BOOK REVIEW : ALL THAT IS BEAUTIFUL by ROXANE TEPFER SANFORD - ARRINGTON # 2

By : Roxane Tepfer Sanford
Published By : Llumina Press
Released : Available Now
Details : Paperback 320 Pages

RATING : 4.5 Tragic STARS!

BOOK REVIEW

BY GUEST REVIEWER

CAROLYN ROLFE

BOOK REVIEW:

Wow!  I couldn’t have imagined Lillian could get into so much trouble in a short period of time. Although the story starts off slowly it does pick up and becomes a real saga through the years.


After escaping from her grandmother and then getting away from Warren Stone she meets up with Richard Parker and his strange wife Judith. Richard promises to help her get back to her beloved Jasper Island but first she must hide out from the law with him in New York City. In return for living in his house, and being showered with gifts, clothes, dinners at fancy restaurants and going to shows, Richard asks Lillian to be a model that he can sketch for a magazine cover. Seriously that girl is so naïve it is almost frustrating.


Richard has a ploy to keep Lillian under his control. Maybe I am as naïve as Lillian, but I didn’t realise cocaine was around in the 1870’s. Poor Lillian, she really didn’t stand a chance. She is so trusting ...... he wants to draw her picture and thinks she should star in a Burlesque show.

After a couple of years Lillian finds herself alone and looking for a way to get back to her beloved Jasper Island. Enter Ned Griffin , yet another man who bestows what Lillian believes to be love on her , and again she gets hurt.

After finally making it back to Jasper Island and appearing to be happy, more dramas and problems arise for Lillian when she has to return to New York City. Everything seems to be working out until her life is thrown into turmoil and she has to make the hardest choice of her lifetime. Whatever she decides is going to hurt somebody she loves dearly.


Honestly this poor girl goes through so much in the first 30 years of her life that I couldn’t possibly imagine how she survived it all. I was crying like a baby by the end of this book and I generally don’t cry when reading books but this one just got to me. It really is a beautiful story and like the first one is very reminiscent of Petals in the Wind, the second in the Flowers in the Attic series by V.C. Andrews.

CAROLYN

BOOK REVIEW - THE GIRL IN THE LIGHTHOUSE by ROXANE TEPFER SANFORD - ARRINGTON # 1

By : Roxane Tepfer Sanford
Published By : Llumina Press
Released : Available Now
Details : Paperback , 250 Pages

RATING : 4.5 Dalton Brothers STARS!!

Book Review

By Guest Reviewer :

Carolyn Rolfe



BOOK REVIEW:

I can’t remember who it was that recommended this to me, but a big thank you to them. It is a really good easy to read book. And as I have a love of all things lighthouse I was immediately attracted to it.

The Girl in the Lighthouse is set in the late 1860's on the East Coast of America. Lillian is a 10 year old girl who has lived on a remote island with her mother and lighthouse keeper father her entire life. Her father gets transferred into the position of head lighthouse keeper on Jasper Island off the coast of Maine. Lillian finally gets to live on a station where there is not only another family, but that family has 2 boys around her age.

Heath is a handsome teenager of 14 years who aspires to leave Jasper Island and travel to Boston to university and become a doctor. He and Lillian hit it off immediately and become fast friends. Although as the years progress Heath grows up a bit too much for Lillian. Ayden is the same age as Lillian and although he starts off very off-handish and rude to Lillian, he becomes a very close friend to her. Lillian and Ayden share a secret that nobody else on the island is aware of.

Lillian loves being on Jasper Island as she now has friends to play with, can row across to the mainland with the boys and also gets the chance to attend a regular school. Although she does have a disaster on her first day and doesn’t want to go back she sticks at it and thoroughly enjoys herself and is soon skipping grades as she is a very intelligent young lady.

A terrible event in Lillian's life has her shipped off in the middle of the night by her father, to live with her  grandmother in Sutton Hall, Savannah and uncovers the dark secrets about her family's hidden past. Yes they even had skeletons in the closet back in the Civil War days. By this stage she is about 13 and starting to develop into a very beautiful young lady.

The only things that keep Lillian going through the dark, torturous days in Sutton Hall are her love for Jasper Island, Heath, Ayden, and  her attraction to the mysterious Warren Stone. I really felt sorry for Lillian having led such a sheltered life, then having to endure her grandmother and the horrors that are Sutton Hall. I found she was a little too naive and trusting of men, especially when she met Warren Stone and Richard Parker, and am worried about what will happen to her in the second book. She romanticises everything that happens and it will only lead to trouble, even in the 1870’s.

I did pick the POW that occurred towards the end of the book, as it does become obvious as you are reading. But it is still a bit shocking and revealing and I loved Lillian’s idea of justice.

It is definitely young adult, but some YA readers may not like it due to the era in which it is set and the way Lillian behaves, however I found it to be a really lovely book and can’t wait to read All That is Beautiful.

 

CAROLYN