Magdalenes :

Rating:
Summary: Yawn!
Review: Boring, predictable, no life at all. A complete waste of time and money. Being an island doesn't bother me in the least!

Rating:
Summary: A tour de force!!!
Review: I have the privelege to get to know many of the cutting edge writers in the Romance Field, through a Monday night writers' chat, and some a bit more personal through my site for writers and readers of romance fiction at MSN. Channing Hayden joined our site hoping to spread the word of his new book and I am so glad!!!

This is a richly detailed book, that opens the door and lets the reader walk into the world of Sarah Beth's life in the turn of the century New Orleans, witness her struggle with a dark secret that brings her close, and nearly destroys, the romance and triumph of spirit that propels her on her personal journey.

The historical period is portrayed vividly, the struggle against the yellow fever epidemic in 1905, the gamit of human emotions, good and bad. You live it!!

This is a stunning masterpiece and one you cannot put down!! Absolutely haunting!!!

WISE Writer and Reader Book of the Month Choice for January.

Rating:
Summary: Enthralling
Review: I really loved this book. It grabbed me from the first page and didn't let me go until the end. Be prepared to experience a huge range of emotions while reading this book - humor, shock (and I mean shock), horror, frustration, sorrow, pleasure - the author pushes all your buttons. It is not a powder puff read - you won't be able to zip through it in a hour or two. Magdalenes has real substance and is packed with information (some factually correct - some not) in an interesting format. Sarah is a very compelling main character - there are times where you'd like to reach into the book and shake some sense into her - she is so brilliant yet makes some pitifully stupid decisions. Yet it is so well written that you can't help but cheer for her throughout the story. Take my advice and buy this book!

Rating:
Summary: You won't be able to put this down!
Review: I really loved this book. It grabbed me from the first page and didn't let me go until the end. Be prepared to experience a huge range of emotions while reading this book - humor, shock (and I mean shock), horror, frustration, sorrow, pleasure - the author pushes all your buttons. It is not a powder puff read - you won't be able to zip through it in a hour or two. Magdalenes has real substance and is packed with information (some factually correct - some not) in an interesting format. Sarah is a very compelling main character - there are times where you'd like to reach into the book and shake some sense into her - she is so brilliant yet makes some pitifully stupid decisions. Yet it is so well written that you can't help but cheer for her throughout the story. Take my advice and buy this book!

Rating:
Summary: Enthralling
Review: If you like historical romances and New Orleans, you will find this book engrossing. It took me a weekend to read it. I could not put it down.

Rating:
Summary: A classic waiting to be discovered.
Review: Magdalenes begins in 1897 when our heroine, Sarah Beth LaBranche, is 13 years old. Her Momma encourages Sarah Beth to run away from home to avoid her drunken Paw, who wants to use her as his wife. Ironically, when Sarah Beth does run away, she is taken in by a woman who seduces her into a miserable life of prostitution, causing her to attempt suicide. She is rescued by another brothel madam who encourages and provides for Sarah Beth to blossom to her fullest potential as a woman while plying her trade as a prostitute.

The story moves to 1905 where Sarah Beth meets and falls in love with Dr. Frank Cheramie. She quickly becomes his administrative and medical research assistant and assists him in fighting a yellow fever epidemic that overcomes New Orleans. Two people must never know of her occupation. One is her mother and the other is Dr. Frank Cheramie. As her triumphs multiply, her closely guarded secret comes perilously close to being discovered.

Channing Hayden scholarly and craftily weaves together the lives of many characters and in so doing presents a lively picture of early 20th century New Orleans society. As stated on the back cover of the book, Magdalenes is a "compelling historical novel of tragedy, betrayal and redemption."

The plot is ingeniously crafted with many extremely well developed primary and secondary characters that are either loveable or detestable. Even turn of the 20th century New Orleans is portrayed as a well developed character as witnessed by the following: "Clop, clop, clop. Sunlight sparkled through the huge canopy of oaks overhead as Sarah Beth's carriage drove past the great mansions set back from the banquettes (ed. note: sidewalks) on St. Charles Avenue. As the estates slowly filed by, secure behind iron fences, immense lawns, and flowered gardens, she thought, some people do have their Nottoways.' (ed. note: Nottoway is a stately plantation home which symbolized the grand life in Sarah Beth's mind.) Magdalenes is generously sprinkled with other such grand and eloquent descriptions of turn of the 20th century New Orleans.

There are passages that are so tenderly and vividly expressed that I had to stop reading because I couldn't see the page through my teary eyes. Scenes and characters sweep across the pages of Magdalenes and reminded me of Gone With the Wind, as exemplified by this passage: "Sarah Beth turned, twisting her hands together. `Why won't you let me help you?' Dropping to her knees at the side of the bed, she laid her head on Myda's breast. `Oh, please say yes. I can't just let you (die), I must do something.' "

Channing Hayden portrays the many Negro characters as loveable and caring people, allowing them to movingly and touchingly express themselves so genuinely in their natural dialect. Channing Hayden wrote so well in this respect that I felt as though I were reading a work by Mark Twain. He delves into early 20th century times and facts as though he had actually lived through those times and can explain them from his own memory rather than his painstakingly tedious and laborious research.

Channing Hayden has truly written a classic waiting to be discovered. I've already started reading it a second time and will probably read it many more times. The New York Times Book Review said that Gone With the Wind was "...one of the most remarkable first novels produced by an American writer. It is also one of the best." Well, move over Margaret Mitchell, here comes Channing Hayden.




Rating:
Summary: A Wonderfully Written Historical Novel Not To Be Missed!
Review: Magdalenes by talented writer Channing Hayden is a deeply moving story rich with historical detail taking center stage in sultry New Orleans--this 'not to be missed' novel supplies the reader with the perfect mix of drama and romance. I know you will enjoy the read!

Rating:
Summary: Breath-taking!
Review: Running from an abusive, drunken father, young Sarah Beth LaBranch finds herself in New Orleans.

Set in the late 1800's and early 1900's, Sarah Beth struggles to make life better for women and helps fight the Yellow Fever epidemic while trying to hide from her past so she is free to love the prominent Dr. Frank Cheramie.

***** Prepare yourself to be swept by horse and buggy into the life of beautiful Sarah Beth where Channing Hayden will take her reader back to the past. Realistic characters that I found I could easily come to care for! Magdalenes is a highly recommended read! *****

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary! -- Very highly recommended
Review: Sarah Beth LaBrache learns the predictable schedule her drunken father sets, the days of sobriety and food overbalanced by liquor, hunger and abuse. After her twelfth birthday, however, her mother recognizes the dangerous look in her father's eye when he calls his daughter. To protect her, Sarah's mother sends her to the woods to wait in safety. But nothing can stop the scenes of her father beating her mother that play endlessly in her mind. With her mother's encouragement, she runs away.

Unfortunately, fleeing lands Sarah Beth in worse danger. Promises of a safe orphanage and an education lure her to the clutches a woman who drugs her, and sells her body to wealthy men. Desperation leads men with syphilis to have intercourse with virgins in the belief that a young girl's virginity will bring a cure. Two weeks later, Sarah Beth is cast to the streets, where she makes her way as best she can selling her body. Four months later, on the brink of suicide, salvation comes at the hands of Myda.

Myda's girls are twenty-dollar-a-day courtesans, gifted in music, languages, or other arts. They entertain their clients in splendor. Pregnant, syphilitic, and desperate, Sarah begs to stay, promising to earn her keep. Myda would prefer to send her to a home for wayward girls, but relinquishes in the end. Following an abortion, miraculously healed, Sarah Beth vows that if she is going to be whore, then she will extract more than money for payment. She wants knowledge, and she puts that knowledge to use. Her photographic memory allows her to learn many languages and skills.

Sarah Beth eventually rents a room from a real Creole lady, where she meets Frank Cheramie. The gifted doctor involves her in research, and allows her to become his assistant. She carefully protects her true identity and her past from Frank, however, just as she carefully words the letters she sends home with money to her mother. Sarah Beth lives with the knowledge that her life will be a "series of near-catastrophes until Frank finally discovered who and what she was." Honesty carries too great a price in a Darwinian world that condemns the lowest levels of society.

When circumstances and opportunity conspire, young Sarah Beth LaBranche looses her innocence to cruelty in MAGDALENES. But this isn't the tale of self-pity or justification. Nor is this tale of vicarious, perverted detail. Rather, this is a tale of redemption. Author Channing Hayden writes tale laden with compassion for the travails of an innocent led astray, and yet this author never allows her heroine to decline responsibility for her actions. The result is a deeply moving novel, rich with historical detail, and generous with nuance. Profound philosophical musings intersperse medical drama and romance. Very highly recommended.