ROAD TO the Christys - The Maid of Fairborne Hall by Julie Klassen

2012 Blog Tour Travel the virtual "Road to the Christys" blog tour from Mon., July 9 to Tue., July 20th, 2012. Blog tour participants will be celebrating the 2012 Christy Award nominees leading up to the Christy Awards banquet in Orlando, July 16, and the winners after they are presented. Follow @ChristyAwardd, or like www.facebook.com/ChristyAward for a link to the first stop on the "Road to the Christys" blog tour.

  HISTORICAL ROMANCE

Julie Klassen loves all things Jane--Jane Eyre and Jane Austen. A graduate of the University of Illinois, Julie worked in publishing for sixteen years and now writes full time. She has won the Christy Award: Historical Romance for The Silent Governess (2010) and The Girl in the Gatehouse (2011) which also won the 2010 Midwest Book Award for Genre Fiction. Julie and her husband have two sons and live in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota. 

For more information, visit www.julieklassen.com

About Book

To escape a scheme to marry her off to a dishonorable man, Margaret Macy flees London disguised as a housemaid. If she can remain unwed until her next birthday, she will receive an inheritance, and with it, sweet independence. But she never planned on actually working as a servant. And certainly not in the home of Nathaniel and Lewis Upchurch--both former suitors.


As she fumbles through the first real work of her life, Margaret struggles to keep her identity secret when suspicions arise and prying eyes visit Fairbourne Hall. Can she avoid a trap meant to force her from hiding?


Published January 1st 2012 by Bethany House Publishers


My Thoughts


Let's start with a little information about the characters...

• Margaret Elinor Macy - hieress to a fortune and main character in this book
• Sterling Benton - Margaret's step father and vilian/manipulator after her fortune
• Marcus Benton - Sterling's puppet of a nephew out to marry Margaret and her fortune
• Lewis Upchurch - aka Don Juan had courted Margaret at one time. He is all play no work
• Nathaniel Upchurch - younger brother of Lewis.  He is all work no play. Also courted and proposed to Margaret, she turned him down leaving him bitter.
• The Poet Pirate - anonymous
• Helen Upchurch - sister of Lewis and Nathaniel.  She has become a spinster due to lost love. 
• Joan - Margaret's maid whom helped her to escape the villianous stepfather and nephew.
• Nora Garret - Margarets new name while in disguise.
• Fairbourne Hall - resident of the Upchurch family and Margaret's new place of employment as servant
• Mr. Hudson - house steward at Fairbourne Hall. Hired Margaret as servant at Fairbourne Hall

These are just the main characters there are many more that make up this story.


Margaret Elinor Macy was determined to come up with a plan to flee her step father's iron rule.  Sterling Benton had not only taken over the financial responsibilities of his new family he also chose to lock away all the families jewels. He also has plans to marry off Margaret to his puppet of a nephew, Marcus Benton, in order go get control of a very large fortune Margaret is soon to inherit. She overheard Sterling and Marcus scheming to go as far as compromising her virtue forcing her to marry Marcus. This she would not allow to happen she had to find a way to escape. She was  determined to seek out an old friend Lewis Upchurch to get his help to her hide away from Sterling. When she was home alone she took money from her step father's room which resulted in her maid, Joan, being accused of the theft and was fired. Margaret convinced the maid to help her escape and give her safe haven. She decides to disguise herself by wearing a wig and coloring her eyebrows darker along with wearing a pair of her father's old eyeglasses. Margaret no longer went by her real name. She is now to be known as Nora Garret and plans to hire out as a servant to support herself until she comes into her inheritance. She had no clue as how to be a servant. But she had no other recourse.

Nora is hired as a house maid by Mr. Hudson, a house steward. When she nears her new place of employment she is shocked to see it is none other that Fairbourne Hall home of the man she spurned, Nathaniel Upchurch and his brother Lewis. Along with their sister, Helen, mistress of the Fairbourne Hall. She fears she will be recognized and sent back to face whatever her step father has in store for her. But to her amazement she is able to keep secret from everyone. Are does she?

It was really diffucult for me to know just how much of the story I should share in this review. There is so much secrecy among all of the characters, along with manipulation and intrigue. Of course there is a chance for some romance in the story also. It is said that the author's writing is comparable to that of Jane Austen's and I whole heartily agree.

There are many interesting quotes in the book. This is one of many...

Housemaids were meant to be invisible, 

and all cleaning had to be performed either before 

the family to up or while they were absent. 

 As one housemaid later wrote. 

"It was assumed, I suppose, 

that the fairies had been at the rooms." 

Trevor May, The Victorian Domestic Servant

I highly recommend this book.


I rated this book a 5 out of 5.


Disclosure 
I was given a free copy of this book for review by Bethany House Publisher/Litfuse. I was in no way compensated for this review, it is my own opinion.


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Welcome to the 12 Pearls of Christmas! Day 2

Enjoy these Christmas "Pearls of Wisdom" from some of today's most beloved writer's (Tricia Goyer, Suzanne Woods Fisher, Shellie Rushing Tomlinson, Sibella Giorello and more)! Please follow the series through Christmas day as each contributor shares heartfelt stories of how God has touched a life during this most wonderful time of the year.



AND just for fun ... there's also a giveaway! Fill out this simple {form} and enter for a chance to win a beautiful pearl necklace and earring set ($450 value). Contest runs 12/14 - 12/25 and the winner will on 1/1. Contest is only open to US and Canadian residents. You may enter once per day.

If you are unfamiliar with Pearl Girls™, please visit www.pearlgirls.info and see what we're all about. In short, we exist to support the work of charities that help women and children in the US and around the globe. Consider purchasing a copy of Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace or one of the Pearl Girls products (all GREAT gifts!) to help support Pearl Girls.

*** 

Advent
By Sibella Giorello

Consider the bride's walk down the aisle. We all know where that woman in the white is going but somehow waiting for her to arrive at the altar is an essential part of the ceremony. In fact, the waiting is so essential that even cheapskate Vegas chapels include wedding marches.

Why?

Because the wait adds meaning to the moment.

At Christmas time, we tend to forget this essential truth about anticipation. We're lost to shopping malls and checklists, rushing toward December 25th so quickly that we forget the quiet joy of the month's other 24 days -- and then we wonder why we feel so empty on the 26th, amid ribbons and wrapping paper and our best intentions.

Because the wait adds meaning to the moment.

And that is why Advent is so important to Christmas.

I'm as guilty as the next harried person. This Advent was particularly tricky because just six hours before it started, I was still trying to finish a 110,000-word novel that was written over the course of the year -- written while homeschooling my kids, keeping my hubby happy, and generally making sure the house didn't fall down around us.

It's an understatement to say my free time is limited. But waiting adds meaning, and Advent is crucial to Christmas, so I've devised several Advent traditions that are simple, powerful and easy to keep even amid the seasonal rush.

When my kids outgrew the simple Advent calendars around age 7, I stole an idea from my writer friend Shelly Ngo (as T.S. Eliot said, "Mediocre writers borrow. Great writers steal." Indulge me.)

Here's how it goes: Find 24 great Christmas books, wrap them individually and place then under the tree. On the first day of Advent, take turns picking which book to open. When we did this, we would cuddle under a blanket and read aloud -- oh, the wonder, the magic! We savored "The Polar Express," howled with "How Murray Saved Christmas," and fell silent at the end of "The Tale of The Three Trees" (note: some of the picture books I chose were not explicitly about Christmas but they always echoed the message that Jesus came to earth to save us from ourselves and to love us beyond our wildest imagination. In that category, Angela Hunt's retelling of The Three Trees definitely hits the Yuletide bull's eye).

This Advent tradition lasted for about five years. It gave us rich daily discussions about the season's real meaning, without being religious or legalistic, and it increased family couch time. But like the lift-the-flap calendars, my kids outgrew the picture books.

Because the wait adds meaning, and Advent is crucial, I prayed for another way to celebrate anticipation of Christmas. By the grace of God, last year I found an enormous Advent calendar on  clearance at Pottery Barn. Made of burlap, it has large pockets big enough to hold some serious bounty.

But my husband and I didn't want the kids focusing only on the materialist stuff for Advent -- we already fight that on Christmas day. We decided to fill the daily pockets with simple necessities and small gift cards. We also printed out the nativity story from Luke 2:1-21 in a large-sized font and cut each verse out. From Day 1 to Day 21, there is one verse to read aloud. The kids memorize it, then get to open their present (again, on alternating days for each person). Then we tape the verse to the wall in order. By Day 22, all the verses are on the wall, in order, and the kids now try to recite the entire nativity story from memory. That's not as difficult as it sounds because they've been memorizing one verse each day. Still, the entire recitation -- verbatim -- usually requires Day 23 and Day 24. Whoever does memorize the entire thing -- without mistakes --  earns a bonus gift of $25.

Does that sounds extravagant?

It is.

Because we want our kids to understand that God came down and humbled himself and taught us about love right before He suffered and died on behalf of the undeserving -- which is every one of us.

"That's" extravagant.

And in the waiting, we find even more meaning.

***

Sibella Giorello writes the Raleigh Harmon mystery series which won the Christy Award with its first book "The Stones Cry Out." She lives in Washington state with her husband and children, and often wishes there were 36 hours in a day.