The Winter Rose

GIVEAWAY

DOBSON, MELANIE

THE WINTER ROSE

In this gripping WWII time-slip novel from the author whose books have been called 'propulsive' and a 'must-read' (Publisher's Weekly), Grace Tonquin is an American Quaker who works tirelessly in Vichy, France to rescue Jewish children from the Nazis. After crossing the treacherous Pyrenees, Grace returns home to Oregon with a brother and sister whose parents were lost during the war. Though Grace  and her husband love Elias and Marguerite as their own, echoes of Grace's past and trauma from the Holocaust tear the Tonquin family apart.

More than fifty years after they disappear, Addie Hoult arrives at Tonquin Lake hoping to find the Tonquin family. For Addie, the mystery is a matter of life or death for her beloved mentor Charlie, who is battling a genetic disease. Though Charlie refuses to discuss his ties to the elusive Tonquins, finding them is the only way to save his life and mend the woods from his broken past.

My Review:

I do so love an artfully crafted dual timeline story and Melanie Dobson has a special knack for creating the impossible to put down kind. I particularly love how well this genre suits WWII stories. There's something so hopeful that comes from the partial redemption of such evil -- even if it is decades later.

The historical timeline starts in 1943 and carries a few years past the end of the war while the present day timeline is set in 2003. I was drawn to both stories and the heroines who struggled to live out their faith when faced with impossible odds.

Grace's story is harrowing, as you would expect, and it takes so many startling twists and turns and downright detours that I am left kinda speechless. And I love the way Dobson meshed present day Addie's story into the mix. Her search for Grace or her descendants has an edge of desperation to it and kept me riveted. Not only was I anxious to find out what happened to Grace, but the mystery of Addie's back story kept me on tenterhooks too. And the author takes her time, carefully placing the big reveals at just the right places for maximum impact. I could not stop reading this book!

My heart hurt by the end and I may have ugly cried a time or two during the course of the read. But there's so much promise and hope by the end that my sadness mellowed out into a contented deep rooted feeling of satisfaction.

Exceptional storytelling infused with faith and the promise of redeeming love.

Goal Update: #5 Diversifying my reading -- Set in France

GIVEAWAY OPPORTUNITY:

This giveaway is for a paperback or ebook copy -- winner's choice.

If you would like a chance to win a copy of The Winter Rose, leave a comment below or email me at kavluvstoread AT yahoo DOT ca. If you add your email to a comment, remember to use AT AND DOT instead of @ and . in order to protect yourself from spammers. If you enter the draw via email, please add the title to the subject line so it's easy to spot your entry. Draw will be held and winner announced on Saturday January 29 2022. Offer open to International Readers. Good luck