A really well written and poignant story of hope, love and hardship. Travel through the years with Ernest and discover the tragedy, hardships and hope. Now as a grown man he must face the hardships of the past while helping his wife navigate through her own journey without sharing the past with their children. A wonderful, rich and heartfelt story!

What a wonderful book of historical fiction. Two World Exhibitions in Seattle for our main characters is more than a backdrop. It is the setting of the moral compass for them and the city residents as a whole. Readers will take a vested interest in the trials and tribulations because of the great character development. It’s a terrific read.

A very moving story set in two time periods. During the first World’s Fair in Seattle, the boy Ernest, sold years earlier by his mother in China and sent to America for hopefully a better life. And Ernest the man, with a journalist daughter who digs up info during the second World’s Fair that can change what she thought of her family.

Such a good book. Love, loss, family, what it means to belong.

Lovers of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, will be delighted by this novel by the same author.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for allowing me to read and review this book.

Love and Other Consolations Prizes by Jamie Ford is a 2017 Ballantine publication.

A stirring, poignant story of love in its various stages and forms, crossing oceans and spanning decades-

This is my first novel by Jamie Ford. I haven’t read his bestselling first novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, but of course, I still plan to someday. But, first, this great story-

As the blurb states, the story has a basis in fact, drawing from the raffle drawing at the 1909 World’s Fair, for a young boy!

Earnest Young, a mixed -race young boy, is raffled off to Madam Flora, who runs a brothel. He is stunned to find himself reunited with Fahn, a Japanese girl who was on the boat with him, during his trip to America. In short order, he is also introduced to Madam Flora’s daughter, Maisie, with whom he forges a close bond. Earnest falls in love with both girls. But a series of heartbreaking circumstances threaten to tear the three of them apart for all time…

As difficult as it is to learn about the Chinese and Japanese orphans and the cruelty they were subjected to, and exploitation of these young girls, this book was absolutely riveting and flush with historical details. I fell in love with the characters, and became emotionally invested in their plight.

The story is told with a dual timeline- ‘current day’ 1962, which alternates with the events that transpired in the early 1900’s. The reader knows that Earnest has a wife named 'Gracie' with whom he has two daughters and that Gracie is suffering from an unnamed malady that affects her memories and mood. Running in the backdrop is the Seattle World Fair, which of course brings back all those memories for Earnest, and piques the curiosity of his daughter, an investigative reporter, who wishes to write an article about him.

What we don’t know, is who 'Gracie' really is or what the mysterious ailment is that plagues her, or what secrets Earnest and Gracie have kept from their daughters.

I will admit I did find myself as conflicted as Earnest, understanding how he could love two women, and hoping desperately they found true peace and happiness, and that they all ended up with the person the really wanted to be with. The conclusion was simply lovely and so very bittersweet. I may have dabbed at my eyes just a little, but overall, I was very satisfied with the way things wrapped up. In fact, once I really thought it over, I can’t see how could have turned out better.

This was a historical fiction book telling about a young boy who spent his teen years in a Seattle Brothel after being purchased at the World's Fair. While it depicted a time and story I had not heard about, I found that I got bored and had to force myself to keep reading. The book could have been much shorter and it would have been a better read.

I recommended this on my podcast What Should I Read Next in an episode called: "WSIRN Ep 18: Compelling, character-driven books steeped in time and place with Jessica Turner"

Thank you to Random House Ballantine for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Another fantastic read from Jamie Ford, an interesting story that kept my interest from start to finish. This books tells the story of Ernest, a half-Chinese orphan who is raffled off at the World's Fair and winds up living at a brothel. He becomes the houseboy there and winds up befriending two young girls, who will help Ernest feel like he has a home for the first time in his life. As time moves on, and the madam of the brothel succumbs to that lifestyle, Ernest is forced to decide how he wants the rest of his life to go and who he wants to spend it with.
Now 50 years later, Ernest is helping his ailing wife deal with an illness and help her as she struggles with long buried memories and secrets that they have kept from their daughters. As these secrets are uncovered, we find out how much each has sacrificed over the years and what family truly means.

Love and Other Consolation Prizes

by Jamie Ford

Ok, full disclosure: I love Jamie Ford's writing. I think that Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet was the first book I read on a kindle, which was a difficult transition for me, because I have always been a book buyer. Despite the number of books I read on "devices", I still love the weight and feel of one in my hands. At some point, though, I understood the financial downside to needing to own every book I read, not to mention the rapidly decreasing amount of space to store them in my home. So, reading that first book was truly bittersweet, but thankfully, the quality of the story far outweighed my reluctance to read it on a kindle.

And though I read this book on my kindle too, I do have a couple Jamie Ford novels (and even a comic book) which he autographed when he was our guest speaker at our annual author lunch. All of that is to say again, I'm a fan, and Love and Other Consolation Prizes did nothing to change that.

Ford demonstrates his ability to create a rich, quirky, entirely engaging cast of characters, as well as his knack for finding a "truth is stranger than fiction" topic. His story begins at the 1909 Seattle World's Fair, where a 12-year-old boy is being raffled off. Seriously. If that doesn't capture your imagination, I really don't know what will.

For Goodreads:

Why I picked it — Because Jamie Ford wrote it, and also, he was an excellent speaker at our Friends of the Ridgewood Library author lunch!
Reminded me of… For its unlikely "families": Like Water for Elephants, Vaclav & Lena,
For my full review — click here

Jamie Ford delivers another absorbing story set in the early 1900s. We follow a young half-Chinese and half-Caucasian boy from China as his family suffers during the famine and fire. He is taken on an American ship to the Pacific Northwest where he is given a new name (Ernest) and taken in by a wealthy American woman and established at a private school. He finds that while he enjoys school, the scholarship students, particularly Chinese, Native American, African American, etc. are isolated and treated as second class citizens. When he asks to transfer to a public school, his benefactor takes him to the World's Fair in Seattle and he is raffled off.
The winner, Madame Flora, runs the classiest brothel in Seattle - the young women are given classes in dance, art, music, etc. and chances to develop themselves beyond their occupation. Ernest somehow finds a home for himself here - he makes friends and becomes a well liked and useful member of the team. His former benefactor comes to picket the Tenderloin and rebuke him, offer Ernest a chance to leave. Each time, Ernest refuses.
Ernest grows up at Madame Flora's establishment and Flora's daughter Maisie and the Japanese girl Fahn (who Ernest had met on the boat to the US) become Ernest's closest friends. The three are inseparable - friends, fellow students, confidants, fellow explorers. But as Madame Flora needs money for treatment, things change dramatically and each of them must find their way.
Jamie Ford tells Ernest's story with flashbacks and glimpses of his new life with his wife suffering from memory loss. It is only towards the end that we discover who Ernest married. Love and Other Consolation Prizes is an engrossing, heartwarming read.

Just as with Jamie Ford's previous book, this one is also a wonderfully told story of love. The way the story switches between telling in present day and going back in time is done seamlessly. The author's descriptions of Seattle and the World's Fair made me feel I was there, experiencing the auction, the first cars on the road, the poverty, and the "over the top" ways of the brothel. This is not a fast story, rather it is told slowly in a way that will draw you in and make you not want to put the book down.

This book will be recommended reading for any who enjoyed Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet or who are looking for historical fiction set in the Pacific Northwest.

Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford Book Review
One of my favorite books is The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. I really enjoyed hearing all about the Chicago World's Fair. When I saw the premise of Love and Other Consolation Prizes, I knew it had to give it a go.

A Raffle for a Baby
Did you know a baby was raffled off at the Seattle World's Fair? I sure didn't. I found it hard to believe & so did the author, Jamie Ford. Check out this interview with Bookpage to learn more about his inspiration in writing this novel. Reading is more enjoyable when I learn about an author's thought process behind the words.

Love and Other Consolation Prizes follows an imagined version of the raffled child, Ernest. Readers learn all about him. We travel with Ernest on his way to America. As Ernest makes his way through life in Seattle, he experiences hurt, love, loss & hope.

A Span of Fifty Years
I love how Jamie Ford switches between the past & the present. This writing style gives the story a bit more mystery, which I quite enjoy. We know the older Ernest is taking care of his wife, but I wasn't sure who exactly he married. It also seems like there is a great deal of information Ernest doesn't want his daughter to find out. Of course, this means my nosy self wants to know every juicy detail!

True story- I read half of his book & set it down for months. There's no good reason why other than I got tied up and distracted. The thing is, Ernest and Seattle stayed with me during the time I was waiting to finish Love and Other Consolation Prizes. As soon as I picked the story back up, I was again transported to Ernest's story. I think that speaks to Jamie's talent as a storyteller.

THE VERDICT
I am Really Into This book! If you're looking for a great book club read, Love and Other Consolation Prizes is a winner! The story is filled with history & a beautiful story. Readers can't ask for much more.

Special thanks to Jamie Ford, Random House - Ballantine Books & NetGalley for providing my copy in exchange for an honest & fair review.

Ernest Young has had a challenging life. He was sent from China to America in the cargo zone of a ship as a toddler (along with other children), then becoming a ward of the state in Washington. In a cruel twist of fate, Ernest's life is about to change again when he becomes the "prize" for the raffle to take place in the 1909 Alaska Yukon Pacific Expo. Ernest is "won" by a madam of a high end brothel in Seattle and becomes the houseboy of "The Tenderloin". Ironically, this is his first real home and his first time surrounded by people who care about him.

Ernest falls for two women at the brothel who befriend him and he ultimately has to make a choice. The story is told through flash backs and it isn't until the end that you know which life he chose.

A good bit of the story is based on history of the times including bringing over children from China, the Seattle world's fair, the "Tenderloin" district in Seattle, prostitution, morality crusades and the suffragette movement.

I like the characters and the story although some of it seemed contrived to me. The pace of the book was a bit uneven.

I love Ernest. Love him. I love his character and how Ford weaved together his stories. I was guessing a long time before I realized how they interconnected with his current life, wife and kids. Such a great and loving read. Perfect read for summer. Quick and beautiful.

In 1909, Seattle hosted a world’s fair known as the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition, The long forgotten extravaganza was featured in a 2009 DVD celebrating the fair’s 100 year anniversary. The narrator, Tom Skerritt, while discussing human oddities featured at the fair, mentioned that a one month-old baby boy, named Ernest, was donated by the Washington Children's Home Society, to be a prize at the world fair's highly publicized raffle. The ticket was drawn, but no one claimed the baby.

Gobsmacked by a society willing to use an orphan as a contest prize, Jamie Ford draws the winning numbers and does what didn't happen in reality - he hands over Ernest, as a 12 year-old, to the prize winning ticket holder.

The story unfolds in Seattle in 1962 as Ernest Young's daughter, Juju, a reporter, discovers a family secret about her father while researching the history of the 1909 world's fair, a past her father is very reluctant to share. Ernest begins to remember events and people he had submerged years ago. As his past comes flooding back, he realizes that sharing his secret would hurt his wife, Gracie, now sidelined with memory issues. Juju is relentless and the battle with her father to spill the beans is a backdrop to an extraordinary life filled with both pain and happiness in the most unusual of circumstances.

Ernest's memories take us back and forth from 1962 to 1909; his earlier years described so vividly they feel in technicolor compared to the muted colors of his older years.

Ernest Young, known then as Yung Kun-ai', was born in China around 1900. Yung Kun-ai's father, a white missionary, was murdered and his mother, near death from starvation, offered her son a chance to live selling him to smugglers. As a bi-racial child of a white missionary and a Chinese mother, Yung Kun-ai had no future in China; no matter how unpleasant his future would be in America, he would be alive.

His journey to America was fraught with peril dodging death along the way. After a very rough start, a wealth patron, Mrs. Irvine, sponsors Ernest, sending him to an expensive boarding school where he is discriminated against by staff and students. Ernest remains silent about his treatment but tells Mrs. Irvine he is ready for a change. She obliges. She surprises him with tickets to the world's fair to celebrate his twelfth birthday; traveling to the fair she tells him three things:
. . .that he would finally be given a good home, . . he would see the President of the United States and that his legal name was now Ernest Young.

Mrs. Irvine, ignoring his pleas to stop and look at the exhibits, walks him to the area where highly popular daily raffles are held. She whispers to him, they are all here for you! They've all come to see you and find out who has the special ticket. . . As she steps away from him she says gleefully, someone is taking you home with them. Ernest then realizes - he is today's prize.

Mrs. Irvine nearly dies of apoplexy when she discovers the winning ticket is held by Florence Nettleton, recognized in Seattle's prosperous brothel trade, as Madame Flora. The winner never in doubt, as Flora rigged the raffle; she wanted a house boy.

As Miss Maisie May, Madame Flora's little sister, welcomes him to the Tenderloin, Ernest stands in the doorway stunned; all his senses were on high alert. Whatever my life holds for me now, he thinks, it is not going to be like anything I have ever experienced. That felt like hope; an emotion foreign to him in the past. He asks himself, what goes on here?

The building's entrance was magnificent, with a glittering voltaic chandelier, the foyer accented with finely polished mill work. . . Everywhere he looked there were tapestries, lace-covered walls, plush French furniture in crimson and gold . . . There was a black man in blue tuxedo playing a piano. He smelled perfume, flowers and savory spices roasting in some unseen kitchen.

Fast friends are made, first kisses shared, and a true family develops supporting everyone when the moral crusaders and powerful community leaders reveal their hypocrisies and lust. Tears are shed and tragedy strikes, but Flora's family of misfits and outcasts endure together.

It would seem odd to describe a novel where teenage girls are auctioned off for their virginity or succumb to dangers of the trade as heart-warming but Jamie Ford pulls it off. Much like his previous novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, he scratches the surface and reveals their humanity and emotional needs. His descriptions of Seattle and its culture in the early 20th century- both good and bad - seem real and draw the reader into the novel.

You will not forget Ernest, Fahn, Maisie, and others.

Recommended reading.

Review source was an advanced reading copy provided via Netgalley.com

I have read Jamie ‘s other books and loved them. This story, although full of history was not as interesting as Corner of Bitter and Sweet that I loved

Oh my goodness, I loved this historical fiction novel that followed the life of Ernest Young, from his early childhood in China at the turn of the 20th century, to his life in Seattle, including being a charity case in a boarding school and spending many happy years as the house boy in a brothel. The story moved from the present (with Ernest, his wife, and his two grown daughters) to the past, where the Seattle Expo of 1909 is taking place. I grew to love these emotional and realistic characters, and I laughed and cried while reading this book.

Highly recommended! Thank you for my review e-copy!

Jamie Ford incorporated some interesting historical details into his novel, Love and Other Consolation Prizes. Book-ended by the two World's Fairs held in Seattle, Washington, Ford follows the life of Yung Kuhn Ai at the turn of the twentieth century as his impoverished mother in China sells him to a gentleman who guarantees a better life in America. Yung journeys across the ocean in the bowels of a ship gathered with other children "bought" for distribution on the North American West Coast, including numerous young Asian girls. Ford provides a fascinating glimpse at the careless disregard of ship owners willing to peddle human flesh, but also ready to sacrifice profit by dumping their human cargo into Dead Man's Bay when the Custom Agents come sniffing around. Yung is caught up in such an act, but miraculously survives, emerging from the near death experience to begin life anew as Ernest Young. Brought up as an orphan and sensitive to his second class status, Ernest, whose absentee father was a missionary, never quite fits in, so when given a choice, he asks to be relocated. His benefactress, Mrs Irvine, uses this query as an means to pawn him off as a prize at the 1906 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, but to her chagrin, instead of being won by a family, the winning ticket is in the hands of Madame Flora, the owner of the Tenderloin Brothel. Despite this questionable new venue, Ernest finds a home amongst the women, finally developing a sense of belonging. Befriended by the downstairs staff, he falls in love with the two girls his age, Maisie and Fawn, with the trio spending time together in childish pursuits (although the call of the upstairs ladies - a gentile bunch despite their occupation - is ever present).

While this concept peaked my interest, especially since much if it paralleled real events, I was disappointed in the execution. The back and forth between 1962 and 1909 distracted me from developing a connection to the characters as the story unfolded. While I am not a prude, I didn't appreciate denigrating the action of the Suffragettes who were sincere in their efforts to keep husbands sober and faithful to their wives. Mrs. Irvine, a representative of the Washington Women's Home Society, became a nonsensical caricature whose good hearted attempts of charity were cast as evil (although I must admit that the raffling of Ernest could not be considered a Christian Act of Kindness). Luckily a life of prostitution in the red light district, even one at such a high class establishment as The Tenderloin Brothel with the culturally groomed Gibson Girls, was not overly glamorized. The author ensured that the picture included some warts intermixed with the grandeur of the surroundings. Despite the altruistic tendencies of Madam Flora, ultimately the girl's bodies were sold for profit, a "profession" which is still at best questionable in polite society (unless you live in a place like Las Vegas or the Netherlands) and at worst a part of the current human trafficking crisis facing not only the world, but specifically the United States - whether the woman is "willing" or not.

While I'm sure that the residents of Seattle appreciated Ford's use of specific geographical features of their hometown, there was just too much information to keep the interest of the average reader. On the plus side, I did enjoy the description of the Seattle Expos in both 1909 and 1962 (enabling me to make mental comparisons to the 1965 Worlds Fair in New York City - which I attended in my own youth). While I give the author kudos for the obvious research of life at the beginning of the 20th century, there was just too much name dropping, becoming almost preachy, as if the author felt it necessary to present every pertinent fact he discovered about the era. In his old age, Ernest was very active, attending numerous shows and concerts with his "Gracie", as well as dining at his favorite restaurants. However, unless these activities directly impacted the story, it was simply irrelevant trivia. These miscellaneous features along with repetitive details dragged the story down. As Ernest looked back he described what had happened in his past, specifics which we had just read about in one of the flashbacks. On occasion there were some pertinent tidbits, such as the fact he became a naturalized citizen, but these comments were more an aside rather than a prominent part of the story. The "mystery" involving which girl he married, Maizie or Fahn, was an unnecessary distraction. However, the actual story of Ernest traveling from China to the United States had a lot of potential and so I focused on that aspect of the story. If only the author had edited out the extraneous and expanded on what occurred between 1902 and 1909 to 1912, this might have been a more compelling story.

Three stars and a thank you to Netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I give special stars that look like bars of soap to Mr. Ford. For a book about a bordello in the early 1900's, it was super clean.
-Here are the awesome sauce points for Love and Other Consolation Prizes: It is riddled with obvious true historical facts about Seattle, it shows a multi-cultural perspective, the "love triangle" is not sappy, and he mentioned the Leavenworth Echo (a newspaper) in his author notes (my parents and family are from there).
-Here are the not so awesome sauce points: It was a little hard to get into at the beginning, I had to remember people from the the beginning to the end (although there were great clues to rehash the memory, so thank you, Mr. Ford), and finally, it made me want to go to Seattle and purvey all the streets and buildings mentioned.
-Here is the short summary: Ernest Young (his name when he came to the US) had been shifted from place to place after his mother sent him from China as she could not care for him. The moral, upstanding Pharisee named Mrs. Irving auctioned him off at the World's Fair, and he was won by a brothel. It was a good thing for him, as it was an upscale brothel and he found a new family. But make no mistake, despite the fact that the ladies were fairly protected with their gentlemen, the career was ultimately not glamorized. Ernest falls in love with a couple of young ladies. As the story shifts to the 1960's and Ernest reminisces with his wife, the reader doesn't know which young lady becomes his wife. We do find out, though, which is good because otherwise I would have been mad.

3 Stars

Review on Goodreads

I have to say that I am a HUGE Jamie Ford fan. I have read all of his books. I stalk him out to see when new ones are coming out. On that note, I couldn't connect with this story at all and it really bothers me. While this story was far from horrible and Jamie's typical high quality of writing, I didn't find myself connecting with the characters like I have in all his other books. I found it easy to put this one down, which is also a rarity for me. To me, I go through this with each one of my must authors so I am just really hoping it is Jamie's book. On that note, I still HIGHLY recommend this author frequently. This just wouldn't be the first book of his I would recommend.