Book Review & Interview with Forgiven author Janet Fox

By Janet Fox

Published by Speak/Penguin

Released on June 2nd, 2011

Source- ARC from TLA

4 stars- I really enjoyed it

Kula Baker never expected to find herself on the streets of San Francisco, alone but for a letter of introduction. Though she has come to the city to save her father from a cruel fate, Kula soon finds herself swept up in a world of art and elegance - a world she hardly dared dream of back in Montana, where she was no more than the daughter of an outlaw. And then there is the handsome David Wong, whose smiling eyes and soft-spoken manner have an uncanny way of breaking through Kula's carefully crafted reserve. Yet when disaster strikes and the wreckage threatens all she holds dear, Kula realizes that only by unlocking her heart can she begin to carve a new future for herself.

Forgiven is the perfect companion book to Faithful, it follows the story of Kula, a secondary character from Faithful with an extraordinary story. Kula's journey takes her from the beautiful rugged wildness of Bozeman, MT to the enchanting, and sometimes dangerous high society of San Francisco, CA.

In Faithful I had some reservations about Kula, but with Forgiven I felt like I was really able to understand her. She's had a rough life and now that her Pa is going to be hanged for a murder he didn't commit, Kula travels to CA to find a box her father sent her to retrieve. Along this dangerous journey Kula will unravel a past full of secrets and deception and in the process she'll learn to let go, find herself and fall in love.

She's also had her fair share of prejudices from having to work at a young age in Faithful as a maid. It's Kula's feisty determination that I loved the most about her. It's what makes her a strong character in a twisty world she's just beginning to understand. What I find intriguing about Janet's writing is not only does she have in-depth, complex characters who's stories are all woven together, but she brings her settings to life. She has a talent for not only giving a vivid picture of what San Francisco looks like in the early 1900's, but how society behaves, including the darker part of the city with it's human trafficking, racism. She introduces that world via her characters David Wong, one of the love interests for Kula, and the Chinese's girls who have been trafficked. Being deemed an outsider because of her darker complexion Kula herself is a beautiful character and is able to understand what David Wong and the young Chinese girls she meets are feeling.

There are so many layers to Forgiven's story and I really liked how many of the character's are all interconnected. I liked that I was able to piece together each character's connection to her story with her. I felt the story moved flawlessly and while it's a little darker than Faithful's, I felt more of an emotional connection to it and more of an adventurous one Faithful. Forgiven has a rich history that not only includes child slavery & trafficking, but the April 1906 earthquake. There's plenty of adventure, mystery and romance in this story. Though Kula is a character found in Faithful, you don't need to read Faithful to follow Forgiven's story, but I highly recommend picking up both books. You can read my review for Faithful here.

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We love historical fictions. What inspired you to place both Faithful and Forgiven during the early 1900's?

Faithful, my first novel, is set in 1904 for a number of reasons. For one thing, I wanted to research Yellowstone Park of that era, and I chose that year because it was the year that the Old Faithful Inn opened. And then I wanted Maggie, my main character, to experience the great changes taking place in society at that time – changes in technology (i.e., first flight) and in attitudes toward women (emergence from Victorian constraints). The main character in Forgiven is a secondary character in Faithful so it was natural to keep the story set in the 1900s – specifically, 1906. And for both novels I find that period, the beginning of the twentieth century, fascinating for it was a time of rapid transformation in America following westward expansion and the emergence of an industrial as opposed to agrarian society.

What do you admire the most about Maggie, your main character?

Her ability to change. Maggie is not a very likeable girl when we first meet her – she has certain beliefs about how life should be and she’s spoiled. But as she progresses through the story she changes in every way: she begins to understand herself, her father, her mother, and the environment around her. She begins to accept her limitations and her strengths. She learns to love things that she once feared. And she learns to stand up for herself and what is right.

I love that Forgiven is a companion novel to Faithful. What drew you to writing about Kula's story?

I love the character of Kula. She jumped off the page for me. She’s feisty and demanding and uncertain and insecure, and I loved everything about her. It was such a pleasure to spend time with her while I was writing Forgiven. I love how she figured it out, how she learned about herself.

Like Maggie, Kula is a strong female character. What is something you feel you have in common with Kula?

Wow – well, we’re both stubborn! And we’re both insecure. And we both believe in doing the right thing, or what we believe is the right thing.

Though both stories have different settings throughout their stories they both share a brief similarity with Yellowstone as their settings at one point in each story. What inspired your settings for both Faithful and Forgiven?

I love Yellowstone. My husband and I fell in love here many years ago, in the greater Yellowstone region; now we all live here year round which is a dream come true. When my son was young we spent time every summer in the Park, exploring. I feel like I know it intimately, and could happily spend the rest of my days in and around the Park. What a magical place it is. Part of what makes Yellowstone magical for me is the geology, because I have a degree in geology – and that’s what drew me to San Francisco in 1906. That was the year of the great earthquake, and so was a major historic event that I felt compelled to write about.

If you could go back in time, what era would you want to go to & what city would you visit?

Ooo – good question! Ancient Greece is very appealing, and I’d want to attend the theatrical events in Athens. Renaissance Europe – maybe France – but only if I was nobility, because life as a commoner was pretty awful; and then I’d want to be in a fortress in the south, because northern Europe was beastly in the cold weather. But most of all I would love to see the American west around the time of Lewis and Clark. For that, I’d sleep under the stars.

You can visit Janet at her site here and follow her on facebook here.