The Awakening of Miss Adelaide by Linda Brooks Davis Book Review and Giveaway

ABOUT THE BOOK

Orphaned as an infant, Oklahoma heiress Adelaide Fitzgerald has enjoyed every advantage. She possesses a unique gift for music and has excelled on the opera stage in Italy. As a philanthropist, she’s adored from America to Europe.

But Miss Adelaide is about to awaken in a 1918 nightmare. The Great War—and the Great Influenza—knock, and Adelaide finds her uninvited guests more than unwelcome. They threaten her life and alter her identity and purpose.

Snatched from a quiet life in an Italian villa, Miss Adelaide is thrust into conflicts others have created. What battle scars will she sustain? And where will love lead her?

In The Awakening of Miss Adelaide, war and peace, laughter and heartache, love and loss come together to ignite a fresh fire that reveals one woman’s hidden needs and potentials.

What will gaining a fresh understanding of herself require of the Angel of the Opera?

Book: The Awakening of Miss Adelaide Linda Brooks Davis

Author: Linda Brooks Davis

Genre: Historical

Release Date: July, 2019

Click here to grab your copy!

MY BOOK REVIEW

Historical fictions are one of my favorite types of books. "The Awakening of Miss Adelaide" is placed during the World War I era. It is the 3rd book in the Rock Creek Women series. I haven't read the first two books, but still was able to follow along in the story with no problem. I can't wait to read the first two books. Again, this can be read as a stand alone book. Linda Brooks Davis's, the author, own family history served as an inspiration for this story.

Linda Brroks Davis takes back to 1918 and into Miss Adelaide Fitzgeral's life. Adelaid is a well known and beloved opera singer who inherited the Villa Romano in Italy from her former Maestro. She decides to remain at the estate due to the war, but finds herself at the mercy of the army and diseases.

There was a lot going on in 1918. The Great War which led to many shortages. The suffragette oment was gaining more recognition. Miss Adeliade is a wealthy independent woman. Women are being thrown into mental institutions for no good reason. Should she join the movement?

Influenza was killing people. After contracting the flu she developed a severe form of pnemonia causing her to almost die. Now, Miss Adelaid's career is in jeopardy because of the pneumonia doing damage to her vocal cords and lungs. Will she be able to sing again?

Then to top it off, an unexpeceted reunion with a former love interest causes a trip back home which brings even more mystery into her life.

Adelaide is a very strong, determined and caring woman. She has a strong faith and love for God. Davis does a great job of weaving it throughout the story using hymns, scripture and prayers.

"The Awakening of MIss Adelaide" contains so many twists and turns. This makes it really hard to put the book down.

Linda Brooks Davis did a fantastic job of writing characters that are fully developed and very realistic. This story felt like these were real people and I was reading their journals. There are many harsh topics as well as beautiful topics too. I would agree with other readers' reviews about Davis writing being very poetic. It has a nice lyrical flow to it. Her conversations are believable/natural and are not fake sounding. Davis did a great job with her research because there are alot of historical facts, beautiful descriptions of locations and the time period.

This is a story of family, love, music, mystery, discrimination, romance, suffragettes, and the cruelty of the world. I highly recommend reading this series.

I received a copy of this book through the Celebrate Lit blogging program. These are my opinions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Linda Brooks Davis was born and reared, educated, and married in Texas. Her children and six grandchildren were born in Texas. She devoted the bulk of her 40 years as a special educator in Texas schools. But her mother and grandmother hailed from Oklahoma, the setting for Linda’s 2015 debut novel, The Calling of Ella McFarland, which won the 2014 Jerry Jenkins Operation First Novel Award and the 2016 American Christian Fiction Writers Carol Award. Linda continues to write from her home in San Antonio, Texas. She and her beloved husband Al worship and minister at Oak Hills Church. Linda enjoys chatting with readers through her website www.lindabrooksdavis.com.

MORE FROM LINDA

Awakening Miss Adelaide begins with my mother’s cedar chest, which bore an unwritten warning: Hands off! Priceless treasures resided in its depths. My parents’ wedding suits. An old tattered quilt. Mother’s felt hat with a jaunty feather at the rolled-up grim. Bible notes. A stained tablecloth. Equally stained ladies’ handkerchiefs. And old, crocheted, scorched pot holders.

My paternal great-grandmother wrote letters and created intricate, painstaking handwork while she was committed to an asylum in Terrell, Texas. They represent the dearest items in the cedar chest.

Incalculable are the times over the years when a family member would comment Great-granny didn’t appear insane at all. I often wondered how it was she resided at a state mental hospital from 1900 until her death in 1948. How could an insane person write coherent letters and create such handwork?

Mystery shrouds those answers as surely as Great-grandmother herself.

Family legend developed around her. Stories varied from “She wasn’t crazy. Her husband wanted to get rid of her” to “She was an Indian who chose the name McFarland to avoid White bias against the indigenous people.” The truth hides somewhere amid the deadfall of her tragic life.

Sometimes research for a novel can feel like digging up bones. In a way, it is.

One such “bone” I got my teeth around and refused to let go was an article in a 1913 edition of Fort Worth Star-Telegram. It described a murder committed in the lobby of the Metropolitan Hotel. This violent act occurred in connection with an adulterous affair.

Consequently, heightened emotions, lowered common sense, and the control males exerted over females resulted in one man’s murder and the murderer’s acquittal. The “offending” woman’s husband dragged her home kicking and screaming and committed her to a mental asylum for “emotional insanity.”

I wondered if the “offending” man had been treated in like manner. Hardly.

How could I NOT include this morass in a novel?

Someone ought to write a book about that was often said around our family reunions. My interest in doing just that developed little by little over the years. The Women of Rock Creek series deals with some of the ways in which women were denied equal rights when they were denied the vote. Such realities presented an ideal platform for illustrating some women’s plight in the hands of unscrupulous men–inequality in education, the courtroom, and even in mental health care.

With an abundance of love and respect for my great-grandmother; her daughter, my grandmother; and her grandson, my father, I offer this imaginary story. It contrasts two different women: one with a voice heard around the world and the other with no voice at all.

I offer The Awakening of Miss Adelaide to the Lord to do with it as He sees fit. May this story inspired by the agony experienced by my great-grandmother serve to lighten someone else’s load.

GIVEAWAY

To celebrate her tour, Linda is giving away the grand prize of an eBook copy of her book and a $50 Amazon gift card!!