A Star for Mrs. Blake: A novel
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April Smith. (2014). A Star for Mrs. Blake: A novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

April Smith. 2014. A Star for Mrs. Blake: A Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

April Smith, A Star for Mrs. Blake: A Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2014.

April Smith. A Star for Mrs. Blake: A Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2014.

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• name: April Smith

title

A Star for Mrs. Blake

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keywords

1. • value: Friendship
2. • value: United States Army
3. • value: War
4. • value: Armed forces
5. • value: Historical
6. • value: romance
7. • value: WWI
8. • value: Fiction
9. • value: germany
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11. • value: american history
12. • value: novels
13. • value: love
14. • value: Military
15. • value: women
16. • value: Allies
17. • value: Historical Fiction
18. • value: France
19. • value: DNC
20. • value: Historical Romance
21. • value: Military Fiction
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23. • value: Romance Novel
24. • value: us army
25. • value: World War I
26. • value: Alternate History
27. • value: Paris
28. • value: West Point
29. • value: historical romance books
30. • value: romance books
31. • value: romance novels
32. • value: historical fiction novels
33. • value: military books
34. • value: war books
35. • value: gifts for women
36. • value: award winning books
37. • value: historical fiction books
38. • value: gifts for her
39. • value: unique christmas gifts

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Smith, April
   • bioText: April Smith is the author of the successful novels featuring FBI Special Agent Ana Grey as the central character.  She is also an Emmy-nominated television writer and producer.  In her research for A Star for Mrs. Blake, she traveled to Maine, New York City, Paris, Verdun, and the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery. Her home base is Santa Monica, California, where she lives with her husband.    
   • name: April Smith

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Knopf

publishDate

2014-01-14T00:00:00-05:00

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title

A Star for Mrs. Blake

fullDescription

The United States Congress in 1929 passed legislation to fund travel for mothers of the fallen soldiers of World War I to visit their sons’ graves in France. Over the next three years, 6,693 Gold Star Mothers made the trip. In this emotionally charged, brilliantly realized novel, April Smith breathes life into a unique moment in American history, imagining the experience of five of these women.
They are strangers at the start, but their lives will become inextricably intertwined, altered in indelible ways. These very different Gold Star Mothers travel to the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery to say final good-byes to their sons and come together along the way to face the unexpected: a death, a scandal, and a secret revealed. 
None of these pilgrims will be as affected as Cora Blake, who has lived almost her entire life in a small fishing village off the coast of Maine, caring for her late sister’s three daughters, hoping to fill the void left by the death of her son, Sammy, who was killed on a scouting mission during the final days of the war. Cora believes she is managing as well as can be expected in the midst of the Depression, but nothing has prepared her for what lies ahead on this unpredictable journey, including an extraordinary encounter with an expatriate American journalist, Griffin Reed, who was wounded in the trenches and hides behind a metal mask, one of hundreds of “tin noses” who became symbols of the war.  
With expert storytelling, memorable characters, and beautiful prose, April Smith gives us a timeless story, by turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, set against a footnote of history––little known, yet unforgettable. 
This ebook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Entertainment Weekly
   • content: "Smith's gentle, evocative prose brings graceful life to a wrongly forgotten historical footnote."
2. • premium: False
   • source: Rob Taub, The Huffington Post
   • content: "A first rate novel that is well worth reading. . . . Smith has the unique ability to take a long forgotten story and craft it into a page turner. . . . She's found an important but forgotten postscript in America's past and has written a compelling historical novel that confronts racism, class and economic differences as well as government bureaucracy. Smith conveys all of these topics through story and characters rather than a soapbox, and her subtle approach has far more impact than the histrionics of any television or radio pundit."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Deborah Donovan, Booklist (starred review)
   • content: "A heartfelt glimpse into a little-known episode in U.S. history. . . Smith's historical fiction is captivating and enlightening."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Publishers Weekly
   • content: "Captivating. . . Smith captures the mothers' interactions in beautiful detail and delves into the government's not-entirely-altruistic reasons for sponsoring the trip."
5. • premium: False
   • source: Historical Novel Society
   • content: "Smith writes with great depth of detail and of emotion, giving voice to these Gold Star Mothers who traveled from America to their sons' graves in France."
6. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     October 14, 2013
     Smith’s sixth novel, a departure from her Ana Grey thrillers, presents the touching story, set in the 1930s, of Gold Star Mothers—the mothers of fallen U.S. service members—visiting their sons’ graves in France. Cora Blake lives in Maine, where she is raising her three nieces after her sister’s death. Struggling from day to day to survive the Depression, Cora learns of a chance, courtesy of the U.S. government, to see the last resting place of her son, killed in WWII. She ends up being the glue that holds together “Party A,” which includes, along with their escorts Second Lt. Thomas Hammond and nurse Lily Barnett, a Boston socialite, an Irish maid, and, temporarily, an African-American woman. The trip’s organizers soon correct this “mistake,” but the woman’s white replacement proves mentally unstable. During the trip, Cora meets down-on-his luck reporter Griffin Reed, who was badly disfigured while covering the war, and whose investigative skills bring her a gift beyond her hopes. Smith captures the mothers’ interactions in beautiful detail and delves into the government’s not-entirely-altruistic reasons for sponsoring the trip. Several plot threads, however, are unresolved, leaving the reader wanting more at the end of this captivating read. Agent: Molly Friedrich, Friedrich Literary Agency.

7. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     December 15, 2013
     During the early 1930s, the U.S. government arranged for grieving "Gold Star Mothers" to visit the French burial sites of their sons killed during World War I. This historical fiction by mystery author Smith (White Shotgun, 2011, etc.) concerns a woman named Cora Blake and her travel companions. Plucky, no-nonsense Cora is a librarian from Deer Isle, Maine, and a single mother of a son, when she gets the government invitation in 1931. She becomes the member coordinator and organizes the banally diverse group of women assigned to travel together: Jewish Minnie Siebert, who must defy her husband to travel from their farm in Bangor; Irish Catholic Boston housemaid Katie McDonald, who lost two sons in the war; and well-to-do society matriarch Mrs. Bobbie Olsen, who, like Cora, has a secret she's not telling. The fifth member of the party, Wilhelmina Russell, does not respond to Cora's letters, but Mrs. Russell does show up to travel on the train from Boston to New York. Only this is Selma Russell, a black seamstress, stereotypically large and comic--discomforting whiffs of race and class snobbery filter throughout the novel. A snafu has mixed up the two Mrs. Russells, and Wilhelmina, a deeply disturbed middle-class housewife recently released from a mental hospital for the journey, has ended up in Harlem. Assigned to chaperone the women, 2nd Lt. Thomas Hammond fixes the mix-up, with the help of nurse Lily Barnett, by resegregating the women before they board the ship for Europe. By the time they reach Europe, Cora and Bobbie have bonded, while romance between Thomas and Lily is palely flickering. In Paris, Cora meets journalist Griffin Reed. Badly wounded and disfigured while covering the war, he sees the possibility of a story in the women's journey. Throw in Reed's hedonistic lover and a nasty senior officer who resents Thomas' privilege, and the trip goes more than slightly awry. While the line-by-line writing is engaging, this take on historic events is made shallow by broad brush strokes and lots of heartstring pulling.

     COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

8. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     November 1, 2013
     

     After losing her son in World War I, small-town librarian Cora Blake is surprised over a decade later to receive a letter from the U.S. government inviting her to go to Europe to visit his grave as part of a "Gold Star Mother" tour. Looking forward to the adventure, Cora also hopes that she and the other mothers will be able to find the closure that has eluded them for so long. A chance encounter with an embittered journalist gives her the opportunity to tell her story to the world and leads her to discover some unexpected truths about the long-term legacy of the war. VERDICT What initially feels like a straightforward and heartwarming road trip novel becomes more complicated as the women draw nearer to their destination and squabbles over class and personality differences give way to increasing criticism of the government and military bureaucracy. Though some later plot developments are a bit far-fetched, Smith, in a change of pace from her "FBI Special Agent Ana Grey" thrillers (Good Morning, Killer), artfully maintains a generally warm tone while also allowing her characters to ask hard questions about the war and its consequences.

     Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

9. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from November 15, 2013
     Smith, author of five thrillers starring FBI Special Agent Ana Grey, here offers a heartfelt glimpse into a little-known episode in U.S. history, the journey taken by mothers of U.S. soldiers fallen in WWI to visit their sons' graves in Europe. Smith focuses on five mothers whose sons were buried at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France. Their unofficial leader is Cora Blake, a single mother from Maine. She's joined by an Irish maid, the wife of an immigrant Russian chicken farmer, a woman who's been in and out of mental institutions since her son was killed, and a wealthy Boston socialite. Smith deftly spotlights moments along their sojourn, from the giggling fits brought on by the French delicacies they are served on board ship to the tears they shed when confronted by the stark white lines of marble stones where their sons' remains now lie. Side plots revolve around an American journalist, badly disfigured in the war, who befriends Cora and publishes her story in a French newspaper, and the practice of racially segregating these mothers, even in their grief. Smith's foray into historical fiction is captivating and enlightening.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

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The United States Congress in 1929 passed legislation to fund travel for mothers of the fallen soldiers of World War I to visit their sons’ graves in France. Over the next three years, 6,693 Gold Star Mothers made the trip. In this emotionally charged, brilliantly realized novel, April Smith breathes life into a unique moment in American history, imagining the experience of five of these women.
They are strangers at the start, but their lives will become inextricably intertwined, altered in indelible ways. These very different Gold Star Mothers travel to the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery to say final good-byes to their sons and come together along the way to face the unexpected: a death, a scandal, and a secret revealed. 
None of these pilgrims will be as affected as Cora Blake, who has lived almost her entire life in a small fishing village off the coast of Maine, caring for her late sister’s three daughters, hoping to fill the void left by the death of...

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   • description: Fiction / Contemporary Women