I really enjoyed this book. It’s a love story that begins during WWI and continues into Canada during the time of prohibition and rum running. I learned quite a bit about prohibition, but I was truly amazed to learn of the role of tunnelers during the war. Just incredible. Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC

The modern day renovation of an historic house in Canada leads to the discovery of hidden bottles of whiskey from Canada’s prohibition era and the family that lived there. As local historian Cassie and former resident of the home researches it’s history, we are taken back in time to 1918 WWI and Canada’s involvement. The nuns that are affectionately known as “Bluebirds” because of their blue uniforms, need the assistance of nurses to help care for the wounded soldiers. Adele is a nurse that leaves the safety of home and volunteers. As the sick and wounded are brought to the wartime hospital in Belgium many soldiers are under Adele’s care. When Jerry Bailey is brought in with severe facial injuries by his brother John, Jerry becomes one of Adele’s patients. As Jerry recuperates, he and Adele realize they are from nearby towns back in Canada. They soon find themselves very attracted to one another. Jerry must return to the war but they promise to find each other once back home. What follows is the story of a young man’s return to his family who has been touched by the tragic results of the Spanish Flu, Prohibition and dangerous rum running, childhood rivalries, and the unlikely reunion of a wartime love. I enjoyed learning about Canada’s part in WWI and rum running into the US. I will definitely recommend this book to family and friends.

A buried treasure, a century-old murder, and whisky.
Adele Savard served as a Canadian nurse in World War I. They were called Bluebirds because of the colour of their uniforms. She met an injured tunneling soldier named Jeremiah in a field hospital. He was so taken with her that he put a bird on his whisky label.

Generations later, a man named Matthew finds some of Bailey's Best Whisky inside a wall when renovating their old home. The historian to whom he takes an old bottle just happens to be the great granddaughter of Adele and Jeremiah Bailey, who moved out of the house after a terrible childhood tragedy.
Bluebird is a split time historical fiction that weaves through time using a love story between a soldier and nurse. Well researched and fascinatingly detailed, it will transport you to the hospitals and trenches of WW1 nurses and soldiers, the roaring 20s rum running from Canada to the US, speakeasies, and into an old love story.
Also includes a reader guide at the end with the true facts from the story laid out, additional books for those who wish to know more details, and reader discussion questions.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

I strongly recommend Bluebird by Genevieve Graham.
It was sad saying goodbye to Jerry and Adele in the 1920’s. The characters are so compelled and human that I wished that I could know them more. Their story resonated through time and affected the lives of Cassie and Matthew in the present.
I learned many things about WWI that I was unaware of. Although trench warfare was a defining characteristic of the war, I was completely unaware of “tunnnellers’”. And, being a nurse, I can somewhat imagine what warfront nursing could be like. Genevieve Graham hits it spot on, bringing to life the terror that medical workers face in that situation. Of course, that does not distract from what soldiers go through in war, but gives us a peak at how they were patched together and sent back to the front.
Again, history tells us part of a story, but Prohibition is brought into focus. Interesting that Canada, while dealing with Prohibition in a different form, was a willing partner to America’s experiment.
Adele and Jerry’s story pulls you in and makes you root for their success. And Cassie and Matthew’s story has just begun.
More please, Ms. Graham!!

I have not read much about the Great War or the Prohibition Era that happened right afterwards especially from the Canadian point of view. So I was anxious to read Bluebird.

The focus of the book is mostly about Adele, a nurse working in a field hospital in Belgium, and one of her patients, Jerry, a tunneler who was injured by the Germans while digging a tunnel as part of the trench warfare. While this is a love story, it is mostly about their time during WWI and their lives when they return to Windsor, Ontario.

There is a parallel story that takes place in the present day about Cassie, a research museum curator, and her research into the bootlegging "industry" in that area and across the river to Detroit. This part of the story is not fully fleshed out and not very interesting. None of the characters are very developed and in someways detracts for the great story of Adele and Jerry.

This was a fast paced read and the historical portion very well written. If the presentation aspect were better, I would easily given this a 5 star rating.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy.

I enjoyed this book so much! I love historical fiction and with the added story line including prohibition put a unique spin on this book. I enjoyed the past vs present spin that the author incorporated. This book will be a big hit!.

This one was good. I don’t know much about the First World War and this gave me new perspective on this time period. It was well paced and just a good book
Thanks for letting me review this book to Netgalley and the publisher

Bluebird is the latest historical fiction novel by one of my favorite Canadian authors, Genevieve Graham. “Bluebirds” was the nickname given by soldiers to the World War I Canadian nurses who wore cheery blue uniforms. The bluebirds served as both medical providers and a source of care and comfort to wounded soldiers. Adele Savard is a nurse who volunteered at the beginning of the war. Like the other volunteers, she had no idea of the horrors she would see. But like them, Adele rose to the occasion, often risking her personal health and safety to care for the patients.

One of Adele’s charges is Jeremiah “Jerry” Bailey who was brought to the field hospital by his brother, John, after being injured in a tunneling accident. Through the brothers’ story, the extreme dangers of trench warfare is detailed. Against her unspoken rule of becoming personal with the soldiers, Adele quickly finds herself falling for Jerry, who happens to be from Windsor Canada, near her own small hometown.

Just as the war ended in 1918, the State of Michigan went dry two years before prohibition was the law nationwide in the United States. In the words of Al Capone, “Prohibition has made nothing but trouble.” That was especially true for the folks in Windsor Canada, just across the river from Detroit, Michigan. When Jerry and John returned from the war, they use their father’s whiskey recipe and set up shop as distillers and rumrunners. While their customers were quite fond of Bailey Brothers’ Best whiskey, the competition wanted nothing more than to either take a chunk of the brothers’ profits or to stop them from operating altogether.

After her service ends, Adele becomes a nurse for a doctor in Windsor. She sees firsthand the injuries and brutalities inflicted by the rumrunner gangs on their rivals. When she and Jerry finally find each other three years later, they know their feelings for each other have not changed. They must grapple with the risk that Jerry’s new career puts Adele in by being associated with him.

Bluebird is a dual timeline story. The present-day story involves Cassie Simmons, a museum curator. When a contractor, Matthew Flaherty, finds 50 bottles of Bailey Brothers’ Best hidden in a wall inside the house he is remodeling, he takes them to the museum. Cassie, who does not disclose her unhappy connection to the house or the Bailey family, agrees to help Matthew research the value of the bottles.

This is a story about brave and resilient people. The love story between Adele and Jerry does not take away from the importance of the work they did or the love they have for their families. In the modern-day stories, Cassie must overcome her personal tragedies before she can begin to move forward.

5-Stars. Book club recommended. This novel will be published on April 5, 2022. Thank you to #NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for my advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I didn't know much about this one going in. I knew it was WWI historical fiction, involved tunnelers, and was primarily set during Prohibition. I wasn't even such what a tunneler was exactly.

But I ended up really liking this. The characters were well developed. The storyline had a little bit of mystery, a little bit of history, and a little bit of a romance. The story caught my attention and was a pretty quick read.

I would recommend this to others.

I received this book free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I love supporting authors from my home province and getting Genevieve Graham's new eARC on Netgalley was so exciting.

Lately, I have been rediscovering my love of historical fiction and Graham is a cornerstone of Canadian historical fiction. Bluebird follows John & Jerry Bailey while they are tunnellers in WW1. Jerry gets injured and has to go to the field hospital where he meets Nurse Adele Savard. Romance definitely ensues. When John & Jerry come home from the war, the world is different and Prohibition is in full swing. John & Jerry decide to start a business as rumrunners. The book also has a present day component as Cassie starts to research her family history when a discovery is found on the family property.

I loved this and my only complaint is that I would have loved more of the present day timeline along side Adele & Jerry's story.

Read an eARC courtesy of Netgalley, the publisher, Simon & Schuster Canada, and the author, Genevieve Graham. Thank you for the opportunity.

Rating: 4 Stars

Genevieve Graham's newest has taken the top spot of my favourites among hers.
Which is saying something, as all her books are so noteworthy. But Bluebird is a standout.
Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada and Netgalley for my eARC for review!
Adele Savard is a nurse on the frontlines of World War I in Belgium. It's there that she meets Jerry, a wounded soldier who works his with his brother as a tunneller. They literally dug beneath the trenches for attacks on the Germans.
Once home, each finds their own struggles of re-entering society in Windsor, Ontario.
The height of prohibition sees Jerry and brother John start up Bailey Brothers' Best Whisky, and the danger that exists in the world of rumrunning.
The stories are told in alternating chapters between Adele, Jerry, and present-day Cassie; a museum curator who happens upon a stash of the brother's bottles and investigates the history.
As with all of Genevieve's books, she brings alive elements of our past that I was previously unaware of, with an undercurrent of romance.
I'm a third-generation nurse, so this book especially resonated. Depicting the realities of war on the perhaps little-known nursing experience elevated this read to an easy five-stars for me.
Recommended!
For release on April 5.

Bluebird by Genevieve Graham

A compelling and emotional historical fiction novel set near the end of WW1 into Prohibition in the early 1920s. With alternating points of view narration, back and forth between Canadian nurse Adele, and Jerry, a soldier in a Canadian Tunneling Company, this fast-paced story is gripping. The story is framed with POV chapters following Cassie in the present day, a museum curator in Windsor with a personal connection to the rumrunning business during Prohibition.

This was my first novel by this author, but it certainly won’t be my last. This was a perfect easy-to-read historical fiction that was equally exciting as it was moving. I loved the spotlight on both the tunnellers and the “Bluebird” nurses of WWI, as well as the southern Ontario connection to rumrunning during the temperance movement in Canada and the US.

This would be a great choice for anyone who enjoys historical fiction, but also for those that don’t read much from the genre - it’s such a quick-moving story with lots of intrigue and even a love story. I’d also recommend this for anyone in a bit of a reading slump. I read it in just a couple of sittings and despite sleep deprivation wanted to stay up late to finish. Thank you so much to Simon & Schuster Canada and to Netgalley for access to an e-arc of Bluebird - it is available next week on April 5! All opinions are my own.

4.25/5⭐️

This was such a lovely historical dual-timeline story centering around WWI and the subsequent Prohibition period in Canada.

Bluebirds were Canadian nurses who volunteered during the war (they wore vivid blue dresses). Nurse Adele Savard meets Corporal Jeremiah Bailey when he is injured, and by the time he is returned to the fighting, they have fallen in love and promise to find each other (their hometowns are near each other) following the war.

What follows are bittersweet homecomings, an eventual reuniting, a sweet love story, the profitable but dangerous business of rum running, and some tragic events.

Meanwhile in present time, Cassie, as the sole living Bailey descendant, makes some startling discoveries about her family’s past with the help of the new owner of her family’s abandoned house.

I learned so many details here about the Roaring 20s period in Canada’s history while also simply enjoying the well-defined characters (especially those from the past) and the plot.

An excellent read.

My thanks to #NetGalley and #SimonandSchuster for providing me the free early arc of #Bluebird for review. The opinions are strictly my own.

Genevieve Graham is such a fantastic author. I love that she writes Canadian historical fiction, making our country's amazing history accessible and intriguing for her audience. I have read several of her books and jumped at the opportunity to read Bluebird. Following Adele and Jerry throughout WW1 and Adele's work as a Canadian nurse - a Bluebird - and then into the 1920s with Jerry's work as a rumrunner in prohibition-era Windsor, the storyline of Bluebird will not leave you disappointed. I loved learning so much about this time period throughout this book and immersing myself in the culture of the time. My only reason for not giving this a 5/5 is that I felt the plot moved slow at times, and the characters could have been developed deeper. All in all, Bluebird is a wonderful read for Canadian history lovers especially!

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Don’t read this book without also reading the author’s note at the end. I promise it will make the story more meaningful and genealogy/history buffs will love it.

The story is set in World War I and follows the lives of two Canadians who served during the war and just happened to be from the same area in Canada. Adele, a nurse employed with the Bluebird’s (as they were called due to the blue uniforms) meets Jerry Bailey, a tunneler who comes into the hospital after having been wounded in an explosion.

Even though Adele tries not to get too close to her patients, she and Jerry have a connection that she can’t ignore. When he recovers and is sent back to the front, she and Jerry lose touch for several years.

When they meet again, Jerry has been manufacturing whiskey during the Prohibition years and is in a dangerous, but lucrative profession. Adele has been working for a local doctor and sees all the injured men who come in having been hurt from “rumrunning.”

While this is good historical fiction, it is also a sweet love story with wonderful characters throughout. I loved the era in which it was set. There was also a present day timeline running through the story, but it was not as focused as the timeline from the past.

All in all, this was an enjoyable, clean story and I am happy to recommend it.

Many thanks to NetGally and Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read an advance copy. I am happy to give my honest review.

This is a duo timeline historical story about WWI and prohibition. the story take place in Belgium and Windsor Ontario Canada.
The book is full of history, love and mystery, It is very well written.
Being a Canadian and living in Ontario, I have being to Windsor many times. I enjoy the trip to Amherstburg. I am looking for another trip to petite cove, since I learn the history of that area. I also add all of books of Genevieve Graham to my tbr list.

I’d previously read Letters Across the Sea (published in 2021) and At the Mountain’s Edge (published in 2019) so I jumped on an ARC (advance reader copy) of Bluebird, her latest due out April 5, 2022. Something I really like about Bluebird is the expert pairing of the history of the First World War with the interwar era, a period we talk and learn too infrequently about (in my humble opinion).

Something else I love about Graham’s work is that she finds a way to tell incredible stories from our country’s past and highlight both the big and “small” players - those we already know about, and those we maybe haven’t heard about before.

The first part of the book focuses on the First World War era experience of Adèle, a nurse (but not a nun!) from southern Ontario and her patients in a field hospital. One of those patients just happens to be a tunneller, Jerry, who also hails from the Windsor region. Sparks fly but Jerry heals in her expert care and is back to tunneling while Adèle continues her nursing responsibilities through to the Armistice.

I do have to say that when it was heralded as a novel of the First World War and Prohibition era, I definitely envisioned a more “even” split between the two periods. Rather, the First World War era serves as a springboard for the rest of the novel, I’d guesstimate at more of a 1 to 3 split. By the end of the novel it was much clearer to me why it was set up this way and it was a good approach - but I still felt like my expectations (which impact so much of how we receive a novel - or anything!) were staged a bit differently.

Fast forward a few years and (spoiler!) both Jerry and Adèle are back in southern Ontario, facing their own post-war challenges in an era of Prohibition. Jerry and his brother John (who was also a tunneller) are in the bootleg whiskey business and build themselves a successful model for producing and smuggling whiskey across the border.

But there is stiff competition in the bootleg business and in the business of love. And when Jerry and Adèle meet again and rekindle their bedside connection it’s just a matter of time before things get heated.

This novel has it all! Maybe, on reflection, a little much - but it’s a great read and I truly enjoyed Adèle and Jerry as characters. Graham does a great job of giving her main characters equal weight in terms of highlighting their perspectives (true across the other books of hers I’ve read too!) which is nice, and it has me feeling like neither is just the secondary lead - they’re both equally important and part of the story.

I also found it to be an interesting coincidence that the work of railway porters is deftly made part of the story of Adèle and Jerry, and at the same time as I was reading this ARC I was seeing ads for the new dramatic series on CBC on the same topic. Yet another fascinating part of Canada’s history that I think is often overlooked.

My rating is based on my own mixed expectations about the scope of the novel (100% on me) and second there’s the (again in my opinion) under-developed present-day storyline that honestly, although fun and definitely expected/accepted in novels like this, I felt was a bit unnecessary. Adèle and Jerry’s historical timeline could have stood on its own and although I was intrigued by the contemporary storyline I just didn’t feel like there was enough of it to get into it and really consider it as part of the story.

All of this said, if you are interested in the era, this is a great way to delve into it and I highly recommend it!

Bluebird is a dual timeline and dual perspective historical fiction novel filled with the sorrows and horrors of war, love, intrigue, hope and what it means to be family. The title and cover are lovely and the storylines are gorgeously crafted, evocative and beautifully poignant. Genevieve Graham adds spectacularly-researched details and pieces of her heart into her writing...this novel is a wonderful example of her care and thoughtfulness. Every word counts and the characters are richly written.

In 1918 Belgium Canadian "Bluebird" nurse Adele Savard lives in an all-encompassing state of sleeplessness and fear and is surrounded by screaming injured soldiers with terrible injuries and nightmares. But as crushing as it is, she feels useful and has close friends. Badly injured Corporal Jeremiah Bailey of the Canadian Tunnelling Company is taken to the field hospital and the two click immediately as nurse and patient realize they grew up near one another in Canada. After the war during the Prohibition the two return home to rebuild their lives and find each other. And a lot more.

In the present Cassie Simmons is passionate about history as a museum curator and her ancestry is jam-packed with secrets. She meets Matthew who makes a mysterious discovery and seeks her advice. They share excitement about the Prohibition and its tunneling and bootlegging. The connections between the timelines are tied together seamlessly.

My favourite aspects are the incredible historical details which made me feel privy to every scene, the characters, the Great War timeline (especially the nursing details and relationships) and the marvelous author notes and inspiration for the book. Love the Vimy oaks and uniform explanations! Though I am Canadian there is information here which is new to me which is so appreciated. Reading a truly great book is an incredible experience but gaining knowledge too? Priceless. Sweet romance is always refreshing.

Historical Fiction readers ought to read this. It would also be a tremendous introduction for those who have yet to try the genre.

My sincere thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this beguiling book.

First off, I love a book with dual timelines. This book not only satisfies my craving for "The Great War" historical fiction, but also 1920s historical fiction. This book was the perfect blend of romance, prohibition excitement, and wartime heroism. I definitely recommend this read to anyone who loves historical fiction, fresh perspectives/storylines, and romance!

The way that this book incorporated WW1 then prohibition in Canada once the soldiers./nurses returned home and alternated to the present time was flawless. The writing drew me in and I needed to keep reading to know what happened with John, Jerry and Adele from the past, and Claire in the present.

I have never read a book incorporating prohibition in Canada so this was so interesting to read. Highly recommend to everyone!