The Jewel of Gresham Green (The Gresham Chronicles #4) [Paperback]

Lawana Blackwell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2008

A charming, Victorian-era romance set in a small town in England from the best-selling author of the Gresham Chronicles.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Single mother Jewel Libby has a dead-end job, day-care problems, and a pedophile for a landlord. As difficult as it would be in today’s world, Jewel’s prospects seem hopeless in 1884 in Birmingham, England, where she sews corsets in a Dickensian factory. Living in the vicarage of the picturesque dairy village of Gresham Green, writer Adela Phelps loves her big, noisy family but needs quiet to work. As she moves to a forest cottage, Jewel, concerned for the safely of her daughter, flees the city and seeks sanctuary in Gresham Green. However, evil can exist in even the most idyllic little town. Blackwell skillfully reveals the good, bad, beautiful, and ugly aspects of life in nineteenth-century England, creating a well-written, faith-based book that doesn’t get bogged down in didacticism or dogma, making it appealing to a broad audience. A nice addition to Blackwell’s Gresham Chronicles (The Widow of Larkspur Inn, 1998; The Courtship of the Vicar’s Daughter, 1998; The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark, 1999). --Shelley Mosley

From the Back Cover

Will this quaint village be the safe haven her heart craves?

To protect her precious daughter from the danger nipping at their heels, Jewel Libby must flee the only home she's ever known. Caring friends direct her to the vicarage in the peaceful dairy village of Gresham, but she arrives there to find Vicar Andrew Phelps and his wife immersed in troubles of their own. Their son Philip, a successful London surgeon, has a controlling wife who resents his close family ties. And daughter Aleda lives in a cottage on the outskirts of Gresham, where she adamantly pursues her writing career and her solitude... often to the exclusion of others.

When Andrew becomes ill and in need of his son's skills, and Aleda's quest for privacy unwittingly advances an evil man's schemes, Jewel finds the tables turned... she is the one offering support and a source of strength. But an unlikely romance is about to change everything...

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Bethany House Publishers; Reprinted edition (August 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764205110
• ISBN-13: 978-0764205118
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #416,528 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sweet story about the power of love and faith, August 12, 2008

By 

Christina Lockstein "Christy's Book Blog" (Oconto Falls, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Jewel of Gresham Green (The Gresham Chronicles #4) (Paperback)

The Jewel of Gresham Green by Lawana Blackwell is the most recent book in her Gresham Chronicles series. Jewel Libby has fled Buckinghamshire with her daughter Becky's safety to the comfort of Vicar Phelps' home in Gresham. The Phelps' children are all grown up, but not all happily. Phillip is stuck in a loveless marriage, and Aleda is struggling with her first novel. Jewel's arrival in town brings changes for everyone as she touches them with her faith and kindness. She provides sympathy for the dying squire, a kind ear to Phillip and his wife, and a helping hand to Aleda. Blackwell has a talent for portraying each character as well rounded with flaws and foibles as well as incorporating history so that even readers unfamiliar with the previous books feel comfortable. Jewel is the kind of Christian we all aspire to be: kind to all, helpful, non-judgmental, and loving, and the book demonstrates what even one poor woman can do not through great acts, but small acts of consideration.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great Gresham book by Ms. Blackwell, August 4, 2008

By 

Wendy Sue (NH USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Jewel of Gresham Green (The Gresham Chronicles #4) (Paperback)

The Jewel of Gresham Green is the 4th in a series from Lawana Blackwell based on the little township of Gresham in England a bit before the turn of the 20th century. All of Ms. Blackwell's books in this series pull you into the story and characterization from the start. She is truly an amazing author and the interlocking stories of the townspeople of Gresham make for a fascinating read. The first three in the series were closer linked in time and this story takes place about 15 years later. Start with the Widow of Larkspur Inn to get introduced to Ms. Blackwell's fine writing and the start of Gresham Chronicles.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Nice Story but it Didn't Really Grab Me, July 30, 2009

By 

Melissa B. Owens "of www.melissas-bookshelf.com" (Canton, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Jewel of Gresham Green (The Gresham Chronicles #4) (Paperback)

It's not often I find a book blurb to be so off the mark, but that was the case with this one. Not that I didn't enjoy the book, because I did, but this blurb is really quite a bit misleading and over dramatizes parts of the story quite a bit.

I have to admit that the story gets off to a slow start and the plot is very difficult to follow for about the first quarter to third of the book. The transitions from chapter to chapter are a bit shaky as the scenes and characters change, but once every main character was located in Gresham, the story was ever so much easier to follow and get caught up in. The story really begins to pick up when the "evil man" mentioned in the blurb arrives, though his schemes really were not advanced the way the book blurb implies. The evil Donald is certainly an unlikable man and it was galling to read how various women fell for his fake charms. He was, however, a well-written character. Many of the characters are not particularly developed, though Blackwell does a pretty good job with Donald, Jewel, Aleda, and Loretta. In all fairness, this is actually the fourth book in the series, so many of the characters may be developed in other books.

Something else I particularly enjoyed was that it was not immediately obvious with whom Jewel would eventually fall in love, however, once that was apparent it took an agonizingly long time for anything to happen! In fact, there is so much going on in this story, that it unfortunately overshadows Jewel's eventual romance and her own story. I really don't feel that this book was about Jewel as much as it was about an entire family in this village. In the end, we were really left with about two chapters devoted to the supposed romance, as if the author realized she needed to get everything wrapped up to close the book. Overall, once the story really got moving, it was an enjoyable light read with some good messages, while not being overly preachy. While this was the fourth book in the series, it did work as a stand alone novel and I do not feel I missed out on anything by not having read the first three books.