Review: A Dual Inheritance by Joanna Hershon

Sometimes it is the small, unconsidered moments that change lives forever. What might be small for one though, seems momentous for another. And it's these small inequities which often point to larger ones amongst those between whom they occur. This is certainly the case between Ed Cantowitz and Hugh Shipley, Harvard seniors when they become friends who hail from entirely different worlds and vastly different perspectives in Joanna Hershon's newest novel, A Dual Inheritance.

Ed is the son of a cantankerous pipe-fitting Jewish immigrant, raised in a neighborhood well along the way towards its slide into neglect and crime. He is brash and confident, sometimes abrasive, and determined to make money, lots of it. He's a not altogether successful skirt-chaser too, the sort of man who pursues almost any girl but exudes a whiff of smarmy desperation in his pursuit. So it is not much of a surprise that he connects with Hugh over a girl one night outside the library. Hugh Shipley is a golden boy, handsome son of a wealthy and venerable Boston Brahmin family. He is disaffected in the way that only the very rich can afford to be but he has a kind of casual magnetism about him that makes him irresistible to Ed. And improbably that night, with a little effort by Ed, they become friends. That year, as Hugh reconnects with his old love Helen, also from Hugh's social set, Ed is not so much a third wheel as the indispensible third person and through these two friends and their connections, he gets his first in into the world of high finance. That he also falls for Helen seems inconsequential until Hugh's indirection about his future causes him to take off for Africa to become a photographer or a movie producer or something he knows not what and leave his fiance behind, at which point, Ed and Hugh's friendship is doomed although only Ed understands the true reason why.

Years later, when only the memory of their friendship still exists, and each man has chosen his life's path, for Ed the accumulation of money and for Hugh humanitarian work in Africa and the Caribbean, their paths will cross again thanks to the friendship forged between their teenaged daughters at boarding school. Rebecca Cantowitz, Ed's daughter, splits her time between her divorced mother and father, enabling her to vacation with Vivi Shipley and her parents Hugh and Helen. Rebecca is half in love with Vivi and fully enamoured of Hugh. And unlike their fathers' friendship, the daughters will remain close and a part of each others' lives and family even as they grow to adulthood. Through Rebecca's eyes and enduring emotions, Hugh's and Ed's lives, missteps and all are recorded.

This is very much a slow, character driven novel examining the role of nature and nurture, the eponymous dual inheritance theory of the title, on the creation of these men and their daughters. It weaves nuances of social class, racism, the weight of expectation, desire, and greed throughout the entire narrative. But as much as these larger concerns swirl around, it is the decades of personal dramas which keep the plot moving, especially the frustrated love and/or desire of the Cantowitzes, pere and fille, Ed for Helen and Rebecca for Hugh. Hershon writes beautifully and yet I never felt engaged by any of the characters here, making it hard to sink into the novel's carefully, particularly rendered world. The friendship between Hugh and Ed was a bit baffling to me, at least on Hugh's part, and not drawn as completely and vividly as might have been to explain the magnitude of their rupture, or drift apart, depending on which character is telling the tale. None of the characters seem to have followed the paths they appeared to be on and there is enough of a time gap in the narrative that the reader is forced to take these fundamental changes to their characters on faith rather than seeing and following a steady development. This is a complex, layered novel, well written and thoughtful and yet I remained mostly untouched and rather remote from it as I read it.

For more information about Joanna Hershon and the book check out her website, find her on Facebook 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.

Review: The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro

When I was small, my grandmother had a collection of tiny, decorative perfume bottles on her dresser that fascinated me. The scents inside them weren't necessarily to my taste, but the exotic looking bottles with their fancy stoppers and their gold leafing appealed to my usually hidden girly side. They seemed so grown up, the very definition of a lady and I loved to touch them, hold them, and imagine stories about them. On a seemingly unrelated note, when I was pregnant, my sense of smell was heightened beyond all belief. I could open the refrigerator and know which of its contents were going off in the next day or two. I could smell and identify the faintest hints of things underneath showier scents. This was a blessing and a curse both. Combine my memories of these two sensory experiences, the touch of the perfume bottles and the heightened smell of intricate odors, and it comes as no surprise that I was attracted to Kathleen Tessaro's latest novel, The Perfume Collector.

Two intricately interwoven tales, the novel is the story, set in the 1950s, of Grace Monroe, a bright woman who is struggling with who she is, who she wants to be, and the uncomfortable persona of socialite wife her husband expects her to be to help him advance his career and, at the same time, it is also the story of Eva d'Orsey, a young French girl starting with her job as a chambermaid at a chic, glamourous, and discreet hotel for the daring and dallying jet set in New York City in 1927 and ranging through the rest of her fascinating and unusual life. When Grace is facing a crisis point in her marriage, having uncovered evidence of her husband's infidelity, she receives a commmunication from a lawyer's office in Paris, informing her that Eva d'Orsey has passed away and that she, Grace, is the sole beneficiary. Taking the opportunity to escape London, Grace heads to France, certain that there has been a mistake; after all, she has no idea who Eva d'Orsey is. Assured that she is indeed Eva's heir, she is unwilling to accept such a generous bequest from a perfect stranger and so she enlists the French lawyer, Edouard Tissot, to help her uncover who Eva was and how she was connected to Grace. As she and Edouard start to discover the smallest pieces of information about the late Mlle. d'Orsey, the plot shifts to Eva's tale and her trajectory from chambermaid to muse for one of the most sought after and talented perfumers of the time, Monsieur Valmont, a Jew.

Tessaro skillfully weaves the two stories together, moving from one to the other and back again, beautifully balancing Grace's personal unhappiness and her quest to understand what her inheritance means for her future with Eva's eventful story and the revelation of the connection between Grace and Eva. The immersion in the world of scents is fascinating and having Grace learn about this rarified profession allows the reader to learn about it as well without being overwhelmed by reams of authorial research. Both past time periods and the public restraints placed on women are artfully rendered and there is an air of elegance to the story as a whole. How Grace and Eva are connected is presented as a mystery but it's really only a mystery to Grace as the astute reader has no doubts about it right from the start of the novel but this predictability is only a small misstep in a sophisticated and over all enticing novel. A wonderful tale for historical fiction fans, this is also an appealing look at women, unusual certainly, but firmly of their times, the avenues open to them, and the ways in which they choose to order their lives, celebrate their own intelligence, and ultimately create themselves. It is one to savour slowly even as it becomes increasingly difficult to put down.

For more information about Kathleen Tessaro and the book check out her website or find her on Facebook. 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.

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.

Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown. The book is being released by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on June 4, 2013.

Amazon says this about the book: The year is 1819, and the renowned chef Owen Wedgwood has been kidnapped by the ruthless pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot. He will be spared, she tells him, as long as he puts exquisite food in front of her every Sunday without fail.

To appease the red-haired captain, Wedgwood gets cracking with the meager supplies on board. His first triumph at sea is actual bread, made from a sourdough starter that he leavens in a tin under his shirt throughout a roaring battle, as men are cutlassed all around him. Soon he’s making tea-smoked eel and brewing pineapple-banana cider.

But Mabbot—who exerts a curious draw on the chef—is under siege. Hunted by a deadly privateer and plagued by a saboteur hidden on her ship, she pushes her crew past exhaustion in her search for the notorious Brass Fox. As Wedgwood begins to sense a method to Mabbot’s madness, he must rely on the bizarre crewmembers he once feared: Mr. Apples, the fearsome giant who loves to knit; Feng and Bai, martial arts masters sworn to defend their captain; and Joshua, the deaf cabin boy who becomes the son Wedgwood never had.

Cinnamon and Gunpowder is a swashbuckling epicure’s adventure simmered over a surprisingly touching love story—with a dash of the strangest, most delightful cookbook never written. Eli Brown has crafted a uniquely entertaining novel full of adventure: the Scheherazade story turned on its head, at sea, with food.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

Replacement Child by Judy Mandel
A Dog Walks Into a Nursing Home by Sue Halpern
The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Better Than Fiction edited by Don George
A Dual Inheritance by Joanna Hershon

Reviews posted this week:

Ghost Moth by Michele Forbes
The Love Wars by L. Alison Heller
The Repeat Year by Andrea Lochen

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

The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow by Rita Leganski
The One-Way Bridge by Cathie Pelletier
Float by JoeAnn Hart
Nowhere Is a Place by Bernice L. McFadden
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeannette Winterson
Replacement Child by Judy Mandel
A Dog Walks Into a Nursing Home by Sue Halpern
The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro

Review: The Repeat Year by Andrea Lochen

We all have things we'd like the chance to do over again but what about the things you never want to repeat? Junior high comes to mind for me. I'd never wish that on anyone more than once. Olive Watson, in Andrea Lochen's new novel, is about to have to live over, not junior high, but a terrible year of her life, one that she really, really doesn't want to have to re-live. And even worse, she'll be doing it with the full and complete knowledge of all the mistakes she made the first time around.

When Olive wakes up on what should be January 1, 2012, she instead wakes to January 1, 2011, again. 2011 is not a year she wants to re-live. She and her long time boyfriend broke up, she let her closest friend drift away, and her widowed mother married a man of whom Olive is not terribly fond. 2011 was a year of unhappiness and bad choices for Olive and while she now has the chance to repair her worst mistakes, she just isn't sure she is capable of living through it all again, especially knowing what she did in the past that led her to such misery and having to try so very hard to change the outcome of her year. When she first wakes up in the bed and arms of her ex-boyfriend, she has a hard time processing what happened. And it takes her a week or so to fully comprehend and accept that she is in fact having a repeat year.

As Olive starts her second go at 2011, she remembers and tries to change her reactions to the things that she feels were pivotal moments that caused her first 2011 to crash and burn so badly. And she encounters a friend of her mother's who has done several repeat years herself and to whom she can talk about the situation without sounding crazy. But Sherry, her mother's friend, is not a fairy godmother who will help shepherd Olive through the changes she needs to make and the realizations she needs to come to throughout the year because Sherry is having her own issues that she needs to solve in order to move herself into 2012 come next January 1. But it is thanks to and through Sherry that Olive comes to understand that this year is in fact a last chance gift and that while she can change her actions, it is much harder to change what's in her heart and it's entirely impossible to change what is in someone else's heart.

Having the knowledge of each thing that she did or said, each hurt she doled out in the previous 2011, gives Olive the chance to truly examine what drove her to cheat on her boyfriend Phil, why she reacted so badly and immaturely to her mother's remarriage and new husband, and why she allowed her friend Kerrigan to fade out of her life. She is given the opportunity to see exactly how she chose a solitary, work-centered existence instead of the love and connections that she so needed to be happy. But she cannot just undo (or rather not do) the actions from the first 2011. They might not exist in this 2011 but they do continue to exist in her memory and so those unchosen decisions still haunt her. She still has to work through their causes before she can let them go or be unaffected by them because they are real to her whether they happened or not.

While many of us would like a do-over in life, the concept of having to repeat an entire year, one that was badly done the first time, is a different twist on the idea. And Lochen has written an entertaining and thought provoking novel. The characters are realistic and their reactions to events are definitely believable. Olive may come across as selfish and unthinking sometimes but that is what her repeat year is all about: changing her thinking and learning to open herself up and understand what's behind not only her own decisions and actions, but others' as well, placing her in a greater community rather than the isolated and unhappy island on which she ended her first 2011. The several different events in her past life that she has to correct are well handled with the exception of her relationship with Kerrigan, which is resolved at the end far too easily for the magnitude of the situation. But in general this is an interesting and pleasing novel about our choices, right or wrong, and the impact they have on the greater part of our lives and the lives of those about whom we care deeply.

For more information on Andrea Lochen and the book, visit her webpage or find her on Facebook. For others' opinions on the book, check it out on Amazon.

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

Review: The Love Wars by L. Alison Heller

Marriage is supposed to be "until death do us part" but in reality, these days, it is often a span of time much shorter than forever. And while the ending of any marriage can get ugly and contentious, when there's a lot at stake, money, children, etc., it can be just as hostile and toxic as it's possible to be. And yet there are divorce lawyers who seem to thrive in this poisonous atmosphere. Molly Grant, the main character in L. Alison Heller's new novel The Love Wars, may not love the situations inherent in her job but she finds the work in the matrimonial group more interesting than the corporate law she had been practicing at one of the city's top firms and she's about to make a big difference, one that she never anticipated nor sought out and one that could jeopardize everything.

When Molly finished law school and landed the job at Bacon Payne, she had visions of paying her parents back for the sacrifices and investment they made in her education. The fact that the firm gives associates who endure the tyrannical bosses, the abuse, the monotony, and endless grueling hours for a full five years a no strings attached bonus equivalent to a year's salary plays a large part in her fantasies and provides her with a concrete reason to go to work every day because it sure wasn't the work driving her to be at the office 24/7. She had high hopes for more appealing cases and fewer hours when she applied for the unheard of transfer from corporate to matrimonial. But the move hasn't necessarily made her any happier. Now she's down in the nitty gritty of people at their worst, fighting over post-it notes that are communal property bought during the marriage and other equally unbelievable (or perhaps all too believable for anyone who has weathered a contentious divorce) situations. Her colleagues are reasonably friendly, aside from Henry, the lone male associate in the department, and who is on the path to partner. Her boss, Lillian, comes across as a chum but only so long as the associates conform to her every wish, social or work-related. So once again Molly is just counting time until she hits her five year anniversary and the big bonus, which isn't to say that she's not conscientious and good at her job, because she is.

When Lillian sends Fern Walker, the ex-wife of a very wealthy, very powerful media mogul, to Molly she expects Molly to feed Fern a few platitudes, give her referrals to non-Bacon Payne lawyers, and get rid of her. But there's something about Fern and her desire to regain custody of the children whom her husband is systematically alienating from her, blocking her visitation and poisoning their young minds against her, that strikes a cord with Molly. So while she initially does as Lillian expects, when Fern tells her that no other lawyer will take her case either, Molly, before she completely understands what she's doing and driven by her memory of once before not intervening, agrees to represent Fern behind Lillian and Bacon Payne's backs. She sets up her own small company and devotes any spare time she has to working on Fern's case, knowing that she's risking everything personally and professionally to do what she knows is right.

Molly is a complex, strong, and likable character. Her motivations are well explored and explained and yet her decisions and feelings about Bacon Payne, while right for her, never condemn the other characters for working there or for not feeling towards the firm the same things that she feels. Her desire to do the right thing for Fern as the case progresses and her very real fear that she will be caught by Lillian or one of her other colleagues provides a nice tension to the plot. Her realization of what the case means for her personally and the greater import of what its outcome means for Fern is subtle and well done. There is a sweet and realistic romance here but the real focus is on Molly's self-realization and her eventual empowerment to live the life she wants without compromise. The outcome is never in any doubt but getting to the end is a delight nevertheless. This is grown up chick lit for people who want to read about others like themselves who are getting comfortable in their own skin beyond just in a romantic relationship.

For more about L. Alison Heller and the book, check out her webpage, find her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter. For others' opinions on the book, check it out on Amazon.

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

Tell me again why annual physicals are a good idea

I get the whole concept of wellness visits. And I appreciate that my insurance company will even pay for them in the hopes that if I keep these regularly, they won't have to pay for catastrophic care. But sheesh. Like a good and compliant little patient, I went to my work-up today and left cursing the fact that my parents were allowed to reproduce and feeling more than a little sorry for myself. But more on that later.

When I woke up this morning, I remembered in the nick of time that I wasn't allowed food this morning thanks to the appointment. This also meant that my morning diet Coke (I don't like coffee but need a caffeine hit somehow) was also off the table. So I was a somewhat surly, tummy rumbling grump when I got dressed. And apparently the morning caffeine hit is desperately necessary for me since as I got dressed, it didn't occur to me not to put on my tattiest pair of underwear. (I've been a little slack about folding the laundry lately and all the decent stuff was still in the drier and I didn't feel like rooting around in there to find any). So I rationalized that no one ever sees your underwear. Well, duh! Obviously when you have a physical everyone and the janitor sees your holey drawers. This revelation occurred to me as I was on my way to the appointment; damn the lack of caffeine to wake up the brain cells a little earlier.

The good news about my doctor is that I like her (well, until this morning, I liked her). And the office is efficient. And the nurse is nice. Well, she was nice, at least until she started reading verbatim what I'd told the doctor about my migraines. Then she made me squirm, because let me tell you, I sound like a rambling idiot with moderate to severe diarrhea of the mouth when I'm at the doctor's office. My doctor, she sat and listened to everything and then zeroed in on the worst of my genetic lottery. She already knew about the migraines so she reiterated that I might want to see a neurologist.  But she didn't harp on it. She asked about the history of colon cancer or polyps in my family and suggested that I might want to get a colonoscopy a good eight years before general recommendations. Suddenly the visit was going downhill quickly! We brushed past that unpleasant idea and on to the fact that I've been neglecting my annual visit with the lady parts doctor and that my most recent mammogram was two years old. I must have made the appropriate noises about scheduling these things (and I really do intend to, just as soon as I find a spare minute) because we moved on to the actual physical. My pulse and blood pressure were elevated for me, which threw them firmly into the normal range for any other human being on the planet. But I defy you to be told that you probably need your butt roto-rooted and you definitely need your ta-tas steam-rollered again and not show an elevated pulse and blood pressure!

After determining that I am, at least superficially, digustingly healthy, the doctor left and sent in the lab tech. This lady was perfectly nice and friendly but I hate, hate, hate anyone bearing needles. The fact that I have to break out Lamaze breathing to get my blood taken must be a dead giveaway about my longstanding phobia. And I do know that I should be properly hydrated (I wasn't) and calm (calm? when a needle is about to plunge through my sensitive skin and plunder the blood I worked so hard to make? yeah right!) for best results. But I panic anyway, constricting my veins into microscopic threads. I tried to be cooperative, which my mother will agree is a huge improvement over my childhood self. But still the needle poked out of my arm uselessly collecting no blood. So this sadist from the lab nice phlebotomist lady proceeded to stick me in the back of the hand, because that's a comfortable spot from which to draw blood.  After making me squeal like a pig, she did get blood and we were done, except for the urine sample. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I seem congenitally unable to give a clean catch (aka midstream) without peeing all over my hand. And yes, it was the hand that had just been punctured for blood so that the cotton meant to staunch the bleeding (admittedly not doing much bleeding) instead bloated with pee. Yum-o.

Once I had finished washing up and scrubbing the skin off of my hands, I headed for the check-out thinking that I was finished for another year. Wrong! They handed me a new migraine prescription to try and sent me off down the hall to referrals. I wrongly assumed that were going to force my pee-free hand and proactively make a neurologist's appointment for me. Oh no. That colonoscopy she so casually referred to in the exam room? That was what they were scheduling. Apparently I can be trusted to call a neurologist (probably can't) and to schedule my own overdue mammogram and lady parts visit (I'm sure I'll get to it, at least sometime before my physical next year) but they weren't letting me leave the building without getting me on the gastro-enterologist's list. Fie on efficiency anyway.

Man, I love doctor's visits. And apparently that's good since I'll be visiting every doctor in a tri-state area for unpleasant violations preventative work-ups in the next little while. :-P Next year I'm going to try being stoic and not so chatty. Maybe that will result in fewer referrals. Probably not, and not just because I'm not convinced I can actually pull off stoicism. Since I've admitted to all this bad genetics already, it's likely in the computer tainting my file forever. ::sigh:: Just what I always wanted: to be the person with a whole fleet of doctors who know her name. On the plus side, if you need a recommendation, I can already give you an internist, gynecologist, and ENT specialist and it looks like I'm about to add neurologist and gastro-enterologist to my list.