Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles by Katherine Pancol. The book is being released by Penguin Books on December 31, 2013.

Amazon says this about the book: Le Divorce meets The Elegance of the Hedgehog in this hilariously entertaining mega-bestseller from France

When her chronically unemployed husband runs off to start a crocodile farm in Kenya with his mistress, Joséphine Cortès is left in an unhappy state of affairs. The mother of two—confident, beautiful teenage Hortense and shy, babyish Zoé—is forced to maintain a stable family life while making ends meet on her meager salary as a medieval history scholar. Meanwhile, Joséphine’s charismatic sister Iris seems to have it all—a wealthy husband, gorgeous looks, and a très chic Paris address—but she dreams of bringing meaning back into her life. When Iris charms a famous publisher into offering her a lucrative deal for a twelfth-century romance, she offers her sister a deal of her own: Joséphine will write the novel and pocket all the proceeds, but the book will be published under Iris’s name. All is well—that is, until the book becomes the literary sensation of the season.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Review: The Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Pamela Mingle

Although Pride and Prejudice didn't start inspiring sequels, spin-offs, and reimaginings until the early twentieth century, once that started, it hasn't stopped. And I'm apparently on a quest to read them all. I do have a fondness for anything connected to Austen and Pride and Prejudice in particular. In Pamela Mingle's latest novel, The Pursuit of Mary Bennet, she chooses to focus on one of the lesser characters, a character who is a bit of a farce, but one who ostensibly gets her own happy ending eventually in keeping with Austen's original end detailing all of the characters' fates. Here Mingle has imagined Mary Bennet's story and fully fleshed her out in the process.

Mary Bennet has grown up since the end of Pride and Prejudice. She has realized what an abrasive and pompous person she came off as and has worked very hard to temper her black and white personality. She knows, to her chagrin, that she is no one's favorite sister or daughter. She's always been the one stranded in the middle and overlooked. Even having changed, her parents assume that she will forever be a spinster, looking after them or her sisters' children when they need help. She might as well be invisible, especially now that it appears that Kitty is on the verge of getting engaged to Henry Walsh, a gentleman and neighbor of Jane and Charles Bingley's. Both Kitty and Mary met him when visiting Jane and her family and Mary thought she had noticed him noticing her but now that she's back home receiving Kitty's letters from High Tor, she thinks she must be mistaken and that Henry's interest was always Kitty.

Mary is very considered and introspective about her future as compared to her sisters', determined to have the same chance to marry as the others despite family expectations, when the family scandal turns up on the doorstep again, dragging an even bigger scandal in her wake this time. Lydia, enormously pregnant, has left Wickham. When it comes out that Wickham doubts he is the baby's father, and Lydia casually asserts that this is likely the case, Mary is hurriedly packed off to High Tor to the Bingleys again. And it is here that she will renew her acquaintance with Henry Walsh, falling in love with him despite knowing that Kitty has, rather aggressively, set her cap for him. And it seems that he feels an affection for Mary rather than Kitty, sharing a sensitive and potentially scandalous secret with her. But Mary is crushed by Henry's revelation and when she is called back to Longbourne to help care for Lydia's tiny infant, Felicity, she leaves almost without a backward glance. As Mary takes on more and more of the baby's care, she develops a deep, maternal love for the infant, lavishing her love on the child even while Lydia ignores and shuns the baby as much as possible. But the baby is not hers, belonging instead to the perpetually flighty Lydia and Mary must leave her beloved niece when she finally travels back to High Tor again in hopes that all is not lost with Henry.

Mary has matured into a devoted character here, one who bestows her love cautiously but forever. She has blossomed into the sort of woman that she always had the potential to be, no longer lacking the care and attention that enable her to temper her opinions and consider others' well being and happiness. Mingle has written her very differently than she appeared in Austen's original but she has left enough flashes of her personality to make the change believable. There are nice parallels here with incidents in Pride and Prejudice, such as Lydia's second unexpected flight and the ensuing search for instance. Although they do all make appearances, the main characters from the original are less in evidence here in Mary's story so that they do not overwhelm the tale that Mingle has chosen to tell. The language is definitely not Austen's but neither is the point of view of the narration, clearly a deliberate choice. And the overall feeling between Mary and Henry is more of a contentment than a blissful joy to be shouted from the housetops, suiting Mary's still quiet and more restrained character far better than ardent declarations. This is not imitation Austen but a nicely written homage to one of her lesser characters and Austen fans will enjoy getting to know and like a more palatable Mary.

For more information about Pamela Mingle and the book, check out her website, her Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Review: The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain

What gives someone power? Is it their innate personality? Is it something learned? What if it was at least partially contained in something outside of themselves like their hat, for instance? In Antoine Laurain's novel, The President's Hat, newly translated from the French, at least some of Francois Mitterrand's power resides in his Homberg and when he leaves it behind at a restaurant, inadvertently sending the hat on an adventure through a series of different people needing to tap into some of its residual power, it makes for a creative and whimsical tale.

Daniel Mercier stops at a rather elegant Parisian brasserie while his wife and small son are away, thinking to treat himself to a lovely meal and a good bottle of wine. As he's savoring his solitary meal, he notices that President Mitterrand and his party are at an adjacent table. Daniel thrills to his proximity to the most famous and powerful man in France and when Mitterrand forgets his hat, Daniel picks it up and wears it out of the restaurant. It becomes part of his daily attire and Daniel notices that with the hat comes a confidence and a decisiveness he's never before felt at work. And with this newfound self-assurance, which he attributes to the power of the hat, Daniel earns a big promotion at work. But then he, like Mitterrand, inadvertently forgets the hat on a train where it is picked up by Fanny Marquant, an aspiring writer who is travelling to a scheduled tryst with her married lover. Mitterrand's hat gives Fanny the courage to finally end it with her lover and inspires her to start a new story both in her life and on paper, the latter being one that she will submit for a writing prize. But Fanny too loses the hat, leaving it on a park bench for famous nose Pierre Aslan to find and to smell. Pierre has lost his most prized ability: the ability to create magnificent perfume. But by the power of the hat, Pierre starts to come back to himself, to be the man his wife married, to see himself once again as a spectacular nose. But Pierre loses the hat as well, to an error made by a cloakroom attendant. And so the hat is off again. Meanwhile, Daniel is desperately searching for the hat. But so is someone else.

Everyone who wears the hat changes his or her life for the better as a result of the certainty and aplomb they each feel when wearing the soft, felt creation. They are linked by the journey of the hat as it touches each of their lives for a short time but they are also connected through Daniel's search for the valuable Homberg. The novel is a fun and clever one, twisting and turning with fate, grounded very firmly in the France of the 1980s. Whether the hat is truly the source of the positive changes in each of the wearers' lives remains open for interpretation but as it passes from person to person, it illustrates the changes wrought in France by Mitterrand's presidency.  A charming allegory, this is well written and delightful and those who are looking for an original novel and appreciate a little serendipity in their reading will find this a thoroughly enjoyable diversion.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

With the holidays coming, I have been having trouble settling down to read. My very long to-do lists keep scrolling through my head whenever I do. On the plus side, I do seem to manage to maintain my attention span long enough to write a few reviews, something I've needed to do for sure! This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

One Summer by Bill Bryson

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Better Than Fiction edited by Don George
Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke
The Consolations of the Forest by Sylvain Tesson
Margot by Jillian Cantor

Reviews posted this week:

Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini
Someone Else's Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson
The Innocents by Francesca Segal
Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The House Girl by Tara Conklin
Topsy by Michael Daly
Autobiography of Us by Aria Beth Sloss
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
Among the Janeites by Deborah Yaffe
The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain
Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas
Billy Budd and Other Tales by Herman Melville
Let Him Go by Larry Watson
A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand
Boleto by Alyson Hagy
House of Miracles by Ulrica Hume
Paperboy by Tony Macaulay
Silver by Andrew Motion
Faking It by Cora Carmack
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
The Suicide Shop by Jean Teule
The Gallery of Vanished Husbands by Natasha Solomons
Snapper by Brian Kimberling
Love Overdue by Pamela Morsi
The Affairs of Others by Amy Grace Loyd
Forever, Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Union Street Bakery by Mary Ellen Taylor
The Eight by Katherine Neville
Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts with Scandal by Jayne Fresina
Here Comes Mrs. Kugelman by Minka Pradelski
Long Shot by Hanna Martine
The Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Pamela Mingle
Never Sit Down in a Hoopskirt by Crickett Rumley
One Summer by Bill Bryson

Monday Mailbox

The mailbox hasn't been as full as usual but I have been pleased as punch by what has made it into my possession, a fact that has me anticipating the mail each and every day. I swear I'm like Pavlov's dog: when I hear the mailbox clank shut, I start salivating! This week's mailbox arrivals:

The Sister Season by Jennifer Scott came from NAL Accent.

My only sibling is my younger sister so I am always attracted to stories about other sisters, especially stories about more than one sister. And a tale set at the holidays when sisters come home as a family for the first time in a long time and face the past that scattered them so far apart is especially appealing.

Good Kings, Bad Kings by Susan Nussbaum came from Algonquin Paperbacks and LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

The Bellwether Award has had wonderful recipients in the past and I expect this one to be every bit as good as the rest. A story set in a home for teenagers with disabilities, this sounds simply amazing.

If you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit I totally paused as she is hosting this month's Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Review: Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole

I love letters. That's one of the reasons I love holiday season: all of those non-bill, non-junk mail things in the mailbox. I love reading cards from friends. Even better are the letters that still sometimes trickle in during the year when I least expect them in this age of internet, making a different sort of connection between friends. And since I love getting my own letters, it probably isn't much of a surprise that I thoroughly enjoy the concept of the epistolary novel. In Jessica Brockmole's novel, Letters From Skye, there are actually two sets of letters telling the story, a sort of double epistolary novel, one set from World War I and the second during World War II, two times when letter writing was really paramount.

Elspeth Dunn is a poet living on the Isle of Skye. She isn't published far and wide so when she receives fan mail from a college boy, David Graham, living in America, she is surprised and a little thrilled to hear his opinion. And so she writes back to him, developing a teasing and witty dialogue between the two of them as they come to know each other through their letters. Elspeth confides the story of her days on the remote Scottish isle with her husband gone to sea and then to war and David, soon called Davey, entertains Elspeth with his madcap college boy adventures as well as admits his reluctance to fall in with his father's plan for his life. The letters between Elspeth and Davey are lovely and revealing and build a deep and abiding relationship between the two of them so that when Davey enlists in World War I, Elspeth can only hope that her very best friend, a man she's never met and of whom she fully suspects that she might feel more for than mere friendship, will survive the terrors he's off to face.

Interwoven with Elspeth and Davey's letters are letters between Elspeth's daughter Margaret and her fiancé, Paul, who has enlisted to fight in World War II. Elspeth has counseled Margaret not to let the advent of the war push her into a hasty engagement or marriage that she might regret in the end. Although Margaret and Paul started as friends, their letters lead them to a deeper intimacy with each other so that they can truly know their own hearts, an unexpected blessing of their wartime separation. But then Margaret receives a call that her mother has disappeared after their home in Edinburgh sustained some damage in a bombing. Armed only with a letter that serves to deepen the mystery of where her mother has gone, Margaret is determined to find Elspeth. To do so, she must solve the mystery of the letter by traveling back to Skye and piecing together the story of her family and her mother's long ago flight from the island.

The letters alternate mainly between those Elspeth and Davey sent each other and those that Margaret sends Paul. Each set of letters runs the gamut from happiness and joy to worry and fear. They are generally charming but set during the wars as they are, they also contain threads of the horrors and desperation in which the world was wrapped, both in the nineteen-teens and the nineteen-thirties and forties. As the letters unfold, the mystery of what happened to Elspeth in the aftermath of the bomb and where she went deepens, just as the story of what finally transpired to stop Elspeth and Davey's correspondence does. Using letters for characters to get to know each other is a wonderful technique since they show both what the letter writer wants the recipient to see but also reveal a lot more than that about a person as well. And the reader learns all about the characters at the same pace as they learn about each other. The way that the narrative was structured allowed the tension to build steadily and while at least one of the revelations was not a surprise, there was far more to the story than just this one surprise. Brockmole has done a nice job in capturing both a light-hearted teasing in the letters and a much deeper emotional connection as well. People looking for an unconventional love story or interested in life at home during both of the World Wars and the way both of those terrible events touched one family will enjoy this sweeping, enjoyable, and sweet romance.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of the book to review.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Review: The Innocents by Francesca Segal

It's always interesting to see what modern authors do when they use the framework of a classic and update the story. Francesca Segal has taken Edith Wharton's brilliant novel Age of Innocence, modernized it, and moved it to an insular, traditional conservative North London Jewish community, a society both very different and at the same time similar to the wealthy New York society Wharton immortalized in so many of her works. Although it shares much thematically with the original, it doesn't follow exactly, updating and changing the questions of morality, expectation, and conformity presented within its pages.

The novel opens with Adam and Rachel, having dated for twelve years, newly engaged and attending shul on the holiest of holies, Yom Kippur, when Adam discovers that Rachel's scandalous cousin, Ellie, is also in the synagogue and causing murmurings in the congregation not only because of her unexpected presence but also because of her inappropriate and intentionally provocative attire. Ellie's reappearance in this tightly knit community causes shock waves to course through both the community as a whole and also through the finally settled future of Adam and Rachel.

Anyone who knows the original Wharton story knows the bones of the plot to come and Segal stays true to the expected conflicts. The childishly sweet and patient Rachel ignores Adam's growing fascination with Ellie, content in the solidity of her expectations and their ability to overcome anything that might intrude unpleasantly on her long awaited marriage. Adam himself feels a loathing attraction to Ellie and a compulsion to defend her unconventionality and passion to those who would condemn her for her choices.  Strangely enough, that she is seen as an almost pariah in the world he's lived in his whole life only heightens his fascination and lust. Although Ellie is younger than he is, she is far more worldly than Adam is and certainly more mindful of the cost of a life outside of the stated mores of a particular community. Not only has Ellie grown up away from the strictures of this conservative enclave, living in America, but she appeared nude in an art house film (or porn flick depending on who is passing judgment on the movie), she's done drugs, and is having an affair with a married art dealer. She is portrayed very much as a bad girl unconcerned with how her actions reflect on others, especially her family. And yet she is not unaware of the reactions to the scandals of her life and she does care, very deeply in fact.

But no matter how desperately obsessed Adam becomes, he will have to decide between the security of the known, duty, and complacency versus an exciting spark, flaring passion, tortured emotions, and defying the expectations of the world that has nurtured him his whole life, folding him into its embrace especially tightly after the early, unexpected death of his father. He must decide what is most important, the momentary excitement of the unknown or the long planned for future stretching out before him. Segal's debut novel revisits the timeless themes of Wharton's work although she hasn't quite managed to transfer the tale entirely convincingly to the present given the enormous difference in societal mores now as compared to then even in a closed community like the one in which Adam and Rachel live. And she shies away from the almost crushing poignance at the end of the original. But the novel is well written and interesting with sharp insights into temptation, relinquishment, and socially prescribed denial. Adam and Ellie's attraction doesn't have the requited urgency and repressed passion of the original and Rachel is not nearly as naively innocent either, instead coming off as falsely childish. Despite these differences, as a stand alone novel rather than just an homage to Wharton, this is a very fascinating anthropological look at the strictures of the conservative North London Jewish community and what constitutes right and good behaviour and the privilege of membership within it.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of the book to review.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

The Housemaid's Daughter by Barbara Mutch. The book is being released by St. Martin's Press on December 10, 2013.

Amazon says this about the book: Barbara Mutch's stunning first novel tells a story of love and duty colliding on the arid plains of Apartheid-era South Africa

When Cathleen Harrington leaves her home in Ireland in 1919 to travel to South Africa, she knows that she does not love the man she is to marry there —her fiance Edward, whom she has not seen for five years. Isolated and estranged in a small town in the harsh Karoo desert, her only real companions are her diary and her housemaid, and later the housemaid's daughter, Ada. When Ada is born, Cathleen recognizes in her someone she can love and respond to in a way that she cannot with her own family.

Under Cathleen’s tutelage, Ada grows into an accomplished pianist and a reader who cannot resist turning the pages of the diary, discovering the secrets Cathleen sought to hide. As they grow closer, Ada sees new possibilities in front of her—a new horizon. But in one night, everything changes, and Cathleen comes home from a trip to find that Ada has disappeared, scorned by her own community. Cathleen must make a choice: should she conform to society, or search for the girl who has become closer to her than her own daughter?

Set against the backdrop of a beautiful, yet divided land, The Housemaid's Daughter is a startling and thought-provoking novel that intricately portrays the drama and heartbreak of two women who rise above cruelty to find love, hope, and redemption.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Review: Someone Else's Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson

Do you believe in love at first sight? Falling head over heels before you've ever even met a person? How can you know a person's heart when you've never even met them? In Joshilyn Jackson's newest novel Someone Else's Love Story, young single mother Shandi Pierce is pretty sure she fell in love with William Ashe without even knowing his name. When he chose to step in front of her three year old son to protect him from a guy robbing a convenience store, protecting the child from the possibility of being shot, she fell for him and fell hard. But what does she really know about him and what does she really know about her own heart, for that matter?

Shandi grew up pulled between her Christian mother and her Jewish father. They divorced very acrimoniously when she was young and she has spent her entire life trying not to choose one of them over the other, not one parent, not one religion, not one anything. She lives with her mother, who has no use at all for men after her debacle of a marriage. But Shandi is not so sheltered from the male of the species, turning up pregnant her senior year in high school despite still being a virgin, as certified by a doctor. Her baby, Nathan, aka Natty Bumppo, is a boy. Even her long time best friend, Walcott is a boy. And now Shandi's moving out and into a condo in Atlanta offered up by her father and her ice-queen of a stepmother so that Natty, who is a genius, can attend a better preschool than is available to him in the mountains, and so she is closer to school as she works towards her degree. But moving isn't the only big change in her life, it precipitates massive change on all fronts, starting with being held up at the gas station on the way to the condo.

While Shandi sees William as her savior, a beautiful older man willing to sacrifice himself for her child, William sees his actions in an entirely different light. Only partially hearing the news report on the hold-up, Shandi learns that the robbery is the one year anniversary of a terrible accident that shattered William's life. Knowing he is without family, she swoops in to care for him, determined to make him fall in love with her despite the instant antagonism she feels toward his glamorous best friend Paula, the woman who has seen William desperately in love with his wife Bridget and daughter Twyla, and who is intent on telling Shandi that his kindness and caring towards her is not love. But in addition to making him fall in love with her, Shandi also wants his help in locating Natty's father. William Ashe is clearly a brilliant man who also happens to be a geneticist and could in fact solve the mystery of Natty's father. William Ashe is also somewhere on the autism spectrum. And that last fact explains better how he saw what happened in that gas station. Yes, he was protecting Natty, but he also figured that he was staring down a date with destiny in the form of a gun barrel. He was fully prepared and willing to die, not for Shandi or her son, but because it was a choice he wanted to make, an option he would have embraced.

It takes a long time for Shandi to come to understand William and who he really is in truth, not just as the blond god Thor of her imagining. But it takes an equally long time for her to understand herself as well. Why does she want to find Natty's father and punish him? Why is she so determined to find love with William? The miracle here isn't that Shandi has had a virgin birth, it is that she ultimately makes the sacrifice that will lead all of the characters in the novel to the right ending, to the love stories in which each of them belong, that she and sweet, giving William, find a way to make their own miracles.

Jackson has written beautiful, emotionally damaged characters in Shandi and William. Secondary characters Walcott and Paula are amazing too, devoted and protective. The plot here is not the one a reader might expect of a love story but it is so carefully and lovingly written that by the end, it is the only narrative imaginable. Your heart will weep for William and you will sympathize with Shandi and you will spend a lot of time rooting for them to find happiness. The novel beautifully shows the possibilities that bloom even in the ashes of a tragedy. It is a delightful and heartwarming read.

For more information about Joshilyn Jackson and the book, check out her website, her Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Review: Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini

It's always interesting to learn about history from someone who was there, someone who knows, someone who saw it with her own eyes. And often the people who have the most interesting and complete view of events are those not in positions of power. Jennifer Chiaverini takes a real historical figure, Elizabeth Keckley, a former slave who bought her freedom, became a celebrated dressmaker in Washington, and had an insider's view to the Lincoln presidency, the Lincoln's family life, and the progress of the Civil War thanks to her position as mantua maker and friend to Mary Todd Lincoln, and uses her to tell an intimate story from that someone who walked through the same corridors as those enshrined in history books today.

Opening with Elizabeth sewing a dress for Varina Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis, Elizabeth is apprised of not only the likelihood of Lincoln's election but of the increasingly loud rumblings of secession should that in fact happen. And although Elizabeth is pleased by the idea of a man who has no wish to continue the spread of slavery taking over the White House, she must also be concerned with the effect on her dressmaking business once Lincoln's election comes to pass and so many of her best clients return to their native southern states. But she secures an entrée with the new First Lady, Mary Todd Lincoln, and ultimately wins the position of sewing the dresses of this sometimes difficult, much maligned woman, eventually even settling into a rather uneven friendship with her.

Elizabeth is often in the White House and has many opportunities to witness the Lincolns together, the care and affection that Abraham Lincoln showed his wife, the overwhelming grief and sorrow they feel over losing their son, the inquisitive and unappreciated intrusive meddling into national affairs by Mrs. Lincoln, the careworn exhaustion and stress under which Lincoln himself suffered as the war dragged on, and the bald insecurities of Mary Lincoln in a Washington that considered her a rube whose family ties to the rebellious South made her that much more suspect. Elizabeth has a front seat to history and gets to see the hidden, often undocumented side of it as well. But this is not always appealing either. As Elizabeth becomes a closer confidante to Mary Lincoln, she sees her mercurial personality, her temper tantrums, her frustrations, and the secret spending that will cripple her after her husband's assassination. But as a true friend would, Elizabeth tries to steer her friend when she can and to support her when no amount of guidance has turned her from a disastrous or ill-conceived path. And yet the friendship is not at all balanced since she cannot share her own personal life with Mrs. Lincoln, not her grief when her only son George passes as a white man and enlists only to be killed in battle, not her true thoughts about the evil of slavery (despite the fact that her own former mistress must have been fairly benign since Elizabeth joyfully reunites with the family), and not her pressing concerns about her dressmaking business each and every time she puts her livelihood on hold to come to Mrs. Lincoln's rescue.

And this inability to confide in and receive consolation from Mary Lincoln means that despite the title of the novel, the story is at least as much focused on Mary Todd Lincoln as it is on Elizabeth Keckley and her life. Much of the research here comes from Keckley's own memoir, Behind the Scenes, which focuses mainly on her years inside the Lincoln White House but the rest of her life, as a slave, as a freedwoman establishing a business in Washington and competing with white mantua makers, as a member of the free black community during and after the war, and finally old and alone is not as fully developed as it might have been. And the mentions of these aspects of her life serve more as bridges back to the Lincoln White House than anything else. Ultimately Elizabeth Keckley was a very hard character to get to know amongst the massive and overwhelming events of historical import chronicled here. But what interesting historical events they are.

For more information about Jennifer Chiaverini and the book, check out her website, her Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini
Someone Else's Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson
The Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Pamela Mingle
Never Sit Down in a Hoopskirt by Crickett Rumley

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Better Than Fiction edited by Don George
Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke
One Summer by Bill Bryson
The Consolations of the Forest by Sylvain Tesson

Reviews posted this week:

Is This Tomorrow by Caroline Leavitt
The Telling Room by Michael Paterniti
Royal Bridesmaids by Stephanie Laurens, Gaelen Foley, and Loretta Chase

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole
The House Girl by Tara Conklin
Topsy by Michael Daly
Autobiography of Us by Aria Beth Sloss
The Group by Mary McCarthy
The Innocents by Francesca Segal
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
Among the Janeites by Deborah Yaffe
The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain
Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas
Billy Budd and Other Tales by Herman Melville
Let Him Go by Larry Watson
A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand
Boleto by Alyson Hagy
House of Miracles by Ulrica Hume
Paperboy by Tony Macaulay
Silver by Andrew Motion
Faking It by Cora Carmack
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
The Suicide Shop by Jean Teule
The Gallery of Vanished Husbands by Natasha Solomons
Snapper by Brian Kimberling
Love Overdue by Pamela Morsi
The Affairs of Others by Amy Grace Loyd
Forever, Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Union Street Bakery by Mary Ellen Taylor
The Eight by Katherine Neville
Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts with Scandal by Jayne Fresina
Here Comes Mrs. Kugelman by Minka Pradelski
Long Shot by Hanna Martine
Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini
Someone Else's Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson
The Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Pamela Mingle
Never Sit Down in a Hoopskirt by Crickett Rumley

Monday Mailbox

Just one book came this week but what an appealing one it is! This week's mailbox arrival:

Undressing Mr. Darcy by Karen Doornebos by Janice Gary came from Berkley for a blog tour.

A Pride and Prejudice inspired novel? Don't mind if I do! And I love that it's about a PR and social media guru who is helping to shepherd an author who wrote My Year As Mr. Darcy through the waters of modern day publicity. The Regency versus today, what a great premise and I'm looking forward to it.

If you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit I totally paused as she is hosting this month's Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Sunday Salon: Chances are you're an introvert

Not too long ago there was a list going around the internet to determine if you are an introvert. I didn't really need to take it to know I am an extreme introvert but I only disagreed with one statement on it. It just (re)confirmed what I have long known. I'm currently reading a book that greatly appeals to my introverted nature, The Consolations of the Forest, a chronicle of one man's six months alone in a cabin on the Siberian taiga, and as I read, I find myself not only savoring his experience but having to fight some measure of jealousy that he could so fully retreat from the world and people for so long. I have another book about introverts on my radar to read soon as well since my book club has chosen to read Quiet for our November/December meeting and I'm looking forward to seeing the research behind the personality type. It strikes me that books about introverts or about situations that might make a fellow introvert flush with desire are pitched to the perfect crowd. I suspect that many, many, many readers, if not most, are introverts. Don't get me wrong, I know that there are extroverts who love to read too but it follows pretty easily that folks who love to spend hours immersed in a book and living in their own world aren't often the type to recharge their energy by being with people.

This past summer I took over as President of my local Women's National Book Club Association, a group dedicated to book industry professionals, readers, and writers. It's a great group and I love being a part of it. But I would be lying if I didn't say that there were aspects of being President that stress me out. One of the charges of the President is to mingle at all social events, welcome new members, greet guests, and generally make the social portion of any event comfortable for everyone. I would far rather be sitting in a corner reading my own book until the event starts. The President typically also gives a short speech before each event thanking people for coming, mentioning any new business and future events, and introducing the speaker, if there is one. This part of my job makes me want to vomit. Public speaking gives me nightmares. But since I agreed to the position (blithely glossing over the social and public parts in my head when I accepted it), I have had to learn to cope. And one of the best ways I found to cope was to look around me at these events and to realize that everyone there was also a book person and odds were, they were at least almost as introverted as I am. And that helped.

At our first meeting this year, and thus the first one to which I had to welcome everyone publicly after mingling (two things high on my avoidance list), I met an author who was new to our chapter. And as we chatted, she admitted that she had joined the group in order to force herself out of her comfort zone knowing that she needed to learn to be better at promoting her books. She had been nervous about coming to the meeting (the first one of the year is always a social networking meeting for us) because she didn't know anyone and found chatting with strangers difficult. Hello fellow introvert! I think that's when it occurred to me that if you're a reader or a writer, chances are high that you're an introvert. So I told her. I admitted that I wasn't so hot in social situations either. My own husband, who has known me since college, admitted that people found me a little intimidating and aloof at college parties when what I was really feeling was uncomfortable and awkward. But I told the author that the group she was standing in at that very moment was a group of her people. It was a collection of editors, agents, authors, librarians, readers, etc. and that with the possible exception of our PR person and maybe the agents, that we were all, to a woman, introverts. And we were all feeling the same anxiety about chatting that she was feeling so even if that didn't make it easier to approach someone she didn't know, at least it might make that moment when an awkward silence descended, because in conversations between introverts who don't know each other and are trying to make small talk it is inevitable that an awkward silence will descend, a little easier to accept and maybe even joke about.

I've obviously gotten a little better at faking it over the years and I've even managed to fool people into thinking that I'm not nearly as much of an introvert as I really am. But I will always be the person trying to calculate how much she'd be missed if she just headed over to hide out behind a plant, pulled out my book, and let the social stuff swirl around without me. What about you, my fellow book people? Are you, like I suspect, introverts too?

This week I am enjoying being a hermit on the taiga but and I am also still immersed in the amazing confluence of events that happened in the summer of 1927. I rooted for an events planner and a kilted hunk to save a small town's historic Scottish Games, finished visiting with the African American mantua maker who became close friends with Mary Todd Lincoln, spent time reading about a young single woman and a broken scientist as they figured out which love story they belonged in, watched as Mary Bennet changed and matured and found her own perfect match, and chuckled as a rebellious teen forced into a hoop skirt navigated the archaic Magnolia Maid court that her late mother had done so many years before her. Where did your bookish travels take you this week?

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Review: Royal Bridesmaids by Stephanie Laurens, Gaelen Foley, and Loretta Chase

What little girl hasn't dreamed of growing up and marrying a prince? Well, I'm certain there are some but in this very Disney age, it's almost de rigeur to go through the princess stage as a tiny girl. So what could be more enchanting than a trio of stories about royal weddings, even if the main character might not be the one marrying the prince (or maybe she is!). In the case of Royal Bridesmaids by Stephanie Laurens, Gaelen Foley, and Loretta Chase, I have liked all three authors in the past so it seemed like a fun and diverting book to pick up and read of an afternoon.

Laurens' story, A Return Engagement, is the story of a sister who finds, to her great discomfort, that she's been paired with her ex-fiancé for her sister's wedding. But she can't focus on her own discomfort with him because she has to make sure that her sister's wedding to the Prince of Lautenberg comes off without a hitch despite an odd condition that strikes all the women of her family just before they marry. In managing her sister's wedding, Lady Nell helps her own former fiancé to a better understanding of what went wrong between the two of them as their relationship sparks back into fiery life.

Foley's story, The Imposter Bride, has a royal attendant stepping in and marrying the prince for the sake of peace between their two countries. The hitch is that she has allowed him to continue to believe that she is the princess he was supposed to marry. And while the passionate Lady Minerva might have slid into the bride's place as a political expedient, she and the controlled and seemingly cold Prince Tor fall hard for each other in the time before the deception is discovered, making the lies that much worse when they come to light.

Chase's story, Lord Lovedon's Duel, is a witty and humorous tale of a sister defending her newly married sister's honor to a seeming bore before seeing him as he really is. Immediately following the wedding, Chloe overhears Lord Lovedon saying that her sister's royal marriage is not the love match it has been touted as being but a financial pairing. A rather drunk Chloe bristles at this injustice and challenges him to a duel. The back and forth concerning this duel is entertaining and in the end, the whole thing is whimsically handled without loss of face for either of the incredibly loyal participants who are certainly on their way to being able to enact a battle of wits with each other for all eternity.

Romance collections are often hard as it's not easy to develop fully rounded characters, have them fall in love, develop a conflict, and follow many, if not all, of the expected conventions of romance novels within the brief amount of pages afforded to the short stories in their covers. In this trio of stories, the space constraint is especially tight as none of the stories even reaches 40 pages.  A surprising chunk of the book given over to excerpts from the authors' upcoming releases. The stories themselves do manage to encapsulate the things that make romances appealing but each of them also feels a bit like a slightly more fleshed out version of an outline to the story. There is so much pruned from the stories that would have made them much more satisfying but that would have pushed them to novella or even full length novel size and so they wouldn't have fit into this anthology. And there's the rub. Because each of the stories could have been so much more than it was, not fully as complete and self-contained as a true short story but more of a dress rehearsal for something longer. The writers are good ones and the book is entertaining enough but ultimately it comes up a touch short.

Friday, November 15, 2013

Review: The Telling Room by Michael Paterniti

Oh do I love me some cheese. Any kind of cheese. If I was on a desert island and could only pick one food, it would be cheese. I honestly don't think there's a kind of cheese that I don't like. And I will freely admit that upon hearing about this book and the grand cheese it immortalizes, I immediately wanted to go out and sample the cheese. So it was a wild disappointment to me that the cheese chronicled is but a memory now, no longer made the way it was when it was first created and therefore, not the same cheese at all. But even if I could not taste this strong, lovingly made, artisanal cheese, I could at least enjoy reading about it. But despite the trumpet of the subtitle (A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese), this is not really a story about cheese. Certainly it wouldn't exist without the convoluted and disputed tale of Paramo de Guzman cheese, but it is every bit as much the story of truth and writing and myth and creation as it is about cheese.

When Michael Paterniti was a graduate student and trying to find a way to make a living with words, he applied for a job at Zingerman's Deli. He was turned down. But days later, rather than hire him to make sandwiches, the deli called and instead offered him the sporadic and part-time job of proofreading their newsletter.  It was in this newsletter that Paterniti first heard about the sublime, little artisanal cheese called Paramo de Guzman. He was captivated by this wildly expensive, Spanish cheese but being a poor MFA student, never did buy it. But the idea of this special cheese stayed with him and many years later, well into a successful writing career, Paterniti was ready to revisit the intriguing cheese. He hunted down the location of the town of Guzman. Then he tracked down the man who used to make the much lauded cheese. And finally, he and a friend who could translate for him headed to Spain to talk in person with Ambrosio Molinos, the cheesemaker who painstakingly recreated an old family recipe, lost for years, and created this special cheese. But what Paterniti learned, even as he knew he wanted to turn the story of the cheese's creation, its production, and its eventual demise into a book, is that the story wasn't so straightforward and that it would take time to tease it out of the larger than life, expansive Ambrosio.

The story of why Ambrosio no longer makes Paramo de Guzman any longer is many layered and Paterniti spends countless hours with him to hear the whole sordid tale of betrayal and closely held grudges. He listens to the digressions and Spanish history lessons that Ambrosio imparts. He quietly absorbs Ambrosio's quest for revenge against the forces that stole his cheese. And as Paterniti compiles his own tale from Ambrosio's storytelling, he also must search for the nugget of truth in the myth he's being told. He struggles to not take sides, caught up as he is in the easy friendship, charisma and seductiveness of Ambrosio. And he does not write his book. His family comes to Spain to live for a time and he continues to listen to Ambrosio and to know that he needs to hear the other side for a balanced story but he finds that he is generally contented with the version he's been hearing over porrons of wine in Ambrosio's mountainside telling room.

So what it the truth? Is it the story the community has embraced or is it more complex than that? What effect do embellishments and tales told to ease pain have on the underlying truth of a story? Ambrosio tells Paterniti one story and Paterniti records it but also records an alternate, more balanced version as well. Can both of the stories be true in their own way? As he tells the tale, he sees the story of the cheese mainly through Ambrosio's eyes but he also tells the story of his own obsession and the difficulty of writing about it straightforwardly and without bias. He recounts the struggles of a decade or more in committing this tale to paper. And finally when he has, Paterniti has chosen to write a digressive story chock full of tangents, footnotes, and even nested footnotes within footnotes, to replicate the rambling and meandering way of storytelling in the Castille. There is a difficulty in following the story through all the maze-like wanderings (even for someone like me who appreciates arcane tidbits and tangential diversions) and while the two main storylines, that of Ambrosio's tale of his cheese and Paterniti's tale of writing have many similarities, there are enough places that they exist in uneasy accord, making the reader wonder if both should have been given equal weight in the narrative.

Paterniti clearly admires this big bear of a man who puts his heart and soul into creating Paramo de Guzman and then, after losing the cheese, into the myths he weaves and Paterniti is obviously struck by the landscape that birthed this cheese, writing eloquently about the rustic village and its place out of time. Interesting at its root, the book went on just a bit too long and Paterniti gives rather short shift to the other side of the cheese's tale, indicating that the cheese isn't really the focus here, that storytelling and creation is. Introspective, occasionally funny, and a long time in the writing, this story had to age just like a good cheese. And just like a good cheese, it won't be to everyone's taste.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

Anything That Moves by Dana Goodyear. The book is being released by Riverhead Hardcover on November 14, 2013.

Amazon says this about the book: New Yorker writer Dana Goodyear combines the style of Mary Roach with the on-the-ground food savvy of Anthony Bourdain in a rollicking narrative look at the shocking extremes of the contemporary American food world.

A new American cuisine is forming. Animals never before considered or long since forgotten are emerging as delicacies. Parts that used to be for scrap are centerpieces. Ash and hay are fashionable ingredients, and you pay handsomely to breathe flavored air. Going out to a nice dinner now often precipitates a confrontation with a fundamental question: Is that food?

Dana Goodyear’s anticipated debut, Anything That Moves, is simultaneously a humorous adventure, a behind-the-scenes look at, and an attempt to understand the implications of the way we eat. This is a universe populated by insect-eaters and blood drinkers, avant-garde chefs who make food out of roadside leaves and wood, and others who serve endangered species and Schedule I drugs—a cast of characters, in other words, who flirt with danger, taboo, and disgust in pursuit of the sublime. Behind them is an intricate network of scavengers, dealers, and pitchmen responsible for introducing the rare and exotic into the marketplace. This is the fringe of the modern American meal, but to judge from history, it will not be long before it reaches the family table. Anything That Moves is a highly entertaining, revelatory look into the raucous, strange, fascinatingly complex world of contemporary American food culture, and the places where the extreme is bleeding into the mainstream.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Review: Is This Tomorrow by Caroline Leavitt

There are some books that are hard for me as a mother to read. Having a child disappear without a trace is such a gut-wrenching possibility for any parent that it's just better not considered. Knowing that was the premise for Caroline Leavitt's latest novel, Is This Tomorrow, made me extremely reluctant to read the novel because it's always incredibly hard to face one of your biggest fears, even if only on the pages of a book. But as much as the novel is driven by the inexplicable disappearance of a child, it is about so much more than that. It is about acceptance and understanding, fear and blame, social mores and secrets, and the far reaching repercussions of pivotal events of childhood set in a much less accepting time historically.

When Ava Lark and her son Lewis move into their new neighborhood, they are looked at slightly askance by the neighbors. Ava is a divorced single mother who has to work to support her son in their shabby rental on the outskirts of their safe, suburban neighborhood. If being divorced and rather glamorous looking isn't bad enough in Cold War era 1956, Ava is also Jewish, adding to her outsider status and making the WASP neighbors more suspicious of her differences. Smart as a whip Lewis also struggles to fit in, eventually becoming close friends with Jimmy and Rose, who come the closest to being like him since their mother is also a single mother, albeit widowed rather than divorced. Lewis develops a crush on the slightly older Rose while Jimmy worships Lewis' mother Ava. The three children spend almost all of their spare time together, running free through the neighborhood and only coming home for dinner and bed. But this time of innocence and friendship is abruptly shattered when Jimmy goes missing, presumed kidnapped, and the simmering suspicions and resentments of the neighbors look towards Ava and her unconventional life, as somehow involved in his disappearance. Time drags on without any information or clues to Jimmy's whereabouts and slowly, inexorably, life starts to grind on again. Rose and her mother, broken by loss, move away from the neighborhood. And so Lewis loses both of his friends, the people who kept him anchored and included.

Both Rose and Lewis grow up in the shadow of guilt and paralyzing loss. Neither of them ever healed emotionally, Lewis drifting and directionless in his life and Rose alone and closed off to any real, deep, and lasting relationship. They are truly damaged souls, blaming themselves for not being with Jimmy when whatever overcame him occurred. When sister and friend reconnect years later in their adult lives, they struggle to share their feelings and overcome the weight of so many formative years even as they work together to discover finally what happened to Jimmy that long ago evening that spun their world off its axis and to search for the absolution that will allow them to accept and move on from their tragedy.

There is a melancholy sadness to this novel even before Jimmy's disappearance. Both Lewis and his mother, Ava, are so alone and such outsiders that their loneliness pervades the text long before events threaten to crush them. Once Jimmy disappears and the neighborhood bands together to try and make sense of the unimaginable, the suspense increases but, as must be the sad truth in real life missing children's cases, it eventually peaks and then wanes again as it becomes clear that Jimmy's case won't be solved. Leavitt has done a phenomenal job building up to the disappearance and in portraying the emotions and tensions in its aftermath, both immediate and long term. She's captured the way in which the pain of such a seminal tragedy can affect those close to it, changing them, scarring them forever. But the denouement when Lewis and Rose come together as adults trying to piece together the truth of that evening stretched credibility. Despite the tangle at the end and the revelations that are just too convenient, the book is thought provoking and well written. And it addresses the concept of acceptance and otherness from a very different angle than most novels. This is not a happy book, pervaded as it is with a mournful and heavyhearted brooding but it is one that will keep the reader thinking about guilt, judgment, and absolution through all of its pages.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Monday, November 11, 2013

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Very little bookish stuff going on at my house this week. Sometimes that's just the way the cookie crumbles. This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

Here Comes Mrs. Kugelman by Minka Pradelski
Long Shot by Hanna Martine

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Better Than Fiction edited by Don George
Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke
One Summer by Bill Bryson
Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini

Reviews posted this week:

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Is This Tomorrow by Caroline Leavitt
Royal Bridesmaids by Stephanie Laurens, Gaelen Foley, and Loretta Chase
Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole
The House Girl by Tara Conklin
Topsy by Michael Daly
Autobiography of Us by Aria Beth Sloss
The Group by Mary McCarthy
The Innocents by Francesca Segal
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
Among the Janeites by Deborah Yaffe
The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain
Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas
Billy Budd and Other Tales by Herman Melville
Let Him Go by Larry Watson
A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand
Boleto by Alyson Hagy
House of Miracles by Ulrica Hume
Paperboy by Tony Macaulay
Silver by Andrew Motion
Faking It by Cora Carmack
The Suicide Shop by Jean Teule
Throw the Damn Ball by R.D. Rosen, Harry Prichett, and Rob Battles
The Telling Room by Michael Paterniti
The Gallery of Vanished Husbands by Natasha Solomons
Snapper by Brian Kimberling
Love Overdue by Pamela Morsi
The Affairs of Others by Amy Grace Loyd
Forever, Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Union Street Bakery by Mary Ellen Taylor
The Eight by Katherine Neville
Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts with Scandal by Jayne Fresina
Here Comes Mrs. Kugelman by Minka Pradelski
Long Shot by Hanna Martine

Monday Mailbox

It was a very busy week at my house but even so, I always want to be the one to collect the mail every day just in case there are books for me in there. And this week was very satisfying that way. This week's mailbox arrivals:

Short Leash by Janice Gary came from Michigan State University Press Press and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.

I am a complete sucker for dog books and this one has one of the best covers I've ever seen. But the fact that it is about two damaged and fearful souls, one human and one canine, and how they healed each other makes it that much more appealing.

The Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Pamela Mingle came from LibraryThing Early Reviewers and William Morrow.

How could you not want to know what happens to the prissy, uptight Mary Bennet once she has a chance to shine on her own merit? I am a sucker for anything Pride and Prejudice so I can't wait for this one.

Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen came from St. Martin's Press.

Addison Allen's books are magical and I expect this one about a woman who is just about to sell Lost Lake to developers and the mother and daughter who show up there needing the lake just before she sells to be as enchanting as her previous books.

Perfect by Rachel Joyce came from Random House and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.

I loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Joyce and so I am looking forward to this next offering of Joyce's.

If you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit I totally paused as she is hosting this month's Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Sunday Salon: In which I am busy but not really with books

This past week was a full one for me. Normally my weeks are full of books but that was not the case at all. I seem to have been circling around my reading but not really touching it for whatever reason. Instead of adventures in books, I played tennis every day this past week. I took a cooking class where we made panna cotta topped with macerated peaches, frangipane for almond and fruit tarts, and eclairs with a whipped chocolate filling. I went to see a strange and vaguely unsettling version of the Sleeping Beauty ballet. I had lunch with several different friends on several different days. I went to the high school PTSO meeting. I went shopping for some completely unnecessary items (including a new Christmas tree since ours from the past ten years gave up the ghost last year). I went to one of my book club's November meeting. And I did my usual rounds driving kids to and from activities every night. Normally I'd have squeezed reading in between all of these other things too. But this week, I just didn't. No excuses, no regrets, just a curious state of affairs.

My bookmarks haven't really made any progress through anything this week as I am still visiting with the African American modiste who became close friends with Mary Todd Lincoln and I am still immersed in the amazing confluence of events that happened in the summer of 1927. I did manage to complete my visit with a quirky young Jewish woman who inherits a fish service from her aunt and becomes the repository of the stories of an entire town from before WWII told to her by a seemingly random older woman in Israel. Where did your reading take you this week?

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

Good Kings Bad Kings by Susan Nussbaum. The book is being released by Algonquin on November 12, 2013.

Amazon says this about the book: This powerful and inspiring debut invites us into a landscape populated with young people whose lives have been irreversibly changed by misfortune but whose voices resound with resilience, courage, and humor. Inside the halls of ILLC, an institution for juveniles with disabilities, we discover a place that is deeply different from and yet remarkably the same as the world outside. Nussbaum crafts a multifaceted portrait of a way of life hidden from most of us. In this isolated place on Chicago’s South Side, friendships are forged, trust is built, and love affairs begin. It’s in these alliances that the residents of this neglected community ultimately find the strength to bond together, resist their mistreatment, and finally fight back. And in the process, each is transformed.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Review: This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

I have read quite a bit of Patchett's fiction over the years and I was lucky enough to hear her talk when she accepted the WNBA Award this past spring. Having enjoyed her fiction, her lovely non-fiction tribute to a friend, and delighted in her acceptance speech, I was definitely curious to read this collection of nonfiction, culled from her years of writing for magazines. I don't know what she left out of the book, but this is definitely a best of the best kind of collection and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Almost all of the essays in the book have been previously published in a wide variety of magazines, which might lead you to think that there is no unifying thread to the works but you'd be far wide of the mark. No matter how diverse the subject matter appears to be, each of the essays adds a small piece to the puzzle of who Ann Patchett is as a person. It might seem odd to suggest that there are snippets of bared soul in essays like living in an RV or trying out to enter the LA Police Academy, and less odd to suggest that additional private glimpses come through in essays about her love for her small, found dog, her relationship with her failing grandmother, and her friendship with an aging nun who once taught her in school, but all of them, as well as the rest of the essays, are equally personal and revealing in weaving the story of her life.

The essays are linked by the importance of commitment and relationship and explore the things about which Patchett cares deeply. She addresses marriage and divorce, the parent child relationship, the power and disappointment of writing, and the negative reaction to Truth and Beauty, her beautiful ode to her late friend Lucy Grealy. Most of the pieces are short; they were written for magazines originally, after all. But the length is immaterial given the heart that shines through them in this uniformly strong collection. Patchett doesn't present only the heartwarming and positive in her experience but she chronicles the real and the difficult and the not so pretty, the arguments and the failings and the less than admirable moments that make up a real person. And in compiling the collection she has, she has made herself accessible to her readers in a new and different way. You'll close the cover to these stories feeling as if you'd be privileged to be Patchett's friend.

For more information about Ann Patchett and the book, check out her website, follow Parnassus Book's blog (the bookstore Ann co-owns), or follow them on Twitter. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Monday, November 4, 2013

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett
The Union Street Bakery by Mary Ellen Taylor
The Eight by Katherine Neville
Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts with Scandal by Jayne Fresina

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Better Than Fiction edited by Don George
Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke
One Summer by Bill Bryson

Reviews posted this week:

The Purchase by Linda Spalding
Sense and Sensibility by Joanna Trollope
Love Potion Number 10 by Betsy Woodman
The Wedding Gift by Marlen Suyapa Bodden

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Is This Tomorrow by Caroline Leavitt
Royal Bridesmaids by Stephanie Laurens, Gaelen Foley, and Loretta Chase
Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole
The House Girl by Tara Conklin
Topsy by Michael Daly
Autobiography of Us by Aria Beth Sloss
The Group by Mary McCarthy
The Innocents by Francesca Segal
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
Among the Janeites by Deborah Yaffe
The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain
Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas
Billy Budd and Other Tales by Herman Melville
Let Him Go by Larry Watson
A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand
Boleto by Alyson Hagy
House of Miracles by Ulrica Hume
Paperboy by Tony Macaulay
Silver by Andrew Motion
Faking It by Cora Carmack
The Suicide Shop by Jean Teule
Throw the Damn Ball by R.D. Rosen, Harry Prichett, and Rob Battles
The Telling Room by Michael Paterniti
The Gallery of Vanished Husbands by Natasha Solomons
Snapper by Brian Kimberling
Love Overdue by Pamela Morsi
The Affairs of Others by Amy Grace Loyd
Forever, Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett
The Union Street Bakery by Mary Ellen Taylor
The Eight by Katherine Neville
Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts with Scandal by Jayne Fresina

Monday Mailbox

Coming home from a girls' weekend away, I was happily surprised by some completely delectable books. This week's mailbox arrivals:

The Last Enchantments by Charles Finch came from St. Martin's Press.

An affluent young American takes a year out of his life to go to Oxford where he meets people who will change him deeply. Novels set in universities and dealing with love and loss always snag my interest no matter how many years I am past that in my own life.

Country Loving by Cathy Woodman came from Arrow and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.

About a woman who goes home to her father's farm and ends up staying, I'm looking forward to seeing how this country girl turned city girl adjusts to being back in the country.

The Sweetest Thing by Cathy Woodman came from Arrow and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.

Another light country romance, this one is about starting over and it looks like it will be as sweet as the title promises.

If you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit I totally paused as she is hosting this month's Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Review: The Wedding Gift by Marlen Suyapa Bodden

From this vantage point in history we tend to have very set ideas about what life on a southern plantation in the time of slavery looked like. And yet the reality was probably far more complicated than we can begin to imagine.  One of the things that complicates the picture we have of slavery is the tangled web of relationship and family on these plantations where bi-racial children of the white master were born into slavery and considered property, where the closest age companion of a white child is likely to be a slave and potential half-sibling, where slaves are not legally allowed to marry but are encouraged to have children to increase the plantation's human holdings, and where a white mistress is also legally subjugated to her husband's will. In Marlen Suyapa Bodden's debut novel, The Wedding Gift, all of these things combine to create an intriguing tale of cruelty and cunning, desperation and deceit, survival and self-determination.

On the Allen plantation in Alabama, the master, Cornelius Allen, is a capricious and intermittently cruel man. He carries on a long time affair with house slave Emmeline, fathering her second daughter, Sarah. Only months later, daughter Clarissa is born to Cornelius and his long-suffering wife, Theodora. And so these two half-sisters grow up together at first as companions and later as maidservant and mistress. When they are children, Sarah is included in all that Clarissa does, including Clarissa's schooling.  So Sarah, possessed of a quick and agile mind, learns to read and write. And although Sarah chafes at her captivity from that moment in time when she first understands it, harboring a desire to escape and trying to learn as much as she can about how to go about it, she is very quiet about her ability to read and write, knowing that this is perhaps an even bigger crime than asking others about running.

As Sarah and Clarissa grow and mature, their experiences diverge greatly although Sarah's fate remains intimately tied to Clarissa's. Sarah can never for one moment forget that she is a slave and that her life is not her own. Her mother, Emmeline, nor her sister, Belle, are in charge of their own fates either and they are all subject to the whims of Cornelius Allen. As odious and abusive as he is, when Clarissa marries, he gives Sarah and Sarah's husband to his daughter, putting Sarah in an even more untenable position than she faced as an illegitimate slave daughter on the Allen plantation. And when Clarissa's hasty marriage exposes a shameful secret, Sarah must look to herself for more courage and resilience than she ever thought she possessed.

The novel is narrated by two women, the slave, Sarah, and the white mistress, Theodora Allen, giving an inside perspective both from the point of view of one enslaved and of the seemingly privileged lady of the plantation. And yet both record great heartache as they recount their oddly parallel tales. They both might be under the thumb of Cornelius and the magnitude of their suffering is certainly different, but they each find a spirit and a resolve that carries them through to a life they might never have imagined. It was interesting to see each of their lives from the inside but both Sarah and Theodora came off as fairly distant emotionally. At the most emotionally fraught moments in their lives, they only reported what they felt, it didn't come through in the writing. Much of the action is reported from a journalistic remove as well and all of the characters have one indistinguishable voice in the narration. The action itself was fairly predictable although the final pages offer some unexpected revelations which were not quite adequately foreshadowed in the preceding pages and which seem a bit out of character. A couple of plot threads drive the story for a time but then just peter out. Despite these weaknesses, the novel is interesting in its take on slavery and the place of women and while it doesn't really break any new ground, those who enjoy historical fiction set in the antebellum south will appreciate this glimpse into this fictional plantation and the tides and undercurrents that drove the lives of those living there.

Thanks to Staci from Wunderkind PR for sending me a copy of this book for review.

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