This was a difficult book to review. I found the poetry here to have a spare realist quality that I m not totally appreciative of. Its frame is that of Azores immigrants living in California's Central Valley. The Azores are a Portuguese island. The more famous "Sonnets from the Portuguese" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning are Romantic in nature, but don't seem to deal much with Portugal or the Portuguese. So the connection of the two titles seems misleading. But there are great sonnets from Portugal, namely those of Luís de Camões, which seem to hold together and to pull me in more than those of Browning or Eldred. I will say that Eldred does follow the sonnet conventions of rhyme and meter pretty well.

But the poems are connected, and towards the end there is a liturgical process that I was intrigued by. In the section named 'Ordinary Time', the first poem, 'Flying the Heavy Kite', seems to be inspired by the Lusiads of Camões. And the last poem here, 'Fat Tuesday', is very pre-Lenten with the assertion that bones have to be shattered lovingly, which is what one might do in Lent to shatter your old ways and build with love to a not fully known outcome.

The last section,'Time of Atonement', leads her life through a Lenten journey of walking the stations, confession, penitence, contrition, making a memorial of this through editorial precision, letting ones dreams and sins go away, acknowledging the cross in 'Liturgical Time', and becoming 'still' with the return to Ordinary time. Resurrection is tough, and I wonder what Easter might be like. ( )

I really liked this collection of sonnets. It was definitely more for middle-aged woman than my age group, but it still managed to resonate with me. The poems were well crafted and none of them felt stilted or forced or like words were just put in to fit the format. They flowed beautifully and I would really enjoy reading more from this author. I think the collection really speaks to the experiences of falling out of love and into love later in life. ( )

This was an ambitous understaking by the auther Janet Eldred and she is to be commended for her effort. I enjoyed reading about her research and how she went about this project at the end of the book. I did enjoy quite a few of the sonnets, though not nearly as much as Elizabeth Barrett Browning's original Sonnets from the Portuguese, which were such an expression of language and love. These sonnets express love in a different era and though I consider myself tech-savvy, maybe they will speak louder to a younger more tech-savvy audience than myself. If they bring younger readers to appreciate poetry, the sonnet form or Elizabeth Barrett Browning's original sonnets any more, then all the better. ( )

I received an ARC from LibraryThing and Whitepoint Press in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoyed this collection of sonnets. I loved the whole story it tells and the nostalgic tone it has. I didn’t like a couple of them but overall it’s beautiful and worth checking out. ( )

Zilia’s memories of a short but intense college love affair prove to be too strong to allow her to move on with her life. The subsequent abandonment by her lover forces her to compare her future relationships with what might have been thus leading to the inevitable failures of new loves. When her past lover rekindles the relationship via Email after a 20 year hiatus the affair briefly blossoms but she soon realizes the hopelessness of ever fully consummating it.
The 52 sonnets are arranged in an order that suggests the progression of Zelia’s life. The sonnets are well written, to the point and easy to understand. The book is very enjoyable and for me gave a deeper understanding on how true love though interrupted, affects a woman’s relationships in her future.
I would highly recommend this book to those in both beginning and long term relationships or to the hopelessly romantics out there. ( )