TLC Blog Tour For "When We Were Strangers" by Pamela Schoenewaldt

When We Were Strangers by Pam Schoenewaldt is a powerful story of an immigrant's life coming to America.

This story begins in Italy where we meet Irma and her small family in their little village of Opi. Her mother had always told her never to leave Opi or she would only die with strangers. However, Opi no longer holds anything for Irma and she finds she no longer has a choice. This is the story of her search for a new life in America.

I'm not sure that some of us even realize how difficult it was for immigrants to get here, and then even after they got to America. Irma's story is heart-wrenching at times, but also very moving and inspiring. I felt as if I knew Irma and I was rooting for her the whole way through. She goes through so much and yet stays so strong.

I highly recommend this book. It was a little slow for me at the very beginning when Irma was still in her little village in Opi, but once she left and set out for a new life, it was a wild adventure from then on. For my blog readers who only read Christian books, this is not an actual Christian title. There isn't any language or anything of that nature that I would warn you about. There are some difficult themes when Irma runs into some extremely difficult circumstances.

This is a wonderful debut novel for this author and I look forward to seeing what is next from her.

Stop by here and visit all the blog tour stops.



Book Summary:

A moving, powerful, and evocative debut novel, When We Were Strangers by Pamela Schoenewaldt heralds the arrival of superb new voice in American fiction. A tale rich in color, character, and vivid historical detail, it chronicles the tumultuous life journey of a young immigrant seamstress, as she travels from her isolated Italian mountain village through the dark corners of late nineteenth century America. A historical novel that readers of Geraldine Brooks, Nancy Turner, Frances de Pontes Peebles, and Debra Dean will most certainly cherish, When We Were Strangers will live in the mind and the heart long after its last page is turned.


Read an excerpt here.

Buy this book here.



Author Bio:

Pamela Schoenewaldt lived for ten years in a small town outside Naples, Italy. She visited Opi, where her novel When We Were Strangers opens on cross-country skiing trips and was inspired by its solemn beauty, isolation and the reserved pride of its people. Her short stories have appeared in literary magazines in England, France, Italy, and the U.S. Her play “Espresso con mia madre” (Espresso with My Mother) was produced at Teatro Cilea, Naples. Pamela Schoenewaldt taught writing at the University of Maryland, European Division, and at the University of Tennessee. She lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, with her husband, Maurizio Conti—a medical physicist, and their dog, Jesse—a philosopher.


Find out more about Pamela at her website, and keep up with her on her blog.



This book was provided for review by Harper Paperbacks.



Blessings,