As much as I wanted to like this book, I eventually DNF'ed after trying multiple times. I could not connect with the characters and was unpleasantly surprised by their attitudes.
1/5 ( )

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC! This was a phenomenal book and one that I wasn’t too sure about. The story follows Ava, who we meet boarding the Titanic with her father and Taylor, who is in England studying at Oxford for the summer. These two women’s lives are intertwined but you’re not quite sure how. Taylor meets Mae, her “benefactor” for the summer in England, but the night she meets her, Mae ends up dead - starting a game of “who done it” while Taylor tries to figure out who Mae is to her story. This story has so many twists and turns and thoroughly kept me enthralled and on the edge of my seat!! Highly recommend this one!! ( )

Quick Thoughts

I feel like I took a chance on this book because I don't often read books that tell a story across time, but I am so glad that I took that chance. This book was fantastic. The storytelling was wonderful and I liked all of the characters.

My only small bit of criticism is that the story takes a while to get going, but the slow pace issue is saved by the writing style. The writing was so smooth and full of beautiful lines that I almost didn't mind that the story took awhile for me to get into.

The settings of both England and the Titanic were described so nicely, and the emotions of the characters felt so authentic that I truly felt like I was inside the story.

The twists at the end were very good, and I was satisfied with the ending as a whole.

Overall, The Poppy and the Rose was a beautifully written and emotional story, that's worth the read despite the slow start. I think I would recommend this book to teens who are maybe slightly older, as the story does cover the sinking of the Titanic. Because of that, I would recommend that those who may be uncomfortable reading about mass death stay away from this book. ( )

This is part suspense novel, part love affair with past Gothic novels, and part Titanic retelling with a supernatural twist. I love books with both historical and modern timelines.

Taylor travels to England to study journalism, but also to find a missing piece of her dead father’s past. He’s left behind a photograph of him on a secret trip to England with his arm around a red-haired woman. Conveniently, the past is looking for Taylor too, in the form of an aristocratic woman demanding to take Taylor to tea with a promise to shed light on her father’s secrets. Unfortunately, she dies just as Taylor arrives for the promised tea, and a rainstorm washes out the bridge, trapping Taylor with the staff - housekeeper, butler and chauffeur- in the crumbling manor.

Back in the past, Lady Ava Knight boards the Titanic and immediately finds trouble in the form of a Serbian officer demanding she spy on a fellow first class passenger, a woman named Galena, who has a secret document he wants. In exchange, he’ll help her get her mother help with her addiction issues.

In true Titanic story fashion, she also meets a cute sailor who turns up everywhere she goes, sometimes getting in the way of her spying.

Complicating things, her father seems to be entangled with Galena in some way, possibly through a deep interest in psychology and the supernatural. And Ava suspects the document she needs may be locked in Galena’s closely guarded jewelry box.

Then, of course, the Titanic hits the iceberg, sending all of the characters scrambling for their lives.

Like most stories with dual narrators, I found one voice to be more captivating than the other. Ava leaps off the page, but I enjoyed Taylor’s sections as well. I loved the bits of romance included in the book. That sailor was downright swoony.

The conclusion of a couple of the mysteries felt a little anticlimactic, but the book delivered one final twist that made up for it. This is one I want to reread. ( )