My Favorite Reads – Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

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Alyce from At Home With Books features one of her favorite reads each Thursday and this week my pick is based on a recent trip.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

From the back cover: Genteel society ladies who compare notes on their husbands’ suicides. A hilariously foul-mouthed black drag queen. A voodoo priestess who works her roots in the graveyard at midnight. A morose inventor who owns a bottle of poison powerful enough to kill everyone in town. A prominent antiques dealer who hangs a Nazi flag from his window to disrupt the shooting of a movie. And a redneck gigolo whose conquests describe him as a walking “streak of sex.”

I spent last weekend in Savannah, GA. Let me re-phrase that — I spent about 48 hours in Savannah, GA last week. It was a work trip and because of other commitments, I didn’t get to spend more time but luckily this wasn’t my first trip. Let me tell you, the city is a charmer. It’s a beautiful place in the spring. This year the flowers are a few weeks behind and everyone seemed to be waiting — some patiently, some not — for the azaleas to bloom. I didn’t have my usual chance to wander the city, explore the squares, and take in the flowers in the gardens but there’s something about Savannah that always makes me happy.

Anyway, my short trip made me think about this book and that’s how I ended up deciding to feature it this week. It’s a non-fiction, true crime travelogue which may sound like a very odd way to describe a book but that’s what it is. The writer goes to Savannah to write about a murder but ends up meeting and getting involved with some of the city’s most peculiar residents. It’s perverse, funny, and addicting.

As a bonus, if you ever visit Savannah, you can tour all the sites where the movie was filmed. (It’s featured on a tour and I know this because the tour was going by while I was walking and this is how I learned this fact without having to take the tour.) I wish I could find my old photos to share but no luck this morning. You’ll just have to visit the city itself, read the book, or watch the movie.

Isis: A Tale of the Supernatural

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Isis: A Tale of Supernatural

Isis: A Tale of the Supernatural

By Douglas Clegg

Vanguard Press

ISBN: 978-1-59315-540-7

3.75 stars

Iris Catherine Villiers wanders the gardens and cliffs of her home at Belerion Hall with her brother Harvey. The two are close and the relationship makes up for the lack of attention from her mother, father, and two older brothers. Iris and Harvey enjoy listening to the stories told by the gardener, Old Marsh, who loves to tell the two tales of death and resurrection. In their grandfather’s library, they discover books on demons and ancient rights and begin playing around with spells they believe only to be harmless words and symbols. When an unfortunate accident takes Harvey’s life but leaves Iris alive, she does something unheard of — she brings Harvey back from the dead.

Isis reads like a morbid fairytale. Bones, death, sex — all are topics in this tale. Love and loneliness play large roles infusing the story with a sad overtone. The book is studded with black and white sketches that leave you with a grim vision of the story and the the grave deeds of Iris.

Isis is a short book, 113 pages, made even shorter by the illustrations but it’s captivating. I read the whole books while eating lunch (which I wouldn’t necessarily recommend due to some of the content). While the story is about death, it is more creepy and morbid than scary. I picked this book up because of the cover and I worried that it would not live up to the love at first sight affair that made me bring it home from the library. I am happy to report that this short read was worth it. It’s impact is much bigger than it’s actual physical size. It’s a sad, disturbing tale of death with carefully chosen words to evoke the sadness and loneliness that accompanies death in it’s numerous forms.

Teaser Tuesdays

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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.

1.) Grab your current read

2.) Open to a random page

3.) Share two teaser sentences from that page

4.) Share the title and author so that other participants know what you’re reading.

My teaser this fine Tuesday:

“By Tibb’s enchantment, I found myself transported to a narrow cart track. A flowery tunnel, it was, hedges rising high on both sides, hawthorn buds swelling, soon to burst into lacy-white bloom.”

Daughters of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt, page 100.

Daughters of the Witching Hill

The Sunday Salon on Monday Morning

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I was out of town this weekend for work and planned on doing a bit of writing yesterday but never quite got around to it, so Monday morning it is.

Wolf Hall. I’m still reading it so I don’t have much of a round up this week. I’m down to the last 20 pages or so and would have finished last night but I kept falling asleep so those last few pages are waiting for me to finish this morning.

Normally I would have finished by now but life is conspiring against me and I didn’t get much reading time in — even after being stuck on several planes, in four airports, and a hotel room all in a 48 hour period. It’s not that I’m not liking the book, I am, but I picked it up at the wrong time. I think I may have been in the mood for something else. The thing is, I’ve been wanting to read this one for so long and I thought it would be a good book for a trip but, unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way. Oh well, what can I say, this happens sometimes.

I have a few books that arrived while I was out of town — Daughters of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt and The Tale of Halcyon Crane by Wendy Webb. I think I’ll be starting one these this week. I have a lot of historical fiction in my reading pile at the moment and I might have to re-think that before I burn myself out. I may have a look around the shelves later tonight to see what’s lurking that I can add to the pile. Not that the pile needs to be any bigger…

Well, I had more to say but I’ve had an extremely long weekend which has completely drained me and I honestly don’t remember what I planned to talk about this morning so I’m calling it and probably going back to bed for a few minutes before dragging myself to the office for what I know will be a very long day. My dear readers, you have put up with enough incoherent rambling for one day. Have a good Monday.

The Magicians & Mrs. Quent

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The Magicians & Mrs. Quent

The Magicians & Mrs. Quent

By Galen Beckett

Random House Publishing Group

ISBN: 9780553592559

3.5 stars

The Magicians & Mrs. Quent is a fantasy book with an alternative Regency/Victorian feel to it. There are ladies and lords, hand wringing, and lots of letter writing with some magic thrown in. It’s sort of Pride & Prejudice with a side of Wuthering Heights.

Ivy Lockwell lives with her mother, two sisters, and their ailing father. Their position is precarious but Ivy is determined to keep her small family together. She has a love of books and is constantly reading, especially her father’s magic books, in the hopes of finding a cure for him. She meets and falls for a Mr. Rafferdy and her hope of saving her family seems solid until fate intervenes and Rafferdy is told by his father that he will be marrying someone of his social standing and not a girl like Ivy. When Ivy’s mother suddenly dies, she takes a job as a governess to two small children to support her sisters. The job is in the country far outside the city and her family. It is here that she meets Mr. Quent and, after a short romance, the two marry. On her return to the city, she once again befriends Mr. Rafferdy who has also had a turn of fortunes in his life. Ivy’s life begins colliding with Rafferdy’s and the two find themselves in a showdown with evil that neither expected.

This book is broken up into three sections. The first part has a very Pride & Prejudice feel to it complete with letters and dreary sitting rooms. Part two takes Ivy to Heathcrest a la Wuthering Heights if you will. Part three brings Ivy back to the city to fight the evil she believes to be responsible for her father’s illness.

My problem with the three books was that they felt like three different books and not one cohesive book. Only the characters held the story together and it didn’t feel like that was enough. If felt as if it were missing something. It’s obvious that a second book is in the works as the ending, while satisfactory, leaves a few things open.

I liked Ivy a lot. She’s a strong, interesting character with secrets and a power she doesn’t know she has. Her relationship with Mr. Quent is predictable and slightly unsatisfying as you never really learn much about him. Rafferdy, however, doesn’t become likable until book three and then he still has his moments.

I know this review is starting to sound as if I didn’t like the book and that’s not true. I did like it. I actually found myself thinking about it days after I finished. The world built in this book – day and night shifts, the use of magic, dark and light powers – is interesting but unfortunately it just doesn’t feel cohesive. To me, it felt like there was a disconnect between the characters and the plot. Everything is vaguely related but I didn’t feel like it all went together, somewhat like the title of the book.

It’s Austen and Bronte with some magic thrown in and that was obviously the intent. And I think that’s what drew me in to the story since I love books that have this feel to them. It was an OK read but would have been good if there were more than a few tenuous threads holding it together.

My Favorite Reads – A Fish Caught In Time

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Alyce from At Home With Books features one of her favorite reads each Thursday and I thought it would be fun to share a favorite read of mine this week.

A Fish Caught In Time: The Search for the Coelacanth by Samantha Weinberg is my pick this week.

A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth

From the inside flap: In 1938, a young curator of a small South American museum spots a strange looking fish on a boat desk. It’s five feet long with blue scales and luminescent eyes. Determined to preserve her find, she tries for days to save it but only ends up with skin, bones, and a few sketches. Eventually, the fish is recognized by an amateur ichthyologist as a coelacanth, a fish known from 400 year old fossils and thought to have died out with the dinosaurs. A great search ensues, nations fight over the fish, and million dollar expeditions are launched to find it.

I don’t know why, but I have always been fascinated by this fish. It’s a fish, but it can walk on its fins. It’s a fossil, but it’s alive. The Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, DC has a specimen and, living in this city, I’ve had the chance to visit it several times. I’m always fascinated and baffled by it. It is just the strangest thing ever.

I picked this book up about 10 years ago and it has made the cut many times to remain on my shelf. It’s been a few years since I’ve read it and, now that I think about it, it might be time for another look soon.

If you want to know more about coelacanths, Wikipedia has a short entry, but I would recommend picking up the book instead.  Oh, come on, you had to see that coming.  🙂

Have a favorite book you want to share?

The Kingmaking

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The Kingmaking

The Kingmaking

By Helen Hollick

Source Books

ISBN: 1402218885

5 stars

No Merlin, no magic, and no round table. Just swords, fighting, and death. The Kingmaking is one of the most interesting re-tellings of the Arthurian story I’ve read in years.

We meet Arthur and Gwenhwyfar as children when Arthur accompanies Uthr Pendragon to Gwenhwyfar’s homeland. Uthr, who has been in exile, comes as war host to fight and attempt to overthrow Vortigern, the current king. When Uthr is killed in the battle, Arthur is finally told that he is Uthr’s heir. He is left to carry the Pendragon mantel at a young age, untrained for the role but fully aware of what it means. Gwenhwyfar, knowing she belongs with Arthur, pledges her life to him.

Arthur returns home and, to keep peace and build his reputation and forces, he promises his sword to Vortigern. Arthur is not one to be told what to do and constantly disagrees with orders from the king. He is aware of what is expected of him and what others think of his being the Pendragon’s heir, but he harbors the need to unite the British and expel the Saxons and is willing to do what he thinks it will take to make that happen. He bides his time but seethes planning to one day overthrow the king.

As with most Arthurian tales, there’s a huge list of characters. Numerous war lords and Saxons to keep track of and all of their plots and in-fighting to go along with it. The fighting is constant and the living difficult. Treatment of women is despicable and I needed to remind myself several times of the time period and that women were treated at possessions to be bought, sold, and used as peace offerings.

Gwenhwyfar stands out in this telling not only as a lady but a warrior but even she is treated as mere cattle at times. I do adore the scenes where she fights though. Let’s just say she gives no second thought to stabbing a man in the heart when necessary

Arthur isn’t the kind, gentle man he is in some stories. He makes quick and sometimes bad decisions, acts before he thinks, and things don’t always work out for him. He’s brutal and can at times be mean and callus — especially where his first wife, Winifred, is concerned, although in her case it’s warranted — and a womanizer. There are times when you wish he would keep his pants on. All this and I still found him to be an appealing character and I liked that he didn’t live a blessed life. He spent his life fighting and it shows.

I liked that there was no magic here. It’s usually a large part of most Arthurian legends and while you’ll find most of the same characters and general story line here, it somehow feels more appealing. I thought it was a great read and it’s a fabulous addition to my Arthurian collection. I received this book, and the second installment, Pendragon’s Banner, as gifts and already bought the third. I plan to have no interruptions in my reading of this series. If you’re a fan of Arthurian legend, this one is worth picking up.

Teaser Tuesdays

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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.

1.) Grab your current read

2.) Open to a random page

3.) Share two teaser sentences from that page

4.) Share the title and author so that other participants know what you’re reading.

Be careful not to include spoilers. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!

My teaser this week is from Wolf Hall which is about Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII, and the Tudor Court.  Any guesses as to who the lady in yellow is?

“The lady appeared at court at the Christmas of 1521, dancing in a yellow dress. She was — what? — about twenty years old.”

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, page 55.

Wolf Hall