This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Free Book Program, which is open to all readers and is completely free. The author will provide you with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. You and the author will discuss what sites you will post your review to and what kind of copy of the book you would like to receive (eBook, PDF, Word, paperback, etc.). To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email.
This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Review Exchange Program, which is open to all authors and is completely free. Simply put, you agree to provide an honest review an author's book in exchange for the author doing the same for you. What sites your reviews are posted on (B&N, Amazon, etc.) and whether you send digital (eBook, PDF, Word, etc.) or hard copies of your books to each other for review is up to you. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email, and be sure to describe your book or include a link to your Readers' Favorite review page or Amazon page.
This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Donation Program, which was created to help nonprofit and charitable organizations (schools, libraries, convalescent homes, soldier donation programs, etc.) by providing them with free books and to help authors garner more exposure for their work. This author is willing to donate free copies of their book in exchange for reviews (if circumstances allow) and the knowledge that their book is being read and enjoyed. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email. Be sure to tell the author who you are, what organization you are with, how many books you need, how they will be used, and the number of reviews, if any, you would be able to provide.
A writer from a young age, Tanya E Williams loves to help a reader get lost in another time, another place through the magic of books. History continues to inspire her stories and her insightful view into the human condition deepens her character's experiences and propels them on their journey. Ms. Williams' favorite tales, speak to the reader's heart, making them smile, laugh, cry, and think.
Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite
Stealing Mr. Smith is an historical fiction novel written by Tanya Williams. Life didn’t seem at all fair to Bernice. She was only nine years old, and she had suddenly become a nurse for her ailing mother and the mother to her six-year-old sister. Her brothers were far more fortunate in that they at least got to go to school several days a week when they could be spared from helping their father with the farm. Their big sister, Alice, had escaped the misery of their dirt-floor house and meager rations. She had married and moved away. Bernice had thought that she would eventually send for them to come live with her -- it’s what Bernice would have done -- but that letter never came. Much as she loved her mother, the darkened sick room where she had to spend hours cleaning vomit and dripping water into her mother’s parched mouth was horrible; her everyday life was dark and depressing. Once, some time before, Bernice found a litter of kittens. They were tiny and sweet, and she fell in love with them. They were hers, and for once in her life, she felt what she thought might be happiness. Then her father came upon her laughing as she watched their antics. He said they couldn’t feed them, and he’d take care of them for her. She watched, horrified, as he placed them in a burlap sack and tossed it into the Big Sioux River. Something in her died that day.
Tanya Williams’s historical fiction novel, Stealing Mr. Smith, is an engrossing story of a young girl and her family, which is set in the 1940s. Williams eloquently details how poverty and misfortune turn Bernice’s once happy and fun-loving father into a dour and taciturn stranger, and transforms Bernice herself from a child capable of wonder at a kitten’s antics into a young woman whose dreams have died and who has become obsessed with getting a husband. I was struck by the unfairness of the cultural expectations for women and girls that plagued Bernice as she was growing up and later as she tried to make her way in the business world, and I was saddened by her growing loss of confidence in her own abilities to survive and thrive. Williams’s characters are beautifully drawn, especially Bernice and her sister Patricia, and her plot brings the culture of the late 1940s and early 1950s to life. Stealing Mr. Smith is most highly recommended.
