The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street + Giveaway!

Title: The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street
Author: Susan Jane Gilman
Published: June 10, 2014 by Grand Central Publishing
Pages: 505
Source: Purchased
Rating: 4/5
Goodreads

In 1913, little Malka Treynovsky flees Russia with her family. Bedazzled by tales of gold and movie stardom, she tricks them into buying tickets for America. Yet no sooner do they land on the squalid Lower East Side of Manhattan, than Malka is crippled and abandoned in the street.

Taken in by a tough-loving Italian ices peddler, she manages to survive through cunning and inventiveness. As she learns the secrets of his trade, she begins to shape her own destiny. She falls in love with a gorgeous, illiterate radical named Albert, and they set off across America in an ice cream truck. Slowly, she transforms herself into Lillian Dunkle, "The Ice Cream Queen" -- doyenne of an empire of ice cream franchises and a celebrated television personality.

Lillian's rise to fame and fortune spans seventy years and is inextricably linked to the course of American history itself, from Prohibition to the disco days of Studio 54. Yet Lillian Dunkle is nothing like the whimsical motherly persona she crafts for herself in the media. Conniving, profane, and irreverent, she is a supremely complex woman who prefers a good stiff drink to an ice cream cone. And when her past begins to catch up with her, everything she has spent her life building is at stake.

My review:

Where to begin with Malka/Lillian? In one moment I would be in love with her personality, her drive, her passion for making it in the world, and the next I would think what a mean lady. Couple that with the horribleness of her childhood, and my emotions were all over the place. This is a story of one lady who is the quintessential "rags to riches" story, but not without a ton of ups and downs along the way. This is Malka/Lillians story (told in the first person), which takes place over about 70 years. There are brief sections in the present day, but for the most part we are taken back through her life from the time she is 5 years old. I loved the writing style of the author, I was interested in all the historical events that are touched upon, but mostly I was fascinated by Lillian (her good and her bad parts). What an amazing life this lady lived. Every time she was faced with adversity (and she was faced with a lot), she would get back up again and make lemonade from lemons!

Don't go into this expecting a sweet story about ice cream making, go into it expecting a heck of a story about a woman who like a boxer in the ring, is tough and gets back up again after every punch knocks her down.

Thanks to Tiffany at Grand Central Publishing, I have a paperback copy of The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street to giveaway! Follow the directions in the Rafflecopter below for you chance to win a copy. US residents only.

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