Book Review - Before Dorothy by Hazel Gaynor

{Thank you Kathleen Carter Communications @kccpr + @prhaudio for the #gifted copies of Before Dorothy by Hazel Gaynor. The audiobook is expertly narrated by Saskia Maarleveld! A favorite!}

“We wouldn’t have had the wonderful, if we didn’t have the wicked.”

Do you love Historical Fiction? What about Reimagined/Retellings of classic stories? If so, I have #pubday (6/17) winner for you . . . Before Dorothy by Hazel Gaynor! Told in dual timeline of the 1920s + 1930s.

“We all need something magical to guide us. Something bigger to hope for. A reason that the impossible might just become possible, after all.”

This story is sort of a prequel to Dorothy’s story along the yellow brick road and visiting the Wizard of Oz. It focuses on her Auntie Em—Emily Gale—the daughter of Irish immigrants, off on grand adventures marrying and leaving the hustle and bustle of Chicago for the prairies of Kansas.

“We must all follow are hearts even when it scares us. Because the most frightening thing of all is to not do the thing we are meant to.”

Dorothy goes to live with her Aunt and Uncle when her parents tragically pass away. Auntie Em may be a tough-as-nails prairie farmer, but becoming a guardian to Dorothy proves to be much more difficult. After miscarriages and failures to conceive children, Auntie Em is unsure if she’s even capable of being a parent. Add to that the dangerous weather in Kansas and the lean years from The Dust Bowl, we see a very vulnerable side to Emily. The author’s writing was so vivid and you feel these character’s emotions very well.

I loved the nods to Toto, the Tin Man, Scarecrow, silver + ruby slippers, and Twisters.

“We must never forget our first home, even when we leave to go search of another. We must never forget the places that shaped us.”

Full of heart, courage, and adventure—this one is not too be missed! It asks what is the true meaning of home!? I highly recommend it!

“It is the hardest lesson of all, to accept we are nothing but tumbleweed blowed by the winds of fortune and destiny.

*so many amazing quotes! @hazelgaynor writing is so beautiful!