Historical Tapestry

Phryne Fisher comes to TV

2012-01-25T11:54:00.001Z

I don't watch a lot of TV. Don't get me wrong. It is always on, but usually just in the background. Even when there is something I think I would like I tend to record it and never actually get around to watching it! I am however sure that will not happen when Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher is shown after being adapted for TV as a series! I have been trying to find a dedicated trailer but haven't been able to. Instead, you can see a short glimpse of the series in this clip, starting at 1:50.

As soon as there is a proper trailer I will be sure to share it.

Based on just that glimpse the casting seems pretty good, it looks good so hopefully it is!

Along with the TV series, the books in the series are all being rereleased with tie-in covers. Over the years there have been a lot of different cover incarnations for this series. Some have been good, some not quite so! I thought it would be fun to do a bit of a comparison of a couple of the books showing you the cover that my book had when I read it, then my favourites which are the cartoon style covers (oh so much fun and totally fitting the series in my opinion and then the TV tie in.

The first book in the series is Cocaine Blues and here are the three covers:

And here are the covers for the fourth book in the series, Death at Victoria Dock:

To see more of the new TV tie in covers check out http://www.phrynefisher.com/

Affinity by Sarah Waters

2012-01-23T04:30:00.001Z

An upper-class woman, recovering from a suicide attempt, visits the women's ward of Millbank prison as part of her rehabilitation. There she meets Selina, an enigmatic spiritualist-and becomes drawn into a twilight world of ghosts and shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions, until she is at last driven to concoct a desperate plot to secure Selina's freedom, and her own.

"Unfolds sinuously and ominously...a powerful plot-twister. The book is multidimensional: a naturalistic look at Victorian society; a truly suspenseful tale of terror; and a piece of elegant, thinly veiled erotica." (USA Today)

"Gothic tale, psychological study, puzzle narrative-Sarah Waters' second novel is all of these wrapped into one, served up to superbly suspenseful and hypnotic effect." (The Seattle Times)

Today Marg and I have decided to review Affinity by Sarah Waters together. Enjoy!

Kelly: I am always happy to pick-up a book by Sarah Waters. What did you think of this book overall? What made you choose it over the other Sarah Waters that you haven’t read yet?

Marg: Actually, this is my first Sarah Waters, so the main reason for choosing it is that it is one of the Waters books that you haven’t read! How many have you read and how did this one compare to the others that you have read?

Kelly: Really? I totally had it in my mind that you read The Night Watch. Well, you are in for some treats! I really liked The Night Watch because it takes place during WWII. I knew little to nothing about Sarah Waters, but the setting appealed to me and I decided that I had to read it. Then, I actually discovered that Waters was very popular and I had been missing out. The other book I read by her was Fingersmith. It seemed a lot different than The Night Watch. If I remember correctly, it has been a while, The Night Watch started from the end and went to the beginning. There were no real mysteries compared to the atmospheric novel Fingersmith. This book was a lot more like Fingersmith, though. It was gothic in nature, there were twists and turns (but not like Fingersmith), and you may or may not know how it was going to all play out in the end. I really enjoyed it, though. Fingersmith remains my favourite, though, and I just feel like The Night Watch is not something that really can be compared because it is different.

What did you think of this book as your first taste of Sarah Waters, then?

Marg: I own Night Watch. Just haven’t read it yet!

I thought I had a fair idea of what to expect from a Sarah Waters book, but I found it quite a bit more literary than I thought it would be! The topic itself (spiritualism in the late 19th century) was fascinating but the strength of the book really was towards the end. The tension built and I couldn’t wait to see what happened.

Kelly: I consider that her true talent. She writes interesting beginnings, but as the book gets going it really comes into its own and you are flipping the pages to find out just what is going to happen next. So far I have enjoyed that with all of them.

I agree with this book that spiritualism in the late 19th century was a very interesting topic. She wrote so well that once in a while I almost believed in spiritualism. I was curious about how it was all going to be explained out in the end.

What did you think of the characters?

Marg: i thought the characters were really well done. The major characters were all multi faceted and I thought that the way that the reliability of the two main characters was written was interesting. In a way, our main character Margaret seemed to be a bit of an unreliable narrator. We knew that she had had an illness (as described in the book) and she seemed to be unsure of herself, and especially of the things that were happening to her. She seemed to strengthen through the novel though. I felt so sorry for her at the end, especially in the light of the restrictions placed on women in Victorian society, especially those who don’t fit the mould of what is seen to be normal.

With Selina’s past story interwoven through the narrative, I certainly started off with the assumption that she was a charlatan and yet as the spooky events started her character was so compelling it was hard to have doubts about her!

I thought that the setting in the Victorian prison was totally a character in this book. The atmosphere was dark and brooding and very claustrophobic and the various warders helped create that feeling as well.

Were there any of the episodes that Selina caused that were a bit scary to you?

Kelly: I thought the characters were well done, too. Sarah Waters is very gifted at writing characters that stick with you long after finishing the book. Margaret and Selina are two such characters. I felt bad for Margaret. She was a lesbian in Victorian England. It was not exactly the accepted lifestyle. The first woman she loved married her brother and then the events of her relationship with Selina were heart-breaking at times. That was not exactly apparent from the beginning, but as we began to know Margaret better it became more apparent. This is the saddest book I have read by Waters so far.

I agree. I never entirely trusted Selina, but the events she conducted were explained in such detail it was hard to see them as untrustworthy. I think that is what makes a gifted charlatan. If she wasn’t good at what she did; she would not have any customers. She was gifted at selling her act and making people feel compelled to do things for her. She just basically creeped me out, though. I am thinking it was because I had read Waters in past and knew there were usually major plot changes that lead me to not entirely trust Selina. There were just moments where I couldn’t entirely explain why what she was saying was a lie. I look at all the episodes that Selina caused as a whole and think she was just scary in general. She seemed like such an innocent, but there was a calculating mind behind everything she did. She was gifted at manipulating.

Did you think the book was believable for the time in which it was set and the events that occurred?

Marg: I definitely thought it reflected the time it was set in. To be a women in Victorian times was restrictive enough, let alone a lesbian woman, and throw in her health issues and it is no wonder that she was quite unhappy at times. I can’t help but be anxious that she is going to continue to be very unhappy after the events at the end of the book, and having to face her family will be difficult for her.

Do you like the diary entry format of the story?

Kelly: As long as it is done well, I really like diary-style books. They are never entirely believable because who remembers such exacting details from their day and writes in their diaries like that, but I think it was handled well. It showed enough of the story to see what was going on and that is the important thing. I also enjoyed that it was alternating between two people and their diaries. I think it wouldn’t have been the same story if the reader didn’t get to see both sides.

Marg: There are some diary books that are great to read, but there are others that aren’t! I was relieved to see that this was one of the good ones!

Kelly: What did you think of the relationships between the characters? Did you think they were believable?

Marg: I actually thought the relationships between the characters were really well drawn, especially the difficult relationship between Margaret and her now sister-in-law. If there was one character I did struggle with a little it would be Margaret’s mother, but I have no doubt that she was acting completely within the social and moral restrictions of the time.

Which relationships did you think were written well, or not as the case may be?

Kelly: Yes, the relationship between Margaret and her sister-in-law was very interesting. It was a nice addition to add a bit of sympathy to your view of Margaret. It must be even worse when you have a relationship with someone and not only does it not work out, but they marry your brother so you have to see them all the time. I don’t think you were meant to like Margaret’s mother. And, yes, she was probably very realistic for her time. Another relationship that was interesting was the one between Margaret and her father. He is dead at the time the book is set, but he is mentioned so much he really is another character in the book. I felt bad because it seemed that he encouraged Margaret to be a bit different and then he died before she actually got to live out her dreams. It left her with no real ally in the world. It was just interesting because of the time period and the expectations of the time. And it was another way that I felt badly for Margaret.

Obviously the big relationship in the book was the one between Margaret and Selina. What did you think of that relationship?

Marg: I found it interesting and appreciated the way that the relationship built up over time. I do think that Selina was extremely adept at manipulating the emotions of those around her, not only with Margaret, but also with so many other of the characters (mostly female) that we met through the course of the book. This manipulative ability combined with her evident charisma and somewhat dodgy moral character seems to lend itself to a fascinating character to read about.

Margaret would seem to be someone who would be an easy target for this kind of person though. She is already emotionally fragile, definitely aware of her apartness (for the want of a better word) from most other Victorian ladies of her social standing, and therefore the idea of acceptance from someone, from anyone, is one that she desperately clings to and in the short term at least is empowered by.

How did you read their relationship, both throughout the book and in the context of the end of the book?

****SPOILER ALERT****

Kelly: I have to admit that having read Sarah Waters twice before I was thinking there was something coming. I knew that things were not at all as they seemed, so I was very suspicious of the whole relationship. I just didn’t understand how their friendship would help Selina get out of jail. There were details that were not revealed to us until the end of the book. I was happy about that because then I was legitimately surprised. I love surprises in books. The Night Watch was a different sort of book, but Fingersmith had many surprises in store. I was able to figure out a couple of them, but there were still other twists and turns that caught me unaware. When an author can do that I know they are someone I am meant to be reading.

To get back to your actual question, Selina sort of creeped me out. As the book was told we were able to see her side of things. I always rather looked on people with her ‘abilities’ as con artists, but that is my personal opinion. As a result I read all of her sections with much scepticism. I didn’t entirely know the whole story, but I knew that things were likely a bit biased and things were being left out. I was still surprised by the connections in the story, but that is what I enjoy so much about books by this author.

What did you think?

Marg:I was absolutely sceptical about Serena and her talents all the way through, but as we were getting towards the end of the book I couldn’t quite see how she was doing the things she was doing. The solution made perfect sense though!

Overall,I am glad to have finally read my first Sarah Waters and I am looking forward to reading the next one which I think will probably be Night Watch given that I have owned that one for a couple of years.

Kelly: I hope you enjoy The Night Watch. It is a bit different from this one. I enjoyed reading this one together, though. I look forward to more Sarah Waters in the future and more buddy reads.

Sasmira, La fausse note by Laurent Vicomte, Claude Pelet and Patricia Faucon

2012-01-20T19:34:00.003Z

First of all, this comic is in French, and, to my knowledge there's only a portuguese and spanish edition.

Fourteen very long years after Sasmira, L'Appel, the second volume was finally released a couple of months ago. I cannot even express how excited I was when I saw the book for the first time. For a few minutes, I held it in my hands admiring the cover, like I just couldn't believe it was true !

The story continues in the beginning of the 20th century, where Bertille and Stan are still trying to adapt to this new era. Both are desperate to find out how they found themselves in another time. Prudence, the house owner who seems to accept the couple's time travel quite easily, tries to help them the best she can.

The beautiful and mysterious Sasmira has Stan completely under her spell. This really annoys Bertille, who jealous of her boyfriend's admiration, always find herself in some funny (and sometimes dangerous) situations.
The author's really captured the character of Sasmira: beautiful, attractive, but intimidating and cold. You are drawn to her and repelled at the same time.

We learn more about Prudence's life and her odd relationship with Sasmira (finally !). There are quite a few surprises and not at all predictable. This is certainly one of the strong aspects of this series, you never know what to expect.

Other new characters join the story and while everything seems to get more complex and captivating, it also develops rather slowly. Or maybe after so many years, I want to know more about that Sasmira who seems to manipulate everyone around her.

Image credit BD Actu

To see more drawings, you can visit BD Gest'

The collaboration between Vicomte and Petel gives us some incredibly gorgeous drawings and a real care for detail. It's impossible not to enjoy this volume, especially if you are already a fan of the Sasmira, l'Appel. In the other hand, while I did enjoy La fausse note, I have to say that the long wait and the slow paced story were sometimes very frustrating. Now, I only hope the third volume will not be published in 15 years...

Grade: 4/5

I'll leave you with the trailer:

SASMIRA T2 / Bande-annonce par GLENATBD

Mad for Downton

2012-01-13T16:37:00.000Z

One of the historical fiction crazes sweeping the nations is the very popular Downton Abbey. In response to the craze, book companies have been recommending and publishing books to appeal to the fans. They think that the people that watch the show tend to be literary types and since we are all here, we thought we would share the article that was published in The New York Times, in case you missed it. Be prepared to add to your TBR pile if the time period of the show appeals to you at all.

You can read the article by clicking here.

What books can you think of that were previously published and serve as good companion pieces to the popular show?

The Titanic - Acknowledging the 100th Year Anniversary

2012-01-10T04:08:00.001Z

On April 14 - 15, 1912 the Ocean Liner Titanic began its descent to the ocean's bottom. Now, 100 years later, the written world is acknowledging the centennial coming up in April. Some of the books I have found so far are:

The Captain's Daughter by Leah Feming - January 12, 2012 (Simon & Schuster)
According to the Historical Novel Society: 'a meeting on the Titanic changes changes two women's lives forever.'

The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott - February, 2012 (Doubleday)
According to the Historical Novel Society: 'a spirited young seamstress survives the Titanic only to find herself deeply torn between two men.'

Unsinkable by Dan James - March, 2012 (Arrow)
According to the Historical Novel Society: 'conspiracy thriller set aboard the Titanic'.

The Company of the Dead by David Kowalski - March, 2012 (Titan)
According to the Historical Novel Society: 'alternate history surrounding the sinking of the Titanic.'

The Candle Man: A Victorian Thriller by Alex Scarrow - April, 2012 (Orion)
According to the Historical Novel Society: 'story linking the Titanic and Jack the Ripper.'

I have always read books with a Titanic connection, so I am excited about all the new books out in 2012. What Titanic-related books have you read that you recommend?

All That I Am: A Novel by Anna Funder

2012-01-07T08:38:00.000Z

Ruth Becker, defiant and cantankerous, is living out her days in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. She has made an uneasy peace with the ghosts of her past - and a part of history that has been all but forgotten.

Another lifetime away, it's 1939 and the world is going to war. Ernst Toller, self-doubting revolutionary and poet sits in a New York hotel room settling up the account of his life.

When Toller's story arrives on Ruth's doorstep their shared past slips under her defences, and she's right back among them - those friends who predicted the brutality of the Nazis and gave everything they had to stop them. Those who were tested - and in some cases found wanting - in the face of hatred, of art, of love, and of history.

Based on real people and events, All That I Am is a masterful and exhilarating exploration of bravery and betrayal, of the risks and sacrifices some people make for their beliefs, and of heroism hidden in the most unexpected places. Anna Funder confirms her place as one of our finest writers with this gripping, compassionate, inspiring first novel.

As you may or may not know, I find the subjects of World War I and World War II to be completely fascinating. I love reading about the bravery of people who were put in desperate situations, about the relationships that they formed under such duress and so much more. Many of the stories that I have read and enjoyed over the years have taken place against the background of Nazi atrocities against the Jews and other minorities, and often feature those local people who took up against the oppressors in any way they could, often at great personal risk.

It is very easy to forget that those tools of oppression were turned first against the Germans themselves - those people who tried to oppose Hitler's regime as it came to power, again often at great personal cost. The first concentration camps were built not house Jews, but to house the growing numbers of political opponents in the 1930s.

Australian author Anna Funder has chosen to tell this story - one that I can't remember hearing much about before. Her story takes place during the 1930s as Hitler came to power. She chooses two storytellers to reveal the events that were happening - the first is Ernst Toller who is in a New York hotel room in 1939 writing his autobiography and the second is Ruth Becker, an elderly lady who is living in Sydney and who receives a copy of Toller's book bringing back all sorts of memories from those turbulent years - memories of those she loved, those she lost, those she was betrayed by.

And yet, even though Funder has these two different perspectives relating the events of that time to us, neither Toller or Ruth are the central character. That honour belongs to Dora Fabian who is Ruth's cousin and Toller's former employee and lover. Even both Toller and Ruth acknowledge this (from page 358):

Toller was always kind to me, but it was clear he inhabited a different sphere. I was neither beautiful nor important enough to occupy a place in his world. But he did not send me this life of his with Dora put back in because I am her cousin. He has sent it because we had her in common. We were the two for whom she was the sun. We moved in her orbit and the force of her kept us going.

Ruth and her husband Hans, Toller, and Dora are all part of the vociferous opponents that the Nazis need to silence, anyway they can. Even when in exile though, they seek to keep trying to inform the world of the dangers of allowing Hitler to continue to reinforce his power unchecked.

Dora herself seemed to be quite the amazing figure. She took risks that seem quite unbelievable and yet the fact that they are true adds a great deal of poignancy. She loved freely if not always deeply, lived life to the full as much as possible and was able to gain access to some of the most influential people of her time in London and beyond in the course of her efforts to shed light on events taking place in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s.

I have to wonder what the author was trying to achieve by having Dora as the central character but using the two different voices to relate the events. They both did bring different aspects of the story to life, but at times their own stories distracted rather than enhanced the narrative. Of the two, I found Ruth's most interesting, especially in light of her story of how she came to be in Australia.

Most of the characters and events are based on real life which should lend the story a great deal more fascination, and yet for me, the narrative really didn't work all that well until probably the last third of the book. In that section, the adrenalin was pumping just a little bit as I realised who the ultimate betrayal would come from, what the final events of the book were going to be. Before that, however, I found the pace of the novel to be quite slow and ponderous and it was difficult to maintain all that much interest. There is some promise in the novel though. The author does have some lovely turns of phrase and seems to be able to identify forgotten stories that are very interesting.

Anna Funder enjoyed great success with her first book, Stasiland, which was a non-fiction account of life behind the Berlin Wall. Whilst this novel didn't work for me on every level, I will be making an effort to read Stasiland as I have heard lots of good things about it.

Why I Love Dance by Daphne Kalotay

2012-01-05T04:01:00.005Z

Today we are pleased to welcome Daphne Kalotay, author of Russian Winter to the blog!

~~~~~~~

When people ask why I chose to write a novel about a ballerina, I give the simplest answer: I love dance. My mother was a dancer, and I grew up taking classes in both ballet and modern dance, attending performances in New York City and reading ballerina memoirs. And yet if I consider this question more thoroughly, I see that my interest originated in a very personal behind-the-scenes experience of dance.

When I was three years old, we moved to a town in New Jersey where my mother had been hired as the dance teacher at a local university. The classes she taught were contemporary ones, the musical accompaniment her own percussive drumming or—since this was in the 1970s—recordings by Rick Wakeman and Kraftwerk and Chick Corea. Each academic year culminated in a public performance, and the weeks leading up to it were a flurry of preparation. I particularly loved that my mother would buy candy for the dancers to snack on backstage, and that my sister and I were allowed a taste; I recall long strands of licorice from a store downtown….

But the most magical part was being backstage, a dark and cavernous place of booms and ladders and high ceilings hiding wires, pulleys and lifts; to a kindergartner, it seemed other-worldly. I was with my mother once when she met with the person in charge of campus facilities to explain what sort of transformations the theatre required for an upcoming show. She wanted the entire stage and backdrop to be painted black (which I thought radical), and later there was the lighting to discuss, and the cues for when to start the music. In my memory these backstage images are dark and blurry, but their sensual power—the allure of what goes on behind the curtains, behind the control panels and speaker systems—is, I see now, what drew me to that other backstage world, of the Bolshoi Theatre. Yes, I loved learning the nitty-gritty details of ballerina life, but more mysterious were the unseen, offstage manipulations of a Stalinist Russia where star ballerinas could be treated as possible spies, their husbands arrested and convicted, even as these women received accolades and repeated curtain calls and bouquet after bouquet.

When I had already been working on Russian Winter for a few years, I realized that, though I hadn’t consciously planned it, ballet was a very apt metaphor for the totalitarian world I was describing. For there’s of course something very authoritarian about ballet, with its stringent rules, its emphasis on exactitude, and the complete devotion it requires. I began to see the corps de ballet (all those girls working together so precisely, conforming, suppressing their individuality for the greater good) as an analogy for the situation of Soviet citizenry itself.

So it’s ironic that my interest in dance began in those 1970s dance performances my mother put together. I remember, for instance, an entire show set to Beatles music, where for the song “Lovely Rita” (the one about a meter maid) my mother decided to end with all the dancers converging onstage in a chaos of transport vehicles—a bicycle, a tricycle, a skateboard, a pogo stick, a Hoppety-hop ball. (Remember those?) And for her solo, to “Oh! Darling,” my mother dressed like a 1950’s tomboy, with her jeans rolled up to her shins and little white Keds sneakers, and danced with a wad of chewing gum in her mouth so that at the end she could blow a big bubble.

Quite the opposite of the pristine, classical beauty of those Bolshoi dancers. But that introduction to the joyous playfulness of dance is what led me to that other, harsher and more dangerous, world in Russian Winter.

~~~~~~~~~

Russian Winter is now available in paperback, with the UK release (above cover image) being today!

If you want to know more, you can read Marg's review, read Daphne's previous guest post for Historical Tapestry, visit Daphne Kalotay's website or her Facebook page.

Eagerly Anticipating in 2012

2012-01-04T00:01:00.001Z

Marg's Choice - Voice of the Falconer by David Blixt

I was a huge fan of Master of Verona by David Blixt to the extent that I have posted my review of that book here at Historical Tapestry and twice on my own blog! I think I have also strongly recommended this book to a number of my fellow readers. (Yes, I am one of those people who strongly suggests that others read certain books!)

For a long time it looked like this book was not going to see the light of day, but hurrah! this year it will be published. It won't have the cover above, which is a pity because it is a gorgeous cover, but I am even more excited by the contents of the book than the fact that this won't be the cover after all!

_____________________________________________

Alex's choice - The Second Empress by Michelle Moran

The minute I read the blurb, I wanted this book, I craved for it ! I'm not a big fan of Napoleon (never was, never will !) but a book about his second wife, Marie-Louise, is certainly a must read for me. I can't wait for the release of The Second Empress. You can read more about it at Michelle Moran's website: http://michellemoran.com/books/releases.html

_____________________________________________

Ana's choice - The Perfume Garden by Kate Lord Brown

There's something about restoring old houses full of secrets that I just can't seem to resist. The fact that Kate Lord Brown's next book adds to that a Spanish Civil War secret is the cherry on top of the cake. I haven't read her first book, although it was reviewed here at HT and it seemed interesting, but I know I'll have to pick this one up when it comes out. Sadly there's no cover image but I will add it when I find it.

_____________________________________________

Teddy's Choice- Sarah Thornhill by Kate Grenville

In the final book of a trilogy that began with her bestselling novel, The Secret River, Commonwealth Prize–winner Kate Grenville returns to the youngest daughter of the Thornhills and her quest to uncover, at her peril, the family’s hidden legacy.

Sarah is the youngest child of William Thornhill, the pioneer at the center of The Secret River. Unknown to her, her father—an uneducated ex-convict from London—has built his fortune on the blood of Aboriginal people. With a fine stone house and plenty of money, Thornhill has re-invented himself. As he tells his daughter, he “never looks back,” and Sarah grows up learning not to ask about the past. Instead her eyes are on handsome Jack Langland, whom she’s loved since she was a child. Their romance seems destined, but the ugly secret in Sarah’s family is poised to ambush them both.

As she did with The Secret River, Grenville once again digs into her own family history to tell a story about the past that still resonates today. Driven by the captivating voice of the illiterate Sarah—at once headstrong, sympathetic, curious, and refreshingly honest—this is an unforgettable portrait of a passionate woman caught up in a historical moment of astonishing turmoil.

_____________________________________________

Kailana's Choice - Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear

I love this series, so I am always excited for the newest release.

In this latest entry in Jacqueline Winspear’s acclaimed, bestselling mystery series—“less whodunits than why-dunits, more P.D. James than Agatha Christie” (USA Today)—Maisie Dobbs takes on her most personal case yet, a twisting investigation into the brutal killing of a street peddler that will take her from the working-class neighborhoods of her childhood into London’s highest circles of power. Perfect for fans of A Lesson in Secrets, The Mapping of Love and Death, or other Maisie Dobbs mysteries—and an ideal place for new readers to enter the series—Elegy for Eddie is an incomparable work of intrigue and ingenuity, full of intimate descriptions and beautifully painted scenes from between the World Wars, from one of the most highly acclaimed masters of mystery, Jacqueline Winspear.

_____________________________________________

What are your eagerly anticipated reads for 2012?

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2012 - January

2012-01-03T21:08:00.000Z

It's now 2012 and time to start our challenge! Each month, a new post dedicated to the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge will be created. Let's remember the rules:

everyone can participate, even those who don't have a blog (you can add your book title and thoughts in the comment section if you wish)
add the link(s) of your review(s) including your name and book title to the Mister Linky we’ll be adding to our monthly post (please, do not add your blog link, but the correct address that will guide us directly to your review)
any kind of historical fiction is accepted (fantasy, young adult, graphic novels...)

See you next month !

The Historical Fiction Challenge 2011- Wrap Up

2012-01-02T20:36:00.000Z

In December, we collectively read 60 books! That makes our grand total for 2011, 902 books!! Wow, that`s 902 books read and reviewed!

Thanks so much from Marg, Alex, Ana, Kelly, and Teddy to everone who particpated in the challenge!

The December post still has Mr. Linky working for those of you who haven`t had time to add your books read in 2011 yet. Also be sure to leave a link in the comments here or there if you did a wrap up post of the challenge yourself.

If you haven`t already heard, Historical Tapestry is hosting the challenge again in 2012. We hope you will join us! Please sign up at Historical Fiction Challenge 2012.

Kailana's Best of 2011

2012-01-02T00:01:00.000Z

I actually didn't read a lot of historical fiction and historical non-fiction this year compared to other years. What I did read, though, was wonderful! If I had to choose a favourite fiction and non-fiction, though, it would be:

Best Historical-Fiction Title:

The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin. You can read my review of this book here.

Best Historical Non-Fiction:

Resistance: A Woman's Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France by Agnes Humbert. You can read my review of it here.

Spitfire Women of World War II by Giles Whittell. Yes, a tie, but you can read my review of this book here.

I thought I had reviewed both of those books here, but I apparently did not..

Other Notable Reads:
The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley
The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Beauty Chorus by Kate Lord Brown
A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear
The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay

Alex's Best of 2011

2012-01-01T09:00:00.001Z

For the King was one of my favourite books in 2010 and Catherine Delors winned me completely over (well, it was already done with For the King !) with Gabrielle's story. Days and months after reading Mistress of Revolution, I was still thinking about it. This is definately something I would recommend to all history lovers. Can't wait for the next one !

A young adult historical fantasy timeslip. This was enough to get my attention and I'm glad to say that I had a great time reading Ruby Red. I only wish that I could read german or the publishers would rush a little bit more to get the second book, Sapphire Blue, in stores. :)

Other books I enjoyed this year:

Dark Road to Darjeeling by Deanna Raybourn (one of my favourite series)
By The King's Design by Christine Trent (just finished and this book was a great way to end the year in a high note)

Teddy's Best of 2011

2011-12-31T07:35:00.000Z

Here are my best books of the year:

To Defy a King by Elizabeth Chadwick: To nobody's surprise here, Elizabeth Chadwick has become a favorite author of mine just within the last 2 years. For years, my colleagues here at H.T. had been telling me that I had to read her books and I finally listened. To Defy a King was published here in North America in March 2011. Here is the link to my review. It will be posted here on H.T. soon.

Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick: Honest, these are my top two books of 2011! Here is the link to my review. It will be posted here on H.T. soon.

Other notable historical fiction books I read this year included:

Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna

The Arrow Chest by Robert Parry

The Betrayal of Maggie Blair by Elizabeth Laird

Deadly: How to Catch an Invisible Killer by Julie Chibbaro

Stranger Here Below by Joyce Hinnefeild

Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Oregon Trail: The Road to Destiny by Frank young

Ana's Best Books of 2011

2011-12-30T17:22:00.000Z

My life went through some big changes this year and, unlike previous years, I read very little. None of my reads were truly exceptional but I would like to mention two books that were my favourite historical fiction reads in 2011:

The Black Pearl by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles - The Morland dinasty series has a huge amount of books and I am still in the first volumes. I have been enjoying learning about british history through their story and it's definetely a series I would like to continue reading. You can find my review here.

A Vision of Light by Judith Merkle Riley - I really enjoyed reading the story of Margaret of Ashbury. It's a book I postponed reading several times because a few years ago I tried another one by Merkle Riley and it didn't appeal to me. Now I'm glad that I finally took the plunge and read it because the other two books in the trilogy about Margaret of Ashbury just went into my wish list. You can find my review here.

As you can easily guess from my choices I didn't read any recent books. Sadly I didn't even manage to read the book I was eagerly anticipating at the end of last year - Elizabeth Chadwick's Lady of the English. To read it is going to be one of my goals for 2012.

Marg's Best books of 2011

2011-12-29T23:25:00.000Z

Here are my best books of this year.

The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley - I made a comment somewhere recently saying that I thought I was genetically predisposed to liking Susanna Kearsley's books, and this book was no exception! I loved it from beginning to end and literally gasped out loud at the twist in the tale. Whilst The Winter Sea is still my favourite maybe because it was my first read by her, this one comes close in terms of favourites. (My review)

Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick - Elizabeth Chadwick is one of my favourite authors, so it isn't a surprise to see her appear on a best of list, but I do think that she is getting better and better! This book is about the war between Empress Matilda and her cousin Stephen, but it is also about so much more. No one brings medieval times to life like Elizabeth Chadwick. One of the not so great things about 2012 is that there isn't going to be a new Chadwick book. We have to wait until 2013 for the first book in her Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy.

I have posted on my blog about the other books that I loved this year, and even have a giveaway running for one of them!

Other notable historical fiction books I read this year included;

Wallaby Track by Aaron Fletcher
The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore
Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay
Emily by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Angelique in Love by Sergeanne Golon
Imperial Highness by Evelyn Anthony
The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber
Camp Nine by Vivienne Schiffer
Lost and Found by Marilyn Harris
Wildflower Hill by Kimberley Freeman

A war time Christmas

2011-12-23T09:44:00.000Z

The last quote in this series comes from Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. Her book tells of a young Olympian who is taken as a prisoner of war during World War II. Not only did I choose this passage because of the sentiment within the context of the the book, but also to take a moment to honour those who will be away from their families this Christmas because they are serving their countries.

From page 215 of Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

In December 1943, the family prepared to celebrate their first Christmas without Louie. The mailman knocked at the door each day to deliver a harvest of cards and letters, most of them offering sympathy. The holiday tree was strung with popcorn and cranberries, and beneath it sat a collection of gifts for Louie. The gifts would be tucked away in the belief that one day, Louie would come home to open them himself.

Louise bought a little Christmas card depicting a cherub in a red dress blowing a horn as she stood surrounded by lambs. Inside she wrote a message:

Dear Louis. Where ever you are, I know you want us to think of you as well and safe. May God be with you + guide you.Love from all. Mother Dad Pete Sylvia and Virginia. Christmas 25-43

Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer

2011-12-22T00:07:00.003Z

Murder Comes Home For Christmas

The halls of Lexham Manor were decked with holly, the stockings were hung by the chimney with care, and the old Scrooge who owned the estate was stabbed in the upstairs bedroom. For Inspector Hemingway of Scotland Yard 'twas the season to find whodunit. All six holiday guests had a motive to commit murder. But not one of them could have entered the locked room to do it. And Hemingway soon discovered that this time the proof wasn't in the pudding. It was a turkey of a play, a ham performer, and a plum of an inheritance...

Although I consider myself a Georgette Heyer fan the truth is that, till now, I had only read some of her Regencies and Georgian novels. This was my first mystery by her and presents a totally different style. It's a contemporary (it was first published in 1941) whodunit!

Several members of the Herriard family and their friends meet at an english country house to celebrate Christmas. While they all attend, no one seems particularly fond of the others or happy to be spending time in their company. The head-of-the family, and owner of the country house, is a tyrannical old man who doesn't seem to get along with his family members. In fact when he is found dead in a locked room it seems many of them had a reason for murder. Enter Inspector Hemingway and a few fellow policemen to interrogate everyone and solve the case.

Despite loving mysteries, and most of the other Heyer's I've read I have to confess that this was not an easy read. I had some trouble at first remembering all the characters and their relationship with each other and the dead man. Then the characters were disagreeable and quarrelsome, the servants were equally disagreeable and uninteresting and I actually had to force myself to continue reading.

I am glad that I did though because in the end I rather liked the way how Inspector Hemingway found the culprit. I am sorry though that we didn't get to spend more time with him. I like to have a main character that I may like and follow through the story and he was the prime candidate, as the one investigating, but we never get more than a glimpse of his past life.

The final twist with the book connection was quite funny though, it felt the answer was there all along and we were just too blind to see it. And that not everyone was as silly as it seemed.

I do plan to read other Heyer mysteries in the future but I do hope they will be easier reads than this one and with more interesting stories.

Grade: 3/5

Christmas 2011: Quotes from The Empress of Ice Cream by Anthony Capella

2011-12-21T05:43:00.008Z

One of the fascinating things about reading historical fiction is seeing how differently things that we take for granted now were treated in the past. I found this passage interesting as it is set at the time of the Restoration to the English throne of Charles II, not long after the Commonwealth ended. During this time, the celebrating of holy and feast days associated with the Catholic church was frowned upon, including Christmas.

This passage comes from page 243 of Anthony Capella's The Empress of Ice Cream

I told Elias we would be spending the winter out at Hampton and his face fell.

"What is it, boy?"

He said hesitantly, "It is just that we will miss Christmas."

"Elias!" his mother said, overhearing. "Christmas! What is this I hear?"

He hung his head in shame. "Some of the other children are saying that it will be a holiday."

Without asking my permission, she whisked him off into a corner. I thought she must be scolding him over his lack of enthusiasm for his work, until I realised that her objection was a different one. She was trying to speak quietly, but anger made her voice carry.

"... bad enought that you work for a papist. But I will not be celebrating papist festivals as well. Now be off with you, and no more talk of Christmas."

and then later....

"You don't celebrate Christmas, I take it?" I said neutrally.

"We do not."

"May I ask the reason?'

"Under the Protector, it was seen that there was no need for it."

"Whereas the Protector's own birthday, no doubt, was a public holiday?"

She glared at me. "Show me where in the Gospels it says that December the twenty-fifth is Christ's birthday, and we will celebrate it. Until then the Sabbath is enough Lord's Day for us."

A Christmas Grace by Anne Perry

2011-12-20T00:02:00.001Z

With Christmas approaching, Emily Radley, Charlotte’s sister is suddenly called from London to be with her dying aunt. Alone, she makes the journey to Connemara, on the west coast of Ireland. A tragic legacy haunts this close-knit community and a lone shipwreck survivor threatens to unlock old wounds, but also to offer a solution to an old crime and bring peace and resolution to the community.

For a couple of years now that Anne Perry's Christmas books have been a favourite read of mine during the Holiday Season. They are historical mysteries, usually featuring characters of her most famous series, and they deal with themes like redemption, forgiveness, love, family bonds... all those feelings usually related to the festive period.

In A Christmas Grace the main character is Emily Radley, Charlotte Pitt's sister (from the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series). Despite looking forward to the Christmas season in London, she finds herself travelling to Connemara in Ireland at the request of an estranged Aunt who is gravelly ill.

Aunt Susannah leaves in a coastal village and soon Emily gets to meet its few inhabitants. There's a general sense of fear over a coming storm and Emily can't help but wonder why they are so worried. When the storm finally comes there is a shipwreck and only one man is saved. The villagers reaction leaves Emily puzzled until she finds out that 7 years before another ship was wrecked and another man was saved... one that was later murdered by someone from the village... Susannah's request is that Emily discovers who did murder that man 7 years ago so that peace can come to te village once more.

Emily, who had been missing the mysteries she was involved in with her sister in the past, starts her own investigation of who the victim was and what might have lead to his murder. She gets to know the people and their secrets and eventually follows a trail left by Susannah's late husband to know more about what really happened.

Although this was an easy and fast read I have to say that I found it less moving and interesting than previous stories in this same series. The mystery was a bit thin, we don't get to know the victim very well, there was little suspense involved and in the end it felt a bit unresolved. Perry's description of the scenery was ver interesting but the characters never really came alive. I think there should have been more about Aunt Susannah, her past with her husband and something about the celebration of Christmas.

Grade: 3/5

Gilding Walnuts from Emily by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

2011-12-19T05:35:00.017Z

Over the course of this year I have been collecting various Christmas themed quotes and have been posting them at my own blog as part of the Virtual Advent tour that Kelly and I run each year.

This week, at Historical Tapestry, we are celebrating Christmas with a few of these quotes, plus a couple of reviews of historical mysteries that are Christmas themed. We hope that you enjoy our themed posts for this week.

We wish all of our readers a very happy and safe festive season.

The first of these quotes comes from Emily by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. By way of introduction, our main character Emily is a young English woman who finds herself living in Russia during the era of the Napoleonic wars.

Gilding walnuts from page 156-157

One evening, after Yenchik and Zansha were in bed, Mamka brought a basket of walnuts and a bowl of milk into the drawing room and put them down on the table.

‘These are the best, barina,” she said to Natasha. “I’ve sorted them out myself. All the shells are nice and clean and smooth.”

“Ah, good. Stay and help us, Mamka – you have the best touch. Yenya, Emilia, come and sit at the table.”

Yenya brought a lighted candle, a stick of sealing wax, and some green wool cut into lengths, and Natasha fetched from her bureau some little paper booklets about two inches square.

“What’s going on?” Emily asked, taking her place beside Tolya.

“We’re going to gild the nuts,” he answered, surprised. “Haven’t you ever done it before? I’ll show you, then.”

Each booklet contained twenty thin leaves of pure gold with cigarette paper between them, each leaf so delicate it made the cigarette paper look thick and coarse by comparison.

“To get it out you have to blow on it, like this. Look,” Tolya said. He blew gently, and the almost weightless leaf lifted free of the paper with a faint rustling sound. “Your hands have to be clean, and dry, or the gold comes off on your fingers.”

“Like the bloom on a butterfly’s wings,” Emily said, trying it for herself.

Each nut had to be dipped in the milk, then carefully wrapped in the gold leaf. When they were dry, the two ends of a strand of wool were placed on top of the nut and sealed down with a drop of molten wax to make a loop.

“They’re so beautiful,” Emily said. Gold paint would have been nothing to it, a dull meagre imitation. These nuts shone with all the lustre of pure gold, like little suns, like tiny church cupolas. “What are they for?”

“For hanging on the Christmas tree,” Tolya said, all amazement at her ignorance. You must have seen a Christmas tree before.”

And then from page 160

Before her was the first Christmas tree she had ever seen, stretching right up to the ceiling, ablaze with light, a beautiful, glorious thing against the darkness of the room. It was decorated with the gilded nuts she had helped to make, which shone with the soft brilliance of true gold; with small, polished bell-shaped Christmas apples; with little nets of sweets wrapped in shining foil; with crystal icicles and snowflakes, and silver bells. On the top was a fairy dressed in silver tinsel with a diamond crown: and everything seemed to shimmer in the light from the candles which trembled on the ends of the branches, making a cascade of light, layer upon layer of quivering flames, each surround with its own golden halo.

Why I love to write strong female characters by Patrice Sarath

2011-12-12T00:40:00.021Z

For many readers, strong female characters conjure up Xena, Warrior Princess. But as much as I love heroines who kick butt and take names, there’s another kind of strong woman I love to write about, and she appears in all my novels.

These characters know their strengths and their weaknesses. They are not over-endowed with brawn or special gifts of magic. They are quite human and mundane. But their strengths come from within and it comes from who they are and what they have learned through their years. They are quiet, competent, and good at what they do, even when, or especially when, they are scared out of their mind.

In The Unexpected Miss Bennet, Mary Bennet starts out as a socially awkward bookworm, much as she is portrayed by Jane Austen herself. But throughout my book she begins to see that her eagerness to show off all of her accomplishments is not likely to give her the praise and adulation she seeks. She becomes less pompous, more thoughtful. But she remains essentially Mary, and so by the end, after she overcomes some trials, she ends up loved exactly for who she is – smart, bookish Mary, who entirely owns her strengths and understands her weaknesses.

In my Gordath Wood series, the two main characters, Lynn Romano and Kate Mossland, are plunged into a medieval fantasy world that is in the middle of a civil war. They use their background and knowledge to protect the people around them and in turn to be protected by their new allies. It would have been unrealistic for them to have become warrior women, especially since that takes years of training. Instead, they use their own particular strengths to succeed. For instance, in Gordath Wood, young Kate Mossland rises from captive to apprentice to the army’s doctor, using her knowledge of modern medicine. And Lynn Romano joins up with the quietly heroic Captain Crae to save both worlds.

None of the secondary female characters can be considered weak either. Lady Jessamy and Lady Sarita (and Mrs. Hunt) all run their lives and their people effectively.

Strong characters aren’t necessarily invincible, either. It wouldn’t be much fun writing – or reading – about people who never lose. Female and male characters who rise above their setbacks are far more interesting than superheroes. Warrior princesses are all well and good, but give me a heroine who can hold her own with only her wits for a weapon any day. It’s a lot harder to do, and all the more admirable for all that.

____________________________________

Patrice Sarath is the author of The Unexpected Miss Bennet and the Gordath Wood series (Gordath Wood and Red Gold Bridge). Her short stories have appeared in Weird Tales, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Realms of Fantasy, and several other magazines and anthologies. She lives and writes in Austin, Texas. You can find more about her work at http://www.patricesarath.com/.

Books of a Lifetime by Amanda Grange

2011-12-08T00:46:00.036Z

I’ve always been an avid reader and I’ve always read widely across almost every genre, but the books I love the most are the ones with a lot of humour in them. As a child, some of my favourites were Paddington, Winnie the Pooh and 101 Dalmatians. I used to get most of my books from the local library, but even then I loved books as objects as well as sources of entertainment, and I often used to ask for hardback editions of my favourites for Christmas and birthdays. These represented the height of luxury for me and I loved curling up with them, revelling in the illustrations and laughing at, and with, all my favourite characters.

As I moved into my teens, I found plenty more books to make me laugh. As soon as I discovered P G Wodehouse I was hooked. I absolutely adore Jeeves and Wooster, and I think it’s a tribute to their genius that they translate so well to the screen and the radio. No matter who plays them, they always work, though my favourites are probably those with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. Other favourites were Three Men In A Boat, The Diary of a Nobody and the Mapp and Lucia books by E F Benson. They’ve all stood the test of time and it’s because they are so well observed. The authors understand the foibles of human nature, which are surprisingly unchanging over the years - and even the centuries. We still worry about many of the same things, and laugh at our worries.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is another favourite. Although it has a science fiction setting, the humour is still based around real people, their faults and failings, and the absurdities of life. Douglas Adams brilliantly satirises our own age by having a Vogon space fleet about to destroy earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass. The characters are wonderful, from the eternally gloomy Marvin (“brain the size of a planet and they’ve got me parking cars” ), the hyper Zaphod and the permanently harassed Arthur Dent, who just wants to go back to the now-demolished Earth and have a nice cup of tea.

I also discovered Georgette Heyer in my teens and I was in raptures when I realised she’d written so many books, because I used to read two or three books, at least, a week. Some of the titles, like The Black Moth, promised adventure, whilst others such as Sprig Muslin promised clothes, promenades and balls. But all of them promised – and delivered – books which frequently made me smile and often made me laugh out loud.

But my favourite of all time was, and is, Pride and Prejudice. It has everything. Humour? Tick. Romance? Tick. Memorable characters? Tick. It manages to effortlessly outclass every other book, and each time I read it I find something new to enjoy. Small wonder that I’ve spent the last eight years of my life writing retellings of Austen’s major novels from the heroes’ points of view! My latest, which completes the series, is Henry Tilney’s Diary. Henry is one of Jane Austen’s wittiest characters and I loved inventing a childhood for him, with his irascible father, downtrodden mother, rakish brother and utterly delightful sister. And of course I loved seeing the events of Northanger Abbey through his eyes.

I still love books that make me laugh, from Evelyn Waugh to Terry Pratchett. So if you can think of any I might have missed, please let me know!

____________________________________________________

Amanda Grange is the author of Henry Tilney’s Diary and many other historical and regency novels. She lives in England. Visit her website at http://www.amandagrange.com/.

Historical Fiction Challenge 2012

2011-12-05T11:40:00.001Z

After 3 years organizing the Historical Fiction Challenge, the girls of The Royal Reviews gracefully passed over this exciting event to our team at Historical Tapestry last year and we are very excited that the challenge is going to be returning in 2012! During 2011 there were hundreds of books read by the participants and we hope that we continue to create a wonderful place to share and discuss our favourite (and maybe not quite so favourite) historical fiction books for the next year.

Each month, a new post dedicated to the HF Challenge will be created. To participate, you only have to follow the rules:

everyone can participate, even those who don't have a blog (you can add your book title and thoughts in the comment section if you wish)

add the link(s) of your review(s) including your name and book title to the Mister Linky we’ll be adding to our monthly post (please, do not add your blog link, but the correct address that will guide us directly to your review)

any kind of historical fiction is accepted (HF fantasy, HF young adult,...)

During these following 12 months you can choose one of the different reading levels:

Severe Bookaholism: 20 books
Undoubtedly Obsessed: 15 books
Struggling the Addiction: 10 books
Daring & Curious: 5 books
Out of My Comfort Zone: 2 books

To join the challenge you only need to make a post about it, grab the button below if you like and leave your link in Mr Linky below. If you don't have a blog you can just leave a comment for this post saying that you are joining.

The challenge will run from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2012.

The Historical Fiction Challenge- December Reviews

2011-12-03T21:53:00.000Z

Wow, I can't believe we are already in the final month of the challenge. Time went so fast! The good news is, we will be hosting this challenge again in 2012! Stay tuned for our sign up post.

In November, we collectively read 86 books! That makes our total for 2011 so far, 842 books!

Please leave your links for your December 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.

Camp Nine by Vivienne Schiffer

2011-12-01T11:20:00.000Z

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the secretary of war to prescribe military zones “from which any or all persons may be excluded.” Eventually this order was applied to one-third of the land area in the United States, mostly in the West, clearing the way for the relocation of 120,000 people of Japanese descent.

This time of fear and prejudice (the U.S. government formally apologized for the relocations in 1982 after determining they were not a military necessity) and the Arkansas Delta are the setting for Camp Nine. The novel’s narrator, Chess Morton, lives in tiny Rook, Arkansas. Her days are quiet and secluded until the appearance of a relocation center built for what was in effect the imprisonment of thousands of Japanese Americans.

Chess’s life becomes intertwined with those of two young internees, and that of an American soldier mysteriously connected to her mother’s past. As Chess watches the struggles and triumphs of these strangers and sees her mother seek justice for these people who came briefly and involuntarily to call the Arkansas Delta their home, she discovers surprising and disturbing truths about her family’s painful past.

I always feel a little bit awkward saying it, but I really do enjoy reading books set against the background of war. I am not sure where this love came from but it was very early on as one of the few books I remember reading in school was Summer of My German Soldier by Betty Greene. In a way, I suppose it is not surprising that I think of that book as I write up my thoughts for this one, given that both are about prisoner of war camps located near small towns and the impact that has on two young girls. This subject of the camps is one that doesn't come up all that often in WWII fiction though. The only other book I have read in the last few years that touches on this setting was Jamie Ford's Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. Despite this commonality, the three books I have mentioned are all very different books.

Life for young Chess Morton is changed dramatically one summer when suddenly some land near her house is cleared, and a camp is built. Camp Nine has been built specifically to house Japanese internees most of whom have come from California. Families who may have lived in America for many years are routinely rounded up and sent to these camps for the duration of the war based only on their Japanese heritage. Whilst she hasn't had everything easy in life, particularly with the death of her father at a very young age, Chess has lived a pretty sheltered and comfortable life. She lives with her feisty mother who spends most of the time butting heads with her ultra conservative grandparents, especially over Chess's inheritance which her grandfather has control over.

The coming of the camp changes many things for Chess. Carrie, Chess's mother, volunteers to help out at the camp by teaching art to the school aged children. As a result, she befriends many of the families in the camp, including the Matsui family. When Chess starts to accompany her mother, she too is introduced to Henry and David Matsui, both slightly older than her and both very different in temperament. Henry is several years older than Chess. He is studious, polite and determined to be honourable at all cost, and then there is David who is rebellious, daring and a passionate musician for whom playing the blues on the guitar is like finding heaven.

For the Matsuis, life changes when they are asked two questions by the government officials. Their answers will change all of their lives in different ways - firstly, are they willing to fight for the US armed forces, and secondly will they forsake all loyalties to Japan. Answer no to either of these questions and your family could be torn apart but many of the prisoners could not in all honour say yes to both of those questions. For those young men who said yes to both they could find themselves on the next train out to training camps, and then on their way to the theatres of war, often under-appreciated for their service.

For a relatively short book there are numerous layers and nuances running through the narrative. The denseness of the delta is palpable, as is the tension in the small town of Rook between those who are for and against the presence of the camp near their town. In addition, there is a subtle examination of the relationship between Carrie and her former flame Tom who is now the commander of the camp.

Whilst the book is mostly about the Japanese camp experience, there is also discussion about the relationship between the well-off whites, the poor whites, the blacks and the Japanese.

Although I wouldn't have been able to articulate it at the time, there was another problem, one much larger than the vague promise of Ruby Jean's wrath. It was possible for the white people of Rook to interact with the black people, and for the white people of Rook to interact with the Japanese. In each case, it was acceptable only if initiated by a white person. But contact between the blacks and the Japanese? How could I explain to David that it simply wasn't done? I didn't even understand it myself.

Vivienne Schiffer

It is a much older Chess who looks back at her youth and tells the story of her experience of Camp Nine and her friendship with the Matsuis. This sense of distance provides her with a perspective that would have been missing as a twelve year old but even then she needs the added wisdom of a person who is now virtually a stranger to fill in the gaps, to tell her exactly what was happening in the lives of the people around her back then.

There were some lovely passages in the book. This one in particular captured my attention and I have read it several times since. It is a very interesting representation of the concept of white privilege.

"See? Lived your whole life in the Arkansas Delta, and you can't name me one blues man. And you know why? Because you're a cultured, white woman. But I'm not white, Chess. I always thought I was, growing up. But I didn't really know what white was until the United States government carved us out of the white race, set us on a plate, and served us up into a dark corner of Arkansas. That's when I learned what white really is. It's separate. It's sheltered. It's a race apart."

Reading this book made me wonder about the Australian treatment of German, Italian and Japanese nationals who had made Australia their home in the years leading up to World War II. I knew that there had been camps, but other than that.I didn't know much at all! It turns out that we had our own Camp Nine which was near a town called Loveday in the Riverland in South Australia. The location was chosen because it was hundreds of kilometres from the sea, it had good river and transport access. Our Camp Nine held both internees and prisoners of war and it seems they were keen to work and be useful in the same ways that many of the characters in this book were. The most famous camp in Australia was at a place called Cowra, and it most famous because there was a break out by the prisoners. These events were turned into a mini-series some years ago which certainly helped maintain the infamy of that particular camp.

Thanks to TLC Booktours for the opportunity to read this fascinating book! Too see what other bloggers thought of the book, check out the other stops on the tour listed on my blog (linked below).

Rating 4.5/5

Cross posted at The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader

Stephanie Dray's Books of a Lifetime

2011-11-28T00:26:00.011Z

Stories are about the soul. They tell us who we were, who we are, and who we want to be. I suppose I’ve always loved historical fiction because it’s sometimes too painful to look at who I am and too scary to look at who I might still be, but the past gives me clues to both.

When I started this list, I was certain that all those literary novels I read in college would end up on this list. They were important award-winning books, many of which made me feel very smart to have read. But when I look at the books that I actually treasure, I realize that they are the not the polite and quiet little novels about ennui. The novels I treasure are the ones that elicit some very powerful emotion from me.

The first Roman era historical I ever read was Quo Vadis, by Henryk Sienkiewics. I’ll confess right now that I was an impatient teenager and skipped over some of the long drawn-out descriptions. Moreover, the deeply religious theme of this novel did not touch my soul. However, this was a book I shared with my father and my sister. It was the first time we all read a book and started talking about it together. That bonding experience was special for all of us. The second thing that made this book so important to me is that for all it was set in ancient Rome, the politics were surprisingly modern to my ear. That people who lived so long ago and in such an alien culture could be so similar to me was an eye-opener. For those of you who have read the book, you know that it’s a total nail-biting thriller towards the end. It captured my attention and wouldn’t let go; it may even be responsible for my lifelong love of classical historicals.

Much later in life, I stumbled over Wilbur Smith’s River God. Now, as historical fiction, this novel falls afoul of all kinds of rules. It’s really a melding of historical time periods with a mix of fantasy thrown in. It’s an adventure story aimed squarely at the masses. It’s accessible and beautiful and probably considered low-brow in some literary circles, but this was the first book to teach me how much fun historical fiction could be. I swooned over the narrative voice of an arrogant slave telling me the story of two star-crossed lovers in ancient Egypt. And I cried when things went terribly wrong. And I didn’t care that it wasn’t all true, because it should have been.

Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed, for me, was a revelation. We have in this book two characters who are god-like and one of them is both evil and sympathetic. It’s a science fiction book--I suppose I should say that up front. Doro is a being who farms people. You read that right. The heroine is a shapeshifter, but not of the variety you typically see in commercial fiction today. It’s a story about slavery, gender, race and … desire. Because of that, I never remember that it’s science fiction and always think of it as a psychological drama, a power struggle both epic and tragic. It’s historical, fantastical, and allegorical. Can you both love and hate someone at the same time? This book says that you can. It’s not for the faint of heart, but it captured mine.

Making up this list makes me realize that I’m more demented than I realized. Apparently, books that make me cry are books that I love. And one has to truly be a little deranged to love Philippa Gregory’s Wideacre the way that I loved it. I love books about bad girls and you just don’t get any worse than Beatrice Lacey. The narrator of Wideacre is unlike any main character I have ever encountered before with the possible exception of The Marquise de Merteuil from Dangerous Liaisons. At first, I read Wideacre because I was shocked. Then I kept reading because I couldn't wait to find out what awful thing she'd do next. But eventually, I became so absorbed in the darkness of her heart and the desperation of her struggle that I was unaccountably moved to tears. Ultimately, Wideacre must be understood as a woman's fable. A lesson in violent passions unrestrained by conscience. A myth of epic proportions. And though it purports to be historical fiction, there are some plausibly deniable fantasy elements that make it more speculative fiction than anything else. Beatrice is a woman and a goddess, with all the potential for destruction that entails and this book still haunts me.

About Stephanie…

Stephanie graduated with a degree in Government from Smith, a small women’s college in Massachusetts where–to the consternation of her devoted professors–she was unable to master Latin. However, her focus on Middle Eastern Studies gave her a deeper understanding of the consequences of Egypt’s ancient clash with Rome, both in terms of the still-extant tensions between East and West as well as the worldwide decline of female-oriented religion.

Before she wrote novels, Stephanie was a lawyer, a game designer, and a teacher. Now she uses the transformative power of magic realism to illuminate the stories of women in history and inspire the young women of today. She remains fascinated by all things Roman or Egyptian and has–to the consternation of her devoted husband–collected a house full of cats and ancient artifacts.

Blurb

Sorceress. Seductress. Schemer. Cleopatra’s daughter has become the emperor’s most unlikely apprentice and the one woman who can destroy his empire…

Having survived her perilous childhood as a royal captive of Rome, Selene pledged her loyalty to Augustus and swore she would become his very own Cleopatra. Now the young queen faces an uncertain destiny in a foreign land.

Forced to marry a man of the emperor’s choosing, Selene will not allow her new husband to rule in her name. She quickly establishes herself as a capable leader in her own right and as a religious icon. Beginning the hard work of building a new nation, she wins the love of her new subjects and makes herself vital to Rome by bringing forth bountiful harvests.

But it’s the magic of Isis flowing through her veins that makes her indispensable to the emperor. Against a backdrop of imperial politics and religious persecution, Cleopatra’s daughter beguiles her way to the very precipice of power. She has never forgotten her birthright, but will the price of her mother’s throne be more than she’s willing to pay?

Berkley Trade October 2011 (Trade Paperback)
# ISBN-10: 0425243044
# ISBN-13: 9780425243046

Purchase Info

Amazon
B&N
IndieBound
Borders
Constellation Books
Powell's

The Personal History of Rachel duPree by Ann Weisgarber

2011-11-25T10:19:00.006Z

When Rachel, hired help in a Chicago boardinghouse, falls in love with Isaac, the boardinghouse owner's son, he makes her a bargain: he'll marry her, but only if she gives up her 160 acres from the Homestead Act so he can double his share. She agrees, and together they stake their claim in the forebodingly beautiful South Dakota Badlands.

Fourteen years later, in the summer of 1917, the cattle are bellowing with thirst. It hasn't rained in months, and supplies have dwindled. Pregnant, and struggling to feed her family, Rachel is isolated by more than just geography. She is determined to give her surviving children the life they deserve, but she knows that her husband, a fiercely proud former Buffalo Soldier, will never leave his ranch: black families are rare in the West, and land means a measure of equality with the white man. Somehow Rachel must find the strength to do what is right-for herself, and for her children.

Reminiscent of The Color Purple as well as the frontier novels of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Willa Cather, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree opens a window on the little-known history of African American homesteaders and gives voice to an extraordinary heroine who embodies the spirit that built America.

Recently, I was asked the question 'Why do you read historical fiction?' I think my answer was something along the lines of being able to eavesdrop on history. Really, the answer could have been to read books like this to find out about little known facts from history. My knowledge of homesteaders in America is very limited and I certainly hadn't given any thought to the fact that there were African-American homesteaders,or to the life that they and their families would have lived.

Rachel and Isaac DuPree are living in the Badlands of South Dakota, a land that is beautiful but also harsh at the best of times but is especially harsh during a long drought. The novel opens with a disturbing episode as one of the smaller children, Liz, is sent down the well to scoop out what little water remains at the bottom because the bucket can't be used in such a small amount of water as the well is practically dry.

Rachel tells us of her life in the Badlands but also flashes back to episodes from her past, especially back to when she was working in the Chicago boarding house owned by Mrs DuPree. When Mrs DuPree's son Isaac returns on leave from his duties as a buffalo soldier, she has grand ideas of marrying him off to a nice young lady from an acceptable section of society. She certainly doesn't want him marrying the help, but that is exactly what happens when Rachel agrees to join the parcel of land that she is entitled to under the Homestead Act to that which Isaac has already claimed, thus doubling his land size. They initially agreed to a limited time marriage, but they are still together, working hard to maintain their constantly expanding land holdings and their expanding family.

Rachel is in the latter stages of pregnancy when we meet her, and already has several young children, but this life that she has chosen with Isaac was not an easy one and she has also lost two children. She is however proud of the life that she has built with Isaac, having started with nothing, then living in a sod dugout until finally she is living in a wood house that they built themselves. That begins to change however when she begins to questions Isaac's priorities.

I loved reading about Rachel. She was strong enough to make the decisions that need to be made, both for herself and her children. It took her a while, but she got there in the end.

The character that has me thinking the most though is Isaac. I can't quite decide if he is such a driven man that he can think of nothing but acquiring and holding on to land, or if he is just a guy who doesn't easily show or communicate his emotions. He is hard on all of his family but I don't think he is blind to them and just making them do things that they won't like just for his own selfish ends. For example, with sending a terrified Liz down the well, the fact of the matter was that without doing this there would be absolutely no water for his family and they would all die of thirst.

In his mind, he thinks he is doing the right thing by contemplating going off to work in the mines to bring in a steady income and leaving Rachel to cope despite the fact she is telling him quite plainly that she won't be able too. It is obvious though that he is capable of physical affection with Rachel which he shows just by the touch of his hand on her back when she needs it. He does have feelings about his children, evidenced by the tears he sheds at one of the key moments in the book.

Isaac is particularly rigid when it comes to the rules in his own house. He seems to me to be very much of a generation where the father in the house must be obeyed by everyone, including his wife. Some of his rules make sense, but we did get to see more emphasis on the idea of persecution of a minority group with his own refusal to allow agency Indians into his home, or even to meet his own responsibilities in relation to certain Indians who make their way to him. He is discriminated against by certain towns people but he in turn is intolerant of others who he sees as beneath him for whatever reason.

I didn't actually realise for a few chapters that the characters in the book were African-American, and for me, that can be seen as quite a good thing. Whilst a big part of the subject matter of the book is both the isolation that Rachel felt not only living in the middle nowhere with few neighbours, but even more isolating is the fact that there are no other African-American people living anywhere near her. At it's heart though The Personal History of Rachel DuPree is a human story - a woman who is struggling to get by in a difficult situation and making the difficult but necessary choices to get the best outcome for both herself and her children. A story of endurance, of courage and of knowing when it is time to make changes.

A couple of years ago I was visiting Perth and I spent some time listening to the stories that my grandfather told about some of the jobs he has done over the years. One of his earliest jobs was clearing areas of land in some of the hilly areas nearby. He had a horse and cart, and himself, and that was it. In another example is having to walk from one town to the next in the country areas of Western Australia in order to get to the next job, and these towns were not close together. All of his work as a farmer and a shearer was hard and it was physical, and is really pretty foreign to the kind of work that his grandchildren get to do. I found myself thinking of his stories as I read this book, mainly because of the sheer physicality of their day to day lives! I suspect that I would be a bit too soft from modern city living to live this kind of life.

When I think of pioneers and homesteaders in Australian terms I think that we are talking more than 150 years ago, and yet this book is very much talking about life in the wilderness, about making a life for yourself in the isolated rural region of the Badlands of South Dakota in America. 100 years ago was a long time ago, but by that time in the cities there was electricity, there was running water, there were cars on the street. It was therefore something of a shock to me to realise that timewise, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree was in my grandfather's lifetime! In 1917, he would have been 8 or 9 years old. Giving it some kind of context makes it feel as though it happened very recently indeed.

This is a book that I would highly recommend to anyone who loves to read about times gone by. I am sure that you will cheer for Rachel, just as I did.

Rating 4.5

I am reviewing this book today as part of the TLC Book tours blog tour, although I obtained the book from my local library. To see other stops on the tour click on the following links.

Tuesday, November 1st: nomadreader
Wednesday, November 2nd: Peeking Between the Pages
Thursday, November 3rd: Linus’s Blanket - author Q&A
Monday, November 7th: A Bookish Libraria
Tuesday, November 8th: Man of La Book
Thursday, November 10th: Unabridged Chick
Monday, November 14th: Book Dilettante
Tuesday, November 15th: Book Chatter
Wednesday, November 16th: She is Too Fond of Books- Spotlight on Bookstores guest post
Thursday, November 17th: Book Club Classics
Monday, November 21st: Raging Bibliomania
Tuesday, November 22nd: The Brain Lair
Wednesday, November 23rd: Historical Tapestry – author guest post, “Why I Love Book Groups”
Wednesday, November 23rd: Broken Teepee
Friday, November 25th: Historical Tapestry
Monday, November 28th: A Bookworm’s World
Tuesday, November 29th: My Bookshelf
Wednesday, November 30th: Elle Lit.
Thursday, December 1st: Melody & Words
Monday, December 5th: Book Snob
Wednesday, December 7th: Life in Review
Thursday, December 8th: The 3 R’s Blog

Why I Love Book Groups by Ann Weisgarber

2011-11-23T00:01:00.034Z

Today we welcome Ann Weisgarber to Historical Tapestry as part of her blog tour for The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. My review of the book will be up in a couple of days time as part of the same tour.

~~~~~~

I joined my first book discussion group soon after I moved to Des Moines, Iowa. It was sponsored by one of the branch libraries, and I wanted to meet people who were not work-related. The group had been meeting for years, but the members welcomed me as though I were a cherished friend. After they settled me in with coffee and cookies, all thoughts turned to Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping. They saw Robinson as the local author since she lived in Iowa, and they considered her a neighbor. They didn’t spare her feelings, though. A major point of discussion: the title. They weren’t crazy about it.

At that time, I hadn’t thought about writing a book but years later, when I had to think about a title for Rachel DuPree, the voices from that discussion group pounded in my head. I love that group for reminding me about the importance of titles.

We also read Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres, another author who lived in Iowa. This, too, was an eye-opening discussion. The portrayal of farmers hurt the members’ feelings. “We aren’t all like this,” the readers said. “Some of us travel to Europe, we go to New York for Broadway shows. We know the world beyond our farms.”

This was another valuable lesson for a writer. When writing about a real location, that place is home to many people. I thought about this when writing Rachel DuPree, a story located in the South Dakota Badlands. There needed to be a sensitive balance when portraying the Badlands. It was not perfect, but it had its beauty. It was a difficult place, but it offered opportunity and hope for some.

When I moved back to Sugar Land, Texas, I immediately joined a library-based book discussion group. A few years later, I joined a second library-based group. Our reading lists included Socrates, Hemingway, and J.K. Rowling. We’ve read books of which I had never heard. There were some that I didn’t like, but I came to appreciate them after hearing my fellow readers’ comments. Once I waltzed into a meeting in love with the selected novel. I was sure everyone else felt the same. They didn’t. I was the only one who liked it.

A book doesn’t glow for everyone. Writers need to remember that. But when a book does glow, the reader connects and is passionate about the characters. Characters stay fixed in the reader’s mind long after the book ends.

Book discussions highlight the personal relationship between readers and books. Each person brings her own perspective to the book. Each carries her life experiences and those shape her view of the story. Someone might see a theme that no one else notices. Another reader will underline a sentence that moves him to tears while the rest of the group glosses over that sentence. It is not the same book for each person.

I love my two groups, and I’ve scheduled trips and vacations so I can avoid missing meetings. Now we have even more conversations about books through blogs. We are talking, analyzing, and giving meaning to words on the page. Readers are voicing opinions, and those opinions remind me that readers are central characters in every book.

To find out more about Ann, visit her at http://www.annweisgarber.com/.

Alice, I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

2011-11-21T18:49:00.000Z

Alice, I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

Completion Date: November 7, 2011
Reason for Reading: Fun!

Few works of literature are as universally beloved as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now, in this spellbinding historical novel, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole–and the grown woman whose story is no less enthralling.

But oh my dear, I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland. Does it sound ungrateful?

Alice Liddell Hargreaves’s life has been a richly woven tapestry: As a young woman, wife, mother, and widow, she’s experienced intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. But as she nears her eighty-first birthday, she knows that, to the world around her, she is and will always be only “Alice.” Her life was permanently dog-eared at one fateful moment in her tenth year–the golden summer day she urged a grown-up friend to write down one of his fanciful stories.

That story, a wild tale of rabbits, queens, and a precocious young child, becomes a sensation the world over. Its author, a shy, stuttering Oxford professor, does more than immortalize Alice–he changes her life forever. But even he cannot stop time, as much as he might like to. And as Alice’s childhood slips away, a peacetime of glittering balls and royal romances gives way to the urgent tide of war.

For Alice, the stakes could not be higher, for she is the mother of three grown sons, soldiers all. Yet even as she stands to lose everything she treasures, one part of her will always be the determined, undaunted Alice of the story, who discovered that life beyond the rabbit hole was an astonishing journey.

A love story and a literary mystery, Alice I Have Been brilliantly blends fact and fiction to capture the passionate spirit of a woman who was truly worthy of her fictional alter ego, in a world as captivating as the Wonderland only she could inspire.

Earlier this year I read The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb and considered it one of my favourite reads of the year. I knew I was going to have to finally read her earlier book after having it out from the library a couple times since it was released. The truth of the matter is, I am not a big fan of Alice in Wonderland. I am not sure what it is, but I have just never enjoyed that book. I have always been more interested in Lewis Carroll as a person and the life of Alice Liddell. This book was written to explore the relationship between the two and the events that lead to the hugely successful book and its sequel. She obviously takes some liberties with the story, but it all works out well in the end.

The only thing that turned me off about this book was how pronounced the child molestation was in the book. It has always seemed so strange to me that young children were allowed to spend so much time with a grown man that wasn't even related to them. Obviously the truth of the matter is not known, but there are lots of theories about what might have happened. The scene where Alice and Mr. Dodgson stop talking in the book is imagined based on plausible ideas. It is imagined, though. Their really was a strong friendship between the Liddell girls and Dodgson, though. There are many pictures from those times and it is obvious that Alice had some favoured status based on her having a book about her and the nature about some of the pictures.

One of the ideas in this book I really appreciated was how when Alice was a little girl she wanted the story to be written down so she was always immortalized as the young girl of the tale. When she gets older, though, she starts feeling the pressure of being forever young. She gains a lot of attention later in life when she sells the original manuscript, but instead of the young girl that everyone has read about for years they are faced with an old woman just trying to survive during difficult financial times. Alice had a hard life in many respects. It is entirely possible that there is some truth to the tales of her relationship with her mother following the revelations of her relationship with Dodgson. If that is the case it must have been hard. Then, she falls in love and is denied that love because of her rocky past. This love will haunt her for the rest of her life until she comes to terms with the fact she did in fact love the man she ended up marrying. She also loses two of her sons during the war leaving only one surviving. That is never an easy hardship to endure and ultimately leads to her husbands decline and eventual death.

The book also captures the times well. The dresses, the parties, the outings, the method of speaking. It is all captured for the audiences enjoyment in Benjamin's wonderful book. Even if this was not a book based on notable characters, it would still be enjoyable because it is so well written. Alice lead a life both real and imagined that captures the hearts of anyone. I appreciate the importance of the ground-breaking novels even if I could never get myself to love them like others have. Benjamin has once again written a book I mostly enjoyed. She is a very talented author and I cannot wait to see what she comes up with next.

Recommended for those interested in Alice and Lewis Carroll, for those that enjoy books with a literary connection, or just for people that enjoy an interesting story written well and set in late 19th and early 20th century England.

Cross-posted at The Written World.

Why I Love Unreliable Narrators by Rebecca Johns

2011-11-19T13:39:00.001Z

As a reader, and most especially as a writer, I like to be surprised by characters. If I know for certain who someone is at the beginning of a story, and then they don’t challenge me to rethink those assumptions, then I’m disappointed. I want characters to startle, to change and shift in my perceptions of them, which is why I love unreliable characters, and most especially unreliable narrators, and why I chose an unreliable narrator for my latest book, The Countess: A Novel of Elizabeth Báthory.

Character is always paramount to me when I’m mulling the decision to start a new story, especially a new novel. My first book, Icebergs, was about nice people trying to get by in some not-so-nice circumstances, and after spending three long, exhausting years with them, I was aching for the chance to write about some not-so-nice people for a change. Bad people doing bad things makes for good fiction. One of my favorite books is Lolita, precisely because it demands a lot from a reader. Just when you think you’ve got Humbert Humbert figured out, he manages to surprise you, even move you. The end of that book is one of the saddest, most pathetic (in the classical sense of the word) endings I’ve ever read. His life, and the lives of all he touches, are in ruins, and yet he’s able to accept his own responsibility for causing that ruin, and to recognize that everything he’s said until that point is merely self-justification. He is a slave to his passions—he can’t be trusted—and yet he is as much his own victim as Lolita is, as Clare Quilty is. Even now I can’t stop thinking about that book. Every time I read it, it brings me to tears.

So in the fall of 2008, when I first came across the story of Erzsébet (Elizabeth) Báthory—one of the most notorious serial killers in history—I was intrigued. All the books about her I’d been able to find were third person, with someone else telling her tale for her, a classic example of history being written by the victors. When I read about her legend, and how it had expanded during the Victorian era to include the outrageous idea that she must have bathed in the blood of her victims to preserve her youth and beauty, I was hooked. She’s supposedly this human vampire, and yet she was fluent in four languages and a capable businesswoman, a loving mother, very well educated for her time. So how could she be both—a loving mother and a psychopath? How could someone lavish love on her children while justifying the murder of dozens of servant girls?

So when I started the book, it was with this question in mind: Is it a lie if you believe it?

The best liars are people who believe, really believe, what they’re telling you. Sympathy for the narrator of The Countess was a deliberate choice—not because I believe her when she says she’s innocent, but because I want the reader to want to believe her, if that makes sense. For most of us murder is so foreign to our understanding of ourselves—something we can’t imagine ourselves actually committing—that I think it’s only natural to place murderers in a category as people completely separate from ourselves. In this book I wanted the reader to get uncomfortably close to her view of the world, see things through her eyes, but who’s going to do that if they don’t like her, at least a little bit? She starts off in the novel telling us about her childhood, and it’s hard not to sympathize with a child. But as the story goes on, that sympathy starts to erode. It’s a little bit like sitting next to someone on an airplane as he tells you his life story, and little by little you realize he’s completely nuts. You don’t start out wanting to dislike him, but that’s where you end up.

Was she a psychopath? Yes, I think so, in the truly psychological sense. I think she was capable of great violence, and of viewing people, especially servants, as possessions, which then would give her the ability to look on their suffering as insignificant. When the tables are turned on her, of course, she demands our compassion and is surprised when we find it difficult to give. But she doesn’t look at herself as a liar or a murderer, because she doesn’t believe, even at the end, that she’s done anything truly wrong. That’s the greatest tragedy of all. Almost everything she’s lost, she owes to her own failures as a human being. Like Humbert Humbert, Báthory has two kinds of victims—her servants, and herself.

__________________________________________

Rebecca Johns's first novel, Icebergs, was a finalist for the 2007 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for first fiction and a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Award. Her second, The Countess—a fictionalization of the life of Elizabeth Bathory, the “Blood Countess”—was published in October 2010 from Crown Books. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, the Harvard Review, the Mississippi Review, the Chicago Tribune, Cosmopolitan, Mademoiselle, Ladies' Home Journal, Self, and Seventeen, among others. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the Missouri School of Journalism, she teaches in the English Department at DePaul University in Chicago.

To learn more about Rebecca, you can visit her website: http://www.rebeccajohns.com/index.htm

Secrets of The Tudor Court by D. L. Bogdan

2011-11-14T00:09:00.004Z

When young Mary Howard receives the news that she will be leaving her home for the grand court of King Henry VIII, to attend his mistress Anne Boleyn, she is ecstatic. Everything Anne touches seems to turn to gold, and Mary is certain Anne will one day become Queen. But Mary has also seen the King's fickle nature and how easily he discards those who were once close to him. . .

Discovering that she is a pawn in a carefully orchestrated plot devised by her father, the duke of Norfolk, Mary dare not disobey him. Yet despite all of her efforts to please him, she too falls prey to his cold wrath. Not until she becomes betrothed to Harry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond and son to King Henry VIII, does Mary finds the love and approval she's been seeking. But just when Mary believes she is finally free of her father, the tides turn. Now Mary must learn to play her part well in a dangerous chess game that could change her life--and the course of history

I just can't resist books where the author grabs a little known historical character and writes a story, within history, for her. That's why I decided to pick this one up. The main character here is Mary Howard, the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk. As his nieces Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard she will also be a pawn in her father´s plans to maintain his powerful position with the King.

Unfortunately I didn't find Mary all that appealing as a character. She was a bit too good to be true and she endures too much to be true. Well about that last part maybe her father is too bad to be true. Norfolk is painted as a true villain who spends his time abusing women. Mary's mother first - he even beats her while she is in labor - and eventually Mary herself. All this written with modern of undertones, suggesting a pattern of domestic violence which, although I'm sure it happened in other eras, sounded too contemporary in its description.

Despite how he mistreats her and controls her life, making her miserable, Mary still loves her father and ends up being a victim of his schemes one time after another. I felt that went on for too long and that Mary never really rises from being a victim to being her own woman. I ended up thinking Norfolk was one creepy man and vowed to stay away from books about him in the future.

History wise, the background of this story is a well known one. The story of Henry VIII and his wives has been the main or secondary interesting of many historical fiction novels and I think Bodgan failed to bring us something different with this one. All that plotting for power on Norfolk's part is well known and it ended up not being enough to capture my interest and make me ignore who I didn't love Mary.

Lovers of the Tudor period might find this one an interesting read, because it is from a minor character point of view, but lovers of "meatier" historical fiction will probably find it a bit too light and, eventually, a bit disturbing.

Grade: 2/5

The Royal Oak by Gillian Bagwell

2011-11-12T00:37:00.048Z

It’s likely you may have seen a pub or something else called the Royal Oak, and not given it much thought. But do you know that there really was a Royal Oak – one single tree – which spawned so many namesakes?

In 1651, the young King Charles II of England – the exiled son of Charles I, who had been executed in 1649 – made a valiant attempt to take back his throne. His defeat by Oliver Cromwell’s forces at the Battle of Worcester on September 3, 1651 set off one of the most astonishing episodes in British history – Charles’s desperate odyssey to reach safety in France, which came to be known as the Royal Miracle because he narrowly escaped discovery and capture so many times.

One of Charles’s companions during his flight from Worcester on September 3 was the Earl of Derby, who had recently been sheltered at a house called Boscobel in Shropshire. He suggested that the king might hide there until he could find a way out of England. But also present was Charles Giffard, the owner of Boscobel. He said his house had been searched lately, and that it might be safer for the king to shelter at nearby Whiteladies, a former priory.

Charles and a few companions arrived at Whiteladies in the early morning hours of September 4. George Penderel, a woodsman who was a tenant there, and one of five surviving brothers of a staunchly Royalist family, sheltered the king – and his horse – in the house overnight. But Parliamentary cavalry patrols were searching for Charles, so at sunrise Richard Penderel, another of the brothers, took him into the woods surrounding Whiteladies, where he stayed all day, in the rain.

That evening, Charles and Richard Penderel walked nine miles to Madeley, hoping to cross the Severn River and get to Wales where Charles might find a boat that would take him to France or Spain. But the river was well guarded, and there was nothing for it but to return to Shropshire.

Penderel tract

Charles and Richard Penderel arrived at Boscobel House at about 3 a.m. on Saturday, September 6. As it happened, another Royalist who had escaped from the battle was also there – Colonel William Carliss, who Charles knew well. Once more it was thought too dangerous for the fugitives to stay inside the house during daylight hours. Boscobel was surrounded by woods, and as dawn was breaking, Carliss and the king, carrying some bread, cheese, and small beer, used William Penderel’s ladder to climb “up into a greate Oake that had been Lop’t some 3 or 4 Yeares before, and being growne out again very Bushy and Thick, could nott be seen through,” as Charles later told the diarist Samuel Pepys. From their perch, they could see “soldiers goeing up and downe in the thickest of the Wood, searching for persons escaped.”

Memorabilia: salver

Charles had spent three days and nights with very little sleep, and now, with nothing to do but hide, he went to sleep on the broad branch of the oak, lying on a couple of pillows that had been handed up into the tree and resting his head on Carliss’s arm. After a while, Carliss’s arm grew so numb that he couldn’t hold onto Charles and keep him from falling out of the tree. He had to wake the king, but was worried that if he spoke, he might be heard by the searching soldiers. So he pinched the king, waking him silently.

Charles and Carliss were not discovered, and when it was dark, they came down out of the tree – which came immediately to be known as the Royal Oak – and ravenously ate the chicken dinner that Mrs. Penderel had prepared. As it turned out, the 21-year-old king was on the run for six weeks, until he was able to sail for France from Shoreham near Brighton on October 15. During his perilous travels, he was sheltered and helped by dozens of people – mostly simple country folk and very minor gentry – who could have earned the enormous reward of £1000 offered for his capture, but instead put their lives in jeopardy to help him.

Boscobel - Royal Oak

When he was restored to the throne in 1660, the five Penderel brothers were among those he summoned to Whitehall to be honored and rewarded for their part in saving his life and the future of the monarchy. He gave Colonel Carliss permission to change his name to “Carlos,” i.e., Charles, and awarded him a coat of arms featuring an oak tree and three crowns. And he commissioned a series of paintings from Isaac Fuller depicting highlights of his escape – one of which showed him asleep in the Royal Oak with his head on Carliss’s lap.

Carlis arms and crest

Almost immediately people began cutting wood from the Royal Oak, to make souvenirs. Charles gathered acorns from it when he visited Shropshire in 1661, and planted them in St. James’s Park and Hyde Park. The tree eventually died, but a sapling that had grown from it was protected and cherished. Eventually it, too, succumbed, but one of its offshoots still stands, carefully fenced off, behind Boscobel House, now maintained by English Heritage.

On January 15, 1661, Pepys recorded in his diary that he “took barge and went to Blackwall and viewed the dock and the new Wet dock, which is newly made there, and a brave new merchantman which is to be launched shortly, and they say to be called the Royal Oak.”

That ship was probably the first of many namesakes of the tree in which Charles had spent a day, but it was to be far from the last. There were eight ships of the Royal Navy named the Royal Oak, the last launched in 1914. There are numerous pubs and inns all over England called the Royal Oak, as well as some called Penderel’s Oak.

But the Royal Oak’s fame didn’t stop in England. There are many things called Royal Oak, in places where people likely don’t know the origin of the name. A quick Google search brings up a suburb of Detroit, Michigan; streets in Encino, California Wyoming, MI; Albuquerque, NM; Roswell, Georgia; and Vancouver, Canada; hotels in Adelaide and Sydney, Australia; pubs, bars, or restaurants in San Francisco and Napa in California, Brooklyn; Lewiston, Maine; Ottawa, Canada; a book shop in Virginia; a manufacturer of charcoal and grills in North Carolina; construction companies in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Canada, and Australia; a home developer in North Carolina and a realty company in San Rafael, California, and a flooring company in Australia.

______________________________________

Gillian Bagwell’s second novel, The September Queen, the first fictional accounting of the story of Jane Lane, and ordinary English girl who helped Charles II escape after the Battle of Worcester, was released on November 1. Please visit her website, http://www.gillianbagwell.com/, to read more about her books and read her blog Jane Lane and the Royal Miracle http://www.theroyalmiracle.blogspot.com/, which recounts her research adventures and the daily episodes in Charles’s flight.

Kommandant's Girl by Pam Jenoff

2011-11-11T00:01:00.000Z

September 1939. Overnight, Jewish nineteen-year-old Emma Bau's world is turned upside down when Germany invades Poland. And after only six weeks of marriage, her husband Jacob, a member of the Resistance, is forced to flee.

Escaping the ghetto, Emma assumes a new, Christian identity and finds work at Nazi headquarters. As secretary to the charismatic Kommandant Richwalder, Emma vows to use her unique position to gather intelligence for the Resistance, by any means necessary.

Poignant, affecting, and gripping, Kommandant's Girl is the beautifully written story of one woman's struggle to survive one of the darkest periods of human history.

Whilst it wasn't a deliberate choice on my part, it does seem very fitting to be posting about this book on Remembrance Day, where we remember all those who have fought and died for their countries over the years. In this case, those we are remembering are the Polish resistance who fought so hard for their country during World War II.

When I started to think about what I was going to write for this review, I realised that most of the time when I do read a book about Polish history I am mainly concentrating on the events of World War II. That doesn't discount what I am sure is a fascinating history of the country before that but rather even nearly 70 years on, the terrible events that took place there are still very much in the modern consciousness. I suspect another factor may well be that the country itself was relatively closed off during the Communist regime in effect blocking readers around my age from knowing too much about the country. Thinking about it, there are very specific times in interest in several other country's histories that I concentrate on too.

This main character in this book is Emma Bau. She is a young, recently married Jewish girl living in the city of Krakow just before the invasion of Poland by the Nazis. She has been married to Jacob for a few short weeks. He is something of an activist so when the invasion comes, he knows that he will be targeted and so he has to leave Emma as he goes into hiding. Initially, she heads for the ghetto in the city to be with her parents, but it isn't long before she is found alternative accommodation with his Catholic aunt Krysia. When she is smuggled out of the ghetto she is also given the responsibility to look after a small orphan boy by the name of Lukasz.

Obviously living outside the ghetto means that she needs to assume a new identity and so she becomes Anna Lipowicz. All evidence of her marriage to Jacob must be removed. It isn't long before Anna catches the eye of Herr Kommandant Georg Richwalder, a very important figure in the Nazi administration of the city. He is immediately attracted to the young woman and so employs her as his personal assistant to work at Nazi Headquarters. This gives Anna the perfect position to be able to provide information to the Resistance movement, at great personal risk to herself.

It isn't long before Anna is asked to obtain information by any means necessary, even if that means that she must do the unthinkable and break her marriage vows. Anna is conflicted though. She loves Jacob, but she is attracted to the Kommandant, and she knows that by getting closer to him and becoming more trusted by him means that she needs to not get caught by the Kommandant, not catch the attention of the informers at work inside the headquarters, or outside when she is meeting the members of the Resistance, all in order to keep herself, and Krysia and Lukasz, alive.

Anna not only has to answer the question how far would you go for the cause of freedom, but also what happens when you are attracted to the wrong man at the wrong time and can she face the consequences, whatever they are going to be, of the risks that she takes in order to survive during the darkest days of World War II.

One thing that the author did seem to take a lot of care with is giving the Kommandant a human face which is something you don't often see. That doesn't mean that his role or actions are glossed over or denied but he is shown as being conflicted at times and certainly unlucky in love.

This is the kind of novel that I love to read - history, drama, romance, tension all rolled up into a book that you can get lost in and from purely that perspective I really enjoyed this book. In the Author's Note Jenoff explains that the story is fictional, although some of the events are true, but that she tried to remain true to the spirit of the Resistance, and as long as you read the book with that framework in mind, then you will enjoy it. There are some plot holes, some lucky coincidences and the ending is conveniently neat in some ways but for all that I am glad to have finally read Jenoff after talking about it for ages now. I will definitely be reading more!

Some times it must be tricky for an author to keep readers happy. For example, in this book I both liked the fact that the ending is kind of vague in that you know that the book is over and the characters will go off into their sunset whatever that happens to be, but in other ways I really wanted to know exactly what happened to them. Maybe I will get some resolution in relation to this when I read the connected book, The Diplomat's Wife. I've already requested it from the library.

Rating 4/5

Don't forget to check out Pam Jenoff's recent guest post for us. Another book with a similar setting but a very different feel is Douglas W Jacobsen's book The Katyn Order. Check out my review here.

The Historical Fiction Challenge- November Reviews

2011-11-04T22:24:00.000Z

In October, we collectively read 54 books! That makes our total for 2011 so far, 756 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 November 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.

Why I Love Novels That Jump Between Past and Present by Pam Jenoff

2011-11-01T00:08:00.022Z

I noticed the pattern a few years ago – that while I loved reading historical novels, my very favourites were those that jumped back and forth between the present and past, such as Susan Vreeland’s Girl in Hyacinth Blue and Geraldine Brooks’ People of the Book. These stories usually shift between present and past (either staying with one period in the past or moving throughout different eras) in alternating chapters and there is almost always an inanimate object, such as a book or painting, that one sees at various points in time and which acts as a continuum between past and present.

My own opportunity to write such a book came about a few years ago when my husband bought me a beautiful antique clock, known as an anniversary clock or 400-day clock (because it only needs to be wound once a year) for our first wedding anniversary. Looking at the century-old timepiece, I became intrigued with the history of the clock: Where had it been over the years? What kinds of things had it seen? And so I began fashioning a history for the clock of places and events throughout 20th century of Europe. To hold it all together, I gave the book a present day story of an elderly man accused of collaborating with the Nazis, who refuses to help with his own defence but claims that a missing antique clock holds all the answers. The result was The Things We Cherished. It was a joy to finally write the kind of book I most love to read and while I’m proud of my earlier books, including the historical ones (Kommandant’s Girl) and more modern (The Officer’s Lover), I must admit that I have a special affinity for this latest, hybrid tome.

There are so many reasons that I love reading – and writing – books that shift between past and present. First, they allow me to time travel. I can experience different periods in the past and learn about various eras. I can visit the lives of many different characters and hear their voices, enjoying many stories in one. And it doesn’t stop there – I can read a compelling present day story, with all of the complexities of modern life and relationships, while enjoying the historical bits. I don’t have to choose – I can have my cake and eat it too!

I also love books that travel between past and present because the break in each respective story to shift to the other propels me through the pages. It’s almost like awakening from a dream too soon and desperately wanting to go back to sleep to resume it – I have to keep reading to get back to the other story. (And in a really good book of this sort, both storylines will be equally compelling, so that I can’t wait to read both.)

As I mentioned before, most of these types of books seem to have an object that appears in the various past and present chapters. The object becomes a character in its own right, a kind of “witness” to history and a narrator to accompany the reader. As with my own clock, I love finding out where the object has been, revealing its unique history in an Antiques Roadshow sort of way. (And yes, even as the writer, the story does reveal things to me I hadn’t consciously known!) These past-and-present, object-driven stories are fertile grounds for mystery and intrigue, which can be unravelled through the object and its history.

Finally, I love stories that jump between past and present because, by showing people in different times and circumstances, they also allow the reader to draw parallels in characters’ experiences and explore timeless themes such as love, friendship, choice, betrayal, consequence and redemption. Perhaps that universality across the ages is at the heart of what makes the very concept of time travel so appealing.

____________________________________________________

To learn more about Pam Jenoff and her novels, don't forget to visit her website: http://www.pamjenoff.com/

Winner of Jane and the Canterbury Tale

2011-10-23T08:47:00.002+01:00

Congratulations... NA !

We'll be contacting you shortly to get your mailing details.

If we do not receive a response within three days we will draw a new winner.

Thank you to everyone who entered the contest!

Winner of Jane Austen Made Me Do It

2011-10-22T08:20:00.000+01:00

Congratulations... Amy Belle !

We'll be contacting you to get your mailing details shortly.

If we do not receive a response within three days we will draw a new winner.

Thank you to everyone who entered the contest!

Historical Fictional Factual Actual…

2011-10-20T00:01:00.006+01:00

Guest Post by Daphne Kalotay

When I began drafting my novel Russian Winter in 2003 or so, I knew I wanted my main protagonist, a Bolshoi ballerina living during the final years of Stalin’s reign, to defect at some point in the early 1950s. It was important to the timing of my plot that she leave before Stalin’s death, yet I struggled with the knowledge that in reality the era of dancer defections (think Nureyev, Makarova, Baryshnikov) did not begin until the early sixties.

So wedded was I to the idea of factual truth that I even snooped around on the Internet in search of some real-life version of my ballerina, thinking that if only I could find an actual Soviet dancer who escaped during those years (when Stalin’s grip was especially fierce and Russian borders particularly impenetrable) I would have much more confidence in my own flight of fancy. Doing so, I read about Violetta Elvin, the first fully-Soviet-trained Russian dancer to perform in the West—but she left in 1945, legally, as the wife of an Englishman. So that didn’t necessarily help my case.

Yet it was a reminder of the many possible and varied stories that exist in real life—and that, while of the utmost importance to me that I remain true to history, what I was writing was still fiction. So what if there had been no real-life ballerina defection in the early fifties. My ballerina would be the first!

I thought long and hard about how to whisk her out of the USSR. I knew that Bolshoi dancers often toured Soviet satellite countries, and after looking at a map of eastern Europe I settled on East Germany, since the Wall would not yet have been built and my own family knew people who had escaped via Berlin in those years. I read up on the city during that time, mapped everything out in my head, and planned my heroine’s escape.

I completed the manuscript in December of 2008. The following month, reading the New York Times, I spotted the following headline among the obituaries: Nora Kovach, Ballerina who Defected to the West. As my surname too is Hungarian, the name caught my eye, and I read that Kovach and her husband, dancing with the Budapest Opera Ballet in the late 1940s, were so talented that Galina Ulanova brought them to Leningrad to receive Russian training. In 1953, on tour in East Berlin, they noticed that the subway stopped close to their hotel and, taking a chance, hopped on and made their way to the English sector. In doing so, they were the first Soviet-trained ballet dancers to defect to the West.

At that early stage the term “defector” was not yet in currency; newspapers referred to Kovach and her husband as “Iron Curtain refugees.” To me, though, they remain remarkable in another way altogether: as one more example of truth being stranger than fiction, and of life imitating art imitating—unknowingly—life.

Book Description

A mysterious jewel holds the key to a life-changing secret, in this breathtaking tale of love and art, betrayal and redemption.
When she decides to auction her remarkable jewelry collection, Nina Revskaya, once a great star of the Bolshoi Ballet, believes she has finally drawn a curtain on her past. Instead, the former ballerina finds herself overwhelmed by memories of her homeland and of the events, both glorious and heartbreaking, that changed the course of her life half a century ago.

It was in Russia that she discovered the magic of the theater; that she fell in love with the poet Viktor Elsin; that she and her dearest companions—Gersh, a brilliant composer, and the exquisite Vera, Nina’s closest friend—became victims of Stalinist aggression. And it was in Russia that a terrible discovery incited a deadly act of betrayal—and an ingenious escape that led Nina to the West and eventually to Boston.

Nina has kept her secrets for half a lifetime. But two people will not let the past rest: Drew Brooks, an inquisitive young associate at a Boston auction house, and Grigori Solodin, a professor of Russian who believes that a unique set of jewels may hold the key to his own ambiguous past. Together these unlikely partners begin to unravel a mystery surrounding a love letter, a poem, and a necklace of unknown provenance, setting in motion a series of revelations that will have life-altering consequences for them all.

Interweaving past and present, Moscow and New England, the backstage tumult of the dance world and the transformative power of art, Daphne Kalotay’s luminous first novel—a literary page-turner of the highest order—captures the uncertainty and terror of individuals powerless to withstand the forces of history, while affirming that even in times of great strife, the human spirit reaches for beauty and grace, forgiveness and transcendence.

To read Marg's review of this book, click here.

Daphne Kalotay grew up in New Jersey, where her parents had relocated from Ontario; her mother is Canadian, her father is Hungarian. She attended Vassar College, majoring in psychology, before moving to Boston to attend Boston University's graduate program in fiction writing. She stayed on at BU to study with Saul Bellow as part of the University Professors program, where she earned a PhD in Modern and Contemporary literature, writing her dissertation on one of her favorite writers, Mavis Gallant. Her interview with Mavis Gallant can be found in the Paris Review's Writers-at-work series.

At Boston University, Daphne's stories won the school's Florence Engell Randall Fiction Prize and a Henfield Foundation Award. Her first book, the fiction collection Calamity and Other Stories, includes work first published in Agni, Good Housekeeping, The Literary Review, Missouri Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Prairie Schooner, and was short-listed for the Story Prize.

Daphne has taught literature and creative writing at Boston University, Skidmore College, and Middlebury College. She lives in the Boston area.

Imperial Highness by Evelyn Anthony

2011-10-18T00:01:00.003+01:00

Imperial Highness is set in eighteenth-century imperial Russia and centres around the life of Catherine the Great and her Romanov descendants. Against this Czarist background, Evelyn Anthony vividly recreates the deformed and immature figure of Grand Duke Peter, to whom Catherine was first betrothed as a young German princess. And to whom she became a wife in name only. Alongside him, the dazzling person of Catherine herself is made to live again: a woman who dreamed of leaving her name in the annals of world history even as a child.Whether as wife, mother, lover or future Empress of Russia, the role of Catherine Alexeievna is never without colour. And in Imperial Highness, Evelyn Anthony captures the personal fascination of her subject while also telling the story of Catherine's adulterous love affairs, and the struggle for the imperial throne.

Some times when I look at the recent and upcoming historical fiction releases I scan through looking for something other than yet another Tudor book, or this year in particular another book about Eleanor of Aquitaine and I wonder why there aren't books about some of the other fascinating characters in history. For example, I cannot for the life of me figure out why there are so few books around about the life of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia.

Here we have a strong, beautiful, charming and beautiful ruler clad in fabulous clothes and jewellery who ruled her land for many years- everything that a queen is supposed to be really. She lived a very dramatic life filled with tension, conflict, lovers and scandal, led her country into a period of learning and culture and so much more.

I was glad to see that next year there is going to be a new book on Catherine, but in the mean time I was even happier to see someone reference this book on Goodreads. My own library doesn't have this book but fortunately I was able to borrow it through inter library loan. If you don't read any further in this review, the fact that I have already requested the next book in the trilogy, also through ILL, should tell you that I enjoyed this first book very much.

Young Princess Augusta Frederica was from a very noble, but very poor family in what is now modern day Poland. When she is summoned by the Empress Elizabeth of Russia everyone knows that it will likely lead to marriage, but for the young princess it is also a potential way out from underneath the harsh control of her mother and her very pious father.

Upon arrival in Russia, the young princess takes the court by storm, with one exception. Her future husband Peter, nephew and heir of the Empress Elizabeth, takes an instant dislike to the newcomer, and so a relationship that will be the source of much scandal over the years to come is formed. The Peter portrayed in the book is maniacal, immature, ill-formed and basically unsuitable for his future role as Emperor of Russia, particularly because of his very Prussian views and loyalties. For Elizabeth though, she sees no choice but to keep him as her heir, and initially she see the young princess that she has named Catherine as a possible positive influence on Peter. She could hardly have been more wrong.

However the Empress also had a somewhat changeable nature and it doesn't take much to upset her, so Catherine goes from being in favour to very much out of favour, especially given that the marriage between Catherine and Peter does not and can not provide the one thing that Elizabeth desperately needs from them - a legitimate heir.

One of the questions that I have thought about off and on over the years is one related to time travel - Where and when would you like to travel to if you could? While I always struggle to the where, I always know what I wouldn't want to be - a noble. Being highly born seems to have been quite treacherous in many countries and the imperial court of Russia was no exception. When there was no baby forthcoming, the Empress Elizabeth had the couple basically locked up together for years in the misguided hope that there may at last be a child. Time and again Catherine was bought before the aging Empress and feared for her life having offended the ruler in some way or another. Then again, I wouldn't really have wanted to end up as a serf either, so maybe I will just stay in the comfortable surroundings of here and now.

Years later, when finally freed from captivity, we see a much harder, much wiser Catherine, but also a woman who knows what she wants, and this includes various lovers! Catherine had used her time in captivity to educate herself and emerged having studied many of the great minds of the age. She was still young, still beautiful, intelligent and above all ambitious! And with her husband seemingly barely capable of controlling himself let alone an entire empire, the Catherine that we know from history emerges to take control. The book closes with Catherine coming to the throne, ably assisted by those loyal to her including her powerful lover who orchestrates the bloodless coup.

I wouldn't say that I am particularly knowledgeable about the life and times of Catherine the Great. Even just a quick look at a few websites after finishing the book seems to indicate that there are some discrepancies between the history portrayed in this book and what actually happened, but when all is said and done, this was a really entertaining read full of dramatic moments, court intrigue, passion and ambition, and this reader was left wanting more!

Please note that this book was also published under the title Rebel Princess, and is the first book in the Romanov trilogy.

Rating 4.5/5

Cross posted at Adventures of an Intrepid Reader

Jane Austen Week: the end

2011-10-16T20:08:00.028+01:00

First of all, we wanted to give a really big thank you to all those who participated in this Jane Austen Week. We are always delighted to share and received some good book (or series) recommendations.

Before closing this week's events, we wanted to do a recap (both giveaways are open, so if you forgot to leave a comment there's still time):

Monday, 10th October
- Welcome to our Jane Austen Week
- Share Your Jane Austen Experiences...
- Our 10 Favourite Things about Jane Austen

Tuesday, 11th October
- Persuasion by Jane Austen
- Captain Wentworth's Diary by Amanda Grange
- Persuasion (1995)

Wednesday, 12th October
- Revisiting the past in Jane Austen Made Me Do It + GIVEAWAY (open until Oct. 19th)
- Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
- Lost Memories of Jane Austen by Syrie James

Thursday, 13th October
- A Discreet and Quiet Life? Jane Austen’s Interesting Times by Stephanie Barron
- Emma (2009)
- GIVEAWAY: Jane and the Canterbury Tale by Stephanie Barron (open until Oct. 20th)

Friday, 14th October
- Jane Austen Made Me Do it - A Conversation
- One of my favourite Jane Austen spin-offs
- Pride & Prejudice (1995)

Saturday, 15th October
- Northanger Abbey (2007)

Sunday, 16th October
- Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen
- Sense & Sensibility (2008)

We truly hope you had a great time with us and Jane during this week. Thanks !

BBC Sense & Sensibility (2008)

2011-10-16T16:35:00.001+01:00

It's impossible not to compare this series with Ang Lee's movie but each one has a different approach to Jane Austen's novel.

Andrew Davies decided to spice up things and give more sexual tension to this story, especially between Marianne and Willoughby. The opening scene is a perfect way to grab the viewers attention and wonder who the young couple is.

The two Dashwood sisters are marvelously played by two young actresses: Charity Wakefield (Marianne), who kept all the freshness and impetuosity of her young years, and Hattie Monahan (Elinor), always so practical with her good sense and hidden feelings.

Like all those who liked Emma Thompson's adaptation, I was a bit afraid to see the new Col. Brandon. Who could do better than Alan Rickman ?! That was simply not possible, right?! Well, David Morrissey was up to the task and he gives us a very good performance. This man simply filled the screen each time he appeared. He is tall, strong, protective, wise, he likes music and a good conversation. Just a perfect Jane Austen hero! When he holds Marianne during the party when she meets Willoughby again, I could only sigh and wish for more.

In this version we get to see more about Marianne and Brandon's relationship. Somehow, I think I needed to see their love growing for each other to make their ending more real, something that we do not see in Thompson’s adaptation.

While watching the first episode and when I saw for the first time Edward Ferrars (Dan Stevens), I immediately saw a more handsome Hugh Grant. Same shaggy hair, the blue eyes, the hesitant and shy attitude, but with a little something more.

Dominic Cooper as Willoughby worked quite well, even if I expected to see a much more handsome actor. He clearly lacks the finesse of a Greg Wise, but in the novel he is rather young and not all that polished. The actor even manages to create a repellent and sleazy character who can only see his own interests without any care for others. But, in the end, Cooper doesn't really achieve to deliver a more passionate and even ambiguous Willoughby. The scene where he returns to talk to Marianne at the end seems forced and not really captivating...

While following the novel pretty close, this version lacks the usual Austen humor, especially the scenes with the Palmers and the Middleton's. I missed this terribly ! One of my favourite moments in Ang Lee S&S are the scenes with Mr. Palmer (Hugh Laurie).

One of my favourite aspects of this adaptation : the Dorset seacoast landscape. The scenery is beautiful and breathtaking. You cannot help to fall in love for the region.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

2011-10-16T00:01:00.013+01:00

I wonder if there is a word that describes people that make the same confession over and over again? If there is, I am about to be guilty of it.

This is my confession:

I have never read Jane Austen.

I know that in the past I have shocked people before when I have confessed this, but somehow I made it through school without reading her, and then managed until now without picking up her books despite being an avid reader for most of my adult life.

This year it is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Sense and Sensibility so I signed up for the associated challenge with the vague intention of reading Austen at some point this year. It was really only when the call went out for this Classics Circuit event that I got the incentive to start. I had read a Dickens book a couple of years ago so now was the perfect time for me to finally, finally read Jane Austen.

I think there are a couple of reasons for not having read Jane Austen. The first is that I was a bit concerned that maybe I might be one of those people who doesn’t actually like her writing (and they do exist!). It’s not the quickest read as you do have to concentrate on the language but I am enjoying the characterizations, the dialogue and the sharp observations on the society of the time.

The major reason for not reading the books is that I already knew the story that was contained within the pages, particularly in relation to Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and to a lesser extent Northanger Abbey. What I am finding though is that I only thought I knew the story. I have only partial memories of the story of Sense and Sensibility which I gained through watching bits and pieces of the mini-series. I found myself reading something early in the book and thinking how can there be more than 200 pages to go if this is happening now! I am finding that I can’t help but see Alan Rickman whenever Colonel Brandon enters the narrative, and similarly Hugh Grant every time that Edward Ferrars is mentioned, but that isn’t a totally terrible imposition really.

So far, I like the book. I am not quite finished, but I can definitely see myself reading more. It’s not all plain sailing though. Let’s start with the not so good aspect. Reading this book, particularly the section where we first meet Colonel Brandon makes me feel very old! I am rapidly approaching the end of the decade where my age begins with a 3, so when this is the first description that we read of Colonel Brandon, I wasn’t particularly thrilled:

He was silent and grave. His appearance was not unpleasing, in spite of his being in the opinion of Marianne and Margaret an absolute old bachelor, for he was on the wrong side of five and thirty; but though his face was not handsome, his countenance was sensible, and his address was particularly gentlemanlike.

Perhaps he is so gentlemanlike because he had so much practice! A bit further on there is reference to the rheumatism he occasionally suffers from. In context, I know that the expected life span was much shorter when the book was written, and that when you are 19 years old, then 35 does look like a long way away, but when you are past that point, you don’t necessarily feel old.

There were plenty of times that I really could appreciate Austen’s ability to comment on the human condition. This passage, for example, very much sums up how I think I am thought of by all but my very closest friends:

"Brandon is just the kind of man,” said Willoughby one day, when they were talking of him together, “whom every body speaks well of, and nobody cares about; whom all are delight to see, and nobody remembers to talk to.”

As I think about the characters, it is clear to me that Austen either likes her characters, or she doesn’t. There isn’t always a lot of nuance. I do expect that this is partially because this is her first published book and so will be interested to see if this changes in future books. To be fair, for several of the characters like Mrs John Middleton for example, there isn’t much to like, and for those sensible characters like Elinor, Edward Ferrars and Colonel Brandon there is obvious affection from the author, which this reader shares.

I have about 80 pages left to go, and I have every intention of finishing the book in the next couple of days. Not only do I want to get to the end so that I can say that I have finished it, but also because I will have yet another reason to watch the mini series again, and then this short clip from Vicar of Dibley, just because I can (not a blatantly gratuitous Richard Armitage posting - honest).

And then, it will not be another 20 to 30 years before I read another book from Jane Austen.

Updated to add...

As a result of Jane Austen Week here at Historical Tapestry I decided that it was time that I finished off those last pages of this book, and I did!

My favourite scenes included where Marianne confesses that she should have been modelling her behaviour on that of Elinor and also this passage from the latter part of the book:

Elinor made no answer. Her thoughts were silently fixed on the irreparable injury which too early an independence and its consequent habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind, the character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person and talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a feeling, affectionate temper. The world had made him extravagant and vain - extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. Vanity, while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another, had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least its offspring, necessity, had required to be sacrificed. Each faulty propensity in leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment. The attachment, from which against honour, against feeling, against every better interest he had outwardly torn himself, now, when no longer allowable, governed every thought; and the connection for the sake of which he had, with little scruple, left her sister to misery, was likely to prove a source of unhappiness to himself of a far more incurable nature.

One of the things that you hear about Jane Austen's writing is that she is excellent at writing the human condition, but that she has not lost relevance in these modern times. I have to say that when I read the first part of this passage it was very reminiscent of the constant comments that you hear about "kids today"!

I am so glad that I finished the book eventually. Now I need to decide which of her books to read next. I am leading towards Persuasion, but if you strongly recommend another read let me know in the comments.

ITV Northanger Abbey (2007)

2011-10-15T18:42:00.013+01:00

Northanger Abbey was adapted by Andrew Davies (Pride & Prejudice, BBC Sense & Sensibility) and it follows the book more or less closely, taking a few liberties sometimes a bit astonishing (we'll talk about it a little further).

The most agreable surprise in this adaptation was definately JJ Feild - Mr Tilney - who was perfect as the wise and sensitive young clergyman. His first scenes with Catherine Morlan (Felicity Jones) are wonderful and it's easy to understand why he feels so attracted to her cheerfulness. His good looks and smile conquered my heart immediately.
Felicity Jones was refreshing as Catherine, the young naive and sweet girl obsessed with gothic novels. I couldn't keep from laughing watching her daydreaming with brigands and duels and playing the damsel in distress. Such a vivid imagination !

Let's not forget Carey Mulligan who gives an incredible performance as the scheming and sensual Isabella. She certainly made my blood boil with anger, just like her bully of a brother.
An interesting note about the casting of this adaptation, Sylvestra Le Touzel - Mrs Allen - interpreted Fanny Price in 1983 version of Mansfield Park.

Now, about the liberties… Some scenes were spiced up (tipically of Davies) or entirely invented, like Catherine nude in her bath or Isabella in bed with Captain Tilney. Also, some of heroine's dreams made scandal especially the bounding scene but, for us, it didn't spoiled this version at all. Northanger Abbey remains one of my favourite Jane Austen adaptations.

Besides the impecable acting, the attention to detail and the scenery with it's vibrant colors made a wonderful period drama.

Pride & Prejudice (1995)

2011-10-14T16:00:00.002+01:00

In this lavish adaptation of Jane Austen's classical romance, Elizabeth Bennett is a strong-willed yet sensible young woman whose father is a gentleman with a quite modest estate and whose uncle suffers in status from being a businessman in Cheapside. She has four sisters, a long-suffering but loving father, and a mother anxious to marry them to wealthy young gentlemen. At a local ball, she encounters one such wealthy young man, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy -- and as Mr. Darcy is arrogant, cold and rude, it is hatred at first sight. As her older sister Jane falls in love with Mr. Darcy's best friend Mr. Bingley, and her youngest sister Lydia flirts with anyone in a military uniform, Lizzie finds herself fighting off the attentions of the unctuous Mr. Collins and quite taken by the charming Mr. Wickham - who also happens to be an enemy of Mr. Darcy. However, as the characters succumb in many ways to pride and prejudice, Lizzie learns that not all is quite as it seems...and that Mr. Darcy might not be so disagreeable after all.

For years I have been hearing how wonderful Colin Firth is as Mr. Darcy. I have had the chance to watch this mini-series several times, but never dedicated the time to it. When we decided to do this week, though, I jumped at the chance to finally see what all the fuss was about. While searching for a plot summary I found you can actually watch the mini-series on YouTube. I had seen the Keira Knightley movie several times. My sister loves it and probably can quote it word for word. It's rather obvious that Knghtley had seen this mini-series. You can see many of Jennifer Ehle's movements and speech patterns adopted.

I think Jennifer Ehle did a wonderful job playing Elizabeth. She acted a lot like I would have pictured her back when I was reading the book. I thought she took way too many walks in this mini-series, though. I know it was expected to give a scene of her need to behave differently from others, but in the beginning I was worried those dull scenes were going to take away from the overall mini-series. It didn't work out that way at all. I found the mini-series got better as it went along and I enjoyed watching it. I also agree with the assessment that Colin Firth makes a very good Mr. Darcy. He is moody and anti-social to a tee. As you start to get used to him, you will definitely be hoping that they wind up together. Not to mention hoping that Jane Bennet ends up with Mr. Bingley. That romance has just as many unfortunate pitfalls as Elizabeth's, but those two at least admit they care about each other.

I enjoyed the other characters, too. Mrs. Bennet was sufficiently hard on the head. After just reading an imagined story of how the couple came to be; I still find it hard to believe they are the same people. She started out so quiet. Now her voice rather grates on the nerves. Mr. Bennet is played really well, too. He is bookish and comical when it comes to his daughters. I rather enjoyed those moments. All of the sisters were believable, too. Lydia was, well, Lydia. Mary was the scholar. Kitty was Lydia's shadow. And even when you knew that Wickham was going to turn out to be bad, you couldn't help liking him along with Elizabeth in the beginning.

I think for a book to mini-series adaptation, this was done really well. The cast were all believable, the story stayed very close to the book, and the time period really came alive. I have no major complaints with the mini-series and hope to watch it many more times in the future. If you are slow to see it like I was, I do recommend it. I am not a huge Austen fan and not a big fan of romances in general, but this is worth checking out.

One of my favourite Jane Austen spin-offs

2011-10-14T08:32:00.000+01:00

A couple of years ago, a friend knowing my feelings for Mr Darcy recommended me a trilogy based on Pride & Prejudice - the Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy written by Pamela Aidan :

1. An Assembly Such as This

2. Duty and Desire

3. These Three Remain

Being a huge fan of P&P, I often wondered (and like so many others around the world) about Mr. Darcy’s point of view and what did he do during those times he was away from Elizabeth.

In the first book, we follow him to Netherfield, with his friend, Mr Bilgley, and his sisters. We understand better his behavior at the public assembly at Meryton and his attitude towards the Bennett family and his meddling in Mr Bingley and Jane burgeoning courtship. This must be my favourite book of all three, because if it follows closely Jane Austen’s story, there’s some very refreshing perspectives that really captivated me all along the story.

Duty and Desire starts after the departure of Darcy and the Bingleys from Netherfield. During all those months apart from his love interest, Mr Darcy cannot stop questioning his feelings for Miss Elizabeth Bennett and he does his best to forget her (without much success, I must say). Not only we learn more about him and his social life, but Aidan also gives us some particular adventures. I did had some troubles imagining Mr Darcy acting like he did in some occasions, but my interest never falter.

In These Three Remain, Darcy visits his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and, surprise, he meets Elizabeth there. In the final part of this trilogy, I especially enjoyed reading about THE proposal from Darcy’s POV. And later, his explanations about his dealings with Wickham or the reasons why he convinced his friend, Bingley, to leave Netherfield and Jane, really show us his real intentions. While reading P&P I always find Darcy mysterious and distant, at the beginning at least, here he seems more human.

The Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy brings a new light about the haughty, snobbish and arrogant man we meet in Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice. This is absolutely no critic to P&P (I would never dare !), I like the book exactly as it is. Nonetheless, it’s always fun to read more about the character we love so much.

These three books were an absolute pleasure to read and one that I will certainly repeat during one of those windy and rainy Winter days with a wonderful cup of tea.

Jane Austen Made Me Do it - A Conversation

2011-10-14T00:27:00.027+01:00

Welcome to our conversation of the Jane Austen Made Me Do It anthology. If you have read any of the stories, please feel free to join in on the discussion in the comments!

Ana: Did you like the idea of an anthology of stories inspired/related/connected to Jane Austen? Even if I haven’t loved all the sequels/spin offs/etc I’ve read I am always looking forward to read more and see how I like them.

Marg: I have avoided all the Jane Austen spin offs for the longest time. The main reason for doing so is that I actually haven’t read the originals and so I didn’t want to spoil them, at least not more than what I already knew from movies etc and the pop culture references that I have gained over the years.

Ana: I have to say that not all stories were to my taste. Quite normal when you realise that there are so many periods, types and settings. Since my favorite genre is historical fiction it is not difficult to guess the ones I liked better - Jane and the Gentleman Rogue by Stephanie Barron (it felt that there should be more about this one btw), Jane Austen and the Mistletoe Kiss by Jo Beverley (a sweet short story in Austen’s style), Heard of You by Margaret Sullivan (I love to know what happens to interesting secondary characters). But I also enjoyed two contemporary tales - Faux Jane by RJ Meiers and The Love Letter by Brenna Aubrey. What about you?

Kelly: I have to admit that I am not a huge Jane Austen fan. I have always been intrigued by her as a person, but I have basically avoided all the spin-offs from her books. I thought maybe I should branch out a bit, though, and this book looked like an interesting way to get brief glimpses of the potential stories that can come about because of Jane Austen. I was basically lost when the stories were about characters from Jane Austen’s novels. I have only read Pride & Prejudice and that was a few years ago now. I think I missed a lot when the stories centred around that.

I did enjoy some of the stories, though. I enjoyed ‘Jane Austen’s Nightmare’ by Syrie James, which was actually the very first story in the book. It is imagined that Jane Austen gets the chance in her dream to visit with characters from her novels. I enjoy the idea because not all of the characters were that happy with how they were written. The funny thing is that when I was reading Ana’s response, I could just basically copy and past because I also enjoyed Jane and the Gentleman Rogue (really must read more than the one book I have read from this series), Jane Austen and the Mistletoe Kiss, Faux Jane by RJ Meiers, and The Love Letter by Brenna Aubrey. I also sort of liked A Night at Northanger by Lauren Willig because I like ghost stories.

Marg: Really it was the mention of two authors that made me want to read the anthology - Lauren Willig and Adriana Trigiani! The others were all new to me! One surprise for me was that Frank Delaney is one of the co-authors that writes under the name F J Meier. I had no idea!

As to favourites, mine were Jo Beverley’s Jane Austen and the Mistletoe Kiss, Jane Austen’s Nightmare by Syrie James, Intolerably Stupid and Heard of You by Margaret C Sullivan.

Ana: Kelly aren’t you curious now to try some of Austen’s other books? Some of the stories I enjoyed because they were related to my favourite, Persuasion, and I know I wouldn’t have enjoyed Margaret Sullivan’s Heard of You and Brenna Aubrey’s The Love Letter as much if I hadn’t read Persuasion first. Heard of You is a really sweet story about the Crofts, so well written that I had no trouble believing that that’s their real story. The Love Letter is a contemporary but also very nicely written and with a perfect last sentence!

Kelly: Yes, I really think I would have enjoyed this collection more if I had read the actual novels they were based off. I felt like I was missing out by not knowing the original stories. In some cases it wasn’t that much of a problem for me, but in other cases I wasn’t really all that interested in the story. ‘The Love Letter’ still worked for me, though.

Marg: I thought Heard of You worked pretty well despite the fact that I hadn’t read Persuasion. It was still one of my favourites.

I wanted to specifically comment on Brenna Aubrey’s story The Love Letter. Brenna was the winner of a short story contest that was held to choose one story to put into the anthology. I was very impressed with it, and thought it held up pretty well in comparison to the other stories in the collection.

We thought we would give just a brief one or two line glimpse of our thoughts about each of the stories.

Jane Austen’s Nightmare by Syrie James - (Ana) What if Jane Austen met her characters and found out they weren’t all that happy with how she portrayed them? A true nightmare for the author.

Waiting: A story inspired by Jane Austen’s Persuasion by Jane Odiwe - (Kailana) A spin-off from Austen’s novel Persuasion where a romance that has been put on hold is rekindled and taken to the next level.

A Night at Northanger by Lauren Willig - (Marg) When Cate left journalism school she was hoping for CNN or some other respected news agency - not Ghost Trekkers. Ghost Trekkers has however lead her to Northanger which may or not be haunted!

Jane and the Gentleman Rogue: Being a fragment of a Jane Austen mystery by Stephanie Barrons - (Ana) Jane Austen gets to play the detective and find out who is trying to pass some naval secrets to France. She and Lord Harold seem to share an interesting friendship while they both protect the nation’s best interests.

Faux Jane by F J Meier - (Kailana) Did you know it was impossible to possess a signed first-edition of Pride & Prejudice? Many people do not, so it makes easy targets for swindlers and thieves.

Nothing Less than Fairy-land by Monica Fairview (Marg) - Emma and Mr Knightley are married but it is not all smooth sailing. In order to compromise, Knightley has agreed to live at Emma’s home, but Mr Woodhouse is not making it easy.

Love and Best Wishes, Aunt Jane by Adriana Trigiani - (Ana) On the occasion of her niece’s wedding Aunt Jane shares some interesting advice and congratulates her.

Jane Austen and the Mistletoe Kiss by Jo Beverley - (Kailana) This was a quaint story about the magic behind mistletoe for a woman that has been widowed and a man that she believes is too good for her. Jane Austen makes an appearance and inspires a romance.

When Only a Darcy Will Do by Beth Pattillo - (Marg) An impoverished student in London is trying to make a little cash on the side and so has organised a tour of Jane Austen’s London. Each week she dresses up in period costume and waits for her first paying customer. When he turns up full dressed as a Regency gentleman she finds out that sometimes only a Darcy will do!

Heard of You by Margaret C Sullivan - (Ana) How the Admiral Croft and Sophie Wentworth met and fell in love, and the role that Captain Wentworth played in their story.

The Ghostwriter by Elizabeth Aston - (Kailana) Sara, an author, is in love with Mr. Darcy to the point where the man she is with, Charles, can’t take it anymore. He leaves her, but her life is about to drastically change because Jane Austen herself appears to help her out with both her career and her love life.

Mr Bennet Meets His Match by Amanda Grange - (Marg) The story of how Mr and Mrs Bennet met!

Jane Austen, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah! by Janet Mullany - (Ana) A teacher makes Jane Austen appealing to her students by making them imagine that the characters are the Beatles.

Letters to Lydia by Maya Slater - (Kailana) As the title says, these are letters that are written to Lydia Bennet. They come from Maria Lucas who played a minor role in Pride & Prejudice, but was present for most major events.

The Mysterious Closet: A Tale by Myretta Robens- (Marg) Cathy needs a break from her life, especially given her broken heart, and so books a room at a converted abbey, not realising that it was haunted... or perhaps Henry is real?

Jane Austen’s Cat by Diana Birchall - (Ana) Jane Austen likes to tell stories to her nieces and in this one the main characters are cats.

Me and Mr Darcy, Again.... by Alexandra Potter (Marg) - A Mr Darcy obsessed tourist in London realises that her fascination with him may be getting in the way of her happiness. With Mr Darcy helping to orchestrate events with her boyfriend will there be a happy ever after?

What Would Austen Do? by Jane Rubino and Caitlen Rubino-Bradway - (Marg) When your name is James Austen there’s not much chance that you wouldn’t know the stories of Jane Austen, or at least think you know them without actually having read them. That is until you meet a young lady who you think may be a kindred spirit. Contained my favourite quote of the whole anthology.

“In Jane Austen it’s always a big deal - what people are versus what people think they are.”

The Riding Habit by Pamela Aidan - (Ana) - A sequel of Pride and Prejudice. Mr Darcy want to teach his wife to ride but her first day doesn’t go as smoothly as planned.

The Love Letter by Brenna Aubrey - (Marg) - Mark is a Doctor just about to sit the most important exam of his career. What he doesn’t need is the distraction of a mystery page from a book, and thinking about his love life, particularly the woman he left behind a few years before.

The Chase by Carrie Bebris - (Marg) The story of the ship board battles which led to Jane Austen’s brother becoming a Captain in the Navy. He eventually rose through the ranks to become Admiral of the Fleet

Intolerably Stupidity by Laurie Viera Rigler - (Ana) - Contemporary writers are tried by how they portrayed Mr Darcy in all the sequels and spin offs they wrote. Judge Catherine de Bourgh presides...

GIVEAWAY: Jane and the Canterbury Tale by Stephanie Barron

2011-10-13T17:37:00.000+01:00

Three years after news of her scandalous husband’s death, Adelaide Fiske is at the altar again, her groom a soldier on the Marquis of Wellington’s staff. The prospects seem bright for one of the most notorious women in Kent—until Jane Austen discovers a corpse on the ancient Pilgrim’s Way that runs through her brother Edward’s estate. As First Magistrate for Canterbury, Edward is forced to investigate, with Jane as his reluctant assistant. But she rises to the challenge and leaves no stone unturned, discovering mysteries deeper than she could have anticipated. It seems that Adelaide’s previous husband has returned for the new couple’s nuptials—only this time, genuinely, profoundly dead. But when a second corpse appears beside the ancient Pilgrim’s Way, Jane has no choice but to confront a murderer, lest the next corpse be her own.

The rules:

- to participate, just leave a comment
- open to US & Canada
- one entry per household
- the giveaway closes October 20

A big thanks to Stephanie Barron for her generosity.
Good luck !

BBC Emma (2009)

2011-10-13T08:04:00.002+01:00

As any Jane Austen fan, I was eager to see the new BBC Emma adaptation. Until now, my favorite was Kate Beckinsale's and while I was convinced it would be difficult to do better, there was hope for something outstanding, something that would surprise me and knock my socks off. The result wasn't quite what I expected, nerveless I did enjoy revisiting Jane Austen world.

The story happens somewhere in the beginning of the 19th century in Highborn, a small village in England. Emma Woodhouse is a rather proud young lady who imagines herself as the perfect matchmaker. Her family is healthy and respected and as the younger child she is spoiled and surrounded by people who admire her. Miss Taylor, her governess and later her companion, can't find any fault with the enchanting and lively girl.

When Miss Taylor becomes Mrs Weston, Emma tries to find a new friend. In one of her visits to Mrs Goddard's School she notices a charming young woman, Harriet Smith. Not much is known about her except she has a mysterious protector who always paid for her expenses. Emma immediately thinks her future friend might be the illegitimate daughter of a gentleman and decides to take her under her wing.

After the success of her matchmaking schemes with the new Weston couple, Emma is convinced she can find the perfect husband for Harriet. Her first choice is the new reverend, Mr Elton. But she will learn the hard way that her wishes are not always the right ones for the people she loves.

I have to be completely honest and confess right away that Emma was never quite among my JA favourite female characters. She is the kind of heroine difficult to warm up at first, her proud attitude and snobbish comments don't make the task easier. In this new adaptation, Romola Garaï managed to give her the little thing that made her much more agreable and funny at my eyes : a mischievous and free caring attitude that quite suits the character and shows her in a much more sympathetic light. If there were moments where I was not entirely convinced by Romola Garaï's choice, she taught me how wrong I was with her bright smile and bouncing blonde curls. This more immature side of Emma made some things more easily forgiven.

My main complain about this new adaptation is the lack of screen time of Mr. Knightley. Is there a need to explain to screenplay writers that Austen's men are one of the strong points in her novels? I felt Jonny Lee Miller gave us a wonderful performance but certainly he could have been even better if he had the chance. I know I’m not completely rational about this point, but I do have an explanation : I’m a big Knightley fan.

Harriet Smith was probably the most annoying character in the series. If she's gentle and sweet, she's also too insecure and easy manipulated. She gets in and out of love for three different men in a year without much thought. Her permanent whining is something that got really on my nerves.

Now, I couldn't end my review without mentioning the Elton couple. You never really know if someone should slap them or thank them for providing us with some of the most hilarious moments in the series. Christina Cole is absolutely brilliant in this role !

A curious fact about Jodhi May who played already in a period drama with Romola Garaï - Daniel Deronda. There she was the young and beautiful Mirah Lapidoth and Garaï played the spoiled and selfish Gwendolen Harleth, both were about the same age. Strangely, here they must have 20 years of difference...

After watching this adaptation several times, I must say that I find the casting absolutely perfect. The costumes and surrounding were beautiful, as always with the BBC.

In the end, this was a good adaptation that certainly wins after being watched a couple of times, it grows on you without you noticing.

A Discreet and Quiet Life? Jane Austen’s Interesting Times by Stephanie Barron

2011-10-13T00:00:00.001+01:00

We’ve all heard some variation of that ancient Chinese curse: May You Live in Interesting Times—the danger being that “interesting” is rarely devoid of the chaotic or the unsettling. I doubt Jane Austen was ever formally subjected to such a curse; but she got “interesting” all the same. Born on the eve of the American Revolution (1775), and dying just two years after the epic Battle of Waterloo (1817), Jane lived during one of the most turbulent periods in English history--over four decades of almost continuous warfare, set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, industrialization, Napoleon’s conquest of Europe, and the spread of Enlightenment ideals across the European continent. Yes, she lived her final six years in a quiet village in Hampshire, during which time her novels were published; and yes, she never married—but to see Jane merely as a spinster buried in an English garden, penning her sweet stories in obscurity, is to misread her history.

Some fifteen years ago, I made understanding Jane my personal winter project. I’d been reading her books, as I usually do when the weather turns bad, but this year it was with a peculiar purpose: I wanted to use Jane as the central detective in a mystery series I planned to write—and realized I knew Eliza Bennet and Anne Elliot better than I knew Austen herself. I’d studied Napoleonic France and Regency England as an undergrad, so the period was something I grasped. Jane, however, remained opaque behind the scrim of her novels and her time, an indistinct figure obscured by what other people chose to say about her. Brother Henry eulogized her as a God-fearing Christian woman of proper feeling, in the posthumous edition of her last two novels, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey; but Henry—probably Jane’s liveliest and favorite brother—had found God himself after bankrupting his clients and half his family when his financial industry ran aground. Jane’s descendants, who wrote the first “biography” of her in the form of Jane Austen: A Family Record, were Victorians anxious to tidy Aunt Jane for posterity. I needed to hear her actual voice—I needed Jane to tell me who she was--and the surest way to find her was among the pages of her surviving letters.

There are nearly one hundred and sixty of them, which is to say there are barely any letters at all. Jane wrote several times a day, to various members of her family and her acquaintance—probably as much as a hundred and sixty letters every few months—so the surviving correspondence is the proverbial tip of Jane’s iceberg. But the letters we have tell us tantalizing things: that she read several newspapers a day, and was absolutely current on the political debates and decisions of a government as much at war with itself as with the French; that she mingled with dangerous characters in London and Kent; and that far from being naïve or sheltered, she was no stranger to the scandals of her times.

Possessing two brothers who served as Post Captains in the Royal Navy, Jane constantly scoured the press for news of engagements—because her brothers’ letters would arrive, with word of their life or death, long after the actual battles. Jane was visiting her wealthy brother Edward in Kent during the summer of 1805, which was known as the Great Terror in England due to the constant fear of French invasion along the Kentish Coast—she witnessed the militia on forced marches while Edward’s household grappled with evacuation plans that summer. Naval brother Frank was on the Channel blockade that same August, sailing with Nelson up to the day before the epic battle of Trafalgar in October—and the first news of that horrific, bloody and epic engagement, as well as Nelson’s death, must have brought with it intense anxiety for the entire Austen family. Jane comments with apparent callousness on a battle years later in the Peninsula: “How horrible it is to have so many people killed!—And what a blessing that one cares for none of them!--” which is, of course, merely her way of saying thankfully that her brothers were not among the casualties of war.

In London, Jane often visited Henry and his wife Eliza, who claimed the French title of countess from her first husband, guillotined during the Terror; at Eliza’s house, Jane hobnobbed with the Regent’s cronies, who borrowed money from Henry’s bank to cover their gambling debts. In Sloane Street she also met Eliza’s particular friends, the d’Entraigues—a French opera singer and her aristocratic husband, who was secretly spying against the English for both Napoleon and the Tsar. By 1812, the d’Entraigues would be murdered in their beds, their throats slit by a vengeful servant—but was it in fact political assassination? Jane certainly must have had an opinion; but if she wrote it in one of her letters, it has not survived. Henry was comfortable enough among London’s ton to attend the party at White’s—the most aristocratic and breathless of Pall Mall’s Tory clubs—in celebration of the Regent’s coronation in June, 1811, but Jane was no fan of His Royal Highness: she despised the Regent and championed his estranged wife, Princess Caroline, in part because, Jane wrote, “she is a woman.”

For years, critics have derided Austen for writing nothing of the struggles of her time in her charming novels of manners. But again, this is to misread her work. Jane had no need to explain the context of her books to her contemporary readers—the fact of warfare was implicit in all their lives—and for those of us attempting to understand her milieu two hundred years later, the clues are subtle but present. When Eliza Bennet is forced to sit down at the Meryton Assembly, because gentlemen are scarce and more than one lady is in want of a partner—she is resigned to what every young woman of 1813 knew: the bulk of the male population was absent from home, serving in either the army or navy. Wickham’s regimentals underline the prevalent social reality of Jane’s time: militia were being drafted and quartered in every “obscure country village” in England, seriously disrupting the sanity of the female inhabitants. Anne Elliot in Persuasion can recite the various degrees of rank within the White, Red and Blue fleets of the Royal Navy, with all the assurance and familiarty of one who has been up late reading the Naval Lists by candlelight; and Fanny Price’s visit to Portsmouth in Mansfield Park betrays Jane’s intimate knowledge of the naval town, from her years of living with Frank in neighboring Southampton. The real world intrudes on the bucolic world of Austen’s ballrooms with constant pressure: Persuasion closes with Napoleon’s escape from Elba and Frederick Wentworth’s return to battle—a note of anxiety amidst the wedding bells.

In my detective series featuring Jane Austen, I’ve focused on her engagement with her turbulent times, by giving her an intriguing sidekick—Lord Harold Trowbridge, an aristocratic government spy—and a willingness to leave no stone unturned. The two return in a tantalizingly short episode in the new anthology, Jane Austen Made Me Do It.

May we all live in interesting times.

__________________________________________

To know more about Stephanie Barron and her novels, don't forget to visit her website: http://www.stephaniebarron.com/

The Lost Memories of Jane Austen by Syrie James

2011-10-12T16:00:00.000+01:00

Many rumors abound about a mysterious gentleman said to be the love of Jane's life—finally, the truth may have been found. . . .

What if, hidden in an old attic chest, Jane Austen's memoirs were discovered after hundreds of years? What if those pages revealed the untold story of a life-changing love affair? That's the premise behind this spellbinding novel, which delves into the secrets of Jane Austen's life, giving us untold insights into her mind and heart.

Jane Austen has given up her writing when, on a fateful trip to Lyme, she meets the well-read and charming Mr. Ashford, a man who is her equal in intellect and temperament. Inspired by the people and places around her, and encouraged by his faith in her, Jane begins revising Sense and Sensibility, a book she began years earlier, hoping to be published at last.

It seems there are a lot of books with or about Jane Austen being published lately. And I'm doing my best to read the ones that seem more interesting even if sometimes they turn out to be not so good.

That is not the case with these Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen. The author starts with a note explaining how during some works or renovations in a house Jane Austen lived in some papers were found that later turned out to be Jane Austen's diary. I was a bit worried about a diary, thus in the first person, by such a famous character as Austen but in the end I found it very enjoyable.

The memoirs supposedly tell about a period in Jane Austen's life about which we have no letters or any other documents. It describes her life after her father died when she, her mother and her sister Cassandra find themselves in lack of funds and have to resort to share a house with the wife of one of her brothers till her brother Edward offers them a cottage in his property. It also approaches her love life telling of the love she shared with a Mr Ashford and of the reasons she did not manage to attain the happy ending she gave to almost all of her characters.

Predictably we can recognise in some of the people she deals with and in some of the situations she finds herself in scenes that that will later appear in her books. I thought it was well done and appropriate and quite enjoyed them.

Overall I thought it a really nice and interesting story of what could have been. Just one thing that let me a bit down, the basic of the story is too close to what happens in the movie (I haven't read the book yet) Becoming Jane. I was disappointed in that movie in a way that I wasn't with this book. The feel of the period, the atmosphere in much better here. Why didn't they adapt this one instead?

***************
This review was previously posted on this blog in July 2008

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

2011-10-12T08:01:00.003+01:00

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

Completion Date: August 26, 2011
Reason for Reading: Fun!

The fantasy novel you've always wished Jane Austen had written

Shades of Milk and Honey is exactly what we could expect from Jane Austen if she had been a fantasy writer: Pride and Prejudice meets Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It is an intimate portrait of a woman, Jane, and her quest for love in a world where the manipulation of glamour is considered an essential skill for a lady of quality.

Jane and her sister Melody vie for the attentions of eligible men, and while Jane's skill with glamour is remarkable, it is her sister who is fair of face. When Jane realizes that one of Melody's suitors is set on taking advantage of her sister for the sake of her dowry, she pushes her skills to the limit of what her body can withstand in order to set things right--and, in the process, accidentally wanders into a love story of her own.

I have always been a fan of fantasy and this book has been getting a lot of attention lately. It sounded interesting and it was being compared to Jane Austen. I might not be a huge fan of the books that she actually wrote, but I do appreciate her writing style. I was curious what the publishing world considered 'Jane Austen writing fantasy.' First of all, wouldn't it have been wonderful if Jane Austen had written fantasy? That would be much more exciting than the fact she wrote period. Her works have lasting power, though, and I applaud her for her talent and success.

I have been mentioning lately that I really enjoy the circus idea in books. I say idea because this book actually reminds me a lot of the tents that were made for the circus in The Night Circus. This is a society where people have magical abilities and essentially are able to manipulate their world in order to create illusions. When I read The Night Circus I immediately wanted to visit the circus. When I read this book, I spent the entire both wishing I had the abilities of Jane in this book, and if I couldn't, I wanted to see the wonderful things that she both created and experienced during the course of this novel. They can take a painting and give it movement, create a forest in your bedroom, create an entire scene for enjoyment by all, and many other magical and wonderful things.

The main character in this book is Jane. I may not have read all of Jane Austen's novels, but this book is easily based off of a love of them. The romance qualities remind me a bit of the romances that happen in Austen's novels, but with enough originality that it doesn't seem like anything is being copied. I think it is the spirit of the book more than anything, but also the spirit of the character. Jane is plain looking, she believes, and has basically given in to the fact that she will be a spinster. That doesn't stop her from having attractions to the men in her world. She just assumes it will not be returned. Her sister is the real beauty, but she is actually jealous of Jane's ability to create illusions. It leads to interesting interactions through the course of the book.

I really enjoyed this book. It wasn't perfect, though. I am not a huge fan of the authors writing style. There was something that prevented me from getting entirely wrapped up in the book. I really liked Jane, though; as well as the world that has been created, the magic, and how it all works very well well for the time period.

If you get a chance to read this book I recommend it!

This review was cross-posted at The Written World.

Revisiting the past in Jane Austen Made Me Do It + GIVEAWAY

2011-10-12T00:00:00.005+01:00

Many thanks to blog mistresses: Alex, Kelly, Ana and Marg, for hosting me today at Historical Tapestry on my Grand Tour of the blogosphere in celebration of the release of my new Austen-inspired anthology, Jane Austen Made Me Do It. I am so looking forward to your daily posts in its honor during Jane Austen Week, here, October 10-16, 2011.

Jane Austen Made Me Do It contains twenty-two original stories inspired by my favorite author. As the editor, I was responsible for selecting and inviting all of the authors to contribute to the anthology. We were shooting for twenty stories at about 5,000 words each and wanted a variety from all genres. My only request was that they “stay within the theme of exploring Austen’s philosophies of life and love by reacquainting readers with characters from her novels or introducing original stories inspired by her ideals.” Interestingly, just about half of the stories turned out to be set in the Regency-era. They seem to fall into three categories: 1.) Jane Austen as a character, 2.) stories about her characters, and 3.) stories about her family. Here is a preview of the historical stories in the anthology:

“Jane Austen’s Nightmare,” by Syrie James

On a foggy day in Bath, all of Jane Austen’s heroines, and a compendium of other characters from her novels, meet their creator to discuss or complain about the way they were portrayed, a distressing but ultimately illuminating experience which inspires her to write Persuasion.

“Waiting: A story inspired by Jane Austen’s Persuasion,” by Jane Odiwe

Captain Wentworth and his beloved Anne Elliot have been waiting almost nine years to marry. As they await her father’s blessing, they look back on the beginnings of their relationship.

“Jane and the Gentleman Rogue: Being a fragment of a Jane Austen Mystery,” by Stephanie Barron

The Gentle Rogue returns! Lord Harold Trowbridge: confidant of the Government, Rake about Town, and spy, must unmask a French Adventuress and her traitorous paramour leading to an unexpected meeting at dawn. Only Jane’s wit stands between England and disaster.

“Nothing Less Than Fairy-Land, by Monica Fairview

In this amusing continuation of Jane Austen’s novel Emma, the day has arrived for the married Emma and Mr. Knightley to move into Hartfield, upsetting the measured life of Emma’s valetudinarian father, dear Mr. Woodhouse. When even Mr. Knightley’s patience is tested, Emma must use all of her “imaginist” skills toward a happy resolution for all.

“Jane Austen and the Mistletoe Kiss,” by Jo Beverley

A widow and her three young daughters must cope with reduced circumstances after the death of her husband and removal to a small cottage near Chawton. When their neighbor Jane Austen shares the holiday tale of the “mistletoe kiss,” a romance ensues that will change their lives in an unexpected way.

“Heard of You,” by Margaret C. Sullivan

In Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion, Captain Wentworth’s elder sister Sophie Croft is instrumental in advising him on his own happiness. Discovery her brother’s earlier role in her own marriage to Admiral Croft, in this enchanting tale of the Royal Navy and the value of a female correspondent.

“Mr. Bennet Meets His Match,” by Amanda Grange

Poor Mrs. Bennet! In Pride and Prejudice her husband is not very tolerant of her nervous flutterings and spasms! They seem such a mismatched couple until we learn of their original romance in this enlightening tale of the strength of fear as a strong motivator to marriage.

“Letters to Lydia,” by Maya Slater

Maria Lucas may have been a minor character in Pride and Prejudice, but she is silent witness to some of the most eye opening events in Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy’s relationship. Learn the inside gossip, or is it fact, from the horse’s mouth as she writes to her dear friend Lydia Bennet from Hunsford Parsonage.

“Jane Austen’s Cat,” by Diana Birchall

Jane Austen’s nieces remember the wonderful fairy tales she would tell them when they were children. Capturing her playful spirit, here is one of delightful stories that she entertained them with relaying “cat tails” as they were told on one level for children, and as stories based on her novels, and on her own life.

“The Riding Habit,” by Pamela Aidan

Negotiating London Society has been a challenge that the newly married Elizabeth Darcy faced and conquered. Why then, must her beloved Fitzwilliam insist she learn to ride a horse now before the eyes of them all?

“The Chase,” by Carrie Bebris

Jane Austen’s elder brother Francis Austen served in the Royal Navy eventually rising to its highest position, Admiral of the Fleet. This story depicts true events in a March 1800 action off Marseilles, so amazing it could be from a Horatio Hornblower novel, earning him promotion to post-captain and the respect and renowned of all who served during the Age of Sail.

It was a pleasure to work with so many fabulous authors on this project. Thanks again ladies of Historical Tapestry for letting me share my excitement and pride in all the great historical stories in this collection!

Editor bio:

A life-long acolyte of Jane Austen, Laurel Ann Nattress is the author/editor of Austenprose.com a blog devoted to the oeuvre of her favorite author and the many books and movies that she has inspired. She is a life member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, a regular contributor to the PBS blog Remotely Connected and the Jane Austen Centre online magazine. An expatriate of southern California, Laurel Ann lives in a country cottage near Snohomish, Washington. Visit Laurel Ann at her blogs Austenprose.com and JaneAustenMadeMeDoIt.com, on Twitter as @Austenprose, and on Facebook as Laurel Ann Nattress.

Jane Austen Made Me Do It: Original Stories Inspired by Literature’s Most Astute Observer of the Human Heart, edited by Laurel Ann Nattress

Ballantine Books • ISBN: 978-0345524966

___________________________________________________

Giveaway of Jane Austen Made Me Do It

Enter a chance to win one copy of Jane Austen Made Me Do It by leaving a comment by October 19, stating what intrigues you about reading an Austen-inspired short story anthology. Winners to be drawn at random and announced October 20. Shipment to US and Canadian addresses only. Good luck to all!

Persuasion (1995)

2011-10-11T16:05:00.012+01:00

Is there anything better than watching a favourite book being adapted to the TV screen? The numerous adaptations made from Jane Austen's books and the numerous fans that watch them and keep asking for more seem to confirm that there is, indeed, nothing better. At least for Austen fans!

In 1995 the BBC adapted Persuasion to the screen. Starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds, it was directed by Roger Michell and the screenwriter was Nick Dear.

This Persuasion is a brilliant adaptation of Austen's story. The story of Anne Elliot and Captain Frederick Wenworth who meet again after 8 years apart. In the past they fell in love but Anne eventually refuses Wentworth, influenced by her family (especially by her family friend, Lady Russell). She hasn't forgotten him, however.

The confusion and mix of feelings experienced by Anne Elliott when she first sees Captain Wentworth again is clearly reflected in Amanda Root's face and manner. Ciaran Hinds keeps us in suspense, for a while, on whether his Captain Wentworth has forgotten Anne or not.

Every look and gesture has a meaning with these two, they speak as much with their eyes, if not more, as with their mouths. We follow Anne as she realises she loves Wentworth still and we suffer with her when she believes her cause to be lost. When a ray of hope shines we can't help waiting eagerly for that moment when she will finally be able to say yes.

Then it is a very interesting movie, there's a lot of attention to detail and I notice that everytime I watch it I find some little thing I had missed earlier. A first viewing left me mesmerised with Anne and Frederick, later viewings allowed me to enjoy the secondary characters more. It might not be the kind of movie that we immediately love on first viewing - because it's a demanding movie, slow, intense and emotional - but it is certainly one I've enjoyed more each time I watched it!

Captain Wentworth's Diary by Amanda Grange

2011-10-11T08:03:00.001+01:00

It is 1806, and Frederick Wentworth, a brilliant young man with a flourishing career in the navy, falls in love with Anne Elliot. The two become engaged, but Anne's godmother persuades Anne to change her mind, leaving Wentworth to go back to sea. Eight years pass, and Wentworth is now a seasoned captain with a fortune at his disposal. Anne's bloom has faded, yet she has the same sensibilities and superior mind she had eight years earlier, and before he knows it, Wentworth is falling in love with her all over again. Can there be a happy outcome for them this time around?

Persuasion is my favourite Jane Austen book so it was with high expectations that I started this story, supposedly Captain's Wentworth's version of the events. The first chapters of the book report Wentworth and Anne's meeting 8 years before Persuasion starts and so come solely out of Amanda Grange's imagination. When they meet Wentworth, at first, mistakes her for a maid and asks her for a dance to save her from the arrogant Miss Elliott. The story proceeds as the two meet at several social functions and Frederick falls in love with Anne. He proposes and is accepted but, on the next day, Anne refuses him after being persuaded to do so by Lady Russell. He becomes understandably angry and leaves decided to seek his fortune and forget all about her. Then we jump 8 years and are in familiar ground with the retelling of the well known story.

I must say that I did enjoy the book, it was a nice story and it followed Austen's lead pretty closely, the dialogues, the situations; everything is similar to the original. However I think Commander Wentworth has a very youthful voice that went well with the man in the first chapters but lacked gravity in the latter part of the story, the man who wrote "you pierce my soul" would, I feel, have a more serious and anguished approach to Anne and her reactions to him. I wanted more of his reflections about what was happening and I didn't feel I got to know Anne better or to understand why both she and Fanny were such superior women. Jane Austen's wit is also absent (except where the dialogues are the original) and somehow a witty dialogue could have made up for much.

Still I did enjoy it, it was very easy to read and fans of Persuasion will definitely like to know more about Captain Wentworth.

******************

This review was previously posted on this blog in September 2009

Persuasion by Jane Austen

2011-10-11T00:01:00.002+01:00

Although I do love all of Jane Austen's books and especially Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion will forever hold a special place in my heart. First it is because the characters are not so young anymore, they have lived and they have loved, they have a past full of memories, some they cherish and some they regret. And secondly it is because it is about second chances...

Persuasion is mostly the story of a young woman. Not so young by her own time parameters but still young. It's about heartbreak, about how one decision can affect you for years and years.

When Persuasion starts Anne Elliot meets Captain Wentworth 8 years after she has broken up her engagement with him.I loved how Austen shows Anne's feelings, first anxiety at the meeting, resignation for his indifference, heartbreak because she hasn't forgotten him and her feelings have changed tremondously and finally hope when she starts seeing in him signs of a different emotion. She can't however do much about it. The codes of conduct of the time forbid her to take action in the way we would nowadays and we have to wait and see, feeling her anxiety, if Frederick Wentworth will again declare his feelings for her.

There isn't much witty dialogue like in some other Austen novels but there are such deep emotions in Anne Elliott. I love it when books are character studies, when we really get to know a character and follow him in his thoughts and actions.

There's much more that could be said about Persuasion for me it was Anne and her feelings who made the novel.

Highly recommended!

Our 10 Favourite Things about Jane Austen

2011-10-10T20:21:00.024+01:00

(in no particular order)

1. An array of interesting main and secondary characters: no matter how important the character is, they are always interesting and have something to bring to the story.

2. The plotlines, her well structured stories keep us glued to the pages till we reach the end, and find what happens to the characters.

3. The atmosphere really sets the mood for the books and movies. In some, like Northanger Abbey, it is a Gothic atmosphere. In others it is a more light-hearted atmosphere. The scene is always set so that you can feel how the characters are feeling.

4. The settings because, especially now, you want to visit all of them. Austen brings together everything from the houses, towns, villages, etc. to life. She can talk about a room and I want to see that room for myself.

5. Mr Darcy: he is the inspiration for so many heroes in literature, TV or even cinema. Quite the perfect leading man.

6. The marvellous wittiness (a favourite example above)

Conversation during breakfast at Highborn between Mr Bennett and Mr Collins, talking about Lady Catherine and her daughter:

``Her indifferent state of health unhappily prevents her being in town; and by that means, as I told Lady Catherine myself one day, has deprived the British court of its brightest ornament. Her ladyship seemed pleased with the idea, and you may imagine that I am happy on every occasion to offer those little delicate compliments which are always acceptable to ladies. I have more than once observed to Lady Catherine that her charming daughter seemed born to be a duchess, and that the most elevated rank, instead of giving her consequence, would be adorned by her. -- These are the kind of little things which please her ladyship, and it is a sort of attention which I conceive myself peculiarly bound to pay.''
``You judge very properly,'' said Mr. Bennett, ``and it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?''
``They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time, and though I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible.''

7. The screen adaptation of her novels are always a pleasure to watch (no matter the number existing already, we are always waiting for more !)

8. Mr Darcy (did we mention him already ?)

9. The way that her stories are such a strong part of popular culture: her novels have been adapted to the cinema and TV, not only as period dramas but contemporary stories. The number of spin-off and mash-up novels tell us how much her world is appreciated.

10. The timeless aspect of her novels : 200 years later, Jane Austen’s stories remain actual.

Share Your Jane Austen Experiences...

2011-10-10T08:01:00.001+01:00

Do you have a story to tell about how you were introduced to Jane Austen? A review of your favourite Austen, sequel or spin off? Have you already read and reviewed JANE AUSTEN MADE ME DO IT?Anything else that is Austen related? We are looking forward to know how others enjoy Jane Austen's work and what she has inspired. If you want to participate in our week please use the Mr Linky to add a post from your blog or tell us your story in the comments field. Looking forward to chat about Austen with all of you!!

Welcome to our Jane Austen Week

2011-10-10T00:20:00.016+01:00

When Laurel-Ann of Austenprose contacted us about the release of Jane Austen Made me Do It by several known authors we decided to take this chance and have a full week all Jane Austen.

Pride & Prejudice, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, Sense & Sensibility, Emma and Mansfield Park continue to be a huge success, a couple of centuries after Jane's death. What makes them so special ? Especially when they were written by someone who had such a quiet and discreet life.

During this week, we'll share our experiences in Jane Austen's world, and, we do hope, that you'll share yours with us as well.

Our first time with Jane

Alex: My first recollection of Jane Austen goes back to 1995. I was barely 17 years old and saw in television, by pure chance, the wonderful and gorgeous Mr. Darcy looking haughtily at Miss Eliza Bennett and saying those famous words to Mr Bingley:

"She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men."

Wow. How snobbish ! How could he be so cold and arrogant ?! I was hooked. No need to say that I followed religiously the mini-series and re-watched them again and again and again in VHS. Of course, I lend the tapes to all my friends and we talked about Pride & Prejudice for hours. After this series, I bought the same week all the books by Austen. P&P followed me during all my travels (you never know when you need a little bit of comfort) and when I need something to cheer me up, I immediately pick up the book (sometimes I cheat on P&P and go for my second favourite, Persuasion) or I organise a little P&P marathon with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle.

Funny thing, my boyfriend knowing my love for this story, even calls all the period dramas I watch "the Mr Darcys" (even those who don't take place in England or the 19th century).

Kelly: Well, my part can easily be brief simply because I haven’t experienced a lot of Jane Austen per se. The only book I have read by her is Pride & Prejudice and that was a few years ago now. I wouldn’t mind rereading it one day, but first I should probably read something else by her. I have actually always been more interested in Jane Austen as a person. She was this famous author, but mostly not until after her death, and yet she never married herself and lived her entire life with her family. It has always fascinated me she could have this smaller view of the world and still manage to write about wider subjects and capture people so well.

Ana: Ahem... I have to confess that I don’t know when I first read Jane Austen. I’ve been a voracious reader ever since I remember but I didn’t keep a journal till I was an adult. I’ve read all her books and my favourites are P&P and Persuasion. I think what I love most about her are her characters, the variety of character types and also how interesting and real they all seem.

Marg: I can remember the first time I read Jane Austen. It was just this year. I am not 100% sure how it is that I made it this long without reading her, why we didn’t read her in school!

I think part of the reason is though that because her books, especially Pride and Prejudice, are so much a part of popular culture that the stories are familiar even without having read the books. Movies like Bride and Prejudice and the image of Colin Firth as Mr Darcy in the mini-series adaptation (which I have never seen from beginning to end) ensure that even not having read the books you “know” the story.

Why I Love to Write About Ancient Egypt by Anna Patricio

2011-10-08T00:05:00.011+01:00

I developed an interest in ancient history in my teens. When I was 17, an acquaintance recommended to me Wilbur Smith's Ancient Egyptian novel 'River God,' which was my introduction to historical fiction. Up until that time, I never even knew there was such a genre, so I did not know what to expect. But from the moment I came across a copy of the book, I immediately fell in love with it. It was so entrancing. I loved how Mr Smith brought this lost world to life: the flowing green waters of the Nile, the grandeur of the palaces, the serenity of the water gardens, the sweeping beauty of the African wilderness which our heroes ventured to later in the novel. I could nearly smell the sweet scent of the lotus blossoms and the dust-filled, camel dung aromas of the desert.

I suppose this had a profound influence on my writing, because when I began to conjure up ideas for my first novel, I immediately felt an inclination to set it in Ancient Egypt. I love all of the ancient world though, especially Egypt (needless to say), Israel, Greece and Rome - and I hope to get better acquainted with the Ancient Near East in the future. However, for me, Ancient Egypt is the most enjoyable to write about because it has a unique and exquisite beauty like no other.

I heard that the Ancient Egyptians loved their land so much, they believed it was a reflection of the world of the gods. And though I have certainly never lived in those times (though how I wish), I can imagine why they thought that way. You might have seen the ancient monuments - the temples and the pyramids. They are impressive, without a doubt. But in ancient times, they were literally dazzling. They were covered in gleaming imestone and alabaster, and the murals were made up of colourful precious stones. Not to mention that there were gardens which, according to the research, were amazingly beautiful - acacia trees, flower beds, and ornamental pools brimming with lotus blossoms. Those who had houses by the river even had water gardens, which allowed a portion of the river to flow into an alloted space in their home. Alas, there are no water gardens in my current novel, though there will be in my second. But anyway, when writing my novel, I was thus given the opportunity to picture how everything in Egypt was originally like - this glorious Gift of the Nile with its sparkling monuments and lotus gardens - and escape into it.

Speaking of temples, I loved too that I was able to incorporate temple life and rituals into my novel. I am an aficionado of mythology, and as we know, the stories of the gods played a big part in the Ancient Egyptians' lives. There is an important temple ceremony scene in my novel, and while a lot of it was made up (it wasn't one of those well-known rituals like the Daily Ritual in which the priest washes and "feeds" the idol), I tied it up with the tales from Egyptian mythology. There is also a part in my novel which features a play about the murder of Osiris and the fight between Horus and Seth, and that was fun to develop.

And of course, the ancient Egyptians themselves are fascinating people. They lived in this lost world of legends and colourful temples, yet undoubtedtly, they had the same thoughts and preoccupations as we do today. In writing about my characters, I thus tried to imagine how different and similar these ancient peoples might have been to me, my family and friends. Additionally, I love describing the Ancient Egyptians' costuming, especially the cunning kohl streaks that line their eyes. They had the most unique and stunning fashions. And as a dog lover, I was very pleased to learn that the Ancient Egyptians were fond of pets. Statues and paintings often show doting owners with their furbabies. Pharaoh Ramses II, I heard, had a dog and even a lion. I love Ancient Egypt, and loved it even more upon hearing that they were a society of animal lovers.

Writing 'Asenath' thus allowed me to escape into this lost, beautiful world by the Nile. I don't have plans to leave Egypt soon; my second novel is still set there but hundreds of years after the events of 'Asenath.' In the future though, I hope to branch out to other ancient historical settings like Ancient Judea. But for now, I am having a marvelous time in Ancient Egypt.

*********************************************

Anna Patricio studied Ancient History at Macquarie University. She focused mostly on Egyptology and Jewish-Christian Studies, alongside a couple of Greco-Roman units, and one on Archaeology. About a year after graduation, she began writing her first novel ASENATH.

Recently, she traveled to Lower Egypt (specifically Cairo and the Sinai), Israel, and Jordan. She plans to return to Egypt soon, and see more of it. In the past, she has also been to Athens and Rome. She is
currently working on a second novel, which still takes place in Ancient Egypt, but hundreds of years after the events of ASENATH.

You can find her blogging at Anna Patricio. ASENATH was released on August 30th by Imajin Books.

Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna

2011-10-06T00:01:00.000+01:00

The year is 1878. As the first girl to be born to the Nachimandas in over sixty years, beautiful, spirited Devi is adored by her entire family. She befriends Devanna, a gifted young boy whose mother has died in tragic circumstances. The two quickly become inseparable, 'like two eggs in a nest', as they grow up amidst the luscious jungles, rolling hills, and rich coffee plantations of Coorg in Southern India; cocooned by an extended family whose roots have been sunk in the land for hundreds of years.

Their futures seem inevitably linked, but everything changes when, one night, they attend a 'tiger wedding'. It is there that Devi gets her first glimpse of Machu, the celebrated tiger killer and a hunter of great repute. Although she is still a child and Machu is a man, Devi vows that one day she will marry him. It is this love that will gradually drive a wedge between Devi and Devanna, sowing the seed of a heartbreaking tragedy that will have consequences for the generations to come.

Whilst I haven't seen a lot around about this book, apparently it was a pretty big deal in India. The author received the biggest advance for a debut novel in Indian publishing history and has been translated into numerous languages as well. It seems to me that it also quite unusual for a piece of Indian historical fiction written by an Indian author makes it into English. I love reading historical fiction set in India but generally those books will be mainly focused on the British characters rather than the Indian characters. In this book, it is very much the other way around, with issues relating to colonisation taking only a small, but pivotal, role in the book.

The story starts in 1878 with the birth of the first girl to be born to the Nachimanda family for sixty years. Her name is Devi, and she is treated as a princess by the family - princess, not only when she is a child but also when she is older. Her childhood companion is a boy named Devanna. He practically becomes a member of the family after a tragedy leaves him an orphan. Devi and Devanna are inseparable!

Once they start to go to school, it is clear that Devi is a very clever young man and he is taken under the wing of the German missionary who runs the local school. Devi takes an avid interest in many subjects, but most especially in botany. Devi's future is so bright that there is even the prospect of an overseas education, until that choice is taken away from him before he even knows of it.

Devanna has long been in love with Devi and knows that they are feted to be together but unfortunately for him, she has set her sites on his cousin Machu, the tiger killer and she will settle for no one else.

When Devanna's education is cruelly cut short and Devi's choices are even more cruelly taken away from her, so begins a lifetime of hurt and pain for all the characters involved, and even for future generations.

This book has been compared to other famous sagas like The Thorn Birds and Gone With the Wind and to be honest it was this comparison that compelled me to want to read the book when I heard an interview with the author on NPR. Whilst it never quite reached the same heights in terms of the romance aspects, it was most definitely a book that I loved reading!

I would classify this book as more literary style of historical fiction. Amongst it's strengths were the use of the land and traditions of Coorg, a region in India now known as Kodagu and apparently referred to as the Scotland of India. During the span of 60 years or so, we see the changes that take place in India, including the battles fought by the British colonists, the establishment and importance of the coffee crops, culture superstition and class, important national events such as the first Indian hockey team to play in the Olympics and many more. I suspect that Indian readers would really love some of the name checking of people that I have never heard of but who may well be important characters in Indian history.

There were certain scenes in the book that were so well written that my heart was in my mouth as I was reading them. For example, I am not sure that I will ever forget the scene where Machu is fighting alongside the English during a battle in the mountains.

There were however also weaknesses with the book as well though. The first, and biggest for me, was definitely Devi. She is portrayed as being so beautiful and so perfect, but by the end of the book she has become a hardened crone and she treated people, specifically her family pretty badly. She did have a hard life and was undoubtedly treated unforgivably, but then she made decisions that left her in the same situation ongoing. It took her many, many years to even think of what it was that Devanna has also suffered. Believe me, I am not excusing Devanna for his actions in the events by any stretch of the imagination, but it dragged out way too long.

The other thing that wasn't that strong was the very end of the novel. It really annoys me when an author carries a particular plot line and then suddenly in the last couple of pages turns everything on its head. It could well be that there is a sequel in the works, but I was left feeling manipulated by the last chapter or so.

There are also a few typos within the text, including in the back cover copy which is not the author's fault but is disappointing.

If you enjoy beautiful imagery, family sagas, books set in India, or just historical fiction with a setting outside of the more common European countries, then this may well be a book that you will enjoy.

Rating 4/5

Why I Love Writing Big, Sweeping Historical Novels by Colin Falconer

2011-10-04T00:46:00.003+01:00

I hated history at school. All I remember of my last year is that the teacher's name was Sheldrake, so his nickname was Bombduck. I had started going to pubs at sixteen and history was first thing on a Monday morning so the class was an excuse to sleep off the weekend. I still made pass grades. All you had to do was memorise the dates and some names and I could do that with a bit of cramming the night before the examination.

So if someone had told me back then that I was going to become an historical novelist I think I would jumped under a train. I couldn't have imagined anything worse. I wanted to play for Manchester United.

The one lesson I loved was English, which is surprising, because we were reading Shakespeare and most sixteen year olds find Shakespeare hard work. Not us. Our English teacher, with the more normal-sounding name of Mr. Briggs, didn't just make us read Hamlet; he described the stage for us (this was long before Sam Wannamaker rebuilt The Globe); he explained about the hawkers moving through the crowd selling pies and nuts while the play was still going on; he gossiped about Marlowe getting murdered; he told us that Shakespeare was bald, had an affair with a woman in Oxford, and built a fancy house in Stratford on the proceeds of his career. In other words, he made Shakespeare sound like a human being. I didn't realize that what Mister Briggs was doing was teaching us history as well as Hamlet.

Still, when I started my career as a novelist I was not moved to write history. I wrote thrillers and then did a couple of crime novels that did reasonably well. But it was when I wrote Harem that my London agent rang me out of the blue and said: you have to do this. I sold around 180,000 copies of that novel in Germany alone.

Harem was the book that taught me how to research; for instance, if you are going to write about eunuchs you better know about castration, and all the different ways it can be done, no matter how excruciating it is. I also had to learn about the Ottoman system of government, which was worse than one of Bombduck's history lessons. But as a novelist it is essential that you know these things and then slip them into the narrative when it's needed in a very unBombducklike manner.

But most of all I never forgot what Mr Briggs taught us; the play's the thing. History is the background; the story is the star. And more than any other genre I believe historical fiction has the canvas to paint big, beautiful story. It always has, from literature long past (War and Peace, The Red Badge of Courage, Ivanhoe) until more recent times (Shogun, Doctor Zhivago.) The movies I love are Last Samurai, Dances with Wolves, Gladiator. These are the kinds of stories that I want to write, and there are not enough of them out there for me as a reader

When I came to write SILK ROAD I started with three voices contending with each other in my head. (Yes, and I have made an appointment at the clinic; it's next Wednesday at two o'clock.) I imagined these three very different characters hating and loving each other on the greatest canvas I could find, the legendary Silk Road of the medieval period. This spiderweb of trade routes stretched from the Crusader castles of Palestine, through Persia, over the Hindu Kush , across the dreaded Taklimakan desert and right through Cathay to Khubilai Khan's capital of Shang-tu (the legendary Xanadu).

I loved writing this book; I loved travelling much of the Silk Road, even though at the time it was a complete nightmare. I loved writing a story that brought back to life a world now long past. I loved being able to say, through my characters, a little of what I feel about life and our place in it. Most of all I loved the thought that I might be able to take someone with me on such an epic journey and perhaps make them miss their train stop or get growled at by their husband for leaving the light on all night reading.

So in the end, Mister Sheldrake, I have to admit that I love history. That sixteen year old never knew what he was missing. But still - at least he remembered the dates.

Colin Falconer has been published widely in the UK, US and Europe and his books have been translated into seventeen languages. He is the author of SILK ROAD, published by Corvus Atlantic. For more information click here.

He invites you to join him at http://www.colinfalconer.net/ and his brand new blog http://colin-falconer.blogspot.com/

The Historical Fiction Challenge- October Reviews

2011-10-01T05:58:00.005+01:00

In September, we collectively read 41 books! That makes our total for 2011 so far, 702 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 October 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.