Bluebird by Genevieve Graham is a beautiful story about second chances, hope and determination set during the Great War and postwar Prohibition in Windsor, Ontario. I loved this story and learned so much about rumrunners!

The story is told with a dual timeline, following Jerry Bailey and Adele Savard in 1819 and Cassie Simmons in the Present Day. I found this very well done and it really added to the suspense and the mystery of the story,

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My first Genevieve Graham book but definitely not my last! This was an incredible story and it was easy to see that the author put so much care and attention into telling this story. The writing was so incredible and it feels like you are in the story. Absolutely stunning novel and I am so honored to have gotten to read this one.

Genevieve Graham is one of my favourite historical authors. The fact that she is Canadian adds to my enjoyment. I love how she is able to take a real piece of history and shape a fictional tale around that. Readers are able to learn new things about Canadian history, but also connect to the characters.

A story that involves a museum curator is obviously one I want to read as a fellow museum worker/lover. I always really enjoy Graham’s novels because they involve lesser known points of history and she makes it really engaging and exciting. This is a very bingeable novel for a stay at home snowy day! Also extra points for such a gorgeous cover.

I enjoy reading historical fiction books though WWI is not one of my favorite time periods. However, the author has done a great job of pulling you into the story. The characters were well developed and the tremendous amount of research conducted was evident in how invested you become in the story and the lives of the characters. The dual timeline aspect of the book was appealing. This is a beautiful story about having a second chance and having the opportunity to start over.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

For more reviews, please visit my blog at: https://www.msladybugsbookreviews.com/. Over 1000 reviews posted!

Interesting historical fiction about something I knew very little about. I like how the characters met during WWI and then reconnected later in Canada. The modern storyline was sweet as well.

Really enjoyed this historical fiction, especially since I usually read books based on time periods that were further back. I also really identified with the characters as I used to be a nurse and my husband used to be a soldier.

WWI Belgium, Jeremiah Bailey, a wounded corporal from Canada is cared for by a nurse by the name of Adele. She belongs to a nursing group called “Bluebirds”. Her sweet voice brings him great comfort and as he slowly recovers he is delighted to learn she is from a town very close to his. When Jerry recovers and is sent back out to dig tunnels, they both secretly hope this isn’t the last they have seen of each other.

Both of them are emotionally marred by the ravages of war when serendipity brings them together. Their town is in the heyday of the Prohibition Era and despite the dangers that surround them, they take a chance and start their life together.

Cassie Simmons is working at a museum when a contractor unearths a crate of whiskey labeled “Bailey Brothers Best” during a home remodel. Cassie has been avidly researching bootleggers and is especially interested in the families involved.

As she digs into the past, trying to understand the present, she learns about legends, love, loyalty and truth.

Thank you @gengrahamauthor @simonandschuster @netgalley

This just was not for me. I can appreciate that it’s well written but the story itself just did not compel me like I anticipated it would.

While fiction that uses multiple POVs and timelines is all the rage, this was a novel that could have been improved by doing away with the later. Bottles of whiskey are found in a house that's being renovated. That leads to a look back in time for the story of how/why they got there. The fact the house is where a woman grew up did not lend anything to the story. In fact, it slowed down what was already a rather (too) slow-paced novel. Although the interruptions of present day were infrequent, they took me away from the real story. What's more, the characters were flat and clearly included simply to "wonder" on the page, as to what those bottles could mean. Prohibition was an interesting time, but I had to force myself to finish this.

A big thank you to the author Genevieve Graham, the publisher and NetGalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for my candid review.

What a cool book! It is about the Canadian presence in World War One and gives insight into the Canadian Volunteer Nurses, Bluebirds, and the soldiers who dug underground tunnels in order to get to German trenches. I found it fascinating. Then the two main characters return to Windsor, Ontario during the the 1920's during prohibition. I live in the Detroit area and was fascinated in the stories of smuggling liquor across the Detroit River from Canada. The story is a good one and a great read!

I love when I learn something about my own country for historical fiction. Gen Graham is the queen of being able to open up unknown history and share it with the world.

While I learned a lot from this book and I loved the secondary romance, I didn’t love the part in the present day. The beginning was so strong for me and then I got a bit bored in the middle.

Will still recommend this as the writing is intriguing and the subject matter is interesting but not my fave HF.

3.5 stars

This was a great story of patriotism and heroism. Fascinating history of bootlegger's survival and Prohibition. An author I would like to read further.

Genevieve Graham is one of my favourite authors so ofcourse I had to read her newest book.

I absolutely loved Bluebird so much that I read it twice and I already bought myself a copy.

Such a fantastic story that I just couldn’t put down

I do recommend this one .

4.5 / 5.0 Stars

From the frightening trenches of WWI’s the Somme and a Belgian field hospital to the exciting and treacherous days of Prohibition Era of Windsor, Ontario, this is one captivating and well-researched historical fiction piece.

This dual timeline story juxtaposes modern day museum curator, Cassie Simmons and contractor, Matthew Flaherty against the lives of WWI Canadian nurse, Adele Savard and her wounded charge, Jerry Bailey. Jerry is carried into the Belgian field hospital by his older brother, John, and Adele is quick to attend to Jerry’s wounds. A friendship is born and then it’s back to the battlefield for Jerry. Will they ever meet again? Only time will tell. Move forward to the current day, when Mathew finds a collection of whiskey bottles walled up in a house he’s renovating. Out of curiosity, he seeks the assistance of Cassie at the local museum, trying to piece together the history of the old Bailey home. From such beginnings a wonderful story is born.
The writing is solid, engaging, and enlightening. The mise en scene is so specatularly delivered that one imagines the busy streets of Windsor and can smell the lingering gunpowder of a German raid on a field hospital or the cloying scent of spilled liquor on a speakeasy floor. On top of all that, author Genevieve Graham knows well her Canadian history and deftly writes an engaging and emotionally charged story. She certainly never fails to disappoint this reader. If solid and well crafted historical fiction is your jam, then this may well be the perfect book for you.
I am grateful to author Genevieve Graham and her publisher, Simon & Schuster for having provided a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. Their generosity, however, did not influence this review – the words of which are mine alone.

Thank you Netgalley for an advanced copy of Bluebird.
The cover and the story definitely drew me in for this one. I really enjoyed all the characters and history. I didn't know much about bootlegging and found the history behind this risky work very interesting. Same with the history surrounding the Bluebirds in the war.

I enjoyed this book! I love how Graham brings together little known historical facts, and she teaches me so much through her books. I ended up loving this book by the end. Thank you for allowing me to read and review this book!

Sometimes two timelines in a story can be confusing but not in the deft hands of Genevieve Graham. This is the second book I have read by her, and I’m hooked on this author. Bluebird has two timelines, one in the present day with a story of Cassie who works in a museum, and in 1918, with the story of Adele, a nurse in the war, and Jerry, a tunneler in the war. I’d never read about the tunnelers, the danger they endured and what their job was.

In WWI, Bluebird was the Candaian wounded soldiers' name for the nurses because of their bright, distinctive blue uniform. They displayed great pluck, often facing injury or death during enemy attacks while protecting hospitalized soldiers. We follow Adele Savard from Ontario, who roomed with three others, and soon they become best friends. One day, Adele meets a new patient, Jerry Bailey, who is severely injured with a damaged face and broken ribs. Jerry, along with his brother, John, are part of the 1st Canadian Tunnelling Company. They form a strong attachment. Jerry is from Windsor, Ontario, and Adele is from a nearby town. Jerry is to be sent back to the front, and they hope to meet again after the war ends.

The war ends, and Jerry and John Bailey return to Windsor and find much has changed. Their parents have died from the Spanish flu, which killed countless others. They see Windsor has become prosperous due to prohibition and the rum-runners becoming wealthy by brewing rum and smuggling it across the border into Detroit. The two Bailey brothers decide to hop on boar5d the money-making train and illegally manufacturing their own rum and hire former soldiers to assist in the brewing and delivering it to Detroit businesses.

In the present day story, Cassie, a lonely curator, is approached by a man who finds a cache of 100-year-old rum hidden in the walls of an old house he is renovating. This is the house where Cassie grew up, and she holds grief and guilt for something that happened there. Cassie has been researching the history of the house, and this discovery of the bottles of rum deepens her research. She finds that John Bailey and Ernie Willoughby rivals from the day, are absent from any records, reports, or documents after Bailey's business shut down. Where did they go? What happened to them?
This story has it all. Intriguing WWI details, a love story, and the danger and excitement of prohibition and speakeasies.
The research that Ms Graham puts into her novels is wonderful. Be sure to read her author notes at the end—they alone are worth the price of the book.
Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel.

Corporal Jeremiah “Jerry” Bailey of the 1st Canadian Tunneling Company did the job many men at war avoided. He and his brother John were not just near the enemy, they were often beneath them building tunnels to plant mines under their trenches. Their job was an extremely dangerous one and in one explosion Jerry lands himself in a Belgium field hospital where he meets Adele Savard, who is assigned to take care of him. In the blue uniform, these Canadian nurses were given the nickname Bluebirds by the men fighting. Despite what her superiors warned against, Adele forms a tight bond with Jerry and they find that they are both from the same area of Canada, just across the border from Detroit. They vow to find each other if and when they return home.

When they do finally find each other, they find themselves in the midst of Prohibition and rumrunners are banking selling illegal alcohol across the border in Detroit. With his dad’s whiskey recipe, Bailey Brother’s Best is born and Jerry does what he can to provide for them. But local competitor Big Will will stop at nothing to destroy everything Jerry and John have, and his threats are not to be taken lightly. Jerry is forced to make a choice he doesn’t like that gives him flashbacks to the war to protect what is his.

Cassie Simmons is summoned from her post as a local museum curator in Windsor when a local home renovator discovers a stockpile of whiskey in the wall he was removing from an historic home. Cassie is determined to learn more about this hidden alcohol as she is returning to her own childhood home where it was discovered. She has a personal stake in learning more about Baileys Brothers Best and how it ended up concealed in a wall.

Bluebirds is a quick read. Rather than simply a dual timeline novel, there’s the added pre and post WWI for Jerry and Adele. There is also definitely a bit of a gangster vibe with the tricky business of selling alcohol while its prohibited.

Thank you to NetGalley, Simon and Schuster Canada, and of course Genevieve Graham for the advanced copy. Bluebirds is out now. All opinions are my own.

I love reading about history especially if a talented author can wrap a fiction story around the historical facts. This book does just that. The history is about the Canadian nurses who served in WWI and then when the was was over went back to Canada to resume their lives. The story also includes the history of prohibition and rum-running of whiskey between Canada and the US and what that life was like. Interesting story woven well into the history of the time.