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Pendragon’s Banner

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Pendragon's Banner

Pendragon’s Banner

By Helen Hollick

Sourcebooks, Inc.

ISBN: 1402218893

5 stars

Pendragon’s Banner is the second book in the Pendragon’s Banner series following The Kingmaking. You can read my review of The Kingmaking here.

Arthur, Arthur how I do adore thee. Yes, you’re an arrogant, self-centered, whoring barbarian at times but somehow none of that matters. I’ve come to expect you to be this way.

In book two of this series, Arthur has taken up the mantel of King, Gwenhwyfar has given him sons to carry on the Pendragon title, but he still refuses to settle down preferring to fight knowing the minute he stops it might be the end of him and his reign. When the tragic death of their youngest son pushes Arthur and Gwenhwyfar apart, he finally comes to the realization that being Supreme King may not mean anything without his wife and family. Tragedy and heartache follow both Arthur and Gwenhwyfar, political problems arise and fester, and Arthur is constantly watching his back afraid one his own may try to take his kingdom from him. Even after settling down in the beloved Summer Land, Arthur still fights — with his wife, for his kingdom, and his own worries and fears about what he is doing to lead his people.

While the relationship between Arthur and Gwenhwyfar is tempestuous, I like it. She’s a match for him in strength, anger, love, and stubbornness. While there is much to love about Gwenhywfar, there is much to hate in two other women Arthur can’t seem to extricate himself from — his ex-wife Winifred who still calls herself the Pendragon’s wife, and Morgause, his father’s ex-lover and his aunt. Both women cause so much pain and destruction wherever they go. They are so annoying yet so riveting.

I liked the liberties Hollick took with this story, and while it’s more realistic, I also enjoyed the small throw backs to some of the original more fantasy oriented tales. For instance, at one meeting of the Council, Arthur mentally notes how he dislikes the Roman bleacher type seating arrangement for the meeting and makes an internal comment about building a round table so he doesn’t have to turn around to see who is speaking. His sword, while not named Excalibur, has a long Saxon name and a lovely legend to go with it as well.

As I said, Arthur can be a dolt of a man, especially with his own wife. He can’t ever seem to find the words I love you or I’m sorry. He’d rather show anger than fear and while I don’t like admitting it, I couldn’t get enough is his debauched ways. He’s not overly kind or gentle but after meeting this Arthur, I don’t know if I want the old version back.

This series is fast becoming my favorite Arthurian re-telling.

My Favorite Reads – Gone With the Wind

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Alyce from At Home With Books features one of her favorite reads each Thursday and this week my pick is…

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

Gone With the Wind

The summary from Wikipedia: Gone With the Wind, first published in May 1936, is a romantic novel and the only novel written by Margaret Mitchell. The story is set in Clayton County, Georgia and Atlanta, Georgia during the American Civil War and Reconstruction and depicts the experiences of Scarlett O’Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner. The novel is the source of the extremely popular 1939 film of the same name.

I read Gone With the Wind for the first time last year. The book came to live with me via my sister. Back in college, my sister had an elderly neighbor she used to help out with groceries and other things. One day, the woman was cleaning out some bookshelves and asked my sister if she would like any of the books. My sister spied the copy of Gone With the Wind and asked if she could have that one knowing how I loved old books. It turned out to be a first edition book club release from 1936 with the original book cover. It’s in pristine condition. I think I put off reading it for so long for that reason — I was afraid of ruining the book.

While perusing the shelves one day for my next read I came across it again and decided that if I was very careful, reading it would not ruin it and, really, it was just begging to be read. It was easily one of the best books, and probably close to one of the longest, I think I’ve read. (My version is over 800 pages long and each page is a double column layout.) I stayed up late every night to read and even though my eyelids were falling, I couldn’t, and didn’t want to, stop reading. Scarlett O’Hara is one of the most wonderful, annoying, and clever characters ever to grace a page. It can also be infuriating to read as attitudes of characters can sound very barbaric.  That aside, it’s certainly a great book and one that should be read by everyone, at the very least as a character study, as Mitchell truly has a way of creating unforgettable sketches and a plot worthy of her heroine.

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.

This week, The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova.

“The room itself looked as if its occupant had left it on impulse: a heap of paint-hardened brushes — good brushes, wasted — and a stained rag rested on the table. He had not even finished cleaning up, my patient who showered and shaved daily in the heart of an institution. His former wife stood in the middle of the room, the sun touching her sand-dune hair. She glowed with sunlight, with young beauty beginning to ebb, and — I thought — with anger.”

The Swan Thieves, page 124.

Many people loved this book and I couldn’t wait to read it. While I can’t say I’m not enjoying it, it’s moving very slow for me. It could be me right now with the work-hobbled brain but I’m going to reserve judgment for the end.

What are you teasing us with this week?

The Tale of Halcyon Crane

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The Tale of Halcyon Crane

The Tale of Halcyon Crane

By Wendy Webb

Holt Paperbacks

ISBN:978-0805091403

4.5 stars

One morning, Hallie James finds her life forever changed by a simple letter. The letter states that she has been left everything by her mother — a woman Hallie thought was already dead.

She decides to confront her father, the man who raised her and a person she has great respect for but is suffering from dementia and now barely remembers her on good days. She knows she can’t ask anyone else and needs to know the truth — did her mother really die in the fire like her father told her? When Hallie tells him about the letter his response is simple and startling, “Madyln wrote to you?” Hallie had always thought her mother’s name was Annie.

When Hallie’s father passes away and she is left to not only deal with the death of the father who loved and raised her but the death of a mother she didn’t know and can’t remember. On a whim she calls the attorney, packs a bag, and travels to the island her mother called home.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s categorized as horror, which I was surprised by. I don’t read much horror and, while this one had a supernatural, creepy factor to it, wasn’t terrifying in the way I think of horror.

It moves fast and the whole time you’re wondering where it will lead. Hallie’s family stories told to her by an ancient housekeeper who seems otherworldly weave a good mystery. Webb doesn’t let too much slip and the twist at the end is a nice reward for the reader. On the downside, the story seemed to rush to the end for me but it may have simply been my reluctance to see it end. I do think it could have benefited from a few extra pages just to add more details though. Several things end up taking place way too fast without much explanation as to why. But it didn’t take anything a way from the story. The ghosts, supernatural events, and an old Victorian house full of secrets keep the story moving.

This is Webb’s first novel and I can’t wait to see what her next offering holds.

In addition to this blog, I also do reviews for The Book Reporter website. The above is a summary of my review, which can be read in full here. The book was provided to me by the publisher for The Book Reporter review.

My Favorite Reads – The Forsyte Saga

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Alyce from At Home With Books features one of her favorite reads each Thursday and this week my pick is…

The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy.

The Forsyte Saga

From the back cover: The Forsyte Saga is John Galsworthy’s monumental chronicle of the lives of the moneyed Forsytes, a family whose values are constantly at war with its passions. The story of Soames Forsyte’s marriage to the beautiful and rebellious Irene, and its effects upon the whole Forsyte clan, The Forsyte Saga is a brilliant social satire of the acquisitive sensibilities of a comfort-bound class in its final glory. Galsworthy spares none of his characters, revealing their weaknesses and shortcomings as clearly as he does the tenacity and perseverance that define the strongest members of the Forsyte family.

My edition contains all three novels: The Man of Property, In Chancery, and To Let as well as a few interludes including Indian Summer of a Forsyte and Awakening. It’s a monster of a book at 878 pages. It also has a rather large and complicated family tree at the beginning which is still dog-eared for easy reference.

Several years ago, at least 8, maybe 9, PBS aired The Forsyte Saga mini-series and a few of us decided that we should read along with the mini-series. I cheated and pretty much kept reading while everyone else waited for the series to air. I didn’t expect to get sucked in to the lives and loves of this family but something wouldn’t let me stop reading. I remember being thoroughly disappointed when I got to the last page. Even after the marathon that it had been, I wanted more. To this day, I still regard this book as one of my favorites. There was something just so lovely about the writing, the setting, and also very juicy since all the dirty laundry of this prestigious, well-known, rich family was being aired. Oh, the drama.

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott

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The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott

By Kelly O’Connor McNees

Amy Einhorn Books

ISBN: 0399156526

4.5 stars

There is nothing that Louisa May Alcott wants more than independence and the opportunity to prove herself as a writer. She yearns for a small room all her own and stacks of paper waiting to be covered with ink. What she gets is a rundown house, housework, a father who is blind to the basic needs of his family, a depressed mother, and resentment. She chafes against societal conventions — marriage, love, and the idea of a woman’s place. When she finds herself feeling emotions for a man, she struggles to balance those feelings with her dreams and wonders if it would actually be possible to have both.

The character of Louisa May Alcott was all I expected her to be in this book. She’s strong-willed, fitful, passionate, witty, and observant. She sees the sham of a marriage her parents are engaged in and refuses to let herself fall into that same trap. She wants, and craves, freedom above all and stays true to her dreams. Which can be infuriating to read sometimes since she does preach and selfishly believe that what she wants is right and that no one can, or will, stop her from having what she wants in the end. She gets what she wants, but she does pay a price for it.

Her father is uncaring and generally stupid to his own family’s needs. When I say needs, I don’t mean in terms of frivolous things such as ribbons for adornment — it’s food, clothing, and shelter that he seems to think will just fall out of the sky. He has put their lives in danger and at one time even suggested an open marriage and divorce using some flimsy transcendentalist thought that made no sense to anyone but him. He’s infuriating and in many ways I wanted his family to leave him yet they persist in caring for him throughout their lives.

Little Women is one of my favorite books. I’ve been wanting to re-read it for some time now and thanks to this book I think I will be doing that very soon. McNees is a good writer and I hope to read more of her books in the future. She did a great job here and while I know that the imagined life of an author can be a difficult thing to write, I think she did a stand up job. She brought to life a person, and a family, with grace, good humor, and some great writing.

I received this book through the Early Reviewer program on LibraryThing.

The Lord of the Rings Read-Along: The Final Installment

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Well, the Lord of the Rings Read-Along is finished. I re-read all three books and felt nostalgic about each and every one, found something new to love in each, and even came across a few things I had over looked in previous readings.

I thought about doing a review but then decided not too. A lot of people participating in the read-along wrote some great reviews and I don’t even know where to start with a review (it would have been more like a thesis than a review) so that idea was quickly thrown out. I thought about not posting anything but since I did posts for each of the others, and I like things in even numbers, I decided to do one final goodbye to the Lord of Rings after all.

So, I give you Hobbit Holes!!!

My city has some great architecture and my neighborhood in particular has some truly beautiful buildings. On one street not too far from our house there are a few little entrances that have always made me smile and make me think of Bilbo, Sam, and Frodo. I, with the help of my husband and his trusty blackberry, took a few photos to show you these little places that always make me smile.

Enjoy.

My Favorite Reads – The Dharma Bums

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Alyce from At Home With Books features one of her favorite reads each Thursday and this week my pick is mostly an old memory.

The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac.

The Dharma Bums

Since I can’t find the book on my shelf, I’m using the Amazon summary (Amazon.com): First published in 1958, a year after On the Road had put the Beat generation on the map, The Dharma Bums stands as one of Jack Kerouac’s most powerful, influential, and bestselling novels. The story focuses on two untrammeled young Americans—mountaineer, poet, and Zen Buddhist Japhy Ryder and Ray Smith, a zestful, innocent writer—whose quest for Truth leads them on a heroic odyssey, from marathon parties and poetry jam sessions in San Francisco’s Bohemia to solitude and mountain climbing in the High Sierras to Ray’s sixty-day vigil by himself atop Desolation Peak in Washington State. Primary to this evocative and soulful novel is an honest, exuberant search for an affirmative way of life in the midst of the atomic age. In many ways, The Dharma Bums also presaged the environmental, back-to-the-land, and American Buddhist movements of the 1960s and beyond.

I read this so long ago, I think it may have been my freshman year in college, and was fascinated by it. The idea of walking away from life and living simply was so interesting, but not necessarily appealing to me (city girl :-)), that I remember thinking about this book months after I read it. I know I re-read it several times just wanting to understand what made a person want to run out of their own skin. It’s too bad that I can’t find it on my shelf now because I wonder if I would have a different opinion of it today. Oh, to know if the fascination still holds…