Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Secret of the Nightingale Palace: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Secret of the Nightingale Palace: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Secret of the Nightingale Palace: A Novel
    Ebook411 pages6 hours

    Secret of the Nightingale Palace: A Novel

    By Dana Sachs

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The Secret of the Nightingale Palace by Dana Sachs is the poignant story of an estranged grandmother and granddaughter and a secret that ties them together.

    After her husband dies from leukemia, Anna agrees to help hard-to-please Goldie to bring a collection of valuable Japanese art from New York to California. Harboring a decades-old secret that could change Anna’s life forever, Goldie must learn to let go of her past so her granddaughter can move on and discover happiness and love.

    With a narrative that alternates between early 1940s San Francisco and the present day, The Secret of the Nightingale Palace is a beautiful story about the enduring power of love and family.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateFeb 19, 2013
    ISBN9780062201041
    Unavailable
    Secret of the Nightingale Palace: A Novel
    Author

    Dana Sachs

    Dana Sachs is the author of the novel If You Lived Here and two books of nonfiction, The House on Dream Street: Memoir of an American Woman in Vietnam and The Life We Were Given: Operation Babylift, International Adoption, and the Children of War in Vietnam. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, she lives in Wilmington, North Carolina, with her husband and two sons.

    Read more from Dana Sachs

    Related to Secret of the Nightingale Palace

    Related ebooks

    Historical Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Summer Reading Guide

      Jan 2, 2022

      Summer Reading Guide
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Date

      Jan 7, 2021

      The Date
      5 min read

    • Article

      ‘A Registry Of My Passage Upon The Earth’ Is Compassionate, Wise

      Aug 11, 2020

      A new collection of short historical fiction stories is characterized by its beautiful prose and its author’s gentle curiosity and sense of wonder.

      2 min read

    • Article

      March Fiction

      Feb 15, 2022

      Run Rose Run by Dolly Parton and James Patterson (Century, £20) In 2018 the ever-prolific James Patterson got together with Bill Clinton to write the best-selling The President Is Missing: a novel that combined Clinton’s insider knowledge with Patter

      2 min read

    • Article

      THE Total Girl BOOK CLUB

      May 10, 2020

      We received so many fantastic reviews! Introducing our first lucky winner: here’s what TG reader Sasha had to say about the new book by Jacqueline Harvey! Kensy and Max 5: Freefall. I thought the book was great. Jacqueline Harvey is such an amazing

      1 min read

    • Article

      Lily King

      Apr 25, 2020

      Award-winning and bestselling author Lily King’s latest book, Writers & Lovers, is set in the Boston area during the 1990s. This cleverly written novel features a compelling protagonist, a struggling 31-year-old writer named Casey. Readers follow Cas

      2 min read

    • Article

      Pick Of The Crop: October’s 10 Best Books To Savor In Autumn

      Oct 20, 2021

      Spend the month reading new books by John le Carré, Jonathan Franzen, Amor Towles, and Mary Beard.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Fiction

      Jul 9, 2020

      Hilderbrand’s latest novel is perfect for cosy weekend reading. This time she focuses on former lovers who now lead separate lives but share an island idyll once a year. Captivating and bittersweet. (Available Jul. 23) Inseparable twins Stella and

      1 min read

    • Article

      Friend Or Foe?

      Aug 24, 2023

      Sitting on the grass beside my girlfriend Grace, I spotted a familiar face approaching from across the park. ‘Can I join you?’ Chelsea, then 17, smiled, plonking herself down. It was March 2018 and I’d been with Grace, then 16, for six months. I was

      4 min read

    • Article

      Anthony ‘A.J.’ Johnson, ‘Friday’ And ‘House Party’ Actor, Dies At 55

      Sep 20, 2021

      Anthony “A.J.” Johnson, a comedian and actor known for performances in the 1990s movies “Friday,” “Menace II Society” and “House Party,” has died. He was 55. Confirmation of Johnson’s death came Monday from his agent, LyNea Bell. “The world of Comedy

      1 min read

    • Article

      THE Books You Should Have On Your To-read List.

      May 13, 2020

      NORA ROBERTS is back with another exceptional novel. In Genuine Lies we meet Eve Benedict, a massive star – a movie goddess with two Oscars, four ex-husbands and a legion of lovers to her name. She likes the finer things in life and enjoys living in

      2 min read

    • Article

      Life In Wartime: Women Dominate A Quartet Of World War II Novels

      Aug 25, 2021

      The 4 best recent novels set during World War II show the ingenuity of women who put everything on the line to defeat the Nazis.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Trouble Brews In Minnesota

      Jul 29, 2019

      Edith and Helen Calder haven’t spoken in decades. The sisters’ rift began after the death of their father, who left all the money from the family’s farm to Helen so she could fulfill her dream of opening a brewery. In J. Ryan Stradal’s The Lager Quee

      1 min read

    • Article

      Fight For Life

      Sep 25, 2023

      by Lauren Groff (Hutchinson Heinemann, $37) As climate change wreaks havoc on our precious Earth, many writers have chosen to contemplate the end of days by imagining dystopian universes inhabited by sole survivors of the planet’s destruction. These

      3 min read

    • Article

      In A Land ‘Shaped By Water,’ A Family Tale Of Persistence

      Jul 17, 2023

      “The Covenant of Water,” the latest novel from bestselling author Abraham Verghese, delivers a magnificent saga. Bursting with myriad characters, well-braided plotlines, politics, history, faith, and geography, the story centers on a young Christian

      3 min read

    Reviews for Secret of the Nightingale Palace

    4/5

    30 ratings25 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      amazing storyline definitely was not expecting the twist at the end! I recommend it to all avid readers!
    • 3/5
      Lovely book. The writing is excellent, the story line is believable and charming. I can only hope that this author has, or will write many more. I give it 5 stars.
    • 4/5
      George Bishop described this book as "a charming story, beautifully told" and this is my reaction as well. I cared for Goldie and Anna from the onset and couldn't wait to see how the story would be resolved. Anna is a young widow who isn't sure what to do with the rest of her life when her estranged grandmother Goldie strong arms her into driving across the country to return a set of valuable Japanese art prints to the family of an old friend. As they make this unconventional road trip both women confront their pasts and lay the groundwork for their future. Thank you Library Thing Early Reviewers program for sending me a copy of this book - it was a great read.
    • 5/5
      This is an extraordinary book about love, life and even a little taste of life during World War II. I thoroughly enjoyed the intertwined lives of Goldie Rosenthal and her granddaughter Anna. As they cross country on a soul searching trip that leads them to back together after their relationship was strained, both Grandmother and Granddaughter learn a bit about eachother and themselves. This book has deep and lovable characters who will become your friends and leave you wanting to read more about them. I have never read another book by Dana Sachs but this one left me wanting to try some ofher others books. It is a fast paced and easy to read story.
    • 4/5
      An artful weaving of past and present, family relationships, friendships and obligations mixed with a cross-country road trip. The primary focus seems to be centered on the relationship between Anna (the granddaughter) and Goldie (the grandmother) and cross-generational expectations and presumptions. A great read.
    • 4/5
      Having lost her husband after a long illness, Anna has been living in something of a limbo. Her grandmother Goldie never approved of her husband, and their relationship has been strained for years. Now Goldie has persuaded her to drive her across the country to San Francisco, in order to return an art collection to an old family friend. This modest story started out a little slow for me, but probably about a quarter of the way through it picked up and got more interesting.Anna’s grandmother Goldie is an opinionated woman whose criticism can grate, and she has alienated her granddaughter years before when she made clear her opinions of Anna’s fiance. As Goldie and Anna embark on a cross-country trip together, the two couldn’t seem more different, but as the book carries on you begin to realize that they are more alike than Anna even realizes or would want to admit.This book continually changes perspectives and performs time shifts as we go from Goldie during WWII as she was just blossoming into womanhood and discovering herself and what life held for her, and Goldie in her advanced years reflecting on the past with her granddaughter as they travel.When touring through Goldie’s past, we are introduced to a whole other cast of characters, including Mayumi, the artistic Japanese woman who became Goldie’s best friend, and her somewhat stoic brother Henry, who were both sent away to a Japanese internment camp after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.In the current day, Anna has been living in limbo for two years, her heart damaged and scabbed over, after losing her husband to leukemia. She is hesitant to agree to her grandmother’s request for her to drive her from New York to California, so she can return some art to the Nakumura family. But in so doing, Anna learns as much about herself as she does about Goldie along the way.I loved Goldie’s strength, although it often manifested in an abrasive and critical demeanor. Goldie believes that you don’t sit around waiting for happiness, but you make your own happiness. She is not one to brood on heartbreak, not one to be defeated. She is certain that if you aren’t invited to the party, then you just make your own party.There is such great beauty throughout this novel. From the art collection Goldie is hoping to return to the Japanese Tea Garden that Mayumi and Henry’s father maintains, from the artistic storefront windows that Mayumi creates to the modern day graphical comics created by Anna, from the beautiful designer clothes that Goldie wears to the Rolls Royce that she drives, this book is filled with beauty. And it’s filled with hope.This book follows two paths: One woman’s past being remembered, and another woman’s future being discovered.My final word: There was a nice little twist in the end that I enjoyed and found very satisfying. I enjoyed the second half of the story more than the first, but the story in general was gentle, emotional, sentimental and affective. The characters were rich. Goldie is the true star of the story. Overall the book made me feel hopeful.
    • 4/5
      This book exemplifies the idea that you never really know someone. We are all experts at covering our histories and hiding wounds and pretending that it often leads to a complete misunderstanding. The book is a story told in the past and one in the present and is really well crafted. Anna and her Grandmother make a cross country trip as the stories unfold. Goldie,the grandmother, is a fascinating character who you of course assume is one thing, but as her story unfolds you realize she is completely different. Anna is less complex, but you can see how she may end up like Goldie and how much she is already like her.Ultimately to me it was a story about the journey that life is or should be. It never has to stop and be just one thing or one path. We are not defined by any one moment or circumstance. It is a lesson I think we all need to be reminded of.
    • 4/5
      A road trip across the country to return books of Japanese art brings Goldie and her granddaughter Anna to a better understanding of their relationship and each other.The interwoven story of Goldie's history helps the reader understand how her past has formed the woman that she has become. Goldie's experiences of loss, regret and secrets blends with Anna's loss, grief and hesitancy to restart her life alone after the death of her husband.I enjoyed this book immensely and had a difficult time putting it down while reading. The author guides you thru emotions of anger frustration, humor and the insight of love based on security versus love based on emotion.
    • 4/5
      A lot of novels I've been reading lately involve two interweaving story lines. One is set in the present and one in the past. Some people may find this format confusing but I think, if done well, it is a wonderful way to tell the story. This way you really get to see how lives turn out, how past actions influence the present. I find it all very fascinating usually and such is the case with Dana Sachs' The Secret of Nightingale Palace.With two story lines, we learn all about Goldie and how she became the woman she is today. When we meet Goldie in the present, I'll admit, she kind of annoyed the crap out of me. She was pretentious and a bit of a snob. Personally, I also felt that she picked on her granddaughter, Anna, a little too much. And Anna was in sensitive place, having just lost her husband. However, any character that ignites those kind of strong emotions in me is always a sign that the character is well written. Goldie and Anna haven't really spoken in around five years but they both feel like it's time to repair their relationship. To do so, Goldie comes up with a scheme to have her granddaughter drive them from NYC to San Francisco so Goldie can return something she'd been keeping safe for a friend since WWII. Although she thinks its a whacky idea, Anna agrees, feeling the need to shake herself out of a rut.Along the journey we get flashbacks to Goldie's past. As a young, poor woman from Memphis, she bought a one-way train ticket to San Francisco to live with her older sister. WWII has just broken out but that barely seems to phase Goldie. I enjoyed getting to know how Goldie was in the past and how far she had to come to reach her wealthy status in the present. Additionally, since I live in San Francisco, I always love to read how it was in the past.Naturally WWII eventually reaches Goldie and, no matter how naive she is, she can't escape the realities of it. I don't want to give away the secrets you learn along the way because that would ruin the story for you. However, this is one I feel is totally worth reading for all historical fiction buffs. Goldie, although sometimes annoying, is a wonderful guide to follow along in this multi-generational journey.
    • 4/5
      This is a fun book about a cross-country trip in an old Rolls Royce made by an 85-five-year-old grandmother and her thirty-five-year-old granddaughter. Grandma Goldie summoned Anna, her granddaughter, to New York City to drive her to San Francisco, ostensibly to return a set of Japanese prints to their rightful owner. Anna and Goldie had been estranged for the past five years when the summons arrived. Anna's husband, Ford, of whom Goldie never approved, had died of leukemia. The first section of the book consists mostly of sniping between Goldie and Anna about Ford, and it gets rather tiring. After they finally hit the road, the book starts to gel with flashbacks from Goldie's past in early 1940's San Francisco. She was close friends with a Japanese girl and fell in love with her brother. For the most part, the flashbacks are what make the book although the ending, which takes place in the present, really has a big surprise. Goldie is quite a character. One keeps hoping that Anna will pull herself together and get on with her life, but five years and two weeks is not long enough to fix all that ails her. Nonetheless, it's a good read once you get going. Stick with it and enjoy.
    • 4/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this excursion from New York to San Francisco with Anna and Goldie. The beginning of the journey was interesting, but the closer to the destination the trip went very quickly. I liked the use of different voices and different eras, and Dana Sachs does a wonderful job in telling the story. The story reminded me of The Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, but I felt that Sachs presented a better story. So terrible that so many secrets remain hidden between family members. Anna's sense of loss over the death of her husband shows that each marriage has ups and downs, but we cannot dwell on negative aspects. The rendering of the life of the Japanese during WWII, and in the community of San Francisco brings sadness. I enjoyed the relationships in this book, especially between Goldie and Anna.
    • 2/5
      Neither of the main characters was likable. Throughout the story they yelled, sneered, insulted and offended each other, and it became tiresome. Additionally, the author filled large sections of the book with "explanatory" writing, rather than letting the story be told through the character's actions.
    • 3/5
      I received this book in the Early Reviewer drawing.I have not read the previous book by this author, Dana Sachs , but I enjoyed this book very much. The relationship between a grandmother and granddaughter is realistically written, both the good times and the bad. As a grandmother with granddaughters I enjoyed their journey cross country. I can imagine it as fun , if sometimes tedious trip to make. In fact the book is centered on relationships both past and present as the book moves from events 60 years ago to events in the past 5 years. Not only grandparent relationships , but also husband and wife, sisters, friends. There is an abundance of name dropping, foods, clothes,restaurants, etc. sometimes more than I thought was needed to make a point. An easy read, enjoyable with a predictable and happy ending.
    • 4/5
      When I first heard the title of this book, I immediately assumed that it was about Japanese Americans. And in some ways it is. But I would never have dreamed that the two main characters were in fact an eighty-five year old Jewish widow from New York and her thirty something also widowed granddaughter from Memphis. How these two characters would easily connect to the expected story of the Japanese American experience in San Francisco immediately prior to and just following Pearl Harbor was a mystery. But this seemingly incongruous juxtaposition is just what Dana Sachs has presented in her latest novel, The Secret of the Nightingale Palace, and has done so well as to make the connection seamless, unusual, and yet perfectly imagined. Comic book artist Anna Rosenthal lost her husband Ford to leukemia two years ago and she's been in sort of a holding pattern ever since. She has been estranged from her grandmother for five years because the irrascible, particular, and blunt Goldie Rosenthal never did approve of Ford and made no bones about it. Goldie, having struggled and worked to rise above her poverty-filled Memphis beginnings, was used to getting her own way and so her granddaughter's refusal to see that Ford was all wrong caused a rupture that even his death couldn't heal. But the disappointment of Anna's stubborn insistence that she loved Ford was, in Goldie's eyes, only the latest in a long line of disappointments where she rejected Goldie's counsel. So when the phone rings at the beginning of the novel and it's Goldie requesting that Anna drive her from New York to San Francisco to deliver a book of beautiful Japanese artwork to the Nakamura family for whom she held it during World War II, Anna is surprised and resistant. She can think of very little as unappealing as spending two weeks driving across the country with her persnickety grandmother even if she will get to do it in Goldie's gorgeous and luxurious, antique Rolls Royce. And yet she finds herself agreeing to her grandmother's suddenly pressing mission despite misgivings. The novel is made up of five parts, alternating between the present day road trip that Goldie and Anna are on and sixty years in the past when Goldie lived in San Francisco and was on the cusp of starting her adult life. As Anna and Goldie travel slowly across the country, they are alternately polite and antagonistic with each other, sometimes addressing their differences and other times intentionally ignoring them. They spar and draw blood as only family who loves you can but they also share moments of understanding and sympathy. The drive also gives Anna time to reflect on her life with Ford, his illness, and the stasis in which she's been trapped since his death. The other major storyline winding through the novel is the revelation of Goldie's past. She moved to San Francisco to be with her married sister and found a job as a salesgirl at Feld's Department Store. Her education in elegance and class comes through the store, its quality contents, and well-heeled clientel as well as her befriending of Mayumi Nakamura, the window display artist for Feld's and whose family is actual Japanese royalty. This time in her young life introduces Goldie to love and regret, to the need to construct her own life on her own terms, and to the knowledge that appearances must be maintained at all costs because even if they are simply a prettily decorated veil covering the truth, they are the foundation upon which everything that matters is built. The novel is very visual, from the exquisite engravings in the book Goldie wants to return to Mayumi to her obsession with and insistence on timeless but stylish and very expensive clothing. Even the meticulously maintained Rolls Royce presents a certain picture. But the theme of appearance is carried through in other ways as well. There are the surface impressions of marriage and the hidden depths beneath their true facade, a fact that causes Anna distress as she remembers the vitriol and unhappiness in her publically loving marriage to Ford. There are descriptions of the windows Mayumi designs and the feelings these displays are meant to evoke. There's Henry Nakamura's contention to Goldie that being Jewish and being Japanese and subsequently disliked are nothing alike since the Japanese Americans are immediately identifiable whereas Goldie could hide her Jewish identity if she so chose. Coupled with looking is the idea of perspective and looking to the future. A put-together appearance leads to the sort of life Goldie always imagined and worked towards as the wife of a wealthy man. Even at eighty-five, she prefers to look forward rather than back. Even as the novel reveals her past to the reader, Goldie does not share this past with Anna, keeping from her the real reason behind her insistence on returning the prints sixty some years after they were given to her. Sachs has woven the two stories, Goldie's past and her present with Anna, together well. The present day sections, with Anna's introspection, move slower than the portions in 1941 though. And the past Goldie is much more likable than the critical and snobbish Goldie of the present but her past formed her and its inclusion in the narrative helps to excuse some of her less likable moments. The play between Anna and Goldie as they try to create a relationship with each other again, one based on acceptance and love rather than judgment and expectation is presented realistically and keeps the road trip portion of the novel from dragging too badly in comparison with the past sections. There are some moments, especially on the road, that don't seem to move the plot along but eventually the narrative picks back up and starts to move again. And the ending is truly charming. A lovely book about unexpected depths and finding your own happiness, Sachs has written a satisfying tale simultaneously both contemporary and historical of belonging and acceptance, appearance and truth, and how to find the way forward no matter what hand you're dealt.
    • 4/5
      Let me start this review off by telling you how much I loved this novel! Maybe it just made me reminiscent of the Grandmother I lost less than a year ago, but even so, it gives one the opportunity to reflect on their own relationships and how they might be saved. Anna had a falling-out with her honest and well-to-do grandmother years ago, but for some reason Goldie wants Anna to drive her across the country, from New York to California to help her return Japanese art prints to their rightful owner. Anna can't imagine why her grandmother would want her to drive.Anna has spent years harboring hurt and resentment not only against the world, but against her grandmother, her dead husband, and even herself. As she watched her husband's health deteriorate, their relationship also became a victim, being consumed by the anger and frustration that sometimes comes along with terminal illness. Goldie did not keep it a secret that she didn't approve of Anna's marriage, so this created a rift between the two that would not be confronted for years to come.Anna is shocked when Goldie asks her if she will drive her across the country in her Rolls Royce, but knowing she could use the time away, she hesitantly agrees. On their journey, which takes longer than usual as Goldie is in her eighties and does need to get a decent amount of rest, the two rediscover the fondness they once had for each other and learn to appreciate what the other has to offer.What I described so far is just a small, but important, part of the book. A good portion of the novel takes place in 1940's California, where Goldie was a young, hard-working girl, looking to make her way in this world. The Japanese art prints help to tell a story of a young Jewish girl who is befriended by a Japanese family. Of course, our country has other plans for Japanese people during this time, so things do not turn as picturesque as one might think.I loved this story that showed us a glimpse of this elderly woman's life, following her love interests, hopes, dreams, and fears. I think many of you would enjoy this book as much as I did with themes of love, friendship, war, and family. I don't hesitate in recommending this book for personal leisure or as a book club selection.
    • 4/5
      Tough love. Sometimes in life you need tough love. Maybe not as tough as Anna's grandmother, Goldie, dishes it out, but at some point even injured characters in books need to pull up their big girl panties and get on with life. (This is not the way I usually start book reviews, but I felt a need to stick up for Goldie, just a bit. Speaking as a mother, I can understand being worried about a young person who's going into a less-than-secure life, though being supportive beats being critical any day.) This isn't a forum in which to hash out their relationship, though, so we'll move on to a review of the book.In a nutshell, Anna and her grandmother, Goldie, are on a car trip across the country. They've been estranged since Goldie disapproved of Anna's marriage to a librarian whom she viewed as having no future. Anna's husband dies, and Goldie uses this trip to mend the bridges between them. Nobody wants to be dragged out of their mourning, though, and Anna is no exception. Goldie tells her own stories and illustrates for Anna why she, Goldie, has the perspective she has in life. It's a mess. human relationships are a mess, but all we can do in life is tell our stories and try to be understood. Goldie is harsh with Anna, yes, but for the purpose of pulling her back into life.The book is well written, though a little tedious in places. But I could hear the voice of my own grandmother in it. She had a difficult life, too, and didn't want me to fall victim to every set-back in life. I found myself wondering what I'd tell my own granddaughter when I had her take a trip with me across the country years from now. It's not a perfect book, but it it made me think--and that's worth every word.
    • 4/5
      I was given a copy of this book for the purpose a writing a review: The Secret of Nightingale Palace follows a grandmother, Goldie Rubin Feld Rosenthal, and her granddaughter, Anna Rosenthal. They have been estranged for 5 years and then one day out of the blue Goldie calls Anna summoning her to New York. Anna's first reaction is to say no. She doesn't understand why it must be her and not another family member. After speaking with her sister, Sadie, she decides to think about it a little more and finally agrees. Goldie has asked her to come to New York where they will begin a long road trip across the country to San Fransisco to supposedly deliver some very precious Japanese artwork to a long lost friends family. Their trip ends up being a growing experience for both. Anna, who was widowed 4 years prior hasn't fully begun to live her life to its fullest potential. She has just been going through the motions day after day and her grandmother is using this opportunity to allow her to come out of her shell and maybe even rebuild their relationship. This will not be easy as both women are independent, stubborn, sassy, opinionated and one is set in her ways. Goldie, came from nothing and made herself into the mannerly, cultivated, stylish women she is today. Anna on the other hand has lived a middle class life, thumbing her nose up at anything that implies wealth or status. On their journey the reader is taken into Goldie's past, the people who shaped it, the secrets she holds close and the joys, triumphs and sadness she has endured. We also see the inner and outer struggle Anna goes through to finally break out of the rut she has been in since her husbands death and the truths she finds hidden deep inside. I did enjoy the story and I especially liked how the book went from present to past and back to present, all the while weaving them together. I did find some parts of the story slow to build and then not having a very good BANG at the end. Of course, not all books must have a "wow factor" to be good, but I felt something was missing or could have been built up a bit more. I would have liked to have had more character interaction. Goldie and Anna were driving across country stuck in a 1962 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud for hours at a time. They ate together and they stayed in the same motel rooms night after night, but they never had a whole lot of conversation. Their talks seemed to end in arguments or indifference. I would have liked to have had deep, intimate, candid conversation so that they would learn to really know one another and to understand why the other ticked. I really believe the author missed the mark on that one.I think this book will appeal to those who like reading drama, love and loss or introspective stories.
    • 4/5
      The Secret of the Nightingale Palace is the story of a grandmother and her granddaughter. They are both widows and have been estranged since Anna married her husband Ford. Goldie, the grandmother did not approve and was not shy about telling Anna. I did not like Goldie. She seemed incredibly mean and downright rude to Anna. I think the author was trying to make her seem a character, but missed the mark. I also did not see the whole point in the trip except to may be bridge the gap between them. I did enjoy the stories from the 1940s more than anything else in this book. Not a book I would recommend as great - just so-so.
    • 3/5
      Anna Rosenthal reluctantly responds to her grandmother's request to drive her from New York to San Francisco. Although Anna hasn't forgiven her grandmother for the horrible things she said about Anna's choice to marry her husband, Ford (now deceased), Anna is persuaded to go when her grandmother explains that she wants to return a set of Japanese prints to its rightful owner. Anna loves the prints. She remembers happier times when she and her grandmother built a fantasy world around the prints. The prints are partly responsible for Anna's career as a graphic artist. Will the road trip be the beginning of healing for Anna and Goldie's relationship, or will it drive them even farther apart?I wanted to like this book, but it was difficult when I didn't like either of the main characters. The book suffers from too much telling and not enough showing. I didn't have to wonder about the motives behind the characters' actions since I was told in great detail why they behaved the way they did. One thing I didn't understand was why Anna and her grandmother have to share hotel rooms on their trip. Goldie is very wealthy. They're driving a Rolls Royce across country. They spend all day together in the car and they're not getting along very well. Surely she can afford two rooms so that they can have some personal space at night? The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet deals with many of the same themes with better effect.This review is based on an advanced reading copy provided by the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.
    • 4/5
      Two years after Anna's husband death, Anna's estranged grandmother, Goldie, reaches out to her to take road trip from New York to San Francisco to return some artwork to an old friend of Goldie's. Despite Goldie being mean, cruel and manipulative; I did enjoy find her tales of her life in San Francisco in the 1940's where she was a shopgirl. Anna who still is evaluating her relationship with her deceased husband, Ford, is the victim of the story. Although I like the story, there were still some slow spots. This is a a book that will appeal to readers who like family drama.
    • 4/5
      This book is great. I love generational books and this one is well worth reading. Anna takes her 85 year old grandmother on a cross country road trip. She learns way more about life than she ever expected. You will love the characters.
    • 3/5
      I received an advanced copy of The Secret of the Nightingale Palace by Dana Sachs through librarything.com as an early reviewer, and found it to be a promising novel. However, with better editing, the book would have been a much more successful read. This is not your typical grandmother/granddaughter story. Goldie, the grandmother, is difficult. She is a surly, brazen, and outspoken character. However, the reader needed to see the more endearing side of Goldie.Anna, the granddaughter, is grieving over the loss of her husband to Leukemia two years prior. She is at a stand-still, watching life pass her by, but unable to make a decision as to how to move forward. Anna struggles with understanding her relationship with her husband, Ford, at the end of his life, and feels that maybe she had married the wrong person. Goldie never thought Ford was good enough for Anna, and her grandmother's harsh words caused a rift between grandmother and granddaughter. Despite being estranged for five years, Goldie reaches out to her granddaughter to drive her cross-country to return Japanese artwork to an old friend.Although I loved the premise of the story, it was very hard to like Goldie, even after knowing her back-story. She seemed superficial and unemotional, and appeared to easily maneuver the obstacles in her life. I was more connected with Anna's story, but even her sections of the book came across as unrealistic at times. During the long drive, I would have liked Goldie and Anna to have had a real dialogue about life. Goldie loves Anna and Anna loves Goldie, but neither character exposes their true feelings, the rawness of their emotions, to the other. Perhaps the characters were unable to be so revealing. Goldie had a great deal of experience to offer Anna, but much of what we find out about Goldie, is not privy to Anna. In fact, it is hard to know just how much of Goldie's life was revealed to Anna.The novel needed to be developed more in parts and edited in others. The Japanese internment camps were glossed over. The explanation of the title the Nightingale Palace needed more elaboration. However, the ending (specifically at the airport) was very satisfying and exceptional.
    • 5/5
      I really, really enjoyed this book! Two widows, an 85 year old grandmother and her 35 year old granddaughter take a cross country trip in the grandmother Goldies Rolls Royce to return some artwork to a long ago friend of the grandmother. They have not always had the best relationship as they are both stubborn as hell, but over the course of the trip they come closer together and learn much more about each other. The book jumps back and forth in time recounting each characters story and experience which I found to be very well done. I highly recommend this book for a great and interesting read. I had a hard time putting it down.
    • 4/5
      Two years after the death of her husband from leukemia, Anna is struggling to reach normalcy in her life. As the story opened, I immediately didn't like Anna - I found her and her actions annoying. Even as she got on the road with her grandmother Goldie, on a trip cross-country to return a set of Japanese prints to her grandmother's former friends, I continued to dislike Anna. I just could not seem to understand why Anna did and said the things she did, and I was nearly ready to set this book aside. Until the story shifted to Goldie's time in early 1940s San Francisco as a shopgirl. Goldie's story was fascinating and it was at this point that I could not put this book down. It was almost as if it was a book within a book. I loved the descriptions of Goldie's small-town girl reactions to San Francisco, and her relationships with the Nakamura family and others she met though her job at Feld's department store. I found Goldie refreshing and honest. And I didn't guess at any of the twists in her story, which just added to my enjoyment. The ending was sweet, if a bit disappointing. I think I would have rated this book higher if it had been just Goldie's story, without Anna. Goldie's story: 5 stars. Anna's story: 2 stars.
    • 3/5
      The Secret of the Nightingale Palace tells the story of the cross country road trip of Anna, a 32 year old widow, and Goldie, her 85 year old estranged grandmother. They travel from New York to San Fransisco. During their two weeks together, they seem to learn very little about one another. Their interactions are mostly limited to Goldie being obnoxious and Anna being a victim. There's a bit of romance for Anna when she falls for one of her grandmother's doctors along the way, but the book focuses mostly on flashbacks of Goldie, when she was in her twenties and living in San Fransisco. The flashbacks had some interesting moments, but in general, this is not a book I would recommend. Although the prose was far from striking, it was adequate. The plot, however, dragged, making the read a bit of a chore at times. The characters, too, had some good moments, but overall, were not particularly likable or interesting. The ending was completely far-fetched, and all in all, I found that the bad points of the book far overshadowed the good.