This is a very well written book that held just the right amount of mystery amongst the incredible history it highlighted. It definitely pulls at your heart strings and leaves you rooting for young Ernest. I highly enjoyed this book and how it's portrayal came full circle.

This is the story of Ernest, an orphan from China and his path to the United States.  The story takes the reader from age 8 to old age.  The story starts in China with his mother murdering his young sister and giving him to a man to be put on a boat to America.  The struggles on the boat lead to more struggles in his young life as an orphan in Seattle in the early 1900's.  At the first Seattle World's Fair he is auctioned off to a madam and interestingly this is the first real home he has known.  From the "upstairs" girls to the scullery maids, Ernest makes his way growing up to be a caring, compassionate husband and father.

Another fantastic read from Jamie Ford! I have read all of his books and have not been disappointed. Mr. Ford does an excellent job developing his characters and the time and place the story is set. The story begins with Earnest in the early 1900s and alternates between past and present as he tells his daughter, Juju his tragic young life as a half Chinese orphan who is auctioned off at the 1909 World Fair in Seattle. The World Fair is happening again in Seattle in 1962 and brings back many memories for Earnest as his wife battles memory loss. This is a beautifully written historical novel which transports you to that time in history as if you were there with Earnest. I highly recommend this book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Well written, exciting story.  Loved the book!  I smell a best seller.  Great for book clubs, too.

This was a really great book! I loved the characters, I loved how knowledgeable the author is about the time period. The details in the writing is really good!

I really enjoyed this book. The story was rich, and it had the very elements that I love, namely that the story is great but it also teaches me something. The characters are relevant and you fall in love with them. There are definitely some surprises and you don't know until near the end of the book who the protagonist was actually married to for years. It's one of two. You'll have to read it to find out.

Two stories alternate between 1910 and 1962, detailing the lives of Ernest Young, Fahn and Maisie.  As a Chinese child immigrant, Ernest has a tough early life, ending up in a brothel in Seattle.  He meets Fahn, another cast off, and Maisie, the daughter of the madam of the brothel.  I found the history interesting, but I felt the book dragged a bit in the middle.

I really enjoyed this book.  I was a little surprised at the setting of the book at first, but I think it worked.  I cared about the characters.  All the information about the World's Fair in Seattle was definitely very interesting and how it was tied in to immigration in the early 1900's.  I like the good with the bad theme in the book - how good and bad come together.

So far I'm completely drawn to Ernest past and present.  I'm making my way through, just about halfway and a, eager to see how life turns out for him. Which of the young ladies that he meets in his youth become his wife?  I will share adult review after I finish the book.

I have enjoyed two other books by Jamie Ford, Songs of Willow Frost and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. As with those books, this story is set in the Seattle area. The book not only tells a story but gives you some historical information as well. This story centers on three children who grow up in a brothel and where their lives take them. I found the characters very interesting and was very involved in the storyline. I would highly recommend all of this author's books!

I received a copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. An orphan, Ernest is up for raffle at the 1909 world's fair in Seattle. The novel begins in 1962 as Ernest is trying to manage his wife's memory loss. The story moves effortlessly back and forth from the present to his past telling the story of how he and Gracie met. Born in China, he is sent to America as a young child. In China, his mother names him Yung. He is paced on a ship in 1902 by his starving mother to save his life mother, who gives him away out of love, trying to ensure him a better life. You feel his grief, and his compassion for the girls that are also on the ship who be befriends and they look out for each other, in the cargo hold of the ship, you learn of the compassion that is integral part of his character, witness his soft-hearted soul and see his smart fast acting brain in action as it saves his life and gives him the name Ernest at Dead Man's Bay. You learn of his lonely life in boarding school, before his shocking surprise of being raffled off at the 1909 Seattle World's Fair, and discovering his new family.
After arriving in the United States Ernest goes from being an orphan, funded in a private school to a house boy at a brothel, employed by the Madame who won him in the raffle. I was worried about what type of life Ernest would have living and working in a brothel, but for Ernest it's the best thing that could have happened to him after his heartbreaking young life when he was living with his mother and starving in China. It's here that he gets the safety and comfort that he hadn't known and here where he meets people who become his family and where his life changes. In the brothel is Madam Flora, the girls of the house, a scullery maid who was the Japanese girl that Ernest met on the ship, Maisie, the secret daughter of Madame Flora and a cast of characters who are part of Ernest's life in the brothel and become a family to him. 
This book goes back in forth in time. We see Ernest as a young boy but we also see Ernest 50 years later as an older man with grown daughters and a wife who needs special care. Ernest is content with his life until one day, his daughter who is an investigative reporter begins asking him questions about a boy who was auctioned off at the World Fair so long ago. The book is rich with the history of the 1900's, the racism, the suffrage campaigns, and the moral of the political system. Jamie Ford has written a beautiful historical novel touching on so many subjects: poverty, first love, human trafficking, prostitution, culture, belonging, family, family secrets, loyalty, and devotion.  I would highly recommend it anyone who enjoys historical fiction.  I would like to thank NetGallery, Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine for a copy of this book.

Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford  

     Professor True said, “There are people in our lives whom we love, and lose, and forever long for. They orbit our hearts like Halley’s Comet, crossing into our universe only once, or if we’re lucky, twice in a lifetime. And when they do, they affect our gravity. You know what I mean? These people are special.”
     Two World Fairs, that took place in Seattle in 1909 and 1962, are the focus of Jamie Ford’s new novel Love and Other Consolation Prizes. Historical fiction, true story, and romance are seamlessly joined together in this story about a Chinese immigrant and his family. 
     “JuJu” Young, or Judy as she prefers to be called in her investigative reporter career, is a driven journalist writing about the history and treatment of people of Asian descent in Seattle. Her research uncovers a true story about a young man named Ernest who was raffled off as a prize during the 1909 Seattle World’s Fair. She suspects that Ernest Young, her father, is that young man and begins to ask him questions about his long buried past. It is horrifying to think that four decades after the Civil War ended human beings were still being bought and paid for in this country, but the dark web of human trafficking tries to remain unseen yet today.
     The book moves back and forth between the time periods of the 1900’s and the 1960’s. In China Ernest was of mixed blood, the bastard son of a white missionary. His mother was poor and he’s unsure if she sent him to America to have a chance at a better life or if she sold him to keep from starving. He’s forgotten her face but he always remembers her smell. In America he lives for a time in a children’s home but at age twelve his sponsor, Mrs. Irvine, Suffragette and Women’s Temperance leader, has him auctioned off at the Fair. Madam Flo who runs the Tenderloin, a gentlemen’s club in the city, wins him. Think of Rhett Butler’s Belle Watling in Gone With The Wind, as Madam Flo has a heart of gold and tries to make life better for her Gibson Girls and people in the red-light district in general. Ernest is soon involved in a love triangle of his own.
     Ernest’s wife Grace is suffering from memory loss brought about from medical complications resulting from compromises in her past. “Gracious” lives with Juju. “Hanny”, their second daughter, is a showgirl in Las Vegas who comes to town for the fair. She also introduces her parents to her fiancé. As the family comes together, bits and pieces of the story of Ernest and Grace emerge creating a tale that is both tender and bizarre.
     Ford has done much research on the time periods and there are a lot of interesting tidbits about both fairs in the book. He painted the description of the young boy with his two-year-old sister vividly in the opening of the book and described the life of the region with accuracy. The characters not only seem like real people, but also continually find links to each other through the past and the future. Ernest, Louis J. Turnbull, Fahn, Maisie, Mrs. Irvine, Councilman Gill and others discover how their lives have touched each other in unique ways as they reappear again and again. The qualities of truth, deceit, love, hate, and hypocrisy all have huge roles in the unfolding story.
     If your book club enjoys historical fiction or discussing the human condition, this book would be a good choice. If you are looking for a romance story about true love, this fits the bill as well.  I found this book fascinating for both its history as well as its character’s storyline.
     I received an advanced copy of this book from Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine through Net Galley.

This book did a great job with imagery. I would have liked more of a balance between the present and past.

This based on a true story was very boring in the beginning and felt like it was going to be exploitative. I did not finish.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

The Seattle world's fairs of 1909 and 1962 serve as the bookends of this novel and the story goes back and forth between the two periods. The history and conditions of 1909 are both interesting and upsetting. The reader follows Ernest from his early childhood on a boat from China, through being raffled at the 1909 fair to his life in a brothel in Seattle. Eventually, he becomes a driver for the rich and famous. Although the characters were engaging, I did not enjoy this book as much as the author's previous works.

I enjoyed this book which transitioned back and forth between the first World's Fair in Seattle in 1909 and the Seattle World's Fair of 1962.  We learn how Ernest was sold by his mother in China to send him to America for a better life, and then what that life was actually like.for him.  The stories of his life and those of the woman he married, as slowly pried from him by his now grown daughter, a journalist, kept me fully engaged.

I enjoyed Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, so I was excited to read another Jamie Ford book.

One thing that the author does so well is capture the true nature of relationships and emotion. It makes characters relatable and brings a real human quality to a work of fiction that is really beautiful.

I found the beginning of the story a little slow. There was a little character building, but not a ton. If a book starts off slower, it's nice to have little more character building in the first part that continues throughout rather than starting heavily in the middle.

I LOVED the ending. It was a very subtle and perfect way to end the book, and I couldn't have asked for anything better. 


I would like to thank NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, and Jamie Ford for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This sweeping historical novel revolves around two World’s Fairs that take place in Seattle and span fifty years apart.  The narrator goes back and forth in time from his life during the 1909 and the 1959 World’s Fair.   We first meet our male protagonist in China at the age of five in the year 1902.  He watches his mother burying his infant sister alive (horrible to read).  The baby is already near death from starvation.   His destitute mother, who is near death herself, has him shipped off to America to save his life.  Aboard the ship he and other Chinese, and some Japanese, children are kept captive in the cargo and treated like animals.  However, they manage to remain children even in such horrendous conditions.  This reminded me of stories about German Jewish children in concentration camps who managed to play together before they were worked to death. On the ship, he meets a beautiful Japanese girl a few years older than himself.   During the journey, he survives a body of water known as Dead Man’s Bay.  Here the ill children that cannot be sold are put into a sack and thrown overboard (I need to google this to learn if it is true, but I am afraid of what I will find).

In America, he ends up as a charity student in boarding school in Seattle.  A lucky break, however, the boy is very lonely with no friends and no family.   Reminiscent of the scene in “A Christmas Carol” when the Ghost of Christmas Past takes old Scrooge to witness young Ebenezer living in a boarding school since his father doesn’t want him. And all the other children but him go home for Christmas.  But our boy does not grow up to be a bitter man as Scrooge did for the strangest of reasons.  As a healthy preteen, he is raffled off in the 1909 Seattle World’s Fair. (Hard to believe that was legal but it was).   He is won by a famous Madam in Seattle’s Red Light District.  But this is not an ordinary crib. This brothel is a high-class establishment, where the grand dame owner is famous for educating and caring for her girls.  Instead of living in another horrible place where people treat him terribly, here for the first time, he has a family.  He has a job he enjoys, first as a houseboy and later as the house’s chauffeur.  His occupation as a man will remain a chauffeur.  He is lucky to learn a trade because one day the house will eventually close.  This happens when the famous Madam will succumb to an occupational hazard.   In the interim, he discovers the Japanese girl he befriended on the boat to America also works in this establishment.  And to his delight, he meets the Madam’s pretty daughter who is his age.  The three on them become great pals and our young house boy falls in love with both.  Even though the three live in a brothel the author beautifully captures the sweetness of a first kiss.

I should have gobbled up this novel.  It has all the elements of good historical fiction.  It is interesting as well as educating.  The reader will meet crooked police, suffragettes, and learn about the politics of the times.  Reading about the brothel was a hoot, but with enough sadness to keep it real.   I giggled when the adult chauffer’s grown daughters were shocked to learn that their ordinary parents have some unordinary and rather scandalous secrets.  My issue is that from the time the boy is still a boy until he becomes a young man, he could not choose between the Japanese girl or the Madam’s daughter.  The premise of the plot, which is supposed to be inspired by a true story, is a good read.  But the love-story triangle (which remained innocent) went on and on, dragging out the pages.  I didn’t appreciate trying to guess which girl he would end up with, because the guessing became tiresome.   I wanted to jump into the book, grab the young man, and sing to him the Loving Spoonful’s lyrics “You better go home, son, and make up your mind.” However, even with my issues, I have to recommend the novel.  It is rich in history and I personally was tickled pink to learn that political morals haven’t changed one bit.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2063564966

This was a beautiful love story about a boy who is raffled off at a world fair and a girl who is a bit of a mystery until late in the book. I liked that it kept me guessing at what was going to happen and I liked the interesting point of view and characters. It was just a little too bittersweet for my taste.