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!
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Monday, June 24, 2019
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!
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!
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
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.
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.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
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!
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!
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