Hello friends, happy Monday! I hope you’re all doing well. Today I’ll be posting my review of the second novel in Martha Hall Kelly’s trilogy Lilac Girls, Lost Roses.

You can read my review of book one: Lilac Girls

Lost Roses by: Martha Hall Kelly: It’s 1914 and Eliza and her friend Sofya are looking forward to seeing one another again, but when war breaks out Eliza heads to America, while Sofya heads to their estate in Russia where they hire a girl, Varinka, who causes more trouble than she’s worth. When Sofya’s letters stop coming Eliza fears for the worst but Sofya is trying to escape her captors, while trying to find her son. Meanwhile in America, Eliza is helping White Russians find safety. This was a good novel that, from the author’s note, is loosely based on real women of the time period. The novel started off a little all over the place; the reader found it hard to keep track of the characters and their different stories. Each chapter was a different point of view so it felt like it bounced around for a bit. After the first few chapters the reader got into a rhythm, and found the story to be enjoyable. The pacing was good, it was just fast enough that it kept things interesting and had the reader flipping the pages. The overall story arcs of each girl were harrowing but watching them all come together was clever and skillfully done. The author gave the reader just enough that when a chapter would end, the reader wanted more. The characters were really well developed; they all had distinct personalities that were distinguished and watching the characters, especially the main ones, grow and flourish in the challenges that are presented to them was a journey that the reader enjoyed being on. There were some good side characters that the reader really loved and wished we got to see more of because they brought this sort of courage and pluck that otherwise would have left the novel duller. Even though this novel was really well told and written with good characters, there wasn’t anything that really wowed the reader and made it memorable. In the moment it was really good but it didn’t feel original enough to be remembered.