The past and present stories are effectively told alternately, causing the reader to become engaged in both aspects. An author dies in a fire, that also destroyed all of the copies of her latest, unpublished book. However, fragments of it keep showing up and become part of a traveling museum exhibit. Piece by piece (or fragment by fragment) the reader is drawn into to the mystery unraveling of how the author died and why only fragments of her book survived. Well told and engaging.

I really enjoyed reading this book. A perfect mystery, great plot, good characters. Everything you need in a good mystery book. Recommended.

Thank you for giving me access to this gorgeous book. I was hooked immediately and fully engaged to the compelling and deep story.

3 stars

I loved the concept but this was really too slow for me. I finished it but it took me forever

Sorry for the late response, I’m finally getting through my backlog of books

I really wanted to enjoy this book as it's premise sounded good, but I just couldn't get into this book.

The combination of mystery, history, and romance are quite well represented in Toni Jordan's novel The Fragments. "The Fragments" refer to all that is left of a beloved author's manuscript, after a deadly fire. The Fragments are so famous that they are put on display. The book begins in 1986 Queensland, Australia, where a devotee, obsessed enough to be able to quote The Fragments, encounters a woman that adds a logical line to a beloved quote. That woman has a story to tell. Her chapters take the reader to the 1930's and her encounters withe the author.
Ms. Jordan's characters are compelling, even when they are not exactly behaving in their own best interests. I think that what I really admired was her ability to move fluidly between time periods (198's, 1930's), the book moves smoothely and reads easily.
The settings are beautifully detailed and the dialogue seems to fit both character and situation.
I was thoroughly entertained and would read more from Toni Jordan.
I received my copy through NetGalley under no obligation.

I'm sorry to say this one was not a good fit for me. I found the characters pretty flat and the writing clunky and just not well polished. The ending was strange and felt out of sync.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this title.

Dual timelines is my absolute favorite read so I was all in from page one. I loved both timelines and stories, the characters were well developed, and I enjoyed reading this book.

Have I stumbled upon my favourite book of the year a week into it?
What a read! As banal as it sounds, I don't have words good enough to explain it. A perfect book, to me, at least. There is nothing more I could ask of it. A beautiful writing style, a captivating plot, unique characters and important themes... Wow!

I received this as an ARC from netgalley.com

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the difference of the settings of the two time periods and locations - Australia in the 1980's and NYC in the 1920's.
The characters were well developed and it was an interesting premise for the story.

I loved the mystery aspect of it also and how it kept you guessing until almost the end.

Told in two timelines this book reflects the crafting of stories and of reflecting lives. Love this book!

Piece by Piece the Fragments make a Whole or do they?


Thank you to the author, Toni Jordan, the publisher, Text Publishing, and to Netgalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my honest review. I have to be honest the cover is what pulled me into this book but the cover is not why I stayed. The Fragments was a slight departure from what I am normally reading. I love my mystery but the historical aspects of this are not my cup of tea. That being said this read so much like the DaVinci Code that it made it enjoyable. The book is essentially about a sequel to a bestselling book which was destroyed when the author died in a warehouse fire. Caddie sets off on a quest to solve the mystery of what happened all those years ago and if a copy of the book has actually survived. The book bounces between present day perspective of Caddie and the past of Rachel – a lady cloaked in mystery as to her identity and relationship to the case. I loved how the chapters alternated and gave good descriptions of the past and found it somewhat predictable by the end. Overall a three-star rating from me with the hopes that the next book is more interesting.

One thing I love is a book about books and this one worked so well! I liked the different timelines and how it made the mystery unfold in a slow burn kind of way, it kept me hooked until the end. There was a good mix of both funny and sad moments and I can definitely say it is a beautifully written book with bibliophiles in mind.

Thank you to the author, Toni Jordan, the publisher, Text Publishing, and to Netgalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my candid review.

I really enjoyed this book. It is the story of the Quintessential Novel for All Ages that is penned by an author to worldwide acclaim. The author tragically dies just before her next even more heralded epic is published.....and all copies of the novel burn in the fire along with her.

All that is saved.....are a few fragments. A young Australian woman goes to see the fragments on display....and meets a mysterious woman who seems to have first hand knowledge of the second novel---more than has ever been known. Who is she? What does she know? Does she know who caused the fire? and could she have some knowledge of the book?

I thought it a fascinating, interesting story, which flips back an forth between the 1930's and the 1970's. I would read more from this author.

The Fragments is an interesting book, slightly Da Vinci Code in style about a sequel to a best selling book which was destroyed when the author died in a warehouse fire. Caddie sets off on a quest to solve the mystery of what happened all those years ago and if a copy of the book has actually survived. The book bounces between present day perspective of Caddie and the past of Rachel – a lady shrouded in mystery as to her identity and relationship to the case.

On one hand I really like the split perspective and thought they were well balanced. I did however find the plot slow to start and to be honest, looking back on the story nothing really happens throughout. I found Caddie’s character to be annoying – her obsession over Philip and the choices she makes for him just made her seem unrelatable and I lost respect for her quickly. There are also some really weak links in the story – the beginning of the story seemed like such a throwaway, I don’t believe Caddie would have spent so much time researching something from just a line that sounds like it could have been from a book she’d never read. There are also some cliché moments where a side character just says something random with no relevance to the case that magically solves a clue.

Overall The Fragments is a pretty weak mystery – you would think an author with time would be able to craft a really well written and intriguing plot with clues that fit together rather than tangible links that don’t really make sense. Thank you to NetGalley & Text Publishing Company for a chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

this was downright amazing!!!! i didn’t expect to love this because books like this often my cup of tea but i really loved the characters

4★
“Caddie has worked for Christine on and off since she was fifteen. Back then, Christine was over seventy. Now that Caddie is older, Christine is about fifty.”

And isn't that just how we think at that age? :)

Brisbane, 1986, and Caddie’s still working in Christine’s bookshop, treading water, marking time, and for what? Always a booklover, she’s particularly besotted with one with a character “Cadence”, for whom she was named. It’s as if she were named “Scout” because her parents loved To Kill a Mockingbird, but Caddie’s father loved “All Has An End” by Inga Karlson and used to read it to her. Her father died a few years earlier, so now she reads it herself, every year, at least once.

“All Has An End” was the only book Karlson published before she was killed in a fire that took all the first copies of her second novel, “The Days, The Minutes”. At least that’s what’s left at the top of one of the burned scraps of paper, known as The Fragments, which were found after the fire. These tiny remains are making the rounds of museums, and at last, they are in Brisbane, where Caddie and long queues of Karlson fans wait in the tropical heat of a Brisbane summer.

“Caddie can see the fragments, and seeing them makes her long for her father in a way she hasn’t for years, an ache that spreads up her side and finishes behind her sternum, which is a bone she knows to be smooth in other people’s chests but imagines laced with steely holes like a box grater in her own.”

New York, 1938, Rachel Lehrer is a young waitress in Schrafft’s, trying desperately to make her way on her own after a troubled upbringing in Pennsylvania. She loved life on their family farm, but when she was about 10, her father moved them to a factory town. She was another little girl who grew up with a book always under her arm and a father she adored – until the move when he became bitter. Her mother never accepted the change in status.

“‘We’re not really factory people.’
‘We’re factory people now,’ Walter says.
Mary reaches over to flatten the curl in Rachel’s collar. ‘Your father’s people owned land in this valley. You keep yourself nice, better things will come.’

Walter stands, an eruption of force, and his chair tips over to the floor behind him. Snorts once through his nose. Picks up his plate scraped clean and hurls it at the wall.
George yelps. The plate has broken into three. The divot and crumbled plaster fall like snow.
‘That’s what we are now,’ he says. ‘Factory people. One more word, Mary. One more, so help me.’
He collects his coat and is out the door.”

Rachel crosses paths with Inga Karlson and the New York celebrity scene, their tender relationship forming half of the book. Alternating chapters are Caddie’s story and her obsession with The Fragments, the mythical second Karlson novel.

Both timelines are convincing and interesting. When it began, I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy it, but I gradually got caught up in both worlds, Caddie’s and Rachel’s, and their very different stories.

Jordan certainly knows the tropical heat and damp and general stickiness that is a Brisbane summer. It is the kind of weather that permeates everything you do, much the way living in snow country affects your day-to-day life. In this heat, though, you also get hail.

“Caddie wakes in the early hours, sweating and tangled in sheet, to the sound of hail pounding the corrugated-iron roof. These heavy summer storms are common in Brisbane but more usual in the afternoon. You glance out the window to find the air suspiciously still. If you drive anywhere with any regularity, to an office or a factory or school, you carry with you a mental map of all the undercover parking places along your route: bridges, overpasses, the awning of an abandoned petrol station. Some days the clouds have a greenish, bruised tinge and when the skies are like that the hail can come down without warning. An oval becomes a sea of white, birds are struck dead on the branch. Holes drill through windows like a straight drive down a fairway, divots as deep as your first knuckle appear on car bonnets. Then the wind picks up, then the rain. Turmoil, like being trapped inside a washing machine. The price to be paid for all those days of endless blue.”

I ended up liking this a lot. I can’t tell how much is because I recognise all the references to life and politics in Queensland in the 1980s and how much is because I was engaged with the story – which I was. I will admit that I also was taken to Schrafft’s by my grandmother, so that could have swayed me a little, too. :)

I also loved her debut novel. "Addition".

I hate to say there’s a great twist at the end, because absolutely everybody always says that, but . . .well, yes, there is.

Thanks to NetGalley and Text Publishing for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted.

The Fragments is a compelling novel, a literary mystery that will keep the reader guessing til the end. Unusual, the writer has a strong sense of place and historical accuracy.

ACTUAL RATING 4.5 STARS

When I got this novel, I squealed, sighed at the amazing cover and then put it on the backburner because its release was 3 months away. Fast forward to yesterday and I finally picked it up (life happened).

I went in not expecting too much but was blown away but the amazing narrative and sweet romances included in this novel. Its a tale of love, loss and loyalty centred around Caddie in 1986 Brisbane and Rachel in 1930's America.

The rich scenery and enthralling narrative make this the perfect read for a lazy long weekend

I received this from Netgalley.com for a review.

Inga Karlson died in a fire in New York in the 1930s. Nearly fifty years later, Caddie Walker is waiting in line to see a Karlson exhibition featuring the famous fragments when she meets a charismatic older woman.

As with most of these split timeline stories, I was more interested in the older timeline.

2.75☆