Why time bending stories & Historical Romance interest me:
I have had such a wicked sweet affinity for time bending stories in Historical Fiction and Romance, it has truly been a hard route of choice for me to name my top favourites in this particular niche of genre as I went into hosting this lovely blog tour! Over the last eleven years, I’ve read so many dearly beloved reads – the best bit about how time bends inside a storyline and either offers a dual time line of interest such as within Georgia’s Folly or bends it through time shifting and/or time travelling directly is how you can intuit so much out of a story through the different perspectives shared within the same narrative.
I, personally, love this duality to the stories themselves. To tuck close inside one era and then, time jump into another and find both the dimensional resonances of both and/or finding that although similarly different and unique of their own eras – both tend to have connective measures within them which not only carry the plot forward but interconnect the characters as well. Time in this instance is temporal and a bit elusive because of how interwoven the stories become through each writers’ vision of how time can bend and contract and reconnect through different portals of ‘time’.
Similarly, within Historical Romances – I am simply swept away by the idea of ‘visiting’ a different era of History and with each ‘time jump’ I undertake through fiction, the lens provided to me gives me another nudge of insight and knowledge of the Historical past to where I’ve become a time traveller myself. Historical Romances are wicked brilliant in how they encompass both the historical societies in which their characters live and the traditions of the era in which they reside. There is something quite alluring to #HistRom and I’ve been a HUGE appreciator for so many years – even, long before I became a book blogger in (2013)!!
I dearly wanted to purchase a copy of “Georgia’s Folly” for myself – to read with my #ChristmasReads this year, however, it is currently only offered in ebook editions. As many of you know, I can only read stories in print due to chronic migraines – and thereby, part of why I wanted to shine a light on this story is not only to acknowledge that there are readers out here who want to read this story but perhaps, if there is more interest in the story overall – a print edition might be forthcoming at a later date.
This story curates a lot of self-interest for me – especially because I am taken with diaries and Epistolatory Fiction as much as I grew up roaming around antique stores and emporiums of the past. There is something quite wicked for uncovering something old and something tangible from someone elses life in the present which reconnects you to their life in the past. You might never know much about the person as much as the object you’ve found but just to realise that someone else lived an entire life ahead of yours and this one particular object made it through all those years to find its way into your hands is quite a remarkable feat. This is one reason why I love antiques and early attic shoppes because instead of putting all that lovely stuff in the rubbish pile, people find beauty in the objects of the past and many of them still have purpose in our lives now.
Flea markets were part of my childhood as much as estate emporiums and antique stores – you just never knew what you would find for sale ‘right around the corner’ of the next stall or aisle. I had many years of memories walking up and down those aisles and spending whole days at the fleas themselves just engaging with the sellers, browsing what was for sale and walking away with more than a few deals. Likewise, the same was true of auctions and emporiums. These leftover items are connective and tangible portals of time in our living histories. I think that is what drew me into that world to begin with – a way to connect to the past and yet, feel or see a tangible part of that life in the present.
You can see why I’m wicked excited about this novel!
Plus, a part of me wondered – what if you discovered a diary of someone who lived during a certain part of the historical past and you unearthed a similar story? How would it feel to connect to that moment in History but also further research what that discovery meant to those who lived then vs now? So many lovely questions to explore on that note alone! Plus, too, isn’t it curious how diaries withstand time when they usually were used as self-disciplined chronicles of time for their own families?
Georgia's Folly
Subtitle: A Lost Treasures Mystery
by Deborah Chase
Source: Chapter Sampler
For fans of "Antiques Roadshow" and "American Pickers" - this is the one for you!
Beginning at a cluttered flea market and ending at a glittering art auction, Georgia’s Follytells the compelling story that blends past and present and the search for a valuable and elusive antique. Chloe Bishop grew up in foster care. She loves shopping at flea markets, picking up family heirlooms like old pottery or vintage furniture to fill in for the family and home she never had.
As Chloe walks through the Brooklyn Flea Market, she stumbles upon the diary of Miss Georgia Potter, a young woman who had lived in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania during the Civil War. The yellowed pages reveal the impact of the war on daily life and spotlights the role of women including Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton and Louisa May Alcott.
Like Chloe, Georgia Potter was a passionate collector and her diary lists her collection of valuable antiques—including the Holy Grail of 18th century furniture—a Chippendale settee. Well versed in antiques, Chloe is aware that there are only five known examples and a sixth settee would be worth more than $4 million.
Chloe immediately contacts Ben Thompson, the man who sold her the diary. Ben is a picker who drives his RV across America, searching for collectibles to sell to dealers. He is estranged from his wealthy, prominent family who cringe at his chosen career. Ben agrees to take her along to search for the valuable and iconic settee. As Ben and Chloe head to Gettysburg, they are unaware that Gregor Petrov, a shady antiques dealer and Harrison Kent, a respected but unscrupulous art expert are trailing them.
The search for the settee takes Chloe and Ben on fast paced journey from the Gettysburg battlefields to the 18th century street of artisans in Philadelphia to a historic mansion on the banks of the Hudson River. Traveling together in the small RV, Ben and Chloe draw closer. In the confines of the RV, embroiled in an unimaginable quest, Chloe confides that she is also in search for the father she never knew while Ben struggles to explain his complicated family to a woman who never had one.
In a thrilling ending, the rare Chippendale settee is not Chloe’s only valuable discovery.
Places to find the book:
ASIN: B0DGWF6J7G
Published by Historium Press
on 11th September, 2024
Format: Chapter Sampler | Online
Available Formats: Ebook
Converse via: #CoffeePotBookClub, #GeorgiasFolly or #DeborahChase
About Deborah Chase
Deborah Chase grew up in a family filled with art and antiques. On the high end, her uncle, William Lincer, lead violist at the New York Philharmonic, was an art lover whose collection was sold at Sotheby’s. On the low end, her father, writer Allen Chase took her to flea markets and estate sales. He sparked a lifelong fascination with tales of lost treasures that ranged from plundered Egyptian tombs to trainloads of art stolen by the Nazis. It was this love of history and antiques that inspired her first novel, Georgia’s Folly
She was a founding editor of the Berkeley Wellness Newsletter and the author of 12 books including The Medically Based No-Nonsense Beauty Book (Alfred Knopf), Extend Your Life Diet (Pocket Books), Fruit Acids for Fabulous Skin (St Martin’s Press), Every Bride is Beautiful (Morrow), and with her husband Dr Neil Schachter co-author of Life and Breath (Doubleday) and The Good Doctor’s Guide to Colds and Flu (Harper).
The books have been a selection of the Book of the Month Club and her articles have appeared in Ladies Home Journal, Self, Glamour, Redbook, Family Circle, Parents and Good Housekeeping. She is a graduate of Bronx High School of Science and a winner of the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. A graduate of New York University she earned a degree with a duel major in journalism and history.
A native New Yorker, Deborah like to spend her weekends at an upstate home where a big kitchen and an endless supply of estate sales indulge her duel passions for cooking and collecting.
A note of apology to the author and The Coffee Pot Book Club:
I was fully intending to run this featured spotlight at the right hour today – however, on Saturday, 16th of November, my Mum and I were in the ER early in the morning as she was experiencing a medical crisis and I was calling out from work whilst awaiting word from the doctor about what was causing her blood pressure to spike to 235 over 125. Although there is an issue with hypertension in the family, this was the first time she has experienced this issue herself. We boomeranged back to the ER that Sunday (in the wee hours of the morning again!) and I am not sure if my nerves left me until mid-week. Since then, it has been a wreck of hours trying to get doctors to see my Mum and not just get referred back to the ER. Even with insurance it has been a crazy back-and-forth to get this resolved.
Yesterday, she finally was able to see a doctor and this particular one took her seriously to the point where we’ll start to get better answers after more tests are done. Somewhere between helping her through this and keeping my work schedule as best I could betwixt it all – I simply forgot which day this was meant to ‘run’ on my blog. Forgive me for the short-sightedness of this late spotlight – I’ve just had my mind and heart on other things this week and honestly, I’ve been so fatigued with stess and worry I wasn’t focusing on much past it – except reading a bit before I turn in at night to avert my mind onto something else besides Mum’s health.
For those who follow me, you know we’ve been super focused on my Dad’s health these last two years and part of what played on my mind the most is that *something!* always seemed to happen in November for my Dad. It was November of 2022 where he went into the hospital for a blood clot in his leg and exited into long-term care. Thankfully, so far, it appears we can treat Mum’s issues with medicine, but they still have to rule out underlying factors that could be playing a part in spiking her blood pressure overall. That’s where my prayers lie right now as some of those ‘other things’ are not the best of news to receive.
Aside from this – I still wanted to share this lovely novel and spotlight because I truly believe in the story and wanted to help boost a signal for it in the blogosphere and on social channels. Stories are helping me a lot lately – from giving me better work-life balance to reducing my stress levels – especially true in October and as I entered November, I wanted to continue the momentum. Even now, with what we’re shouldering with her current health issues, I keep trying to return to stories and allow my heart and mind to heal a bit through the grace of wicked storycrafting by writers who are giving me something to chew on outside of my IRL strife.
I especially LOVE hosting Indie Authors and celebrating the independently published authors who are writing the kinds of stories I love to read. This is especially true across genres of interest as many of my favourite reads over the years as a book blogger have been independently and/or self-published works of fiction. It is with great joy I am able to celebrate and shine a light on Ms Chase’s novel today.
NOTE: There was a sampler available online for Georgia’s Folly and these are my thoughts after reading it.
We enter through the private diary and internal thoughts of Ms Georgia Potter – a young girl smitten with antiques and objects her Uncle finds to gift to her and each of them seems to have a story behind them. The clever bit was the monkey because he took a young girls’ sorrow and turnt it into a smile and a laugh. Knowing where she lived (in Gettysburg) and how important History reflects her timeline of living to be made the story feel ever more alive somehow as it was portalling us through an ordinary girl’s life as she shared her personal experiences.
Against this backdrop, we shift forward in time to Chloe’s journey to finding things at flea markets and hoping something will have a hidden history of its own to tell. And, when she bought the table desk, I am sure she wasn’t expecting to find a diary locked inside it! I bet that is how things are discovered though – as a lot of times, I would suspect these items were meant to be preserved forever but rather just a singular lifetime or perhaps, passed down to descendants but not to survive full centuries!
I was getting more engaged with the chase after the past when Ben became involved with Chloe’s search for answers, too! I can see I would love to know how this story knits together from here and how the journey towards finding what they’re seeking might bring them closer together too in more ways than one!
The Virtual Road Map
for “Georgia’s Folly” can be found here:
I enjoy hosting for The Coffee Pot Book Club – a touring company who champions Historical Fiction and connects readers to the writers:
See what I am hosting next on my Bookish Events page!
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2024.
I shared this post via #bookstagram.
This sounds like a neat novel! I also really like epistolary stories, and the plot sounds neat too, even though I don’t generally read non-fantasy romance novels these days.
I hope your mom heals up quickly, and that medication can treat whatever’s wrong.
Thank you so much for hosting Deborah Chase, with her fabulous novel, Georgia’s Folly.
Take care,
Cathie xo
The Coffee Pot Book Club