Love and Other Consolation Prizes is another very special offering by Jamie Ford. Using actual historical items to spin a heart tugging tale, Mr. Ford tells the story of Ernest Young, or young Ernest as he is often called. Sold as a small child and smuggled into the US, Ernest finds himself as a sponsored student at a private school until his sponsor actually raffles him off at the AYP Expo in Seattle in 1908. But luck favors young Ernest and he is won by the madam of an upscale gentleman's club where he is reunited with Fhan, a young girl who was brought on the same ship with him.

The story weaves the unlikely friendship between Ernest, Fhan, and Maisie, daughter of the madam from the day Ernest was won through to the demise of the brothel and beyond.

Jump ahead to 1962 and the Seattle Worlds Fair. Ernest's journalist daughter Juju wants to interview him about the earlier fair and comparing the two. A simple thing until she discovers the story of the raffled boy was not only true, but it was her father. The fair has served to trigger memories for her mother who has been in her own world for the past few years and she is the one who tells of the raffle and spills other secrets from the past as she finds her way back to being more of herself.

A beautiful story of finding family in unlikely settings, Love and other Consolation Prizes will bring a tear to your eye and hope to your heart. The take away lesson is best seen in Ernest and the way he cares for others in his life. A great story, I do recommend this book!

Confession: If a book is about a fair, a carnival, or a circus in the past, I will read it. So, when I read the description of Love and Other Consolation Prizes, I immediately wanted to read it. The First World's Fair in Seattle plus a brothel? Yep. I'm in.
And this novel did not let me down. If anything, it is even better than I anticipated. This book is a sorrow-filled portrait of the lives of Asian immigrants that is so incredibly well-written you will want to savor reading it rather than rushing to reach the end. I spent the whole week reading a few chapters at a time and enjoying every minute, which is much different than a book that is primarily plot-driven that sends you rushing through the pages to reach the conclusion.

The novel tells the story of a young Chinese boy who has been sent to America and goes from one children's home to the next until he ends up the winning item in a raffle at Seattle's World Fair in 1909. Who buys him? A madam of the most prestigious brothel in Seattle. He enters a world of sin, but he winds up finding a family and falling in love.

This novel has amazing characters that will stay with you long after you finish reading it. The various working women are not caricatures but are individual and layered. The settings also come alive - they are not simply backgrounds. The Tenderloin and the World's Fair become characters themselves.

And, the writing. Oh, the writing. Tha author, Jamie Ford, has a gift for evocative language and storytelling. I could go on and on with all the beautifully written lines I underlined as I read. Basically, this novel is wonderful. I highly recommend it and think it will be a great choice for book clubs.

A tear-jerker history lesson! Prepare yourself with tissues and a funny book to read after.

Summary From Goodreads:
Inspired by a true story, this is the unforgettable story of a young boy named Ernest, set during the 1909 Seattle world’s fair called the Alaska Yukon Pacific Expo. It is a time when the magical wonders of technology on display at the expo future seems limitless. But for Ernest, a half-Chinese orphan who found his way to America through a last desperate act of his beloved mother, every door is closed. A charity student at a boarding school, he has never really had a place to call home. Then one day, his wealthy sponsor announces that if a home is what he wants, then that is what he will have: Ernest will be offered as a prize in the daily raffle at the fair, advertised as “Healthy boy to a good home for the winning ticket holder.” The woman who “wins” him is the madam of a notorious brothel who was famous for educating her girls. He becomes a houseboy in her brothel and is befriended by the daughter of the madam, as well as a Japanese girl who works in the kitchen. The friendship and love between these three form the first real family Ernest has ever known.
My thanks to Netgalley and Ballentine Books for allowing me an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.  I have to admit that it took me a few days to process and come to terms not just with the content, but the layout of the book.  We first meet an older Ernest standing in front of the World Fair in the 60’s and thinking about a jumble of things from his wife, Gracie, to the poor record keeping of Chine, and then to radio waves bouncing off Cassiopeia.  Honestly it was a mess, and if I were someone that just reads the first page to decide if I want to read a book this one would have been tossed. That would have been tragic.  As the book progressed, moving from Ernest’s earliest childhood memory- the last time he saw his mother in China- to 1960’s America, it quickly found it’s pace and I was riveted.  There were moments of such haunting sadness, but also sweetness and childlike innocence in the oddest places.  I adored the characters and found them touching and well developed.  The fact that the general ideas behind who is “in the right” and “good” was often blurred and even in question here.  Mostly I was left broken yet charmed by a world  I can’t even imagine.  Due to the issues I had with the start of the book I thought I would give this one a lower rating, but I can’t.  It’s still a five star book for me and I will be searching for a hard copy of this one for my shelves.  (And as a possible gift for one of my aunties- this is right up her alley).    If you loved the lyrical beauty and poignant sadness of Memiors of a Geisha, then you will like this one I think.
On the adult content scale…. well there’s a lot.  Sexual content, though done with care and respect, language and violence.  It hits a lot of hard subjects, but I would still let my niece read it.  I give it a five.

Solid 5 stars!

I'm torn by this book - torn between wanting Jamie Ford to write book after book after book, and the belief that eventually my favorite authors will write a dud that disappoints. This was another out-of-the-park read for me, and while I would love to read his books until the end of time, I don't think I could handle it if he cranked out a bad one. It's a dilemma I can live with though ...

Such a compelling story line - Ford has a way of weaving fascinating but little known pieces of history into his books, teaching you about things most of us didn't realize existed. With themes of abandonment, human trafficking and prostitution one might expect a dark and depressing story, but they just provided a backdrop for a beautiful story about love and humanity and devotion. Ford really has a way with his writing that is simply effortless, and truly enjoyable to read. I absolutely adored the characters - Ernest, Fahn and Maisie will stick with me for a long time. They took the hands they were dealt and played them to the best outcome they could, but never lost their core beliefs in love, family and loyalty. This was a wonderful book combining history and fiction, with the end result being a genuinely special novel that I can't recommend enough!

Jamie Ford's novel brings to life an unusual cast of characters against the backdrop of the Seattle World's Fair, both past and present. The reader cannot help but admire the strength of the three friends who meet and deal with adversity as it challenges each of them in different ways. Bits of historical color are dropped along the way, and help to create the authenticity of this story-based-on-truth. It is an enjoyable read on so many levels.

Thanks to the author, the publisher (Random House/Ballantine) and Netgalley.com for allowing me the opportunity to read and appraise this book.

Half-Chinese orphan boy (Yung/Ernest) raffled off at Seattle's 1909 World Fair.

“Healthy boy to a good home for the winning ticket holder.”

The author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, which I loved, has done it again! Based on a true story set in the early 1900s, this story explores a young boy's quest for family after leaving China and traveling to Washington state. Why was he auctioned off at the fair? And, how will he respond once he realizes the woman (Flora) who "won" him is a madam of a brothel? But, it's not all bad... While living there, he falls in love with two teenage girls, Fahn and Maisie, and must choose between them.

The story alternates between Ernest's childhood in the early 1900s and 60 years later as Ernest's journalist daughter (Judy/Juju) delves into his past, discovering secrets about both her parents and the United States' history.

Thank you to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for a free ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

For a few afternoons, I was swept back into Seattle’s past, at the time of both of its World Fairs, in 1962 and 1911. “Love” wonderfully evokes the red light district of 1911, and the lives of its inhabitants both in the long past, and the near past. I really enjoyed this book. I loved its characters and was sorry to see the book end.

interesting story of the 2 world fairs in Seattle told through the eyes of a Chinese immigrant...as he arrives in Washington as a 5 year old and then 60 years later as his daughter interviews him for a comparison of the 2 fairs. Well written.

Spanning over 50 years, this book weaves a tale about a love story. The Seattle World's Fairs in 1909 and 1962 provides a backdrop to the story. The characters are well-developed and I felt an empathy toward Ernest as he was tossed about as an orphan, then being raffled off to grow up in a brothel. This "family" taught Ernest about family, character and love. The story alternates between Ernest's childhood and his adult life and is a charming story about resilience.

Jamie Ford is a wonderful storyteller. He is able to paint a vivid picture of the time and place he is writing about. Love and Other Consolation Prizes is another prime example of Ford's talents. He shows us how love begins, heals and endures.

Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford

This exquisitely written epic story follows the life Yung Kun-ai, who helplessly watches his newborn baby sister mei mei, at only two days old, born half Chinese on his mother's side, without a father, as she gets buried alive. His mother dug the burial hole with her bare hands. A helpless child of only five years old, his mother places the last of their worldly possessions, a filigreed hairpin in his hands. His mother tells him "Only two kinds of people in China, the too rich and the too poor." Yung is told by his mother that an uncle is going to take him to America. This was her gift to him.

The next morning a man who was not his uncle came for Yung Kun-ai and they boarded a ship to America. As the ship is entering the port the boys are placed in burlap sacks, tied and thrown overboard. As good fortune Ynng Kun-ai uses the pin to tear apart a whole in his sack and is rescued by a man named Ernest and that becomes his name.

The novel opens in 1962 with Yung Kun-ai who has lived for over fifty years by the name Ernest in 1962. Ernest is now in his mid sixties as he stands outside the gates on opening day of the new world's fair in Seattle. Yung has been living as Ernest Young and can smell the cotton candy and can see the space needle. Ernest has no motivation to visit this fair and is married to a woman named Gracie with two adult daughters. Gracie lives with his daughter Judy because she has some form of dementia and gets easily agitated by men. Ernest has been living in a run down apartment building alone for the past three years and misses his wife profoundly.

Ernest's daughter Judy is a reporter and during a visit to her father she guesses that he could be the infant that was raffled off. Judy tells her father that her mother has had some lucid moments and had begun telling her the story. Ernest wanting to protect Gracie tells Judy that it was a boy of twelve who was raffled off at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition back in 1909. He tells Judy that he will tell her more about the story after his visit to her home to visit Gracie.

The narrative moves back in forth in time from the present day in 1962 and Ernest's betrayal by the home he was living at offering him as the prize for the winning ticket holder at the 1909 world's fair. Ernest is won by Madam Flora who owns a brothel in the tenderloin district. When Ernest arrives at the brothel he is amazed at the beauty and grandeur of his new living quarters as the houseboy. He has never been surrounded by so much finery or been so well fed, and he has never before had a room of his own to sleep in.

Madame Flora has given Ernest the winning raffle ticket as a souvenir and he is reunited with Fahn the Japanese girl who works as a scullery maid. Fahn reminds Ernest of his proposal of marriage while they were passengers aboard the ship that brought them both to America. Maisie while showing Ernest around admits that she is not Madam Flora's sister she is the secret daughter.

This is a beautiful story written with imagery and vivid descriptions of both time and place so real I felt like I could see the sights and smell the scents of every vivid detail. This multi-faceted story is about many different themes. Besides the historical setting there are themes of love, prejudice, and exactly who makes up our families. I loved the characters and will miss spending time with them as I savored reading this wonderful novel. I enjoyed this novel so much I can't wait to read this author's other work. I highly recommend this novel for all who enjoy historical fiction and sparkling prose.

Thank you to Net Galley, Jamie Ford and Ballantine Random House Publishing for my digital copy in exchange for an honest and fair review.

Thanks Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and netgalley for this ARC.

You won't be able to help feeling empathy, regret, joy, and helplessness along with these survivors. This is a book for all book lovers.

Once again Mr. Ford brings us a sad but sweet story of the history of Asian immigrants to the Pacific Northwest. Sure we all learned in 4th grade how Chinese were brought over to help build the railroad, but books like this one remind us that the railroad was only part of the story. Ernest i sold and brought over to America to be a servant. He ends up becoming a charity student at a local private school and then raffled off at the Alaskan-Yukon-Pacific Fair where he is claimed by a local whorehouse. This part of the story is rooted in actual history, except the raffle prize was an infant and there is no information about where he ended up. Mr. Ford's writing is poetry in parts. His characters come to life with all their beauty and flaws and the story deals with not only the issues surrounding forced immigration and racism, but also old age, love, and the need to protect your children from the harshness of real life. This book is beauty.

Wow. This book was not what I expected. Not sure what I expected from the blurb but it wasn't this book. This is not a bad thing at all.

The book alternates between time periods of Earnest's life. The first is him as a young boy through his teenage years and then as an older man. For the longest time, I was not sure who Grace was. Was Grace Fahn or Maisie? I thought this was a great idea on Ford's part to keep the reader in suspense. I was sure that I knew then I would change my mind.

This was the first of Ford's books that I have read and it won't be the last.

“My theory…is that the best, worst, happiest, saddest, scariest, and most memorable moments are all connected. Those are the important times, good and bad. The rest is just filler…” (Maisie, Location 2312 in Kindle version).

Ernest’s story begins in his native China, a young child faced with the devastation of his family. Everything that Ernest becomes starts here, amidst despair, heartbreak, and famine. Orphaned by his mother, he survives a treacherous journey to the West Coast of America. This first instance of abandonment triggers in Ernest longings that last for his entire life – to love and to belong.

Eventually, he finds his way to the 1909 World’s Fair in Seattle and ends up a door prize. He is literally raffled off and handed over to the care of his new family.

This is the moment where everything changes.

Ernest finds family, a home, and the love he has been searching for; however, his family is all women and his home is a brothel. In a story of contradictions, warmth and devotion overflow. Ernest meets his best friends, Maisie, daughter of the Madame, and Fahn, a Japanese servant. The three friends survive and thrive in a world that seems utterly upside-down, and they do it together.

I thoroughly enjoyed "Love and Other Consolation Prizes" and its host of colorful characters. Enthralling lead characters must be supported by a cast that is vivid and real and, in this, Ford fully comes through. He also manages to maintain a sense of anticipation throughout the novel. Ernest slowly unfurls his story through remembrances and conversations with his daughter in the current day, which for him is 1962. I always enjoyed the moments of suspense between the past and the present; they kept me reading long past my bedtime!

Overall, "Love and Other Consolation Prizes" warmed by heart and informed me about a time and a place completely unknown to me beforehand. I highly recommend this book for anyone that loves historical fiction and longs for a book to restore their hope.

I plan to publish my review on Thursday, September 7 on my blog The Novel Endeavor (http://www.thenovelendeavor.com).

From the author of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (a book I absolutely loved), Ford has written another book that I enjoyed reading. If you enjoy historical fiction mixed in with a sweet romance, you would enjoy this book. Although I would not recommend this book to my students because of its content, I would recommend it to my friends. The story goes back and forth between 1909 and the 1960s and revolves around the 1909 World's Fair. The characters are believable and you become engrossed in their lives.

I love books by Jamie Ford and this one is no different.

We follow the story of a half Chinese orphan boy from the early 1900's to the early 1960's. This story is filled with a lot of heartache, loneliness and love.

My thanks to Netgalley and Ballentine Books for this advanced readers copy.

No one does historic Seattle like Jamie Ford, and Love and Other Consolation Prizes is one more example of Ford's beautiful writing and attention to detail. Moving back and forth between the early 1900's and 1962, Ford explores yet another part of the history of Asian immigrants in the Seattle area. His research into the area and eras is outstanding, as is his attention to detail in his lyrical descriptions of the two World Fairs that form the background of the story.

Love and Other Consolation Prizes is a truly lovely look at memories, connections, and the complicated ways in which families are formed.

We meet Ernest as an adult in 1969, as the World's Fair (with its brand-spanking-new Space Needle) is getting underway in Seattle. Ernest is living apart from his beloved wife Gracie because of a disorder that has stolen most of her memories and leaves her highly agitated whenever Ernest is around. As he sees the city preparing for the spectacle of the World's Fair, he's brought back to his memories of 1909, when he fell in love with two very different girls during a visit to the Alaska Yukon Pacific Expo, held at the very same place.

Ernest's earliest memories are horrific -- his life as a starving child in China whose mother gives him away because she knows she can't care for him. He's basically sold as chattel and carted across the sea to America, where he moves through a succession of charity homes and schools, always an outsider due to his interracial heritage. Equally horrible is the way in which his patron offers him off as a raffle prize, a humiliating experience for Ernest which ultimately leads to the happiest years of his life. As a 12-year-old servant in the Tenderloin brothel, he's treated kindly and given a home, surrounded by the upstairs girls and the servants, all of whom shower him with love and make him feel for the very first time as if he truly belongs.

At the Tenderloin, he forms a deep attachment to both Fahn, a Japanese girl a few years older than him who works as a servant, and Maisie, the tomboy daughter of the house madam who seems destined to follow in her mother's footsteps. The three of them form a tight-knit unit, and stick together through unexpected changes to their happy home.

Author Jamie Ford keeps us guessing until close to the end. We know that Ernest loved both girls as a young boy, and that he ended up married to one, but he manages to avoid revealing the answer without any unnecessary gimmicks. It works; both girls love Ernest and have special relationships with him. We can tell how much they all care for one another, with the purity of an adolescent friendship that hasn't bloomed into outright romance.

Mixed in with Ernest's memories of the early 20th century are scenes from 1969, as he begins to share pieces of his past with his grown daughter, revealing his own secrets but wanting to preserve his wife's. As the novel progresses, the entire family is changed by some of the truths that begin to be revealed.

He drew a deep breath. Memories are narcotic, he thought. Like the array of pill bottles that sit cluttered on my nightstand. Each dose, carefully administred, use as directed. Too much and they become dangerous. Too much and they'll stop your heart.


The writing in Love and Other Consolation Prizes is beautiful. Through rich descriptions, we get a true sense of Seattle in the early 20th century, with the flavors of its neighborhoods, the personalities and politics of its citizens, and the diversity and tensions springing from so many different people living in such close proximity to one another.

The descriptions of Ernest's time at the Tenderloin really shine. The brothel isn't tawdry; it's an upscale establishment, frequented by the upper crust of Seattle society, with girls who receive dance, elocution, and Latin lessons in order to be able to entertain and converse intelligently with the clientele. The people of the Tenderloin are a family, and it's only Madam Flora's illness that brings an end to the idyllic days there.

Likewise, the more horrible aspects of Ernest's past -- the memories from China and the sea journey, especially -- are painted for us in language evocative of the experiences as they would have been felt and remembered by a child. These sections of the book are upsetting and feel quite real, but since we know from the start that Ernest survived and ultimately thrived, the bad parts never overwhelm the more upbeat parts of the story.

I highly recommend Love and Other Consolation Prizes. As historical fiction, it succeeds in bringing the reader into the world of Seattle in both 1909 and 1969, tied together nicely by the World's Fair at each of these two times. And as a story of human relationships and the complications of love, it simply shines. Love and Other Consolation Prizes is a gorgeously written book that tells a fascinating tale, and in my opinion, is one of 2017's must-reads.