Grace's Pictures ~ Review

Grace's Pictures
An Ellis Island Novel
By Cindy Thomson

America is Grace McCaffery's opportunity for a new life.  An opportunity to get out of the workhouse.  An opportunity to bring her mother to America.  But first Grace needs to get a job and start earning money so she can free her mother from the man she married.  But a workhouse upbringing hasn't prepared her for life in America.

With the help of an immigrant outreach group Grace has a chance at the new life promised her.  Soon Grace is employed by a family as a nanny/housekeeper.  As Grace adjusts to this new life she takes an interest in photography.  When Kodak comes out with its $1.00 Brownie camera, this may be the opportunity that Grace has been hoping for.

But this interest soon places Grace right in the path of danger when she starts taking pictures.  Policeman Owen McNulty is determined to help Grace and other newly arrived immigrants from the dangers that are infiltrating the city.  But Grace has a deep seated fear and distrust of police.  But when trouble finds Grace can she determine who she can trust before it is too late?  Or will she lose those she has come to care for in America too?

Grace's Pictures is a well-written historical fiction that brings the plight of the newly arrived to light.  Seeking a better life many immigrants were trapped in a life of drudgery and poverty from the moment they sent foot in New York City.  When the very people assigned to protect them take part in this extortion or look the other way and system of mistrust took hold, but there were those who sought to right the wrongs in the city and Grace's Pictures shares this effort.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves historical fiction.  


About the Book:
Grace McCaffery hopes that the bustling streets of New York hold all the promise that the lush hills of Ireland did not. As her efforts to earn enough money to bring her mother to America fail, she wonders if her new Brownie camera could be the answer. But a casual stroll through a beautiful New York City park turns into a hostile run-in with local gangsters, who are convinced her camera holds the first and only photos of their elusive leader. A policeman with a personal commitment to help those less fortunate finds Grace attractive and longs to help her, but Grace believes such men cannot be trusted. Spread thin between her quest to rescue her mother, do well in a new nanny job, and avoid the gang intent on intimidating her, Grace must put her faith in unlikely sources to learn the true meaning of courage and forgiveness.