Okay, okay. I’m five days “past due” to post the “Final Friday Book Review” for the month of September. So sorry! But … I’m late because I was attending AN AWESOME writing conference – which I’ll tell you all about it in my next blog post.
So, usually, on my blog on the Final Friday of each month, I will post the book review that I sent out to my newsletter subscribers at the beginning of the month. If you want primary access to these reviews, you can subscribe to my newsletter by clicking this link: http://bit.ly/NewsletterSignUpMelindaFreeland
Sometimes the review will be about a book I read years ago, other times I will have just turned the last page and feel like writing a review.
My reviews will always be about a book I rated with either 4 or 5 stars on Goodreads and/or Amazon. There are soooo many books available for readers to choose from—and to choose to buy—that I want to save readers both selection time and hard-earned money. I want to give you “the best bang for your buck.” So, even though there are some 3-star books that are still “good,” I’ll only post reviews about the “better” and “best” books I’ve read.
Goodreads’ rating system: Amazon’s rating system:
3 stars = I liked it 3 stars = It’s okay
4 stars = I really liked it 4 stars = I like it
5 stars = It was amazing 5 stars = I love it
I selected The White City for September’s book review because I interviewed Grace Hitchcock for a “Featured Author Interview” post on Fiction Finder, a linked resource page of the American Christian Fiction Writers’ (ACFW) website. I’ve always been interested in true crime stories. My husband and I binge-watched Making a Murderer on Netflix, and one of the more intriguing true crime books I’ve read was Death in a Prairie House: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Murders.
Speaking of things that are true, here is a fun fact about this author. I heard all about Grace long before I interviewed her. Her husband’s parents attend the same church I do (CBCB), and they even live in my subdivision! They led a Bible study on The Story at their house, and I got to know them – and learn about their son’s “writer wife” – when I told them I was working on writing my first novel. I was excited when I was assigned to interview Grace, and it was too funny that both the interview coordinator and Grace had no idea that I already knew a lot about Grace through my chats with her in-laws!
4 STARS ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
for The White City by Grace Hitchcock
Back Cover Book Blurb
Mysterious Disappearances Taint the Chicago World’s Fair
Step into True Colors
— a new series of Historical Stories of Romance and American Crime
While attending the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, Winnifred Wylde believes she
witnessed a woman being kidnapped. She tries to convince her father, an
inspector with the Chicago police, to look into reports of mysterious
disappearances around the White City. Inspector Wylde tries to dismiss her
claims as exaggeration of an overactive imagination, but he eventually concedes
to letting her go undercover as secretary to the man in question—if she takes
her pistol for protection and Jude Thorpe, a policeman, for bodyguard.
Will she be able to expose H. H. Holmes’s illicit activity, or will
Winnifred become his next victim?
My Thoughts
In the movie Jerry Maguire, there are several famous lines by characters Dorothy and Jerry. One often quoted is when Dorothy tells Jerry, “You had me at hello.” In the novel The White City, in the very first paragraph, author Grace Hitchcock had me at “nose hair.”
Here we have a book taking place in 1893, in a “prim and proper” setting where the main character Winnifred is clothed in a long white dress, a pink chapeau, and gloves, and she drinks from a gold-rimmed china teacup while at a luncheon with her suitor, Mr. Saunders. In this genteel type of scene, one certainly wouldn’t expect to read about a young lady concentrating on a man’s nose hair fluttering in and out. Ha! I loved this unique, unexpected start of this story. Whoever would think you could hook in a reader by talking about nose hair?
Hitchcock kept my interest high throughout the book by her use of witty banter and other ways of showing cute interaction between heroine Winnifred and hero policeman Jude. It was also fun to read the inner thoughts of Jude at times, particularly when they related to one of Winnifred’s suitors, Percival. The author did a wonderful job in various scenes showing a slow-building, but for sure tension, between Jude and Percival, as each man’s attraction toward Winnifred grew. The romance is this novel is certainly “clean and wholesome,” and very sweet.
I liked how the author reflected a Christian world-view in this novel, in a way that wasn’t preachy or seemingly there just to “highlight a Christian part of a story.” An example was Winnifred quoting scripture and praying – but in a frightening situation when even a non-believer might have suddenly decided to call out to God.
The way the author described objects and people for this time period, as well as the words she used in dialogue, were spot on, giving clear evidence Hitchcock did her historical research. The author’s descriptions, other than being “accurate,” also painted a clear picture of the intrigue of the Chicago World’s Fair; the sweet romance blooming between the hero and heroine; the caring friendship between Winnifred and her BFF Danielle, and the creepy behavior and overall demeanor of H.H. Holmes, the man believed to be America’s first serial killer.
Although this novel is based around the real person Holmes, who committed gruesome murders, there were no gory scenes depicted in this novel. This book reads more like a cozy mystery, with the majority of the story involving Winnifred thinking she saw a man kidnap a woman at the World’s Fair, and being the amateur sleuth she is, Winnifred spending the rest of the book investigating Holmes as she lands a position as a secretary at his hotel business.
A fun part of reading The White City was that I could just see all the supporting characters rolling their eyes and saying to themselves, “There goes paranoid Winnifred again and her lively imagination” is when Winnifred is positive she saw a kidnapping and that Holmes is up to no good. You see, Winnifred tends to thinks possible crimes are being committed all the time because she’s just a teeny bit influenced from reading about these types of activities in her beloved “penny novels,” and she has “cried wolf” on several occasions to her Police Inspector Father.
Hitchcock did a wonderful job keeping the pace moving and keeping this reader intrigued throughout the whole book. I enjoyed reading her debut full-length novel, and look forward to reading her second contribution to the True Colors: Historical Stories of American Crime series. Her sophomore novel is titled The Gray Chamber, set to release January 1, 2020.