tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82397947386680419562024-02-17T00:51:39.060-08:00BookishEleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.comBlogger109125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-165242094984084622024-01-16T07:01:00.000-08:002024-01-18T21:31:35.080-08:00You'll be caught in the undertow of 'The Cure for Drowning' by Loghan Payton<div dir="ltr"><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkO9NyqTz8qpA_jOANA9DqoL8dPxoFatMa1osT7XkqLLh9Uj8D-dSlriKvNXjgpHirqS_nPUr5bBaAOum0e9Koo8ggKO5PQIWMivce5Qzi06L2iv_OqObJl4xrQRuuRjLijDeNxh1yzf408hLh-F7bIE_SDnQBJVuHDrYNKfCraF-lUlya6crZdztHvi8/s450/The%20cure%20for%20drowning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="310" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkO9NyqTz8qpA_jOANA9DqoL8dPxoFatMa1osT7XkqLLh9Uj8D-dSlriKvNXjgpHirqS_nPUr5bBaAOum0e9Koo8ggKO5PQIWMivce5Qzi06L2iv_OqObJl4xrQRuuRjLijDeNxh1yzf408hLh-F7bIE_SDnQBJVuHDrYNKfCraF-lUlya6crZdztHvi8/s320/The%20cure%20for%20drowning.jpg" width="220" /></a></div> Lyrical and haunting; '<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Girl_of_the_Limberlost_(novel)" target="_blank">Girl of the Limberlost</a>' meets '<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aim%C3%A9e_%26_Jaguar" target="_blank">Aimee and Jaguar</a>' in this beautiful and doom-shadowed historical: a romantic triangle between a Canadian doctor's half-French, half-German daughter and the neighbour's two oldest children. <br /></div><div> </div><div>It starts in southern Ontario on the cusp of WW2, when war is looming in Europe and anyone with a German name in Canada is becoming increasingly suspect. After her father's medical practice in MontreaI was diminished by growing anti-German sentiment, Rebekah, only daughter of the expat German doctor and his French-Canadian wife, is slowly adapting to life in a small town near the shores of Lake Huron. The first friends she makes are the neighbouring farm's oldest son, Landon, and his conflicted, misgendered sister Kit, whose parents think she is a changeling. <br /><br />I identified with all the major characters in some way or other, from the beset doctor to his melancholic, lonely wife, and the bisexual daughter struggling with her conflicting desires for love and for stability in a world where there isn't a language to express her yearnings, let alone support her in dealing with them. The neighbours' 'changeling child', Kit, coming out as transsexual in a society even less able to cope with 'women who don't keep their place'.. Maybe not so much with Landon, who represents the patriarchal status quo, the ideal to which Rebekah is expected to aspire by virtually everyone in her world... except Kit. </div><div></div><div></div><div><br />Fascinated as I was by the well-drawn historical backdrop, the ways in which the characters interacted with their era of societal upheaval. what the novel really stands out for is the growing sense of dread, the undercurrents beneath that sun-dappled stream's surface, the inescapable emotional destruction that I felt sure was coming, even though the author did not overtly foreshadow it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Apart from the initial near-drowning scene, this novel starts off
deceptively gentle, like a placid stream struck by dappled sunshine as
it winds amid meadows rippling with wildflowers. The early, tentative
steps towards love are delicately crafted, a real treat to read
although the looming sense of the three young people on a romantic and
sexual collision course soon overshadows even the most sunlit idyll.</div><div></div><div></div><div><br />This is well worth the read for historical fiction fans, for anyone who wants a step back in time to a period of upheaval in Canadian and World history, and for peeling back the delicate processes of coming out as your true self when surrounded by a society that will do anything to put you back in the box you were assigned at birth.<br /><br />CW: LGBTQ+, bigotry, post-combat trauma, immigrant struggles</div><div> </div><div> </div><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/717627/the-cure-for-drowning-by-loghan-paylor/9781039006454" target="_blank">The Cure for Drowing</a></div><div dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/717627/the-cure-for-drowning-by-loghan-paylor/9781039006454" target="_blank">Loghan Payton</a></div><div dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/717627/the-cure-for-drowning-by-loghan-paylor/9781039006454" target="_blank">Penguin Random House</a><br /></div>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-84493439329954665422023-12-09T01:30:00.000-08:002023-12-09T01:30:26.990-08:00The Mystery Guest is a cracking good mystery!<p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK2fLQWGpqyJqbacOk-qbbXmIrqujV-0ArGTRsEpkB58-Ll-wEp17GXFjDxVBqqtregm2iHkAct7b4veo6Z5I8jPWDYFsCBbb58l1ZrOawhyIi_rJPY0h5g8bXaObVQoxojcVcsQtv8tjSKj56wdONEsc5TMBiqE24De7dPQ4gI-62-wsM90ltsVUfoME/s388/Mystery%20Guest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK2fLQWGpqyJqbacOk-qbbXmIrqujV-0ArGTRsEpkB58-Ll-wEp17GXFjDxVBqqtregm2iHkAct7b4veo6Z5I8jPWDYFsCBbb58l1ZrOawhyIi_rJPY0h5g8bXaObVQoxojcVcsQtv8tjSKj56wdONEsc5TMBiqE24De7dPQ4gI-62-wsM90ltsVUfoME/s320/Mystery%20Guest.jpg" width="210" /></a>Move over, Detective Monk. Molly the Maid is dusting your doors on her way past.</p><p>Set at the fabulous Art Deco Regency Grand Hotel, a five star boutique establishment, this is an early-body mystery, in which a award-winning and famously irascible mystery author drops dead during his special appearance in the hotel's tea room. The maid-in-training who prepared his tea is the chief suspect.<br /><br />But our new head maid, Molly, is not having it. She was once accused of murder in this very hotel and rose above to clear her name with the help of Charlotte, the brilliant daughter of the hotel’s doorman. She's determined to protect her underling by finding the real killer. <br /><br />It’ll be an uphill struggle. All she has to go on is the unfinished/rudely interrupted statement by the famous deceased that he was about to reveal a long-held secret to his dedicated fans. And the odd behavior of one unpleasant maid with designs on Molly's job, yet who lacks the cleaning skills or dedication that Molly learned over many years of observing and assisting her now-deceased Gran, whose advice still whispers in her head at opportune times.<br /><br />Molly’s voice is crisp and engaging. She’s a collector of the lonely, a comforter of the lovelorn, and supremely competent, relied upon by Mr Snow, the manager. He’s not the only supporting character who comes to life with a few well-chosen phrases, but Molly is the deftly created and wholly supportable star of the whole shebang. She's coded convincingly autistic, which adds a few layers of both good and bad to her investigative process.<br /><br />Good: she is highly observant and remembers a lot of what she sees.<br /><br />Bad: she frequently alienate police officers and other people who should not be antagonized. <br /> <br />Does she overcome all that, and her own dubious family history, to solve the crime?<br /><br />Well, this isn't her first swing on the roundabout of murder. But for that history you'll need to read the widely acclaimed 'The Maid' where we first make her acquaintance.</p><div dir="ltr"><div>Go for it. It's a strong mystery, well crafted and written, with a bonus of solid representation for autistic and neurodivergent people in the workforce.</div><div><br /></div><div>#netgalley #TheMaid #hotel #murder #CrimeFiction #authors #autism #neurodivergence<br /></div>
</div><br /><br />Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-18661486768166085432023-10-31T01:01:00.001-07:002023-10-31T01:01:46.990-07:00The Pantomime Murders<div dir="ltr"><div><h1>The Pantomime Murders</h1><h1> by Fiona Veitch Smith</h1></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>It’s December 1929. The fairy godmother from the pantomime vanishes
into the night after her last performance in York, still wearing her sparkly dress and carrying her sparkly wand. When the show picks
up a week later in Newcasttle, she’s been replaced and it turns out she resigned by
telegram. Nobody has seen her and the request to send her effects from
her theatrical boarding house also came by telegram. A concerned cast-mate hires Clara, a determined distance swimmer
and private inquiry agent to find the missing actress. <br /><br />Two books ago, Clara inherited the detective agency belonging to her late Uncle Bob, and is still learning the ropes. Her mother, Lady Vanessa, hates that she's running the detective agency instead of getting married to someone suitable (read noble), and that she also inherited a Georgian townhouse (complete with a forensic laboratory and a file collection
of her uncle’s most bizarre cases). She's functionally independent and in no rush to give up her financial freedom. With plenty to prove to the various police inspectors and potential clients she encounters, Clara works long hours and tackles her new challenges with verve and ingenuity. A side plot about a shoplifting ring brings her a useful new assistant.<br /></div>
<div><br /></div><div></div>
<div>This complicated case is embedded in the now-vanished world of constantly touring theatrical companies, their rivalries and alliances, their succession of temporary boarding houses. The quotes from an extant 1929 play script of
Cinderella are sure to please theatre historians. There are plenty of
tourist touchstones around historical Newcastle as well as a few day
trips to York by train. The mystery is a curious one, the science and
detection tools are approximately appropriate to the state of knowledge
at the time. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The Pantomime Murders has all the elements of an enjoyable 1920s Christmas crime albeit with fewer flappers and less gin, with a strong undercurrent early feminism. However, the first half is weighed down by Clara's repetitive thinking through her next steps, then discussing the same next steps, then doing one or two
next steps, then thinking through them again in between every step. Once you get past that, the mystery clips along believably with some nice touches of menacing atmosphere and a nice twist at the end.<br /></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Overall this is a satisfying historical Christmas crime novel, well rooted in the social, cultural, and financial history of 1929. <br /></div><div> </div><div>#Netgalley #Newcastle #York #BlackTuesday #Pantomime #theatre #Suffragist #WomenHelpingWomen #EmblaPress #Christmas <br /></div>
</div>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-43651883885629594832023-10-27T00:49:00.000-07:002023-10-27T00:49:37.619-07:00<p> <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/286026"></a></p><h3 itemprop="name"><a href="https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/286026">Zoey Is Too Drunk for This Dystopia</a></h3>
<p></p><div class="title-text" itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
by <span class="title-text-author" itemprop="author">Jason Pargin</span>
</div><p>
<a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250285935/zoeyistoodrunkforthisdystopia" target="_blank">Pub Date:
<span aria-label="31 October 2023" class="title-text-pub-date" content="2023-10-31" itemprop="datePublished"><span aria-hidden="true">31 Oct 2023</span></span></a></p><p><span style="color: #800180;"><i><b>The creative gore here is perfect for Halloween reading. And it’s kind of a killer crime novel too.</b></i></span></p><div dir="ltr"><div>You might not think from the opening pages that Zoey is going to become one of your favourite characters. But soon you will be rooting for her, and snickering at the snarky observations and quirky turns of phrase. You don’t have to read far before you realize that the author, being the former executive editor <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://ofcracked.com&source=gmail&ust=1698474046453000&usg=AOvVaw18bfskSOhVf5man07OUiDl" href="http://ofcracked.com" target="_blank">of cracked.com</a>, has a wry and slightly demented sense of humor. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://mpd-biblio-covers.imgix.net/9781250285935.jpg?w=600" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="526" height="400" src="https://mpd-biblio-covers.imgix.net/9781250285935.jpg?w=600" width="263" /></a></div>This futuristic supermall-slash-Vegas version of Utah has hypercharged crooked capitalism at its core, and thanks to her dead father, Zoey owns a large chunk of it. Anytime there’s wealth derived from shady/crooked origins, there are enemies. And Zoey's are a special breed of determined/crazy.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>This book is a sequel to <i>Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick </i>(2020), which followed <i>Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits</i>. Those two were written by the same author under the name <b>David Wong</b>. <br /></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Apart from a tendency of the various characters to digress into brief polemics about the inevitability of corruption and predictably existentialist views of modern society, the book is entertaining for anyone who loves wordplay and unexpected situational comedy. It will appeal to mystery lovers who like their humour zany, and to many people who loved Mad Magazine and Cracked in their youth. And possibly to anyone who enjoys The Murderbot Diaries.<br /></div><div> </div><div>You don’t need to have read the previous two books in order to enjoy this one, but you will probably want to go back after you’ve lived in Zoe‘s world for this extremely eccentric adventure. </div><div> </div><div>#NetGalley #Zoey #gangsters #politics #futuristic #zany #election #stunts #socialmedia <br /></div>
</div>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-16777913708822460892023-10-27T00:27:00.001-07:002023-10-27T00:27:49.759-07:00Shark Teeth: she's not really a biter<p></p><div><h1><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/shark-teeth-9781547608508/" target="_blank">Shark Teeth</a></h1></div>
<div></div>
<div>by <span class="title-text-author" itemprop="author">Sherri Winston</span> </div><div>Pub Date:
<span aria-label="16 January 2024" class="title-text-pub-date" content="2024-01-16" itemprop="datePublished"><span aria-hidden="true">16 Jan 2024</span></span> </div><div>Bloomsbury Children's Books<br /></div><div><span> <br /></span></div><div>Kita is a really identifiable character, a girl
going into grade 7 whose mission is to look after
her younger siblings, keep their home life on track amid her mother's partying and
absenteeism and cruelty, and most of all keep the family from being split up into different foster homes AGAIN.<br /></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>She’s also got hyperdontia, two rows of teeth. The kids at school
call her Sharkita or Shark Teeth. She's heard all the hurtful phrases that
everyone who is physically different faces, and by now expects them. Which new person would ask her what’s wrong with her teeth? Which would say no offense before saying
something that could only seen as offensive? Or, what hurt the most: which would pretend she wasn’t there at all?</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihTAQsovbSMl8Y8fup-t-m73KDRZMIjf1XnMYCe-d0SfX97UFIls0xbvSlyboQ4OImOL3laj2RFFXcndqVaHFdcPjpIRzcTLsOt9xHTkLG44P6mE1IOcCGoYx3BiUptyYUI4wj-Nv8vozU5NDlVMZYUedKj7cHgR38GCenFHUJgWVDTih4WrxjsH_QKyQ/s882/Shark%20Teeth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="882" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihTAQsovbSMl8Y8fup-t-m73KDRZMIjf1XnMYCe-d0SfX97UFIls0xbvSlyboQ4OImOL3laj2RFFXcndqVaHFdcPjpIRzcTLsOt9xHTkLG44P6mE1IOcCGoYx3BiUptyYUI4wj-Nv8vozU5NDlVMZYUedKj7cHgR38GCenFHUJgWVDTih4WrxjsH_QKyQ/s320/Shark%20Teeth.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div></div>
<div>Kita wants to join after school activities like her friends do. She wants to be a kid. And that seems to be what the new assistant principal is encouraging. Even when she’s trying out for the dance
and twirl team at school, with her mother's blessing, Kita’s stressed
about whether Mama is actually looking after the younger siblings or has
gone off again. She has episodes of severe muscle spasms, but her mother just tells
her they’re a sign of being crazy. If she tells anyone about them, she could get locked up. Mama's really an expert at cutting off Kita from anyone who might help her. </div><div> </div><div>This is a touching story of Kita's struggle to become a kid again: to learn to trust others to look after her siblings better than she can, to accept help and support and even love from people who truly have her best interests at heart. Foster kids will see their own struggles here, and other kids will relate to Kita's insecurities as well as learning empathy for classmates who too often are mocked for their poverty, their enforced maturity, their visible differences. </div><div><br /></div><div>Five Stars.</div><div><br /></div><div>#NetGalley #FosterCare #FosterHome #Family #FoundFamily #Family Dysfunction #MiddleGrade #Twirl #DanceTeam #School #Friendship #Bloomsbury <br /></div>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-57662844768526846952023-10-15T16:26:00.005-07:002023-10-15T16:26:45.104-07:00Imprisoned Like a Lady<p><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250867551/actlikealadythinklikealord" target="_blank"> Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"> by Celeste Connally </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioXpkMsH_N98vmkMzLFtvH4HPyvNg9TT-y7dJuqb3rG5h9QTkpuLmCGF73YUEHEiwaFrpqUGbC6ZAV8KcdofyWJ-I_3vRk3TpaRuoYTvTNgyCunXliOQE5KPKDLJxndE7I861v9O7iRDjpVaPg9ZYzyWpsoitB8UlmFGVgr0WYzHYdbSH5Imll0P5MTVI/s927/Connally%20Act%20LIke%20a%20Lady.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="927" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioXpkMsH_N98vmkMzLFtvH4HPyvNg9TT-y7dJuqb3rG5h9QTkpuLmCGF73YUEHEiwaFrpqUGbC6ZAV8KcdofyWJ-I_3vRk3TpaRuoYTvTNgyCunXliOQE5KPKDLJxndE7I861v9O7iRDjpVaPg9ZYzyWpsoitB8UlmFGVgr0WYzHYdbSH5Imll0P5MTVI/s320/Connally%20Act%20LIke%20a%20Lady.jpg" width="207" /></a></span></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This novel has all that most readers expect from a Regency:
carriages, horses, a ball scene, sparks and snarks between the heroine and her
love interest. There are few clues in the opening chapter to this novel’s
Regency-Gothic plot, but get past that and it’s a socially relevant, intriguing
tale of women successfully challenging of one of England’s longstanding, deeply
inhumane ways of exercising patriarchal power and greed. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Several feisty female secondary characters band together
with Our Heroine to rescue their downtrodden compatriots from controlling
spouses and fathers, at similar risk to their own limited freedoms. It’s
inspiring and refreshing, part of the new wave of Regencies that tackle wider
societal problems rather than strictly a het romance.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Those flaws in this opening: dialogue and inner monologues
are slightly over-flowery (as is common with neo-Regency novels), setting is generically
‘carriages and balls’ rather than definably Regency-era, and far too many
paragraphs are lost interspersing Our Heroine changing her clothes with clumsily
introducing (through inane dialogue with her faithful ladies’ maid) characters
we’ll meet later. There’s no way to guess from this opening that you’re
entering a tale of human frailty, madhouses, and morals that would not be out
of place in a Bronte novel. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Available for pre-order to Nov 14, 2023 <br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">#Netgalley #Regency #Women <br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-37074418089094037372023-09-26T03:21:00.002-07:002023-09-26T03:26:14.816-07:00The Observer: grim foreboding in a small town<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaXBvQ_MlyaZ7ykB6NdJmVbUSjPocUyqKUhAjpp2zc3VfUxhQen4_J54HdkcaCDStfqR9V1ILz5n3FHjguk5a38p0Qz8iIIaTZ9YPzalhWV1GVTKfLiZ1jErEta0aLWrsMm2aV_SAWGDVJS2q9QI5_l36j-TpA3-ayCUJh_wOPT-qTW4TLkIbeUmYcKOQ/s383/The%20Observer.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaXBvQ_MlyaZ7ykB6NdJmVbUSjPocUyqKUhAjpp2zc3VfUxhQen4_J54HdkcaCDStfqR9V1ILz5n3FHjguk5a38p0Qz8iIIaTZ9YPzalhWV1GVTKfLiZ1jErEta0aLWrsMm2aV_SAWGDVJS2q9QI5_l36j-TpA3-ayCUJh_wOPT-qTW4TLkIbeUmYcKOQ/s320/The%20Observer.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><p>The Observer, quasi-fictional recounting of a small rural town's seasonal doings through the eyes of a Mountie's young wife, proceeds with all the inexorable fatality of a comet as seen by those innocent of the scientific explanations. </p><p>In this pre-cellphone, pre-internet proto-memoir our narrator is, by her own admission, a out-of-her-depth outsider in Medway (a fictional standin for Meyerthorpe, Alberta). She struggles to grasp the local rhythms of life, the inexplicable codes governing what dish to bring to which potluck. A recurring temporary job at the local paper, The Observer, gives her more insight into the denizens of town and surrounding farms, and hands her secret after secret that can't be spoken of directly, let alone printed in the paper. Mysteries come and go, adding menace but rarely resolved.<br /></p><p>Mostly alone with her young child while her spouse Hardy is on patrol (sometimes for days on end) or at home sleeping between shifts, Julia fears her own emotions almost as much as she worries about Hardy's growing bleakness. She's a composite of thousands of law enforcement spouses: pitched without information or recourse into being the main emotional prop and outlet for a man under tremendous work strain, himself with no external support beyond that provided by equally stressed-out co-workers. <br /></p><p>The characters are mostly sympathetic, the prose often beautiful, the moments of joy in nature sublime... and yet the darker undercurrents multiply, expanding like the comet's tail in the night sky. The sense of impending doom thickens page by page, chapter by chapter, recreating the nigh-breathless tension of life in an RCMP household, of an RCMP career, and in a town where too many assholes have been tolerated, too many secrets swept under for far too long. </p><p>Something has to snap. You're just not sure what, or who, or how bad it's going to go.<br /></p><p>At the novel's end, something does. By then Julia and Hardy are long gone, their reactions both sharpened by familiarity and muted by time & distance. Their subsequent life briefly touches on several changes forced onto the RCMP in the past twenty years, including Critical Incident Debriefing and other psychological supports. Spouses, though, remain outside the precinct, responsible for their own mental health and supporting each other without quite admitting just how much strain they're all under.<br /></p><p>There's no emotional catharsis here for the reader, just as there was not for the very real townspeople who lived through, and still live with, not only the Mayerthorpe tragedy but the myriad dark currents that swirl beneath the idyllic surface of small rural towns.</p><p><b><i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/706975/the-observer-by-marina-endicott/9781039003569" target="_blank">The Observer</a></i></b><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/TbamIEju_Xo?si=7Svd0y2qpPhQkjL7" target="_blank">View Marina Endicott's book launch of <i>The Observer</i> </a><br /></p><p></p><p>#NetGalley #Mayerthorpe #RCMP #MarinaEndicott #novel #prairies #smalltown #ruralliving #tragedy #policing #trauma #CriticalIncidentDebrief #journalism #dramaturge #horses #hate <br /></p>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-48192455799219794012023-09-20T02:45:00.001-07:002023-09-20T02:45:09.670-07:00Golden Gate is more than a place<p></p><div dir="ltr"><div><h1><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaSEqMxmP4PPJg-PrYWh8QGqiU4uyQZqu1g7WSsekBqc4WorgWRJA6lvigJgycQMoNnT-2RXFspXiW52sjfLIZSxXiNrm-_zaY-AoZVGzap4b9qgUve4OX6hqvbnp9mRtJ1fhlPhNj9x1a_gVlPFdRB9qid_4-E5jQpxeZ6KJ655mp-Z16manhw5O4g4g/s894/The%20Golden%20Gate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="894" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaSEqMxmP4PPJg-PrYWh8QGqiU4uyQZqu1g7WSsekBqc4WorgWRJA6lvigJgycQMoNnT-2RXFspXiW52sjfLIZSxXiNrm-_zaY-AoZVGzap4b9qgUve4OX6hqvbnp9mRtJ1fhlPhNj9x1a_gVlPFdRB9qid_4-E5jQpxeZ6KJ655mp-Z16manhw5O4g4g/s320/The%20Golden%20Gate.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>The Golden Gate<br /> by Amy Chua</h1></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The Golden Gate of the title is a hotel catering to the rich and infamous in San Francisco, and it's also a not-subtle delineation of the barriers that wealth and fame create to keep truth and justice at bay. A boffo prologue tells us there’s been a murder. In the first few pages, there are actually two deaths. And three golden girls--wealthy and beautiful cousins--who are all suspects. We don’t know all the players yet but we can be pretty sure things are going to
keep on happening.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>There’s a strong flavour of San Francisco noir, the cynical cop
getting the runaround from wealthy businessman and politicians. Except this cop is half-Latino and thus very conscious of his race-based risk if he calls them out on their lies. He's worked hard to pass as white on the force, even using his mother's maiden name instead of his father's Mexican surname. Indirectly at first, later more directly,
the Japanese Internment of WW2 plays a role. Distinct overtones of Lavender House by Lev A. C. Rosen.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The chapters trip around in time between the first Golden Gate death,
of a child, and the second, of a well known and much despised
politician early in WW2. It's a slow unveiling of that ever-popular plot: rich Americans behaving badly. It's the author's first foray into crime fiction and that shows in the technique of revealing most of the useful backstory (and the solution) not through the detective's own efforts but through intermittent pieces of a long statement by the golden girls' grandmother, produced on the thinnest of legal pretexts.<br /><br />There’s lots of evidence here that Amy Chua is
better known for her nonfiction, as page after page elides away from the ongoing story into neutral-voice narration of San Francisco’s, and
America’s, history. The history and culture are interesting as sidelights
on the setting. Several characters are either real people, or fictional
ones whose life events are lifted from then-living people. But those digressions, like the grandmother's statement, tend to distance us from caring about the characters or becoming fully immersed in exploring the plot.</div><div> </div><div>As Chua is a talented writer and cares deeply about producing textured backgrounds rich in historical detail, her next mystery novel will almost surely be better, with the background serving as, well, background and the characters allowed to fully explore their own unfolding story. </div><div><br /></div><div>#Netgalley #TheGoldenGate #novel #reviewing #fiction #AmericanFiction #WW2 #JapaneseInternment #California #politics #politicians #philandering #adultery #cousins #lesbians #gays #LGBTQ #murder #AmericanHistory<br /></div>
</div>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-16773440282168021232023-08-04T05:12:00.000-07:002023-08-04T05:12:52.124-07:00The Rachel Incident gets five stars from me<p><span style="font-size: large;">This is both a small story of one woman's decade--from seedy university digs and hangovers with her gay roommate through professional development to the birth of her first child--and the story of Ireland's financial and social turmoil of the early 21st century. It tackles abuse of power and academic privilege, the difficulties and exultations of coming out queer in a college town filled with football hooligans and conservative religious parents, couple dynamics viewed through the lenses of several different Rachels in the course of her evolution toward maturity. And especially it speaks of lies, their endurance and their evolution. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Amid the memorable images of drunken sprees and devastating breakups are some deeply resonant lines, such as<br /></span></p><div dir="ltr"><div><span style="font-size: large;"></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;"><b>He talked about the book industry as if it were a dragon that was chained in the basement, and would tear us limb from limb at any moment.</b></span></div>
<div><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;"></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-size: large;"></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: large;">I suspect most authors, editors, and booksellers would agree. Even some agents...<br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: large;">The book launch scene in chapter 7 is--apart from one notable backroom moment--both entertaining and cringingly familiar to authors and bookstore owners.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: large;">At one point Rachel talks about bands whose names she wouldn’t remember a decade later but that occupied "a magical sweet space between celebrity and accessibility.” </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">For me this book is a magical sweet space between Ireland as it is, Ireland of the bleak financial-crash years before the Celtic Tiger roared anew, and the Ireland that was and remains shaped indelibly by the starvation times under Queen Victoria. Ireland has a long and complex memory, and that is infused in every page of this engaging tale of a young woman growing up, navigating her world not always wisely. Her happy ending isn't one I'd have envisioned, and yet it was perfect for her. I dare you not to tear up.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><a href="the-rachel-incident-by-caroline-odonoghue/" target="_blank">The Rachel Incident</a> by Caroline O'Donoghue</b></span><span style="font-size: large;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">the <i>New York Times </i>best-selling author of <i>All Our Hidden Gifts</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br />#Ireland #abortion #university #comingout #goinghome #financialcrash #womensfiction #Netgalley<br /></span></div>
<div> </div>
</div>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-66734402279957320972023-08-04T04:36:00.000-07:002023-08-04T04:36:17.880-07:00DIVA by Daisy Goodwin<div><h1>A competent fictionalization that breaks no new ground<br /></h1></div>
<div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: medium;">In Goodwin's competent hands, this fictionalized life of operatic sensation Maria Callas is framed, and punctuated, by her relationship with the richest man on the planet, Ari Onassis. It drops us into her public space and private thoughts on the day she learns Ari has abandoned her and their long-standing affair to marry a woman of better pedigree, namely Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">After that emotionally tense opening, we skip back-and-forth through her early desperate years in New York City, the ignored younger sister, until she demonstrates her singing talent to her grasping mother. Sent back to Italy when her parents separate, she supports her mother by singing in the streets and bars through some troubled times before finally making her way to a teacher and opera company. When she returns to New York City, it is as a world renowned diva, and the rest of the book is pretty much headlines with some yearning over forbidden food and arrogant comments about her own brilliance.<br /></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: medium;">I wanted to like this book more than I did. But although it gives possible plausible insights into fictionalized Maria, it fails to make her engaging or sympathetic, and does not elevate the rather humdrum elements of her celebrated life either on or off stage. If there was a search for meaning in her life it seems to have gone no further than a quest to be allowed to eat pasta again as opposed to eating only salad to preserve her figure for the stage. With so much rich opera to draw on, there were many parallels that could have been made, some tragedies underpinned by the operas in which she performed, but the book stays in the lighter and easier fare, resulting in an operetta of middling competence rather than an opera-quality life and death.</span></div><p> </p>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-75287189487980764892023-06-21T20:33:00.001-07:002023-06-21T20:33:53.912-07:00Morgan is My Name - a medieval sorceress with modern resonance<p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</p><p class="MsoNormal"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://images.randomhouse.com/cover/9781039006492" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="300" height="450" src="https://images.randomhouse.com/cover/9781039006492" width="300" /></a></b></div><b><span style="font-size: large;">Morgan is My Name </span></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>by Sophie Keetch</b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> It’s a long time since a book carried me back to that time
of courtly love and legend with such insistent grace. It’s a lean book, not a
thousand-page epic, and yet in my mind’s cinema, drawing on all the Arthurian
books and movies indexed through the decades since my first Disney Arthur, it’s
a tale far greater than the economical, episodic text that pins it to the page.
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One great truth is stated, plain as day, in the respect of
the falcon Jezebel, a peregrine belonging to Morgan’s father. “Every return to
the glove is a courtesy, not a right,” said young Morgan, just before her
father rode away to try to draw Uther Pendragon from his woman and his
children. The hawk is a recurring image and so are candles, signifying respectively
freedom and the light of knowledge, both forbidden to young Morgan, princess of
Cornwall, from the moment of her father’s death at the hands of Uther
Pendragon. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is a book about a girl growing up like any other girl
of her era and high position, with only hints of the power she will come to
wield, and the force of her hatred for Uther Pendragon. She is intimately
relatable to modern girls, and the sidelights on her mother’s life and choices
as the reluctant consort of Uther are relatable for older readers. There’s familiar
territory for the Arthurian legends and a worthy courtly romance that makes the
heart beat faster, that yearns for knights and dancing and candlelight and
stolen kisses and secret vows of love and fidelity. For all the fire that burns
in her blood for one parfait knight, this Morgan relies on other women in ways
and depths that she, and they, could never rely on men—and indeed still can’t.
It’s a story of sisterhood for survival in a time when men held all the outward
cards. Again, very relatable for modern women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The eruption of Uther into the narrative each time Morgan finds a
measure of peace is a storm that reshapes her life and sends it hurtling off in
a new direction. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And yet, because we readers raised on Arthurian legend know
her doom (or think we do) we cannot but feel the foreboding that looms just
over the crest of the hill. We want to change her ending. We hope that this
author, with her insights into this prickly but relatable girl, can craft for
her an ending that is not, this time, a doom for the ages. We hold our breath.
As each turning of the page draws us closer to finding out what chaos Uther’s
next thunderbolt will unleash - like a burly Zeus on horseback, his armour
rusting in the Cornish rains - we both yearn for and fear the day when Morgan
truly comes into her power. </p><p class="MsoNormal">For then her doom will be truly set. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> #NetGalley #ThanksNetgalley #Arthurian #MorganLeFay #Merlin #witchcraft #healing #chivalry #medieval #romance #CourtlyLove #SophieKeetch #PenguinRandomHouse #NewRelease<br /></p>
<p></p>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-72197675763667304242023-06-10T23:27:00.000-07:002023-06-10T23:27:21.903-07:00The Adult by Bronwyn Fischer<p>This short novel is a paean to university poetry classes and obsessive love, through the intensely self-centric lens of a student away from home for the first time, groping her way toward adulthood as a queer woman in Toronto. As a deep-dyed introvert I know well the second-guessing and excruciating post-action analysis that can go into every encounter with another human. </p><p>This tale will surely speak to many young women exploring their
sexuality once they’ve finally left their conservative
small-town lives behind. However, the lack of development in any secondary characters may feel myopic if not claustrophobic. More mature readers may find the on-off-on relationship between the two adult women more worthy of interrogation than it receives at Natalie‘s hands. Her lack of curiosity about her lover’s life or interests--beyond 'Are you thinking about me when I'm not here?--and her occasional afterthought shows of interest in the doings of her friends and fellow students came across as selfish rather than sympathetic. </p><p>The writing is sometimes lyrical although reading about poetry the
protagonist is reading, or wrote, or might write someday, is hardly as compelling
as reading the poetry itself could be. While I appreciate the excavation of a slow coming-out process, I would have liked to see this introverted, largely oblivious protagonist gain some understanding of relationships deeper than “that is the one I was in then, and this is the one I’m in now.” </p><p><i>This novel came to me via Netgalley in expectation of my honest review.</i> <br /></p><p></p><h1 id="page-title"><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/705225/the-adult-by-bronwyn-fischer/9781039002968" target="_blank">The Adult</a></h1> <a class="atm_tag" href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/authors/2264507/bronwyn-fischer">Bronwyn Fischer</a>
<p></p><p><br /></p><p>#Netgalley #lgbtq #university #comingout #comingofage #lesbian #parenting #shortbooks <br /></p>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-18004402712632121162023-05-30T02:15:00.001-07:002023-05-30T02:15:21.933-07:00Of Light and Shadow<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">"</span><em>When they don’t give us our birthright, we steal it." </em></b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b><em></em></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFmzFMELaIa4BtfdpysUqu0NLfgDxwx4kpjxKRnICUU7XbTT3LFTMKMCHCZIBLVxqXqcB7_tTMk0Q-xzH4dfCXnFGKseC7tLuW4P11v1qgV-NgTbcVeGkcLfaR4KFMXWroBbw8_gblTx6SVzh9fFHw-zKiDwEQ5Zi5j15FP7iGKtzSDdWT1i_Rog0Q/s1984/Of%20Light%20and%20Shadow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1368" data-original-width="1984" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFmzFMELaIa4BtfdpysUqu0NLfgDxwx4kpjxKRnICUU7XbTT3LFTMKMCHCZIBLVxqXqcB7_tTMk0Q-xzH4dfCXnFGKseC7tLuW4P11v1qgV-NgTbcVeGkcLfaR4KFMXWroBbw8_gblTx6SVzh9fFHw-zKiDwEQ5Zi5j15FP7iGKtzSDdWT1i_Rog0Q/s320/Of%20Light%20and%20Shadow.jpg" width="320" /></a></em></b></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;">The title doesn't do justice to this surprisingly compact Indian/Zoroastrian influenced fantasy novel that's so much more than good versus evil despite its bandit-versus-prince opening gambit. These pages are rife with magic systems and mythologies, politics, environmentalism, societal collapse, spirituality, racial biases, all wound around a grudging role-reversed romantic dance between the female bandit leader and the princely hostage.</span></span></p><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;">I find the magic system interesting. Even healing magic exacts a penalty from the user, and our healer sometimes reflects on the perils and pitfalls of their position in ways that feel very real for someone both depended on and not quite trusted. In some senses this echoes the attitude from villagers towards herbal wise women in Europe in the witch burning years, although so far nobody has tried to burn our healer except one patient whose pain has overridden her control of her fire magic.</span></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;">The environmental plot is well foreshadowed before it appears overtly on the page and forces our prince into a moral dilemma, caught between what he believes is right for the people of the damaged region, and his loyalty to his family.</span></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;">It does seem that our very sympathetic female protagonist gets shorter shift as the novel unfolds. Rather than becoming more complex and facing deeper ethical or psychological or physical challenges, she seems destined to be reduced to a reluctant love interest. Fortunately, she eventually regains more equal footing with the Peri Prince. </span></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;">This is a satisfying blend of environmentalism and magic, both light and shadow, that dwells within the characters as well as in the plot. Overall it’s a novel that feels more exotic than its lean writing and straightforward plot suggests. A most enjoyable read.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;"> <br /><b><i>Of Light and Shadow</i></b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b><i> </i></b><br />A Fantasy Romance Novel Inspired by Indian Mythology<br />Author: Tanaz Bhathena<br /><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">#OfLightAndShadow #fantasy #Zoroastrian #India #royals #rivalry #familydysfunction #speculativefiction #Netgalley #YA</span><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></div>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-86312668881672218702023-05-20T01:10:00.001-07:002023-05-20T01:10:51.485-07:00STANDING IN THE SHADOWS by Peter Robinson<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsQxT4RJp2L88Hfyxpl-WyRBJ1MTJII15QpxfPvvlVPgwQYvErSDEoCqHn2Su5INdhTqI4Kqg1dXTkZoXEK5V2kRRLbqAZAm1w9YmMTZS42FK_U4q9umOaiasVZrspnXNau_QaSZvOsLcIE1lVWqUR6qjLEQjnIpjdn7poHX1xGLTKQ2AlA3cZ0G0Q/s618/Peter%20Robinson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="618" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsQxT4RJp2L88Hfyxpl-WyRBJ1MTJII15QpxfPvvlVPgwQYvErSDEoCqHn2Su5INdhTqI4Kqg1dXTkZoXEK5V2kRRLbqAZAm1w9YmMTZS42FK_U4q9umOaiasVZrspnXNau_QaSZvOsLcIE1lVWqUR6qjLEQjnIpjdn7poHX1xGLTKQ2AlA3cZ0G0Q/s320/Peter%20Robinson.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;">There’s something moving about reading a book from an
author whose early work you know well, when it is published after he’s gone. So it
is with Peter Robinson‘s last Inspector Banks novel.</span>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">This is another split-timeline story. The earlier sections
are set in winter of 1980, when a university student is briefly a suspect in
the murder of his ex-girlfriend. He’s trying to figure out what happened by
questioning her friends and family. After a dramatic start, those plot sections
rather devolve into a slow meander through 1980 university life with minor
forays into the recent doings of the victim. We don’t much care about the
student who is suspected, and we hardly learn anything to make us mourn the
student who was killed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">The contemporary novel sections involve a years-old
unidentified corpse that is turned up by archaeologists surveying the site of a
future shopping mall. With no reason beyond mere curiosity to care about this
unidentified collection of bones and bits of leather or metal, we can only plod
along as Banks directs his team on lines of potential inquiry, occasionally
buying them drinks, and generally showing why he’d be a nice boss to have. Old
case threads and characters get some page time. Favours get called in from pals
in high and low places. No more about archaeology, and the archaeologist rather
fades away without leaving any impact, despite being one of the first (and
only) interesting characters we meet. There’s a lot about music of the era,
which bands were hot and which not, amid a few digressions into the spreading
news that John Lennon was killed. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I found myself wondering how much of the manuscript was written
many years ago and never quite reached publication in its original form. Could
it have been updated with the investigation set in 2019, to feature the ageing Banks
still cleaning up the mess from his previous case? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">The book’s interesting enough in its way, and competent as
usual, but not a ‘final
book’ in any sense beyond the author's passing and the characters' occasional glances backward.<span> W</span>e'll never know now how Robinson might
have retired--or killed--his venerated Inspector, or what plans he might have had for the
many sidekicks and side characters. Read it if you’re a longtime fan, if only
for the poignancy of knowing it is the final book from a prolific and widely
respected author.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">#PeterRobinson #InspectorBanks #NetGalley #ARC #CrimeFiction #British <br /></span></p>
<p></p>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-53476992167322306762023-03-15T02:55:00.000-07:002023-03-15T02:55:13.722-07:00Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton<p><b><span style="font-size: large;">If you don’t dislike everybody, is the author even trying?</span></b> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij2JIc91sNYikKHHsbHE7TejIqOGZnD-tw80HWGzNweG_e-VVzhDfvNTrMBl-9RJqyB2Z7gIuMUpYtHK0Np1Iir95VXth1oKA4pPmvDJix1PfGQjYMT8xmgfCOjkA97x-DHl9lhbek2D5ReKWsX1bWjzWC4_alG9nsxZTt8Q-JAbyfQf9TbnAQvC86/s144/IMG_0345.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="144" data-original-width="96" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij2JIc91sNYikKHHsbHE7TejIqOGZnD-tw80HWGzNweG_e-VVzhDfvNTrMBl-9RJqyB2Z7gIuMUpYtHK0Np1Iir95VXth1oKA4pPmvDJix1PfGQjYMT8xmgfCOjkA97x-DHl9lhbek2D5ReKWsX1bWjzWC4_alG9nsxZTt8Q-JAbyfQf9TbnAQvC86/w213-h320/IMG_0345.JPG" width="213" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Birnam Wood, the wood, is Macbeth’s downfall coming for him in ways he did not at all foresee. </p><p>Birnam Wood, the group, is a loose collective devoted to growing food in underused urban spaces. </p><p>Birnam Wood, the novel centers on Mira, the self-absorbed self-proclaimed leader and idea-generator of BW, her quiet sidekick/roommate Shelley who handles all the real, boring, administrative work out of chronic self-doubt and need for Mira’s approval, and Tony, a trust fund grandson who can’t settle to anything but obsessing over his once-upon-a-time drunken hookup with Mira. </p><p>They and their largely nameless fellow travelers maintain dozens of urban food sites with and without permission, electrical connections, and legit water supplies, dispersing their harvests among land providers, each other, and the city’s food charities. Nobody can fault their work ethic, even if their self-absorption and petty squabbles make for dull reading until nearly a quarter of the way through the tome. </p><p>This is not eco-thriller territory. What little action occurs is all tiny and mundane, on the scale of washing dishes or having a bowl of soup, and almost entirely lacking in suspense or tension or danger. As many reviewers before me have mentioned, you can probably skip or
skim the first 100 pages and enjoy the rest as a thriller no more
improbable than any Bond movie, although with a more ambiguous ending.
</p><p>Eventually, Mira’s newest self-laudatory scheme brings them into the orbit of billionaire capitalist plunderer Robert, another prime candidate for the blind hubris of a Macbeth marching obvious to his own doom. </p><p>After stumbling over Mira in a place she has no business being, Robert decides to use the collective for PR cover while he secretly strips a lot of rare-earth minerals out of a national park, destroying irreplaceable ecosystems as a disregarded byproduct. A bit of psychological manipulation and a judicious infusion of cash brings Mira, and thus the BW collective, into his personal puppet show. </p><p>It’s a classic environmentalists-versus-capitalists tale except, as mentioned above, you don’t care about any of them. Well, maybe Shelley, once she stops being Mira’s doormat. But fear not: you’ll surely despise her later, albeit for different reasons (in truth, the environmentalists separately and together are about as appealing as King Lear’s problematic daughters and far less fun than Macbeth's three witches). </p><p>The Birnam Wood lot are the good-banal: white and middle class, given to intellectual/philosophical polemics, virtue-signaling, and purity-testing…in other words, all the leftist habits routinely memed and mocked by the political right. The capitalist plunderer is the bad-banal: a billionaire with all the tech toys, unlimited cash, and unquestioning goons to follow his increasingly unethical orders. He’s a big-headed cartoon villain out of leftist conspiracy theories, whose every public action is cover for an evil plot that in itself is cover for an even more evil plot. </p><p>Despite all the words expended in their respective self-justifying inner monologues (and there are a LOT of those), none of these characters rise above the level of caricature. Given fewer wordy inner monologues and more actions indicative of emotional truth, I might have been moved by the increasingly dire plights of the collective members. But they were as painted trees dragged about the stage by a guiding hand not the equal of the author of Macbeth. </p><p>The thriller part starts to crank up steam around the half, and thereafter gains pace as well as some gross improbabilities that would be easier to overlook in a 2-hour movie than in a novel. Given the collective’s focus, there is less garden or vegetative imagery than you might expect, although the tidbit that fennel inhibits the growth of other plants makes a rather neat metaphor for both Robert and Mira. There are some shaky forensic assumptions that wouldn’t fool most watchers of modern crime shows. For the grand finale, picture Hamlet by way of South American drug cartels. </p><p>The novel is competently written in plain language and – no mean feat - manages to be even-handed in its disdain for all sides in the environmentalists-versus-capitalists battle. The most convincing part, for me, was the cynical presentation of just how readily governments local and national let environmental protections fall by the wayside through inadequate regulation, lax oversight, and non-existent enforcement. None of these cutout characters can beat a real-live politician for sheer self-centered hubris and willingness to overlook or whitewash almost any environmental or social catastrophe if by so doing he/they can gain a single scintilla more power or influence or favourable press.</p><p>#ecothriller #BirnamWood #Shakespeare #NewZealand #politicians #environment #RareEarthMinerals #mining #NationalPark #hubris #NetGalley #review #amreading #crimefiction<br /></p><p><br /></p>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-43993259073819167962023-02-25T02:00:00.000-08:002023-02-25T02:00:48.990-08:00But are they Gatsby? 2 YA protags comped to classics<p class="MsoNormal">Some of the most famous books in English literature are
about men who aren’t who they appear to be. </p><p class="MsoNormal">I'm thinking specifically of Jay Gatsby and <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/josephine-tey-2/brat-farrar/" target="_blank">BratFarrar</a>, although The Talented Mr. Ripley is better known than Brat because a) he's American and b) the movie. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJxFoUkhEl_nXuoVVK09uc0VzuCVBUx_-jnPeuy8Xn0HeyZaW3eFVI9z32DLJ9z1We61xNmQWrq0ALYGYDLi3Wvjri11kx2--6kpm-f_ZRi2PfqnmZWC30FnTylF44P9RUhmCLZxXLBNPT72TGWj02wc_GTx2JzlL1zTGnhQaH4uv7fLHWyAuXO_JC/s460/Brat%20Farrar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJxFoUkhEl_nXuoVVK09uc0VzuCVBUx_-jnPeuy8Xn0HeyZaW3eFVI9z32DLJ9z1We61xNmQWrq0ALYGYDLi3Wvjri11kx2--6kpm-f_ZRi2PfqnmZWC30FnTylF44P9RUhmCLZxXLBNPT72TGWj02wc_GTx2JzlL1zTGnhQaH4uv7fLHWyAuXO_JC/s320/Brat%20Farrar.jpg" width="209" /></a></div><p><br />Brat - a corruption of 'Bartholomew' or 'Bart' - was the protagonist and title character of British crime queen Josephine Tey's 1949 novel of domestic suspense: either the long-lost heir or the most cunning imposter the English reading public of the time could imagine. </p><p>Brat got a UK <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090401/" target="_blank">airing</a> back in the 1980s but it didn't see a lot of play in North America. <a href="https://youtu.be/g4fGtCVK5jc" target="_blank">(now available on Youtube)</a></p><p> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Gatsby, well, is there anyone who doesn't know <b><i>The Great Gatsby</i></b> by F. Scott Fitzgerald? </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0n3V2_APRr8-Th45-WAAY-E_zVRZX7yBXg8RSgDUywppkZwxN2ml-z3CwGU6lLLYlJlsSNeFeJXb-xjAZq9ctpkgaNHCur_Ye0Kl8_BnYzvilNdR2sGj8bkw1OepXwRcR_QYClK7eqoM-xUyRtM4vInu03o75yI5TiEzRCZ0hXZc8PbtnX1Y4bXfI/s882/Gatsby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="882" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0n3V2_APRr8-Th45-WAAY-E_zVRZX7yBXg8RSgDUywppkZwxN2ml-z3CwGU6lLLYlJlsSNeFeJXb-xjAZq9ctpkgaNHCur_Ye0Kl8_BnYzvilNdR2sGj8bkw1OepXwRcR_QYClK7eqoM-xUyRtM4vInu03o75yI5TiEzRCZ0hXZc8PbtnX1Y4bXfI/s320/Gatsby.jpg" width="218" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://ew.com/books/great-gatsby-john-grisham-introduction-cover/" target="_blank">John Irving, in his foreword to one of the newer editions of<i> The Great Gatsby, </i>wrote:</a><br /></p><div class="paragraph"><p></p></div><blockquote><div class="paragraph"><p><span style="color: #800180;">Jay Gatsby turned to crime, made his fortune,
and tried in vain to escape his past and beat his own fate. The odds
were always against him, and he failed and died trying.</span></p></div> <div class="paragraph"><p><span style="color: #800180;">The
last sentence of the book is its most famous: "So we beat on, boats
against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Jay tried
mightily to beat on, to fight the current, to rewrite his past but in
the end could not overcome it.</span></p></div></blockquote><div class="paragraph"><p></p></div><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">The two books I’m contemplating today have characters equally
compelling but they’re not men. They’re teen boys. Specifically, the lead
characters in two young adult books from the past decade: Gary D Schmidt’s
ORBITING JUPITER and Lisa McMann’s DEAD TO YOU. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While the adult novels examined the men’s lives and loves against
the backdrop of their respective entitled spheres as seen through the eyes of a
relative outsider, the YA novels excavate the inner and outer chaos of boys
brought up in modern poverty and abuse. Both boys stumble through a world they
don’t belong in, a picture-perfect Middle America where everyone goes to church
and supports their local high school teams. </p><p class="MsoNormal">The moral ambiguity is the
common element. That, and the yearning for what they can never have. Gatsby
wants Daisy. Joseph wants Jupiter. Brat and Ethan want to finally belong: to have a home and a family.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE9aCF_ary_mdsqPzAGXUcROpQBFQ1e2LD6_DJKFysvB23F-sXN06R-QO7C6y9STrdpK0iiziPK1BVpRw9GE2pqX12ZchcR8xk7bxW72FsEZvuJbhR1IeBzm_Sh4GZbKe5aHkGZlmnAqm68YfElk05ltlWZimkJEDjaqcNwbmfAOEfv_wTWmBX4mSg/s1920/Orbiting%20Jupiter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE9aCF_ary_mdsqPzAGXUcROpQBFQ1e2LD6_DJKFysvB23F-sXN06R-QO7C6y9STrdpK0iiziPK1BVpRw9GE2pqX12ZchcR8xk7bxW72FsEZvuJbhR1IeBzm_Sh4GZbKe5aHkGZlmnAqm68YfElk05ltlWZimkJEDjaqcNwbmfAOEfv_wTWmBX4mSg/s320/Orbiting%20Jupiter.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br />In the Schmidt book, cool-as-nails Joseph, like Jay Gatsby,
is seen through the worshipful but wary eyes of foster-brother Jackson. Jackson records,
defends, tries to puzzle out Joseph’s inner drive, while the adults around him speak
ominously of Joseph’s dangerous past and uncertain future. Eventually Jackson
learns Joseph is bending all his will to finding a girl separated from him by her
cruel parents (okay, that part’s maybe more overtly Romeo & Juliet than Great
Gatsby; but you may recall Daisy’s parents were reported to be similarly unimpressed when their golden girl looked smitten with an impoverished lieutenant from an unknown family). But in both stories the uncaring
greed of another, more powerful male threatens all the new stability Joseph is building, and
ultimately leads to ruin.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCTXdABJP2kXUwjjjCLfEpzBTjt2HsrW5zyumR2R8THDodKUfpzMtXDccH51f0qA1KjXIPJ0LW43Ly0eNlSkzoRiT79F-V1u2XqnoyL-819t3rSY1ePj6hzZh1cVpSe-L55Ie9GdgCgzGu7YvCR82eauHbGhVOcHtm2xMQ8UqCFQDOb3D91jAZcS9S/s315/Dead%20to%20You.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="219" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCTXdABJP2kXUwjjjCLfEpzBTjt2HsrW5zyumR2R8THDodKUfpzMtXDccH51f0qA1KjXIPJ0LW43Ly0eNlSkzoRiT79F-V1u2XqnoyL-819t3rSY1ePj6hzZh1cVpSe-L55Ie9GdgCgzGu7YvCR82eauHbGhVOcHtm2xMQ8UqCFQDOb3D91jAZcS9S/s1600/Dead%20to%20You.jpg" width="219" /></a></div>In the McMann book, streetwise Ethan, like Josephine Tey’s
iconic wanderer Brat Farrar, returns home after a long absence and is both
welcomed and constrained by the family he vanished from all those years before.
His younger brother distrusts and resents him. His parents struggle to keep the
peace and get his education back on track. He’s only fully accepted by the
younger sister who has no memory of him to continually compare his present self
against. But years of abusive environments have left their mark, and he can’t
relax fully into the idyllic family setting. He’s always waiting for an attack,
and soon enough, someone obliges.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What makes all these books tragedies is not only that nobody
gets what they want, but that their trying leaves such destruction in its wake.
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If the thought of dipping into the classics makes you yawn,
dip instead into the modern world of YA lit in these two books. You'll leave
with a deeper insight into the complex, hopeful, despairing worlds of modern
boys. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">#Gatsby #JosephineTey #BratFarrar #OrbitingJupiter #DeadToYou #YA # <br /></p>
Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-45145246975993512902023-02-19T04:39:00.001-08:002023-02-25T01:14:00.258-08:00When Powerful Women take to corporate life: VenCo by Cherie Dimaline<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqIPQqhZJBHtlncHTj2cB0DCD_ka6jcWHwCGoezee2F5nQ-zMHDzc2C5Nl1dnJTPPjIhGLDFpzGy4q2a3gOoRJA2acOScZJ7NZo4pm7pamsklu6I1HeWNIUTERLWKGenibmFyZ56mrDdsTzbRC0_TF7TVL8UxtFG7NDKQGheWEdkArQqK33ghHPs8T/s450/VenCo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqIPQqhZJBHtlncHTj2cB0DCD_ka6jcWHwCGoezee2F5nQ-zMHDzc2C5Nl1dnJTPPjIhGLDFpzGy4q2a3gOoRJA2acOScZJ7NZo4pm7pamsklu6I1HeWNIUTERLWKGenibmFyZ56mrDdsTzbRC0_TF7TVL8UxtFG7NDKQGheWEdkArQqK33ghHPs8T/s320/VenCo.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>You might expect a speculative feminist novel to end with women entering the board room triumphantly. Always willing to confound expectations, this Governor General's Award author starts her ninth book that way. <p></p><p>Soon we learn that the whole corporation is organized on feminist principles, with a leadership circle rather than a hierarchy. And then it gets into witchcraft. The mission is to find the seventh witch in a prophesied coven before time runs out. We don’t know yet what catastrophe she and her six compatriots are supposed to avert but the sixth witch is now found and clock is definitely ticking.</p>
<div></div>
<div>For a while this book feels and reads like a well written, gently paced, speculative fiction novel featuring the well and thoroughly covered trope of the teenage heroine hunted by an ancient evil. And yet… <br /><br />It takes a while for the differences to come to the fore. In the traditional hero's journey, the protagonist is forced out of their comfort zone and pushed to take up the quest. In this feminist re-visioning, the heroine's journey, not only are the older witches is part of a circle that is collaborative rather than hierarchical, but they are mutually respectful. At each stage of the increasingly complex situation, they discuss facts and implications, giving each other space. The female characters don’t play into the familiar master and apprentice dynamics. </div><div> </div><div>Of course there's a Big Bad - possibly the last of a centuries-old clan of witch-hunters with mesmeric powers. He's able to spy on the witches through their dreams, and knows when the seventh witch is in their sights. <br /></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>This author has a firm grasp of language: Its texture, shapes, and flow, like a braided stream, cross and re-cross, forming a tale that is partly well paced contemporary paranormal fantasy, and partly the indigenous underpinnings we have come to expect in a Dimaline novel. Beyond that, the characters bring into harsh light the long-standing western capitalist and religious war on women, from the Reformation-era witch burnings to Salem and beyond in America. Themes of dispossession and identity and belonging breathe from these pages. </div><div> </div><div>Astute readers might note that the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone, although human figures forming VenCo's leadership circle, are also archetypes and therefore not fully fleshed out humans with personal histories brought to the fore. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div></div>
<div>On a purely craft of writing level, I appreciate the ebb and flow of tension. Things get tense and then potentially dangerous, and then things get calmer again and then things get really relaxed and friendly and then Bingo! A quick reminder of danger. It’s all interesting, and the fluidity of the tension is an added piece of my enjoyment.</div><div> </div><div>Thanks to #NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity <br /></div><div> </div><div><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/venco-cherie-dimaline?variant=40424054489122" target="_blank"> VenCo by Cherie Dimaline</a></div><div> </div><div><b>ISBN</b>: 9780063054899<br /> <b>ISBN 10</b>: 0063054892<br /> <b>Imprint</b>: William Morrow<br /> <b>On Sale</b>: February 7, 2023</div><div> </div><div>#Indigenous<b> #</b>Witchcraft #Persecution <b>#</b>Salem<b> #</b>Fantasy #Action #Adventure<b> #</b>MagicalRealism #Horror<b> #</b>FairyTales #FolkTales #Legends #Mythology<b> #</b>OwnVoices #reviewer #bookreview<br /></div>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-75544750281372778442023-01-30T03:11:00.001-08:002023-01-30T03:11:09.999-08:00Gigi Pandian's THE RAVEN THIEF<p><b><span style="color: #800180;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Raven Thief</span></span></b></p><p><b><span style="color: #800180;">A Secret Staircase Mystery (Book 2)</span></b><br /></p><p><b>Written by Gigi Pandian</b></p><p><b>Narrated by Soneela Nankani
</b></p><p>What a fascinating concept for a crime novel: an author whose first book (about possibly shape-shifting into a raven to murder his wife) is accused of breaking into his ex-wife's basement to steal the typewriter he wrote it on. You might wonder whether he's superstitious or just wreaking petty vengeance on his newly ex wife for gutting his Poe-inspired old writing office and remodeling it into a much more fun space. Eventually you'll find out more about the typewriter, the author, the novel, and the book's title. But first....<br /></p><p>There's a LOT of description of the remodeled space, and a great many complex setting details from both this remodel and the one where our protagonist lives: secret bookcase doors and rocking-horse door unlocking mechanisms, false-bottomed trunks etc. In print it would be easy enough to flip back over the descriptors to get them clear in your mind, but with audio it's harder to keep track of which knickknack hides or opens or unlocks or lights up what structural element. A sketch map would help. Maybe there will be one in the print version (this review is based on an audiobook ARC via #NetGalley).<br /><br />There's also a fair bit of discussion in early chapters about past events and the overarching series mystery, which means a lot of references to characters who might have featured earlier in the series. Readers have a lot of names to remember and no way to tell how many of them will be important to the current story. So a cast list would help, especially if it was divided into 'current book' and 'series characters'. Or start with the first in the series, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250804983/underlockskeletonkey" target="_blank"><span>Under Lock & Skeleton Key</span></a><span> (although, to be honest, that one spends the first 45 minutes or so of the audiobook largely in setup for Tempest's family home and her recent past that, frankly, sounds a lot more exciting than the early events of that book).</span></p><p><span>Once you get past all that, there is gradual progress on one of the crimes, and a lot of meandering about Tempest's past that may or may not impact her future. It all robs the story of momentum and although the author set up many Easter Eggs referencing classic crime fiction, they weren't enough to keep me caring who had been done wrong by whom, much less why.</span> <br /><br />The narrator's voice is pleasant to listen to, with enough emotional infection to enhance the text without overwhelming it. There's not a lot of difference between the protagonist's dialogue and the other characters' words, but enough to tell you it's a different character speaking. The text doesn't give the narrator a lot of emotional subtext to amply, sadly, but if what you enjoy about audiobooks is a human voice murmuring in the background while you're doing other things, this one will work as well as any other.</p><p>#Netgalley #RavenThief #SecretStaircase #trapdoor #cosymystery<br /></p>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-49327333719370002902023-01-19T01:44:00.003-08:002023-01-19T05:30:40.753-08:00WW2's Scanty Yule in The Mitford Secret<p> The Mitford Secret</p><p>written by Jessica Fellowes</p><p>Narrated by Rachel Atkins<br /><br />If you enjoyed previous books in this series, you'll likely welcome the 6th & final installment of this mystery series that takes place during WW2, when former nurserymaid Louisa attends a family Christmas at Chatsworth, acclaimed country seat of the Dukes of Devonshire. </p><p>Many of the eternally fascinating Mitford family are in attendance: the parents and several of the daughters that <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times" title="The Times">The Times</a></i> journalist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Macintyre" title="Ben Macintyre">Ben Macintyre</a> famously described as "<a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Mitford" title="Diana Mitford">Diana</a> the Fascist, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Mitford" title="Jessica Mitford">Jessica</a> the Communist, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_Mitford" title="Unity Mitford">Unity</a> the Hitler-lover; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Mitford" title="Nancy Mitford">Nancy</a> the Novelist; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Cavendish,_Duchess_of_Devonshire" title="Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire">Deborah</a> the Duchess and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Mitford" title="Pamela Mitford">Pamela</a> the unobtrusive poultry connoisseur".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-timesonline.co.uk_3-0"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitford_family#cite_note-timesonline.co.uk-3">[2]</a></sup> Unity's already brain-damaged but still an ardent Hitler supporter. Diana's in prison for her Fascist activities (probably also, in the minds of Britain's War Service,
to serve as a potential check on her husband Oswald Mosley's more seditious speeches and writings). Nancy's at odds with her husband, who hasn't bothered to communicate with her in quite some time, and Debo's philandering husband, Andrew Cavendish, is off on war duty somewhere, as is his older brother, the current heir to the dukedom. The Mitford parents are emotionally withdrawn from the family and each other. It's hardly the recipe for a successful house party even before the arrival of the Dowager Duchess of
Devonshire adds a formal chill to every meal.</p><p>And then there's the wild woman who turns up on a stormy night claiming to be a psychic medium, leading them through the unheated ancestral pile to a cupboard containing a bloodstained maid's cap. <br /></p><p>There are house party games, rationing-constrained festive meals, shopping for small gifts in the village, and the handsome Air Force officer from the nearby base, ingratiating himself with the Chatsworth party. He's inordinately nice to disabled Unity even while unhappily married Nancy eyes his obvious sex appeal and vies for his attention. Soon Louisa figures out the medium is a former employee of the great
house, determined to discover the truth behind the long-ago
disappearance of her best friend on staff: the maid who once wore that
cap. </p><p>Oh yes, and then there's a murder that some of the family seem determined to believe was natural causes. </p><p> "Debo" may be the putative hostess for this decidedly non-festive house party, but she's not yet the duchess nor even in line for the title (her husband's older brother isn't killed until quite late in the war). Indeed, one of the more fascinating parts of the book to me was watching her nascent steps toward becoming the woman now widely counted as saving Chatsworth by turning it into a productive, thriving estate and tourist attraction with a dedicated, largely local staff. The duke, it must be said, seems to have followed in the footsteps of his ancestors in the matters of horse-racing, spending lavishly, and continuous infidelities, all proclivities that play into the mystery of the missing maid.</p><p>Here, for those interested, are links about Debo<br /><br />Basic biographical details https://www.historyonthenet.com/deborah-mitford-the-duchess</p><p>The books she wrote https://www.librarything.com/author/devonshireduchessof</p><p>The tiaras she wore https://royalwatcherblog.com/2016/09/24/the-tiaras-of-debo-duchess-of-devonshire/<br /></p><p>I enjoy this era of history both in fiction and in non-fiction. And aristocrats behaving badly is a rich vein of misdeeds that many biographers and almost as many crime writers successfully mine. <br /><br />Sadly, I didn't find this one particularly convincing, in part because SPOILER! RUN YOUR CURSOR OVER TO SEE <span style="color: #f3f3f3;">nobody would have made much fuss of a duke siring a bastard child, much less cover it up for decades. There are endless anecdotes in circulation still about the infidelities of pre-birth control aristocrats, and well understood protocols for how the children ought to be provided for. WW</span></p><p>When the central reason for a historical crime doesn't hold up to scrutiny, none of the subsequent coverup holds up either.</p><p>Also, other characters are inconsistent, in one scene being very helpful to Louisa beyond the scope of any relationship or job requirement (even the police inspector) and then, for no apparent reason, suddenly getting angry and refusing further cooperation with her. Also too many of these noble and individually famous people simply spilled their innermost thoughts and secrets to the former nursemaid with the weakest of motives other than allowing the author to provide the reader with context and clues in the most expeditious manner possible. As a lifelong reader of British mystery I found it lazy plotting. The writing doesn't enchant me either. We're told too often what Louisa (or another character) is feeling, rather than seeing her react to situations, so it all comes off as quite emotionally flat no matter how exciting the situation should be. The plot is driving the characters like so many bumper cars rather than events arising more organically from the characters' interactions and discoveries.<br /><br />The audiobook narrator added nothing to the tale's enjoyment either. Louisa's accent meandered quite a bit from chapter to chapter, and every scene involving Lousia's wide-eyed daughter, regardless of which characters were speaking, was steeped in sentimental cooing tones that brought to mind movie-house Victorian spinsters in chintz-covered parlours. That said, the text didn't give her much help, as many chapters simply meandered to a stop without providing any compelling emotional subtext to pull us forward. (see 'quite emotionally flat' above')<br /></p><p>The Mitford Secret is out in audiobook as of January 17, 2023</p><p>I'm giving it 3 stars out of 5 for Debo, and for the convincing backdrop of an impoverished great house brought even lower by wartime rationing. <br /><br />Thanks #NetGalley for the audiobook ARC<br /></p><p>#MitfordMystery #MitfordSecret #WW2 #HistoricalCrime #OswaldMosley #DianaMitfordMosley #NancyMitford #Chatsworth #DuchessOfDevonshire #audiobook #WorldWar2 <br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Like jewels and adventure in high society? Check out <a href="https://clockworksandcrime.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">The Maddie Hatter Adventures:</a></p><p><br /><a href="https://books2read.com/DeadlyDiamond" target="_blank">Deadly Diamond</a></p><p><a href="https://books2read.com/gildedgauge" target="_blank">Gilded Gauge </a><br /></p><p><a href="https://books2read.com/timelytaffeta" target="_blank">Timely Taffeta</a><br /></p>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-28069160854821937992022-12-27T18:47:00.002-08:002022-12-27T18:47:29.796-08:00Wreck Bay by Barbara Fradkin<p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsNZONbjLjT1FmR6VI_l3fKHf89anWwAQmcVFH5gQuWUjzrA8edJQKBp5Dtl-upcN4rrHO-1EuAqHewqmG3b8JYf-_pOPBmHWUzllVERbHyAcjjODuYYfqYzjKqAp2BjQdioAlOC35vwSX07H2WNr1jRn3Mc2Fl99-8oJhg6FqX4tOZCmC9yTTqt95/s608/Wreck%20Bay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="608" data-original-width="405" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsNZONbjLjT1FmR6VI_l3fKHf89anWwAQmcVFH5gQuWUjzrA8edJQKBp5Dtl-upcN4rrHO-1EuAqHewqmG3b8JYf-_pOPBmHWUzllVERbHyAcjjODuYYfqYzjKqAp2BjQdioAlOC35vwSX07H2WNr1jRn3Mc2Fl99-8oJhg6FqX4tOZCmC9yTTqt95/s320/Wreck%20Bay.jpg" width="213" /></a><i><span class="expandable-text-rendered"></span></i></p><blockquote><i>While exploring the rugged
landscape of Vancouver Island’s Pacific Rim, Amanda Doucette is drawn to
a reclusive old artist known only as Luke, who lives off the grid on a
remote island. His vivid paintings hint at a traumatic secret from his
past that brings to mind her own struggles with PTSD, and she begins to
bond with him. </i></blockquote><p><i><a href="https://www.dundurn.com/books_/t22117/a9781459743878-wreck-bay" target="_blank">More at Dundurn Press</a> <br /></i></p><p></p><span class="expandable-text-rendered"></span><p></p><p>Great atmosphere and investment in the ragged natural world of Northwestern Vancouver Island. As many eccentric characters as live in three Pines, but Fradkin’s Amanda Doucette novels take us all across Canada.</p><div dir="auto"><div dir="ltr">
<div>The mystery is as complex as I have come to expect from a Fradkin novel. Just when you think you know what’s going on, a new twist arises that you realize has been foreshadowed all along, tucked almost invisibly between the local scenery and First Nations lore. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>There’s a moment where Amanda blurts out something that she would be better keeping quiet about, and it’s unmotivated, or at least unexplained, what changed her tactic of keeping quiet to suddenly blowing her cover. At one point there's a scene that might be seen as white savior-ism, but otherwise the book is respectful of the area’s First Nations people and the natural environment they protect against the double onslaught of tourism and industry.</div>
<div><br /></div><div>Themes include PTSD, art as therapy, police handling of mental illness, tourism in wilderness areas, Vietnam era draft dodgers and deserters who set up communes on Vancouver Island and smaller area islands during and after the Summer of Love.</div>
</div></div><div dir="auto"><br /></div><div>Side note: there's often confusion about what constitutes a trained service dog versus an emotional support dog, so you may be a bit confused by how Amanda's dog acts and interacts. For greater clarity, check out this link from the American Kennel Association or this one pertaining to <a href="https://www.legalline.ca/legal-answers/emotional-support-animals-esas/" target="_blank">Canada</a> <br /></div><div> </div><div><div>A bit of local knowledge if you're planning to visit: anybody
flying from Vancouver to reach the West shore of Vancouver Island would
not book Vancouver to Victoria and then drive. Booking Vancouver to
Nanaimo cuts 3+ hours off the drive and uncounted time hanging around
waiting rooms in airports. Better still, for not much more money & a
LOT faster trip, check for a regional float plane service straight
over to Tofino. There are frequent options for much of the year, and private charter flights available as well. </div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>#VancouverIsland #Tofino #LongBeach #hippies #draftdodger #CrimeFiction #BarbaraFradkin #DundurnPress #mystery #murder #art #artist #survivalist #VietnamWar #emotionalsupportdog #kayaking #hiking #Ahousaht #Nuuchahnulth </i></span></div><div> </div><div><a href="http://jaynebarnard.ca/" target="_blank"><br /></a></div><div><a href="http://jaynebarnard.ca/" target="_blank">See this reviewer's other writings via http://jaynebarnard.ca/</a><br /></div>
<div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div> </div>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-6379421147140415112022-11-21T06:29:00.002-08:002022-11-21T06:29:49.178-08:00Asian Space Opera on a galactic scale<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi8LXCXucMZlMxDtcwFQRyCh23P6hORy9KN-y7hKfhkvvSsmyrUrMZQNLhFHAsY4p2_9WMuAjr7fH66blNv5y-TtHUmyW9ZXGI_WwlUE472FccX0Ifq8vKq7wpdcw9Z1BdcfGQIEINht4Q6v3JSknz8xKMGSD9NH0YRXjojbpTi1BSTomZlLFLPNjV/s475/Red%20Scholar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="309" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi8LXCXucMZlMxDtcwFQRyCh23P6hORy9KN-y7hKfhkvvSsmyrUrMZQNLhFHAsY4p2_9WMuAjr7fH66blNv5y-TtHUmyW9ZXGI_WwlUE472FccX0Ifq8vKq7wpdcw9Z1BdcfGQIEINht4Q6v3JSknz8xKMGSD9NH0YRXjojbpTi1BSTomZlLFLPNjV/s320/Red%20Scholar.jpg" width="208" /></a></div><p></p><div dir="ltr"><div><h1><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-red-scholars-wake-aliette-de-bodard/1142373863" target="_blank">The Red Scholar's Wake </a></h1><h1><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-red-scholars-wake-aliette-de-bodard/1142373863" target="_blank">by Aliette de Bodard</a></h1></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The writing is lyrical. The character in a terrible fix. That much
the opening makes clear but if you are not already familiar with this
space based, Asian history-based, complex cultural hierarchy on a pirate
ship in alliance with other pirate fleets (to use an English-language
approximate synonym for ‘banner’) you may feel lost for a page or two. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Fortunately, this author quickly brings the wider, stranger
universe down to a more easily contextualized contest of wills. If one will belongs to a human tinkerer and the other to a mostly projected
ship’s avatar, well, that’s just the way things work here.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The ship’s technology is fascinating, shifts of shade and image and
motion, yet for all that it is grand and complicated, there are still
human scale people and issues for our heroine Xich Si to deal with. She
has to make a fast and terrible choice, with lifelong consequences for
her only child, and for herself.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>What makes this interesting particularly is that the ship is also
making a fast and terrible choice, with lifelong consequences for
itself.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>I was immediately hooked by the complexity of the world and the language, although the shifting forms of address - respect and
familiarity and affection - require some adjustment for readers like me,
raised in western cultures where family hierarchies and relationships
are immutably defined by the blood, marriage, or adoptive tie.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The fusing of Asian and North American speculative fiction styles and directions/influences/<wbr></wbr>objectives
is not always an easy one but here it works. This is space
opera in the truest sense of both space and opera: a 3D backdrop encompassing
galaxies, on which is staged a libretto roiling with human passion and pain. In the hands
of this adept novelist the vast blend includes deep insight into the
core of a very human (albeit technologically enhanced) protagonist. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>I was entranced from the earliest pages but given my lack of
familiarity with Vietnamese culture and history, there are undoubtedly
layers and subtleties that I missed. This is a book I would like to come
back to with more cultural knowledge to enhance my experience. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Highly recommended. </div><div> </div><div>#Netgalley #Asian #SFF #SpeculativeFiction #SpecFic #SpaceOpera #Pirates #hostage #LGBTQ #RedScholarsWake #AlietteDeBodard <br /></div>
</div><br /><br />Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-52517430841265033782022-11-01T20:47:00.002-07:002023-01-08T21:38:13.007-08:00Egypt’s golden couple<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="color: #e69138;"><a href="https://mpd-biblio-covers.imgix.net/9781250272881.jpg?w=600" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="526" height="496" src="https://mpd-biblio-covers.imgix.net/9781250272881.jpg?w=600" width="326" /></a></span></span></div><b><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-size: large;">Egypt’s golden couple: </span></span></span></b><p></p><p><b><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-size: large;">How Akhenaten and Nefertiti Became Gods on Earth</span></span></span></b></p><p>by John and Colleen Darnell<br /></p><div dir="ltr">
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<div>To anyone who watches modern politics in Canada, the prologue of
this book is very familiar. Recent prime ministers’ marriages are
constantly either upheld as models of solid political and personal commitment or rumoured to be
extremely dysfunctional. Either on the verge of falling apart or secretly
already separated. Their every public glance or gesture is picked
apart by bloggers, newspaper opinion pieces and the Twitterverse. So
when you read that Akhenaten is either the perfect father or
an incestuous pedophile, either a prophet of monotheism or a
totalitarian ruler who cast off all checks to his power, the public parallels are obvious. Akhenaten and his Chief Wife Nefertiti were a celebrity power couple.<br /></div><div> </div><div>Nowadays we have many written
records from people close to our leaders and their spouses,
and some sort of truth will eventually get into the history books.
But for Akhenaten and Nefertiti, truth is elusive. After 3500 years, all that’s left is
rumor... and whatever can be reasonably inferred from the public monuments and
occasional private artifacts that are left behind. Akhenaton has been
called “heretic, false profit, and incestuous tyrant by some, a loving,
compassionate, peaceful precursor to Moses and Jesus by others.”
Nefertiti is hardly ever seen as anything but the beautiful iconic image
that lives in the popular imagination, a voiceless adjunct to her
powerful husband. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Seemingly everyone from Freud to modern philosophers has had a
crack at the royal relationship and its impact on
the society, economics, and development of Egypt. What is known for
sure is that they were so hated by the powers that came after - revivals
of the priestly cults they had deposed - that their new Royal city was
flattened, and his name defaced on monuments across Egypt. It
was a deliberate attempt to erase his reign from the official record. </div><div> </div><div>Did he succeed in changing Egypt forever? Does it matter? The fact that we're still talking about him, and her, 3500 years later means their detractors ultimately failed to, in current parlance, cancel them. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Diving into the meat of the book, we're introduced to their milieu via a host of begats and easy-to-imbibe anecdotes about life in ancient Egypt, such as that Egyptian
youngsters sucked on their index finger rather than their thumb; the image
became a defining aspect of the hieroglyph for child. Amid the speedy recounting of who fathered whom, the book brings to resonant
life some Egyptian ceremonials and festivals. There are also vignettes of imagined conversations between early Egyptians, allowing us insight into technical issues such as how to decipher
hieroglyphics. If you've ever wondered, they can go left to right or right to left, in vertical
columns or horizontal lines. So figuring out where to start is essential. That alone makes the successes of early Egyptologists in translating carved and painted texts even more astonishing. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Readers of the Amelia Peabody series, will recognize the names YUYA
and TUYA, the husband-and-wife mummies. Their tomb was actually found in 1905, and thus we know more about
the parents of the great queen TIYE than we do about her. How did the daughter of a prominent but not royal family marry into the royal household, and
become the king’s great wife, and eventually a goddess? </div><div> </div><div>Clearly upward marital mobility
is not solely a social media phenomenon. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The book presents some evidence about the background of Nefertiti too. Unlike
Tiye, her parents get no prominent tombs or other recording on surviving
temple walls. It’s hypothesized that her father was the court official
AY and his wife Tiy, identified as “chief nurse of the great king’s
wife“ may have been her stepmother. There is some DNA evidence showing
that Nefertiti was Akhenaten’s first cousin on both sides of her parentage. It's probable the two knew each other. But their journey from childhood cohabitation in sprawling palace complexes to a revered and reviled power couple remains lost to the desert sands. </div><div> </div><div>The book is eminently readable for anyone interested in armchair archaeology, making the topic accessible without much scholarly detail. <br /></div><div><br /></div>
<div>Authors John and Colleen Darnell, credited jointly and separately with several other titles relating to Egyptian history, have an entertaining social media presence that charms some and offends others. <p>Follow these Vintage Egyptologists on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/vintage_egyptologist/" target="_blank">Instagram</a> </p><p>For more on the book and the authors, see <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/tours/john-and-colleen-darnell-egypts-golden-couple/">https://us.macmillan.com/tours/john-and-colleen-darnell-egypts-golden-couple/</a></p><p><br /></p><p>#Netgalley #Egyptology #VintageEgyptology #Nefertiti #Akhenaten #Egypt #history #marriage #PowerCouple #celebs <br /></p><p> </p></div><div> </div>
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</div>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-78945831428183211222022-10-04T03:27:00.000-07:002022-10-04T03:27:12.192-07:00THE WHITE HARE: Cornish mysticism meets post-war pragmatism<p><span class="_aacl _aaco _aacu _aacx _aad7 _aade"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMowOpF2bPdMQW4yYzsIQfDEd2PRPLO6tnMiT6K75JcMG-7kkdPPP1wPraT3d-Y-BUqFwgp9zhdu6ePGa38FWXWrkc2fTTRRNVw-4AdiL__X_QQXl3WSdBhCG-HwPdQowxOYYDpbhw5DkwPJCGenfOzqNdUGsi3awcIUHEFGFZezxWD8NCG9Ghdmir/s3325/IMG_9996.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3325" data-original-width="2539" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMowOpF2bPdMQW4yYzsIQfDEd2PRPLO6tnMiT6K75JcMG-7kkdPPP1wPraT3d-Y-BUqFwgp9zhdu6ePGa38FWXWrkc2fTTRRNVw-4AdiL__X_QQXl3WSdBhCG-HwPdQowxOYYDpbhw5DkwPJCGenfOzqNdUGsi3awcIUHEFGFZezxWD8NCG9Ghdmir/s320/IMG_9996.jpg" width="244" /></a></div><br />THE WHITE HARE is a moving, powerful tale of love, loss, betrayal, treasure, and ultimately joy.<p></p><p><span class="_aacl _aaco _aacu _aacx _aad7 _aade"><br /></span>The novel opens on a textured, vivid, atmospheric beach scene. The rich language draws the mind's eye from the macro--literally the birdseye view--down to the micro: sand flies buzzing over the seaweed and the small gray green crab that skittles out of a rock pool. This opening is beautiful and terrible and immersive, and would almost certainly be so even without the body marking time by the withdrawal of the tide, baring its' frail limbs to the rising sun.</p><div dir="ltr">
<div></div>
<div>The language is often lyrical, never stalling the story’s forward motion, with secrets small and large advancing and receding in a dance worthy of the Grand Dame of 1950s women's suspense. That Mila is reading--or trying to, when the book doesn’t wander off between night and dawn--the famous Cornish novel ‘Jamaica Inn,’ is an overt homage to Dame Daphne DuMaurier as well as to the tangible and mystical mists that seep around Cornish moors and tors. </div><div> </div><div> <span class="_aacl _aaco _aacu _aacx _aad7 _aade">Rooted
in postwar Britain’s social and familial turmoil, The White Hare
follows Mila, her daughter, and her mother as they reckon with
rebuilding their shattered lives in a near-derelict seaside home at
White Cove, whose long-habituated ghosts embrace the torments carried in
each woman’s inner baggage. Items wander room to room, the child sees
deeper than she should, and soon the very roof that shelters them seems
almost as menacing as the wild winds and shadowy, ancient hollow ways
that course and cut their isolated valley. <br /><br />The valley's
neighbours mutter of curses and avert their eyes, all but a pair of
women in a vine-laden cottage who would surely be labeled witches in any
other era. And then there is the mysterious handyman, appearing and
vanishing like an unquiet spirit. <br /></span><p><span class="_aacl _aaco _aacu _aacx _aad7 _aade"></span></p></div></div><p><span class="_aacl _aaco _aacu _aacx _aad7 _aade">As matters long buried surge
to the surface during a torrential New Years' Eve, will they all live to
see the dawn? And will sunlight disinfect the old sins or release yet
greater evil upon the women of White Cove?<br /><br />If Daphne DuMaurier
set out to write an early Mary Stewart romantic suspense novel with
guidance from Celtic goddesses and saints, the result would be this
spellbinding and suspenseful tale whose textured language flows like
foam on the tide and illuminates great truths like moonlight through
gossamer mists. <br /><br />Highly Recommended<br /><br />#Netgalley #TheWhiteHare JaneJohnson #Cornwall #Penzance #Mousehole #novel #family #secrets #seashore #well #legend #spirituality #Ostara #PreChristian #Celtic #murder #relationships #confrontation #truth #power<br /></span></p><p><span class="_aacl _aaco _aacu _aacx _aad7 _aade"> </span></p>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-28141584307991780172022-09-10T00:32:00.002-07:002022-09-10T00:32:48.805-07:00HER DEADLY MISCHIEF by Beverle Graves Myers<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeIEykHErFYqJaOJVPaY1Q7NYtR-2rcJ3jXWqzCtO4Ax9cVHNjaSKl_EhIngzCb4rkhuTcR1FeC0ZzRvo8gBIfvvC2TsF5E5MZbA3K6Bk6puSURiCP1Y8RPWfMelfddze9Z-PzBTGkoQx1_XWL6lKEbpnPgziBuWehN86r8n0L3GWwUF_eZnL6kssY/s475/Her%20Deadly%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="310" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeIEykHErFYqJaOJVPaY1Q7NYtR-2rcJ3jXWqzCtO4Ax9cVHNjaSKl_EhIngzCb4rkhuTcR1FeC0ZzRvo8gBIfvvC2TsF5E5MZbA3K6Bk6puSURiCP1Y8RPWfMelfddze9Z-PzBTGkoQx1_XWL6lKEbpnPgziBuWehN86r8n0L3GWwUF_eZnL6kssY/s320/Her%20Deadly%202.jpg" width="209" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">In this historical mystery series' 5th novel, set in 1742, the celebrated castrato Tito Amato is back home in Venice, on stage, in full-throated triumph over his rival Emilio, when a much-feted courtesan is stabbed in an opera box and flung down to the floor of the Teatro San Marco. Despite a whole theatre filled with possible witnesses including the city's new chief investigator, the killer eludes suspicion and capture while Tito untangles the threads of the dead Zulietta's conquests, her other relationships, and her childhood in Venice's ancient and rigidly controlled Jewish Ghetto. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">I laughed, I wept, I held my breath. <br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">Tito Amato is musically gifted, sharp-witted, and engagingly human, always well-meaning but sometimes jealous or self-doubting or angrily impulsive. The supporting characters who have been with him since the first book are like my own family by now, and the new ones introduced for this novel are well-drawn, easily distinguishable and memorable long after the book ends. There's a fascinating scene or two in a glass-blowing factory and a solid look at the complex layered society in Baroque Venice.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJJZUNvL2IcZR23Bd4WPgy0HWpJLsYYY0Max9A4GuhqSoBn8cTbAq-CZJoMUr2YTd5pNSqI8IeYb04-fFd1rltfSWIeskWqJuQeE2fUiaJePOGt4BfpZrh_rTt8ouPoftWXvjFSidoXNDMFCjlylhdvwQm9U0ehpF5RBWGm8M1duVXV_Gj4R4l8KiQ/s397/Tito%20Amato%20mysteries.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="379" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJJZUNvL2IcZR23Bd4WPgy0HWpJLsYYY0Max9A4GuhqSoBn8cTbAq-CZJoMUr2YTd5pNSqI8IeYb04-fFd1rltfSWIeskWqJuQeE2fUiaJePOGt4BfpZrh_rTt8ouPoftWXvjFSidoXNDMFCjlylhdvwQm9U0ehpF5RBWGm8M1duVXV_Gj4R4l8KiQ/s320/Tito%20Amato%20mysteries.jpg" width="305" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">This is my second time through this book, first time by audiobook, and while the series has always enchanted me, it's an even better experience now that I've learned so much about historical Venice myself for writing 'Timely Taffeta' (in which Maddie Hatter goes undercover in a fashion house famous for its jeweled Carnevale costumes) and can more fully envision every step Tito takes, every mood of the weather or the passersby or the frenetic gaiety of the great Piazza at the height of Carnevale.
If I could, I'd commission a video game in which I follow Tito on his investigations through those fabled streets and canals, to the soundtrack of all the incredible music he sings through the series. </span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">These books are short but exquisite, so it's no hardship for any historical fiction fan to start from the first (Interrupted Aria, set in 1731) and continue on to get the full shape of not only the theatrical era in one of Europe's most fascinating cities but Tito's amazing and sometimes very sad life, his fortune at finding love when he had thought it out of reach, and his compassion for the frailty of humanity including his own. <br /><br />The Tito Amato Mysteries</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">by Beverle Graves Myers <br /><br />https://www.goodreads.com/series/41383-tito-amato<br /><br />#mystery #histfic #Venice #histmyst #TitoAmato #BeverleGravesMyers #amreading #amlistening #bookreview #Italy #1700s #Baroque #music #opera #aria #castrato #Murano #glassblowers<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239794738668041956.post-7358831024910102092022-09-06T02:00:00.000-07:002022-09-06T02:00:34.476-07:00Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6-dlOvlbGuXSq6mESf4DU8xKhvhy-l6NMCG0ObIkYesnKrhoNSzbUXiguvsQLLKGP7qngcQRj8Mjva8fqCXZIWKTSO93x2epPinQ26GYb-9G4LkvRTXQDtH3QoxhmXT7bhTr1omZODDw-wm_ebh1Ypkb9606DGeL1L7VP79RzWfCsr4Kl5WfjIrau/s1198/Skirts%201.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1198" data-original-width="856" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6-dlOvlbGuXSq6mESf4DU8xKhvhy-l6NMCG0ObIkYesnKrhoNSzbUXiguvsQLLKGP7qngcQRj8Mjva8fqCXZIWKTSO93x2epPinQ26GYb-9G4LkvRTXQDtH3QoxhmXT7bhTr1omZODDw-wm_ebh1Ypkb9606DGeL1L7VP79RzWfCsr4Kl5WfjIrau/s320/Skirts%201.jpg" width="229" /></a></span></span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Why are you all dressed up?“ </span></span></h2><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> For those of us who love skirts, dresses, all things long and fluttery or clean and sleek, that’s a question that gets asked a lot. This book is chock full of fun facts to quash the impertinent questioner.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Pants are a relatively recent addition to western women’s wardrobes, their 20th century invocation aided by fabric shortages during the world wars. Their adoption was not fast or easy. While Coco Chanel popularized 'beach trousers' in the 1920s, in 1961 Mary Tyler Moore was permitted to show Capri pants only, in only one scene per episode, on the Dick Van Dyke show.</span></span></p><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></span><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></span><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">These are only a couple of the many thought-provoking historical tidbits about pants, skirts, fabrics, and all manner of women’s fashion, including laws and customs around the world, that feature in the pages of this fascinating fashion history.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></span><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">And yet, for all that pants were claimed as serious wear for professional women and especially feminists, the skirt (or dress) remained popular throughout the 20th century, not only on ordinary women but on those who changed the world for women.<br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></span><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">“The heroines of the civil rights movement—Rosa Parks, ruby bridges, 2/3 of the Little Rock Nine, the bloody Sunday marchers in their church clothes—took a stand in skirts. Frida Kahlo and Georgia O’Keeffe revolutionized modern art in skirts. Marie Curie won two Nobel prizes in a skirt. When NASA put a man on the moon, “the computer wore a skirt,“ in the words of one of those computers, mathematician Catherine G Johnson.”</span></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></span><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">As the decades of the 20th century marched on, women’s dress called back to earlier eras, especially the classical and neoclassical. Having just read the detailed explication of early chiton pleating in 'Skirts', I immediately recognized the style's roots when I encountered it this week in the new fantasy epic series, 'Rings of Power,' on Prime (one costume's a lovely indigo hue, too, which probably wouldn't have survived long in in its full vividness while being scrubbed on stones with whatever harsh soap was used in that relatively primitive rural village. Faded indigo only looks good in jeans).<br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">The discussion of evolution in women's sports clothing was all the more interesting considering tennis great Serena Williams' recent contretemps over her court wear at Wimbledon. Here's a great early-1900s description from American women’s tennis. Violet Sutton complained, “It’s a wonder we could move at all. Do you want to know what we wore? A long undershirt, pair of drawers, two petticoats, white linen corset cover, duck shirt, shirt waist, long white silk stockings, and a floppy hat. We were soaking wet when we finished a match.“ That all began to change as French women followed American and British women into more sporting activities, and their fashion houses followed suit. Soon women's sporting and leisure attire sprouted a wider range of colours, fabrics, and styles, although skirts have stuck for sports like tennis despite the occasional introduction of bloomers and divided skirts and even (for amateurs) shorts.<br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></span><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></span><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Anecdotes skip between the recurring Taxi or 'wrap' dress for working women and the strapless prom gown as the ultimate debutante play wear that any suburban interwar teenager could aspire to. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></span><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></span><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">A strength of this book is the ways it links changes in fashion to changes in wider society, not simply whether there was a war on and fabric needed rationing but where women spent their days, and their evenings. Office wear, sports wear, afternoon wear, and evenings from casual nights out to the Met Gala all get their due. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Despite many references to English aristocracy and French fashion houses, the book maintains its distinctly American lens. While the anecdotes are entertaining and the famous names drop with aplomb, there are a lot of both. It’s a book you won’t want to rush but rather dip into for a chapter or two, to whirl yourself away from modern fashion to the fashions in your youth, your grandmother's, even your great-great grandmother's.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></span><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></span><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">Fair warning: you will yearn for illustrations of all the fabulous gowns worn to fabulous parties. I ended up searching online to see for myself the iconic evening wear of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and other great women of the 20th century. It's fashionista heaven.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><div class="celwidget" data-cel-widget="titleblock_feature_div" data-csa-c-id="sm1ji5-psik5m-bkbd5d-5rh793" data-feature-name="titleblock" id="titleblock_feature_div">
<div class="a-section a-spacing-none"> <h1 class="a-spacing-none a-text-normal" id="title"> <span class="a-size-extra-large" id="productTitle"> Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century </span> </h1> </div> </div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;"><b>by </b><span class="author notFaded" data-width=""><b>
</b><span class="a-declarative" data-a-popover="{"closeButtonLabel":"Close Author Dialog Popover","name":"contributor-info-B00IQF8AO4","position":"triggerBottom","popoverLabel":"Author Dialog Popover","allowLinkDefault":"true"}" data-action="a-popover" data-csa-c-func-deps="aui-da-a-popover" data-csa-c-id="eu22wq-2lc2ov-wm9w17-r2ivsh" data-csa-c-type="widget"><b> <a class="a-link-normal contributorNameID" data-asin="B00IQF8AO4" href="https://www.amazon.com/Kimberly-Chrisman-Campbell/e/B00IQF8AO4/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1">Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell</a></b> </span></span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span class="author notFaded" data-width=""><span class="a-declarative" data-a-popover="{"closeButtonLabel":"Close Author Dialog Popover","name":"contributor-info-B00IQF8AO4","position":"triggerBottom","popoverLabel":"Author Dialog Popover","allowLinkDefault":"true"}" data-action="a-popover" data-csa-c-func-deps="aui-da-a-popover" data-csa-c-id="eu22wq-2lc2ov-wm9w17-r2ivsh" data-csa-c-type="widget"> </span></span><span class="a-list-item"><span class="a-text-bold">Publisher
:
</span> <span>St. Martin's Press (September 6, 2022)</span> </span></h3><span class="a-list-item"> <span class="a-text-bold">Language
:
</span> <span>English</span> </span><br /><span class="a-list-item"> <span class="a-text-bold">Hardcover
:
</span> <span>272 pages</span> </span><br /><span class="a-list-item"> <span class="a-text-bold">ISBN-10
:
</span> <span>1250275792</span> </span><br /><span class="a-list-item"> <span class="a-text-bold">ISBN-13
:
</span> <span>978-1250275790 </span> </span><br /><span class="a-list-item"> </span><br /><span class="a-list-item"> </span><br /><span class="a-list-item"> #NetGalley #Skirts #Fashion #20thCentury #clothing #gowns #tennis #LOTR #SerenaWilliams #RingsOfPower #Indigo #chiton #sportingwear #StMartinsPress </span></div><div><span class="a-list-item"> </span></div><div><span class="a-list-item"> _____________________________________________________</span></div><div><span class="a-list-item"> </span></div><div><span class="a-list-item"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIuqj7adRRp4bjib5glS1lFtfAwj0PxrUBVmyzxmkJByIvrntsjJsUg1NAPGYGrKhWiohtwgwzlKCytbY3TvFMf2ZyH7tN9anuoTjtZGl2pVoLM8atLF1p6Gqt83qNPDVHKV1irC-1LfGSNrtX_BKIKJWMdhfRL9Ad2x4r4ufGThzx_w3Q_HsFNuwP/s4032/2022-02-06%2004.35.58.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIuqj7adRRp4bjib5glS1lFtfAwj0PxrUBVmyzxmkJByIvrntsjJsUg1NAPGYGrKhWiohtwgwzlKCytbY3TvFMf2ZyH7tN9anuoTjtZGl2pVoLM8atLF1p6Gqt83qNPDVHKV1irC-1LfGSNrtX_BKIKJWMdhfRL9Ad2x4r4ufGThzx_w3Q_HsFNuwP/w150-h200/2022-02-06%2004.35.58.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Reviewed by Jayne Barnard, author of the Maddie Hatter Adventures, whose parasol-dueling fashion reporter tangles with industrial spies in Gilded Age New York City during "Gilded Gauge"<br /></span></span></div><div><span class="a-list-item"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span><div id="m_9074937723165629759m_-1644999513887765098m_995821803626923947m_-7587518199212018022gmail-ubl-url"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://books2read.com/gildedgauge&source=gmail&ust=1662538289829000&usg=AOvVaw3KsmBiGsSuN7ra53VKQSLY" href="https://books2read.com/gildedgauge" target="_blank">https://books2read.com/<wbr></wbr>gildedgauge</a></span></div><span class="a-list-item"> </span><br /><span class="a-list-item"> </span><span class="a-list-item"> </span><span class="a-list-item"> <br /></span><span class="a-list-item"></span><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></h3></div>
</div>Eleanorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671899653158663965noreply@blogger.com0