Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

She started as a maid in an aristocratic London household when she was thirteen. Her employer, Lady Rowan Compton, a suffragette, took the remarkably bright youngster under her wing and became her patron, aided by Maurice Blanche, a friend often retained as an investigator by the elite of Europe. It was he who first recognised Maisie's intuitive gifts and helped her to earn admission to prestigious Girton College at Cambridge where Maisie planned to complete her education.


The outbreak of war changed everything. Maisie trained as a nurse, then left for France to serve at the Front, where she found - and lost - an important part of herself.


Ten years after the Armistice, in the spring of 1929, Maisie sets up on her own as a private investigator, one who has learned that coincidences are meaningful, and truth elusive. her very first case involves suspected infidelity but reveals something very different. In the aftermath of the Great War, a former officer has founded a convalescent refuge for those grievously wounded, ex-soldiers too shattered to resume normal life. It is a working farm known as The Retreat. When Fate brings Maisie a second case involving The Retreat she must confront the ghost that has haunted her for over ten years.

Okay, I am going to start with shallow and make my way to a bit more depth in this review!

Firstly, can I say how much I dislike this cover! It might be correct for the era but it is also drab and boring especially when you are holding the book in your hand and I am so glad that they have moved onto new covers for this series.Aren't these ones much, much better?

Anyway ... moving on.

Do you have strategies as to how and what you are going to read next? For the longest time I had put off reading this book because I was reading the Phryne Fisher mystery series which is also set in the late 1920s and I had decided that I didn't want to mix the two series. Now that I seem to have fallen off the Phryne Fisher series (not deliberately I just haven't read one for ages) it was time to give Maisie a go. To be honest though, other than the superficial similarities of a woman detective in the late 1920s there is really not a lot in common and so I could have been reading them both the whole time! Oh well, lesson learned!

Maisie Dobbs started out as a maid in the London household of Lady Rowan Compton, mother, suffragette and determined to make a difference. Early on Maisie's enthusiasm for education and learning is identified when she is found reading in the library in the early hours of the morning, and so Lady Compton brings in her friend Maurice to teach her, leading to a place for Maisie at Girton College in Cambridge. Her future education is pretty much assured until World War I interrupts and instead of continuing her education she becomes a nurse first in a London hospital but later on is sent to the French fronts.

Fast forward 10 years and Maisie is setting herself up as a private investigator. Her first case involves a husband who believes that his wife is cheating on him. The clues eventually lead Maisie to a working farm which was set up to provide a safe haven for those returned soldiers who suffered horrific injuries that make it difficult to live a normal life, but Maisie thinks that there is something a bit odd about the set up. When Lady Compton's son James decides that he wants to go and live at The Retreat, Maisie knows that she needs to investigate, with the assistance of Billy. He was a patient in France and they meet again fortuitously when she rents the rooms where he is the building handyman/supervisor.

The structure on this one was interesting. The first part of the book is all about the cases she is working on, but the second part takes us back to her humble beginnings and works through her past leading right up to her time as a war nurse. The scenes portrayed in this section in particular were heart rending and this reader could almost hear the guns booming through the pages. The third section of the book then went back to the case, and to the memories that Maisie is forced to confront and deal with, especially the memories of the heart. The supporting cast of characters include not only those I have mentioned previously and her father Frankie, and they all work to assist Maisie with her case but also with her own emotional issues.

I feel a little silly that I waited so long to start this series because I knew I would like it. I can assure you that I will be reading the next book in the series fairly soon! It is waiting at the library to be picked up as we speak!

Rating 4/5

You can read Ana's thoughts about this book here.

Cross posted at my blog

Why I love weather by Anna Solomon

I grew up in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Yes, Gloucester is the home of The Perfect Storm. It’s also the place that inspired painters including Winslow Homer, Marsden Hartley, and Edward Hopper, who were drawn by the rocky shoreline, the deep woods, the soft, purplish light, and the dramatic skies. You can never be more than a few miles from the ocean in Gloucester, which means that weather permeates everything. From my childhood house overlooking the Essex Bay I could see fog rolling in, sunshine breaking through the clouds, or the wall of a nearly-black storm front pushing its way across the far beach.

By weather I don’t just mean temperature or wind speed. I mean, what are the elements that make up and affect the landscape? What does the air smell like? What does a winter morning sound like? What kinds of trees grow in such a place and if there’s a storm, what kinds of leaves and nuts fall on the people’s heads? If you lived in this place, what weather would you long for? What would you fear?

Anna Solomon

As a writer, these questions are gold. Asking them – and discovering the answers to them – helps me to establish my setting. And “setting” is not just a hill, or a chair. It’s light. It’s texture. It’s all the sensory inputs that make up our characters’ worlds. Look at how Willa Cather describes a thrilling sleigh ride in My Ántonia: “The wind had the burning taste of fresh snow; my throat and nostrils smarted as if someone had opened a hartshorn bottle.” And how different the cold seems in Yiyun Li’s The Vagrants: “With her good hand, Nini wrapped the thin quilt around herself, but hard as she tried, there was always part of her body exposed to the freezing air.”

Yet these passages are deceptively simple, because weather isn’t just affecting these characters. It’s also being used by these authors, to excellent affect, to express the characters’ feelings: aspects of their inner lives that can be better expressed through their sensory experience than by anything they might say or think. Fictional characters – like real people – are only so self-aware; weather is one way to let the reader in to a character’s emotions even if she doesn’t know she’s feeling them.

Weather is wonderful in yet another way: it can help create plot, which can help drive, well, the whole story. Weather can be premise, catalyst, climax, resolution. Think of the rain that keeps the Ramsay family from getting to the lighthouse (for ten years!) in Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse. Or the drought that dries up the stream that empties the hotel that becomes a home for unwed mothers in Ann Patchett’s first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars. Or – in case you haven’t thought of it – the tornado that sets Dorothy a-flying in The Wizard Of Oz. Heat can drive people crazy and cold can create intimacy (or vice versa). In my novel, The Little Bride – set in desolate South Dakota during the 1880s – a freak hailstorm ruins the family’s wheat crop, causing a shortage of food; it also creates a great division between a father and son, one of whom wanted to harvest the crop the day before the storm, one who argued against it for religious reasons. Weather, in this case, does lots of things: it creates conflict, expresses moods, complicates relationships, and sets up the characters for future trouble.

I love weather especially when it comes to historical novels, because it’s one thing –unlike fashion trends, medical treatment, or saddle styles – that hasn’t changed very much over the years. (Let’s leave climate change out of this, shall we?) Today’s tornadoes are probably a lot like tornadoes in 1850; cumulus clouds look like cumulus clouds from 1952. As a writer, this means I have first-hand access to a very important aspect of my characters’ worlds. It also means that my readers know what my characters might smell, or even feel, during a spring rain; the very words “spring rain” evoke associations and memories, letting readers drop deeply into a world that might otherwise be strange. In this way, weather can provide a meeting point between centuries. It’s timeless. Just like the best historical novels.

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To learn more about Anna Solomon and her wonderful book The Little Bride (released the 6th September 2011), don't forget to visit her website: http://www.annasolomon.com/

HT Recommends: HF suggestions

Reader Michelle Marin made the following request:

Hello!!  I just found your site today while trying to find new authors to read.  I love HF, BUT I do not like the ones with all that sex stuff or slang language.  My favorite all time author is Jean Plaidy and I have read all her books as Phillipa Carr and Victoria Holt also.  So I am hoping to find authors in this similar style.

Jean Plaidy is also a favourite of ours, in fact we had a whole season devoted to her a couple of years ago. Other authors that we also love and that we feel have a similar style are Elizabeth Chadwick, Sharon Kay Penman and Anya Seton. Here are some suggestions:

Anya Seton - Katherine
Anya Seton - The Winthrop Woman 
Anya Seton - My Theodosia
Elizabeth Chadwick - The Greatest Knight
Eizabeth Chadwick - For The King's Favor
Elizabeth Chadwick - To Defy A King
Sharon Kay Penman - The Sunne In Splendour

Feel free to browse our blog for other books by these authors. Anyone else has favourite books to suggest?

Announcing: Jane Austen Week (10-16 October 2011)

To celebrate the release of Jane Austen Made me Do It by several known authors (and the baby of Laurel Ann from Austenprose) we decided to have a special week dedicated to one of our favourite English authors, Jane Austen. Stay tunned for more news about interviews, reviews, giveaways and don't forget to visit us between the 10-16 October.

You can read all about this new anthology and the list of authors who participate in this post by Laurel Ann: http://austenprose.com/2010/05/03/new-jane-austen-short-story-anthology-announced-today/



Release 11 October 2011



Congratulations!

Congratulations to Meghan from Medieval Bookworm who won the BBAW award for Best Historical Fiction Blog.

It was an honour to be shortlisted with both Meghan and Amy from Passages to the Past

At Historical Tapestry we are very proud to have been shortlisted for this award for three out of the last four years. Who knows, one day we might even win!

Sylvester or the Wicked Uncle by Georgette Heyer

Rank, wealth and elegance are no match for a young lady who writes novels...


Sylvester, Duke of Salford, has exacting requirements for a bride. Then he encounters Phoebe Marlow, a young lady with literary aspirations, and suddenly life becomes very complicated. She meets none of his criteria, and even worse, she has written a novel that is sweeping through the ton and causing all kinds of gossip ... and he's the main character.

When a young woman feels slighted by a member of the ton, what else is she do but write an anonymously authored novel about how terrible he is - pompous, arrogant and dictatorial when it comes to the welfare of his young ward. She makes a thinly veiled attempt to hide the identity of the main characters - Sylvester, Duke of Salford.

Sylvester can be a bit pompous and aloof, always aware of his duty to his role and his family and particularly aware of his role as guardian of his young nephew. When he decides that he needs to find a wife, he is not looking for love and passion. He is looking for suitability more than anything, so he makes a list of the eligibile females in the ton. Running the list of names past his mother, she suggests that he speaks to his godmother, who in turn adds one more name - that of her granddaughter Phoebe Marlow.

Phoebe lives with her father and her very overbearing stepmother who thinks that she is too spirited and must be tamed. When Phoebe hears that her father is bringing Sylvester home with a view to matrimony she panics. Her stepmother insists that she will behave properly and so the Phoebe that Sylvester finds is a somewhat insipid disappointment and he is determined that he will leave as soon as he possible can. However, Phoebe is  even more determined, and with the help of her childhood friend Tom she decides to escape to her grandmother's house in London.

What follows is a series of adventures that starts with an accident that leaves Tom with a broken leg, Sylvester being snowed in at the same inn as Tom and Phoebe, and ends with Tom and Phoebe being kidnapped by Sylvester's ditsy sister in law and her new husband on a ill thought out escape to France.

Along the way, Phoebe proves to Sylvester over and over that she is anything but the insipid miss he thought she was. She is always willing to point out his faults to him but he finds himself becoming more and more intrigued by her. That is until he figures out that she is the author of the book that has the ton abuzz!

I liked Sylvester a lot! Yes, he was pomp and arrogant but I am not sure what else to expect when you have been bought up to be a duke. We did however get to see his devotion to family, and quite often he didn't realise his own faults. He didn't like having them pointed out to him, but then again, who does.

Phoebe was a harder character to pin down for me. I don't think I ever really got why it was that Phoebe felt so strongly about Sylvester that she could target him in her book. She also was quite impetuous which led her to bring both herself and her family into situations that otherwise could have been avoided.

The path to true love never runs smooth, misunderstandings abound and there were times where I wondered if our hero and heroine were ever going to realise their feelings and act upon them. Ably assisted by a vibrant set of secondary characters including Tom and Phoebe's grandmother, the reader is taken from one adventure to the next. Little do our main characters realise it is the adventure of love!

Rating 4.5/5

Click here to read Ana's thoughts about this book

Thanks to Sourcebooks for the review copy.

Deadly: How to Catch an Invisible Killer by Julie Chibbaro

It is 1906, New York City and 16 year old Prudence Galewski takes a job as an assistant to the Head Epidemiologist, Mr. Soper.  Prudence has always been interested in science and feels very fortunate to land a job in the field.   It is practically unheard of for a woman to get such a job.  In fact, some of the men in the lab give her a hard time.

Soon after starting her and Mr. Soper start investigating a new outbreak of Typhoid.  They visit the different families who have the dreaded disease and write down all of the different foods they have eaten and take samples from their septic systems.  Soon Prudence finds a food that links all of the families, peach ice cream.  It turns out that they all have a cook who has worked for all of them, who made the peach ice cream for them.

It was recently discovered by a scientist that disease could be carried by a healthy person.  The person doesn't get sick but can pass the illness on to others. 

"The challenge ahead of us is to find this elusive cook and test her for the typhoid germ by examining her body fluids."

The cook, Mary Mallon has moved around a lot but Prudence and Mr. Soper finally tracks her down.  She refuses to get tested, she can't understand how she could make people sick when she, herself is not sick. 

Mary Mallon was a real person who was to become known as Typhoid Mary. Julie Chibbaro takes a piece of history and runs with it.  She developed her main character Prudence well and we see her learn and grow.  As I read the story I kept thinking to myself, "you go girl, show people that not all women should be chained to a house with no other aspirations."

Deadly is geared for young adults.  It deals with issues of disease, feminism, and family.  It also explores ethical issues.  I think it would make for  great discussion for a young adult book club.  Though there is science in the book, it is well explained in fairly simple terms.  I highly recommend it!

5/5

Cross posted at So Many Precious Books, So Little Time

The Beauty Chorus by Kate Lord Brown

It is New Years Eve, 1940 and Evie Chase is determined to make a difference in the war effort.  On January 5th, 1941 she enlists  in the ATA to ferry  across WWII Britain.   Her father is a wealthy RAF commander and is not happy with her decision and takes away her allowance, but Evie sticks to her principals and moves into a mice infested cottage with two other new members of the ATA, Stella and Megan.

Stella is the mother of a baby boy but has left him with her parents in law.  She is trying to sort out her feelings regarding her "dead" husband.  Megan is a teenagers from a Welsh village, who has left for the first time.

Together the three woman train together and live together and become fast friends and allies.  Once they start ferrying planes, Evie meets a pilot from the U.S.A. and falls in love.  They are engaged to be married when tragedy strikes and her fiancé is killed in combat.  Stella and Megan also find love.  

Beau is the trainer of the three woman and one of their commanders.  He and Evie mix together like cats and dogs most of the time.  He is also engages to a rich girl that he grew up with but the relationship is quite rocky.  He was burned badly in combat and she called off the engagement.  She abandoned him when he needed her most and then when he was better, came back  and begged forgiveness.  Can he forgive and does he want to?

Despite the fact that just about everything that happened in this book was totally predictable, I did enjoy it.  I knew nothing about the ATA and learned about its history.  The characters were well thought out and three dimensional.  You could call this book a character study.  That is it's true strength.  I would have liked a bit more plot and surprise.  I knew what was going to happen with each character well before it happened with only a couple of exceptions.  

This is Kate Lord Browns first book and a good attempt.  I am looking forward to seeing how she grows with her writing.  If you like character studies and want to learn more about the ATA in WWII, this is a book for you.

3/5

Cross posted at So Many Precious Books, So Little Time

Empire Day by Diane Armstrong

A heart-warming novel in the tradition of CLOUDSTREET and THE HARP IN THE SOUTH


Empire Day, 1948. A back street in Bondi is transformed as the fireworks of Cracker Night cast a magical glow over its humble cottages. But Australia as a whole is being transformed in this postwar era and the people of Wattle Street know that life will never be the same again. The ′reffos′ have moved in, and their strange ways are threatening the comfortable world of salt-of-the-earth locals like Pop Wilson, deserted mum Kath and sharp-tongued Maude McNulty.


With suspicious and disapproving eyes, the Australians observe their new neighbours -- mysterious Mr Emil, fragile young Lilija and all the other Europeans starting their lives afresh. Mistrust and misunderstandings abound on both sides. To Hania, an angry teenager struggling to cope with her hysterical mother, and to Sala, an unhappily married woman trying to blot out her traumatic wartime past, the Australians appear enviably carefree.


But behind closed doors, Old as well as New Australians suffer secret heartaches. As the smoke of fires past and present gradually disperses and the lives of the two groups entwine, unexpected relationships form that bring passion and tragedy for some, and forgiveness and resolution for others.


EMPIRE DAY is a dramatic and heart-warming novel in the tradition of CLOUDSTREET and THE HARP IN THE SOUTH. It confirms Diane Armstrong as one of our most gifted and compelling storytellers

Each year, one of my goals is to read more Australian authors. This year is my most successful year so far and I am pleased to say that I can now add Diane Armstrong to my list of new to me Australian authors.

This book covers the events in the lives of the people who live in Wattle Street in Bondi in Sydney for one year, starting on Empire Day. Whilst there are several residents that have lived in the street for many years, there are also the new arrivals - refugees from the war in Europe. The make up of Sydney's population was rapidly changing in ways that we take for granted now, especially in terms of the impact that they made in helping the city to become more cosmopolitan. For example, at one point one of the Australian characters mentioned about the strange new delicatessens that were starting to appear where you could go and buy your cured meats and cheeses, something that now we take for granted!

Among the various residents we meet Hania and her mother who have recently immigrated from Poland, the Ukrainian family whose young daughter falls in love with the Australian boy Ted who lives with his mother down the street. There is also a young married couple who have moved into a room and the mysterious Mr Emil who keeps very much to himself, causing others to think he is behaving very suspiciously. One of the other major story lines concerns the single mum Kath who holds down a job as a barmaid whilst single-handedly raising her boys, a job made even harder when the eldest of the boys, Meggsie, comes down with polio.

One of the major strengths of this book is it's portrayal of Sydney at a particular place and time. There were several significant historical events that were covered in the pages of the book, as well as topics like the terrible disease of polio and the treatments that were just starting to be used.

Each of the sets of characters get their time to tell their story - where they have come from and what they have seen, where they would like to be going to. Some of the stories are stronger than others. I was particularly moved by the stories of the new Australians, struggling so hard to try to fit into their new lives.

At the same time though, the fact that there were so many stories, so many characters to get page time became one of the weaknesses of the book in that characters would just disappear for pages at a time and then suddenly pop back up on the radar.

Not too long ago I posted about a Melbourne Writers Festival event that I went to where one of the points that was made was about the relationships between characters and place and about how characters who are living displaced lives  are very much charged by loss and by memories of the past. These characters also bring their previous places to where they currently reside through their memories and the past shapes their current lives. For me this book perfectly represented this! There were the newly arrived immigrants who had left behind the traumatic events of World War II but bought the residual fears and memories. Even for those Australian characters there were past events that were very much affecting their current lives. For me, this aspect is a very interesting one when authors choose to explore it!

As I read this book I could not help but draw parallels to the immigrant experience being shown through the pages of this book and the current political situation. It is astounding to think that for a country that often prides itself on the welcoming and tolerant attitude towards multiculturalism, much of the propaganda and attitudes have stark parallels with the immigration questions of today. I don't doubt that this was a deliberate choice on the part of the author.

I did spend a lot of time as I was reading this book wondering why on earth the title wouldn't be something to do with Wattle Street, so I was glad that this issue was resolved towards the very end of the book!

This is my first time reading Diane Armstrong, but I intend to read more and it was a good, solid read. I liked her voice, I liked her characters and settings and I am looking forward to exploring more of her work.

Rating 4/5

Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins Australia for the e-galley.

**Please note**

If you are interested in reading this book, you can buy it online at Fishpondworld.com. You will have to pay our expensive book prices, but there is free international postage which will help a little!

Becoming Marie Antoinette (Marie Antoinette Trilogy, Book 1) by Juliet Grey

Becoming Marie Antoinette (Marie Antoinette Trilogy, Book 1) by Juliet Grey

Completion Date: August 30, 2011

Reason for reading: Received review copy from Ballantine Books via NetGalley.

This enthralling confection of a novel, the first in a new trilogy, follows the transformation of a coddled Austrian archduchess into the reckless, powerful, beautiful queen Marie Antoinette.

Why must it be me? I wondered. When I am so clearly inadequate to my destiny?

Raised alongside her numerous brothers and sisters by the formidable empress of Austria, ten-year-old Maria Antonia knew that her idyllic existence would one day be sacrificed to her mother’s political ambitions. What she never anticipated was that the day in question would come so soon.

Before she can journey from sunlit picnics with her sisters in Vienna to the glitter, glamour, and gossip of Versailles, Antonia must change everything about herself in order to be accepted as dauphine of France and the wife of the awkward teenage boy who will one day be Louis XVI. Yet nothing can prepare her for the ingenuity and influence it will take to become queen.

Filled with smart history, treacherous rivalries, lavish clothes, and sparkling jewels, Becoming Marie Antoinette will utterly captivate fiction and history lovers alike.

There was some popularity with Marie Antoinette books a couple years ago, but despite glancing in their direction I never really read any of them. This book had been making the blog rounds lately, though, and I was curious. It is the first book in a trilogy, so even though there will be a lot of info provided by the end, it is broken up into 3 books. I thought this was a lot more practical than the chunskters I have seen on the book store shelves about her.

It is obvious that the author did a lot of research for this book. She explains at the end of the book what was true and what was a bit of tweaking on her part. It makes for a very interesting look at one of France's tragic queens. Many people know the basic story of what happened to Marie Antoinette, but this book goes back and starts when she is just a little girl and then carries on to when she marries her prince and becomes the first lady of France. Her mother tried to prepare her the best that she could, but she was very young and naive. It was an over-whelming experience for her and sometimes she did not handle things very well. It is a lot of responsibility for one so young.

It was rather interesting to watch her transformation. In order to become the dauphine of France, they have a lot of criteria for her. She needs more education, for starters. This is something that never really works for her. When she goes to France she essentially has to leave everything of Austria behind, so she also has to work on her accent. Then, there is her appearance. By rights, Marie was a very pretty little girl, but she did not meet the standards of the French monarchy. She has to drastically change her hair styles, she has a man in who painfully straightens her teeth, and she really needs to develop more. She is very slow compared to her sisters and still has a way to go when she is deemed acceptable by France. Nothing will be easy for her. She is still so young, so it has always amazed me what these young monarchs must both endure and accomplish.

This book was really quite good and I am looking forward to the next book. I want to see what Marie Antoinette accomplishes next. With history, even though you know what is going to happen, a small part of you is hoping for a different outcome. I know it is silly, but I know what lays in store for Marie and her family. I still look forward to reading on. Juliet Grey has brought France alive in this book and I look forward to living in it again next year.

I recommend this book to both historical fiction fans, readers who love Paris, or simply reads that like a compelling story.

This book counts for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

Cross-posted at The Written World.

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

Completion Date: June 23, 2011

Reason for Reading: The Great Reading Swap of 2011 - Marg's List

BROOKLYN: Andi Alpers is on the edge. She’s angry at her father for leaving, angry at her mother for not being able to cope, and heartbroken by the loss of her younger brother, Truman. Rage and grief are destroying her. And she’s about to be expelled from Brooklyn Heights’ most prestigious private school when her father intervenes. Now Andi must accompany him to Paris for winter break.

PARIS: Alexandrine Paradis lived over two centuries ago. She dreamed of making her mark on the Paris stage, but a fateful encounter with a doomed prince of France cast her in a tragic role she didn’t want—and couldn’t escape.

Two girls, two centuries apart. One never knowing the other. But when Andi finds Alexandrine’s diary, she recognizes something in her words and is moved to the point of obsession. There’s comfort and distraction for Andi in the journal’s antique pages—until, on a midnight journey through the catacombs of Paris, Alexandrine’s words transcend paper and time, and the past becomes suddenly, terrifyingly present.

Jennifer Donnelly, author of the award-winning novel A Northern Light, artfully weaves two girls’ stories into one unforgettable account of life, loss, and enduring love. Revolution spans centuries and vividly depicts the eternal struggles of the human heart.

The Great Reading Swap is such a fun idea. It is too bad that I can't seem to get anything read of my lists! Even if I never finish the challenge, it would still be nice to read a few more of the books. I actually told Marg to include this because I wanted to buy it and I figured if I had to read it, that justified the purchase. I have read A Northern Light by Donnelly, but still haven't read her adult trilogy. I have had the first book on my TBR pile for years and it is also on my list from Marg. Right, so moving on to this book now.

I loved this book! Andi, a girl from the present time, stumbles across a diary hidden for generations unexpectedly. When she reads it she is connected with the life of Alexandrine Paradis and the struggles that she went through to save the life of a young prince. She was a very brave young woman. The little boy was the son of Marie Antoinette, and he loved fireworks. Alexandrine made sure that the entire time he was imprisoned, he saw them. She went to a lot of risk for a boy she only looked after for gain and not for any affection. She records everything in the diary that Andi finds and hopes that someone will find it and make a difference in the world when she is no longer able to.

Andi is having some troubles of her own. She is in Paris with her father. Her mother has admitted into a hospital because she is having a hard time dealing with the loss of her son. Then, her husband left and remarried. Andi has been looking after her mother and feeling guilty about the loss of her brother. She is on a path of self-destruction that her father thinks a change of scenery will cure. Her passion is music and she is expected to be working on her schools major paper that has a music connection. When she wants to go home and take care of her mother instead, her father says she can only if she finishes the outline. What happens is that her paper and Alexandrine's world connect in ways that Andi can never even possibly imagine.

One night Andi finds herself in the Catacombs with some friends. When the police arrive to break it up she becomes separated from the group and finds herself transported back in time to a very different Paris. Suddenly it is her that has to finish Alexandrine's work and take on all the dangers associated with that. Donnelly writes a wonderful blend of the history and the present. The characters come alive, the story in engaging, and who can complain about a book set in Paris. When Andi travels back in time it is done very believably and finishes the novel on an exciting note. In the beginning Andi was just reading about this girls adventures, but now she is living them. It made for great reading all around.

I am so happy that I read this book. I strongly recommend it and look forward to more from Donnelly in the future.

This book counts for the Great Reading Swap of 2011.

Cross-posted at The Written World.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec

(click here to see a larger version)

Set in Paris 1912, this is the story of an intrepid young journalist and novelist Adèle Blanc-Sec. We first see her in Egypt trying to find a particular mummy that she needs to find a cure for her sister who's comatose (Agathe was victim of an accident when she was younger). At the same time in a Parisian museum, a Pterodactyl eggs mysteriously hatches and the animal starts attacking people...

Adèle Blanc-Sec by Tardi is one of my favourite comic characters and her adventures are always a pleasure to (re)read. I've been waiting for this movie for several years, but somehow I remained a little bit sceptical when I learned that Luc Besson was directing it.


What didn't work for me? Well, many things actually. Let's start with Adèle. In the comics she is supposed to be an arrogant and politically incorrect young woman with a dry sense of humour who permanently harbors an annoyed look. Louise Bourgoin, despite her best efforts, couldn't bring the real character alive. Her jokes were flat (timing, oh the timing ), her acting seems forced and the way she mechanically delivers her lines is almost tragic... I couldn't see anything of Adèle Blanc-Sec in her and that really spoiled the movie for me. The actress is cute, her costumes lovely but that was it.

I read somewhere that Luc Besson, didn't think that the original Adèle (the arrogant and tough gal) would appeal to the feminine public, so he decided to give the character a more tender and sensitive side. I didn't get this, I really didn't. It seems that strong women continue having trouble finding their place in cinema. Of course you can be sensitive and strong, but it seems you cannot be strong and sensitive (and if you are, it needs to be obvious to everyone around you).

Most of the other secondary characters were boring cliches who didn't hold any appeal, especially when they tried to be comic. There was some bad timing going on there as well ! The only exception was Dieuleveult, the creepy Egyptologist played by Matthieu Almaric, who gives us a great performance. It's unfortunate that his screen time was so short, since he steals every scene he's in and I could feel Almaric was enjoying the role.

The particular dark and mysterious Parisian atmosphere from the books was forgotten, and if there is another important character in this comic series besides Adèle, it's the city of Paris. We still get lovely views here and there, but they didn't make me think about Adèle's Paris.

Many things that I enjoy in the comics were either changed or ignored. I could look pass this if, despite its differences with the original series, the story was strong and captivating or even funny. In the end, it was, at my eyes, a complete failure.

I cannot say that I hated the movie, but it came very close. If you are a Tardi fan, this is not for you. If this is your first Adèle Blanc-Sec experience, it might be a pleasant Saturday evening movie.

Official website: http://www.adeleblancsec-lefilm.com/_en/

The Historical Fiction Challenge- September Reviews

In August, we collectively read 89 books! That makes our total for 2011 so far, 661 books!

There is still time to join the challenge, go to Historical Fiction Reading Challenge to sign up and then come back to leave your links each month.  There is a new post for your links each month.

Please leave your links for your August reviews in Mr. Linky, below or, if you don't have a blog, in the comments below.

*Note: if you missed posting your links last month, please always post "late" links in the current month's Mr. Linky.  For example, if you forgot to post a link in February, please post it on this Mr. Linky in this post.