The full galley of this book was never delivered, and it's hard to base a review out of two chapters. It's a bit of a bummer because it did seem interesting!

RATING: 2 STARS
DNF@ 25%
2019; Dreamscape Media/Kensington Publishing
(Review Not on Blog)

LOVE this cover, and yes, I did request this book just based on the cover. There wasn't much information on the synopsis, but it looked like a historical mystery, historical romance or plain historical fiction. I am fan of all three so thought I could not go wrong. At first I tried the eBook and didn't make much progress, and decided to try the audiobook version. I hung in there for 25% but NOTHING was happening. I cannot even say what genre this falls in other than say it's set in the past and is fiction. A woman of means leaves her family to pursue acting/ Her father has disowned her. She meets up with a brilliant actor that sees her potential, but is also a rapist (that is my editorial). There is no real indication of where the novel is going so I had to DNF as I felt no investment in the characters or story...whatever it is meant to be.

***I received an eARC from NETGALLEY***

As much As I did enjoy the story,the history around the story was great! You feel the love,the time in history but most of all the struggles she went through to fulfill her dreams !!

Lily Throop, despite her father’s vehement disapproval, has a dream to become a famous actress and leaves home to accomplish that plan. Although she has no recommendations or supporting patron, she manages to obtain an apprenticeship or low-paid position as an actress at London’s Imperial Theatre. She meets an actor/mentor, Wade, who truly helps to hone her already special skills but unfortunately she becomes a prisoner to him by way of a contract which she cannot break. That relationship also ruins a budding romance with a poor stagehand, Chet, who loves Lily but cannot get past Wade’s hold on her.
Lily does become famous and meets numerous wealthy men and women when she is not working very hard. Finally, she meets a Russian count, Sergei, who is also a true revolutionary supporter. Lily by that point has heard about the playwright and teacher, Stanislavsky, who is teaching a new method of acting. During one of Lily’s crisis scenes with Wade, Lily elopes to Russia with Sergei. The descriptions of her journey and of Russian cities and the country are stunning and make one want to visit there. After Lily becomes pregnant, her opportunities to return to England are stymied by the arrest of Sergei. Because of his noble background, he is exiled to the cold Siberian countryside, one which Lily shares. There they learn to endure and to support each other. However, their relationship begins to dim when Sergei refuses to give up his political visionary dreams and disaster occurs.
Lily will eventually find her true love but not until a lifetime of work, travel and dedication have welded her to both her career and her child.
This is a beautiful novel, written with great attention to setting, history and the arts. Lily is a dynamic character who although not deeply depicted moves readers profoundly because of the depth she expresses in her art. The Russian pre-Revolutionary period is also depicted with stark accuracy. Lily is the one who sees they skies sparkling but also becomes the same for her devoted fans.
Nicely crafted historical fiction, Susana Aikin!

3.5 Stars bumped to 4 because I love the story within the story of this book.

We Shall See the Sky Sparkling has its inception in a real life story. In a family history and simple photo, Aikin's idea behind this book struck home for me. I, too, have a beautiful photo of my great-grandaunt, a woman who died a spinster, and relatively young and the lack of information about her story haunted me for years. In Aikin's story, more is known, thanks to her sleuthing, about her great-grandaunt, Lily Alexandra Throop. Lily left her family home in Manchester in the late 1890's, at the age of seventeen, without family blessing, to become an actress in London, a simply scandalous choice for a young woman in this era. Her peregrinations eventually led her to St. Petersburg in Russia, where she was rumored to have given birth to an illegitimate child. She later returned to England and died from tuberculosis at the young age of twenty-four. After finding a caches of thirteen letters that Lily wrote to her brother Harry and sister-in-law Alice, Aikin was able to piece together some of Lily's fascinating but tragically short life and build a novelization of it.

While I found some of the dialogue and manners in the novel didn't accurately reflect the Victorian and Edwardian era, overall, Lily's story is a haunting one. There are likely so many young women who didn't want to follow their narrow gender prescribed roles, and no doubt many whose lives ended sadly, as a result. In this era, where women were not permitted to own property, and were themselves counted as chattel of their husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, Lily envisioned a different path for herself. She paid dearly for her choices but led a fascinating life while she lived it.

I received a Digital Review Copy of this book from Kensington Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Lily is a beautiful young woman with dreams so big of being part of the London theater that she is willing to leave behind her beloved family, including an ailing brother, in pursuit.
It's more challenging than she imagined to rise through the ranks from page to understudy to lead actress, but the lead male part has taken an interest in her, in more than one way. He is cunning, clever, and cruel, and though Wade claims he loves her, it is another, kinder, poorer stage hand named Chet that captures her heart. But Wade is a jealous man and tragedies and drama during a run of Othello doom Lily to leave for Moscow, to help the man she loves and to save her good acting name of scandal and being shredded by the media.
However, a new actor there named Stanislavsky has created a new method for acting, working with a rising star of a playwright, Anton Chekhov. And the girls, though at a small theater and miles from the former stars life they knew, soon perform for and befriend the granddaughter of a wealthy princess, who will connect them to a society of more than just the aristocracy, but even those desiring rights for the poor, for women, and even revolution.

While some of the altercations with Wade were a bit gruesome, though thankfully not terribly graphic, it is at times frustrating to witness Lily's helplessness in the face of savagery.
The romance between Lily and Chet could have been a bit more developed, but the overall desire-struggle is gripping among the triangle, and interspersed factoids about the period and its culture also keep the reader captured.
And the fascinating new life and challenges of the girls in Russia are simply fascinating and hypnotizing.
We Shall See The Sky Sparkling is a novel for fans of historical fiction, and lovers of the arts, especially theater and ballet, and for those who love to witness a long-earned triumph, whether personally, professionally, or for those less fortunate.

We Shall See The Sky Sparkling is an interesting piece of historical fiction. Lilly is the black sheep of her family for her acting dreams. She ends up accepting an offer to go to St. Petersburg. Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century was not necessarily a good place to hang around. Unrest between the very rich and the very poor creating a tense environment. Pre Bolshevik revolution mindsets everywhere. Lilly is a character who makes bad decisions repeatedly. She then gets upset about her own decisions. I didn't like Lilly overall. It's a good but kind of bleak story. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

A swoosh of romantic historical fiction! Lily wants to be an actress, which is totally anathema to her family. She happily joins a troupe with which she travels to Russia. Pre-revolutionary Russia is a wonderful subject all to itself and Aikin does a nice job of describing some of the tensions. Lily's love affair with Sergei is a turning point for her. Vladivostok in this period is a stew of problems, not the least of which is war with Japan. Lily's a good character (and I liked the letters which rounded out the story) who you will root for. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

This book is about Lily who wants to become an actress. It is set in Edwardian England. Not all goes as planned. What I especially liked in this book are the historical details. The pacing is mostly slow, but sometimes picks of for a bit before becoming slow again. I didn't feel connected to Lily. Overall this was an okay read.

Lily Throop leaves her father's home to pursue her passion for the stage. She apprentices under a passionate actor, but when he betrays her, Lily flees with a theater troop to St. Petersburg. Life is not easier in Russia; in fact, it becomes increasingly dangerous for Lily.

The main thing I enjoyed about this book was the historical detail. The era came to life, and I especially appreciated that Russia was the focus of the last half of the book.

I found it difficult to sympathize with Lily. It felt as though she made a bad decision after bad decision and then cried about the consequences.

The pace seemed to go in spurts. It would slow well and then slow to almost being almost unbearably slow.

Overall, it was an ok read. I appreciated that it did not go into detail with the sex scenes. I would recommend this to readers who are looking for a turn of the century with an unconventional lead.

My feedback is really incomplete, because what I received to read was the first 2 chapters of this book. And while I found them interesting and would like to continue reading, I guess I’ll have to buy the book to finish reading it! My interest was definitely captured in this short preview.

All families have black sheep in their lines—those people who flout society's expectations and live life on their own terms. During my genealogical research, I have found several ancestors whom would be classified as black sheep; however, I doubt that any of our kin lived their lives with as much determination and passion as Susana Aikin’s heroine in her novel, We Shall See the Sun Sparkling.

Just like any well-to-do young woman in turn-of-the-century, Lily Throop's life has already been predetermined. She will marry well and bear the next generation, and that is all. But Lily dreams of being and doing more. She wants to act. So, despite her father's disapproval, Lily walks away from her old life and onto the London stage.

Unfortunately, actresses live in the grey area between respectable lady and lady-of-the-night. When scandal swoops in, Lily must leave London for foreign shores, accepting an acting opportunity in St. Petersburg.

Life in Russia is vastly different from English life. The aristocracy lives extravagantly while the masses struggle. Unrest is brewing among the less fortunate, and whispers of revolution are becoming increasingly louder. And, on the eastern coast, war has erupted against Imperial Japan.

With each new challenge and each new danger, Lily must fight to survive and adapt to thrive. As she so eloquently puts it: "...While we think that we are flying in one direction, the wind is already deflecting us in another."

We Shall See the Sky Sparkling gives readers a backstage pass to the late 19th/early 20th-century theatre and allows us to witness, vicariously, pre-Bolshevik Revolution Russia through the eyes of an outsider. Engaging and detailed, I highly recommend this historical fiction novel.

***
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Kensington Books through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

The full book was promised in August. I have been waiting patiently to read and review it. Will you NOT be offering the full book for review?

Now I need to make this 100 characters long. The full book was promised in August. I have been waiting patiently to read and review it. Will you NOT be offering the full book for review?The full book was promised in August. I have been waiting patiently to read and review it. Will you NOT be offering the full book for review?The full book was promised in August. I have been waiting patiently to read and review it. Will you NOT be offering the full book for review?The full book was promised in August. I have been waiting patiently to read and review it. Will you NOT be offering the full book for review?

This is based on a short excerpt of this book since that is all that has been made available. The full galley was to have been uploaded in August but it is now November and it is not clear when or if the full galley will be available. This is a historical fiction about an actress at the turn of the century. It appears that there is a dual storyline that takes place during a later time period. There was more telling the story than showing the story in the excerpt and it didn’t flow naturally. I didn’t connect to the characters. This was only a small excerpt of this book which makes rating and reviewing awkward.

#WeShallSeeTheSkySparkling#NetGalley#
Thanks NetGalley for this excerpt arc. I liked the story development thus far. Enough character development in these few chapters to establish character goals and oppositions. The theatre world is fascinating, especially in this time period when human rights weren't practiced and abuses occurred.

I want to know more about this brave young woman who defied protocol to serve her dreams.

The cover is great and drew me into the story.

The only downside, the different font for her letters. I found this distracting.

Just on this excerpt alone, I was unfortunately a bit underwhelmed. The description sounded quite interesting, but I thinks it's the writing style that I can't particularly get into - it feels like too much description that doesn't move the plot forward. It's difficult to know if the plot and characters will develop to turn it into an enjoyable read.

I received an excerpt of this book from Netgalley so this review is based only on the first couple of chapters. We Shall See the Sky Sparkling initially appealed to me based on the historical fiction backdrop. The plot starts off quite strong with engaging prose and a compelling dual timeline narrative. The second chapter delves into the development of the protagonist’s character at the turn of the 19th century. It seemed the writing strayed at this juncture into mundane details that didn’t enhance either character or plot development. As a result, I gave the excerpt 3 stars because I was captivated with the first chapter but not so much with the second. Tough to know where this plot will go so I can see either absolutely loving it or being bored to death depending on which direction the author takes. I would certainly read further on to find out...

Two chapters simply does not give me anything to hang my hat on! Given that, I'm not positive at this point that the story will be good or not. I will just have to wait and see. I'll give it 2 stars for now until I can assess further.

I absolutely loved WE SHALL SEE THE SKY SPARKLING! It hooked me from the beginning and swept me into the story. More importantly, the characters were permanently embedded on my heart. A definite recommend!

From the two chapters I read, I am into this book so far. I love the characters and find myself drawn to this fabulous, enchanting world. I can't wait to read more in August when the full galley is out.