum tarts, meat and a few vegetables, soup, gruel, a aroma of "a delightful splash of cinnamon and apples," white cake, and a person who "can't abide strong cheese, nor too many spices."

I ended up taking inspiration for my bookish dish from the gruel and the apple-cinnamon aroma, making Oatmeal with Apple Cinnamon Compote. It's not an exact fit for a dish but I didn't have the time or inclination to make plum tarts and it accomplishes my desire to use up ingredients I have on hand and not run to the store. For the compote, I added cinnamon to the recipe for Apples a la Mode from Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express. And the oatmeal, I cooked in coconut milk for extra flavor and creaminess.

Apples a la Mode Topping
Slightly Adapted from Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express

Peel and core 4 apples and cut them into quarter-inch slices (I used 1 Honeycrisp apple and cut it into chunks). In a few tablespoons of butter, cook the apples about 4 minutes (longer if in chunks); add about a quarter cup of calvados (apple brandy--I added a small splash), sprinkle with (cinnamon) and brow sugar. When the apples have softened and browned, turn up the heat and reduce the liquid to a syrup. Serve over vanilla ice cream or a bowl of oatmeal). ;-)  
For the oatmeal, I used old-fashioned oats and replaced the water/milk with coconut milk and cooked them to package instructions. I topped it with the apples and a few glazed pecans.

Notes/Results: This turned out to be a great way to use up a getting-not-so-crisp apple from the pantry & it was enough for two bowls of oatmeal, or ice cream or whatever you want to put the tasty apples over. I used a splash of apple brandy which may not seem very breakfasty, it fits the week I have been having. ;-) The oatmeal was creamy and good, the apples a good mix of sweet and tart and the pecans added crunch. I will happily make it again.

I'm linking up to I Heart Cooking Clubs where we are still doing Needs Must cooking along with Julia Child and 19 other featured chefs including Mark Bittman.

I'm also sharing this post with the Weekend Cooking event that was held at Beth Fish Reads, but is now being hosted with Marg at The Adventures of An Intrepid Reader. It's a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. You can see this past week's post here.

Note: A review copy of "Masquerade at Middlecrest Abbey" was provided to me by the author and the publisher via TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for my review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own. 
 
You can see the other stops for this TLC Book Tour and what other bloggers thought of the book here.

  

The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of Resistance Women by Jennifer Chiaverini Served with Pear Streusel Coffee Cake

Happy Tuesday! I am saying that painfully since I got hit with the crud this past weekend and have been home from work yesterday and today, nursing a sore throat and ear and mostly sleeping. It did give me a chance to finally finish Resistance Women by Jennifer Chiaverini and I am happy to be a stop on today's TLC Book Tour for this moving historical novel. Accompanying my review is a semi-homemade (remember the feeling like absolute crud) Pear Streusel Coffee Cake with Coffee, my interpretation of Kaffee und Kuchen (coffee and cake) inspired by my reading.

Publisher's Blurb:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker, an enthralling historical saga that recreates the danger, romance, and sacrifice of an era and brings to life one courageous, passionate American—Mildred Fish Harnack—and her circle of women friends who waged a clandestine battle against Hitler in Nazi Berlin.

After Wisconsin graduate student Mildred Fish marries brilliant German economist Arvid Harnack, she accompanies him to his German homeland, where a promising future awaits. In the thriving intellectual culture of 1930s Berlin, the newlyweds create a rich new life filled with love, friendships, and rewarding work—but the rise of a malevolent new political faction inexorably changes their fate.

As Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party wield violence and lies to seize power, Mildred, Arvid, and their friends resolve to resist. Mildred gathers intelligence for her American contacts, including Martha Dodd, the vivacious and very modern daughter of the US ambassador. Her German friends, aspiring author Greta Kuckoff and literature student Sara Weitz, risk their lives to collect information from journalists, military officers, and officials within the highest levels of the Nazi regime.

For years, Mildred’s network stealthily fights to bring down the Third Reich from within. But when Nazi radio operatives detect an errant Russian signal, the Harnack resistance cell is exposed, with fatal consequences.

Inspired by actual events, Resistance Women is an enthralling, unforgettable story of ordinary people determined to resist the rise of evil, sacrificing their own lives and liberty to fight injustice and defend the oppressed.

Paperback: 640 pages

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (February 4, 2020)

My Review:

If you read this blog often and read my book tour reviews, you know that I have a deep love of World War II historical fiction. I am not sure exactly why I love it because if you ever go into a WWII book, any war book really and expect that you will leave it happy and carefree, you obviously are a newbie to the genre. It just doesn't happen. You can end a book with new knowledge, with awe, with admiration, with a (lately very faint hope) that nothing like it will ever happen again, but you never leave it with a light heart. And this certainly is the case with Resistance Women where 600-ish pages of well-researched story based on true people and events was a whole lot for me to get through. I had to keep putting it down and reading other, much lighter things. I postponed my book tour review once due to a cold, busy work weeks and house guests, and by golly even being sick, I was going to finish the book for this tour date. I realize that this makes it sound like I didn't like Resistance Women, but that just isn't the case. This was my first book by Jennifer Chiaverini and it was an incredible interesting story--that taught me about the women of Germany who although they came from different perspectives and walks of life, worked together to aid in the resistance against Adolph Hitler and the Nazis, mostly through the group called the Rote Kapelle (Red Orchestra) by the Nazis. It starts a bit slow as Chiaverini builds each character and their lives from 1929 until the end of the war in 1946, but once I got into the story and the tension started to build, I was hooked.

The book centers around four women, three real life women, one a fictional character inspired by several young women. Mildred Harnack is an American from Wisconsin, studying for her doctorate who marries a german and emigrates to Germany. Greta Kuckoff is a German National who wants to be an author and falls in love with the theater and a married man--a writer and dramatic adviser. Martha Dodd was the the daughter of the US Ambassador to Germany and was witness to Hitler's rise (I have had In the Garden of Beasts, the book about her family by Erik Larson in my TBR stack for ages now). Sara Weitz is a young Jewish literature student from an upper middle class family. I was most drawn to Mildred's and Sara's stories, although all of the women were interesting. Their actions were just as important, heroic and risky as the men in the resistance cell, although they are often overlooked in history as women's contributions tend to be. Chiaverini made each character come to life and made me care about them enough to be googling them and various events and enemies throughout the book which added to the time it took me to read it. It also had the unfortunate effect of giving me advance warning of how things ended for most characters, main and minor, which made it a bit like a scary movie that had me talking to them (OK, sometimes yelling at them) in my head about the decisions they were making over the years as we journeyed to the book's end. 

I have a lot of people tell me they are burned out on WWII novels and it's partially because there have been a lot of great ones that focus on women these past few years, and I do understand. The emotional toil a good and powerful book can take can be exhausting. Resistance Women is an excellent book but I will say that if you are burned out on the era or not able to cope with the horrors of war, maybe you should wait a bit before trying it. But, if you love historical fiction, don't mind a lengthy read, and want to learn some very interesting history in a book that will stay with you after the final pages are turned, I recommend it highly. I'm going to look for more of Chiaverini's books. I just may read a couple of thriller or some humor before I do. ;-)

----- 

Author Notes: Jennifer Chiaverini is the New York Times bestselling author of several acclaimed historical novels and the beloved Elm Creek Quilts series. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Chicago, she lives with her husband and two sons in Madison, Wisconsin.

Find out more about Jennifer at her website, and connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

-----

Food Inspiration: 

Resistance Women starts in 1929 before the Great Depression and then goes through wartime until about 1946 and there are times and places the food is plentiful and when it is scarce but either way, there were plenty of mentions including coffee, a dinner of bratwurst in a vinegar and caper sauce, potato dumplings, cabbage rolls and poppyseed cake for dessert, savory soup and delicate sandwiches, cheap but edible cuts of meat and day-old bread, lentil soup, roast pork with apples and sauerkraut, beer, Pfannkuchen (a German pancake), Feuerzangenbowle (a traditional German drink where a rum-soaked sugarloaf is set on fire and drips into mulled wine), bread, cheese, and slices of smoked sausages, schnapps, wine, roast duck and potatoes, Perigord truffles, Russian caviar and champagne, vegetable soup, tea and cake, a hearty cabbage, potato and sausage soup, sodas, sandwiches and fruit, butter cake, chamomile tea, liverwurst sandwiches, thinly sliced bread, cheese, sausage and tomatoes, Apfelkuchen, dark bread, sliced cold sausages, and cheese, sehr leckere Kekse (German cookies), vodka, champagne and strawberries, potato soup and bread, oatmeal and toast, trays of hors d'oeuvres and cocktails, fried eggs and buttered toast, plain bread and yogurt, scrawny stick of asparagus and rhubarb at the bottom of a bin, greens, tomatoes, summer squash, cabbages and peppers grown in Mutti Harnack's garden, potatoes, carrots and bread, a soup of potato peelings, a piece of cheese scarcely big enough for a sandwich, sacks of rice and beans, cans of fruit, roast potatoes swimming with butter, fresh bread, canned peaches, hot tea with honey, bread, cheese and sliced Mettwurst, cognac, real coffee, cabbage, onion and apples fried in the last of the olive oil, a half loaf of rye bread and a gorgeous red apple, chocolate, Schweineschnitzel and Spatzele, bread spread with margarine, Knackwurst, Spatzle and a beer, breakfast steaks and an apple, bread and jam with milk, and ersatz coffee (a coffee substitute for the real thing).

There were many scenes where characters had various interpretations of Kaffee und Kuchen, the afternoon tradition of enjoying coffee and cake. Some of the cakes seemed to be the more traditional kuchen--the cross between a cake and pie with fruit and pastry cream but I wanted something simpler and decided to go with a coffee cake, more of a Streuselkuchen. Although apple was mentioned frequently in the book, a friend just sent me some little apple crisps so I decided to make my cake with pear.

I believe I have mentioned many times that I am not a baker, that and feeling like junk since Saturday meant the last thing I wanted to do was bake a cake, even an easy one. So, I'll confess my dirty little secret--I used a coffee cake mix! (Gasp!) Krusteaz had their cake mixes on special for $2.79 each at my local grocery store including this Cinnamon Swirl Crumb Cake and Muffin Mix. Since I rarely if ever bake, I didn't have flour or sugar or brown sugar on hand, and it would have cost me a lot more to buy even small containers of these ingredients. So, I bought the mix and 3 fresh Bartlett pears and was good to go. I am not ashamed of this, nor particularly proud--it was just  my best option. If you want to make your own, I totally get it and suggest this one from Gale Gand's delightful Brunch! Cookbook which you can find here.

As for me, I simply peeled, cored and sliced my pears and stirred about two heaping cups into the mixed batter (which used water, cooking oil and an egg) and baked it in an 8x8-inch pan at 350 for about 35 minutes (I used my toaster oven which cooks a little hot), until a skewer into the cake came out clean. Although the instructions called for a middle and top streusel, with the chopped pears mixed in, I put all my streusel on the top.

Notes/Results: The resulting cake was light, moist from the pears and not too sweet and bonus--it's the first think beyond popsicles, broth, yogurt and smoothies that hasn't totally killed my throat so far this week and thus it was my dinner tonight. ;-) I would buy the mix again and use it with other fruit for a one bowl and spoon coffee cake.  

I'm sharing this post with the Weekend Cooking event at Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. For more information, see the welcome post.

Note: A review copy of "Resistance Women" was provided to me by the author and the publisher Harper Collins via TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for this review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.  

You can see the stops for the rest of this TLC Book Tour and what other reviewers thought about the book here.