Finding Christmas

Finding Christmas (#870) by Karen Schaler was just the kind of Christmas read I was looking for: over the top, meet-cute, sweet romance with bonus recipes and tree decorating and disposal tips (because why would anyone ever have anything but a live tree despite the expense!).

How do two Christmas-crazed adults obsessed by work find each other?  Through a Christmas scavenger hunt, of course!  The only problem is that the wrong guy is following the clues.  But we know as the readers that Sam is, in fact, the right person for Emmie.   Grant, the Seattle lawyer for whom Emmie planned the perfect Christmas get-away weekend, can't be bothered to get off his phone to wonder why Emmie hasn't shown up for their scheduled time off.  Why leave the city when there's work to do?

Emmie's managed, despite the all-encompassing community shelter programs she runs, to get away to honor her deceased parents commitment to celebrating Christmas and the good in people.  Why can't Grant see that connection?  Sam shows up instead and whole-heartedly joins in the Christmas fun.  Why can't Emmie see what's staring her in the face?

It is a fun read, even if it would be waaay too much in the real world.  There's a cute town, a cute dog, cute shops and even a cute gourmet restaurant tucked away in Christmas Point, Washington.  It's a great place to spend a little bit of your holiday, despite the author's shameless self-promotion.

25 Days 'Til Christmas

The cover of 25 Days 'Til Christmas (#869) asks the question "Will This Christmas Be Her Best Ever?" beneath a clever illustration based on an Advent Calendar.  I was expecting "a heartwarming, feel-good holiday" read.  I was badly mistaken.  This was a real Debbie Downer of a Christmas book.  Author Poppy Alexander hit almost every negative cliché in this depressing tale of an British Afghan War Widow with an autistic child, miserable, degrading minimum wage job, unable to make ends meet while fending off a lecherous boss eager to find an excuse to fire her.  Oh, and did I mention the grand-mother-in-law whose nursing home is about to give her the boot?

Yes, Kate does meet a lovely man, but she willfully refuses to give up her sacrifice of personal happiness in memory of her lost husband.  Yes, there is ultimately a  happy ending, but it comes too little, too late.  By the time she calls the Crisisline where Daniel is working the Christmas shift (of course, because he's so noble and suffering from his own loss), I wanted to commit suicide!

At least Dickens in his A Christmas Carol, spread the redemptive feeling around when Scrooge realized the error of his ways!  Kate, not so much.  She just comes off as pathetic.  If you are looking for a feel-good story, this definitely isn't it.  I'm ashamed I spent precious time finishing this one.  Bah, humbug!

We Met In December

We Met in December (#868) by Rosie Curtis is a "meet cute" romance that begins and ends over the course of a year.  Jess and Alex are both in their thirties and ready to change their lives to pursue their dreams.  For Jess, it means making a daring move to a shared house in  the Notting Hill district in London to take a job in the world of publishing.  She could never afford moving to such a posh location if the house weren't owned by her old friend Becky from university, ready to charge her only a peppercorn rent.  When she meets Alex, one of her new housemates at their pre-Christmas "get acquainted" dinner, sparks fly.  Unfortunately, along with the peppercorn rent, Becky has included in "no romance" clause in their rental agreements.  What to do?

For Alex, it's meant giving up a thriving career in a prestigious law firm to pursue nursing, a profession that makes a difference in the lives of the people it touches after witnessing the care given to his dying father.  The fly in the ointment for him is his fiancée who had planned on a home in the suburbs with the requisite 2.5 children and a dog.  That's only feasible on the income a lawyer would make, not a nurse.  Despite having set the date, the wedding is off.  Hence, Alex is recovering from a broken heart.

How will these two work out the differences between them and find out that they do belong together?  It makes for an enjoyable Christmas time read.

The Second Sleep

Robert Harris certainly has covered a wide range of history in his novels, many of which I have read with a great deal of pleasure. (See also my posts of 12/12/16 & 3/19/18.) His latest book, The Second Sleep (#867), charts new territory in science fiction in this novel set in fifteenth century England.

Father Christopher Fairfax is sent by the Bishop of Exeter to conduct the funeral services for the long-serving priest at St. George Addicott, Father Lacy.  When he finally arrives at the remote village Father Fairfax discovers a trove of forbidden books and ancient artifacts in the priest's study.  Was Father Lacy engaged in heretical activities when he fell to his death from The Devil's Chair?

Trapped in the village by a landslide which blocks the only road out, Father Fairfax begins examining the forbidden items for himself.  Who were these ancient people who could fly through the air in special carriages, and communicate over long distances with items bearing the mark of the forbidden fruit; an apple with a bite taken out of it, displayed right there in Father Lacy's cabinet of curiosities?
Everything Father Fairfax has ever learned is being called into question as he sees the evidence of a highly advanced ancient civilization with his own eyes.  What did cause the destruction of their way of life in the old-style 2020s?

I suppose The Second Sleep could also be called speculative fiction.  But however you chose to label it, it makes for an interesting and thought-provoking read.  Highly recommended.

What Rose Forgot

One of my friends recommended Nevada Barr's latest: What Rose Forgot (#866).  She said she resented being pulled away from it while she was reading it.  After reading it myself, I see exactly what she meant.

When Rose Dennis regains consciousness as the novel opens, she's in a wooded area wearing a flimsy hospital gown.  How did she get there?  She is afraid, but she doesn't know of what.  It soon becomes clear when orderlies from a local facility find her and literally drag her back.  She's been suffering from the flu, but when she is returned to the hospital, it is back to the Memory Care Unit.  Enough of the drugs has been purged from her system during her stay in the medical unit to let her realize that it's the medication causing her confusion.  Rose hides the capsules being fed to her, and plans her escape from the memory unit.  While she's out again, someone tries to kill her.  She's not crazy, so why has her family committed her to this place?  And for what purpose?  With the help of her step-granddaughter and her friend, Rose aims to find out who is behind it all...

This is a very scary novel if you happen to be a woman in your sixties, because Rose's commitment,  sedation and gradual demise are so very plausible.  Rose is made to look as though she fits the profile of a patient with dementia, so who would question it?  It's a sinister plot, and one which could so easily happen today.  A crackerjack read.

Daschund Through the Snow

Nothing says Christmas like Andy Carpenter, curmudgeonly lawyer, taking on a new case.  This year it's Daschund Through the Snow (#865) by David Rosenfelt.

It wasn't his idea - Andy planned to spend the holidays curled up in front of the TV, watching basketball on Christmas, and endless Bowl games throughout the New Year.  Blame it on his wife Laurie.  She's the one who becomes Paterson, New Jersey's, Secret Santa each year.  On a tree in a local pet store, a young boy has put his Christmas wish; a warm coat for his mother, a sweater for his dog, and for his Daddy to come home.  Since there's a dog involved, she shows the wish to Andy who agrees with her charitable urge.  But Laurie comes home after dropping off the gifts at the boy's home with a new client for Andy.  Noah Traynor, the Dad, has just been arrested for a fourteen year old cold case murder.  He claims he didn't do it, but the evidence against him puts him on the scene beyond question.  Can Andy work a Christmas miracle?  Even he isn't convinced until the bodies begin to pile up...

Entertaining as usual.  What was behind this murder so many years ago, and what is worth concealing up to the present day?  It's so much fun to watch Andy and his team at work.

A Single Thread

The "surplus women" of Britain, those who were unable to marry between the two World Wars because of the lack of available men, did not have an easy life, as movingly illustrated by Tracy Chevalier in her latest novel A Single Thread (#864).

Violet Speedwell's fiancé was killed during World War I, but because of the social conventions of the time, she was expected to look after her mother at home, and was economically dependent on her married brother.  When she decides to cut loose and requests a transfer to Winchester from her employer, she is charting new territory.  Living hand to mouth in a women's boarding house, she stumbles upon a dedication ceremony for needlepoint cushions at the glorious Winchester Cathedral.  Denied entry to the ceremony by an officious woman, Violet makes up her mind to join this exclusive group for the sake of gaining entry.  She succeeds, and by doing so, meets friends and finds a new purpose in her own life.

I love this book.  The details of the embroidery project were fascinating to me, since I participated in a similar project in New England.  What was new to me was the intricacy of bell-ringing.  I have heard the changes rung, but it is an art which is not so common in the United States - there are so few places where this kind of activity is even possible.  And I was so happy for Violet in the end.  She created her own happiness out of so very little.

But here comes the nit: it's about the cover art.  While Ms. Chevalier gets the facts correct in her story, why couldn't the cover artist do the same?  In a book about needlepoint, the cover is adorned with crewel work.  Most people would shrug their shoulders and say "What's the difference?".  To a needlewoman, that's like asking a sports fanatic what difference the shape of the ball makes between basketball and football.  The devil is in the details.

A Christmas Gathering

I look forward annually to reading Anne Perry's Christmas novella.  This year's offering is A Christmas Gathering (#863).

Lady Vespasia Grey and her husband Victor Narraway are invited to spend the Christmas holiday at Cavendish House, a beautiful country estate with acres of gardens.  Neither is pleased to be there, but Lady Vespasia understands that this social gathering has something to do with Victor's previous post as head of Britain's Special Branch.  When disastrous events from Victor's past seem destined to play themselves out again, Lady Vespasia realizes that she must step in to save everything she loves.

One of the reasons I love this Christmas series so much is that Ms. Perry always manages to wrap a good mystery story around a moral message.  This time it's forgiveness and letting go of the past.  I feel better for having read and digested these lessons.  Her books are more than a pretty Christmas confection and therein lies the satisfaction.

Beyond the Call; The True Story of One World War II Pilot's Covert Mission to Rescue POWs on the Eastern Front

It seems I was destined to read Lee Trimble and Jeremy Dronfield's non-fiction work Beyond the Call (#862).  Although this book was published in 2015, it somehow got mis-shelved with the NEW non-fiction books at my library.  It was quite the read.

Robert Trimble never talked much about his experiences during the War.  But after a bad fall at home, his son Lee Trimble realized that if he was ever going to preserve his father's memories for the children and grandchildren, he has better start recording those recollections soon.  When his father mentioned time spent in Russia, and a French Croix de Guerre was found in his dad's souvenir box, Lee learned that there was a lot more to his father's war time service than he had ever been told.  Beyond the Call tells of the clandestine services Captain Robert Trimble performed in Poland after completing his required thirty-five bombing missions successfully.  Rather than going home to be with his wife and baby daughter whom he had not yet met, Trimble was persuaded by his commanding officer to "re-up" for a post salvaging and ferrying damaged American airplanes to an outpost in Russia, where they could be repaired and sent on.  No heavy lifting required, and it would keep him out of combat for the duration of the war, then winding to a close.

The reality turned out to be far, far different and put him squarely in harm's way in Red-occupied territory newly liberated from the Germans.  His real mission was to find American and British POWs who had either been shot down or liberated from Prison Camps by the Russians who either ignored them or re-jailed them along with captured German soldiers.  As bad as the Nazis had been, the Poles in the surrounding countryside feared the Russians more, with good reason as Robert Trimble found for himself.  How he was able to smuggle desperate POWs out of Russia right under their noses, and with every conceivable obstacle placed in his path makes for riveting reading.

It wasn't a pretty war from any perspective, but this little-known episode at the tail end of the war is worth knowing about.

Doctor Dogs

Doctor Dogs (#861) is Maria Goodavage's latest volume about working dogs, and it is a fascinating read.  We meet dogs who alert diabetics to high and low blood sugars, warn epilepsy sufferers that they are about to have a seizure, sniff out cancers and other diseases, and calm and buffer owners with PTSD and other mental illnesses.

Most of the dogs here are highly trained for their work.  Just as drug-sniffing dogs are used in law enforcement to find contraband items, some health canines can be trained to find specific scents, like those bacteria which cause serious hospital infections.  Whether the problems are physical or mental, dogs seem to have an ability to sense it in their humans and respond to alert their owners or others who can help.

Ms. Goodavage traveled all over the world to meet the researchers, trainers and dogs themselves in health issues in a variety of settings from private homes to labs to hospitals to court rooms.  And it seems that the door is just beginning to open to the roles which dogs (and yes, other animals as well) can play in keeping humans healthy.

Some dogs are already doing it without formal training, as several anecdotes in her book prove.  When I recently had an imaging test at my local clinic, somehow the tech who was handling my exam and I got into a discussion about Doctor Dogs.  She told me that when her mother had come to visit her a few years ago, her dog kept right by her mother's left leg, and every time her mother sat down, her dog would begin to lick her left foot.  The tech made her mother promise to see her doctor after she returned home.  Sure enough, her mother had circulatory problems in her left leg, with an ulcer which refused to heal.  The tech's dog had never been trained to alert to any health problems, but she certainly was able to sniff out something wrong in her "grandmother".  The tech was convinced of her dog's role in diagnosing her mother's problem and prompting her to seek swift medical attention.

Plus, one other thing I really liked about this book was the cover art - a smiling Golden (Don't they all look like they are smiling?) with a stethoscope draped around his neck.  It's an appealing cover - The Dog is In!

The Years of Rice and Salt

I decided to read Kim Stanley Robinson's science fiction classic The Years of Rice and Salt (#860) for two reasons: it was listed on GoodReads list of 100 Top Science Fiction Books, and when I recently read Robert Crais's latest  Elvis Cole/Joe Pike thriller A Dangerous Man (See my post of October 23, 2019.) his dedication was to Kim Stanley Robinson.  The premise of the novel was intriguing; what if Western Civilization died out during the period of the Black Death in the Middle Ages, so that the modern world evolved from other cultures instead?  Sign me up!

Alas, I found this ponderous tome disappointing, and the writing uneven.  It began with an interesting story of a member of Tamerlane's Golden Horde discovering with his scouting party that the Hungarians they were planning to conquer were all dead.  Alas, this episode ended all too soon, and the characters spent inordinate amounts of time in the book in the bardo, a place between incarnations that does not sound like a place you would want to spend any time.  At first there is a thread to tie the characters in each episode together as they reincarnate as a group - a jati - of souls traveling together throughout eternity.  That soon peters out, and in the last three to four hundred pages, it becomes less narrative and more textbook treatises on Islamic philosophy and physics with some Buddhism and North American native cultural norms thrown in for good measure.  It was so tedious, I can't believe I spent literally weeks to finish this book.  In contrast, I actually enjoyed reading Stephen Hawkings' A Brief History of Time (See my post of August 13, 2016.).  This I did not.

Beloved

Toni Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Beloved (#859).  Since no one in my book club had ever succeeded in making it all the way through one of her books, this seemed like a good choice to sample.

I'm glad I read it.  I am equally glad that I will not have to ever read anything else in her oeuvre.  I found it weird in every sense of that word.  Enough said.

A Dangerous Man

In Robert Crais' latest Elvis Cole and Joe Pike thriller, A Dangerous Man (#858) when Joe Pike rescues a bank clerk from her abductors shortly after leaving that bank, he finds he has bitten off more than he can chew.  Isabel Roland has been targeted, but the reason is a mystery, especially to Isabel herself.  When she is snatched a second time, Pike calls in his partner Elvis Cole to find out who and what are behind the kidnappings, especially when the original kidnappers turn up dead, killed execution style.

In typical Crais fashion, the plot hums along, jumping from viewpoint to viewpoint to keep the reader up on the action.  Run-ins with law enforcement and the criminal element abound as the body count mounts and Isabel is in constant danger.  With some help from the right friends, the picture comes into focus, but at a definite cost to Pike.

It took me no time at all to read A Dangerous Man.  I simply had to find out what happened next.  In the end, justice was served and Cole and Pike both survive for further adventures.  Robert Crais is a master of this genre.

Bark of Night

Ironically, the French bull dog who kicks off the action in David Rosenfelt's latest Andy Carpenter mystery Bark of Night (#857) doesn't bark here; he bites.  Go figure.

When Andy is called into his vet's office after his beloved golden retriever Tara undergoes a biopsy for a lump, he is expecting the worst possible news.  Instead, Dr. Dowling introduces him to Truman, a perfectly healthy French bull dog dropped off at the office to be euthanized.  Dr. Dowling doesn't want to kill the dog, but he wonders why the owner didn't drop Truman off at someplace like Andy's rescue shelter, The Tara Foundation.  So does Andy, but he is soon embroiled in defending a young man from a murder charge which the police think is a slam dunk.  He's more interested in tracking down the man who left Truman with Dr. Dowling under a false name, but when his case begins to intersect with Truman's past history and he grows convinced of Joey Gamble's innocence it's evident that something very bad is behind the chain of events.

As usual, the gang is all here, and there's plenty of snappy dialog and dangerous twists and turns.  Another satisfying read from David Rosenfelt.  No wonder it's one of my favorite series!

Dog Is Love - Why and How Your Dog Loves You

Clive D. L. Wynne is an academic canine behaviorist, but don't let that scare you away from reading this work based on his research , but couched in everyday terms.  If you've ever experienced the love of a furry friend, Dog Is Love - Why and How Your Dog Loves You (#856) goes about proving why dogs are genetically predisposed to love us.

Much of his work revolves around comparing dog and wolf - the dog's nearest relative - behaviors in regards to their interactions with humans.  Dr. Wynne has traveled across the globe to meet with other scientists doing research in related fields.  The results are laid out for the reader, even though most dog owners sense the truth of his findings instinctively through interactions with their own pets.

I found this book fascinating even though I've never owned a dog myself, and probably never will.  But I still manage to get my canine fix on my morning walk around our neighborhood.  It's a truism that in our largely isolated communities, much bridging of the gap between neighbors is achieved through our dogs.  Most people if asked can tell you the name of the animals they regularly encounter, if not the names of their human owners!

Read this book for the insight it will bring to your own relationship with your dog, and find out what you can do to improve their lot in our own society.  We owe them quite a debt.

Thereby Hangs a Tail

My local library is filling in the gaps in some of my favorite mystery series, including Spencer Quinn's amusing Chet and Bernie series, and Thereby Hangs a Tail (#855).  This is an earlier book in the on-going series.  Chet the Jet is on the case with his human PI partner Bernie to solve a dog napping.

Bernie has already been fired by Countess Adelina di Borghese as a bodyguard for herself and her prize-winning show dog Princess when the two are kidnapped in a remote mountain location.  When Bernie's reporter girlfriend Suzie Sanchez alerts him to a story about the huge dog show about to take place in the city, Bernie belatedly admits to himself that there could be danger involved for his former clients.  Unfortunately, his insight comes too late, and not only are the Countess and Princess missing, so is Suzie!  Chet, of course, is key to solving the case at great personal risk to himself.  Neither he nor Bernie escape without damage to themselves or the perps...

I just love the humor in these books.  They make me laugh out loud at Chet's antics and Bernie's cluelessness when it comes to women.  If you've ever lived with a dog, you're sure to recognize Chet's goofy behavior and profound loyalty to those he loves.  This is one of the mystery series I always recommend to friends looking for a well-plotted and paced read.  Haven't come across any of my friends yet who haven't responded to these engaging books.

Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith

Deborah Heiligman's joint autobiography of Charles and Emma Darwin is written for a Young Adult audience.  My book club decided to read it because it is the absolute favorite book of an older member.  Though interesting, I am afraid Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith (#854) would never even make my top One Hundred Book List.

The main thrust of the book is how the Darwins managed to have a happy marriage despite Charles' loss of faith in God as Creator or organized religion in general as he voyaged on The Beagle and began to formulate his theory of evolution.  Emma, on the other hand, who was deeply religious for most of her life, fretted over whether they would ever meet again in the next world (Always supposing that there was one!) if he was not a believer.  The author never does satisfactorily resolve that issue here.  They die fourteen years apart with no revelations on Emma's part as she breathes her last.  Where does that leave Ms. Heiligman's target audience of teenagers?  Believe or don't?  I suppose that one could argue that Charles Darwin was given a hero's funeral and buried in Westminster Cathedral, with his books and journals never having been out of print since their publication, so perhaps one might come down on the side of the unbelievers here.  Hmm...

I will leave this overly saccharine tome to those who prefer to leave critical thinking aside.

A Lady's Guide to Gossip and Murder

A Lady's Guide to Gossip and Murder (#853) is the second entry in Dianne Freeman's Countess of Harleigh mystery series.

Frances Wynn is one of the American Dollar Princesses, married into the British aristocracy for her money and then ignored by her husband after the briefest of honeymoons.  Her husband is now dead, so Lady Harleigh is free to enjoy London in her own house with her daughter Rose and an endless stream of company.

Life is a whirl of activities with her sister Lily on the verge of an engagement, Lily's friend Lottie dropped off with Frances by her scandalous mother on her way to Paris.  While her Aunt Hetty, a financial wizard, has taken over the library and is busy straightening out the financial muddle of Frances' brother-in-law Graham.  Meetings with handsome neighbor George Hazleton whose mysterious  work for the government always seem to  manage to involve her assistance.  That proves to be especially true when a friend, Mary Archer, is found murdered in her own home and Frances' cousin Charles Evingdon is a person of interest to the police in the matter.  What could Mary have been doing that led to her death?

It's all light and frothy fun here, with more than a hint of romance all around.  It's a most diverting tale.

An Easy Death

Leave it to Charlaine Harris to put a supernatural spin on a Western genre novel in her An Easy Death (#852) and make it work.  This book came out in 2018, and the expectation is that Gunnie Lizbeth Rose will be the lead character in a new series set in an alternative America broken into large and largely lawless territories, where a professional gunslinger for hire can be a lucrative profession if one lives long enough.

After Lizbeth's crew is killed on the job, Gunnie picks up the mission by herself and completes it successfully.  Sitting at home isn't paying the bills, though, so when an opportunity to act as guide and bodyguard for a couple of Russian wizards searching Texoma for another Russian wizard comes along, Lizbeth isn't in a position to refuse it, despite her feelings about the grigori.

It's an exciting trek through sparse country with danger lurking behind every rock and tumbleweed, not least from her clients themselves.  Gunnie is very young, but she's had to learn fast.  The fate of the Holy Russian Empire is up for grabs and Lizbeth, unbeknownst to her clients, has a very personal stake in it all.

I'm not usually a reader of Westerns, but I did enjoy this book with its familiar landscape and touches of magic.  Chances are, if you liked Sookie Stackhouse in Ms. Harris' True Blood series, you'll embrace Gunnie Rose.

The Right Sort of Man

At first glance, both the cover and the title (The Right Sort of Man  #851) of Allison Montclair's new mystery would suggest that it is light chick-lit fare.  Happily, it turned out to be much more than that.

Just after the end of WWII in a London still plagued by shortages of most goods and food, two women meet by chance at a wedding.  Gwendolyn Bainbridge is an aristocratic widow with a son, while Iris Sparks has many unusual skills she acquired during the war, but which she "cannot talk about".  On the strength of that meeting, the unlikely pair decide to go into business together.  What is needed more after the disruptions and losses of the previous years than a safe way to meet a partner interested in a long-term commitment?  Thus the Right Sort Marriage Bureau is born.

When a young woman new to the agency is murdered on her very first date with another Bureau client, the police find evidence and arrest the young man in question.  The only problem is that both Iris and Gwen are convinced that mild-mannered Dickie Trower couldn't possibly have been the murderer.  The only way to prevent Mr. Trower from hanging for a crime he didn't commit is to find the real assailant.  As they investigate, the women are drawn into a murky world of post-war intrigue and crime.  Soon their own lives are in jeopardy...

I really hope that The Right Sort of Man is not the only appearance of Gwen and Iris.  Besides being a well-plotted mystery, the setting of grimy London in the war's aftermath is unusual.  The characters, both good and bad, are intriguing and well-drawn.  Ms. Montclair keeps dropping tidbits about Iris and Gwen's pasts, and the high stakes both professional and personal of making a success of their fledgling business.  You can't help but root for them and their championship of their lonely client.   A most enjoyable read!

A Capitol Death

I have been eagerly awaiting Lindsey Davis' latest addition to her Flavia Albia mystery series.  A Capitol Death (#850) did not disappoint.

The Emperor Domitian is back in town, ready to Triumph over the Dacians and Chattians, and the details had better be right, never mind that there are neither captives nor treasure to parade before the crowds.  As an aedile, Flavia's new husband Tiberius Manlius Faustus is one of the officials charged with putting on a good show.  When a man topples off the Tarpeian Rock at the end of the Triumphal route in the midst of preparations, inquires must be made, so Tiberius delegates the matter (officially!) to Flavia Albia to clear up before the Triumph.

There is no shortage of suspects in Gabinus' death, but when a second murder occurs on the Capitoline Hill, and the body is tossed off the Tarpeian Rock it muddies the waters of the investigation.  Surely the deaths are linked, but how?  Something about the deaths stinks.  Literally.  Will Flavia be able to untangle the mystery in time?

I love Lindsey Davis' combination of snark, engaging characters and mysteries that leave the reader  guessing until the end.  Much as I enjoyed her Marcus Didius Falco series (Marcus is Flavia's adoptive father.) in many ways I like this series even better.  It's told from a female perspective in the male-dominated world of Imperial Rome, with insights into different aspects of Roman life.  Flavia Albia is also an outsider.  Much as her parents want her to appear to be a well-brought up young Roman matron, she can never entirely shed her former life as an orphan living on the mean streets of Londinium, allowing her to think outside the narrow box of Roman society.  It makes for a thoroughly engaging series.  Highly recommended.

The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs

I devoured the entwined tales of Salem witchcraft and modern academia in The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. Katherine Howe has produced an equally enthralling sequel in The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs (#849).  Appropriately enough for reading during a hurricane, one of the major plot devices here is an ancient charm called The Weather Work.

Constance Goodwin is back, no longer an eager graduate student, but a settled professor at Northeastern University, about to be considered for tenure.  She is still with Sam, who literally fell into her life in the previous book.  Life seems to be going well until Connie is asked to mentor a Harvard graduate student in Early American History.

Academic jealousies and unresolved issues from Connie's own doctoral work come to a head when new discoveries lead to danger to both Connie and those she loves.  Is she strong enough to solve the mysteries of her own background and protect what she values most?

I loved the New England background and the peculiar history of the Salem witch trials and their aftermath.  Here they are cleverly woven into Connie's personal background even though she is convinced she is the most rational being she knows.  Conflicts abound, as does more than a whiff of the occult.  A most satisfying read, and a worthy follow up to The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane.

(The only thing I didn't buy in this book was Connie's love of the Northeastern University campus.  Yes, it's great to be able to wander up the street to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and get in with a student ID.  (How I miss being a member down in Florida!) But I did my post-graduate work myself there, and I found it rather a bleak and impersonal place.  Just my opinion - I know there are many proud alums out there!)

The Marriage Clock

In Zara Raheem's The Marriage Clock (#848) Leila Abid's parents want her to be happy.  For them, this of course means marriage to a suitable South Asian Muslim.  But Leila has been raised in Los Angeles with American values, and she's not at all sure she wants to be married.  She's happy teaching English literature to her teenage students and feeling she's making a difference in some of their lives.  Besides, she's never yet gone on a date she liked enough to pursue a relationship.

As her parents' thirtieth anniversary approaches, Leila's ammi ramps up the pressure to meet a suitable mate to an unbearable degree, even going so far as to ambush her with friends' sons, and to take her to a professional matchmaker!  Finally, Leila is driven to offer a compromise; if they will let her find a possible husband on her own in the three months left before their anniversary, everyone will be happy.  If she cannot, she will allow her parents (meaning her mother!) to choose her a husband.  The marriage clock is ticking...

I have to admit, I found Leila's character to be way too whiny for my taste.  If she was so set on choosing her own husband material, she certainly didn't seem to be making much of an effort to find one on her own despite numerous suggestions from her circle of friends.  I almost gave up on this book halfway through, and all I was looking for was something light and amusing to get me through a storm; since I was trapped inside, I did go ahead and finish the book, and I was pleasantly surprised when the ending redeemed the story and finally Leila found the gumption to be true to herself.

Out of Africa

Out of Africa (#847) by Isak Dinesen is considered a classic memoir.  It was made into a movie starring Meryl Streep as Baroness Karen Blixen, the author's real name, and Robert Redford as her love interest Denys Finch Hatton.  I have vague recollections of seeing it when it came out, but we were unable to find a copy of the movie to see, so I got the book instead.  (They always tend to be better than any cinema version, anyway!)  It was recommended reading before our upcoming trip to Copenhagen, as we will be visiting her home.

It was interesting reading on many different levels.  For the time period, think Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen.  Isak Dinesen went out to Africa to get married prior to World War I.  Curiously, she only uses the word "husband" twice in her memoir, more than halfway through, once to note that he had volunteered to serve with the British forces in Africa, and once that he had sent back to the farm for supplies during the war.  Otherwise, the reader would assume that the Baroness ran the coffee farm completely on her own, managing with a staff of Natives, and enjoying  an active social life in and around Nairobi.

Of course, her many anecdotes of her interactions with those Natives read oddly to the modern mind.  It was still the age of Colonialism when her memoirs came out in the 30s.  In her era, I imagine Karen Blixen was regarded as rather progressive in her attitudes.

That also seems to be the case in her relationship with Denys Finch Hatton.  He was away leading Safaris most of the time, so he had no set home except with Karen Blixen on her farm, where he kept his books and mementos.  Together, they would fly over the hills and plains of the vast country in his small airplane.  He only refused to take her up with him once; as it turned out, it was prescient.  He was killed in a crash on that flight.  When Karen went into Nairobi for a lunch date just after it happened, no one would talk to her; no one had the courage to tell her that Finch Hatton had been killed.  She spends much time in her memoir on her mourning of this man, yet not a single word about her husband; not even his name or what happened to him!

She was eventually forced to leave Africa when her coffee farm failed and the debts mounted to such an extent her farm and belongings were sold out from beneath her.  She might have left Africa physically, but Africa never left her.

This memoir relies on its readers having a broad classics background, and a good knowledge of Scripture to keep up with her many metaphors and allusions, something not as common in today's world as it would have been when first published.  It is a unique glimpse into a world long gone.

Beneath a Scarlet Sky

It's no wonder Mark Sullivan's novel Beneath a Scarlet Sky (#846) spent so much time on the New York Times Best Sellers List.  Based on Italian teenager Pino Lella's actual World War II experiences, the narrative is both intense and brutal, recounting Pino's unsung heroics.

Milan had been largely untouched until the war drew on towards its final dreadful struggles under Mussolini and his Fascists.  As the Nazi presence grew larger in response to loosing ground to the Allies in Italy and elsewhere, it finally became a target for bombing.  Pino had just met the girl of his dreams, Anna.  That was the most important thing on his mind the night of the first bombardment.  In order to protect him and his younger brother, his well-to-do parents sent the boys to Casa Alpina high in the mountains.  There he became involved with Father Re's efforts to smuggle Jews out of Italy and over the border to nearby Switzerland.  Not exactly the isolated study center Pino's parents had had in mind.  When he neared his eighteenth birthday, Pino was abruptly summoned home and forced by his parents to enlist in the German army to save him from the draft that would have sent him to the front immediately as cannon fodder.  As luck would have it, recovering from a minor wound, Pino suddenly finds himself personal driver to the mysterious Brigadier General Leyers, high up in the Nazi command structure.  He is also perfectly positioned to spy for the Italian partisans, his role known only to his uncle Albert who recruited him.  Pino's life over the next several years is harrowing, to say the least.  He finds Anna again, only to lose her in a most terrible way, leaving him to doubt himself and his God.

I know very little about WWII and how it affected Italy, so this book was interesting on that level alone.  Pino's story and how it came to be written many years after the fact is astonishing.  How Pino survived the war is a miracle all by itself.  How many others he may have saved through his courageous actions is not known.  Their stories told here are worth reading.

The Starless Sea

It didn't take me more than a few pages of reading The Starless Sea (#845) by Erin Morgenstern to remind me why I loved The Night Circus (See my post of 5/7/12.) so much.  It's been a long wait between books.

This novel revolves around a vast underground world filled with books and stories.  It's dying, but there are those on the surface who are eager to hurry its demise along.  Zachary Ezra Rawlins, a New England graduate student, is unwittingly pulled into the arcane politics at play here when he finds an uncatalogued book in the college library stacks.  As he begins to read the battered old volume, he realizes that that some of the stories in the book are about him.  Who wrote it, and how did they know what he did when he was younger so precisely?

If you are looking for an ordinary book with a chronological narrative, The Starless Sea is not for you.  Erin Morgenstern uses many short stories and anecdotes to weave her tale.  At first, the connections between these fairy tales and hero legends are not apparent, but gradually the threads tying the narratives together become apparent through symbols and metaphors.  The stories themselves are enchanting.  Who can resist a place piled with stacks and stacks of books everywhere, beeswax candles, and a Kitchen which can instantly produce the most delicious snacks and beverages?  Add in a mysterious young women with pink hair, a Keeper whose job it is to look after things, a man lost in time, the Owl King and cats, lots of cats, and you have a small idea of some of the pleasures that await between the pages of The Starless Sea.

It's been a long time coming, but The Starless Sea was well worth the wait.

Time After Time

Lisa Grunwald's latest novel, Time After Time (#844) is both a ghost story and a tribute to Grand Central Terminal in New York City.  She says she found the idea for this story when browsing in the Columbia University stacks and came upon a non-fiction volume about Grand Central Station while researching a different book.   There she found an anecdote about a distraught young women who showed up at 4:00 a.m..  A kind terminal employee escorted her home to her aunt's place just a few blocks away, but she vanished on the way there.  After searching fruitlessly for her, he knocked on the aunt's door, only to be told that this had happened for thirty-eight years on that date, the day her niece was killed in a gas explosion while Grand Central was under construction.  Ms. Grunwald took this idea and ran with it.

Nora Lansing appears early one December morning in the middle of Grand Central's Main Concourse.  Joe Reynolds, hurrying on his way to a prayer meeting on Track 13 before he begins his shift as a leverman, thinks she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.  But there is something not quite right about her; her dress is old-fashioned, and on this cold morning, where are her coat and handbag?  He stops to see if he can help her.  She seems confused, but asks to be escorted home to Turtle Bay Gardens, a swanky area of New York City.  They don't get very far from the station when they are confronted by a mugger.  By the time Joe has dealt with him, Nora is gone, leaving only his coat behind on the sidewalk where he last saw her.  It would be several years before he sees her again...

Nora and Joe do find a way to be together within the confines of Grand Central Terminal as they gradually figure out the parameters of their relationship. Even the celestial phenomenon of Manhattanhenge plays a role in their story.  Love and sacrifice bind them together and tear them apart.  Time is the ultimate metaphor here.  It's an intriguing love story.

The Islanders

Looking for the perfect hammock read?  Meg Mitchell Moore's The Islanders (#843) may be just the book you're looking for.

Set on Block Island, a ferry's ride away from Rhode Island, we meet three strangers for one pivotal summer.  Anthony is a writer with a scandal in his past.  Block Island is the perfect place to hide out in a friend's borrowed cottage.  Lu, in the summer rental cottage next door, is a stay-at-home mom with two boys and a doctor husband commuting to the mainland to complete his residency.  She also has a big secret of her own. Trying to keep her secret from her husband and her prying mother-in-law with her own key to the cottage is a constant struggle for Lu.  Joy and her thirteen year old daughter Maggie are the only year round island residents in the mix.  Joy owns and operates the island's only whoopie pie café.  Just when she's beginning to get her head above water financially, a roving food truck muscles in on her turf during peak tourist season.  Not only is the food truck cutting into her bottom line, but the sixteen year old son of the owners is a magnet for Maggie.

Because so much of the novel is about food, how can I resist using the metaphor of an onion as the layers of secrets each of the characters are keeping are slowly peeled away.  Anthony, Lu and Joy develop relationships with each other, and confide some secrets, but not others.  Everything is seemingly going so well for everyone in the middle of the book that you know that it just can't last...

I thoroughly enjoyed this seaside romance, maybe because so many of the places Ms. Moore mentions here are so familiar, even though I've never been to Block Island myself.  But Point Judith?  Many fond memories!  Boston University?  Proud alum.  RL Julia in Madison, Connecticut?  My sister-in-law introduced me to this outstanding bookstore several years ago.  You get the drift.

My one bone to pick with this book also concerns food, though.  According to the author, the idea of a whoopie pie café is based on the real life success of Chococoa Baking Company and Café in Newburyport, Massachusetts.  Why weren't they in business before I moved south?  In my prepublication copy of The Islanders, there is a page left intentionally blank for a whoopie pie recipe.  Hopefully it will be published in the copy you read.  It's a good thing I have a copy of America's Test Kitchen The Perfect Cookie cookbook with recipes (Updated with no Crisco or trans fats in sight!) for both the traditional chocolate whoopie pie, and the fantastic pumpkin mini whoopie pies with cream cheese filling.  Yum!  Yes, of course I had to bake them after reading about Joy Bombs!  However, one of the characters writes a food blog DinnerByDad  (It's fictional; I checked online.) and talks about developing amazing recipes.  Where are the recipes from that food blog which had me drooling while I was reading??!!  A few of those would have been a brilliant addition to a book that makes you feel like you've spent the summer on Block Island along with the rest of these colorful characters.

Enjoy!  What's not to like?

The Summer Country

Lauren Willig, with her latest novel, The Summer Country (#842), has finally written her "...M.M. Kaye meets The Thorn Birds book!"  It is, indeed, an epic and entertaining tale, full of secrets.

Set amongst the lavish life styles of the sugar plantation owners and the extreme poverty of their slaves and ex-slaves on the island of Barbados, the cat is set among the pigeons when newcomer Emily Dawson and her cousin Adam Fenty and his wife arrive in Bridgetown in 1854.  When Jonathan Fenty, the head of a successful import/export company dies in Bristol, England, he leaves the business to Adam to carry on.  What no one expected was his legacy to Emily, the poor relation of the family, but Fenty's favorite granddaughter: the deed to a plantation on the island of Barbados, Perverills.  When the English cousins arrive on the island, they are greeted by their grandfather's trusted business partner, London Turner.  The expectation is that Emily will sell Peverills immediately.  Instead, she chooses to inspect her property before making a decision.  The Davenants, owners of the neighboring plantation, Beckles, invite the cousins to stay there, since Peverills turns out to be a burned-out ruin, but Emily senses that there is more at play here than simple hospitality.  The answers to what happened at Peverills lie in the past, during a slave uprising in 1816.

The novel alternates between events in 1854, when slavery has been abolished on Barbados and Emily is deciding whether her destiny is on Barbados or back in England, and forty years earlier, a time when the economy depended on slavery in 1812, blighting the lives of both owners and the enslaved.  The past is not so far away, after all...

I really enjoyed spending time engrossed in Ms. Willig's story-telling.  Does everyone get what they deserve here?  Probably not, but it is still satisfying when old wrongs are finally righted.  If you ever breathlessly read and hung on The Thorn Birds, or M.M. Kaye's classic The Far Pavilions or Trade Winds, The Summer Country is a worthy successor.  Stake out a shady spot to settle in, with a cool drink at hand.

Save Me the Plums

Save Me the Plums (#841) is Ruth Reichl's latest memoir about her time as editor of the now defunct Gourmet magazine.  I must confess that I subscribed to the rival publication Bon Appetit, but I do own and love the Gourmet Cookbook which was published under her aegis.  It's a fascinating read, and not at all what she (or I!) imagined publishing a cooking/lifestyle magazine would be like.

She first discovered the magazine in an old book shop with her father and became entranced with the writing in a 1940s edition.  When it later morphed into a "ladies who do lunch" publication with recipes they could pass along to their cooks, she gave up on it.  How many people have that kind of lifestyle?  It wasn't until she was brought in as its publisher that things changed and the magazine underwent a renaissance.  That is until the recession and e-publishing took their toll.  Ruth Reichl was there the day that this iconic magazine ceased publication.

I really savored reading this one.  I will be trying at least one of the recipes she included here; if you're hooked on cooking, you're always looking for the next great recipe to try.  Here's someone who gets that.

The Spies of Shilling Lane

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Jennifer Ryan's latest novel The Spies of Shilling Lane (#840).  She also wrote The Chilbury Ladies' Choir (See my post of 12/27/2017.), which I loved and regretted leaving on my "To Read" pile for so long before I got around to it.  This is yet another World War II novel, but instead of being grim and earnest as so many of them seem to be, this one was infused with humor and warmth.  If you loved the recent Dear Mrs. Bird (See my post of 8/7/2018.), you should definitely add The Spies of Shilling Lane to your reading list.

Mrs. Braithwaite has just been served with divorce papers by her philandering husband. The ladies in her small English village of Ashcombe take this opportunity to push Mrs. Braithwaite out of her position as head of the Women's Volunteer Service League, bossing everyone else around.  When her rival threatens to reveal a secret concerning Mrs. Braithwaite's daughter Betty if she won't step down, she knows that the time has come to go to London to tell Betty that secret before some one else from Ashcombe has the chance to spill the beans.  The problem is, when she arrives in London, Betty's landlord Mr. Norris informs her that Betty has been missing for several days.  Where is she?  And why has no one reported her missing?  Mrs. Braithwaite bullies the timid Mr. Norris into helping her sort out where Betty could be and lands them both in the middle of a dangerous situation...

It's a treat to watch Mrs. Braithwaite change as she is confronted with the daily dangers Londoners face.  There are real spies, indeed!  With Betty in mortal danger, Mrs. B. is also forced to examine her own values and what is most important in life.  She blooms in the midst of the rubble of bombed out London.  I really hated to see this book end, which is the highest compliment I can pay.  I can't wait to see what Ms. Ryan writes about next!

Comfort Me With Apples

Comfort Me With Apples (#839) is a Ruth Reichl memoir published in 2001, and it covers part of her life in a Berkeley commune with her first husband Doug, a rising star in the art world, and her early years as restaurant critic for  the Los Angeles Times.  She certainly has led an unconventional life, with a considerably broader palate than mine.  Even if you don't always agree with her tastes or actions, she knows how to grab her reader's attention and not let it go until the final page.  As to the recipes she includes with each chapter - not so much.

She includes in this memoir the affairs that led eventually to her divorce from her first husband.  Who wouldn't be bowled over by stay in Paris with no expense spared, dining in the finest restaurants and staying at luxurious hotels most of us will only read about?  Her second marriage leads to futile attempts to have a child, and when that fails, to a private adoption handled by an expensive Los Angeles attorney who doesn't get it right.  Reichl and her husband are forced to give back their child to the biological parents.  It takes a long time to recover from that loss, but there is a happy ending here.

If you enjoy reading about, preparing or eating wonderful food, and want to know more about the people who make these fabulous meals possible, this memoir will reward you with many entertaining stories.

The Trial of Lizzie Borden - A True Story

The Trial of Lizzie Borden - A True Story (#838) by Cara Robertson began its life as a senior thesis when the author was attending Harvard.  Now an attorney herself, she has returned to a trial which has always fascinated her - the ax murders of Andrew Borden and his wife Abby in their Fall River home in 1892.  Andrew's youngest daughter, Lizzie, was put on trial for the  murders.  She was acquitted, but no one else was ever arrested in the matter.  The question remains, if Lizzie didn't do it, who did?

The trial was a sensation in its day, covered by all the major Boston and New York newspapers as well as the local press.  This book is evidence that the furor has never completely died down.  Books, movies, songs, opera, ballet and even a musical have been made about the events of that fateful August day.  I certainly grew up on the legends of Fall River, devouring every book in my local Massachusetts library.

If you are a fan of true crime literature hoping for a big reveal in this volume, you'll go away disappointed.  Lizzie's guilt or innocence is left for the reader to judge.  Maybe I've watched one too many crime drama on TV, but I know what my opinion is.  There were way too many discrepancies in the testimonies allowed at trial, and evidence and testimony which seemed relevant were disallowed.  I think Lizzie did it and got away with murder.  Much of the trial proceedings seemed biased in Lizzie Borden's favor as a well-to-do young woman involved in Christian charitable work.  Abby Borden's murder was treated as an afterthought, despite Lizzie's known ill will towards her stepmother.

I did find this an interesting read, though  In fact, one of my favorite quotes comes from Elizabeth Jordan, a journalist covering the trial for The New York World, commenting on the women spectators, "They bring cruilers [sic] and cookies and other New England food atrocities in their pockets, and actually camp out and lunch on the scene of the battle."  I personally am fond of crullers myself,  stick-shaped donuts which are especially good with cold apple cider.  It does make me wonder what on earth else those ladies could have had concealed in their pockets.  They certainly wouldn't have made it through the security check lines in today's courthouses!

Interesting note on the cover art on The Trial of Lizzie Borden: descriptions of Lizzie's appearance at the trial note that she appeared wearing dark clothing, black gloves and a black lace hat with red berries.  The cover model gets the apparel details right, but personally, judging from photographs of the real Lizzie Borden, she's much too attractive!

The Secret of the Irish Castle

The Secret of the Irish Castle (#837) by Santa Montefiore is the third and final book in her Irish Deverill Castle series.  Don't attempt to read this without at least having read the previous book, The Daughters of Ireland (See my post of 7/4/19.)  It would more aptly be named The Secrets... because there are many.

Like the prequel, the action centers around Kitty Deverill Trench, Bridie Doyle (now the Countess of Marcantonio, and owner of Deverill Castle) and Celia Deverill.  The plot moves from the 1930s ahead to the 50s following the fortunes of the Deverill clan.  Dastardly plots are revealed, hatreds fanned and forgiven, and the reader finds out whether or not the family curse on the Deverills is finally lifted.

Again, I can't believe I spent the time required to read two out of  the three volumes of this trilogy.  I despised most of the characters by the end for their selfishness, greed and amorality.  They are truly an ugly bunch in spirit, if not in body (Of course they are all gorgeous and well-groomed!).  It certainly does help things along when one has bottomless pots of money!

JoJo Moyes contributes a cover blurb which reads "Nobody does epic romance like Santa Montefiore."  Sorry, but I don't think multiple adulteries with a stone-cold killer or a terrorist (on the part of at least three of the characters!) qualifies as "romance".  I found the affairs quite sordid and distasteful, despite the effort to glamorize it as "true love".  It's not.  Find something more worthwhile to read is my advice.

The Daughters of Ireland

I stumbled upon The Daughters of Ireland (#836) in my pile of "To Read" books after I picked up Santa Montefiore's The Secret of the Irish Castle (See my post of 7/4/19.) at the library.  I realized that it was the third book in a trilogy, so I dug out The Daughters.  Since virtually all of the action of the first book, The Girl in the Castle is rehashed here, I see no reason to go back and read more of the same.

In the first twenty-three pages we have murder, infidelity, rape, arson, illegitimate children, terrorism and a haunted Irish castle complete with a curse on the Deverill family.  The action in these books swirls around Kitty Deverill, her cousin Celia Deverill, and the castle cook's daughter, Bridie Doyle, in a real potboiler.  It's now the 1920s and the War for Independence and The Troubles in Ireland are receding into the past.  Not so the aftermath of incidents that took place during those times, the subject of the first book, The Girl in the Castle.  The gaiety of the Roaring 20s leads up to the Wall Street Crash in America, where Bridie Doyle is living as a wealthy widow.  Fortunes are also lost in London, destroying Celia's life, while back in Ireland, Kitty Deverill and her family lose possession of Deverill Castle.  It seems the principal sin in Ballinkelly is being poor.

Honestly, can't anyone in this story keep it in their pants?  I can't believe I read all the way through this story, moreover continuing on to The Secret of the Irish Castle!

One thing I do have to comment on, though, is the cover art of this book.  From the back photograph of a redheaded woman in mutton-sleeved blouse and full length red skirt billowing as she runs, one would assume that this historical fiction is set in the nineteenth century.  What a surprise to find the cover model should have appeared in a cloche and flapper garb!  Not a fan of deceptive advertising.

Trial By Treason

Dave Duncan, you have a new fan!  My husband introduced me to this prolific Canadian science fiction/fantasy author when he brought home Trial By Treason (#836) from the library.  It's Book Two of his Enchanter General series, set in the England of Henry II and his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Durwin of Helmdom is a recently qualified sage, and is summoned along with his helper, Adept Eadig son of Edwin by the king  to accompany one of his knights, Sir Neil d'Airelle, to Lincoln Castle.  The king has received an alarming letter from Sir Courtney there, hinting at dangerous plots against him.  The letter also hinted at enchantments and magic being involved, thus Durwin's summons.

All is definitely not well in Lincoln.  Black magic is being invoked to assassinate Henry.  When  Sir Neil and his brother Piers fall victim to the evil enchanters, it is up to Durwin and Eadig to find a way to foil the dastardly plot.

Humor, derring-do and a little romance all add to the brew of bubbling magic and spells in a fascinating cross of sacred and secular in this well-plotted mystery.  I can't wait to go back and read the first book in this series, Ironfoot, to find out how Durwin first met King Henry.  I will definitely have to keep my eye out on the Fantastic Fiction website ( Fantastic Fiction)  to watch for future additions to this series, and to follow some of his other series as well.  The marriage of well-researched historical fiction, mystery and magic is irresistible!

I Owe You One

I'd forgotten just how entertaining Sophie Kinsella's novels are until I picked up her recent I Owe You One (#835).  It's the perfect summer read: girl meets boy, falls in love, loses him, but meets better boy!

Certainly the course of true love does not run smoothly here either!  Fixie Farr is the youngest of three siblings and totally dominated by them.  Yet she is at the outset the only one who cares about the survival and success of their family run store in a not-so-posh area of London.  Farr's sounds much like what I remember the old Woolworth's being like: a little bit of everything with a concentration on housewares.  Her older brother has grand  expensive plans, and her sister is too drifty to concentrate on any one thing for long.  Fixie's suggestions for improving the store tend to go nowhere.  That is until the fateful day when she rescues a total stranger's laptop she's been asked to watch while he takes a phone call.  Sebastian Marlowe now "owes her one".  She is able to laugh that off until her brother's friend returns from Los Angeles and a glamorous career as a movie producer.  He's already broken her heart once, but could it be for real this time around?  Can she make it work by calling in that favor from a stranger?

The ups and downs of Fixie's life will have you cringing along with her in the bad moments, and rooting for the best for her - she deserves any breaks coming her way!  How she manages to make things come out right in the end make for a fun and satisfying read.  I'm ready to visit Farr's next time I'm in London!

Anna of Kleve - The Princess in the Portrait

Alison Weir's Anna of Kleve - the Princess in the Portrait (#834) is part of the Six Tudor Queens series.  Although the book is clearly marked as a novel, I must admit I felt cheated when I read the Author's Notes at the end.  Yes, I knew it was fiction, but I didn't expect it to be fantasy!

Spoiler alert here!  The fantastical aspect of this novel is that Anna of Kleve, the fourth wife of King Henry VIII of England, had not one, but two illegitimate children, sired by a bastard cousin.  While the author's reasoning of how and why she includes hypothetical pregnancies in the book, based on historical evidence to fit the record is sound.  I would have thought of an innocent maiden seduced and abandoned as an interesting premise for the initial pregnancy.  No, what upset me was that Ms. Weir says she plucked the putative father's name from Anna's family tree based on the records of the household which traveled from Kleve to England with Anna on her marriage, and from that constructed a mythical true love romance based on nothing but proximity.  That was a deception I resented as a reader.

Anna had a hard enough life as it was.  It seemed downright mean to impose yet more emotional suffering through a fictional unrequited romance, plus a particularly nasty cancer as the means of her death.  It really was a step too far to include a touching death bed scene between Anna and her illegitimate son Johann in which she reveals all!

My advice?  If you want to know more about Anne of Cleves, as she is known to the English-speaking world, read a non-fiction biography.  You'll get the facts and not the fantasy.

A Brightness Long Ago

I read Guy Gavriel Kay's newly released novel, A Brightness Long Ago (#833) with a great deal of pleasure.  His books are classified as "Fantasy", but Edward Rutherford in the cover blurb puts it perfectly - "He tells stories in an invented world … rich in historical echoes..."  His landscape here is the Renaissance patchwork of Italian city states, as was his previous book, Children of Earth and Sky (See my post of 7/5/2016.)  The political, cultural and religious elements of that time echo here with its mercenary armies attacking and defending city states, the pervasive influence of the Jaddite religion and men and women hampered or helped by their places in society.

Mr. Kay blends the stories of several key characters  into an interwoven tapestry in the remembrances of Guidanio Cerra's eventful life at the culmination of an influential career for the powerful city state of Seressa.  (Think Venice at the height of its power.).  As he tells it, it might so easily have been otherwise, had he not met the people that he did, or taken the actions which could have caused Fortune's Wheel to turn against him.

There is the red-haired Adria, a woman whom he helps and never forgets; the feuding Folco D'Acorsi and Teobaldi Monticola of Remigio who both favor him in their turn, and the scion of the Sardi merchant family ruling Firenti who seems to hapless and unpromising in the beginning.  There is also Jelena, the pagan healer who touches all their lives.

So many readers who would appreciate the depth of Kay's writing will miss these books because they will pigeon hole them as a genre they wouldn't bother to read.  Take a closer look here instead.

A Woman of No Importance - The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II

I first heard about Virginia Hall in an NPR article.  I couldn't believe what I was hearing - a woman who was able to change her appearance several times a day working as a spy right under the noses of the Nazis in France.  Did I mention that she did it all on a wooden leg?!!!

Sonia Purnell in her excellent non-fiction book, A Woman of No Importance - The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II (#832) finally brings Virginia Hall's story out of the shadows, where she preferred to stay while she was alive.  Her courage, charisma and just plain chutzpah allowed her to survive three brutal years behind enemy lines, supplying vital intelligence to the Allies while forming intelligence circuits, and later, recruiting and equipping resistance units from local French recruits.

It will probably come as no surprise to female readers that she managed to accomplish all this despite many obstacles placed in her way by bureaucrats unable to think outside the box while simultaneously trying to invent a new and unorthodox form of warfare.  Nor will it be surprising to learn that until very recently (She died in 1982.) her role in paving the way for a successful Allied invasion of Europe was downplayed and diminished by the very governments she worked for - the British and the Americans.

Thankfully, it seems that Ms. Hall is about to get her due at long last.  She is the subject of this book and also of several movies soon to be released.  The CIA has dedicated a wing to her in their museum (Which I believe is not open to the public.) and named a building at Langley for her.  Don't miss this riveting story of an unsung American heroine!

The Last Woman In The Forest

In Diane Les Bequets' The Last Woman in the Forest (#831), Marian Engstrom is working in the wilderness with her tracker dogs on wildlife conservation projects when she is informed of the death of her lover, Tate Mathias, on a different conservation project in Washington state.  She had met Tate when she joined the group, and their romance looked promising until the details began to unravel about the unsolved deaths of a group of young women called the Stillwater Murders near the Montana headquarters of her conservation group.

As Marian grieves and collects Tate's belongings, she vows to learn more about the man she was involved with.  The details prove to be unsettling, especially after she connects with a retired criminal profiler who seems to take an interest in Marian's quest.

There is much of interest about the methods used by groups like the one in the book to track and monitor the health of endangered wildlife populations by using dogs to track their scat.  It can be analyzed for an accurate picture of the food sources of the target populations, approximate numbers and range of the animals by methodically covering wilderness sectors.  In many ways, this was the best part of the book.

The cover blurb says the book is "twisty", but I have to admit the ending telegraphed itself not very far into the book, so I kept waiting for the big reveal.  It did eventually come, and it was exactly the way I expected it to play out.

Other than that, it was entertaining enough, but upon reading the author's notes at the end, she sees this as a "mission" book to empower women to speak up about male physical, emotional and sexual abuse.  It didn't work at all for me on that level, but her aim is noble.

The Binding

The Binding (#830) is Young Adult author Bridget Collins' first fantasy novel for adults.  It will be the last book of hers I read, which is disappointing because the novel started out so well, with an interesting premise and writing so vivid the reader is immediately smack in the middle of the Dickensian world of her imagination.  And yet, for me, that promising ending petered out into just another hackneyed romance.  Yawn.

What if you had a secret you could not bear to live with?  A fatal accident you caused; a love affair that could never be; a child out of wedlock; all could be totally erased from your memory by visiting a book binder.  You tell your unwanted memories to the binder, and when you are through, he or she will construct a volume containing all of your story and your memories along with it.  A reputable binder will lock that volume safely away in a vault to be forgotten forever.  The problem is, not all binders abide by the code to protect their clients' memories, and a flourishing trade in illegal book sales exists for connoisseurs.  Bad things can happen if the volumes are disturbed.  It's no wonder that binders have a terrible reputation, and it is with the greatest of reluctance that Emmett Farmer's parents apprentice him to an ancient binder living in the marshes on her own.

Part I moves along briskly, introducing this mysterious world of book binding and the principal characters.  However, when the back stories begin to be revealed, Emmett is squarely in the middle of things with a ruined romance.  He and the object of his desire (the wealthy scion of a rich and powerful man) are both bound to forget what would bring shame and inconvenience to their families, so they are constantly missing each other in their remembrance phases.  By the time I got to the Part III, I was so disgusted by their cavalier and hurtful treatment of everyone else around them that I thoroughly disliked them both and concluded that Emmett Farmer and Julian Darnay deserved each other.  Too bad the binding didn't work out for both of them for everyone's sake!

The Tale Teller

I read Anne Hillerman's latest Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito novel, The Tale Teller (#829) while on vacation in the Southwest.  The vast expanses, unique rock formations and emptiness of the landscape there made me feel I was in the middle of Manuelito and Chee's world, right down to driving past a Tribal Courthouse.

In The Tale Teller, Manuelito stumbles across a body while out jogging in a popular park.  The fact that the body's hands are bound makes it certain that this was no natural death.  Chee is off in Chinle, helping their Navajo Police with a rash of burglaries targeting the elderly, so he can't help his wife with this crime.

In the meantime, a retired Leaphorn is pulled into investigating an anonymous museum donation for his friend Louisa.  A valuable Navajo textile and a unique bracelet, both listed on the donation invoice, are missing from the mailed package.  How can the donor be traced to ascertain whether the items in question ever made it into the box?  No pressure, but the museum director is anxious to clear things up before she retires in a week.  When her young assistant unexpectedly dies, matters are made even more complicated.

Though seemingly on different cases, the threads of this mystery pull Chee, Manuelito and Leaphorn ever closer to the central plot.

I love this series because of the glimpses it gives of a unique culture and place; enough so that it feels familiar when you actually encounter it.  What could be better?

American Princess

Author Stephanie Marie Thornton mentions in her interview at the end of American Princess - A Novel of First Daughter Alice Roosevelt (#828) that this is the first novel about Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Teddy Roosevelt, wife of Congressman and Speaker of the House Nick Longworth, and cousin of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.  It's hard to believe, after reading about a life so jam packed with fame, folly and family that she hasn't already been the subject of a dozen novels!  It's also hard to believe that when the "Other Washington Monument" as she was dubbed by the press died at the ripe old age of 96 in 1976, that it didn't make more of an impression on me at the time.

Although Alice lived in the glare of publicity virtually her whole life, she didn't seem to have a particularly happy life in many respects.  She did, however, live her life as her own woman, flouting many of the conventions of the times and even traveling on behalf of her father as a Goodwill Ambassador to the Far East.  Surprisingly, despite her political maneuvering on behalf of her family and her husband, she never wanted to hold office herself, nor was she much interested in the cause of women's suffrage.

Ms. Thornton has done a good job mixing the facts of Alice's well-documented life with a storyline that keeps the reader turning the pages to see what outrageous thing she would do or say next.  This is the kind of historical fiction which makes learning history a pleasure.  Recommended reading.

Murder At The Queen's Old Castle

Murder at the Queen's Old Castle (#827), is the second book in Cora Harrison's Reverend Mother Aquinas series I've read, and although it paints a grim picture of Cork in the 1920s, the mystery here is suitable to its setting.

Merchant Joseph Fitzwilliam has promised Reverend Mother her pick of flood-damaged goods at his low-end department store built in the ruins of a medieval castle in the center of Cork.  Although it's been years since Reverend Mother set foot in the place, a chance to pick up items for the orphans and poor children attending her primary school from Queen's Old Castle is too tempting to pass up.  In fact, one of her former students, an apprentice at the store, has been assigned to help her.  Mr. Fitzwilliam soon appears outside his cubbyhole office perched high up on one wall before pitching over the railing to land almost at her feet, watched by horrified customers and staff.

It soon becomes obvious that his death was not natural.  Who would have cause to wish Mr. Fitzwilliam harm?  The list of suspects grows, as he was discovered to be a rather unpleasant man, liked by neither the staff nor his family, all of whom but the eldest son work in the store.  Means and motive abound for several of them, yet how Reverend Mother eventually arrives at the truth is almost the death of her.

The plot is quite twisty, and the motivation and means quite dark and somewhat unexpected.  This is one of those rare mysteries where justice is not served up with a neat bow at the end, but the reader is not left in the dark.  Reverend Mother Aquinas remains a formidable character.

I just had to comment that I did not care for the cover artwork on this novel.  There is a dark castle on the left, but on the right is a looming dark figure.  I thought at first that it was the iconic figure of faceless Death in a hooded black robe, but when I took a second look, it seemed to shift to an image of a woman in an abayah.  I really had to think about the subject of the book to have that image morph into a nun in an old-fashioned habit seen from the rear.  Rather disconcerting, I thought.

I do love cover art.  When I mentioned how clever I thought the cover of Tara Westover's memoir Educated (See my post of  2/5/19.) is composed with a photo of a mountain landscape with its solitary figure integrated into the tip of a pencil, not one other person in my book club had ever paused to look that closely at the cover art.  You miss a lot when you don't look carefully!

That Churchill Woman

I seem to be stuck in a reading rut about Anglo-American society women of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, Stephanie Barron's That Churchill Woman (#826) being a case in point.  Frankly, I was disappointed with this one.  I'm a fan of Ms. Barron's Jane Austen Mystery series, but I found the Jennie Jerome here shallow and self-centered.  The novel concentrates on Jennie Jerome's affair with Charles Kinsky, a member of Austrian royalty.  They are portrayed here as star-crossed lovers, whose inability to marry blighted their lives.  Maybe so, but Jennie was headstrong, and she deliberately chose her marriage to Lord Randolph Churchill despite vigorous family objections.  She did not choose wisely, yet the product of that disastrous marriage, their son Winston, changed the world.

There's a lot here about dresses and social occasions managed on a tight budget, much time spent apart except when Jennie was still able to assist husband Randolph with a promising political career which he tossed aside in six months.  Little time was spent with her two sons (Jack was not Randolph's child.), following the English model.  That left plenty of time for idle dalliances as long as one was discreet.  Numerous affairs are hinted at here, but apparently Jennie's passion for Charles Kinsky exceeded the bounds of good taste, as pointed out by the Prince of Wales.

Having nobly renounced the love of her life in order to stay with her syphilitic husband until his ghastly death, the cause of which was shrouded in mystery by the family, Jennie does go on to marry a second time.  Curiously, the reader is never given the name of the that second husband, so I looked it up.  She actually married two additional husbands; George Cornwallis-West and Montagu Porch, who was younger than her son Winston!  No wonder she had a reputation as That Churchill Woman!

I think I was so disappointed with this novel because I had just finished A Well-Behaved Woman (See my post of 4/24/19.) about Alva Smith Vanderbilt, a friend of Jennie Jerome's who had a similarly difficult life, but went on to devote her life (coincidentally enough!) to her second husband's political career, and the cause of women's suffrage in the United States.  Alva did something with her own life, and had many admirable qualities.  I did not come away feeling that same sympathy for Jennie Jerome.  It's a miracle, all things considered, that Winston Churchill turned out as well as he did.

Black and Blue

David Rosenfelt's new Doug Brock thriller Black and Blue (#825) is a spin-off from his Andy Carpenter mystery series.  Doug Brock is a New Jersey State Policeman who suffers amnesia and now can't remember previous cases, let alone his personal relationships.  It makes life both home and at the station difficult, to say the least.

When a local business man is shot long through the heart when leaving a public tennis court, there are similarities to a case Doug Brock handled prior to his accident.  He can't remember the details, but he sure hopes that he hasn't let the previous perpetrator walk, especially since Dan Phelan's attorney is local defense attorney Andy Carpenter.  But the victims keep piling up, and Doug starts receiving taunting notes from the shooter both at the station and at home.  When Doug and his girlfriend Jessie, a fellow police officer, start putting together some clues, it's apparent that something even bigger is planned rather than just seemingly random victims.  Can they figure out the motive before the killer acts?

It's a typically well-plotted thriller with plenty of red herrings, but this time, it's tied to a police procedural.  Yes, of course, there's a dog, Jessie's Bobo, who isn't too fond of Doug, but who still manages to be in the right place at the right time.  I hope we see much more of Doug Brock, his girlfriend Jessie  and his large partner Nate in the future.

A Well-Behaved Woman - A Novel of the Vanderbilts

The principal character in Therese Anne Fowler's A Well-Behaved Woman - A Novel of the Vanderbilts (#824) is Alva Smith Vanderbilt.  I found it interesting as I was reading Ms. Fowler's introduction to her novel that she did not initially like or want to write about Alva Vanderbilt based on contemporary comments on her.  This happened to be in the middle of the 2016 presidential campaign when Hilary Clinton was being pilloried by the press.  Ms. Fowler said it occurred to her that the same thing might have happened to Alva Vanderbilt, and that actions that would have been admired, even applauded by society and the popular press had they been done by men were heaped with scorn simply because Alva was a woman.  That changed the focus of her novel, and in her A Well-Behaved Woman, she gives us an Alva Vanderbilt worth reading about.

Alva came from a Southern family ruined by the Civil War, and it became imperative for her to marry well in order to support her invalid father and three unmarried sisters.  With the help of her wealthy friend Consuelo Yzanga, Alva succeeded in winning a proposal from William K. Vanderbilt, the boyishly charming scion of the wealthy Vanderbilts.  What the Vanderbilts did not possess was an entry into the closed circle of New York Society.  Alva could provide that with her pedigree.  Just how she accomplished this and rose to the top of the social pecking order makes for a fascinating tale.  Her success certainly did not come without a steep price tag, but Alva was willing to pay it to advance the interests of her family and ultimately, American women through her dedication to the cause of Suffrage, although that is a tale for another book.

Ms. Fowler has certainly done her homework on Alva Smith Vanderbilt.  I Googled one of the portraits of Alva Vanderbilt mentioned in the book and stumbled on a treasure trove of on-line portraits of Alva and her family, and in particular, contemporary descriptions and photos of a spectacular Costume Ball thrown by Alva in their new Fifth Avenue home.  To see the costumes and people described attending the ball made me feel like one of the hoi polloi standing outside the mansion the night of the ball, trying to catch a glimpse of the cream of society entering the Vanderbilt home.

I also particularly liked the cover design of this book; the design cleverly incorporated the Vanderbilt "V" with a photo which I suspect was of a model much more attractive than the real life Alva.  It certainly was enough to make me pick up this book, and I'm glad I did; I found it a thoroughly enjoyable read about how the "1%" lives.

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

The Swedish novel, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (#823) by Jonas Jonasson has been an international bestseller.  It is amusing, but for my part, I did find it overly long.

The opening of the book was promising with centenarian Allan Karlsson making his escape from the Old Folks Home just hours before they were to celebrate his 100th birthday, the last thing he wanted, but who listens to senior citizens?  He accidentally gets caught up with stolen drug money, and that plot line was a good story.  Where the book lost me, though, was how Allan Karlsson supposedly met up with many of the most prominent world movers and shakers of the twentieth century as he ping-ponged around the globe.  Chapters dealing with his past adventures were interspersed with his modern day escape.  By the end of the book, I had come to find it all a bit tedious.

Not a horrible read, but I've certainly read many much more entertaining books.  Just my opinion.

Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

Historical fiction is a wonderful tool in the right hands; it can bring the past vividly alive.  That's what Sarah Bird has done with her novel Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen (#822).  Cathy Williams, the central character in this book, was a real person.  She was a black woman who served for two years with the famed Buffalo Soldiers in the West.  Her secret didn't come out until after she had served.  Not much else is known about her, but in Ms. Bird's story, it's easy to imagine how it could have been to go from slavery in the antebellum South to being contraband following General Philip Sheridan's forces, and at the end of the war, deciding not to go back to a South where the attitudes about slaves hadn't changed even though the Yankees had won the war.  When the promise of a new life out West was raised at the end of the war, Cathy was determined to take it, but the only way to do it safely was to pass as a man.

It was never an easy life, but Cathy Williams throughout it all remained true to herself; as the daughter of a daughter of a queen captured in Africa and brought to America.  Through this book, her story won't be forgotten; it deserves to be told.

The Lost Girls of Paris

I enjoyed reading Pam Jenoff's latest World War II novel, The Lost Girls of Paris (#821).  But I couldn't help but think as I was reading that it all sounded familiar: British women dropped into Nazi-occupied France prior to the Normandy Invasion to sabotage, arm the French Resistance and communicate with London by wireless radios, even down to the "six weeks life expectancy" for the wireless operators.

What makes this book different is the way the story is introduced.  A New York City war widow is late for work one morning and is forced to cut through Grand Central Station due to an accident blocking the streets outside.  Inside, Grace finds an abandoned suitcase under a bench in the terminal.  Does Grace do what most people would do?  Of course not!  She has to open the suitcase and search the contents, ostensibly to find a clue to the owner's identity.  What she finds instead is a packet of twelve photos of young women, some in uniform, each labeled only with a first name.  She puts the suitcase back, but Grace hangs onto the photos.  As she learns later on the news, the suitcase belonged to a British woman who was killed right outside Grand Central Station that morning.  Her efforts to reunite the photos with their rightful owner plunges Grace into a mystery concerning the photos.

The story unfolds between three women; Grace, who found the photos, Eleanor Trigg, the owner of the suitcase, and Marie Roux, one of the girls in the mysterious photos, ping-ponging between post-war New York, London's SOE and its covert missions during the war, and occupied France where Marie has been assigned.

Without giving anything else away, the novel pulls the reader into the story and makes the characters of the three different women compelling, each in her own way.  What did happen to Marie and her companions, and why does Eleanor care so much?  Why does Grace feel it is incumbent on her to complete Eleanor's mission?  You'll just have to read The Lost Girls of Paris to find out!

Look Alive Twenty-Five

There's nothing like one of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels to put a smile on my face.  In Look Alive Twenty-Five (#820), the action takes place in the Red River Deli in Trenton, New Jersey, which Stephanie has been informed by her boss is now added to her job duties to handle since it defaulted to Vinnie's Bail Bond office.  One problem, though; three of the previous managers of the deli have mysteriously vanished into thin air, leaving only a single shoe behind.  Stephanie has no intention of becoming the next victim.

Nothing seems to be going Stephanie's way between having no experience running a deli (or wanting to!), Lula's exotic sandwich creations and a pair of short order cooks who cope with their jobs by staying mellow on weed.  Nor are things going well with her bond enforcement gig trying to get any of her FTA clients back to the courthouse to be re-bonded.  Now, as manager, she also has a target painted on her back as a potential kidnap victim.  The good news is that between boyfriend Joe Morelli and hunky Ranger's high-tech security firm, Stephanie is never alone.  That has its good points and its downside, especially when one of her security team is snatched from behind the deli.  Who's behind the goings-on, and for what purpose?

There's the usual mix of crazy characters, bizarre happenings and mystery to keep the reader turning the pages.  There's no heavy lifting with these stories, but they accomplish what the author sets out to do: entertain.  They're always a great escape.

The Malta Exchange

I always find the historical hooks in Steve Berry's novels intriguing.  There's always something to do further reading on long after I've finished the novel.  In this case, I was particularly interested to find his latest Cotton Malone novel The Malta Exchange (#819) involved two locales I recently visited: Malta and Rome.

Cotton Malone and Luke Daniel  of the US Justice Department's Magellan Billet are pulled separately into tracking down mysterious documents supposedly in Mussolini's possession when he was killed in 1945.  Although the two satchels he carried with him trying to escape to Switzerland are known to have contained gold, jewels and assorted documents, neither have been seen since the day of his death.  Until Cotton in his capacity of antiquarian book dealer is called in by the British to broker a deal for one of the satchels in Italy.  Nothing goes according to plan, of course.

Luke, in the meantime, has been dispensed to Malta to keep an eye on Cardinal Kastor Gallo who should be heading for Rome within hours to join the papal conclave about to start.  What is he doing in Malta at such a crucial time, and why are people trying to kill Luke for keeping an eye on him?

As the plot unfolds and the body count mounts, both the Vatican and the ancient order of The Knights of Malta are involved, playing their own high stakes games with the fate of both organizations at risk.

Steve Berry's shocking denouement, though fictional, will come as no surprise to students of EfM, but he does do an excellent job of describing the unique island of Malta and Vatican City itself.  His descriptions of the co-cathedral located in Valletta are so accurate about its astonishing beauty, I stopped to pull out my phone to flip through the many photos I took there.  The inlaid marble floor tombs he includes in the plot are real, each more amazing than the last.  And who can fail to be awed by the splendor of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome?  Reading a good book set in places you've seen with your own eyes doubles the fun.  This is definitely the case here.

The Island of Sea Women

Lisa See's latest novel, The Island of Sea Women (#818) deals with an unusual culture on the Korean island of Jeju where the women divers are the bread winners and the men cook and take care of the babies.  It's a difficult and dangerous life, especially in the period in which the novel is set.  I found this book grim.  Yes, there is understanding at the end, but most of the book deals with the betrayals and deaths of those surrounding main character Young-Sook and her close friend Mi-Fa.

The Japanese occupation, World War II and the subsequent 4.3 Incident, part of the brutal Korean War, all make life even more uncertain and tenuous.  Saying or doing the wrong thing in front of the wrong person could lead to arrest, torture and disappearances.  Conditions on Jeju particularly during the Korean War were so horrendous with the divers forbidden by the government to dive, that starvation stalked every village home. Whole villages were destroyed by rebels, partisans and the government in retribution while the Americans nominally overseeing the island let the massacres happen.  Yet there were some positive elements as well; the strong connections and loyalties of the diving collectives and their guardianship of the food the sea yielded.

I found The Island of Sea Women a difficult read.  It really seemed too much of a "Life sucks and then you die." type of story.  There is redemption on the last few pages, but it seems to take forever to arrive there.  Put on your slogging boots for this one.

The Bird King

Don't start G. Willow Wilson's new fantasy novel The Bird King (#817) unless you have time to put everything else aside for this wonderful story.  Set in the final days of the last Muslim ruler of the Alhambra, we meet Fatima, concubine to the Sultan and her friend Hassan, cartographer to the court.
The palace has been under siege for a long period, but the women of the harem have been spared the worst.  When King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella send a small party to negotiate the terms of surrender, the Baronesa Luz is there to represent both the Queen and the Inquisition.  Before Fatima learns of her secret mission, she has introduced Luz to her friend Hassan who can draw accurate maps of places he has never been and functioning doors in rooms where they don't exist.  Luz is determined to take Hassan for the Inquisition as a sorcerer, a certain death sentence and makes it a condition of the Sultan's surrender.

Together Fatima and Hassan escape the palace with the aid of a jinn compelled by loyalty to the Sultan's mother.  Their destination?  The mythical isle of Qaf, home of the Bird King.  Along the way, death, danger and an uncanny pursuit.

The characters here are wonderfully drawn, and Fatima and Hassan are tested all along the way as they encounter others whose beliefs are different, but whose moral compasses are aligned.  It's a captivating adventure not to be missed.