A Casualty of Grace by Lisa Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Casualty of Grace is a tale about two British children, Oliver and Simon, who are sent from late Victorian England to live in Canada. The orphans end up living on a farm where they have to endure hard labour as well as the intense cold of Canada’s winter, sleeping in a barn. The plight of the two brothers is meant to represent that of many hundreds of children from similar circumstances, such as workhouses and poorhouses, during the years that the British Home Children system was in existence. Oliver’s loyalty and affection towards his younger brother is touchingly told through the various circumstances that they find themselves over the years that lead up to their maturity. It is difficult to read to the end of the story without developing a growing respect and admiration for Oliver, whose courage and insight are believably and skilfully drawn by Lisa Brown. Despite the obvious hardships and tragedy that befall the children the author still manages to include aspects of kindness through the occasional comforting attentions of the farmer’s wife, notwithstanding a tender friendship between the teenage Oliver and Helen a local girl. This reader wound up rooting for the boys and the undercurrent of trust for a more favourable life still to come came through, which I attribute to Brown’s wonderful writing.
Casualty of Grace is a novel of historical fiction that will appeal to anyone who enjoys a story about people and their relationships with others, both kind and cruel; people whose perseverance through harsh circumstances can illustrate just how much strength of character may lead to triumph and hope for the future. It is a satisfying tale of tears and smiles. I was given a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.


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Whiteout by Laurel Heidtman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I found Laurel Heidtman's thriller, set in extreme blizzard conditions of the Kentucky outlands, very enjoyable. It was a straightforward, fast, read with three main points of view that were handled well by the author. While some readers find a changing POV to be a problem, when it is a pertinent aspect of the plotline and aids the construction of a book, then I find it to be a powerful instrument adding some cream topping to one’s enjoyment of the story. The various elements of each character’s back story were well done, giving plenty of colour to their personality, and likely strengths and weaknesses. Each conversation used dialogue that I found believable and often riveting within the relevant context. And when the conversations and situations dramatically changed, from being relatively mundane and “straightforward”, then this reader was suddenly confronted by a twist that had such a strong hook I was compelled to read right to the end.

The story includes two couples waiting out a snowstorm, with undercurrents of the problems that trouble their marriages. It also has two escaped, dangerous criminals and various groups of officers of the law, involved in the attempts to recapture them. When the pace steps up into the fast moving and intriguing plotline that one expects from a thriller, the author skilfully introduces elements of suspense that keep you turning the pages. Some of the descriptions of the landscapes, the snowscapes and the medical consequences of the cold were wonderfully graphic. In fact so graphic were the literal pictures of frozen feet and hands that it could deter anyone from ever going out in a snowstorm again! I was a little concerned at the end of the novel when I thought I could see signs of “all’s well that ends well” but I should have remembered Heidtman’s skills at relating events. The book is rounded up in a full and satisfactory fashion, leaving readers feeling that maybe, just sometimes, life does have a way of affecting a kind of natural justice following tragedy. All told I found this novel just as compelling as Bad Girls, Laurel Heidtman’s previous book, and will look forward to reading her next one.
I was given a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.


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