Month: April 2011

Review – The Winter Ghosts

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The Winter Ghosts

By Kate Mosse

Putnam

ISBN: 978-0-399-15715-8

4.25 stars

I’ve wanted to read a Kate Mosse novel for a while now.  Why I haven’t picked one up earlier is a mystery to me.  Fortunately, I had this book with me on a business trip and found myself so entangled with the story that my flight being delayed over and over again didn’t have the slightest impact.

Freddie Watson is a troubled person.  Still badly grieving the loss of his brother during WWII, he conjures up memories of his brother and talks to him for comfort when the pain gets too bad.  A stay in a mental institution hasn’t done much except to convince him he’s damaged.  In an attempt to find peace and quiet, and possibly a break from the ghosts that surround his life, Freddie takes a trip through the French Pyrenees and while driving through a blinding snow storm, he crashes his car.  Not badly hurt, he finds his way to a small mountain town where an inn keeper is willing to take him in.  She offers him a room, dry clothes, and the opportunity for a bit of socializing as the town will be hosting a celebration that night.  In an uncharacteristic attempt at fun, Freddie decides to go to the event but gets lost on the way.  He finally makes it and is seated next to a beautiful woman he falls instantly in love with.  After speaking to her all night and releasing a few of his tightly held stories about his brother and how he’s obsessed with his death, a fight takes place at the dinner and he runs away to the hills with her.  When Freddie is found the next morning, all he wants is to find the woman he met at the dinner but a fever soon makes his searching impossible and he’s forced back to the inn.  In a daze, he struggles to understand what happened to him and whether or not the woman he met was even real as no one seems to believe him.

There’s a strange coldness to this story and it’s not that it takes place during winter in the Pyrenees.  Freddie is hurting so much he turns himself off from life and when he finally finds something to make him happy, he finds out the woman he has fallen for is most likely a ghost or possibly even a figment of his imagination.  Is he slipping back into the depths of his mental problems or has he found something no one else knew existed?  I won’t say more because I don’t want to ruin it if you plan to read this one.  I will say I enjoyed it immensely and not just because my flight was delayed.  It was a thoroughly engrossing book.

Today’s Book – Livia, Empress of Rome

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I read non-fiction much slower than fiction so I’m not surprised to find myself less than 100 pages into Livia, Empress of Rome two days later.  While I’m enjoying the book, it can be at times slightly hard to follow.  It’s not the author’s fault either since records of Roman women, even the ones that marry emperors, were not kept with any regularity.  The story is told through the men in her life, which is interesting, but at times frustrating since a good deal of the time you’re left reading about a man whose role in Livia’s life was minimal but their meeting was the only way to mark the passage of time in her life.

Roman lifestyles, marriage in particular, are fascinating to read about and slightly disturbing.  Women are used as pawns, not to say they didn’t have a say in who or when they married (most didn’t but in households where a marriage was based on love, some thought may have been given to the daughter’s wishes but it would have been unusual) but most of the time are traded easily as property which is how most if not all are thought of.  For instance, Livia’s second marriage to Octavian (Emperor Augustus in later years) happens while she is pregnant with her second child from her first husband.  Of course, out of courtesy, Octavian waits to marry her until after she gives birth.  A few days after she has the baby, they marry and the child is returned to Livia’s first husband as was the custom when a man marries a woman pregnant with another’s child.  Crazy.

What I’m enjoying most is not necessarily the information about Livia, she is an interesting person though, but the background on Roman life.  Debauched is a good description this early on but not the only one that can be used.  I’m sure I’ll have more when I get to the end of this one.

Review – The Gates

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The Gates

By John Connolly

Washington Square Press

ISBN: 978-1-4391-7540-8

4 stars

I love me a little humor with my demons and end of world type books and The Gates delivered on that promise.  This is my first Connolly book but I’ve picked them up before thinking that a fantasy thriller might work for me.  It did, and now I can say it won’t be my last either.

Samuel Johnson is an enterprising 11 year-old.  Instead of waiting for Halloween and having to fight the crowds, he decides to start trick or treating a few days early.  Unfortunately for him, his mildly brilliant plan doesn’t work out the way he intended.  Instead of loads of candy, he sees something in the neighbors’ basement that makes him believe his neighbor, Mrs. Abernathy, is now a demon.  He soon finds himself attempting to convince his mother and friends that not only is Mrs. Abernathy an actual demon but that more demons will be arriving very soon through the portal that now exists in the Abernathy’s basement.  No one wants to believe Samuel the end of the world is nearing which makes for an amusing little apocalypse tale.

Don’t pick up this book and think it’s a dark one; it’s actually a really funny take on the usual end of the world scenario and I enjoyed it quite a lot.  There’s some slapstick here — even the dog gets in on it at times — and random jokes laced throughout reminding you what you’re reading isn’t serious.  And that’s good!  I wanted a break from my normal reading which was starting to feel heavy and this came along at the right time.  One particularly amusing character in the book is a demon named Nurd who was banished to a flat, deserted world with a little annoying fellow as his only company.  Somehow he ends getting sucked into Samuel’s world and befriends him.  You see, Nurd is a nice demon looking for a friend to connect with.  His little adventures, especially his one driving a Porsche, are a good interlude and I do wish there had been more time featuring Nurd.

What can I say, if you’re looking for a small break in your regular reading pattern, pick this one up.  Connolly didn’t disappoint and thanks to this book, I plan to pick up more of his work.

Teaser Tuesdays – Livia, Empress of Rome

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so other participants know what you’re reading.

I’ve been on a fantasy bender lately so I thought a little non-fiction was in order.  Today I’m starting Livia, Empress of Rome by Matthew Dennison.

Between Tiberius and the throne had stood at various moments five or possibly six candidates preferable to Augustus, as well as Augustus himself.  All died unexpectedly, in each case in circumstances which remain in part unresolved. (page 2)

Review – To Say Nothing of the Dog

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To Say Nothing of the Dog

By Connie Willis

A Bantam Spectra Book

ISBN: 978-0-553-57538-5

4.75 stars

I kept seeing this book around but never picked it up.  Then when I was looking for new science fiction with a time travel element, this once again surfaced.  Figuring the universe was trying to tell me something, I added it to the queue list hoping beyond hope the universe’s plan would yield some good reading.

Ned Henry is a time traveler on a mission.  He is on a mission to find the bishop’s bird stump which went missing when the Coventry Cathedral in England was bombed during World War II.  The cathedral which is being rebuilt in Ned’s time frame needs the bird stump, which probably ranks among some of the most hideous art known to man, to be authentic at least according to the woman who has taken charge of the time travel unit and decided that in rebuilding the cathedral, everything must be perfect. Overcome with time lag due to too many missions, Ned is sent back to Victorian England to recover but what he doesn’t know is that as part of his supposed rest, he’s actually helping to fix a time conundrum which was created when a cat was unexpectedly saved by another time traveler named Verity Kindle.

One thing I don’t normally associate with science fiction is humor.  Yes, science fiction much like any other genre has its funny and amusing moments but personally, I found To Say Nothing of the Dog to be downright funny in places which made me love this book more and more as I approached the last page.  A large portion of this book takes place on a river in a small boat full of luggage — Ned has luggage but being time lagged doesn’t actually know what’s in it but it’s important to know about the luggage.  Also on the boat is a man who is on a mission to find his true love accompanied by his bulldog named Cyril, and a professor who waxes poetic about the grand design of the universe and keeps fish specimens in a kettle.  It’s an odd combination but something about it works so very well.  The entire time this little river jaunt takes place, Ned is so tired nothing seems out of the ordinary at all.  When he ends up in the same place as a woman he momentarily fell in love with when he was back in his own time for a few minutes, he starts to wonder about the grand design the professor keeps going on about and whether or not it might have some merit.

There’s a lot of time jumping here but somehow it never really becomes confusing mostly because the books starts out that way so your expectations for this are set high and it’s a story about time travel so nothing seems odd.  I loved the way Willis worked animals into the story.  I have a soft spot for furry creatures in books and both the dog and the cat are interesting characters in and of themselves.  Ned’s interactions with both (dogs and cats are extinct in his time period) are amusing and slightly heartwarming especially if you’re not a cat person.  The story which is focused on an ugly flower holder (if you read the description you wouldn’t be able to call it a vase either) is rather amusing in the twists and turns it takes to find it in the end mirroring a Victorian mystery novel.  Again, you need to read it to get that reference.  🙂

Willis is now on my list of authors I will be reading again and probably very shortly since I enjoyed this one so much.  If you’re looking for a fun read I recommend this one.

Review – The Girl Who Chased the Moon

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The Girl Who Chased the Moon

By Sarah Addison Allen

Bantam

ISBN: 978-0-553-38559-5

4.25 stars

Sarah Addison Allen is an author I knew about but never read.  That changed earlier this year when I finally picked up Garden Spells.  Can I tell you how much I loved it?  I really did.  Then came The Peach Keeper which was just as wonderful, and thanks to a strange confluence of events, The Girl Who Chased the Moon landed in my lap.  As with her previous books, I devoured this one completely entranced to the last page.

Emily Benedict regrets her choice to move in with the grandfather she never knew the moment she arrives at his house.  Her mother’s recent death leaves her somewhat homeless and she’s in need of a parent but Mullaby, North Carolina is turning out to be a more difficult adjustment than she imaged.  Her grandfather, Vance Shelby, borders on being a giant, the wallpaper in her room changes with her mood, and strange lights appear night after night behind the house making her wonder what’s really out there.  Vance tells her to leave them be but it only increases her curiosity.  The town is full of secrets including why her mother is detested by the people in this small town.  She eventually finds out her mother, Dulcie, was ostracized for the way she treated a former boyfriend and some of that same dislike pours over to her but it still doesn’t answer all her questions.

Her neighbor, Julia Winterson, was never a friend of Dulcie’s but she befriends Emily treating her almost as a daughter.  But Julia has no plans to stay in Mullaby.  In town only to pay off her father’s debts after his death, she plans only on staying for two years.  It’s when she gets involved with a man she fell for in high school that her plans change and her own secrets come tumbling out.

I never thought I was a fan of magical realism and truthfully on most occasions I’m not, but there’s something about the way Addison Allen integrates it into the story that it works for me.  Everything about the town has a one off feeling which sets the stage so you know some odd things are going to happen.  Although I will admit one thing here did make me sort fall out of the story a minute and it’s the explanation of the Mullaby lights (you have to read it, I won’t explain more because I don’t want to give too much away) but I quickly got over it and moved right along.

Doing my best not to revert to gushing over this book, I’ll say this — if you’re looking for a book to sink into, try one of Sarah Addison Allen’s.  The stories are soft with a few hard edges to keep you in reality but not nearly enough to make you want to stop reading.  I recommend this one.

Teaser Tuesdays – A Clash of Kings

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so other participants know what you’re reading.

I’m still working my way through A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin.  It’s a long book (874 on my Nook) but I’m also intentionally reading slow because I’m enjoying it way too much for it to end.

She is not breathing.  Dany listened to the silence.  None of them are breathing, and they do not move, and those eyes see nothing.  Could it be that the Undying Ones were dead? (pg. 608 on Nook)

Making It Up Monday Night

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My husband had to be on a plane very early this morning and while I was planning to put together a Sunday Salon yesterday, I decided instead to spend the day with my husband and it was a good choice.  So, here I am today with a few links because I’m trying to get myself back on a blogging schedule and I thought the only way to do that would be to actually put together a post.  I’m also making a valiant attempt at catching up on reviews and watching TV which means the writing is going slower than anticipated but it’s going.

Links!

OK, I swear I don’t actually go looking for Harry Potter links but I feel I’ve got loads of them lately.  This one, a proposal.  The best part of this post — the comment — “couldn’t you spring for the hardcover?”  He he.  And just to make sure you get more than enough of dear ol’ Harry and his friends, this one too.

Book purging, something I need to do.  But sadly, I don’t have the heart for it lately.

Want to be a punster?  Go at it.

What do your favorite books say about you?  Me, apparently I steal ex-boyfriends, drink a lot of tea, and have a preference for walk in closets.  The tea and walk in closets are accurate anyway…  You?

A Game of Thrones series premiered last night on HBO.  (Excited?  YES!  YES!  YES!)  If you don’t have HBO and are curious or need a fix until you can get to a friend’s house, go here.  I got to watch it last night and it was fabulous.  I’ll be watching it once more on demand before the next episode to make sure I caught everything.

Fabulous bookshelves.

Do you find yourself wanting to literally curl up in your books and sleep there?  Now you can.

Don’t you wish you could find something like this in your attic?