Friday, April 27, 2018

Review and Giveaway: Julie by Catherine Marshall



Title: Julie
Author: Catherine Marshall
Publisher: Gilead Publishing
Re-Issued Date: April 17, 2018
Genre: Historical Romance Fiction

Links: Goodreads l Amazon l ChristianBook l Book Depository l Itunes

*A New York Times bestseller*
Will the dam hold?

Julie Wallace has always wanted to write. Trying to escape the Great Depression, Julie’s father buys the Alderton Sentinel, a small-town newspaper in flood-prone Alderton, Pennsylvania, and moves his family there. As flash floods ominously increase, Julie’s investigative reporting uncovers secrets that could endanger the entire community.
Julie, the newspaper, and her family are thrown into a perilous standoff with the owners of the steel mills as they investigate the conditions of the immigrant laborers. As the Alderton Sentinel and Julie take on a more aggressive role to reform these conditions, seething tensions come to a head.
When a devastating tragedy follows a shocking revelation, Julie’s courage and strength are tested. Will truth and justice win, or will Julie lose everything she holds dear?

About the Author:

Catherine Marshall (1914-1983), “The New York Times” best-selling author of 30 books, is best known for her novel “Christy.” Based on the life of her mother, “Christy” captured the hearts of millions and became a popular CBS television series. Around the kitchen table at Evergreen Farm, as her mother reminisced, Catherine probed for details and insights into the rugged lives of these Appalachian highlanders. Catherine shared the story of her husband, Dr. Peter Marshall, Chaplain of the United States Senate, in “A Man Called Peter.” A decade after Dr. Marshall’s untimely death, Catherine married Leonard LeSourd, Executive Editor of “Guideposts,” forging a dynamic writer-editor partnership. A beloved inspirational writer and speaker, Catherine’s enduring career spanned four decades and reached over 30 million readers.
My Thoughts:
Julie by author Catherine Marshall was a riveting book, and I do believe I may actually enjoy it a bit more than Christy. Christy was a good book, but there was just something about Julie that really snagged my attention. This is a coming of age story about Julie Wallace and her family set during the Great Depression. Life is financially hard for them, like many other others during that time, but this family has also been hurt by the church and affected by illness. So they have decided to move away from their home state to a small factory town in Pennsylvania.  Instead of being a pastor, Julie’s dad is now the editor of a small floundering newspaper and Julie hopes to write articles for the paper to further and fulfill her dream of becoming a writer. Along with her father, Julie, her mother and younger brother and sister set out on this new adventure.

This adventure is wrought with many challenges. Julie who is seventeen is still very young and has many experiences yet she must go through with new friendships and especially romantic encounters with young men.  With the back drop of the Great Depression, social injustices with factory workers, and prejudices of the day, there is an even more foreboding danger. It is the ominous dam that holds back the water from the town. There was some great information on dams that I learned in this story and due to the fact that I have experienced flooding as well, this story became all the more real to me.

There is heartache and some plot points I had hoped did not happen, but it did paint a pretty accurate picture of a young girl coming of age with her family in the depression era US and meeting head on some extraordinary challenges. There were good lessons to be learned as well.


I received a complimentary copy of this novel. I was not required to post a positive review and all views and opinions are my own.


Giveaway:



(1) Winner will win:
·         $25 Amazon Gift Card
·         Bookmark Swag
·         Necklace (exact or similar & *subject to change)
(Only Gift Card open internationally. Others open to US Mailing Addresses)

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4 comments:

  1. Kay GarrettApril 27, 2018 at 8:25 AM

    Thank you for your honest review on "Julie" by Catherine Marshall and for being part of the book tour.

    Everything I have read on this book has place it on my TBR list and I'd love the opportunity to read it.
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

    ReplyDelete
  2. justcommonlyApril 27, 2018 at 9:38 AM

    Thank you! Poignant but beautiful, right? Thank you for joining the tour. We appreciate you!

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  3. Lori SmanskiApril 27, 2018 at 1:15 PM

    wow thank you for your wonderful review. and for being a part of the tour. i love this cover and need to make sure i get this book

    ReplyDelete
  4. Caryl KaneMay 2, 2018 at 6:09 PM

    Thank you for your honest review and participating in the tour.

    ReplyDelete