I really enjoyed this split-time novel about Canadian Prohibition and patriotism. I think it’s fascinating that the same loyalty and bravery that made Canada’s soldiers (and nurses!) so effective in WWI also made some of them adventurous risk-takers once they returned home…i.e., rumrunners. Author Genevieve Graham did an excellent job of conveying history, or as her character museum curator Cassie put it, “It's about bringing old things back to life and finding their stories along the way." And she really made my heart race doing it!

For me, Adele and Jerry had a real three-dimensional quality that Cassie and Matthew almost (but never quite) attained. Maybe a few more chapters developing their friendship before their lunch at the Dominion House Tavern could have done that. But I love how the generational stories came together, and the way each character deals with loss and guilt and forgiveness. Despite the uncomfortable violence and occasional coarse language (which were par for the times), I was totally captivated by this historical romance. I learned so much, and will certainly keep an eye out for more titles from Graham. I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley and was not required to post a review.

World War I • Tunneling • Canada • Bluebirds • Rumrunners • Prohibition • Brothers • Love • Revenge • Sisters • Whiskey

Historical fiction at its finest! Wonderfully developed characters in a well-written story. I highly recommend!

Thanks to NetGalley for the free copy. I was under no obligation to provide a review.

Wow! Brilliant story....I absolutely loved it
I'm not an eloquent writer when it comes to reviews but I always write from the heart...this book is amazing! So much research went into this book, per the author at the end explaining what research she did, and Genevieve Graham hit it out of the park.
We start in present day where a curator of a museum has an unexpected visitor to the museum with an interesting item that he found....it leads us to WWI and Canadian prohibition after the war. The book was primarily set in Windsor, Ontario during the prohibition days (early 1920's).
I was so full of emotions reading Bluebird and 10 days later I am still thinking of it while trying to do my review justice. This means it gets a high ranking, I really wish I could give it more stars than 5, from me and I will suggest it to all of my friends.
Yes it is historical fiction with a beautiful romantic story as well.
Bluebirds were tent nurses during WWI and they were close to the front lines. Usually Bluebirds were nuns that were nurses but they were short on nurses so they held a raffle up to 2000 regular nurses applied and only 75 were chosen. Their courage is to be commended because their daily tasks were done without hesitation. The Bluebird nurses wore blue dresses with white caps giving them the nickname Bluebird from the injured.
I hope Bluebird becomes a movie because it truly deserves to be on the big screen.
It is the best book I have read this year. I find that when in a reading slump I need to read a historical fiction story to get me out of the slump. This one did that but I still am constantly thinking about Bluebird and how much I enjoyed it.
I don't give a blow by blow review of the story because the synopsis tells you what it is about...I don't like to ruin books for other readers with giving you the complete story. Just know that I was truly enthralled with Bluebird and I'm not going to forget it.
Highly recommend you go and preorder this book. If you can't then you need to run to your nearest library come April 5, 2022 to get it...you won't regret it!
Did I say I LOVE this book...well I do!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for allowing me to read a digital ARC copy of Bluebird for an honest review. This review is my words completely and no one elses...

Bluebird by Genevieve Graham is an amazing love story that starts during WWI and continues into the prohibition period. The author finds such amazing stories of Canadian history that have been overlooked or totally forgotten about. The story centers around Adele who is a nurse commonly called a "Bluebird" because of the blue uniforms they wore during WWI. and a patient she cares for named Jerry. They vow that after the war is over they will meet each other again. Jerry and his brother John return home to Windsor Ontario which becomes a huge center of rumrunners during the 1920"s. Adele seems lost after being a nurse for so long she doesn't know what to do with herself. Will these two meet again and find the love they deserve? It's a great ride finding out!

While the story is well written with interesting information on tunnelers, nurses and rum runners during the early 1900s in Canada it didn’t really offer more than that. It could have gone in numerous other intriguing directions yet it stuck with a romance and a side story that didn’t provide much. And some of that story even seemed like it was incomplete or left hanging.

I absolutely adored this story! What a fantastically researched and written story about a little-known (to me) part of Canadian history! While this is a dual-timeline story, the majority of the book follows the perspectives of Jerry and Adele.

Jerry and his brother John are tunnellers during WWI -- something I'd never heard of before this novel. When Jerry is wounded, he meets Adele, a "Bluebird" nurse on the front lines. Not only do they realize that they grew up quite close to each other back home in Ontario, they also begin developing feelings for each other. After the war, the two return home -- the brothers to start up a whiskey running business in the midst of prohibition, and Adele continues nursing.

Not only is this story full of intriguing historical tidbits, it was beautifully written. The characters were clearly touched by war and grief, and yet, also had such a sweet and hopeful romance. I would highly recommend this book to fellow historical fiction fans, and am so glad to see an author featuring and writing about Canadian history!

Thank you so much to the publisher and netgalley for my e-arc of BLUEBIRD in exchange for an honest review. This book publishes April 5, 2022!

I read LETTERS ACROSS THE SEA last year by this author, and loved it! So I was very excited and happy to get an early copy of her newest book. I quite enjoy historical fiction, and even more so when it’s Canadian, and takes place in Canada! Bonus points for being set in Ontario (where I’m from!) Windsor is a few hours from where I live, but I definitely recognize the place.

I really enjoy historical fiction novels that make my cry, because a lot of what happened in our history, especially Center we around the wars, is sad. This book was no different, and I definitely shed a few tears. The relationship between Jerry and Adele is so heartwarming, but also heartbreaking at the same time, because they both fall in love while away at war, and don’t know if they will ever see each other again.

I also love historical fiction because it usually reaches me something about the country or places I didn’t know before. In this book, I learned a great deal about rumrunning and the prohibition laws surrounding alcohol after the First World War. And how risky it was.

Adele is a strong female character, whom I loved. She did what wasn’t expected of her during that time. Instead of staying home and “keeping house” she used her skills to help those in their time of need, by joining Canada’s nursing sisters and being known as bluebirds, based on their uniform. When Adele returns home after the war, she got some backlash about being a women who was in the war, and then also for continuing to work as a nurse back home instead of becoming a housewife and mother right away. This shows just how much we need strong women like Adele to be portrayed in books from this time period, back before women had next to no rights and privileges.

If you are a fan of this CANADIAN author, historical fiction, learning more about Canada’s history, and strong female characters, I highly recommend this book!

My thanks to Net Galley and Simon and Schuster for this winner of a book!
Cassie Simmons is a museum curator approached my Matthew a house flipper that found old bottes in a wall of a home he is working on wanting to know if any value. The house was Cassies childhood home. The first time line of the story is Cassie researching the bottles and where they came from.

The second time line goes back to the war , Cassie s ancestors and how the bottles came to be in that wall.


LOVED this book. I've read many historical fiction books but this was different because it focused on Prohibition. Excellent research and highly recommend. Great characters.

Meticulously researched and detailed, BLUEBIRD is a page-turning story that reads like a rollicking Canadian version of Peaky Blinders. Set in post WWI Ontario, brothers Jerry and John Bailey return from war and fire up their father's still to take advantage of the rum-running business during Prohibition. Dangerous rivalries threaten their security, especially when Jerry reunites with Adele, the nurse he fell for when injured in Belgium. Meanwhile, in the present day, the last remaining Bailey uncovers the truth about what really happened to her family... and it's not what we expect. Recommended read!

Genevieve Graham is a go to author for me. She is a Canadian author who loves history especially Canadian history and it shines through in her books. I love how she goes off the beaten track with pieces of history that I am totally unfamiliar with and keeps me entertained while being educated at the same time.

Bluebird is a dual timeline story set in present day and also beginning in 1917 - Belgium during World War I. While the majority of the story is the latter time. It following the lives of Jeremy Bailey and nurse Adele as they return home, each of them scarred in their own ways from the war. Set in Windsor, Ontario across the river from Detroit during Prohibition. I loved the setting, the speakeasies, rum runners and learning about the Canadian Tunneling Company from the war - see what I mean, educational.

Again Graham has written a captivating story, it was well written (as usual) that kept me intrigued, she had me caring about Jerry and Adele and rather intrigued how the past played into the current storyline. Definitely an author and book I highly recommend.

My thanks to Simon & Schuster CA (via Netgalley) for a digital arc in exchange for honest review.

Bluebird by Genevieve Graham is set in Canada, just across from Detroit. It begins in present day, as Museum Curator, Cassie Simmons, is investigating some artifacts that have been found in an old house that once belonged to her family. Flashback to World War I Belgium, and tunneled soldiers injured in explosions. The soldiers are being cared for by Canadian Nurses called Bluebirds because of their blue uniforms and caps. Nurse Adele Savard develops an attachment to one of her patients , Jerry Bailey, a fellow Canadian whose hometown is very near where Adele has grown up. Adele misses Jerry when he ships back home to recover . She thinks of him often as the war ends and she returns home and settles in to a job in a doctor's office. A couple of years pass, and Jerry and Adele meet again. By now he has joined his brother’s whiskey manufacturing business, a questionable business during prohibition. Suspense heightens and make for some intense page turning situations that make this a quick enjoyable read. There is a lot of information about the whiskey manufacturing, and history of Prohibition. I wanted more in the story about the nurses and the soldiers on the battlefront. The author does a nice job of sharing her reasearch on these Canadian Nursing Sisters in an epilogue. I appreciate the opportunity for an advance read of this book in exchange for an honest review in my own words.
#NetGalley. #Bluebird
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This was a really interesting book about a subject most people don't know about. I'm kind of ambivalent about the author's choice to tell the story from two points of view. I feel like the story could have been as well served without the present-day aspect, although it did prove to be a convenient way to move the main story along in time.

I like the author's style and will probably seek out more of her work.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

This story starts out in Belgium in WWI. The heroine, Adele, is a nurse in an army hospital. These women were called Bluebirds because of their uniforms of light blue and white. Adele has been there for a while and has been able to keep her distance from the injured men she helps treat. The nurses are encouraged not to become personally involved with the patients and Adele works hard to not get attached..

Then a tunneler named Jeremy is brought in wounded severely and requiring a lot of care. These tunnelers were vital to the war effort and spent all their time underground setting explosives to aid their comrades who were fighting above ground. Jerry’s brother, John is also a tunneler and saves Jerry from an explosion by the enemy and makes sure his brother is brought to the hospital. The nurse assigned to Jerry is Adele.

At first, due to his injuries, Jerry can’t talk. Adele spends time with him reading to him and chatting. They draw close, but eventually, Jerry heals and heads back to the front and they lose contact.

Both Jerry and Adele are Canadian and from the same general area of Ontario. When Jerry returns home with his brother, he tries to find Adele but is unsuccessful and fears she died in Belgium. Adele is likewise sure Jerry didn’t survive.

The story follows each of them as they rebuild their lives. This part of the book seemed to drag a bit. Honestly, a lot of the story was slow moving and it took me many days to get through that middle part.

The action eventually picked up after the two of them found their niches in the world. Adele went to work for a local doctor. Jerry and his brother entered the dangerous line of work of running illegal alcohol to the United States during prohibition. This was when the book picked up the pace.

Run-ins with a former friend turned enemy brought a sense of urgency to the plot and this reader enjoyed the new quicker pace of the tale.

It was obvious the author delved deep into research of the era, including the nursing corps of Canada in WWI, the tunnelers of that war and the prohibition era dangers to the smugglers and competitors in the business. There were a lot of intriguing parts such as the various ways the rum-runners got their liquor across the border to sell it, including all the ways they hid bottles in the automobiles. It was also interesting to learn about the way the restaurants in Canada offered free liquor if the patron ordered food as a way to get around the laws in place. This reader wasn’t familiar with Canada’s laws during prohibition, so a lot of the information was new. The author was deft at sliding in the historical details without making the story read like a history lesson.

Overall, the book was good and well-developed. Parts were slow, but I enjoyed the characters and the real history of the times being artfully inserted. I’d recommend this one. 4 stars.

It was refreshing to read this historical fiction novel set during the end of World War I and the Prohibition years. I especially liked that it featured Canadian characters, and when it was time for the prohibition story line to read about Windsor, Ontario. It was an exciting, dangerous time, one that not many people may know about.

Bluebird was a beautiful and tender love story with engaging characters and a historical setting of WWI and prohibition. I enjoyed how the stories intertwined from the present day all the way back a hundred years. The author did the same thing with the main characters, showing how small the world really can be. I liked alternating between the three main characters' perspectives through the story and how everything blended together. I also liked the intrigue and mystery surrounding what kicked the story off -- how did the bottles of whiskey get into the wall. The details of the time period were spectacular and felt honest and real. This is so important in historical fiction. This time period is so fascinating and I appreciated learning more about it.

Great historical fiction is always a pleasure to read. But great historical fiction that teaches me something new about the past makes for such an enriching experience. Reading Bluebird was an enriching experience. The writing was engaging and so compulsively readable, packed full of nuanced emotion that brought me to tears and rich historical detail. Following characters through WWI and Prohibition, two such interesting periods of history, was a brilliant decision by the author that showed how the effects of the war carried into the roaring twenties. I fell in love with Adele, Jerry and John's characters. The connection to present day Cassie built another fascinating layer to the tale. Bluebird is a must read for historical fiction fans!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for access to this arc.

Bluebird by Genevieve Graham is a gripping story of the realities of the Great War and prohibition during the roaring Twenties in Canada. The story also has a parallel story in present times with this character having ties to their great-grandparents stories of the past. I would highly recommend reading this book. Thank you to Netgalley for a free copy of this book for an honest review.

There are a handful of authors that I have read every book they have published. Genevieve Graham is one of those authors that I treasure. She did need not disappoint with another beautifully told story in Bluebird which I received as an ARC.

Bluebird tells the story of a young couple that meet during the horrors of their service to the Canadian military during World War 1. Adele is a kind and gentle nurse when she meets an injured Jerry and his brother John. As she cares for Jerry, a romance begins but they are separated when Jerry returns to the front after he recovers. WW1 thankfully ends and the two are sent home not knowing if the other survived.

Fast forward a few years and Adele and Jerry meet again. I’m not a fan of giving away all the spoilers so will just say that the story is laced with whiskey and rumrunners, danger, heartbreak and love.

Interestingly, the story has a modern day component as Cassie, a historian, has a connection to Adele and Jerry. She is the last of her family in the present time but is drawn back into her memories of family and their stories from the unearthing of some old whiskey bottles. I was left wanting more of Cassie’s story. Perhaps we will see her in a future book.

The author has written several historical fiction novels based on Canadian history. It’s a topic I was not familiar with but I have enjoyed her books and reading more on the topics on my own. I love the way she retells stories from the past with her fictional characters. She makes Canadian history come alive in her storytelling. I’m already looking forward to her next book and this one hasn’t even been released yet!!! Thank you Genevieve Graham for the hours of enjoyment that Bluebird brought to me.

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Rating:

4.8/5 stars!

The seamless transition between dual POVs and dual timelines worked for me and I really appreciated that. There are two stories - present day Canada and wartime Europe during the first World War.

The writing was beautiful and the characters were vivid.

Content warning: Bootlegging

Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada and NetGalley for the complimentary copy of BLUEBIRD.

A lovely book that blends the past and the present through the story of WWI tunnel diggers, Canada’s nursing sisters, and post-war bootleggers.