Come Pour The Wine by Cynthia Freeman [Book Review]

Genre:	Historical Fiction
Publication.Date	August 27th 2013
Pages:	442
Published By:	Open Road Media
Website	Come Pour The Wine
	Come Pour the Wine Goodreads
My review copy:	I received a copy of Come Pour The Wine from Open Road Media in exchange for an honest review.

                                     Where to get:

In her latest bestseller, Cynthia Freeman delineates the insightful and moving story of Janet Stevens. As a native teenager from Kansas she comes to New York in search of fame and fortune. The pursuit of her dream leads her into marriage, motherhood, a heart-rending seperation and then divorce. At the age of forty five, she meets a man who not only gives her a renewed sense of her Jewish heritage, but also offers her the chance for total fulfillment as a woman.

Why do we fear growing older? I, for one, am certain that if offered the chance to go back to the uncertainties and frustrations of my twenties I would refuse. Love at this age is so much better, more gentle, more tender, the thrill---yes, and I don't apologize for the word--even greater. The tempestuous urgency may be gone, but the need for love is just as great.

 She wished she hadn't noticed, and in a way she disliked herself for the thought, but all at once she realized she had little in common with them. Face it. New York had seduced her in more ways than one. When she was in New York her heart was here, and now that she was here she very much missed Manhattan. More than ever she realized she had a foot in both worlds, was split between the two. And suddenly she knew she wasn't sure who she was anymore.

Death always, she knew, evoked purifying feelings of remorse, anguish. Making the dead sacred, saintly and pure of heart, the living suddenly became the offenders, the evildoers, guilty for all the sins of omission. It always seemed to come down to what we should have done, what we could have done.... what we didn't do... If only we could relive it, it would all be different. 

You see, things don't just happen today or yesterday. It happens very early on. I'm not blaming my parents anymore for what I am. They did the best they could. There comes a time when you have to stop putting on blame, come to terms with the good and bad in yourself and try either to change or learn to live with the things you don't like in your character. The problem is that I never did that. Without going into all the heavy psychological reasons, the result was that I felt trapped, even in a good marriage. I didn't know who the hell I was, and I was afraid I'd never be free enough to find out.  

         Refreshing. Timeless. Romantic. Historical. 

Cynthia Freeman is such a refreshing storyteller to me. Her stories,at least the two I've read so far are of historical places and the characters are so well versed in their roles that the reader very much feels a part of the magic she weaves. She used such flawless imagery of the cities and places that the story is set in that I felt like I was in a time machine being tele-ported back to the streets of Manhattan in the 50's and 60's. A simpler time. 

Bill McNeil was a happy single guy living it up in the 50`s until he met her. The girl who stole his heart before he even realized it. Janet came to New York City to be a fashion model. Then she met Bill and nothing else mattered. Janet gave up so much to love Bill. She became the woman he could marry, became the wife he needed her to be and became the mother he expected her to become. Ultimately, it was all a sacrifice that Janet would have done again and again but 19 years later Bill decides he just can't be married anymore. He wants his freedom. 

This is a journey of Janet's youth and romantic side. It is a journey to the depths of her character. How does one pick up the pieces after everything you have lived for is suddenly ripped out from beneath you? Janet is such a strong protagonist. Her story shows the reader how she started over again and built a life that her children and herself could be proud of. There are so many different faces of the Janet we come to know. The mother. The wife. The model. The daughter. This is one character that will not be erased from my mind anytime soon. 

 Cynthia Freeman is no longer with us but her ten published books will be remembered by many. She might not have reached great fame or fortune while she was alive, but her legacy will be carried on in the hearts of the lucky ones that decide to pick up one or all of her novels to enter one of the historical places she wrote about. I for one, will be making my way through all of her novels. I suggest you do too.

About the Author:

Beatrice Cynthia Freeman (January 10, 1915 - October 22, 1988), pseudonym of Bea Feinberg,[1]was an American novelist. She was born in New York City, where, as a young girl, she began writing books but abandoned writing to pursue a career running an interior decoration business. When poor health forced her to give up her business, she decided to dust off an old manuscript from childhood but discovered the cleaning lady had thrown it out. From memory, she rewrote the story.

Ms Freeman specialized in multi-generational stories of Jewish families, centering on a female protagonist. Her novel, "No Time For Tears," was No.10 on the list of bestselling novels in the United States for 1981 as determined by the New York Times. Her books were translated into thirty-three languages, selling more than twenty million copies worldwide.

Cynthia Freeman died of cancer in San Francisco in 1988,[1] aged 73