It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

Us by David Nicholls
The Wednesday Daughters by Meg Waite Clayton
Highland Scandal by Julia London
Since You've Been Gone by Anouska Knight
Starting Over by Sue Moorcroft

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Ruby by Cynthia Bond
'Til the Well Runs Dry by Lauren Francis-Sharma

Reviews posted this week:

First Impressions by Charlie Lovett

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

The Innocent Sleep by Karen Perry
Strings Attached by Joanne Lipman and Melanie Kupchynsky
Palmerino by Melissa Pritchard
If Not For This by Pete Fromm
The Lady From Tel Aviv by Raba'i al-Madhoun
Angels Make Their Hope Here by Breena Clarke
Ishmael's Oranges by Claire Hajaj
Neverhome by Laird Hunt
Burial Rights by Hannah Kent
Euphoria by Lily King
The Blessings by Elise Juska
The Traitor's Wife by Allison Pataki
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Painted Horses by Malcolm Brooks
All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner
Juliet's Nurse by Lois Leveen
We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride
Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield
The Orphans of Race Point by Patry Francis
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
Mr. Tall by Tony Earley
Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown
Gemini by Carol Cassella
The Bride Insists by Jane Ashford
A Farm Dies Once a Year by Arlo Crawford
A Fork in the Road edited by James Oseland
Marching to Zion by Mary Glickman
Flirting with French by William Alexander
Reluctantly Royal by Nichole Chase
The Geometry of Love by Jessica Levine
Us by David Nicholls
The Wednesday Daughters by Meg Waite Clayton
Highland Scandal by Julia London
Since You've Been Gone by Anouska Knight
Starting Over by Sue Moorcroft

Monday Mailbox

This past week's mailbox arrival:

I Take You by Eliza Kennedy came from Crown and Library Thing Early Reviewers.

When a description invokes both Bridget Jones' Diary and Where'd You Go, Bernadette, how can you possibly pass it up? I am looking forward to this novel about a woman who is getting married to the perfect man but shouldn't be, or maybe she should.

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

Review: First Impressions by Charlie Lovett

It's no secret that I love Jane Austen and that I am like a fly to honey with any and all Austen related books. The only thing that really gives me pause is when the word "mystery" is appended to one of these books (well, that and zombies but since there's no way I'm reading about zombies under any circumstances, it's hardly worth mentioning). I am not really a mystery reader so I have to think long and hard about reading something so clearly outside my happy zone. I am so glad that I pushed past my reservations and picked up Charlie Lovett's new novel, First Impressions, a love letter to book collectors and a fascinating "what if?" literary mystery about Jane Austen and the authorship of Pride and Prejudice.

Told in a double stranded narrative set now and when Jane Austen was a young woman, the novel is a delight. Sophie Collingwood has finished school and doesn't quite know what is next for her when she meet brash American Eric. She is put off by him but somehow intrigued as well. As he is about the leave England, she doesn't have to think too hard about him even though he tracks her to her family home and alienates her father. She intends to discuss the paradox of this man and what shape her future should take with her much beloved bachelor Uncle Bertram, with whom she has always had more in common than with anyone else in her family. But then Bertram dies in what, to Sophie, is a suspicious fall. She is devastated and then surprised when she discovers that Bertram left his flat and his extensive and personally valuable library to her, his fellow bibliophile.

And so Sophie's future takes an unexpected turn as she determines to move into Uncle Bertram's flat. She is blindsided though when she discovers that his gorgeous library, the one that has been her own inspiration for so long, has been liquidated in order to pay off debts and she vows to track down at least the most important of the books from his library, the ones he chose each year from the locked and inaccessible library at her own family home as a Christmas gift. She also turns to one of his friends, an antiquarian bookseller who hires her on the spot to work in his shop, giving her the chance to be surrounded by books and to relish the hunt for special requests, including an odd request (or two) for a seemingly nonexistent second edition of a dry collection of morality tales by a nineteenth century cleric.

In chapters alternating with Sophie's story is the tale of Jane Austen and her growing friendship with octogenarian Richard Mansfield, who has taken up residence not far from her family. He is a wonderful sounding board and keen critic for her writing, helping her to develop and improve her drafts encouraging her and becoming incredibly important to her over time.

The two plot lines seem unrelated in the beginning aside from Sophie's love of Austen but they start to dovetail nicely as Sophie meets and gets involved with the very attractive Winston, the first person to ask her about the small book of morality tales. When she is given the same commission by a shadowy figure named Smedley, she has no idea where her search will lead, although the second plot line about Austen and the Reverend Mansfield and their close, confiding connection offers clues.

As the two plot lines start to make sense together, the literary mystery confounding Sophie picks up in pace and tension. Readers familiar with the fact that the first draft of Pride and Prejudice was called First Impressions can hardly miss the unreliable nature of first impressions both in Sophie's tale and in Austen's and will appreciate the whisper of allusion. In pursuing the fictional question of authorship, Lovett has also drawn the reader's attention to the curious and fascinating idea of the printer behind the physical books and the printer's oeuvre above and beyond the worth of the works themselves.  Lovett's description of Uncle Bertram's library and the impetus behind each book's inclusion in that library is completely intoxicating. There are some slightly outlandish coincidences necessary to drive the plot and the scenes in Austen's time aren't quite as compelling as those in Sophie's. But over all, this is a charming novel sure to appeal not only to lovers of Austen but to everyone who loves books and the adventures that they offer us.

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

Who Is Martha? by Marjana Gaponenko. The book is being released by New Vessel Press on October 14, 2014.

Amazon says this about the book: In this rollicking novel, 96-year-old ornithologist Luka Levadski foregoes treatment for lung cancer and moves from Ukraine to Vienna to make a grand exit in a luxury suite at the Hotel Imperial. He reflects on his past while indulging in Viennese cakes and savoring music in a gilded concert hall. Levadski was born in 1914, the same year that Martha – the last of the now-extinct passenger pigeons – died. Levadski himself has an acute sense of being the last of a species. He may have devoted much of his existence to studying birds, but now he befriends a hotel butler and another elderly guest, who also doesn’t have much time left, to share in the lively escapades of his final days. This gloriously written tale, in which Levadski feels “his heart pounding at the portals of his brain,” mixes piquant wit with lofty musings about life, friendship, aging and death.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's been a crazy week for me. I started the week sicker than a dog and unmotivated to do anything other than lay in bed and read. Then when I started to feel better again, I finally painted the powder room bathroom. The paint has only been sitting in there for months now. Once I got a second coat of paint up, I needed to wash out the roller and paintbrush so I finally tackled the disaster that is the laundry room since I needed the stationary tub to be empty enough to clean up the paint mess I'd made. I still have more house projects, several that people will see (like the bathroom paint job) and several they won't (like the laundry room clean sweep) but I also need to buckle down and write some reviews as well. And to that end, I'm asking blog readers to let me know which of the books I have in that appallingly extensive list of unreviewed reads they'd most like to see finished up. So take a look and let me know. This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

A Farm Dies Once a Year by Arlo Crawford
First Impressions by Charlie Lovett
A Fork in the Road edited by James Oseland
Marching to Zion by Mary Glickman
Flirting with French by William Alexander
Reluctantly Royal by Nichole Chase
The Geometry of Love by Jessica Levine

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Ruby by Cynthia Bond

Reviews posted this week:

Dinner With the Smileys by Sarah Smiley
Mimi Malloy, At Last by Julia MacDonnell

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

The Innocent Sleep by Karen Perry
Strings Attached by Joanne Lipman and Melanie Kupchynsky
Palmerino by Melissa Pritchard
If Not For This by Pete Fromm
The Lady From Tel Aviv by Raba'i al-Madhoun
Angels Make Their Hope Here by Breena Clarke
Ishmael's Oranges by Claire Hajaj
Neverhome by Laird Hunt
Burial Rights by Hannah Kent
Euphoria by Lily King
The Blessings by Elise Juska
The Traitor's Wife by Allison Pataki
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Painted Horses by Malcolm Brooks
All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner
Juliet's Nurse by Lois Leveen
We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride
Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield
The Orphans of Race Point by Patry Francis
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
Mr. Tall by Tony Earley
Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown
Gemini by Carol Cassella
The Bride Insists by Jane Ashford
A Farm Dies Once a Year by Arlo Crawford
First Impressions by Charlie Lovett
A Fork in the Road edited by James Oseland
Marching to Zion by Mary Glickman
Flirting with French by William Alexander
Reluctantly Royal by Nichole Chase
The Geometry of Love by Jessica Levine

Sunday Salon: U-Pick

Fall is here. Well, the morning temps would have us believe that anyway even if the later in the day temps belie it. One of my favorite things to do when my kids were small was to go to the u-pick apple orchard and pick more apples than any one family needed. Of course, then I'd have to find things to make out of the bounty we hauled home. My kids are older now and we don't live in the land of u-pick apples anymore so that's one thing that has fallen off our annual fall list. But isn't it funny how those apples always tasted better than any from the store? It's almost like the little bit of effort it took added to the pleasure in them. I think I've always felt that way though, that I wanted a little control over things, and not just food. I used to love Choose Your Own Adventure books too where it felt like I was driving the story, even if all I was doing was turning to one of several predetermined plot twists. I'd read those books over and over, making different choices at the bottom of each page, pleased with myself when I got the outcome I wanted. So obviously I'm normally a bit of a control freak. I have, however, gotten so far behind in my reviewing that I think it's time to take it all out of my hands and let you all choose for me. Consider this the u-pick version of book reviewing. Better yet, you get to choose and I do the work. So tell me, what do you want to see me review next from my appallingly extensive list of unreviewed reads?

The Innocent Sleep by Karen Perry
Strings Attached by Joanne Lipman and Melanie Kupchynsky
Palmerino by Melissa Pritchard
If Not For This by Pete Fromm
The Lady From Tel Aviv by Raba'i al-Madhoun
Angels Make Their Hope Here by Breena Clarke
Ishmael's Oranges by Claire Hajaj
Neverhome by Laird Hunt
Burial Rights by Hannah Kent
Euphoria by Lily King
The Blessings by Elise Juska
The Traitor's Wife by Allison Pataki
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Painted Horses by Malcolm Brooks
All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner
Juliet's Nurse by Lois Leveen
We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride
Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield
The Orphans of Race Point by Patry Francis
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
Mr. Tall by Tony Earley
Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown
Gemini by Carol Cassella
The Bride Insists by Jane Ashford
A Farm Dies Once a Year by Arlo Crawford
First Impressions by Charlie Lovett
A Fork in the Road edited by James Oseland
Marching to Zion by Mary Glickman
Flirting with French by William Alexander


And since you can see for yourself where I've been spending my reading hours this past week (from Crawford to Alexander), I won't bother telling you where my reading travels have taken me this past week. But please so tell me where you've been.

Review: Mimi Malloy, At Last by Julia MacDonnell

Sometimes people don't want to acknowledge or face the less than perfect things that pop up in life. And while it is important to stay positive and to focus on the good, only the full range of our experiences tells the story of our lives. Those things that are swept into dusty corners and neglected or unacknowledged might not be pleasant but they form us indelibly just as much as the wonderful things do. In Julia MacDonnell's quirky novel, Mimi Malloy, At Last, about an aging woman determined, nay, insistent, on letting sleeping dogs lie, this is very true.

Mimi Malloy is irascible. She is going to speak her mind and age in her own way, preferably with a cigarette, a drink in her hand, and some Sinatra on the stereo. That her memory has some rather alarming holes in it gives her pause not at all. She is an entertaining character, in both senses of the word, and her policy of moving forward into the future without looking back at the past is working for her. Well, it is working for her until her family wants to start prying into the whole story, even the repressed memories Mimi long ago buried as far out of her consciousness as possible. But Mimi will be a tough nut to crack. She's a pistol, suddenly retired, the divorced mother of six and one of a clutch of bickering, chattering, loving sisters. Mimi's brain also shows evidence of atrophy and she personally sees no point in digging into the holes. Mimi refuses to consider assisted living like her eldest daughter suggests, plugging along in her apartment, getting to know Duffy, the super, and fielding phone calls and visits from her surviving sisters and many daughters.

But Mimi's new and carefully constructed life hits a bump in the road when one of her sisters starts delving into the past and the family genealogy on behalf of her grandson. She finds a necklace that once belonged to her mother and all of a sudden, this find, in addition to the questions about the past, start bringing memories to the surface. The ghosts of her late sisters start to visit her and make her face the terrible unhappiness in her past. She's not alone as she relives the pain of one sister being sent away never to be seen or heard from again and life with her nasty, abusive stepmother. Her relationship with Duffy the super turns into a sweet romance and a haven for both of them in the face of deep hurts and family secrets.

Although the mystery of what happened to unruly sister Fagan turns out to be unsurprising, it is the uncovering of her fate with Mimi and the rest of the close and inquiring but pushy family that is the real journey of the novel. Mimi's struggle for continued independence in the face of her concerned daughters and her medical situation is a touching one, even if Mimi is often crotchety ands short towards those to whom she is closest. The book is rife with humor but also with sadness and loss. MacDonnell also introduces a storyline that juxtaposes false memories with repressed memories but that never calls into question the veracity of Mimi's sudden piecemeal recollections. Mimi may be getting older, but she can reinvent her life just as well as anyone else can and she's not going to relinquish control if she can help it. As a character Mimi comes off as older than she actually is and there are some pieces of the plot that feel unnecessary but over all, this is a warm story about family, aging, and the past, all centered around the female equivalent of a grumpy old man.

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