HFVBT: Alison Atlee's The Typewriter Girl -- Audio Book Review

My thoughts
I have mixed feelings about this book. While I really enjoyed the narration by noted narrator, Rosalyn Landor, I found some of the themes in this book to be lacking. For one thing, the main character, Betsey, is trying to make a new start in life, but her past comes back to haunt her. And what is that past? A man...a bad relationship. So what does she do? She gets involved with another man who "rescues her" from said man from the past. It's all very pat. And far be it for me to object to foul language when I have the mouth of a sailor, but I just could not get beside the constant use of the f-bomb. Did they really say it that much during the Victorian era? It just rang false to me. 

However, I'm not going to be completely negative in my review. Despite the false feel of the foul language, I do feel that the author captured the era very well. And I do believe that one does not have to be completely in love with the characters to like the book. I was a bit reminded of Michel Faber's Crimson Petal and the White. The characters in that book are not likable, yet it's a terrific book. But in Faber's book, we know why the characters are the way they are. We know what motivates them. In this book, the motivation behind the characters was not so obvious. 

I've seen mixed reviews about this book so I'm not going to say don't read it. You just might be one of the people that really likes it. 

About the book
Audible Audio Book Edition: Audible.com
Release Date: April 4, 2014
Listening Length: 12 hours and 39 minutes
Publisher: Audible Studios
Language: English
ASIN: B00JH0L9HW
Genre: Historical Fiction

    

A Pub­lish­ers Weekly Best Books of the Year pick: The Type­writer Girl is a “spec­tac­u­lar debut, set in a per­fectly real­ized Vic­to­rian England.”

When Bet­sey Dob­son dis­em­barks from the Lon­don train in the sea­side resort of Idensea, all she owns is a small valise and a canary in a cage. After an attempt to forge a let­ter of ref­er­ence she knew would be denied her, Bet­sey has been fired from the typ­ing pool of her pre­vi­ous employer. Her vig­or­ous protest left one man wounded, another jilted, and her char­ac­ter per­ma­nently besmirched.

Now, with­out money or a ref­er­ence for a new job, the future looks even bleaker than the deba­cle she left behind her.

But her life is about to change … because a young Welsh­man on the rail­road quay, wait­ing for another woman, is the one finally will­ing to believe in her.

Mr. Jones is inept in mat­ters of love, but a genius at things mechan­i­cal. In Idensea, he has con­structed a glit­ter­ing pier that astounds the wealthy tourists. And in Bet­sey, he rec­og­nizes the ideal tour man­ager for the Idensea Pier & Plea­sure Build­ing Company.

After a life­time of guard­ing her secrets and break­ing the rules, Bet­sey becomes a force to be reck­oned with. Together, she and Mr. Jones must find a way for her to suc­ceed in a soci­ety that would reject her, and fig­ure the price of sur­ren­der­ing to the tides of love.

Praise for The Typewriter Girl

“Atlee’s out¬standing debut unflinchingly explores … the unforgiving man’s world of Victorian England.” –PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review)

“Easily one of the most romantic books I’ll read all year … John and Betsey are compelling and worth rooting for.” –DEAR AUTHOR (a Recommended Read)

“Sweeps readers to a satisfying conclusion.” –LIBRARY JOURNAL

Buy the AudioBook

Amazon UK Amazon US Audible.com

About the Author

Alison Atlee spent her childhood re-enacting Little Women and trying to fashion nineteenth century wardrobes for her Barbie dolls. Happily, these activities turned out to be good preparation for writing historical novels. She now lives in Kentucky. For more information please visit Alison Atlee's website. You can also connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Goodreads and Pinterest.

Visit other blogs on the tour--Tour Schedule

Twitter Hashtag: #TypewriterGirlBlogTour #TypewriterGirlBookBlast #HistFic #HistNov

A copy of this book was sent to me in exchange for an honest review. I was not monetarily compensated for providing it.

A Reading Life

Last week of summer. Can I get an amen from all the Fall-ites out there?!

Listening To: Anna Dressed in Blood.  Got my new FM transmitter and it's the coolest thing! You can download your MP3 audio files onto a flash drive or SD card and plug those into the transmitter and they play through your car speakers. You can also hook a CD player or MP3 player directly into it. The only downside is that you cannot fast forward when you plug in a flash drive or memory card--only advance track by track--so I have to remember to only stop listening at the end of each track. Minor glitch so I think I can handle it. Incidentally, I tried to get Stoker's Manuscript from my library, but they didn't have it on audio or Overdrive. Maybe they'll get it soon. J. Kaye has me fired up about that one!

Books finished last week:  
The Old Rectory: Escape to a Country Kitchen, Julia Ibbotson (Review)

Reading: 
City of Bones, Cassandra Clare
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (TuesBookTalk)
The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova (read-a-long)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (Classics spin)
The Arrow Chest, Robert Parry (read-a-long at Castle Macabre)
The Shogun's Daughter, Laura Joh Rowland (review coming Wednesday)

Coming Up:  
Something from the list below is a slim possibility...
The Man in the Picture, Susan Hill
The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
Lives of the Monster Dogs, Kirsten Bakis
Contact, Carl Sagan

Watching: Enjoyed the first episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day on BBC America on Saturday. Love that show so much! I'm also really enjoying Last Tango in Halifax on PBS. Sweet and funny. The Dexter finale next week...what will happen? I'm full of predictions! Ray Donovan was also quite unnerving. Tonight was the premiere of Bones, one of my fave shows, and the new show, Sleepy Hollow. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has always been one of my favorite stories. Loved the cartoon version when I was a kid and the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp film from several years back. I enjoyed the first episode. Heads really rolled. LOL! Over the weekend, I saw the long awaited Insidious, Chapter Two. Great movie! I was so scared. My mom was like, "Why do you come to these?" I love it though! I was happy to hear that it topped the box office on its opening weekend and broke the record for top grossing live action film released in September.

Making:  I've been making some delicious slow cooker recipes. I'm really liking the Crock Pot Lasagna recipe I found on Six Sisters' Stuff, of course! It's so easy and absolutely delicious. I'm making it this week with pork sausage instead of ground beef. Yum! I'm also making Meatloaf Muffins again. These are baked in muffin pans and are so much more convenient than a whole meatloaf. However, clean up last time was kind of crappy, even with non-stick pans, so I bought cupcake liners. We'll see if that makes it any easier.

Grateful for: This book right here. Write-a-Thon, Rochelle Melander...can't wait to get started!

Also, that my dad bought this book years and years ago (1983 to be exact) and I still have it...The Unabridged Edgar Allan Poe, 1178 pages of Poe greatness! 

Looking forward to:  listening to these great CDs they were giving away FREE at my sons' music school! Three Christmas titles, including The Boston Camerata: A Medieval Christmas, the Fred Claus movie soundtrack, and The McGarrigle Christmas Hour (new-to-me group). Also, The Corrs: Home and Death Cab for Cutie: Keys and Codes (remix EP). Pretty cool!

Picture: Library sale haul!

Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout

The White Pearl, Kate Furnivall

Stargazer, Claudia Gray

Hourglass, Claudia Gray

A Terrible Beauty, Graham Masterton

The Bad Queen, Carolyn Meyer

Children of the Alley, Naguib Mahfouz

A Dangerous Climate, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

What's going on in your reading life?

No Strings Attached {Give@way} H o p

Welcome to my stop on the No Strings Attached Giveaway Hop! Today I'm giving away a brand new audio book copy of Black Site by Dalton Fury.

About the book:
From former Delta Force commander and New York Times bestselling author of Kill Bin Laden comes the first novel in an explosive new series.


After September 11, 2001, Delta Force troop commander Dalton Fury was given the secret mission to hunt down and kill the most wanted man in the world, the details of which were recounted in his extraordinary New York Times bestseller Kill Bin Laden. Now, Fury draws upon his hard-won combat experience—and his gift for true-to-life storytelling—to offer a brand-new series of thrillers that are as close to reality as readers can get.


Meet Kolt Raynor. A Delta Force operator and one-time American hero, he is still trying to make sense of his life—and duty—after a secret mission gone bad. Three years ago, in the mountains of Pakistan, Raynor made a split-second decision to disobey orders—one that got some of his teammates killed and the rest captured. Now he’s been given a second chance to do right by his country, his men, and himself. But Raynor’s shot at redemption comes at a price.


A shadowy group of former colleagues has asked Raynor to return, alone, to Pakistan’s badlands. His assignment seems clear: find his missing men and bring them home. What Raynor never expected was to uncover a sinister al Qaeda plot to capture a Black Site--a secret U.S.­­ prison--and destabilize the region. Meanwhile, a ruthless, unknown enemy is on his trail…and he will stop at nothing to make sure that Raynor’s mission is not accomplished.


An intense, gritty work of edge-of-your-seat suspense, Black Site is the first of what promises to be one of the most exciting fiction series of the new millennium.


Good luck!

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Visit the other blogs on the hop!