Sisters of the Resistance, Christine Wells

Sisters of the Resistance, Christine Wells

This is a fictional story about two French sisters, Gabby and Yvette, who find themselves involved in the Resistance with Catherine Dior (real life person) who was the sister of the famous fashion designer Christian Dior. Gabby and Yvette help their mother as concierge for the building where Christian Dior resides, they help care for the tenants. Catherine, Christian's sister, often visits or uses Christian's apartment, and one of the sisters hears her late at night coming and going. It is later revealed that she is hiding Allied soldiers among others, who need refuge from the Nazis. The girls end up getting involved, one of them helping care for the wounded soldier hiding in one of the flats, and the other girl assists a movie star named Louise Dulac who is sleeping with the enemy but also gathering intelligence to pass onto the resistance. 

The story is from a dual point of view, and goes back and forth not only between Gabby and Yvette, but also from 1944 to 1947, so it took a bit for me to get into the rhythm of the storytelling. I like stories like this that help flesh out what people went through during WWII, often perspectives we never hear about. I have always heard about how the French never fought and with out the Allied forces coming to their rescue, they would have perished. However, there was a French Resistance who did whatever they could to save their country and save the people, and these people must be remembered and honored in our remembrance.

If you haven't, look up Catherine Dior and what she did in WWII. She is definitely worth reading about.

 

Powerless, Powerful, Reckless, by Lauren Roberts

Powerless, Powerful, Reckless, by Lauren Roberts

My daughter suggested I read this fantasy series by Lauren Roberts. I think it might border on young adult but is totally enjoyable for any adult to read. It's about a land where a mysterious plague came through, killing many of the people, but it had an interesting side effect for some of the survivors and their descendants--special powers. Some can read minds. Some can become invisible. And the list goes on. However, the king decides that those without powers must be killed or banished to keep the lines of power going. 

Paedyn is a teenage girl who has been on her own for a few years, thieving and working the streets in order to survive, her parents having died earlier, her mother at her birth, and her father was killed. Paedyn has no powers, but her father trained her to be extremely observant so she could pass as a Psychic. 

The land has a lottery, kind of like The Hunger Games, where a handful of young people must fight each other in a series of trials, and possibly to the death---and the winner gets to live as nobility with their own estate and riches. Paedyn is chosen for these trials, and must not let anyone know she is ordinary and powerless. 

That's the first book. The second book, Powerful, is about her friend Adena.

The third book, Reckless, without giving too much away, is about what happens after the trials.

There are supposed to be two more books in the series coming out.

I really enjoyed this series. It gave me and my daughter some things to talk about, such as the king's relationships with his two sons, both viewing the other as favored, while neither one of them feeling they were enough for their father; themes of redemption for those who have crossed a line they never wanted to, but felt they had no choice; forgiveness; family, loyalty, creating one's own family group; and the idea of racism and racial purity and genocide.

It's definitely worth reading if you enjoy fantasy and some romance, and it's a clean romance, so no sex scenes, which I found to be nice. I don't care for reading anything sexually explicit.