Three Words For Goodbye by Hazel Gaynor & Heather Webb BLOG TOUR @HazelGaynor @msheatherwebb @Harper360UK @RandomTTours #ThreeWordsForGoodbye

 

Three cities, two sisters, one chance to correct the past . . .

New York, 1937: When estranged sisters Clara and Madeleine Sommers learn their grandmother is dying, they agree to fulfill her last wish: to travel across Europe—together. They are to deliver three letters, in which Violet will say goodbye to those she hasn’t seen since traveling to Europe forty years earlier; a journey inspired by famed reporter, Nellie Bly.

Clara, ever-dutiful, sees the trip as an inconvenient detour before her wedding to millionaire Charles Hancock, but it’s also a chance to embrace her love of art. Budding journalist Madeleine relishes the opportunity to develop her ambitions to report on the growing threat of Hitler’s Nazi party and Mussolini’s control in Italy.

Constantly at odds with each other as they explore the luxurious Queen Mary, the Orient Express, and the sights of Paris and  Venice,, Clara and Madeleine wonder if they can fulfil Violet’s wish, until a shocking truth about their family brings them closer together. But as they reach Vienna to deliver the final letter, old grudges threaten their reconciliation again. As political tensions rise, and Europe feels increasingly volatile, the pair are glad to head home on the Hindenburg, where fate will play its hand in the final stage of their journey.

Three Words For Goodbye by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb was published on 2 September 2021 by Wm Morrow.  My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review as part of this #RandomThingsTours blog tour 

Three Words For Goodbye is a sweeping historical saga that kept me engrossed from the enticing prologue when the reader is introduced to Violet in her East Hampton estate in the late 1930s. 

Violet is terminally ill and it is her dearest wish that her two granddaughters; Clara and Madeleine, will travel to Europe to deliver some letters for her. Despite being close as children, Clara and Madeleine have recently been estranged. Not speaking since her father's funeral some time ago. 

Here we have two very different women. Clara is artistic, yet traditional. She's engaged to marry Charles, a very successful businessman and envisages her future life as that of a dutiful wife. She would far rather stay in the US and make wedding plans than set out on a journey across Europe, especially as there's the threat of war in the air. Madeleine is a journalist, always looking beyond what is in front of her, looking for a story. She's unconventional in both her outlook and her dress. Trousers and brogues are her choice, rather than the dresses and fripperies favoured by her sister. 

However, the one thing that they do have in common is their love for Violet and it is this that is the deciding factor. They set out on a journey that has been carefully planned by Violet and will include trips on the Queen Mary, the Orient Express and finally, the Hindenburg. 

This is a wonderfully rich and emotive story of not just a geographical journey, but also a journey of discovery. As the sisters spend more time together, they begin to thaw to each other and these authors do such a beautiful job of examining this relationship in such depth. 

There's a tension that runs throughout the story too, with the ever worrying thought of war that is always present as they journey through Europe. There's glamour and there is emotion, along with constant discovery. The cities visited are seen through the eyes of the sister so well and their different view points are cleverly done as Maddie sees stories whilst Clare see the artwork, 

This is storytelling at its finest.  Recommended by me. 

HAZEL GAYNOR is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of When We Were Young
& Brave, A Memory of Violets and The Girl Who Came Home, for which she received the 2015 Romantic Novelists’ Association Historical Romantic Novel of the Year award.  Her third novel, The Girl from The Savoy, was an Irish Times and Globe and Mail bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Popular Fiction Book of the Year. 
In 2017, she published The Cottingley Secret and Last Christmas in Paris (co-written with Heather Webb). Both novels hit bestseller lists, and Last Christmas in Paris won the 2018 Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star Award. Hazel’s novel, The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter, hit the Irish Times bestseller list for five consecutive weeks. 

Hazel was selected by Library Journal as one of Ten Big Breakout Authors for 2015. 

Her work has been translated into fourteen languages and is published in twenty-one countries worldwide. 

She lives in Ireland with her husband and two children.

www.hazelgaynor.com

Twitter @HazelGaynor

Instagram @hazelgaynor

HEATHER WEBB is the USA Today bestselling, award-winning author of The Next Ship Home,
Rodin’s Lover, Becoming Josephine, and The Phantom’s Apprentice, as well as two novels co- written with Hazel, Last Christmas in Paris , which won the 2018 Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star Award, and Meet Me in Monaco, a finalist in the 2020 RNA Awards as well as the 2019 Digital Book World Fiction awards.

To date, Heather’s works have been translated into fifteen languages worldwide.

She is also passionate about helping writers find their voice as a professional freelance editor, speaker, and adjunct in the MFA in Writing program at Drexeul University.


She lives in New England with her family and one feisty bunny.

www.heatherwebbauthor.com

Twitter @msheatherwebb

Instagram @msheatherwebb