Teresa Mathews Reviews The Rose of Winslow Street By Elizabeth Camden

The Rose of Winslow Street

By Elizabeth Camden

Reviewer: Teresa Mathews

5 Stars~*****

Liberty “Libby” Sawyer is a delightful young woman who sees beauty in things most people would miss and loves to transfer that beauty into paintings that she keeps hidden away. Her father, a professor who never seems to appreciate Libby‘s talent except to use it for his own good, has never truly realized the treasurer he has in his daughter. Instead he continues to belittle her artistic talents and make her life miserable with criticism, because of a problem she would give anything to change. Will her father ever see the error of his ways? Will he ever be the loving father Libby desires?

While Libby and her father are visiting with her brother and his family for the summer, a telegraph has been sent telling them someone has moved into their home in Colden, Massachusetts. When Libby and her father arrive back in Colden, Libby is drafted to accompany the sheriff to her home to retrieve some of their belongings. Libby is shocked when she meets Michael, he is a mountain of a man and extremely handsome, not at all what she had imagined the man who had stolen their house to look like. Now she is even more confused, why would he want to take away a house that has been the only home Libby has ever known? Why does she feel like this man and his family are drawing her to them? Will he be the one to make her feel truly loved for the first time in her life?

Mikhail “Michael” Dobrescu and his family have traveled many miles from Romania to get to the house in Colden, Massachusetts that was promised to him in his uncle’s will. When they arrive they are armed to do battle if necessary, but when they find the house closed up for the summer, Michael sees this as a sign from God. He knows they will have a long battle to take back what was meant for him and his family, but at least for now they have a place to stay.  When Miss Liberty Sawyer shows up to collect some of her father’s strange drawings and inventions, he is shocked at the boldness of this beautiful young lady. Not only does she “dress” like a man, she insists on doing “manly” things. What is it about this unconventional woman? One minute she is driving him to madness with her lovely scent and the next he wants to throw her out on her ear for disobeying his demands. Will Libby be the one friend his family will have in this town despite the fact he is planning to take her house away? Will Libby be the one to make the towns people see him for something other than the “thieving gypsy” they think he is?

This is the first book I have had the pleasure to read from Elizabeth Camden, it was an exciting adventure from start to finish. There are many twists and turns that will keep you madly flipping pages, there are some that will make you cringe in horror as you read them. Especially the story of one of Michael’s relatives, be prepared, it will be very disturbing, but I love the way it was handled. Elizabeth did a superb job, showing how even in horrible circumstances, God is able to help us overcome. This was an amazing read and I am looking forward to the next book from Mrs. Camden.


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Carrie Fancett Pagels Interviews Elizabeth Camden

Elizabeth Camden is the author of The Rose of Winslow Street and The Lady of Bolton Hill both published by Bethany House.  I met Elizabeth through Facebook, the place which seems to be spreading out to fill half of cyberspace!

Elizabeth, welcome to Overcoming Through Time.  Would you share either the most difficult thing in your life you have had to overcome, with God’s help, or the most tragic situation or circumstance one of your character’s has had to get past?

Thanks for asking me aboard!  Overall, I have been incredibly blessed, but something I’ve wrestled with for a good deal of my adulthood was simple loneliness.  I was a single woman until 35.  For a number of reasons, my career kept me moving every few years.  As a natural introvert, it gets hard to put down roots as I kept moving from one city to another.  I found that as you get older, if you don’t have children or a spouse, it can be hard to find in-roads into a new neighborhood community.  This can be true even in a church!  So I spent more holidays than I care to remember curled up at home.   This wasn’t a huge tragedy, but there is a sort of low-grade pain that comes from living year after year, decade after decade alone.
 

So this is where the Lord comes in.  Having faith means that even if you feel like the odd man out, you are confident that you have a role in this world and an important part to play.  Why hadn’t I found the man of my dreams at age 22 and commenced to produce beautiful children and become a wife and mother, which is what I had always assumed I should be?  My life didn’t unfold as I expected, but I trusted that God had a plan for me….I just needed to find it! 


(CFP: I didn't marry until almost thirty and that after two broken engagements. I feel the same way - God's plan is best!)

What is your favorite bible verse and why?

In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  John 1:1

This may be an odd quote for favorite, but it resonates with me like a mantra.  When I get stressed out over the minutia of daily life, that verse has a timeless quality that soothes me.  God and Jesus have always been there, they always will be.  My worries are a tiny blip in that long, unending relationship that is longer, deeper, and more profound than I can get my mind around.  The verse helps me keep things in perspective. 

Disability friendliness:

Is this latest release available in audio format or do you have any other works available on audio?

 I am thrilled to say that an audio version of The Rose of Winslow Street is on the way!  There is not a release date yet, but I expect it to hit the library shelves by mid-2012.  My first book, The Lady of Bolton Hill, is available in large text, and I am hoping The Rose of Winslow Street will be as well. 


Purchase Elizabeth Camden's books through Amazon. 
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What has been the most important thing you hope your readers will get from your books and why?

My knee-jerk reaction is to say that I want my readers to have a wonderful, exhilarating time as they watch a great, heroic man fall desperately in love, uncover a long-buried mystery, and undertake an adventure that will open doors for his entire family.   I hope my novels are hard to put down and sweep the reader away to another time and place.   They always feature a love story that is front and center, which is my favorite thing to write.

However….you asked what “the most important” thing is.  I have found great comfort in reading novels.  They give me examples of persevering through tragedy, overcoming the odds, learning to trust your instincts, and to never give up.  The Rose of Winslow Street has several characters who struggle to overcome lifetime challenges.  They do so through faith, perseverance, and common sense.  I believe these qualities can help inspire people as they wrestle with their own problems. 

As you researched your books, did you learn anything that particularly touched your heart?

The hero and his family come from Romania, so I needed to learn about Romanian culture and customs.  I wanted them to be as starkly different from the American heroine as possible, so I had them come from a rural village, but with aristocratic roots….then I transplanted them into small town America of 1879.  It was huge fun to learn about the customs of a different country and then set them into play here in America.
 

The hero and his family are starkly different from the New England villagers…..different dress, comportment, and manner of doing business, but at heart they are the same.  When the hero’s children are bullied because of their strange clothes and rural ways, it is a pain shared by the entire family.  So even though I had fun with all the differences between the Romanian family and the American heroine, at heart, we are all part of the same human family.  How we treat people who are different from us is a theme that arises over and over in the book.

In this latest work, do you have any topics useful for bibliotherapy, or therapeutic influence through reading about a disorder or situation?

One of the characters, Lady Mirela, is wrestling with a debilitating series of setbacks which completely derails her life.  As the novel opens,  she is suffering from profound depression to the point that she cannot function in daily life.  Through the course of the book she undergoes a remarkable transformation by coming to accept that the catastrophes that robbed her of the life she hoped lead could be turned toward something positive.  She learns that God never abandoned her, and that the tragedies actually set her on a life course far more profound and interesting than anything she could have ever envisioned.   I hope that others may be able to learn from that attitude of adapting to life’s curve-balls.  Lady Mirela is a secondary character, but by the end of the novel she emerges as one of the strongest, most courageous characters I’ve ever written.  I love that woman!

Thank you Elizabeth, for agreeing to answer these questions.  Have a blessed day and keep on writing!!

GIVEAWAY:  Leave a comment and your email to be entered in this week’s contest.  Drawing will be late Saturday.  Your choice of this author’s books, choice of format.