This was a huge disappointment.
The characters are so shallow and there was no depth to them at all
The ending was the worst part of this book.

Sadly, I did not have time to read this book before it was archived, however, I still believe it is a worthwhile read!

Thank you #netgalley and @shewritespress for this e-ARC in return for my honest review.

This one is a huge disappointment. I got excited seeing it was a family saga from the mid 1800s to the 1970s. It is a historical fiction about the textile mills and the families that ran it. This should have been a long trilogy. The author invested none of herself in the characters nor the story. One page you are reading and all of a sudden the next is 20 years later without warning. The characters have no depth and honestly you have no feelings for their bad events in their lives. This book read like the outline for the saga.

I wanted to love this book. It sounded right up my alley but I didn't like the pacing. There were times in the book that things flowed well but other times, it was hard to follow. This had such a strong beginning and the ending was good, but the middle I struggled with.

A family saga and epic story from 1840 to 1970. Initially set at the Troy Mill in Fall River this book both winds you into the characters and their life stories and then.... spins and throws you out into another set of characters and jumps forward five, ten, fifteen years. This makes the book disjointed and leaves you wanting to know what happened in the gaps. I feel, maybe this should have been written as a trilogy? Or at least more than one book. I became attached to each character and then suddenly propelled forwards and it lost me. The ending... the way it was written was a big turn off for me. So overall, a great story, that should have been explored in more depth.

This book was really hard to get into. The chapters were so disjointed, with little binding the story together. It didn't feel at all like the author was THAT invested in the characters, so that was off-putting. I particuudid not care for the chapter titles, which seemed random and arbitrary--as if the author was trying to sound super literary, when simply using the name of the focal character for the chapter would've been enough. The last chapter made no sense whatsoever. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.

The Mill of Lost Dreams by Lori Rohda is a sweeping epic based loosely on the life of the author’s great aunt, and takes place between 1840 and 1970, primarily in Fall River, MA. There’s a huge cast of characters, and obviously a lot of historical context and nuance considering the expanded time frame, yet, surprisingly, it all comes together - and leads to a fairly satisfying - if clumsily written - conclusion.

The story follows a series of families - immigrants from Italy, Canada and Ireland, as well as Anne, a young orphan - all of whom have ties to Troy Mill, and whom are seeking their own version of the American Dream.

Although the storyline was engaging, the characters fully-human and flawed, and the plotting well-paced, the writing style itself felt oddly sterile. Even in moments of great emotional upheaval, there was an almost academic, tell-don’t-show feeling to the prose. I got used to the coolness of the writing, and really did enjoy the book, however.

This review is based on an advance copy read.

I have mixed feelings about this book. The author obviously did a lot of research about textile mills in New England and she showcased some of the various immigrant groups that populated the area and did the hard work in those mills. It definitely kept my interest, but just when I was getting invested in one set of characters, the writer jumped to a different set of people. Eventually all the threads came together, but I would’ve liked to read more about some of the characters that were just left hanging. The main feeling I had with each of the main characters in this book was a sinking feeling that things were not going to go well. This was often telegraphed by the author, which I found disconcerting. Instead of letting the action tell the story, she wrote things like “Sadly, however, her parents could never have foreseen how quickly and completely all these gifts would be squandered.” It also didn’t help that most of the featured people in this multi-generation story were extremely flawed, sometimes by their life circumstances and sometimes because they just weren’t very nice people.

Thank you to NetGalley and SheWrites Press for an advance reader copy for my evaluation. This review reflects my unbiased opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

Family sagas are always fun to read and I found the setting and time periods to be particularly interesting since I've read other books set in the textile mills of Massachusetts. This book appeared to be well-researched and the reader learns much about mill life without it becoming tedious in details. The characters are interesting and I would have liked to get to know them in even more detail. The book skips around--sometimes successfully, and sometimes not as the reader has to go back and think about just where they are now and why. But all in all, it is an enjoyable read

You will love this story of familys in Falls River. From Italy to america and beyond. Love, sorrow and friendship develop over the years as the characters interact with each other- You will find it hard to put this book down. Great Read!!

This is a book that takes places over many years; starting with the mills that were so prevalent in the North East in the Late 1800''s. Little confusing in places, A lot of family drama and the effects of one disastrous event and the aftermath that prevailed. Learned some interesting facts about cotton mills . Would recommend to patrons and friends.

I received this from Netgalley.com for a review.

"Over the course of seven decades, there are marriages, births, secrets exposed, friendships tested, and innocence lost. Some succeed in making a new life away from harm but pay a terrible price."

Although I usually enjoy these multi-generation sagas, this one was kind of all over the place. There was a huge info dump on the history of textiles and felt like reading an encyclopedia or text book. Interesting, but dry reading. I struggled a bit with how everyone was related, the importance of them to the story and didn't connect with anyone.

2.75☆

From the blurb, I knew this book was likely to be one I’d enjoy, but I wasn’t prepared to love it quite as much as I did.

The story takes place over a number of decades, spanning from the 1840s right up to the 1970s, and follows the lives of seven key characters, all of whom have a link to Troy Mill - a cotton mill situated on Fall River in Massachusetts, USA.

Spanning such a vast time period, I had wondered if I’d find the story a little tough to get through. It would have been very easy for the author to either rush through it, bodging it entirely, or instead to drag it out painfully slowly. In actual fact I was really impressed with how perfectly paced the book was and found myself hooked from beginning to end, racing through it relatively quickly, always keen to read on.

It took me no time at all to get used to the author’s writing style and I found the book very easy to read. The characters she created really came alive and each time anyone new was introduced I found myself immediately attached to them and invested in their part of the story. I felt that Rohda was very clever in how she interlinked the characters’ storylines, making every detail and relationship both relevant and touching.

I would recommend this book to all lovers of historical fiction. It’s one that I feel will stick with me for a long time to come and has quickly become one of my top-reads.

Thank you to She Writes Press for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All of the opinions expressed here are my own and are genuine. The Mill Of Lost Dreams will be released on August 11th.

oiler alert ** I struggled to know how to rate this... there were moments I was bored rigid,and other moments I was completely swept up in the drama .
For me ,it's at its best in the first half of the book,the building of the characters,and the action at the mill.
Maybe my problem was I didn't much care for any of the characters that we followed from the mill (I had such high hopes for Samuel).
At one point I felt it was all a bit too soap opera like and not quite what I was expecting... but that didn't take away from the action and consequences of the fire that was central to the story.
Completely mixed feelings from me.