Overall, what did you think of The Girls of Good Fortune? (no spoilers, please!)
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I thought The Girls of Good Fortune was a wonderful history lesson.
HIstorical fiction is my favorite genre.
I knew of the massacre, but I didn’t know about those tunnels.
It’s another Kristina McMorris GEM!!
Did you think Celia was lucky?
I sort of thought that because she seemed to get out of her situations.
I learned the historical information about the Shanghai tunnels and anti-Chinese sentiment during the late 1800’s. But I did not believe the thriller aspects of Celia’s escapades: dressing as a man, escaping the ship, and jumping onto the train to escape gunfire.
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I hate to be a spoil sport but I really didn’t like this book—the characters seemed one dimensional and the cascade of tragedies (some of them implausible to me) made it feel like a “perils of Pauline” melodrama. IMO it would have worked better if a few of the “twists” had been removed.
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I agree with you Aprile that is felt like the Perils of Pauline,although it opened my eyes to the poor treatment of Chinese immigrants. I think the author needed to keep the genre of historical fiction without switching to the thriller genre.
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Those were great additions to the book even though they were a bit difficult to believe she could get out of them. 
Great comment.
I read The Girls of Good Fortune twice and liked it much better the second time as I was paying more attention to the author’s detail. For example, in the first skimming, I got Matthew and the “old-timer” mixed up. It surprised me that Celia was not forced into becoming a “woman of ill repute” and that the mayor was willing to offer a somewhat fair bribe rather than killing her outright. If Stephen loved her so much, couldn’t he have found a way to keep in touch with her through a trusted friend or something? 4 years is a long time with no contact with the woman you love. If Celia knew how to cook and bake, and knew about “a charitable home or a church that doled out offerings” (p. 304), why did she willingly take up residence in a brothel?
With the second reading, I paid more attention to the time line, to the proverbs, to the history of the massacres, and to the character development, especially to the multi-cultural aspects.
I did enjoy Sold on a Monday more though.
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GREAT comments!!
Interesting that you read it twice and it was better the second time around.
Did you feel bad when Abigail told her Stephen was getting married?
That would have ripped my heart out.
Her other book, The Ways We Hide was definitely not as attention-grabbing as much as Sold On A Monday even though it had a clever premise.
I liked Girls of Good Fortune much better, but not as much as Sold on A Monday.
Those are the only three of hers I have read.
I guess each book has its strengths and weaknesses for an author and readers.
What other books by her have you read?
After everything Celia had gone through (and things will get even worse!) - definitely!
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Totally agree with you about Stephen…he was totally out of the storyline for too long & when he did return it seemed so unlikely and that the author just needed to end the story on a positive note.
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Yes! Celia seemed to move along no matter what came her way. It seemed that there were too many improbable twists & turns added to entertain the reader rather than tell the actual history of what happened.
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Yes, wholeheartedly agree
This is another amazing read from Kristina McMorris. She is one of my favorite writers. Right up there with her bestseller, “The Pieces We Keep.”
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Did you initially have trouble with the two timelines?
I was a bit confused at first, but it all came together.
I thought the first half of the book was good although the idea of help sleeping with the boss’s son and then the subsequent dumping by the family is a bit cliched. The second half after the shanghai was a tad over done. It was just too many misadventures to be believed
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