Författarbild

Gabriele Wills

Författare till The Summer Before the Storm

6 verk 54 medlemmar 11 recensioner

Serier

Verk av Gabriele Wills

The Summer Before the Storm (2006) 24 exemplar
Elusive Dawn (2011) 10 exemplar
Moon Hall (2004) 5 exemplar
Under the Moon (2012) 5 exemplar

Taggad

Allmänna fakta

Kön
female
Nationalitet
Canada

Medlemmar

Recensioner

I have read two of the previous three Muskoka novels; Elusive Dawn and The Summer Before the Storm. Both were enjoyable and the characters are engaging and there are several to get to know and certainly many stories to be told. As Lighting the Stars opens the residents of Muskoka are gearing up to confront the impacts of WWII. As with the first World War the family is patriotic, dedicated and getting ready to participate as they can in this War effort.

As they spend the last days enjoy the relative calm of the season they learn that a group of German prisoners of war will be moving into a compound on the Island. No one is happy about this but nothing can be done.

Soon the war effort calls and things get serious. From there some of the family head to England to join the war effort, others stay in Canada dealing with the worry and a German prisoner of war camp right in their backyard.

This was an excellent continuation of the Muskoka stories. I read it mostly while sitting in the car as we parked in various places while the house was being shown (we are moving to Vermont,) It was a perfect diversion for taking my mind off of the stress of a)being out of my house while strangers walked around it b)having to consider packing up a house and moving cross country.

I will most assuredly look forward to the further adventures of the folks of this Canadian island as the war changes everyone’s lives. Love is found and love is lost and sometimes it surprises. Don’t fear just reading this book without having read the others – it will stand alone.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
BooksCooksLooks | 2 andra recensioner | Jun 28, 2021 |
"Lighting the Stars" is the 4th entry in a multi-volume family saga, which started with book #1 "The Summer Before the Storm" of World War I. In this book, set in 1940, we follow the mesmerizing, intertwined stories of several families, related by blood or friendship. The idyllic summer of young Merilee and her friends, spent on their lake in the Muskoka district of Ontario, soon changes, when a camp for German prisoners of war is set up literally on their doorstep. After a chance meeting with one prisoner, Erich, Merilee finds herself and Erich smitten with each other. As the war progresses Merilee and others in her group go off to help in the war effort and each find romance. Her "cousin" Elyse goes to England, where she joins the Spitfire girls, whose job it is to ferry aircraft from factories to airfields. Merilee joins the Royal Canadian Airforce and is sent to London, UK as a military photographer.
What I found even more interesting than the story of these wealthy, artistic, prominent families and the prisoners in the camp was the historical details in the novel. Through extensive research, the author has done an excellent job of bringing this part of history to life. I was particularly fascinated by the story of the Spitfire girls, as the museum in my city's airport (Hamilton) is home to one of the two remaining Lancaster bombers still in operation in the world. You can even take rides on it for a fee. Each summer on Father's Day, the Lancaster flies low over my family farm. Regular stories about the plane are featured in our local newspaper. When Merilee is given the chance to fly in one to document the flight through her photos, I knew exactly what she experienced.
I highly recommend this book and am going to purchase other books in the series tomorrow. If you do read this book, I encourage you to go to the author's Facebook page, where she documents some of her research.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
DeniseDuvall | 2 andra recensioner | Jun 27, 2021 |
I am once again at my family's cottage on an island in northern Michigan, the perfect place to immerse myself in Gabriele Wills' latest installment of her Muskoka Novels, Lighting the Stars. This is Book 4 and it focuses on the younger generation of Wyndhams, Thorntons, and friends as Canada enters WWII. This novel is every bit as epic and engrossing as the previous books and although it again plunges the extended members of the families into the chaos and the worry, the heartache and the fear, the desperation and the grief of war, it also showcases love and friendship, loyalty and forgiveness, action and adventure. In some ways it is a mirror of the previous books but with different characters who react in their own ways to similar situations. It is the same story of war told in its own unique way, just as every instance and every feeling is as old as time and brand new all at once.

Merilee Sutcliffe, a budding photographer, lives at Muskoka year round, surrounded by the love, belonging, and yes, the wealth, of the rest of her family during the summers. Her best friend Peggy, an accomplished pianist, is still working to overcome the lingering effects of polio. And the cousin of Merilee's heart, Elyse, who might once have made it as an actress in Hollywood, has instead decided that she is enlisting in the ATA so she can ferry planes in England. WWII upends each of their lives in expected and unexpected ways as they watch their family and friends go off to war, as the old Sanitarium between Merilee and Peggy's houses is turned into a German POW camp, as their hearts are captured, and as they themselves contribute to the war effort and face all of the anguish and desperate hope that war brings with it. Through it all, the love of Muskoka, the peace and the memories, sustain them.

Wills invites readers to reconnect with beloved characters from the previous books but deftly shifts the focus to the next generation. This generation is as well fleshed out as the previous one with characters the reader enjoys spending time with and new characters they are eager to meet. The older generation lived through the heartache of WWI and now it is the turn of their children to face the loss and horror of war themselves. The stories this time are different but no less engaging as Merilee, Elyse, and Peggy face the personal and emotional cost of war. There are echoes of the previous books but Wills does a good job making it possible to read this as a standalone although it is likely better read in order with the others to really sink into the story and these families. The Muskoka setting is once again beautifully evoked, as is the way that the newly established German POW camp both alters the peace of the area and brings a tangible reminder of the war right onto the home front's doorstep. England under siege is also well drawn, the bombing, the randomness, the quotidian. The social class issues from the previous books continue to subtly carry through this one as do the sometimes strained and complicated family relationships. The main characters are charmingly engaging and the reader experiences their feelings right along with them, hoping that they will come out of their experiences unscathed but knowing that is impossible. Following this latest chapter in the Muskoka chronicles is as enchanting as it was in the previous books. It is a joy to be completely immersed in this bold family saga once again.
… (mer)
½
 
Flaggad
whitreidtan | 2 andra recensioner | Jun 9, 2021 |
Elusive Dawn is the second book of the Muskoka trilogy and it picks up where The Summer Before the Storm left off - Ria had just received some devastating news about her beloved Chas and WWI was disrupting the privileged lives that the Wyndhams and Thortons had come to cherish.

Most of this book takes place away from the lake the families love so much. Most of the action occurs either in England or in France and it is the War and its horrors that are the focus of this piece of the series. And horrors there are. Ms. Wills does not spare her reader from the battles and the wounded but she does not write anything that is unnecessary or exploitative. War is hell and to write a novel involving soldiers, doctors and ambulance drivers there is no getting around the violence that it engenders.

Ria has left her family in Canada and is now a member of the WATS ambulance corps. She is unable to forgive Chas his indiscretion and is running away from her life. She does find a strong group of friends in the corp and finds she has much to contribute the war effort. She refuses to write or talk to Chas and this drove me crazy - until I remembered how YOUNG she was. I kept viewing her actions through my very much older self and once I remembered what it was like to be 20 it made sense again. I won't spoil the story but to say that War is a great healer as well as a great divider.

The book mostly focuses on Ria and Chas's story but does take time for the many, many, many other characters in the Muskoka family. In fact my one complaint is that they all seemed to be reintroduced within the first chapter and I had a hard time remembering who was who and who was related to who how. It had been a while since I had read the first book and throwing them all at me at once was a bit daunting. I finally sorted them all out, along with the new ones and was able to stop turning back to figure out who belonged where. Barring that confusion the book would have gotten a 5.

Ms. Wills has a remarkable way of dropping her characters into the history of the time seamlessly. The book is historically accurate but the reader never feels as if they are reading a boring history textbook. She truly brings history alive through her descriptions and her characters. I didn't want the story to end and this was not a short, easy read. I am very much looking forward to the finale of this exciting trilogy.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
BooksCooksLooks | 2 andra recensioner | Feb 22, 2013 |

Statistik

Verk
6
Medlemmar
54
Popularitet
#299,230
Betyg
4.0
Recensioner
11
ISBN
7

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