When Lions Roar

It is always a treat when I come across a book that I can easily recommend--and When Lions Roar by Thomas Maier is just such a book.  It hits on all cylinders-- compelling biography about dysfunctional families, espionage real and imagined,  intimate affairs, troubled marriages, fortunes made and lost, careers with meteoric rise and fall  and solid easy to read history.  This book--in spite of being 600 pages plus--is quite a page turner.

When Lions Roar weaves two iconic historical families together through much of the 20th century--that of Winston Churchill and Joseph Kennedy.  It  was news to me how often these families intersected on so many fronts--politically, financially  and in the bedroom.  In their worlds, Winston and Joseph and several of their respective children, were ruthless in getting what they wanted in business and politics--and the collateral damage for all was difficulty in parenting and understanding their children,  fractured marriages, money troubles,  and for Joseph, serial and flagrant affairs and questionable business dealings.  For Winston, stress and ambition contributed to "the black dog" as he described his lifelong struggle with depression.

Author Maier has a most enjoyable writing style--developing  20th century history without ever bogging down in overly long paragraphs that you have to read several times to make them stick in your head.  Maier pulls no punches in describing each families shortcomings and laudatory as well as reprehensible behaviors.  Members of the Churchill and Kennedy families met and associated with FDR, Charles Lindberg, Marilyn Monroe,  Hitler and others--and Maier's research and footnoting are beyond thorough.

When Lion's Roar is interesting enough to be a good winter's read by the fire-- and is compelling and juicy enough to be a good beach read as well.

"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."