Some great reviews for Naomi's book! Surviving Amelia by
@naomirrand
Amelia Earhart is lost on an island in the Pacific in 1937, yet finds herself resurrected in her sister Muriel’s study just outside of Boston in 1980.
Seventy-nine-year-old Muriel is reeling from the double loss of a son and a husband as she copes with growing old alone. Seventeen-year old Sam Barry, winner of the Amelia Earhart Scholarship, is just beginning her life as a coed, trying her best to separate from her needy mother and her dysfunctional family.
Their lives intersect in surprising ways, as long buried secrets
@tarheelreader
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REVIEW: Thank you, suzyapprovedbooktours, for the gifted book.
@naomirrand
“Imagine a forty-year-old Amelia Earhart in New York City in 1980.
Amelia Earhart is lost on an island in the Pacific in 1937, yet finds herself resurrected in her sister Muriel’s study just outside of Boston in 1980. Seventy-nine-year-old Muriel is reeling from the double loss of a son and a husband as she copes with growing old alone. Seventeen-year old Sam Barry, winner of the Amelia Earhart Scholarship, is just beginning her life as a coed, trying her best to separate from her needy mother and her dysfunctional family.
Their lives intersect in surprising ways, as long buried secrets come to light, revealing the special, powerful intimacy women share, whether they are siblings, best friends, or mothers and daughters.
Surviving Amelia is a magic realist novel set in a brave new world where fame is fleeting, and flight, mundane, but one thing is unchanged. It’s love. Love, in all its complexities, endures.”
What a unique storyline and perspective, imagining if Amelia Earhart did not die, but instead arrives in the 1980s. There are other storylines as well, as mentioned in the synopses, and they converge in a surprising way. While at times I thought I knew where the story was going, it continued to surprise me. There is magical realism, suspense, and coming-of-age.
I love this kind of what if/sliding doors narrative. There are elements that can be so relatable to our own lives. Overall, an unexpected and engaging story.
