Elizabeth Camden: With Every Breath Giveaway

By K. L. Bridgewater

I recently have started reading a lot of historical fiction for different publishing companies and a number of published friends who have asked me to read and review their books. I have started to respect why authors and fans alike enjoy reading about another time period. With Sarah Sundin’s book, who I reviewed on August 12^th, I travel in an airplane high above Italy during World War II. With Dawn Crandall, who I reviewed on August 5^th, I visit with the wealthy of the Gilded Age during the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts.

My latest review is With Every Breath by Elizabeth Camden, I traveled to the 1890’s, which is the same era of Dawn Crandall’s book, but I visit Washington D.C. instead of Boston. I lived in a boarding house with Senators and Congressman who loved the privacy and good cooking of Kate Livingston’s mother. While traveling with Kate on her day-to-day task, I visited a hospital where I ran into Trevor McDonough or Trevor Kendall, as he has changed his name since high school.

However, on the hospital runs, I learn a lot about tuberculosis, which didn’t have a cure until 1940’s, but the experiments the character of Trevor Kendall did on the terminal patients proved effective in the long run. For instance, he made them experience more fresh air. He even went as far as to allow them to bake in the sun. He performed a variety of different medicines to see the results like mercury. Not that Trevor was some quack doctor who wanted to watch his patients squirm. He wanted to see if any of this theories would make the almost dead patients better.

Camden created a believable world in a hospital downtown Washington D.C. Trevor and Kate feuded and created such a deep sense of competition between the two when they should have told the other they were in love with them. They argued like a real couple, not some second rate cardboard couple mingling around on the page. There was tension, love, and hatred between them.

I truly enjoyed the suspenseful part where someone kept sending threatening messages to Trevor’s office and Kate’s home before upping the damage by actually spilling mercury all over the conference room. Even though someone wanted to ruin his life, someone wanted to ruin his reputation and his career as a doctor.

I liked the book, but I wouldn’t call it one of my favorites. Trevor goes away for two years and keeps the reason hidden from Kate until about two-thirds of the way through the book. It annoyed me. Once I found out why, I wondered why he kept it hidden for so long. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Trevor was just being cautious, but it annoyed me. Plus, the book is hard to get into. The first 100 pages just drags on and on. Usually I can finish a book in about two days, this book took me about a week to read because I kept wanting to do other things than read the book.

Maybe you’ll like the book better than I did. I hope you did. I have read another book, The Lady of Bolton Hill, by Elizabeth Camden, and I loved that book so don’t put off her writing all together. She has four other books to try.

I received a complimentary copy from Bethany House and all opinions are my own. 

I will give someone a copy of With Every Breath by Elizabeth Camden. If you would like to be entered in the drawing, please leave a comment about any of my previous posts or this one at the bottom of this blog by Monday, September 8th at midnight along with your email address. I will notify the winner through email within a couple of days. Thank you and good luck!