Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Bachelor Girl

Title: Bachelor Girl
Author: Kim van Alkemade
Published: March 6th 2018 by Touchstone
Format: eBook, Paperback, 416 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Unlike others, I enjoyed this book up until the oversimplified ending that read as if Kim Van Alkemede ran out of steam when writing her own book. A book that took a fictionalized look at the life of Jacob Ruppert, the original owner of the New York Yankees, and his bequest to a mysterious woman 35 years his junior. Van Alkemede winds a fantastical tale of love, loss, and redemption when she literally throws everything possible into this book and hopes that she does not lose her readers along the way.

While trying to hold to the known truths of a secretive man, the author introduces Helen Winthrop, a bachelor girl, who is determined to work and live life on her own terms whether it is as young girl kissing a boy that her mother disapproves of or refusing to marry solely because it is what is expected. What Helen did not realize is that as she is trying to live her life, there are secrets kept from her that will ultimately change her trajectory and take her down a path that she is little prepared for yet knows, by a gut instinct, what is right.

While attempting to keep the shock factor alive, Kim Van Alkemede introduces characters and situations that try to keep the book all-inclusive, but also has the tendency to add the “was that really necessary” vibe that has bothered other readers.

After reading this book, you will have to do a brief dive on the man that was Jacob Ruppert and decide for yourself what his story was. No one knows for sure the relationship between Ruppert and Winthrop since her only public remark was that they were like father and daughter, yet curious minds want to know more, and thus was the jumping off point for this author.

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