Blurb:
She has a secret to keep. But will she give her heart away?
Lucy Banning may live on the exclusive Prairie Avenue among Chicago's rich and famous, but her heart lies elsewhere. Expected to marry an up-and-coming banker from a respected family, Lucy fears she will be forced to abandon her charity work and squeeze herself into the mold of the well-dressed wife who spends most of her time and money redecorating.
When she meets Will, an unconventional young architect who is working on plans for the upcoming 1893 World's Fair, Lucy imagines a life lived on her own terms. Can she break away from her family's expectations? And will she ever be loved for who she truly is?
Get swept away into the lavish world of Chicago's high society as Olivia Newport brings to life an age of glitz and grandeur, stark social contrasts, and one woman who dares to cross class lines for what she believes.
Donna's Review:
Goodness, but I seem to be in the habit of reading books
that I have a hard time rating. The Pursuit of Lucy Banning by Olivia Newport
was another such book. I liked most of it, but there were parts I did not. Hmmmm........
The story takes place among Chicago’s elite families at the
time of the World’s Fair of 1893, which is an interesting premise. Lucy Banning
is a likeable character despite her family’s wealth. The author does a good job
showing the disparity between the rich and the poor without being preachy.
Lucy’s struggle to find her own way, even as her parents have chosen another
for her, is engaging. Her efforts to
help the new servant Charlotte Farrow with a particularly difficult situation are
well done by Newport. Those struggles were some of the best of the book in my
opinion, and there are times I could not put the book down.
Now, this is not a book that dwells much on the male point
of view. I always find such books lacking, but I understand there are authors
who prefer to write that way and readers who do not care. However, as is
usually the case in such books, Will Edwards seems too good to be true, and
the relationship between he and Lucy comes too easy. They just, quite simply,
like each other, and the only thing keeping them apart are external forces.
Internal forces of any kind do not exist in the relationship in any great way. He
does at one point state he thinks she has too much money and he cannot pull her
from the life she is use to, but no great struggle is presented in that regard
in any meaningful way.
I also found the character of Daniel Jules thinly drawn. He seems to be a cardboard
villain with no redeeming qualities and there is no explanation given for his
actions at any point other than the fact he is just plain mean and perhaps
psychotic. Granted, it can be difficult to give depth to villains, however, his
resolution (which I will not state because I don’t want to spoil the story)
seems overly simplistic to me, and Lucy’s reaction to it is also too good to be
true. (I can’t say more without giving
the story away.)
I also had issues with Charlotte Farrow and her placing her
infant son in a carpetbag at the beginning of the story. There is simply no way
the child would have kept quiet, nor would a woman believe she could even do
that to begin with for any length of time. Babies that young have to be feed
every few hours, so having the child eat all night and stay awake in order to
sleep all day while Charlotte worked is not realistic. Not to mention the
danger of suffocation in a carpetbag while being unsupervised for hours on end.
While Newport’s sentence structure and style were simple yet
readable, she oftentimes slips into “telling” rather than “showing,” and her
settings were weak. I very much wanted to feel as if I was in Chicago in the
1890s, but I did not.
Overall, though, this was still an enjoyable read. The plot
clips along. The characters of Lucy Banning and Charlotte Farrow truly carry
this story. If you are looking for clean women’s fiction, then this is a book
you will enjoy. If you are looking for gut-wrenching romance, this is not it.
I will add that it appears this is Newport’s first book, and
there is enough good going on that I will not hesitate to read the next in this
series, as well as some of her latest works. I have stated before how quickly
authors can grow from the first to subsequent books.
3 1/2 Roses for this one!
Length: 304 Pages
Prices:
Print: $12.00
Digital: $5.99
Thanks for visiting, Rose, Julie, Donna, & Rochelle
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