Review: The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue

Title: The Sealed Letter
Author: Emma Donoghue
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Mariner Books
Published: 2009
Pages: 416

Rating: 5 out of 10

In Victorian London, Emily "Fido" Faithfull randomly runs into Helen Codrington on the street one day. Years before, the two were inseparable best friends, but their close relationship faded away when Helen's military husband was deployed overseas, and Fido's letters were met with no answer. Now, Fido has grown up into a respected female publisher, and Helen is still the same married woman. After their chance encounter, the two begin their friendship where it left off, which had Helen unhappily married and Fido caught in the middle of the distressed couple.
Things turn out not to have changed much, because soon enough Helen reveals that she has a lover and is still unhappy with her husband. When Helen begins drawing Fido into the affair, Fido struggles between being a good friend and with doing the right thing. Eventually, things culminate into a messy, very public divorce proceeding, which Fido is also unwillingly drawn into when Helen reveals a devastating secret.

A snippet review I found online said that this book was about "British Law in the 1800's." For some reason, I thought that that sounded fascinating. I pictured musty courtrooms and piles of papers piled on desks, about to fall over. It made me think of meticulous detail and political maneuvering.
However, this book was much more lightly written than I anticipated, and while it isn't chick-lit, it can get 'fluffy' at times.

Within the first few pages, I was struck by the immaturity of the characters. Two grown women meet on the street after years of separation, and Fido snottily asks Helen who has "taken her place" as a best friend. This feeling continued through-out the book. I cannot recall exactly how old the characters were, but I know that it was closer to 25 than 15. That didn't stop them from behaving like silly little girls. Helen was supposed to act this way, as that is the way she was written, but Fido seemed juvenile to me as well. She is portrayed as the more sensible, mature of the two, which for the most part she is. But she sometimes broke out of character to do something silly, which ruined any chance of her becoming believable.

As this book is about early divorces, and women's legal rights in court, I was expecting a strong book about strong women. But rather than a book with brave female characters making their way through a man's world of both publishing and law, I got more a feeling of two silly girls running about bashing men.
Fido runs a printing press that publishes material aimed toward women, a revolutionary thing in her day and age. Fido runs her business with an iron hand, and the author seems to want us to think of her as a 19th Century businesswoman. I thought it suspicious that the few male employees Fido had were all either stupid and useless, or conniving and evil.

One thing I did like about the book was Helen. I wouldn't call her well written, but she was entertaining reading material. I rolled my eyes at her swooning over Anderson - it is pointedly obvious that all he wants from her is sex, but she is too naive to realize it. Helen is extremely selfish, and in the few scenes where we see her interacting with her two daughters, she seems to concern herself only vaguely with them, and in turn the two little girls treat their mother with an offhanded dismissal that Mommy is too "distracted" or "stupid" to bother with.
Helen's abuse of Fido's friendship was appalling. She comes by her friend's house and then says that she has invited Anderson over (without asking). At Fido's horrified objections, Helen makes up a lie that she is planning to break up with him. Reluctantly, Fido agrees, but then she hears the two of them having sex in her parlor. When she furiously confronts Helen about it later, Helen leads Fido to believe that she was forced. Later, when things escalate and she is found out, Helen blames Fido, saying that if she had only let her keep meeting Anderson in her parlor (snicker), her husband would never have found out. You have to admit, Helen hasn't many scruples, and it admittedly does make for entertaining reading.
I was truly shocked at how low Helen sinks in her lies to Fido during the trial. She truly would have said anything and hurt anyone - even her best friend - in order to get what she wanted.

*Mild spoilers - you can just skip to the next paragraph* I was annoyed at the revelation toward the end of the book that Helen and Fido had had a sexual relationship in the past. It was utterly pointless to the story, and to me it just seemed like a gratuitous, exaggerated furthering the not-quite-right feminist leanings this book had. Already written man-hating, hearty women who always seem to outsmart every male in the book? Looking to go further? Why not randomly throw in the fact that these women are also lesbian at the end! Sigh.
Feminism isn't about being lesbian or how stupid men are.

I like when characters refer to period books that they are reading, and here, Emily and Fido discuss their reads together. It was a fun, tiny little piece of their conversation, but I was annoyed at a small bit of inaccuracy. Helen says that her favorite scene in Lady Audley's Secret was when a woman pushes her husband down a well. However, there is certainly no such scene. I know this and I read the very same book only a few months ago.
On the other hand, besides the tiny mistake, it gave me a good feeling to hear Victorian Londoners talking about reading the same books that I read today, and the characters mentioned a book that I hadn't heard of called East Lynne. I thought that it sounded very good, and was pleased to find it was a real book when I looked it up. If nothing else, I'll have gained some new Victorian reading material.

In short, though, this book never impressed me. It was alright, I suppose, and the legal proceedings that took up the second half of the book were intriguing and not such light page turning as hearing about Helen's reckless secret meetings with her flippant lover. Average, I suppose.

Review: One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus

Title: One Thousand White Women
Author: Jim Fergus
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published: 1999
Pages: 320

Rating: 5 out of 10

In the 1870's, a Cheyenne chief traveled to Washington to make a proposition to Ulysses S. Grant himself: allow the Cheyenne a 'gift' of white women for them to marry, in order to integrate their cultures together. The request was, of course, denied, but what if it hadn't been? This is the idea that One Thousand White Women embellishes upon. It is the supposedly recovered journal of May Dodd, a young woman who has been unjustly imprisoned in a mental hospital by her own family. When she hears about the 'Brides for Indians' program, she jumps at the chance to escape her dismal existence and travel into a new life. Accompanied by an eclectic group of women also hoping to begin afresh, May becomes a part of the Cheyenne tribe. Though she can see herself enjoying this new lifestyle, the peace she has found in the prairie is interrupted by the spell new alcohol has cast over the Indian braves, and by the way May has been drawn to a handsome army Captain.

I just loved the new, fresh idea of this book. I have read books where white women marry or fall in love with Native Americans of course, but this one had a new twist.
I enjoyed it, but unfortunately, there were an array of things wrong with it, making it neutral for me.

Fergus was skilled at writing endearing characterizations, quaint and charmingly heartwarming in a style that reminded me of Anne of Green Gables or Little House on the Prairie. He takes on quite a few different accents to go with certain characters. At first they annoyed me, but after I got used to them, they added to the characterization. However, though his first-impression caricatures were very nice, most of the time they weren't able to carry through the rest of the book. Little quirks of physical characteristics seem to define most of the characters, and by the time the book is nearly over, Fergus has come to lean on them very heavily. For example, Gretchen is strong-armed and tough, Phemie is "graceful," Narcissa is strictly religious.
Our main character are narrator, May, was perhaps too modern, but overall, she was okay. The author never gave her any of the familiarizing little quirks that he gave so many of the other women, and I didn't like her as much as other, less important characters. May's ideas seemed a bit too suspiciously ahead of her time, such as her lack of religion, her feminist ideas, and other minor things such as her skill at horseback riding, and not sidesaddle!

Sometimes, a lack of thorough editing emerges. When remembering assaults at the mental hospital, May says "I prayed to kill him..." as the event was taking place. So... she is praying that God will kill the man? That God will let her kill him? That God will kill him later?
Another clunky sentence was: "When her part in the deception was discovered, as it surely would be, Martha knew that she faced..." Wait, has her 'part in the deception' been discovered yet or not? Because it "was" discovered, and then it "would be" discovered, and then Martha "faced..." instead of "would face..."
At another point, May says that her female companions "all know by now the reason of my incarceration." But how would they ever be able to find this out?

I also found quite a few disturbing aspects to this book. The author took up an armful of stereotypes and ran with them.
Gretchen, a German woman, was incredibly stereotypical. Because aren't all German women brutishly large in size, crass, blunt, strong-armed, and fond of beating up their poor husbands?
Phemie, the only African American woman in the group, could hardly be mentioned without having our attention called to her "black skin," her "lithe grace." At one point, another character even says that black people are fast runners. And look at that - it's true! Phemie is the fastest runner of them all! Another later says that all black people have natural rhythm. And would you believe it, there Phemie is dancing and swaying to the Indian music with the grace of a born dancer. It is also remarked that African Americans have good voices, and sure enough, you guessed it, Phemie has a beautiful, rich voice.
The religious woman, Narcissa, is the typical Bible-pounding conservative, offensive and annoying, that we see portrayed in so many other volumes.
A genteel lady from the deep South is given the obvious character of a self-righteous, extremely racist, whiskey-swilling prude.
Really, couldn't the author have been more inventive, and realized that many of his characterizations were in fact teetering on the edge of "typical" and falling into "offensive?"

Another disturbing thing I found was that very bad scenes in the book were later brushed off casually, without repercussions.
There is a horrific, drunken night, in which the Indian braves become intoxicated on liquor given to them by white men, and go about terrorizing the camp - beating wives, setting things afire, and raping women). A particular girl named Daisy is raped multiple times by a group of men. In another scene, a man assaults May and attempts to rape her. Another character later dies, and a man is at one point discovered of "buggering" little children.
All of these things are terrible - obviously.
Does the author see it this way?
Perhaps as he is writing them, but after that, they seem to vanish from his (and the character's) minds.
Most of these events happen and that is the end of them. A few paragraphs later, they are forgotten, without anything ever coming as a result of them. I couldn't believe it once I noticed the pattern.

Thirdly, I was disturbed by May's past being erased. She was placed into a mental hospital by her parents, for having children out of wedlock and living with a man to whom she was not married. Her children and lover are taken away, never to be seen again.
Though she tells us that she misses her children a couple times, I never quite believed her. Of course she misses them, but what kind of mother would just forget about her own children? Her parents do not live on the ends of the earth - they are still right there, in Chicago. Couldn't May have made some sort of effort to get back, or even visit, her children? Wouldn't she have placed seeing her children over everything else? I thought that in the end, they would be re-united. But just as the author erases his character's minds of other things, he so erases the memory of May's children from her memory, and from the story. This just struck me as sad, and wrong.

And lastly, I was a bit disquieted by the fact that May, while still mourning the loss of her partner/boyfriend, has sex with a man she has known for 2 days, while engaged (technically) to another man (one of the Indians she is traveling to wed). I rolled my eyes when May convinces herself that she is now in love with this man. Then she has sex with her husband, once she marries him, passionately and with much enjoyment. But is still in love with someone else. It just annoyed me a bit - mostly the fact that May thinks herself and the Captain a couple after two days in each other's company.

Many improbabilities, stretching the imagination just a bit too far, popped up through-out the story. To name a few, the author randomly places a black man in the Indian tribe (wow - so probable!) for Phemie to marry, because I suppose it would be so unthinkable for her to marry interracially. I can't imagine why, or how this could be considered likely, but it happens. Even worse is that two twins, Maggie and Susan, are married off to twin Indians. Well, of course! And May herself, our main character, is matched with the chief of the tribe.

So if there were so very many problems with One Thousand White Women, why did I still manage to enjoy it? Well, it was easy to get through. It was good light reading, while still maintaining that historical atmosphere that can often mask shallowness to being virtually undetectable. And despite all the racist and stereotypical characters, many of them were quite endearing, and I always sympathized with them and wished them all the best. There were some warm, funny scenes, and the author is admittedly quite good at making the reader like his characters. The pictures of the wild, beautiful prairie were well done.

In short, this is a book that should have been marvelous, but is reduced to average: and that's only if you can get past the uneasily glossed over offensive aspects of it.

Review: Empress Orchid by Anchee Min

Title: Empress Orchid
Author: Anchee Min
Publisher: Mariner Books
Published: 2005
Pages: 368

Rating: 8 out of 10

Empress Orchid, which combines the stories of a powerful empire crumbling and a powerful empress rising, transported me back in time to 1852 China, and provided sharp insight into the life of Empress Dowager Cixi.

Orchid is just an ordinary girl in China, dreading her upcoming arranged marriage, until she makes it into a very selective group of girls who will have a chance to become royal concubines, or perhaps even Empress. After passing, Orchid's life changes forever. She learns that beneath the mask of beauty in the Forbidden City lies treachery and betrayal. As she makes her way in and out of danger, Orchid observes and takes part in the politics of her country, and finds herself rising to power.

This book was absolutely fascinating - one of my favorite books that I have ever read on historical China. I knew little of the infamous empress Cixi, so I came away from this feeling like I had learned much.

Anchee Min describes the setting of the Forbidden City, which is present-day Beijing, in wondrous, lush detail. I felt that I could picture the gardens Orchid walks in, the fat koi in her ponds, the chambers filled with unimaginable wealth. I also felt the dark undertone to such ostentatious beauty as Orchid learns about the complex, unforgiving undercurrent of her new home. Betrayal, deceit, and spies are everywhere.

The customs of the Chinese people at this time were very interesting to me as well. There is a sense of honor to some, arrogance to others, and utter frivolity to others. Min truly gives you a sense of the culture, and she takes the time to explain customs that would no doubt seem confusing or pointless to modern Western readers.

And besides a setting and a culture, the author also weaves strong, memorable characters for us.
There is the emperor, of course, a blatantly proud and spoiled man who has been handed an entire nation when he is so entirely undeserving of such power. He exercises his absolute influence with harsh punishments and decrees, but we see through Orchid's eyes that he is in fact simply a frightened, simple, and altogether weak man. Even though the author did not delve into his story all that much, she did a good job of making the reader both hate and sympathize with him.
Niuhuru (spelled Nuharoo in the book, which is how her name is pronounced) was a character that I also found interesting. She is the beautiful, high born queen, the first chosen of the emperor, and therefore a rank above Orchid. She is stunningly beautiful, and while for most of the story she was a sweet, compassionate, and timid creature, there is a dark side to her as well. For example, a day after she speaks jealously with Orchid, Orchid's beloved cat is murdered. She schemes to take the Emperor away from Orchid, and she even attempts to have Orchid whipped while pregnant, which would most certainly have resulted in the unborn child's death. I wondered how much Niuhuru pretended, and what her nature truly was.
And then there was An-te-hai, Orchid's forever faithful eunuch and personal attendant. His unwavering, selfless loyalty to his mistress is touching and at times heartbreaking, and the relationship between them is a very well written one. They depend on each other, and they love each other. Toward the end, when he tells Orchid about his dreams, we see further into his pain. He was a well written character without having to be mentioned all that much.

There were other strong characters as well, but above them all stands our narrator, Orchid herself. She is a strong, intelligent, and insightful woman who at time seems wiser than all of the other governors and advisers and emperors.
The phases of her life were recounted eloquently - her adjustment to the new wealth of being a royal concubine, her agonizing wait longing to be noticed by her husband, her love and loss of a king, her painful love for her son even after he is taken from her and raised to be everything she despises, and her desperate longing for someone to love her. I felt, by the end of the book, that I knew her. She will not be a character that I will soon forget, and Min's story has inspired me to research Empress Cixi in greater detail.

This is a lovely, epic tale of China, through the eyes of one woman who ruled it.

Highly, highly recommended.

Review: Voltaire's Calligrapher by Pablo de Santis

 Title: Voltaire's Calligrapher
Author: Pablo de Santis
Genre: Literary / Historical Fiction
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Released: 2001 (as El Calígrafo de Voltaire)
Pages: 149

Rating - 8 out of 10

About Reading This Book
I read this book sitting one afternoon in a Barnes & Noble  near my house, which is now tragically closed, with a cup of cinnamon tea. After reading, I found a tiny lizard, smaller than a quarter, trapped in the rest rooms, and set it free outside.


Originally written in Spanish by Argentine author Pablo de Santis, this book is the story of a young man named Dalessius in 1700's France. From a young age, he is trained as a calligrapher, which later earns him a job working for the eccentric Voltaire.

This book was beautiful and intellectual. It is a book that you must pay attention to, and read carefully, as there are countless little details on every page that you would miss if only skimming. Essentially, these little details were what made this book so fascinating for me.

De Santis is a skillful, intricate writer who masterfully creates a vivid world by using a curious method. He gives the reader a strong impression that other lives and stories, besides the one that he is writing, are going on all around it. Little descriptors given for an unimportant individual, or a place, or an object, hint at there being so much more under the surface - other, unrelated stories that sound intriguing, but that he doesn't have time to go into.
The result is a very realistic, artful sense of setting that does not rely so much on a place as it does on the realistic presence of the people who inhabit it.

I just loved all of these little details and eccentricities, which were scattered over nearly every page. Most were unimportant to the story, but they added so much to it. They were the minuscule moments in the book that contributed beauty and a sense of cinematic-style art. Dalessius accidentally glimpses the face of a beautiful corpse in her coffin, a man tells us that he carries a withered enemies hand about with him wherever he goes. Kolm tells a story of accidentally executing his estranged father and giving up his job as a hangman afterward, students whisper rumors of an unspecified "cursed" word that they will punished for happening to write down. A man accidentally uses disappearing ink when writing a woman's execution document, so that when it is opened and found blank, the people take it as a sign from God, and she is let go. An actor becomes so well known for playing his role of a notorious local villain that he becomes hated himself. A man who lost three fingers setting off fireworks tells the tale with nostalgia, likening it to an honorable sort of battle wound. A traveler sees a woman on her deathbed and takes it as a sign, returning home to his wife and never leaving her side again. A maid is given a candle but is forbidden to light it, lest she waste her master's hoarded money. A sculptor finally finds his paragon model, a beautiful girl who can sit deathly still, but she disappears the next day, resulting in only a half finished sculpted head and his eventual suicide. A man writes using the blood of his enemies as ink....
And there were so very many more. None took up more than a few lines, which actually made them seem all the more realistic, allowing the reader to fill in extra details in their imaginations.

Another thing that I absolutely adored about this book was Dalessius' view on his trade as a calligrapher.
I think that what gave this book its literary, intellectual texture was the way that our main character looks upon his career. To him, it is more than just copying words in pretty handwriting.
He experiments with it and becomes obsessed by it, both hating and loving his trade all at once. He develops finesse and sophistication, even strategies that have to do with his techniques, his paper, his quills, and most importantly, his inks. He describes to us different methods, comparing some calligraphers to stonemasons. He uses describing words like "laceration" or "flow" for his writings.
As the book progresses, calligraphy becomes less of a study and more of an art to Dalessius, and finally, a philosophy.
He develops theories concerning his calligraphy, entertains deep-thinking notions and musings, all related to us with a light sort of sincerity.
I loved de Santis for what he created here. Truly, nearly any topic can be twisted into something intellectual if given the precision and philosophical, artful manner than he conjured up here.

The above is the essence of what I got out of this book and enjoyed about it. If none of that sounds like your type of story, you will probably not enjoy this book.
It does not have a specific outline of a plot, and yet neither is it a character-driven story. In fact, it would be a bit difficult to pinpoint exactly what the purpose and main story would be.
True to the title, Dalessius does work as a calligrapher and assistant to Voltaire, but not for a long enough time to be considered the main plot line. I loved the depiction of Voltaire as an eccentric, messy, quirky old man and wish that he had been focused on more.
Dalessius is in Toulouse for quite some portion of the book, which makes a less than favorable impression upon him (he stays in a filthy inn room and spends most of his time delving into the lives of hangmen, stories of grisly executions, and local tales of murders that are later glorified in plays).
Later in the story, he meets the fascinating clockmaker and mechanic von Knepper and his beautiful daughter Clarissa. Von Knepper's life's works are his life-size mechanic dolls, fashioned after Clarissa herself.

My one small complaint about this book would be that the author, or publisher, or someone really ought to included some actual calligraphy in this book! Even a pretty beginning letter at the start of each chapter would have been a lovely and relevant touch. Dalessius and de Santis make calligraphy sound gorgeous, and I wanted to see some examples! A few typical squiggles underneath the chapter numbers were included, but that was all.

All in all, this is a book as intricate and calculatingly artistic as Dalessius' calligraphy or as von Knepper's mechanical art. Though it was extremely short at only 150 pages, the author's shading of the story with detail and back-stories make it seem like a very long, complex book. This is a perfect example of beautiful, thoughtful writing.

Review: The Midwife's Revolt by Jodi Daynard

 Title: The Midwife's Revolt
Author: Jodi Daynard
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Oppossum Press
Released: January 1, 2013
Pages: 213

Rating - 7 out of 10

Despite my interest in the topic, it's been a very, very long time since I've read a Revolutionary War book, so I was very excited to read this one.

Here in Daynard's first novel, we meet Lizzie Boylston, midwife and owner of a small Massachusetts farm. The story follows her through the death of her husband in the Battle of Bunker Hill, her close friendship with Abigail Adams, the highs and lows of her medical work, espionage, and her struggles through the war years in general.

Even though I got through this book in just two sittings, I wouldn't call it a fast read. It is more one to be savored with some tea, snuggled up in bed. I can see how some readers may be put off by the pacing, and while I agree that some of the more slower portions of the book could have been omitted, I never felt bored or disinterested in the story.
Also, the second half of the book picked up a bit, complete with poisoning, a murder mystery, more than one mysterious suitor, and espionage.

I enjoyed the character of Lizzie, strong and thoroughly independent while still remaining a woman of her time, rather than a 21st Century girl taped into a historical setting.
As a child, Lizzie requested that her father provide her a tutor, which, more in carelessness than love, he did. She learned Greek and Latin, developed a fondness for Shakespeare, and became learned in medicine. Everyone in the story is aware of her intelligence, but she lives in a world where it is generally viewed as a strike against her rather than one in her favor. Sad, but triumphant Lizzie rises above this thinking.
Her development as a character was well written, and I especially thought that the way she handled her grief over her husband's death was marvelously realistic, allowing us to catch glimpses of all the things that made her come alive as a character - her flaws and best qualities.
Besides her new life as a widow, Lizzie's life is far from easy. She obviously longs for a family, she is at first shunned as a possible witch in her community, her farm does not exactly prosper, and she goes through multiple times of near starvation and sickness. In one hopeless instance she tells us "At times we felt as if God were on the other side."

Another thing that drew me to this book was the involvement of Abigail Adams. Abigail's unabashed honesty, clear-headedness, and tough love make for a great friendship between her and Lizzie. I love John and Abigail Adams, and from the other things that I have read about her, this seems a good re-imagining of what she may have been like with her closest confidantes.

Another thing that I greatly appreciated about this book was that it truly seemed set during the Revolutionary War.
This is clearly a book for readers of historical fiction, by a fan of the genre. There are dashes of old fashioned words through-out the book, though not enough to seem forced. Daynard isn't afraid to use words such as "breast" or "gay" with their original meanings attached (and no, neither have anything to do with sexuality). Two women share a bed because that is what women of the time did, with no gratuitous lesbian undertones attached. There are also fainting spells, fancily worded scenes, and some melodramatic speeches. At times, it strongly reminded me of a book of the period - and to do that successfully is to be applauded.

Overall, a lovely book that really takes you back in time.

Thanks to Opossum Press and NetGalley.com for providing me with an advance review copy of this book.

Review: The White by Deborah Larsen

Title: The White
Author: Deborah Larsen
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2003
Pages: 219

Rating: 3 out of 10

In 1758 Pennsylvania, sixteen year old Mary Jemison is captured by a band of Shawnee Indians. At first, she rejects her captors and desperately plots methods of escape, but as time passes, she adjust more and more to the Native American way of life, even marrying within the tribe.

The story isn't a new one - I can think of a good handful of other books off the top of my head with this exact plotline. But, many of those books have also been very good, which I why I wasn't all that hesitant about reading another.
Also, I was particularly familiar with Mary Jemison's story because of another fictional book about her, Indian Captive, by Lois Lenski. It was one of the books of my childhood and won the 1942 Newberry Award.

The problem with this book, however, is not the storyline, but the author's writing, and her manner of recounting this true tale. I got through the book quickly, because of the sparse writing style, but there was nothing that compelled me to continue or interested me.

There was not a lot of focus on anything in the book except for the main character, Mary. The ways and customs of the Shawnee are neglectfully skipped over, along with any sense of culture. The other characters of the book, such as Mary's father, her husband, or her children, are also given this brusque, edited-out treatment. We never come to learn anything about them, save for their strict relationship to Mary.

For going to so much trouble to erase everything from the story except Mary herself, the author surely has created a bland main character. Mary is a shell-like, cardboard person whose thoughts, emotions, and motives are unclear to the reader. She never shares very much with us, and sometimes I had trouble guessing what exactly she was thinking. For example, she expresses her unwillingness to marry a certain man (she appears to be attracted to someone else), but very shortly afterward, agrees to marrying him and offers up no complaints ever again. Why? Further on in the book, she expresses a sudden, strong desire to own land. Why? The author never gives us any insight.
And to make matters worse, Mary is also an intolerably dull, listless character. I never felt sympathy or anything else for her. She was simply boring.

Not a book that I would recommend.

Review: A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly

Title: A Northern Light
Author: Jennifer Donnelly
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Graphia
Published: 2004
Pages: 408

Rating - 8 out of 10

Nestled in New York's Adirondack Mountains in 1906, Mattie has begun a new job at an expensive hotel. After spending so many years trapped working on her father's dismal farm lands, she feels intoxicated and frightened at her new-found freedom. A gifted writer, she is accepted to Barnard College in New York City, and yet feels held back by a responsibility to help her impoverished family and a budding romance with a local boy.

This honest, powerful book really surprised me. I had picked up another YA novel expecting some light reading, but Donnelly writes with mature, pitch-perfect depth and force. She doesn't shy away from the gritty aspects of poverty, murder, racism, and more. One of the most striking scenes in the book was one in which Mattie assists a local midwife in a particularly bloody childbirth.
The heroine's problems, feeling torn between her family and furthering herself at school rang true, and Mattie is a refreshingly honest, believable voice.

The book is loosely inspired by the true murder of Grace Brown, and by Dreiser's "An American Tragedy," which I haven't read yet.

A perfect, highly recommended book. Just gorgeous.

Review: Prophecy by S.J. Parris

Title: Prophecy
Author: S.J. Parris
Genre: Historical Mystery
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2011
Pages: 384

Rating: 6 out of 10

The 2nd book in the series of mysteries following Giordano Bruno, a former monk now turned detective / writer / philosopher / spy, leaves Oxford University and brings us to Whitehall Palace in London. The year is 1583, a year that astrologers proclaim will bring about great tragedy. Bruno, who is still working for the Queen's spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, is sent to befriend and reside with the family of a suspicious French ambassador, who may or may not be plotting to put Mary Queen of Scots on the throne in place of Elizabeth. Only a few nights after arriving, one of the Queen's ladies in waiting is murdered, and soon afterward, another. Bruno embarks upon a feverish search to find the killer...

I enjoyed this book in the series, and felt that it was a good continuation of the first one. We do get to know our hero Bruno a bit more as his character is filled out, which I had mentioned in my review of Heresy. Bruno is still, as a sub-plot, seeking the lost Copernicus volume, which he believes contains revolutionary secrets about philosophy and astronomy.

I enjoyed seeing more of Walsingham, who I have always thought a fascinating historical figure. And Merritt portrayed him just right, in my opinion.
Bruno also becomes a close friend of John Dee, the famed scholar, and I had to re-read the decadent descriptions of his house and library a couple times. It sounded as if my dream house was being described - beautiful books absolutely everywhere.

On the negative side, this book is very similar to the first one. I have to admit that I do often have this complaint about a lot of mystery series, because they all just seem so repetitive. People solve a mystery, the end. Book 2 - people solve a mystery, the end. Book 3...
Mystery series that I have enjoyed in the past, I realize, all have strong main characters, inventive plots (not just the same mystery every time), and a progressive plot to the series that involves a bigger picture than this and that mystery.
So far, Bruno isn't a strong enough character for me to say that he really comes alive in the stories. As for inventive plots, this one seemed like a repeat of book one, except in a different setting. Bruno is still spying on some people, and solving crimes that have religious, symbolic undertones, as people try to dissuade him from his sleuthing. As for an overarching plot that encompasses the series in its entirety, though we are only on book 2, I would guess that that isn't very existent here either. Sure, Bruno is still looking for that book, but it would have to be something bigger than that.

Yet again, I was annoyed by the females of the story, notably the red-haired lady in waiting that Bruno begins feeling attracted to after she helps him collect evidence about the killer's first victim. Unlike with Sophia of "Heresy," nothing ever actually happens with girl two. However, she still felt so very obligatory, as if the author felt that she had to throw in a pretty girl somewhere along the lines. Like Sophia, the redhead (I have forgotten her name, as you can see) is also conveniently thrown out of the story later on, though it had looked as if she was being set up to become a major character. At least her exit wasn't so tailored and ridiculous as Sophia's, though.

Despite having quite a few complaints about this book, I still enjoyed reading it. For all of my saying it was too similar to the first installment (which I hold with, nonetheless), I enjoyed the two about the same. It was quickly paced and interesting, and the musings about philosophy and astronomy and religious politics of the day were very interesting.

Perhaps I will read Bruno's next adventure, but it would have to be something new and completely different to the first two books.

Review: Annie Between the States by L.M. Elliott

Title: Annie, Between the States
Author: L.M. Elliott
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Katherine Teegan Books
Published: 2006
Pages: 544

Rating - 8 out of 10

In Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, Annie Sinclair's life changes as the Civil War overtakes her home. Loyal to her beloved state, Annie never doubts her Confederate loyalties until she begins to fall in love with a young Union lieutenant.

I don't make any effort to hide the fact that I absolutely loathe the Civil War. Maybe it's because I spent most of my childhood and teenage years in Richmond, Virginia, where discussion of the Civil War was akin to starting a heated political discussion in which you may or may not declare yourself a Muslim Communist. There were frequent, impassioned discussions about it in the papers. Confederate flags fluttered from the beams of front porches. At a history class in university, students raged on and on about the secession. But even before all that, I never found the time period all that interesting. I like my history old - the Middle Ages is generally my cutoff point. 

Anyways, I am far from a Civil War enthusiast. However, of all the books on the setting that I have read, this one is without doubt the best. I absolutely loved this book, so much so that it earned a couple of re-reads from me, another rare exception.

Elliott has written a strong and powerful story, with the perfect blend of accurate history and well written fiction. I love the main character Annie Sinclair, who was feisty without simply being a modern girl dressed in Antebellum-era clothes, as is all too common in historical fiction. Seeing her grow up and develop as a character was part of what made this book so very good. 

Richly drawn, complex and detailed. 
L.M. Elliot is an amazing author, and I look forward to reading all of her books. Highly recommended.

Review: The Scandal of the Season by Sophie Gee

Title: The Scandal of the Season
Author: Sophie Gee
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2007
Pages: 368

Rating: 3 out of 10

Lately, quite a few fluffy pieces of historical drivel have been making their way onto my reading lists. It is all due to my well meaning decision to stop judging books by their covers so strictly. This one is unfortunately the latest addition to my accidental and lamentable trend.

It is a "story behind the story" type of book, based on events that supposedly inspire the poet Alexander Pope to write The Rape of the Lock. Here, Alexander is still a struggling writer searching for literary recognition in 1700's London, and longing after the love of his childhood friend Teresa. The future subject of his famous poem is to be Arabella Fermor, a young and stunningly gorgeous debutante. Arabella finds herself drawn to Robert, a rakish man who she knows she would do well to avoid. The two begin a scandalous affair.

What a mess this book was, from start to finish. It was exasperating and annoying. The moment I finished it, I slammed it down onto my 'discard' pile with a smack.

There was not a single character that I ever even mildly liked or wanted to hear more about. Alexander was insufferable, and whenever I glimpsed his name appearing frequently on the pages ahead, I groaned and thought to myself 'please no, please no...' He was a show off and a know it all, very sure of himself in a grating sort of way. Every character in this book seemed to always be trying so desperately to be sharp and witty, Alexander most of all. Rather than dazzle me with his wit, Alexander only inspired utter contempt from me. I hope that this doesn't cloud my opinions when I read some of the real Pope's work one day.

The real main character, Arabella, seemed intriguing at first, when she was still off scene somewhere, but once we get to her part of the story, she quickly loses all this. She is described as "the beauty of her age," and everyone seems captivated by her looks. Few paragraphs were allowed to pass by without the reader being reminded of how gorgeous Arabella is. This pretty much always annoys me, but of course it is possible for a girl to be stunningly beautiful. However, it was also convenient to the plot for her to be viewed as undesirable for not having a huge fortune. There is also a big to-do over her love interest, Robert, probably not being interested. Of course he won't be, he would never be interested in her, the most beautiful girl in London. I mean, who would be? And the author is always woefully pointing out to us that no one really wants Arabella. Why? She's so beautiful it's intimidating. Oh, I see, what a common problem... It seemed like the author wanted both - the ultimate desirable goddess, and the poor reject - in one character. It seemed conflicting to me and didn't work one bit.

The romance story here fell flat. This is probably because it wasn't really a romance plot at all, just sex. I found it annoying that Robert is portrayed as such a gentlemanly hero, when really he is just getting free sex from (in case you forgot) "the most beautiful girl in London."
I also found in annoying and unlikely that Arabella would so willingly and lightly give up her virginity, and thus her entire reputation, on this fling. Even if she had been so carried away by her passions, surely it would have been a bit more difficult for her to sneak out and meet Robert. But she never appears to come across any problems there. At one point she even just shows up randomly at his house in the middle of the night.

All of the parties that took up so much of the book were dull. It was all just a lot of "and she wore this, and he danced with this girl, and that girl said this, and guess which famous author was there...?!" It sounded like a gossip column at times, except about boring people I didn't care about.

The author often switches from character to character, taking us into Alexander's perspective and then to Robert's, who leads us to Arabella's words, and other such arrangements. It would be convenient, except that she was incapable of pulling it off.

Something that especially annoyed me was how Gee made all of her characters try so hard to be sharp and witty. Subtlety is the key to a good, hilarious satire - but Gee instead feels the need to throw satire at us for pages and pages. I just wanted to snap the book shut and read a real satire before my mind was contaminated by faux-satire overload. The characters are always referencing how witty they all are, and Gee is constantly describing her character's personalities or conversations with that very same (overused) word, but I never see any evidence of this. All I saw were stupid people who talk in the most forced, stilted conversation I have ever heard of, and then try to pass it all off as brilliance just by calling it so.

Well, I suppose that by the time anyone has finished reading this they will have assumed that I didn't like it one bit. Normally I try to find at least something I like about a book, but I honestly couldn't come up with anything here.

Review: The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin

Title: The American Heiress
Author: Daisy Goodwin
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Headline Review
Published: 2010
Pages: 480

Rating: 1 out of 10

Set in both New York and England during the Gilded Age, this book follows the story of Cora Cash, a beautiful heiress famous for being the wealthiest young lady in America. Her scheming socialite mother only wants one last thing for her daughter: a title. And so, Cora is sent to England to find a husband of nobility, where she finds herself soon engaged to Duke Ivor of Wareham.

My Last Duchess (later published in the U.S. as The American Heiress) was a weakly written, predictable, and insipid book that I was only too happy to eliminate from my shelves.

The first thing that annoyed me was the author's constant throwing about of stilted descriptions of grandeur, obviously meant to be impressive. Rather than give the book an atmosphere of elegance and wealth (which is what normally comes to mind at the mention of the Gilded Age), I simply felt that she was tossing names and sums of money about at random.
An example from the first few pages:

The Cash household had its own Hall of Mirrors, which the visitors who had been to Versailles pronounced even more spectacular than the original.

Rather than show us the finery that the heroine is privileged to, Goodwin only ever tells us. Everyone in the book is aghast at the fact that the Cash family has their own trans-Atlantic steamer, and then the author throws in the fact that Cora brought along eight of her favorite horses on the voyage. But we never actually 'see' this ship for ourselves, or get a description of it. We are simply told that it is enormously expensive, and that's all that we really need to know.
Cora is constantly referred to as "the richest girl in the world," or "an American princess," or "a billionaire."
It just all seemed so very over the top and silly.

All of the characters are neglected, even the main character of Cora. I never liked her - at the beginning, she was a spoiled, foolish girl. At the end, she was the same.
She says to a man at one point: "Would you like to kiss me? Most men want to, but I am just too rich."
I certainly never felt that I got to know her. In the first few chapters, the reader is given the impression that she is a strong-willed girl longing to break free of her mother's controlling grasp. It could have been an interesting plot development, but it is dropped within the first twenty pages.

Cora's mother seemed set to become a major, interesting character, but she fell out of the plot entirely less than halfway through. Much the same for Teddy, a love interest of Cora's, who leaves and then weakly re-enters the book later on without ever being in much focus.

None of the characters were focused on enough, and none of their relationships made very much sense to me.

The supposed "romance" between the Duke, Ivo, and Cora was trivial and uninspiring. In fact, I would have to say that no love ever existed between them, and nor is it ever likely to.
Cora conveniently (but utterly by chance) takes a fall off her horse while riding through the Duke's property. Also by chance, he happens to stumble across her and rescue her.
Before they have shared even twenty minutes together, they are engaged. The society and gossip papers of two continents are obsessed with the couple's wedding, but they themselves approach it nonchalantly. The book seemed to always be highlighting the fact that their relationship lacked passion, and was cool and distanced - boring, even. I assumed that this was some sort of set-up so that Cora could leave Ivo in the end, and realize that wanting a title was no excuse to marry someone, but it turned out that it was just the way that their relationship was. Despite their obvious lack of any chemistry, the book insists that they love each other.

There is a revelation at the end of brothers falling in love with the same woman, who cheated on both of them, leading one brother to attempt suicide. His brother encouraged him, but then tried to save him, but failed, and convinced himself that he had killed his sibling, then went on to convince himself that the woman had actually made him kill his sibling, whilst both hating and loving her. The woman, to make the man angry, married a rich man, who was another sibling...
All this boggling information was dumped on the reader in exactly this manor - rushed and nonsensical. Perhaps if it had been built up, and written with a bit of finesse and talent, it would have been interesting.
But here, it was so B-grade soap opera, I skimmed the paragraph without even trying to make sense of it all.

This was an extremely obvious, shakily written book that was sorely in need of an editor. Not recommended. Just no.

Review: The Confession of Katherine Howard by Suzannah Dunn

Title: The Confession of Katherine Howard
Author: Suzannah Dunn
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2011
Pages: 320

Rating: 3 out of 10

This brief story recounts portions of Katherine Howard's girlhood, as well as her days as queen and her disastrous fate. It is told from the viewpoint of Cat, a naive girl who grew up with Katherine and now serves as her lady in waiting.

The book starts out ominously:
"I was thinking... this is who we are: the perfect queen and her faithful retinue. Now, I wish I could go back, patter over the lavish carpets to tap us on the shoulders, whisper in our ears and get us out alive." (page 4)
I found this to be a good example of Dunn's writing. Almost well written, but not quite. The potential is there, but an amateur quality remains. In actuality, the above sentence is relatively flattering, being more eloquent than most others in the book, but it still doesn't exactly fit. First of all, Cat never views Katherine as "the perfect queen," and with good reason. And who in the world "patters" over carpets?? I suppose next will be carpeted tap-dancing.

Worse than people's shoes tapping on carpets is the modern style of Dunn's writing. There is a whole lot of sex talk between the girls, and while I don't doubt that girls of any time period are capable of being curious, their wishful conversations sounded just a bit too unrealistic.

Something that greatly annoyed me was that the main character Cat is so drastically overlooked. She remained definitively faceless and without personality for the entire story. Coming into the book, I didn't read the back cover, and I had been assuming that Katherine Howard would be the narrator. When it became clear that the story was being told by someone else, I kept thinking that on the next page, this person would introduce herself and reveal her identity. But she didn't until about page 50!
Her name is never, ever mentioned until quite far in, and we have to guess for ourselves that she is the queen's lady in waiting or maid or something of that nature.
I got a strong impression that the author expected readers to just know that our main character was "Cat Tilney, ladies maid" from the description on the back cover. And absolutely no book should rely on that, in my opinion.

In the same way of forgetting to mention her own main character's name, Suzannah Dunn fails to mention or feature a lot of other things, too.
Before Cat and Katherine come to court, they appear to enjoy gossiping about the latest royal news with their friends. As girls, they hear about the queen being taken away and replaced by a new one, who is later beheaded.
Of course, I know who they are talking about - Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Later, they converse about Anne of Cleves as well. But it struck me as very strange that they would never once mention any names. Anne Boleyn's name is not featured once in the entirety of the novel, and neither are any other of Katherine's many predecessors.
Katherine's affair with Thomas Culpepper is mentioned often, but we never actually "see" him. He is mentioned, but never featured in any scenes, turning him into just a name of some guy.
The words "London" and "England" seem to be avoided. Absolutely no sense of setting is given whatsoever, which is always a major negative point for me, especially with historical fiction, and especially with historical fiction that deals with royalty. Kings and queens are ingrained so deeply in their countries and their cultures, a writer ought to find it impossible not to mention them.
I can't fathom why the author seemed to go out of her way to avoid specific names and titles, but it certainly didn't do any favors for the story.

Before this one, the only other book that I had read that prominently focused on Katherine Howard was Philippa Gregory's The Boleyn Inheritance. Though I know that Gregory is not exactly known for her accuracy, I have to say that that book is leagues better than this one.
I also felt that Gregory's Katherine was much more believable and probable: a beautiful, flirtatious, silly girl who is ignorant and not all that intelligent.
Here, Dunn's Katherine is described as not being all that pretty or charming. She seems a grim, flinty girl who is wise beyond her years, mysterious, and ever so solemn - a stark opposite of Gregory's version.
But it doesn't seem to fit the history - Henry VIII had just left the plain, solemn Anne of Cleves looking for something more entertaining, and chose Katherine. Why would he choose another ugly girl with a grey personality? And why would a wise, cunningly intelligent girl make herself so easy to trap by continuing an affair with the king's favorite? Perhaps this could be excused if Katherine was written as being desperately in love with Thomas, but she wasn't. Katherine struck me as an un-feeling, passionless girl.
So, the entire persona of Katherine didn't ever seem right to me, always a bit off.

After the culmination of events with Katherine being investigated, the book ends rather suddenly. It would be easy for a reader not educated on the events to miss the fact that Katherine was actually executed.
The historical note at the end focuses far more on the executions of Francis Dereham and Thomas Culpepper, for some reason.

Since I have now said so many negative things about the book, I am trying to think of a positive one.
I suppose that I did like how I finished reflecting to myself how unlikely a contestant Katherine was for the throne. Unlike her cousin Anne Boleyn, she was never groomed and pushed to catch the court's eye, and grew up as practically a commoner. As she talks about news, faraway at court, she obviously doesn't see herself ever becoming one of those people she hears about.

The book wasn't actually quite so terrible as my review probably makes it sound. It was easy to read, and moved at a quick enough pace (though it did get bogged down whenever there was a flashback to girlhood days). It was definitely below average, but I didn't hate it.

The Confession of Katherine Howard was a book that I simply didn't have strong feelings for either way - though if I did, they would be more likely to lean toward negativity. Don't expect any of the characters to have strong identities, or the events any gravity, either. Like the vapid main character, this was a dry book vacant of personality.

Review: The Pindar Diamond by Katie Hickman

Title: The Pindar Diamond
Author: Katie Hickman
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2010
Pages: 288

Rating: 3 out of 10

I was really looking forward to this book. It just sounds so exciting! A mysterious woman washes up out of the sea, a supposedly cursed diamond is being tracked down, with which some nuns may be involved, and it's set in Venice. What could go wrong?

The opening lines, in which the mystery woman describes drowning, really caught my attention. I got the impression that the author carefully thought about what such an awful thing must be like, and the short section of a chapter, less than a page long, seemed almost poetic in how terrible it was.
In the next chapter, we are introduced to two traveling circus acrobats, Maryam and Elena. I loved the first descriptions of the characters, and the description of the tired little village that they come across had me reading the words in admiration. Hickman really brought to life the setting, and all on the first few pages!
I settled in, eager to get to know these characters.

However, it was not to be. The scene switches almost immediately to an entirely different set of the characters - who are the predominant ones in the story.
They were quite confusing, especially in the beginning. But even toward the end, I was still a bit confused about what was going on with them.
The author calls all the characters by both their first and last names at random. It wasn't until pretty far along in the book that I realized that "Pindar" and "Paul" were actually the same person, Paul Pindar.
Also, the characters relied almost solely on dialogue when first introduced. They dive right in to talking about some very in depth, weighty matters, which only confused me more.

Still bewildered and trying to figure out exactly who was doing what with which person, and what last name went with what first name, I was whisked away to another setting.

In this one, we meet a young, pretty nun in training named Annetta. She has trouble following all of the rules, such as not having friends and giving up her embroidered slippers.
Annetta was one of my favorite characters, even though I could never really manage to feel close to her.

This book was extremely good for about five to ten pages. The author does an extraordinarily praiseworthy job of setting up the scenery, describing the details, and really giving us a feeling of the place she has introduced.
However, the rest of this book was not so amazing.

There were many problems, the most important of which being: by the time I was a bit over 75% finished with the book, I looked at the number of pages and thought incredulously "When ever will the actual plot be introduced?"
Well, it never was.
Before beginning the book, I read and savored the description on the back cover (something I do when I'm anticipating a very good book). I had thought to myself that it sounded like an amazing story, but when I went back and looked over it, I realized that it was in fact relatively vague. The only possible plot lines I could make out were: A troupe of acrobats trying to care for a mysterious woman, or a man trying to find his beloved.
Both of these were involved in the story, but no, they certainly couldn't be called a plot.
It's a shame, because there were really a lot of great elements here. Venice! My favorite city, especially when set in historical fiction, and in the 1600's, no less! I was very disappointed to find that the city itself was barely mentioned, much less described.

The acrobats and the woman from the sea show up again over halfway through the book, just in time to neatly deliver a shocking secret about the woman's identity (an extremely obvious and predictable secret, that is). However, even if I hadn't guessed this by the fifth chapter, I wouldn't have really cared. The reader never gets a chance to know the mystery woman, or to wonder who she is. So, when we do find out, it's no revelation.

In the reading guide of this book, it describes a certain character as "a sinister villain." I thought "huh? He was a villain?" Sure, he makes some sort of evil speech at the end, but he wasn't a very prominent character.

Even with a handful of other exciting plot elements thrown in (stolen diamonds, escaped Arabian harem girls, the gambling underworld, dept collectors, courtesans of fading beauty), the author still couldn't draw up a plot.

There were also some things that didn't make sense in the book, which I'll list briefly here. (SPOILERS ahead!)

- A jewel buyer is talking about how he would pay a fortune just to touch the famous "Sultan's Blue" diamond, but on the next page he is vehemently saying that he wouldn't even touch it, because it can bring only trouble.

- Carew is looking Annetta over, and is somehow able to tell that she has a slender waist and a "nice rump." But wouldn't her nun's habit make this impossible?

- I hate badly written romances. And there was definitely one here. Annetta meets Carew rather pleasantly - he grabs her, pretends to try to strangle her in the dark, and then offers to "service her" there in the abbey garden. After that, she hates him, which really just means that she is crazy over him, and by the end, they are weeping, falling down at each others feet, presumably hopelessly in love. What? They were only in each others company for a total of about 15 minutes, over three visits!
And, to add to this, their relationship (if it can be called such) is based almost entirely on sexual harrassment. Carew makes lewd gestures simulating sex in Annetta's direction before he even meets her. Once he does meet her, he undresses her visually, and then of course, there is the scene in the garden where he attacks her. What is wrong with this picture? A lot.

- When Annetta stays out late, there is a convenient cover-up about the nuns all having "slept late." All of them. This is hundreds of women. And they all over slept. The author obviously just didn't want Annetta to get caught, but couldn't think of a logical way to go about this.

- The entire thing with The Aviary Gate. I didn't know that this was a sequel, or I would have read the other book first. No where does it say that this is a sequel - but it should have! You really have to have read the first book in order to understand a lot of what happens in this one, especially toward the end.

- (SPOILERS) Maryam and the "mermaid" baby are killed? How did the baby die? And why? Oh, let me guess... They will turn out to be alive in the sequel. Just wait and see.

- So Paul sees Celia, but doesn't recognize her, he just thinks that she resembles Celia. Then, he is certain it is her. It just really didn't seem to make sense to me, how one minute he was certain it wasn't her, and the next minute he is, without giving a reason.

And the characters also disappointed me. I felt that I only got to touch upon them briefly, and there was no one in the story that I ever particularly was rooting for, or cared about. Maryam is the only character who I really sympathized with, but this was not so much because Hickman wrote a good character, but because she wrote us such a sad background for the giantess. Even when she died, I felt no remorse.
John Carew was cast as the the typical roguish bad boy that all the women go crazy over. What is this with men assaulting the heroine and getting rewarded with eternal love? He sneaks up behind her, grabs her, and strangles her! Later, he says that he did this because he "wanted to frighten her." Does this sound like a good guy? And yet, he is cast as very much the hero.

So, there were obviously many problems with this story.
However, for some reason, I did enjoy it. It always compelled me to read on, and I may even keep it.
Despite so horribly ruining her plot, the author is good at describing things (when she bothers), and at keeping events moving along at a good pace.

This book had a lot of potential, but sadly, it did not live up to it. I may read The Aviary Gate in hopes that it will be better, but this one was nothing special.

Review: Maid Marian by Ella Watson

Title: Maid Marian
Author: Elsa Watson
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Published: 2005
Pages: 314

Rating: 7 out of 10

I began reading this book with reluctance. After all, the story of Robin Hood has been told so many times, and I was mostly expecting this one to be just another Robin Hood book.
However, I was pleasantly surprised right from the beginning. Elsa Watson's writing is grounded, realistic, and elegant. I really felt as if I was there in her medieval world. The vivid setting and the fact that I love the Middle Ages prompted me to read the entire book in one sitting.

The story is about Marian Fitzwater, a girl whose young fiancee died when she was a child. Now, her fiancee's mother, the deceptive Lady Pernelle, is vying to convince Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine that she can rightfully take over Marian's lands. As Eleanor prepares to have Marian married off into a loveless arranged marriage, Marian sees no choice other than to flee along with her beloved maid. From there, she ends up joining the band of Robin Hood, a roguish outlaw, and finds herself falling in love.

Something that I loved about this story is that it doesn't try to be a re-telling of Robin Hood. It isn't about Robin, it's about Marian. The author has truly created a new character, who isn't defined or characterized by Robin or the legend that she is a part of.
All of the characters had their own personality. Marian's was well written, and I loved her loyal maid. Robin's character wasn't exactly original (it's exactly what anyone would expect from the well-known outlaw) but he wasn't awful, and I liked him. It was also interesting that the author portrayed Eleanor of Aquitaine in a less than favorable light.

The only thing that I didn't like about the story was a section in the plot that I didn't think made much sense. Robin is about to go and fight a vicious battle that he may not live through. Marian begs him to stay, because she wouldn't be able to bear it if he were to be killed. Of course, Robin goes anyways, and Marian is so outraged, she decides to leave without warning. She wanders aimlessly through the country, disguised as a peasant, and ends up living with a kindly poor woman and her family. I thought that this was all rather dramatic. And yes, the woman that Marian met was very likable and a well written minor character, but there is no point to her or Marian's departure and journey. All of that has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Wouldn't it have been more exciting to have Marian sneak off to join the fight? Or have the men return, but without Robin, so she has to go find him? Save him, maybe?
But no. Instead the author decides to send her on a pointless journey across the country.
And then, one day, Robin himself shows up! Tada! He's alive! He and Marian joyfully ride back to Sherwood Forest.
I have to say, this seemed highly unlikely to me, even a bit suspect. I kept hoping that there was some secret plot detail that the author hadn't revealed yet - How exactly did Robin find Marian? Did someone in the village tell him? What about the family she was staying with?
But no. All pointless.

However, thankfully Elsa Watson is brilliant at spinning characters off of her descriptions of rolling hills and lush countryside. Through out the book, the prose and details are wonderful. I will certainly be looking for more of her work, for this very reason. Whether pointless or relevant, all the characters were believable, especially the female ones. And her writing is graceful but without becoming unrealistic or overly dramatic.

This is a great book that I recommend. Most likely, you won't even notice the plot detour. Watson's writing is just too pretty to mind.

Review: Outlaw by Agnus Donald

Title: Outlaw
Author: Agnus Donald
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published: 2011
Pages: 352

Rating: 5 out of 10

Outlaw tells the familiar story of Robin Hood in a new light. In 12th Century England, Robin is revered as a sort of rogue king by the people of the land. After a young man named Alan is caught stealing, he is taken in by the band of outlaws and begins training as a swordsman.

In this book, Robin Hood is not a merry adventurer, and even the basic premise of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is mostly taken out. Instead, Robin is truly like a king, not in the sense of majesty and glorification, but in the sense that with his power comes much responsibility and decisions to which, many times, there are no right answers. The men constantly trying to capture him could be viewed as enemies perpetually trying to steal his "throne." Even though the details are never explicitly spelled out, it appears that Robin offers to protect villages in exchange for taxation rights. Those who disobey his laws are punished severely. We don't see that much of the inner-workings of Robin's "reign," so I am not sure how successful it is proving. But in one memorable scene, Robin and his men come upon a smoldering village that has been raided and burnt down. A woman tells him spitefully that he promised to protect them.

I didn't dislike this book, or particularly like it either. I got through it quickly and easily, and the pacing was quick, with a lot of action. Though I was never bored, I always felt a sort of distance from the story.

First of all, I didn't really like the main character Alan. He is the typical warrior-in-training: over eager for battle and glory, falls in love for the first time, shows talent of course, attracts the eye of Robin Hood for his skills, and thus thinks himself quite important and goes around for the rest of the book acting like a noble (but not battle hardened) man.
In many situations, he takes drastic measures with ordinary problems. When he needs money, he steals an enormous ruby from a man who is hospitably letting him stay in his home. When he considers paying a prostitute to help him lose his virginity, he actually does so right away, and then a second time again. When a boy taunts and annoys him, Alan intentionally tries to get him killed by accusing him of betraying his father.
I thought that he took things quite far, and was surprised at the end to see none of this come back with any consequences.

*Spoilers, you can skip the rest of this paragraph* The boy who taunted him, Guy, was a bully and not a likable character, but so what? He wasn't that bad, and Alan should have just shrugged and moved on. Instead, he falsely accuses the boy of serious crime and plants evidence to back up his claim. Later, when they meet up again, he volunteers to duel the boy in front of Robin's band. I expected him to defeat the bully, but to show mercy and not actually kill him. So much for that - not only does Alan kill him, he whispers into the dying boy's ear that he was the one who planted false evidence on him, and to take that knowledge to Hell.
Gosh! Were a few taunts about Alan not being manly really worthy of all that? I was pretty surprised, and kept wondering if there was some hideously evil side to the bully that I had missed.

Another thing that I thought was very much missing from the story was a detailing of how Robin's band and rule actually worked. We see people paying him taxes in a scene at the beginning, and we see him doling out punishment. We see him fighting a lot of battles. But these are only the thinnest shades of the establishment and keeping of a kingdom, even such a small one.

For a few chapters, Alan is sent to court as a spy, and there he meets Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, who is depicted as prickly and strict, but fair. I was surprised that she appears to know all about Lady Marie-Anne (Donald's Maid Marian) being engaged to Robin. And Marie-Anne is one of her ladies in waiting. Eleanor even seems to know that recently, Marie-Anne went to see Robin. If he is such an enemy of the official rulers of England, why would the Queen not appear to care about this?

There were some other minor things that I disliked, one of them being the flashback style this book tried. I couldn't see any point to it. Alan, as an old man, is reminiscing about his time as a young outlaw. But there were only a handful of scenes in which it switches to him as a grandfather, literally about three. In one of them, he is frantically trying to save the life of his grandson. The change was jarringly sudden, coming right at the beginning of a new chapter and talking about "my grandson." With no indication that the time has changed, I was confused for a second. We don't know his grandson, and it certainly has nothing to do with the plot, so why do we need to know about how high his fever is?
Alan also speaks in French one time to a music tutor. As a lowly peasant, he wouldn't have known French unless he perhaps originally lived there. He refers to Tuck as "Friar Tuck" most of the time, except for randomly calling him the French "frère" only once. What...
And then, I disliked the romance/sex immensely. Alan "falls in love" with Robin's betrothed, Lady Marie-Anne, even though we never see them interact or speak to each other. It seemed so silly to me. And the entire thing with Kat, the town whore who Alan sleeps with twice, annoyed me.
A pagan ritual in the middle seemed not to mesh with the rest of the story, since even though it was vividly described, was never mentioned again. Paganism had nothing to do with the book anywhere except for in those paragraphs, though the book does focus a lot of attention on Robin's religious views, which are far from Christian.

I understand what the author wanted to do here - write a grittier, more realistic Robin Hood tale without glorification. I got a sense of that from the story, but I don't feel that Donald fleshed out his idea to the true promise it had, and it was a very good idea.

The ending didn't leave me with that satisfied sense of conclusion, and rather than tie things up in a good finish, it leaves things open for the sequel. But it wasn't a cliffhanger ending, thankfully, or else this book would have been knocked down a star.

An average book, but based on the writing, general premise, and steady action I would say that the sequel has potential to be better.

Review: Sovay by Celia Rees

Title: To Catch a Pirate
Author: Jade Parker
Genre: YA / Historical Fiction
Publisher: Point
Published: 2007
Pages: 320

Rating - 2 out of 10

Within the first few pages, I knew that getting into this book had been a mistake. The book is set in 1783 England, and yet there is nothing about Sovay that would lead you to believe she is a product of her time period. She is entirely modern. The first scene is a hurried mess of man-bashing and casual robbery, and I couldn't help but roll my eyes. And things grow progressively worse from there.

The plot that Rees sets up in the beginning unravels pretty soon afterward, and the book then proceeds to wander aimlessly toward the last chapter. In attempts to distract you from the fact that the book is going nowhere, it throws supposed adventure and excitement in your face every few pages, as if to dare you to possibly be bored amidst all the highway robberies, secret identities, trifling make-out sessions, occult activities, traveling, prisons, and war. Also, introducing new characters every other chapter, only to have them disappear in a few more, seemed a popular trend here.

The result is a jarring, disjointed story that read as if three already bad books had just been crammed into one very bad one.

As I said above, Sovay was anything but a convincing portrayal of a young woman raised in 1700's England. I don't care if her father is "liberal" and "modern," she was an inaccurate heroine for her setting. Besides this, she is incredibly annoying. She is spoiled and impulsive, determined to get everything that she wants. Men fall all over her, and she strews behind countless broken hearts in her wake. Personally, I couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

Rees also has the annoying habit of introducing possible romances in the main character's path, and then letting them come to nothing. Sovay conveniently ends up meeting a brand new character and falling for him a few chapters before the book is over, as if Rees realized that she'd gotten to the end of her book with no dashing young man at the heroine's side. This book is sloppily put together, a long string of events that, while not boring in and of themselves, are just unrelated and pointless.

It's a shame, because Celia Rees is such a talented author, and can do far better. If you want to read a good book, read one of her earlier books, Pirates!
This one is just a waste of your time. 

Review: Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier

Title: Falling Angels
Author: Tracy Chevalier
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Plume
Published: 2002
Pages: 336

Rating - 9 out of 10

I absolutely loved Girl with a Pearl Earring, so I finally decided to read this one, now that it had sat on my shelf for a few years untouched. To think that such a book had been in my possession unread for so long!

"Falling Angels" is the story of two families in Victorian England, who live next door to each other. Both rivalry and friendship are involved in the Coleman and the Waterhouse's delicately strained relationship, and the reader watches the members of the families change and grow up over the years.

I loved how Chevalier wrote from different character's points of view, even occasionally through the voices of more minor characters. It really filled out the story and made the people and scenes of her book come alive.
And, the book seemed to wander along with the carefree ease of two of its main characters - silly, sheltered girls. Not much happened. Mrs. Waterhouse worries about Mrs. Coleman's home decor being superior to hers, a feisty in-law tries to take over care of the household, two young girls develop a friendship. Not the most riveting of events.
But about halfway through, I was suddenly unable to put the book down. I had fallen in love with the characters, and felt as if they were my longtime friends. This is a story of people who grow to feel wholly real. A story of life (and death), and a group of people trying to make their way through the two.

I found the slightly Gothic feel to this book a curious, memorable aspect. The book opens with Queen Victoria's death, and ends with King Edward's. A prominent scene is the graveyard. Instead of playing tea parties and doll houses, the two young girls in this book (Livy and Maude) play there daily. Their best friend is a young gravedigger, and instead of looking through books of ponies and kittens, they enjoy perusing tombstones.
I loved the character development of Maude's mother, Kitty Coleman. We see her introduced as a lively, beautiful young woman and slide into selfishness and neglect of her daughter, though for a good cause - the Suffragist Movement, which provides the author with a complex, fine lined sub-plot that she pulls off flawlessly.
Even more minor characters, such as the cook, or Maude's snooty grandmother, are realistic and memorable.
I love how all of the characters in this book came to life.

As much as I loved Girl with a Pearl Earring, this one surpasses it easily. What a beautiful, gracefully powerful book.

Review: Rainwater by Sandra Brown

Title: Rainwater
Author: Sandra Brown
Genre: Historical Fiction / Drama
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2009
Pages: 272

Rating: 2 out of 10

In Texas during the Great Depression, a new boarder comes to stay at young single-mother Ella Barron's boarding house. His name is David Rainwater, and he has a tragic secret - he is terminally ill and has only a few more months to live. In addition to becoming well liked and respected both in town and amongst the other boarders, David begins to work with Ella's autistic young son Solly.

This book was obviously written to be a heartwarming, sentimental story that plays on the reader's emotions.
I normally dislike overly sappy books like this, and I refuse to touch another Nicholas Sparks for that very reason. This one is much the same.

I had to laugh at the conversation in this book, particularly between the two most prominent characters, Ella and David. At first I didn't notice anything amiss, save that they tended to speak shortly and to-the-point. But after awhile, I noticed that everything they said seemed to go along these all too similar lines: someone is praised, and they reject it, and the other person rejects that, and so on until they just give up.
Here is a (made up) example:
Ella - You are so good to help me wash the dishes.
David - No I'm not.
Ella - Yes, you are good to do it.
David - It's no big deal, actually, so it doesn't even matter.
Ella - It matters to me.
David - I'm doing this for myself. I needed something to do. So it isn't a favor, I'm not a good guy, okay?!
Ella - You are such a good guy.
David - *silence*
This is not an actual conversation, but seriously, it isn't even that big of an exaggeration. And you find this exact same structure to whatever they say all through the book. Once I noticed it one time, I noticed it on every page the characters were together.

A major plot point to this book is about the government helping farming families by culling some of their cattle. Apparently, farmers herds were growing too large, and they couldn't afford to feed and care for how many animals they had. They tried to sell their livestock, but there were no buyers, and so their cattle were starving and proving useless for meat selling.
To help, the government stepped in and said they would buy a certain percentage of the farmer's cattle, and kill them (as they didn't exactly want to start a Presidential cattle herd). It makes sense, and it seemed logical.
However, this book very heavily paints it as a bad thing. It is portrayed as government help gone wrong. But however much Brown kept telling us how the 'bad' government was coming to cruelly shoot down the poor animals, I just didn't see it this way. They weren't just sweeping in and murdering family pets, they were buying virtually value-less property and making a stronger herd for these farmers. It makes sense.
Here, the farmers get a call from the government to set up a day to come by. (Notice that these people set up a day, completely willingly, with the government. No force, no unexpected running in and shooting everyone down). Then, they do the necessary deed and leave. But for some reason, all of these farmers feel the need to stand on their front porches, on the verge of tears, and watch the cows be shot, with their own children and wives as well. One man takes out a gun. Another man tells us pitifully about how a calf was shot but not killed, and just laid there for hours bleeding and in pain. In other words, they wallow in self pity for a thing that they themselves arranged.
The only negative aspect of the entire set-up is that a local troublemaker drops in on many of these government dealings, with his mind made up to stir up mischief. But he isn't a part of the government.
I was hoping that the author would provide a historical note at the end, perhaps explaining why exactly she had such an unexplained, ominous view of the government aid, but there was not. Not surprising, as this is a bestseller, after all, and was handcrafted to be one.

Another thing I found very off about this story was the element of romance. It was sweet, but David Rainwater is painted as such an honorable, self-sacrificial, good man, that it didn't seem to fit. He is certainly not selfish. He is, in fact, perfect to a fault. He knows that he is terminally ill, and will soon die. But even so, he leads Ella into developing feelings for him, and the two fall in love. He is the one to encourage this in the first place, when he says about the ending of A Farewell to Arms, that however sad he knew the ending was going to be, he would never have deprived himself of the beauty of the story. He then asks Ella "Would you?"
Not once does David express guilt at cultivating a relationship with Ella, or try to push her away. It just seemed so out of character.

I try to give at least one good point about even my most hated books... Well, I suppose that I occasionally did like the homey, quaint atmosphere that this book imparted. It was rustic and sweet-tea sweet.

An average book. If you like Nicholas Sparks or other such sappy things and don't mind amateur writing, you'll enjoy this book. But if you're searching for literature, look elsewhere.