Spun Stories ~ Tales from the Past

“The author knows her characters very, very well; this shows in the consistent and very individual way they act. This is not a plot-driven story; it’s character-driven. In this book, the characters are the jam which holds everything together. The best example of this is Grace, the talented violinist, who, simply, jumps off the page. I loved her.”

“Farewell My Life by Cynthia Sally Haggard is three books in one; The Lost Mother, An Unsuitable Suitor, and Farewell My Life. However, it is the storyline of one family through a few decades starting at the end of the Great War.

“I really enjoyed these books, it was a hefty book also but broken up well between the three. I also liked that the author did skip ahead years for the last one, and did not waste time with boring, non-relevant information just to get to where she needed in time. I enjoyed how it was written amongst the different characters viewpoints, and it wove together well.”

“Farewell My Life is a period drama in the form of a book, but the early 1920s form so much more than just a set piece to watch the lives of characters unfold. Every person in the book is masterfully shaped by the era, showing both prejudices, which would be overcome by living in the modern-day and inner strength and drive to claim what one wants that has existed throughout time. By not shying away from either, the author has made a masterpiece, one readers can easily lose themselves in. As the book sweeps on, Grace is brought from Georgetown to post-war Berlin, where she pursues her own passions to become a violinist, before being thrown into the middle of family strife she had no notion existed even the day before she became the center of it. It is an intimate epic, an image of the minutiae of lives spelled out against the vastness of family history.”