I really enjoyed this book! Even though it told three stories at once the author wrote each characters story with clarity.
Laine, Issy and Maeve are all connected by a castle in Ireland. Each one faces challenges and overcomes them. I really connected with each character and the story held my interest until the last page. I was actually sad when it came to an end. A really good book! ( )

In the sequel to The Lost Castle, Laine Forrester accompanies her newly married best friend, Ellie, to Ireland, where her husband’s family have unexpectedly inherited a manor house from a long-time patron of their father’s pub. Among the treasures of the historic house and the nearby castle ruins, Laine tries to come to terms with the monumental changes in her friend’s life and in her own, and finds herself falling for Ellie’s charming and understanding new brother-in-law.

Separated by centuries, two other women also confront their changing worlds among the same castle ruins: Issy Byrne, a photographer documenting the 1916 Easter Rising; and Lady Maeve Chryn, who harbors a wounded revolutionary in 1798.

Once again, there is a magical feeling that I absolutely love! And the sense that history is reaching its hand out across time to connect three people who have never met, but whose stories were always meant to intersect. ( )

Kristy Cambron does it again. Castle on the Rise is an exquisite trip through history and ruins, worth every page.

“But there’s something about dreams that don’t need castle ruins or fairy-tale endings to make life beautiful. We can still have the happy while we stand up to the sad.”

Laine travels with her daughter to France to attend the wedding of friend Ellie (of The Lost Castle) in the midst of life-changing challenges for them both. As a result, she ends up then traveling to Ireland as a favor to Ellie and embarks on a journey that, though riddled with violence, prejudice, and loss, unites three women across centuries, all learning what it means to be free.

“Maybe she didn’t need to have everything figured out to say yes to something new—bravery could be as simple as a yes when she was at her most afraid.”

Castle on the Rise is a beautiful, bittersweet story, and I loved venturing into each of the three storylines, seeing the connections between them. I appreciated, too, that though Ellie gets her “happily ever after,” so to speak, it’s not perfect or easy—the whole story is filled with tough circumstances, and still, Cambron does not leave the reader without hope through it all. So, if you love historical fiction and multiple storylines, I recommend reading this book.

Thanks to Celebrate Lit, I received a complimentary copy of Castle on the Rise and the opportunity to provide an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, and all the opinions I have expressed are my own. ( )

“Castle on the Rise” by Kristy Cambron is the second book in the “Lost Castle” series. It ties in with the first book in the series, ”The Lost Castle,” but can easily be read as a standalone. “Castle on the Rise” takes place mostly in Ireland and involves three separate stories in three different time periods, all centering around one castle. The time periods are the revolutionary late 1700s, the 1916 Easter Rising and present day. Ms. Cambron weaves stories of faith, love, family and women rising amidst hard times into a cohesive tale.

My o my! I barely even took notes for this review because I was so caught up in Ms. Cambron’s beautiful and at times heart-breaking story! She sweeps readers to the streets of Dublin, to the cozy pubs and the windswept shores of a castle’s ruins and an estate in the Wicklow Mountains! She is the queen of setting and now I want to visit Ireland. She also did her research well and I learned a lot about Ireland’s history and its fight for freedom. It’s so amazing how she can connect such different periods in time so well. I admit I was a little confused with the events surrounding the Easter Rising in 1916, just because I really knew nothing about it, but it didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment of the story.

Ms. Cambron’s stories are so moving and poignant. Each story features families that are broken in some way; by war, prejudice or the past. These families must move from hatred to acceptance and forgiveness. I love especially how the women from each story must pull from a strength they didn’t know they had and rise up amidst very difficult and seemingly impossible situations to establish peace. They can only do this through faith. I must warn you to keep a tissue box handy. This is a story that will resonate with you long after you read it and might even help you in your own story.

Content: I give this book a PG-13 rating. Some examples of the content are: a woman is pregnant without being married and has been raped; a man is drunk; mentions of alcohol and pubs.

Rating: I give this book 5 stars.

Genre: Christian fiction; Historical; Romance

I want to thank Kristy Cambron, Thomas Nelson and BookLook Bloggers for the complimentary copy of this book for review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I express in this review are my own. This is in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s CFR 16, Part 255. ( )

Both the 1798 Rebellion and the 1916 Easter Rising are highlighted in the book, Castle on the Rise, by Kristy Cambron. This split-story novel, the second in the Lost Castles Series, follows the lives of three different women: 21st century American Laine Forrester, early 20th century Irish woman Lady Isolde Byrne, and late 18th century English woman Lady Maeve Ashford. ...more ( )