Novelas Romanticas Gratis

Oh, Kitchen House.  You've been on my TBR list for years and years.  You've been sitting on my bookshelf for so long your pages are yellowed.  Why it took me so long to finally read you, I don't know.  Maybe I was afraid you wouldn't live up to my expectations.  Maybe it finally took reading Kitchen House for a book group that did it.  So now, I've finally read you, and I am feeling very torn in my feelings about the book. What?! Told in alternating chapters between Lavinia, a young Irish indentured servant, and Belle, the slave (and secret daughter) of the Captain, owner of Tall Oaks Plantation, The Kitchen House  takes place in late 1790's Virginia.  Miss Martha, wife of the Captain, is a delicate creature, who is convinced that Belle is the captain's lover; her two children Marshall and Sally are spoiled plantation kids.  Things start to go sour when a tutor is hired to teach Marshall.  Poor Marshall.  It's obvious he's...

My unceasing interest in women living through the Civil War continues with The Heroines of Mercy Street.  This history book focuses mostly on the experiences of a few women living and working as nurses in the North during the American Civil War of 1861-1865.  Many people may be familiar with the PBS series  Mercy Street .  It created such interest in the characters that this book was written to look a bit closer at the women who worked under miserable circumstances and conditions to treat the wounded from both the Yankee and Confederate sides.  Dorothea Dix was a feisty middle-aged spinster who inherited her grandparent's wealth, and that made possible her endeavors to bring reform to sanitariums, jails, poorhouses, and the treatment of mentally ill prisoners.  She was a woman on a mission, and when the Civil War began with the firing on Fort Sumter in April, 1861 she was ready to help gather supplies that would be needed to care for the wounded soldiers th...