Heirs & Spares: Review

Synopsis:

It’s 1569. Elizabeth I sits on the English throne, the Reformation inflames the Continent, and whispers of war abound.

But in Troixden, just north of France, the Lady Annelore isn’t interested in politics. Times are hard, taxes are high, and the people in her duchy need her help just to survive. Her widowed father is a good man easily distracted by horses, and her newly knighted childhood friend…well, he has plans of his own.

Then Annelore receives a call she can’t ignore.

When Troixden’s sadistic king died childless, his younger brother William returns from exile to find his beloved country on the brink of civil war. He’s in desperate need of the stability that comes with a bride and heirs. But Annelore, his chosen queen, won’t come quietly.

Now the future of Troixden lies in the hands of two people who never wanted the power they’ve received and never dreamed that from duty and honor they might find love and a path to peace.

Heirs & Spares is one part history, two parts palace plotting, and a whole lot of juicy romantic intrigue. Break out the spiced wine and sink in to this rousing read.

My Take:

Heirs & Spares is a marvelously researched peek into the 16th Century and what life among the well-born might have been like.  I thoroughly enjoyed this historical fiction/romance which tells the tale of Lady Annelore and her journey to become queen.  She is very reluctant to leave her home and her life-time friend and love, Sir Bryan.  But when the King commands, you must obey.  She is selected as one of three ladies from the kingdom among whom King William will choose his bride.  When she receives the summons, she hopes against hope that she can convince the King that she is unsuitable as a royal bride.  But circumstances develop that make it impossible for her to make her case and the King decides to take her as his bride after meeting her only once.

Annelore's father is so proud of her, that she does not wish to disappoint him--but she will have to overcome her fear of the King's family.  Fears brought on by King William's cruel brother.  Is it possible that William could be so very different from his relatives?  Is he a man that she can learn to love as well as King whose wishes must be obeyed?  And will their union truly calm the disquiet in the kingdom?

Spohr's storytelling is almost pitch-perfect with delightful details of the countryside in the fictional kingdom of Troixden.  The characters are very real and distinct and I now have a great affection for King William and Queen Annalore.  The story is both self-contained with a very satisfying ending and yet manages to leave the door open for the sequel. I look forward to reading more of their story in Part II of the Realm Series (due out in 2014).  Four stars.

About the Author:

Jennie L. Spohr is the author of Heirs & Spares and several short stories. An incurable Anglophile/Europhile who has studied the trials and tribulations of royals since she watched Princess Diana take that long walk to the altar, she turned her attention to historical fiction and fictional monarchies after studying the Reformation in graduate school. When not writing, Spohr produces and hosts a popular podcast called The Kindlings Muse (www.thekindlings.com) about ideas that matter in culture, including books, film, and music. She is an ordained minister and lives with her brood in Seattle.

Visit her online at www.jlspohr.com.

[Disclaimer: My review policy is posted on my blog, but just to reiterate...This review copy was offered to me for impartial review and I have received no payment of any kind. All comments are entirely my own honest opinion.]

Spotted Hemlock: Review

Spotted Hemlock by Gladys Mitchell:

As will happen when you have an all-male college situated near an all-female college, there is quite a bit of shenanigans going on.  And not just the late night, clandestine affairs.  The young men of Highpepper Hall, known for their "rags," decide to pull a prank on the ladies of Calladale College--agricultural school for women.  They round up some rhubarb and some dead rats and go planting in the middle of the night.

In the meantime, one of the young women has gone missing and Dame Beatrice Bradley is called in to try and track down where Norah Palliser might have run off to.  When the ladies of Calladale discover the nasty additions to their gardens, they decide to return the favor and gather up the rhubarb in preparation for their own late night escapade.  They plan to stash the plants in an ornamental horse carriage which serves as a pub sign for a local establishment (which just happens to lie at the back door of the men's college)--but their plans go awry when they discover that the carriage is already occupied.  Hidden inside is an unrecognizable body wearing a Calladale blazer.

Norah's mother identifies the body as that of her daughter (a girl in her twenties), but Mrs. Bradley is puzzled  by the fact that the body seems to be that of an older women.  Is Norah, in fact, the woman who has died of hemlock poisoning?  And if so who gave it to her and how did she get into the carriage.  If it's not, Norah, then whose body is it and why is she wearing Norah's blazer?  There's an "evil" step-papa in the offing, a missing pig-lecturer (who lectures about pigs and their care, not to pigs),  a cuckolded husband, a thieving sister, and a mother who doesn't seem terribly upset over her daughter's death.  It's up to Mrs. Bradley to get to the bottom of things....and it will require a reenactment of a headless horseman's ride to do it.

This is a very solid vintage mystery by Gladys Mitchell.  I, of course, loved the academic setting and thought the mystery decently plotted and strewn with plenty of red herrings.  The rounds of interviews with suspects and family members and girls in the school got a tad bit tedious--but overall a good read.  Three stars.

Challenge Complete: Book Blogger Recommendation

Book Blogger Recommendation Challenge
Hosted by Reading with Tequila 
January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013

My Commitment:

Level I - Read 5 books

I joined up last fall when Reading with Tequila posted the sign up and the list of books to choose from.  Unfortunately, it looks like Reading with Tequila has abandoned ship on the challenge--at least I can't find it anymore.  BUT that did not prevent me from completing my commitment.  Luckily, I chose my books ahead of time so I had five books to work with.  Since I managed to finish, I'm claiming the challenge--even if it's defunct.

1. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (7/16/13)
2. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (2/24/13)
3. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helen Hanff (3/20/13)
4. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (7/10/13)
5. The Secret History by Donna Tartt (6/4/13)

Complete! 7/16/13

The Night Circus: Review

Short version of my review of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern: Cotton candy for the mind.  Tastes good at the time, but no lasting substance.  I am quite sure that if, as in the years before I began blogging, I did not take the time to record my thoughts on this novel then I would not remember a thing about it before very little time had passed.  Except that it's about a circus.  But that's obvious.

Longer version: So, the hype on the book is that Morgenstern has written this awesome, magical, "spell-casting novel [that] is a feast for the senses and the heart." We have a circus that arrives without warning in towns and cities all around the world.  No notices, no advertisements.  Just one day you have an empty field and the next there are black and white striped circus tents all over.  And, supposedly, lurking behind all this is an ultra-fierce, deadly competition between two uber-magicians.   For high stakes--only one can win and the only way that person can win is for the other to give up....permanently.

But the two older magicians who set the competition in motion, don't take into account one tiny, little fact.  That two magicians so closely tied, so evenly matched, so absolutely complementary in every way might fall in love.  But will their love destroy everything--the game, the circus performers, the patrons....and even themselves?

Yeah, so okay.  This was a particularly intriguing premises.  An honest-to-goodness great idea.  With marvelous descriptions of the circus and scenery.  The writing managed to keep me riveted every time I sat down with the book.  It was like eating cotton candy at the circus--it read so yummy when I was scarfing it down, and yet I didn't feel like I had much to show for it afterward.  The story seemed good at the time, but there were all these niggling points.  Like....

Why the heck did we bounce all over the place time-wise?  That made no sense whatsoever.  This wasn't a time-travel book.  The plot would have flowed much better if we could have followed the story straight.  

And why the heck is it told in the present tense?  Why are so many recent books I've picked up written in the present tense?  It doesn't go down quite as well (threw the flavor of the cotton candy off just a tad).  And why did Morgenstern tell more than she showed?  That's a big rule in writing--show, don't tell.  There were lots of sentences that read, "And then [fill in character's name] told [other character] all about it [whatever we're talking about]" And we, the readers, get to take it as gospel truth.  We don't actually see a lot of it happen.  When Morgenstern actually does allow the characters to interact and show us things, the story is beautiful--it's just not sustained.

I cared more about Bailey...one of the minor characters throughout most of the book...than I did about either Celia or Marco, our two dueling magicians.  The most feeling I had about either one of them was over the unfairness of these two old magicians using anyone they could to play out their own personal duel--without getting directly involved themselves and without caring who gets hurt along the way.  I was much more interested in Bailey and his friendship with Poppet and Widget than I was on the "a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands" that's supposedly going on between Celia and Marco. 

I also cared more about Friedick Thiessen and was pretty angry about what happens with his character.

There is very little explanation of anything for 99% of the book.  Why we're battling, how long it's gone on, what exactly will satisfy the old guys ('cause it sure isn't the demise of one of their players--that's happened before and we just start a new competition), how exactly Bailey with NO experience is able to suddenly take up the reins when needed (when you consider that Celia and Marco had years of training.....).  I could go on.
 

And yet....there is something about the book.  Something addictive that made me keep reading and made it hard to put down when I needed to.  Which would be why I'm giving it three stars instead of less (which I keep feeling an urge to do--must be the magic overpowering me).


Quotes:
Tara and Lainie do a little bit of everything. Sometimes dancers, sometimes actresses. Once they were librarians, but that is a subject they will discuss only if heavily intoxicated. [p. 58]

Follow your dreams, Bailey. Be they Harvard or something else entirely. No matter what that father of yours says, or how loudly he may say it. He forgets  that he was someone's dream once, himself. ~Bailey's grandmother [p. 87]
 
"So you see every thing before it happens?" Bailey asks. He is not sure Poppet's answer is entirely what he expected, if he expected anything at all.
Poppet shakes her head.
"No, not everything. Sometimes just bits of things like words and pictures in a book, but the book has lots of pages missing and it's been dropped in a pond and some parts are blurry but other parts aren't"
[p.196]

I am tired of everyone keeping their secrets so well that they get other people killed. We are all involved in your game, and it seems we are not as easily repaired as teacups. ~Lainie [p. 256]

P: I tried to explain as much as I could. I think I made an analogy about cake.
W: Well that must have worked.  Who doesn't like a good cake analogy?
~Poppet; Widget [p. 276]

You're in the right place at the right time, and you care enough to do what needs to be done. Sometimes that's enough. ~Celia Bowen [p. 360]

There are no more battles between good and evil, no monsters to slay, no maidens in need of rescue.  Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth something, in any case. ~Alexander (the man in the grey suit) [p. 377]

Someone needs to tell those tales.  When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There's magic in that. It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. ~Alexander [p. 381]

Book Bingo: Square #22

My Latest Square:

Read 4 Everybody But Me
1. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffeneger (7/10/13)
2. The Call of the Wild by Jack London (7/14/13)
3.  Devoured by D. E. Meredith (6/22/13) [at least I was seeing a lot of reviews for a while]
4. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (7/8/13)

To see all the books I've read so far, please go to my Original Post. 

TBR Pile Checkpoint #7

Adam from Roof Beam Reader is checking up on us to see how we're doing on our TBR Pile books so far this year.  It's the half-way mark and it's time to fess up on how we're doing here in July. So far, I've read ten books from the main list plus one of my alternates.  I'm still waiting for the right moment to go back to The Age of Innocence by Wharton.  It just wasn't doing anything for me earlier this year.....

Here's my list with links to the books I've completed:

 1. Death at Crane's Court by Eilis Dillon (1987) [read 5/23/13]
2. A Private History of Awe by Scott Sanders (2006) [read 4/27/13]
3. Break Any Woman Down by Dana Johnson (2001) [read 6/17/13]
4. Poems & Prose by Christina Rosetti (1998--this edition)
5. Black Widow by Patrick Quentin (1952) [read 4/3/13]
6. A Perfect Red by Amy Butler Greenfield (2005) [read 3/22/13]
7. The Web Between the Worlds by Charles Sheffield (1979) [read 1/21/13]
8. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (2006--this edition)
9. Slippage by Harlan Ellison (1997) [read 1/19/13]
10. Aaron's Serpent by Emily Thorn (1962) [read 2/22/13]
11. The Hollow Chest by Alice Tilton [aka Phoebe Atwood Taylor] (1988--this edition) [read 7/12/13]
12. The World's Best 100 Short Stories III: Mystery by Grant Overton, ed. (1927) [read 2/24/13]

Alternates:
A Bullet in the Ballet by Caryl Brahms & S. J. Simon (1984)
The Mummy Case Mystery by Dermot Morrah (1988)  [read 7/3/13]

 

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a bookish meme hosted by Book Journey. It's where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read this week. It's a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wonderful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list. So hop on over via the link above and join in...and leave a comment here so I can check out what you are reading.

 

Here's this week's offering:

 

Books Read (click on titles for review): 

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (finished last Monday--but review went up later) 

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Hollow Chest by Alice Tilton [Phoebe Atwood Taylor] 
Twenty First Century Blues by Richard Cecil 
Photo by Sammy Davis, Jr. [text by Burt Boyar] 
The Call of the Wild by Jack London

 

Currently Reading: 

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern:   A circus, titled Le Cirque des Reve, comes to town out of the blue and without warning. Within its tents, young magicians Celia and Marco are waging a fierce competition for which they have trained since childhood. They unexpectedly fall in love with each other and share a fantastical romance that manifests in fateful ways. 

   

Books that spark my interest:

Andersen's Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (only because I need it for challenges...I was uninspired when I tried it a month or so ago....Just picked up the audio version--hoping that will work out better)

Dead Old by Maureen Carter

The Case of the Careless Kitten by Erle Stanley Gardner

Guest Post: Henry the Eighth I Am, I Am by J. L. Spohr

As a special treat this week, I present a guest post from historical novelist J. L. Spohr.  I have recently received a review copy of her latest book, Heirs and Spares and will be posting my thoughts in the very near future.  In the meantime, please enjoy reading Jennie's thoughts on America's fascination with British royalty.

Henry the Eight I Am, I Am:

The Man Behind America’s Obsession with British Royals

By J.L. Spohr

With the whole world holding its breath and waiting to meet the new Windsor heir, it’s no surprise that parents-to-be Kate Middleton and Prince William are consistently ranked as the top two celebrities in People magazine. Strangely, we Americans have been obsessed with the British royals ever since we won our hard-fought freedom from them. The question is why? Yes, they’re a living breathing fairy tale and a reality TV drama all in one, but why the pull? Why do we rank them higher than our own rich and famous?

Part of the answer is our own history, but part of the answer is their history. And no part of British history seems more intriguing to the American mind than that of the Tudors. Even before Johnathan Rhys Meyers (swoon) played the lusty and hot-tempered monarch , the story of Henry VIII and his four ill-fated wives (and two content ones), is the stuff of a storyteller’s dream. Books like The Other Boleyn Girl and Wolf Hall launched author’s careers, and there is no end of corseted Tudor ladies ruling the bestseller lists, not only for historical fiction but fiction, period.

When I was writing the female protagonist of my own historical novel, I kept coming back to an amalgamation of Henry’s wives because their story has it all: murder, mistresses, plotting, poison, political climbing, betrayal, barren wombs, lust, religious upheaval, war, really gruesome deaths, really poetic deaths, grasping men and false women all wrapped up in fabulous clothes and astounding castles. Not to mention the break with Rome that changed the course of Western history.

You don’t even need to be a royal watcher or Anglophile like me to be fascinated by King Henry’s life and its fall out. The all-together majesticness of his majesty keeps pulling us back, hundreds of years later, despite his horrific temper, wandering eyes, and unsupportable beheadings.

I was at Hampton Court last summer—this is the palace Cardinal Wolsey built and was forced to gift to Henry – and they have actors dressed in traditional Tudor garb who walk about, acting out a half ad-libbed, half scripted play throughout the palace. I felt that I had missed my life’s calling, and if I squinted out the other tourists in the background, I could put myself right back there in the 16^th century, standing under Anne Boleyn’s gate while being brushed by the hem of His Majesty’s cloak. It was thrilling, even if only make-believe. And even if I was wearing Gore-Tex instead of silk damask.

I write historical fiction because I’ve spent my life being fascinated with the Tudors and their descendents, and I want to answer the questions: “why did these people, in this situation, do what they did?” When a man, who seemingly has the world at his feet, beheads two wives, and divorces two more, all in the name of getting a male heir, yet who will instead pass his crown to an audacious and astounding daughter, that man is one who will pique the curiosity of history again and again.

The current House of Windsor bears no real relation to the Tudors. Kate Middleton’s head is probably secure, regardless of what she does next. Yet for many of us, the royal prince and princesses still hold up the mantel of that exciting, tragic, and world-changing history. That’s something no rich celebrity or lauded actor can compete with, and it’s what keeps us coming back for more.

J. L. Spohr is the author of Heirs & Spares and several short stories. An incurable Anglophile, she turned her attention to historical fiction and fictional monarchies after studying the Reformation in graduate school. She is an ordained minister and lives with her brood in Seattle. Visit her online at www.jlspohr.com.

Book Description:

It’s 1569. Elizabeth I sits on the English throne, the Reformation inflames the Continent, and whispers of war abound.

But in Troixden, just north of France, the Lady Annelore isn’t interested in politics. Times are hard, taxes are high, and the people in her duchy need her help just to survive. Her widowed father is a good man easily distracted by horses, and her newly knighted childhood friend…well, he has plans of his own.

Then Annelore receives a call she can’t ignore.

When Troixden’s sadistic king died childless, his younger brother William returns from exile to find his beloved country on the brink of civil war. He’s in desperate need of the stability that comes with a bride and heirs. But Annelore, his chosen queen, won’t come quietly.

Now the future of Troixden lies in the hands of two people who never wanted the power they’ve received and never dreamed that from duty and honor they might find love and a path to peace.

Heirs & Spares is one part history, two parts palace plotting, and a whole lot of juicy romantic intrigue. Break out the spiced wine and sink in to this rousing read.

The Call of the Wild: Review

The Call of the Wild by Jack London is one of those books that I always thought I'd read.  Until I sat down with it and realized, No, Bev, you haven't.  You've had it on the shelf. You've absorbed all the cultural knowledge floating around out there about the book.  But you haven't actually read it. What you read was Kavik the Wolf Dog--a marvelous story, by the way--but not Call of the Wild.  So, now I have.  Really--I'm going to write a review to prove it.  

The story is set during the Klondike Gold Rush, a time when it seemed every Tom, Dick, and Harry was going off to make his fortune in the cold snowy gold field country and Tom, Dick, and Harry were needing strong teams of sled dogs to get them there and to carry mail and supplies between gold rush towns.  

We're introduced to Buck, a large domestic dog who is a cross between a Saint Bernard and a Scotch shepherd.  Buck has spent his life thus far on a California ranch--an outdoor dog, but not a work dog.  He spends his time hunting with his owner's sons, swimming in tank where the boys take their morning plunge, and escorting the daughters of the house on their walks.  Buck is suddenly taken from his cozy, domestic life when one of the ranch hands, a gambler by nature, sells Buck to men headed to the Klondike--just to meet his current debts.

Buck soon learns that life as an Alaskan sled dog has nothing to do with the sunny life in California.  He has to fight for his food, figure out how make a den in the snow to keep warm at night, and he has to learn the law of club and fang.  The club in a man's hand shows him who is boss over canines and the fang of his sled team leader shows him which dog must be obeyed.....at least until Buck learns the ways of the sled and trail and can fight back.  When an inexperienced threesome buy Buck and his sled team mates and all but destroy the team through overwork and underfeeding, only the interference of a man named John Thornton prevents Buck from an early death.

The entire time Buck is in Alaska he feels the pull of the wild; he hears his dog ancestors calling him back to a more primitive time.  He learns to love Thornton, but will his loyalty to the man who saved his life keep him from answer the call he hears coming from the forests?

This is a grand adventure novel--told most interestingly from the point of view of Buck.  Lots of bracing exploits in the harsh outdoors and Jack London is a fine descriptive writer.  My only complaint is the overuse of the "Buck looks back through time to the days of his ancestors" motif.  The mystical staring into the fire and seeing primitive man thing is fine as a one-off, but it doesn't really do much to reinforce the call of the wild.  The descriptions of Buck's adventures in the wild do more in that vein and much more realistically.  Four stars.

Photo: Review

When I think of Sammy Davis, Jr. I think of the Rat Pack.  I think of Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts. I think of the famous All in the Family episode with Archie Bunker.  I think of a singer and a dancer and an all-out terrific entertainer.  I don't think of photography.  Or at least I didn't before I read Photo--a book of Sammy Davis Jr's photographs with commentary edited and put together by Burt Boyar from taped interviews with Sammy Davis Jr.  As one of the blurbs says: "Sammy never went anywhere without a camera.  There was no bridge, historical landmark, or person who was safe from capture by his camera lens." His enormous photo collection includes everyone from presidents to movie stars to the man on the street.  He has Sinatra in his pajamas and Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lincoln Memorial.  He recorded a warm day in uptown New York City with folks sitting on their porch steps and the beautiful view from his San Francisco suite.

This a marvelous coffee table book--and one of the few coffee table books that I've read from cover to cover.  I didn't do that just because I needed it for a book challenge or two (or more...)--but because I was hooked from the moment I opened it until the moment I put it down again.  Just as Sammy Davis Jr. was from the moment as he says "Jerry [Lewis] gave me my first important camera, my first 35 millimeter, during the Ciro's period, early '50s. And he hooked me."  Pick this book up and I guarantee that you'll be hooked too.  Five stars.

Twenty First Century Blues: Mini-Review

Twenty First Century Blues by Richard Cecil is another poetry collection that I find difficult to review.  Cecil writes with wry humor about the every day--from anger over non-promotion within the university to feeding his kitten at home to travels abroad.  And he also covers historic Europe and ancient catastrophes.  There are down-home, solid descriptions and quirky, radical takes on almost everything.  I particularly enjoyed his poems that take aim at the academic life.  But then, I work in the same department as he does, so I get all the references--"The Writing Requirement" and "A Letter to William Butler Yeats" are particular favorites.  Four stars.  


Poetry Snippets:

I paused to peer up at the stained glass windows
shooting blue and ruby beams like lasers
through the gloom.
~from "Albi Cathedral" (p. 7)

But how I envy Daudet's spendthrift hero,
pursued and hounded for his precious talent.
~from "Fool's Gold" (p. 18)

You can't revisit a place where you were happy,
as you can't re-love someone you've loved and left
~from "Package Tour" (p. 34)

Six Books, Six Months: 2013 Version

Last year Jo at The Book Jotter started a six-month book summary meme: Six Books, Six Months which I participated in.  She's back again for the 2013 version.  And just like last year, you are welcome to use the six categories she designed or come up with your own or mix & match.  Click on the link to join in.

Six Authors Who Were New to Me
Sean Ferrell
Stefanie Pintoff
Donna Tartt
Kyle Dargan
Martin Edwards
C. S. Forester

Six Authors Who Were Old Friends
Kerry Greenwood
Carol K. Carr
Harlan Ellison
Frances & Richard Lockridge
Julian Barnes
Mignon G. Eberhart

Six Books Outside the Comfort Zone
Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov
Down the Rabbit Hole by Peter Abrahams
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Man in the Empty Suit by Sean Ferrell
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Blood Makes Noise by  Gregory Widen

Six Non-US/Non-British Authors (I'm mainly a Brit Lit girl & I rarely read outside the US/UK)
Ragna Sigurdardottir (Iceland)
Mikhail Bulgakov (Russia)  
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (Sweden)
Arthur W. Upfield (Australia)
David Morrell (Canada)
Margaret Erskine (Canada)

Six Vintage Mysteries to Die For
Corpses at Indian Stones by Philip Wylie
Holiday Homicide by Rufus King
Tragedy at Law by Cyril Hare
The Devil's Stronghold by Leslie Ford
The Mystery of Hunting's End by Mignon G. Eberhart
Sally's in the Alley by Norbert Davis
Six Books That Could Have Stayed on the Shelf (or in the Library or....)
One for the Money by Janet Evanovich (not my cup of tea...definitely)
A Perfect Red by Amy Butler Greenfield
Finding Camlann by Sean Pidgeon
The Ivy League Chronicles: 9 Squares by E. K. Prescott
Veiled Murder by Alice Campbell
The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey

The Hollow Chest: Review

Long ago and far away, when I started this blog in April of 2010 (darn it, I missed my own blogiversary....oh, well, we'll just have to have a much bigger party next year)--I kicked things off with a review of Alice Tilton's (aka Phoebe Atwood Taylor) Beginning With a Bash.  I had picked up several of her Leonidas Witherall books because I have this little weakness for academic mysteries and Witherall is a sometime instructor/owner/what-have-you of the Meredith Academy who looks a lot like William Shakespeare.  I read two of these light, madcap mysteries and began today's selection, The Hollow Chest, when I suddenly realized that there was such a thing as too much of a good thing.  As I said at the time:

"Well, I've finished the second of the Tilton series and made an attempt at the third. I've decided to give myself a rest from the madcap mysteries for a bit. I'm afraid that she seems to be stuck in a bit of rut. It's a bit much to swallow all the fortuitous circumstances that bring about the happy ending. Given all the bodies he stumbles over, young ladies bound and gagged in his house, his belongings that wind up in unfortunate proximity to the aforementioned bodies--it's a wonder "Bill Shakespeare" doesn't spend his life in jail. It's unfortunate that the charm has faded so fast because I really do like the character of Leonidas Witherall. I'm just having trouble believing more than six impossible things after breakfast."

I gave it up after only twenty-five pages.  And my previous self wasn't kidding--dead bodies, young ladies bound and gagged, incriminating evidence planted by dead bodies.  And that's just for openers.  Witherall returns home after escorting the Fifth Form on their annual outing--a day informally known as "Egg Day." While the point is to have a field trip that involves a rousing game of Fox and Hounds (with one boy playing the fox), every good fifth former knows to conceal eggs about his person because somebody, somewhere along the way is going to need a good egging.  When a General who is directing practice maneuvers comes into their sights--in a tank, no less--they know they have found their target.  Witherall has to lead the boys in a strategic retreat and finally winds up back at the school with all the boys intact....or so he thinks. He later learns that at some point they picked up a stray boy and lost the fox, Sandy Threewit--who just happens to be the ward of a very rich, very prominent lady who just might have money to donate to the Academy.  If their staff hasn't been careless enough to permanently lose her ward....

But...back to what I was saying...after returning home from these adventures, Witherall finds his home ransacked and a beautiful girl (who he doesn't know) bound, blindfolded, and gagged on his bed upstairs.  He starts to untie her bonds when the police arrive.  He manages to convince them that nothing strange is going on (he doesn't want to much attention from the police lest they discover that he's the man who was shepherding the boys who egged the general) and when he goes back upstairs he finds that the girl has disappeared.  Next up is a phone call from Mrs. Vandercook (guardian to the lost Threewit), she's not calling to inquire about the boy (thankfully), but she wants him to dress up in formal wear, go the corner of Eighth and Oak Streets, collect George and go to the Corner of Elm and Oak.  

Witherall attempts to do this and winds up finding people (and horses) who answer to the name George, a dead body in a car, an empty chest, and a mystery surrounding some missing bonds.  Instead of collecting "George," he collects a couple of young women, a soldier named Goldie, and the General who his boys had egged and together they get to the bottom of who killed the man in the car, who stole the missing bonds, and what happened to young Threewit.  All in a few hours one evening.  It makes me tired just writing about it.

I'm glad I waited a while to read this one.  I enjoyed it more than I seemed to be in 2010.  But I have to say that it didn't do as much for me as that very first installment did.  I do think that Tilton (Taylor) got stuck in a rut with these in a way that she didn't with her Asey Mayo books--I've read many of those and never got tired of Asey and his ways.  This is a fun read, fast-paced and very silly--definitely not a deep-thinking, intricate mystery kind of book.  Read it to escape for an evening....Three stars.

Friday Memes: Twenty First Century Blues

Book Beginnings on Friday is a bookish meme now sponsored by Rose City Reader (who originally inspired the meme). Here's what you do: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments section. Include the title and author so we know what you're reading. Then, if you are so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line and if you did or did not like that sentence. Link up each week at Gilion's place.

Here's the first paragraph from Twenty First Century Blues by Richard Cecil (a book of poems):

Thank god the twentieth is over.

The Friday 56 is a bookish meme sponsored by Freda's Voice. It is really easy to participate. Just grab a book, any book, and turn to page 56. Find a sentence that grabs you and post it.


Here's mine from Twenty First Century Blues by Richard Cecil (a book of poems):

But I sat cross-legged and tight lipped,
pretending to be lost in thought,
meditating with the music

The Time Traveler's Wife: Review

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is a beautiful, science fictional love story that pretty well knocked my socks off.  A complex work--told from alternating first person points of view with constantly intersecting and overlapping time lines--that, at its heart, is about relationships and the price (emotionally) one is willing to pay for them.

Henry DeTamble suffers from a genetic disorder (related to the genes that give us our sense of time, circadian rhythms, whatnot) that will eventually become known as Chrono-Impairment. From the time he's very young he finds himself traveling through time without warning to places and times within his own life or that of his wife (sometimes to-be) Clare Abshire.  He has no control over when it happens or when/where he goes....and he can't take anything with him, so he appears naked--sometimes in the most inconvenient places.  This is not only disturbing for him emotionally and temporally, but physically as well since it sometimes places him in dangerous situations.

For Henry, the first time he meets Clare is in "real time"--he is 28 and she is 20 and they meet at the Newberry in Chicago where Henry is a librarian.  Clare has been waiting 14 years....because the first time she meets Henry is when she is six and Henry's 36 year old self magically appears in The Meadow out near her house in Michigan.  From that point on, their lives intersect off and on until Henry is 43...living a "real time" life together, using their real time to develop a relationship, marry, and after much trauma and several miscarriages having a daughter together.  They both know through the interactions with the various "editions" of Henry's time-displaced self that their relationship is limited by this chrono-disorder and that sometime in the future Henry will face a danger he may not be able to overcome.  It is up to them to determine that their love....their connection through time has no limit.  

As Clare says: “I won't ever leave you, even though you're always leaving me.”

As I mentioned, this book is about relationships and the price one is willing to pay for them.  Henry must go into the relationship knowing that he must leave the woman he loves unexpectedly...and, depending on how dangerous the time leap, possibly forever.  Most of the time he also has knowledge of the future that he can't share with Clare. Clare must play the waiting game....waiting to meet Henry in real time, wanting him long before she can have him, and waiting for him when he makes his time leaps.  

This book also take a look at the nature of time itself along with cause and effect and whether we have free will or everything is predetermined.  Henry spends most of the book telling Clare that what will happen has already happened and that they can't change anything.  Even when they decide to deliberately do so.  The story causes the reader to consider whether Henry and Clare have a choice at the moment of choosing or if they are compelled to make the choice simply because it is the choice they will have made.  Some rather deep philosophical waters.

Niffenegger handles this with great aplomb.  I thoroughly enjoyed the story and my interest and emotions were completely engaged.  I became invested in the characters and had to know what came next.  I'm glad I finished the book at home because I was a bit weepy at the end.  This is a book of over 500 pages that I simply whizzed through.  My only complaint is that Clare's character isn't quite as fully realized as Henry's--and even a few of the supporting cast are fleshed out a bit more than Clare....which gives us a rating just verging on four and a half stars.