27 Aug, 2019

The Chocolate Maker’s Wife

/ posted in: Book Review, Foodies Read, Reading

The Chocolate Maker's Wife by Karen Brooks
on August 20, 2019
Pages: 608
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks
Format: Paperback
Source: Book Tour, From author/publisher
Setting: England

Australian bestselling novelist Karen Brooks rewrites women back into history with this breathtaking novel set in 17th century London—a lush, fascinating story of the beautiful woman who is drawn into a world of riches, power, intrigue…and chocolate.

Damnation has never been so sweet...

Rosamund Tomkins, the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman, spends most of her young life in drudgery at a country inn. To her, the Restoration under Charles II, is but a distant threat as she works under the watchful eye of her brutal, abusive stepfather . . . until the day she is nearly run over by the coach of Sir Everard Blithman.

Sir Everard, a canny merchant, offers Rosamund an “opportunity like no other,” allowing her to escape into a very different life, becoming the linchpin that will drive the success of his fledgling business: a luxurious London chocolate house where wealthy and well-connected men come to see and be seen, to gossip and plot, while indulging in the sweet and heady drink.

Rosamund adapts and thrives in her new surroundings, quickly becoming the most talked-about woman in society, desired and respected in equal measure.

But Sir Everard’s plans for Rosamund and the chocolate house involve family secrets that span the Atlantic Ocean, and which have already brought death and dishonor to the Blithman name. Rosamund knows nothing of the mortal peril that comes with her new title, nor of the forces spinning a web of conspiracy buried in the past, until she meets a man whose return tightens their grip upon her, threatening to destroy everything she loves and damn her to a dire fate.

As she fights for her life and those she loves through the ravages of the Plague and London’s Great Fire, Rosamund’s breathtaking tale is one marked by cruelty and revenge; passion and redemption—and the sinfully sweet temptation of chocolate.

Purchase Links:

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Let me just start this review by saying that I really liked this book. It was over 600 pages but it flew by. I felt fully immersed in the world of 1660s London. However, this book also really made me angry. The reason for that is the treatment of the female characters.

The story starts with Rosamund, as a teenager, working as a serving girl in the inn that her mother and stepfather own. You quickly find out that her stepfather and two stepbrothers have been sexually abusing her since she moved in with them years earlier. This is not spelled out in detail but is made clear from their interactions.

In an attempt to run away from her brothers to avoid being raped again, she meets a wealthy man. He offers to take her to London with him for reasons that he doesn’t make clear. Her mother sees this as an opportunity to get her daughter away from the men in her life and get her a better life. She arranges a fast marriage ceremony and then sends Rosamund away with orders never to return.

Her new husband turns out to be a controlling man who owns slaves and who tells her that he doesn’t want to her any opinions or ideas from her. Her job is to learn to make chocolate. Her husband is going to be opening a chocolate house and he wants her to serve the chocolate.

You learn a lot of chocolate at this time in England. It is just being introduced. It is considered a very racy drink. The English are started to add sugar and milk and herbs to it to fit their tastes instead of drinking it straight like Central Americans and Spaniards.

Rosamund is an anomaly. She is in the chocolate house. She is seen in public. So of course in the minds of the men in the area she is up for grabs. There are more attempted rape just because she is on the street. In the chocolate house she is molested and called all kinds of names just for existing in public. The attitude of the men of the era is completely repulsive. I want to shove this book into the hands of everyone who tells me that women had it better when they lived at home and were protected. This is what it was like to have zero rights even as a noblewoman. It is even worse for the few other female characters. There is a widow who cleans the chocolate house, there is a young girl who starts working there, and there is a female slave in the household of Rosamund’s new husband. Add the sexism into the hatred of the poor and into the racism of the time and these women were just hanging on.

Real events of the time period like outbreaks of plague and the Great Fire are detailed to show how this affected people living in London at the time. I really did learn a lot in this book. I appreciate a book that can make me angry at the injustices that fictional characters are faced with. So, read this book – just don’t be surprised if you feel like yelling at men afterwards.

About Karen Brooks

Karen Brooks is the author of twelve books, an academic of more than twenty years’ experience, a newspaper columnist and social commentator, and has appeared regularly on national TV and radio. Before turning to academia, she was an army officer for five years, and prior to that dabbled in acting.

She lives in Hobart, Tasmania, in a beautiful stone house with its own marvellous history. When she’s not writing, she’s helping her husband Stephen in his brewery, Captain Bligh’s Ale and Cider, or cooking for family and friends, travelling, cuddling and walking her dogs, stroking her cats, or curled up with a great book and dreaming of more stories.

Find out more about Karen at her website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Instagram Features

Tuesday, August 20th: Instagram: @owlslittlelibrary

Tuesday, August 20th: Instagram: @books.coffee.cats

Wednesday, August 21st: Instagram: @theunreadshelf

Thursday, August 22nd: Instagram: @writersdream

Friday, August 23rd: Instagram: @giuliland

Saturday, August 24th: Instagram: @rendezvous_with_reading

Sunday, August 25th: Instagram: @wherethereadergrows

Monday, August 26th: Instagram: @bookishwinterwitch

Review Stops

Tuesday, August 20th: BookNAround

Wednesday, August 21st: A Chick Who Reads

Thursday, August 22nd: Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile

Friday, August 23rd: Broken Teepee

Monday, August 26th: Jennifer ~ Tar Heel Reader

Tuesday, August 27th: Based on a True Story

Wednesday, August 28th: Reading Reality

Thursday, August 29th: Laura’s Reviews

Friday, August 30th: Patricia’s Wisdom

Friday, August 30th: Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books

Monday, September 2nd: Jathan & Heather

Tuesday, September 3rd: Tina Says…

Wednesday, September 4th: Book by Book

Thursday, September 5th: bookish bliss and beauty

Friday, September 6th: Real Life Reading

15 Jan, 2019

The Gown

/ posted in: Book Review, Reading

The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding by Jennifer Robson
on December 31, 2018
Pages: 400
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks
Format: ARC
Source: Book Tour, From author/publisher

From the internationally bestselling author of Somewhere in France comes an enthralling historical novel about one of the most famous wedding dresses of the twentieth century—Queen Elizabeth’s wedding gown—and the fascinating women who made it.

“Millions will welcome this joyous event as a flash of color on the long road we have to travel.”—Sir Winston Churchill on the news of Princess Elizabeth’s forthcoming wedding

London, 1947: Besieged by the harshest winter in living memory, burdened by onerous shortages and rationing, the people of postwar Britain are enduring lives of quiet desperation despite their nation’s recent victory. Among them are Ann Hughes and Miriam Dassin, embroiderers at the famed Mayfair fashion house of Norman Hartnell. Together they forge an unlikely friendship, but their nascent hopes for a brighter future are tested when they are chosen for a once-in-a-lifetime honor: taking part in the creation of Princess Elizabeth’s wedding gown.

Toronto, 2016: More than half a century later, Heather Mackenzie seeks to unravel the mystery of a set of embroidered flowers, a legacy from her late grandmother. How did her beloved Nan, a woman who never spoke of her old life in Britain, come to possess the priceless embroideries that so closely resemble the motifs on the stunning gown worn by Queen Elizabeth II at her wedding almost seventy years before? And what was her Nan’s connection to the celebrated textile artist and holocaust survivor Miriam Dassin?

With The Gown, Jennifer Robson takes us inside the workrooms where one of the most famous wedding gowns in history was created. Balancing behind-the-scenes details with a sweeping portrait of a society left reeling by the calamitous costs of victory, she introduces readers to three unforgettable heroines, their points of view alternating and intersecting throughout its pages, whose lives are woven together by the pain of survival, the bonds of friendship, and the redemptive power of love.

I love historical fiction that pulls you in from the beginning. This is the story of two women from very different backgrounds who meet in the embroidery workshop of a dress designer in London immediately after World War II.

Ann is English. She lost her parents before the war and her brother during the Blitz. She lives with her sister-in-law, trying to scrape by.

Miriam is a French Jew who was in a concentration camp for part of the war. No one in England knows about this part of her life. All they know is that she is a skilled embroiderer who worked in a design house in Paris.

Fast forward to 2016 and a woman in Toronto gets a box of pictures and embroidery from her recently deceased grandmother. She knew her grandmother was from England but she never talked about her life there. She also didn’t know how to sew as far as her granddaughter knew. Why does she have all this?

This is a great story of female friendship and support. It also shows you the amazing amount of handwork that goes into couture dresses. I like stories based on unknown women who have had a part, however small, in historical events.

I had never really looked at the dress before. It is so detailed with both embroidery and applique. I can’t imagine doing that day in and day out. (I hurt my hands just trying to hand sew one quilt.) They only had a few weeks to get that all finished. It is amazing.

Purchase Links

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Photo by Natalie Brown/Tangerine Photo

About Jennifer Robson

Jennifer Robson is the USA Today and #1 Toronto Globe & Mail bestselling author of Somewhere in France, After the War is Over and Moonlight Over Paris. She holds a doctorate from Saint Antony’s College, University of Oxford. She lives in Toronto with her husband and young children.

Find out more about Jennifer at her website, and connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Blog Tour

Monday, December 31st: Instagram: @ladyofthelibrary

Monday, December 31st: Reading Reality

Wednesday, January 2nd: Instagram: @my_book_journey_

Wednesday, January 2nd: 5 Minutes For Books

Thursday, January 3rd: Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books

Friday, January 4th: Into the Hall of Books

Monday, January 7th: BookNAround

Monday, January 7th: InkyMoments

Tuesday, January 8th: Jessicamap Reviews

Wednesday, January 9th: Instagram: @giuliland

Thursday, January 10th: A Chick Who Reads

Monday, January 14th: Instagram: @ciannereads

Tuesday, January 15th: Instagram: @sjwonderlandz

Tuesday, January 15th: Based on a True Story

Wednesday, January 16th: Always With a Book

Wednesday, January 16th: Instagram: @tbretc

Thursday, January 17th: Instagram: @somekindofalibrary

Thursday, January 17th: Doing Dewey

Thursday, January 17th: Instagram: @theunreadshelf

Friday, January 18th: Broken Teepee

Tuesday, January 22nd: A Bookish Way of Life

Friday, January 25th: As I turn the pages

02 Aug, 2018

The Daughter of the River Valley

/ posted in: Book Review, Reading

The Daughter of River Valley by Victoria Cornwall
on July 17th 2018
Pages: 329
Series: Cornish Tales #3
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Published by Choc Lit
Format: eARC
Source: Book Tour, From author/publisher

Cornwall, 1861

Beth Jago appears to have the idyllic life, she has a trade to earn a living and a cottage of her own in Cornwall’s beautiful River Valley. Yet appearances can be deceptive …

Beth has a secret. Since inheriting her isolated cottage she’s been receiving threats, so when she finds a man in her home she acts on her instincts. One frying pan to the head and she has robbed the handsome stranger of his memory and almost killed him.

Fearful he may die, she reluctantly nurses the intruder back to health. Yet can she trust the man with no name who has entered her life, or is he as dangerous as his nightmares suggest? As they learn to trust one another, the outside threats worsen. Are they linked to the man with no past? Or is the real danger still outside waiting … and watching them both?

This novel explores the dynamics of people from different classes. Beth Jago lives outside a mining town in an cabin in a valley. She lived with her grandfather who recently died. Since then she has been receiving eviction notices. She is dealing with this by ignoring them until the threats become physical.

Many historical romances are about the English gentry but they don’t explore the often unsavory ways these people made and maintained their fortunes. This book looks at the motivations of the men who own the mines that the area depends on to survive. Closing a mine can look good on paper when you don’t care about the welfare of a town built around it.

I appreciated the fact that this heroine is allowed to make her own choices in this novel. She is able to prove to herself and others that she is able to provide a living for herself. It was important to her to know that she was going to choose to marry because she wanted to live with that man instead of marrying because it was an economic necessity. I believe this is one of the few historical romances that include characters in such extreme poverty that going into a workhouse at several points in their life is required. I’m finding that I like historical romances that feature working class main characters or other marginalized characters that don’t often feature in traditional historical romances.

There is a storyline about an adult mentally disabled man that will be disturbing to some readers. I don’t think that it is unrealistic for the time but it will be upsetting to modern readers.

This is the third book of a series but works as a standalone novel.

25 Jul, 2018

Unfit to Print

/ posted in: Book Review, Reading

Unfit to Print by K.J. Charles
on July 10, 2018
Pages: 145
Genres: Fiction, Historical, Love & Romance
Format: eBook
Source: Owned
Setting: England

When crusading lawyer Vikram Pandey sets out in search of a missing youth, his investigations take him to Holywell Street, London’s most notorious address. He expects to find a disgraceful array of sordid bookshops. He doesn’t expect one of them to be run by the long-lost friend whose disappearance and presumed death he’s been mourning for thirteen years.

Gil Lawless became a Holywell Street bookseller for his own reasons, and he’s damned if he’s going to apologise or listen to moralising from anyone. Not even Vikram; not even if the once-beloved boy has grown into a man who makes his mouth water.

Now the upright lawyer and the illicit bookseller need to work together to track down the missing youth. And on the way, they may even learn if there’s more than just memory and old affection binding them together...

I read this book immediately after A Gentleman Never Keeps Score. The two fit together nicely because they share the theme of sexual abuse/exploitation of teenage boys due to poverty.

Gil is a bastard child of a rich family. When his father died, his older half-brother cut off his education and funds. In order to survive he was a prostitute. Now he runs a bookstore that sells pornography, which is illegal.

Vikram is a lawyer who takes some pro bono cases in London’s Indian community. He knew Gil at school where they bonded over being the only dark-skinned people. He has always wondered what happened to his friend when he suddenly left school but no one would answer his questions. Vikram is investigating the disappearance of an Indian teen who worked as a prostitute. The only clue is a studio photo that the boy’s parents had. There is no way he could afford to have bought it. Vikram guesses he may have been modeling for erotic photographers and was given the formal portrait as partial payment.

There is a bit of over the top serendipity in the main characters meeting. It is like, “I’m searching for this lost boy because it reminds me of my former best friend who went missing. I’ll go to this bookstore. Oh, look! There is my missing best friend. Imagine that!”

Vikram wants to renew his friendship with Gil but has a very hard time accepting the world Gil lives in. He is uncomfortable with the life his friend was forced to lead while he continued his comfortable life in school and university. Gil is cynical about Vikram’s desire to help people because in his life he hasn’t seen many people with that motivation.

This is a novella but there is a good amount of character growth in it. It was interesting to find out all about the Victorian pornography trade. I haven’t seen that as a basis for a romance before.

17 Mar, 2018

Ecstasy

/ posted in: Book Review, Reading

Ecstasy by Mary Sharratt
on April 10th 2018
Pages: 400
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Format: eARC
Source: Book Tour, From author/publisher

In the glittering hotbed of turn-of-the-twentieth-century Vienna, one woman’s life would define and defy an era
Gustav Klimt gave Alma her first kiss. Gustav Mahler fell in love with her at first sight and proposed only a few weeks later. Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius abandoned all reason to pursue her. Poet and novelist Franz Werfel described her as “one of the very few magical women that exist.” But who was this woman who brought these most eminent of men to their knees? In Ecstasy, Mary Sharratt finally gives one of the most controversial and complex women of her time the center stage.
Coming of age in the midst of a creative and cultural whirlwind, young, beautiful Alma Schindler yearns to make her mark as a composer. A brand-new era of possibility for women is dawning and she is determined to make the most of it. But Alma loses her heart to the great composer Gustav Mahler, nearly twenty years her senior. He demands that she give up her music as a condition for their marriage. Torn by her love and in awe of his genius, how will she remain true to herself and her artistic passion?
Part cautionary tale, part triumph of the feminist spirit, Ecstasy reveals the true Alma Mahler: composer, author, daughter, sister, mother, wife, lover, and muse.

I received this book from Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.

Alma Mahler was a very interesting woman. She was ambitious in a time and place that did not reward that in upper class white women. She wanted to be a composer but was told that she couldn’t if she wanted to marry the man she wanted.

This book does a good job of highlighting the mental cost of requiring a woman to be a wife and mother if that is not their desire. Her depression and their martial troubles in the face of his refusal to see her as a creative human being was well written.

I wish this book had pulled me deeper into the story emotionally. Great historical fiction should immerse you in the time and place. It should take a little effort to get your focus out of that world when you put the book aside. This reading experience felt very surface level which is a shame. Early 20th century Vienna and the artistic world there could be a very lush setting for a novel.

I enjoyed learning about this woman that I had not previous been aware of.

06 Feb, 2018

Deborah Calling

/ posted in: Book Review, Reading

Deborah Calling by Avraham Azrieli
on July 25, 2017
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Format: eARC
Source: Book Tour, From author/publisher
Setting: Jordan/Israel

Deborah’s father dreamed that, one day, she would become a prophet—a seemingly impossible dream for a woman in a patriarchal society. To see her father’s dream come true, Deborah made the cunning decision to become a man and sought out a mysterious elixirist who can turn women into men.
Under the elixirist Kassite’s tutelage and training, Deborah learns the essential traits of masculinity and steadily grows stronger, building muscle and willpower. But Kassite requests something in return: he needs Deborah's help to escape the tannery and return to his homeland. It is the beginning of another thrilling adventure through the desert—a cat and mouse chase between Deborah and her violent fiancé who still hunts her, a chance meeting with an ancient healer with a prophetic message, and a revelatory spiritual experience in an abandoned cave.
As she continues on the path God has laid before her, Deborah witnesses the darkness that can take hold in the hearts and souls of men—evil that causes her to reflect on the wisdom, insight, and inspiration she has gained from the women in her life. Will becoming a man truly help her become a prophetess, or might there be another path? Visionary dreams, a mysterious eagle, and an extraordinary band of ex-slaves will help Deborah find the answer . . . and ultimately her calling.

I haven’t read the first book in this series that imagines the life of Deborah from the biblical book of Judges. I received this book as part of a blog tour but it was not difficult to understand what had come before. We know in the bible Deborah is leading the tribes of Israel but how did a woman get to this position of authority? This story posits that her father had a dream that said that she would be a prophet. She can not imagine how this could happen as a woman so she decides to take a potion that would turn her into a man. Obviously, hormone therapy wasn’t available then so she is getting scammed by the people who are supposedly helping her.

She has a lot of internalized misogyny. This isn’t surprising given the thoughts about women in her time. But the men who are supposedly helping her keep drilling it into her head. Women are stupid and emotional. Men are in all ways superior. I started highlighting these comments as they came up in the book.

“Girls aren’t stupid.” “It is not a matter of stupidity, but of destiny. Women exist to keep the home—make food, sew clothes, bear children, care for infants. That is why the gods made women fit for domesticated submission—passive, temperamental, small-minded, and anxious.“

Deborah’s face flushed with shame. The mere sight of someone resembling Zariz had caused her to cast off all masculine strength and posture, instantly regressing to the foolish girl she had once been.

Kassite might view it as yet another manifestation of feminine weakness.

There are more but that is the general idea. They keep telling her that she needs to search inside herself to get the final inspiration to complete her transformation to a man. I was hoping that this led to her realizing her strength as a woman and deciding that she didn’t need to change herself externally in order to be able to be a prophet. The book could have easily had that be the outcome. I thought that was what it was leading to. Instead she decides to embrace her life as a woman because she has a magical dream where she sees herself dispensing justice as a woman. What?

When she declares this to her “mentors”, they dismiss her ideas and no longer accord her the same respect as when she was trying to be masculine.

“I am disappointed,” Kassite said. “You still think like a girl.”

Obviously the constraints of the time and place restrict how “Smash the Patriarchy” the story can go but I wanted more realization of feminine strength than was seen in this book.

This is part of a continuing series. You don’t know at the end how she rises in power. This is a story that I would love to hear but I’m not sure that I will be satisfied with this author’s imagining of the story. This book works fine as an adventurous historical fiction tale but it was worrisome to read this much internalized misogyny that isn’t disputed in the text from a male author.

There are also some anachronisms in the story especially in regard to the horses. I’m a horse history nerd so that might not bother anybody else.

12 Oct, 2017

The Fire By Night

/ posted in: Book Review, Reading

The Fire by Night by Teresa Messineo
on January 17th 2017
Pages: 336
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Published by William Morrow
Format: Paperback
Source: Book Tour, From author/publisher

A powerful and evocative debut novel about two American military nurses during World War II that illuminates the unsung heroism of women who risked their lives in the fight—a riveting saga of friendship, valor, sacrifice, and survival combining the grit and selflessness of Band of Brothers with the emotional resonance of The Nightingale.
In war-torn France, Jo McMahon, an Italian-Irish girl from the tenements of Brooklyn, tends to six seriously wounded soldiers in a makeshift medical unit. Enemy bombs have destroyed her hospital convoy, and now Jo singlehandedly struggles to keep her patients and herself alive in a cramped and freezing tent close to German troops. There is a growing tenderness between her and one of her patients, a Scottish officer, but Jo’s heart is seared by the pain of all she has lost and seen. Nearing her breaking point, she fights to hold on to joyful memories of the past, to the times she shared with her best friend, Kay, whom she met in nursing school.
Half a world away in the Pacific, Kay is trapped in a squalid Japanese POW camp in Manila, one of thousands of Allied men, women, and children whose fates rest in the hands of a sadistic enemy. Far from the familiar safety of the small Pennsylvania coal town of her childhood, Kay clings to memories of her happy days posted in Hawaii, and the handsome flyer who swept her off her feet in the weeks before Pearl Harbor. Surrounded by cruelty and death, Kay battles to maintain her sanity and save lives as best she can . . . and live to see her beloved friend Jo once more.
When the conflict at last comes to an end, Jo and Kay discover that to achieve their own peace, they must find their place—and the hope of love—in a world that’s forever changed. With rich, superbly researched detail, Teresa Messineo’s thrilling novel brings to life the pain and uncertainty of war and the sustaining power of love and friendship, and illuminates the lives of the women who risked everything to save others during a horrifying time.

Purchase Links: HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

The Fire By Night tells the story of Jo and Kay, nurses who met while in training. Kay finished her training first and got the cushy assignment to Hawaii at the little known base of Pearl Harbor. Jo was so jealous.

Now, a few years later, Jo is in a field hospital in Europe. Their position is about to be overrun and they are trying to evacuate. She is left behind with the most difficult to transport patients to wait for the last truck to get to her. Suddenly she finds that they aren’t coming back for her and the Germans are only a few miles away.

Kay is in the Philippines in an underground bunker that is about to fall to the Japanese. After they are taken, the nurses are kept in a prisoner-of-war camp and used as propaganda while enduring starvation and disease.

The author uses these stories to highlight the role of women in wars. They were considered to not be real soldiers because in theory they didn’t get near the front lines. They made difficult choices to stay with wounded soldiers even when it jeopardized their own safety. They were disrespected when they came home because they were “only nurses.”

This book doesn’t hold back on the details of what these women went through. The fear of being left behind and the horrors of being captured are described in detail.

The ending of the book is not as strong as the rest. There is a bit of romance tacked on that I didn’t think fit with the rest of the book.

I would recommend this book for people interested in World War II stories and stories about women’s history.

Tour schedule:

Tuesday, October 3rd: Girl Who Reads

Wednesday, October 4th: 100 Pages a Day…Stephanie’s Book Reviews

Thursday, October 5th: Musings of a Bookish Kitty

Friday, October 6th: West Metro Mommy

Monday, October 9th: BookNAround

Tuesday, October 10th: Peppermint PhD

Wednesday, October 11th: Life By Kristen

Thursday, October 12th: Based on a True Story

Friday, October 13th: Literary Quicksand

Monday, October 16th: Into the Hall of Books

Tuesday, October 17th: Sara the Introvert

Wednesday, October 18th: Books and Bindings

Thursday, October 19th: Jathan & Heather

Friday, October 20th: ML’s Red House Reviews

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Books Set in Asia
Books Set in Europe

10 Aug, 2017

Unbroken Line of the Moon – Women in Translation Month

/ posted in: Book Review, Reading

The Unbroken Line of the Moon by Johanne Hildebrandt, Tara F. Chace
on October 1, 2016
Pages: 464
Series: Sagan om Valhalla #4
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Format: eBook
Source: Owned
Setting: Sweden

In this grand saga of love, war, and magic set in the tenth century, young Sigrid is destined to be the mother of the king of the Nordic lands that would become Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and England.
A devout believer in the old Nordic gods, Sigrid is visited regularly in her dreams by the goddess Freya, who whispers to her of the future. Though Sigrid is beautiful, rich, arrogant, and matchlessly clever, her uncanny ability to foresee the future and manipulate the present guides her through dangerous politics as a bloody war between Vikings and Christians rages on.
Sigrid’s father wants her to marry Erik, a local king, to secure the peace between the Goths and the Swedes. Thinking she is doing Freya’s will, she accepts the marriage offer, only to find that her destiny lies not with Erik but with Sweyn, a warrior who dreams of dethroning Harald Bluetooth, the legendary ruler of Denmark. Will Sigrid sacrifice her will for the greatest Viking kingdom of all time, or will she follow her heart at the risk of losing everything?

I got this book for free through the Kindle First program for Amazon Prime members. That’s a great way to try out some translated books since usually at least one of the selections are translated.

This book 4 of a series published in Sweden but it is the first book available in English. The next book the series is going to be translated later in 2017. I’m not sure what the first few books cover but I didn’t feel like I was missing anything by starting the story at this point.

This book is set during the time of the Vikings and everyone knows that they were awful. That aspect of Viking life is not sugar coated here. There is a lot of violence. There are graphic descriptions of multiple gang rapes.

Despite that, I did enjoy this story. I haven’t read much set during this time in Scandinavia when there was conflict between traditional Nordic beliefs and Christianity. True believers on both sides are coming across people who will switch religions for personal or political gain.

If you like Game of Thrones style fantasy or historical fiction you will probably enjoy this book.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Books Set in Europe

04 Aug, 2017

The Cost of Sugar – Women in Translation Month

/ posted in: Book Review, Reading

The Cost of Sugar by Cynthia McLeod
on January 7th 2011
Pages: 296
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Published by HopeRoad
Format: eBook
Source: Owned
Setting: Surinam

The Cost of Sugar is an intriguing history of those rabid times in Dutch Surinam between 1765-1779 when sugar was king.Told through the eyes of two Jewish step sisters, Eliza and Sarith, descendants of the settlers of 'New Jerusalem of the River' know today as Jodensvanne. The Cost of Sugar is a frank expose of the tragic toll on the lives of colonists and slaves alike.

This is the second novel that I have read by Cynthia McLeod. She is a hard author for me to review. On one hand I love the stories that she tells. She gives you a look into life in colonial Suriname, on the northeast coast of South America. She tells stories that I haven’t heard from any other author. The previous book I read of hers, The Free Negress Elisabeth, is a story that has stayed in my mind because it is the type of women’s history that is so often overlooked. I want to put her books in everyone’s hands and tell them they have to hear about this.

On the other hand though, the writing in the books just isn’t very good. Clunky is the word that keeps coming to mind. I’m reading an English translation from the Dutch but I don’t think that is the whole issue. She is so careful to have so much documented historical fact in the books that she info-dumps continuously. That doesn’t usually bother me in a story but these passages aren’t blended into the fictional story that she is telling well. She even has footnotes. I’m not sure what the footnotes were about because many of them weren’t translated. The untranslated ones appeared to be quotes.

I’ve had this book for a long time before reading it. I tried to start it a few times but the writing style made me stop after a few pages. I decided to knuckle down and read it for Women in Translation Month. Once I decided to power through, I read it in less than a day. The story carries you through.

One early wave of settlers to Suriname were Portuguese Jews who migrated from Brazil. They set up large plantations and did well for themselves. Subsequent waves of settlers from Holland though were anti-Semitic and over time the Jewish families found themselves not at the top of society anymore. This is the story of two half-sisters, one had two Jewish parents and one had only a Jewish father so was not considered Jewish herself. The story shows how their lives diverge as Suriname begins to deal with the effects of people living too far in debt for them to maintain.

White people in Suriname did nothing for themselves. There were so many more enslaved people than white people that whites gave all responsibilities for running their lives to the slaves. With nothing to do, they entertained themselves with lavish parties that lasted for weeks. Gossip was rampant. There wasn’t a single rich white person that I didn’t want to slap at some point in this book.

The Cost of Sugar refers to all the lives wasted in the plantation system – the enslaved people, the white landowners, the Dutch soldiers brought into protect the plantations, the escaped and free blacks living in the jungle. It was a system that hurt everyone.

“It now occurred to Elza that her family was in fact a model for all Suriname society. Wasn’t everyone and everything totally dependent on the slaves? Just as she felt so completely lost without Maisa, so the colony would be totally lost without its slaves. They did everything and knew everything, and the whites knew nothing and were incapable of anything. The whites needed the negroes, but the negroes didn’t need a single white person”

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Backlist Books
Books Set in Latin America
POC authors

02 Aug, 2017

The Dress in the Window

/ posted in: Book Review, Reading

The Dress in the Window by Sofia Grant
on July 25th 2017
Pages: 384
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks
Format: ARC
Source: Book Tour, From author/publisher
Setting: Pennsylvania

World War II has ended and American women are shedding their old clothes for the gorgeous new styles. Voluminous layers of taffeta and tulle, wasp waists, and beautiful color—all so welcome after years of sensible styles and strict rationing.
Jeanne Brink and her sister Peggy both had to weather every tragedy the war had to offer—Peggy now a widowed mother, Jeanne without the fiancé she’d counted on, both living with Peggy’s mother-in-law in a grim mill town. But despite their grey pasts they long for a bright future—Jeanne by creating stunning dresses for her clients with the help of her sister Peggy’s brilliant sketches.
Together, they combine forces to create amazing fashions and a more prosperous life than they’d ever dreamed of before the war. But sisterly love can sometimes turn into sibling jealousy. Always playing second fiddle to her sister, Peggy yearns to make her own mark. But as they soon discover, the future is never without its surprises, ones that have the potential to make—or break—their dreams.

None of the women in this story expected to live a life without their men. Now, after World War II, they are trying to adapt to what their lives have become.

Jeanne is a talented seamstress but making knock off dresses for rich women in her small town isn’t enough to make ends meet. Peggy is a good designer but with a small daughter she needs to find a way to make money. Thelma is Peggy’s mother in law. She owns the house they live in and is barely keeping them afloat.

Thelma was my favorite character in this book. She is portrayed as the matriarch but she is only in her mid-40s. She has a lot of secrets including lovers who will still do her some favors as the need arises. She is smart but always underestimated due to her gender and socioeconomic condition. She comes up with a plan to help them all based on secrets, blackmail, and her talents.

This is a good look at life for women who were forced to grow up quickly because of war. Peggy has a child that she probably wouldn’t have had so young if not for the war making things feel urgent. Jeanne is concerned about being a spinster forever because of the lack of men.

Overall, this is a grim book. Times were tough and the women had to be even tougher to get through it.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Books Set in North America

27 Jul, 2017

The Gilded Years

/ posted in: Book Review, Reading

The Gilded Years by Karin Tanabe
on July 1, 2016
Pages: 379
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Published by Simon and Schuster
Format: eBook
Source: Playster
Setting: New York

Since childhood, Anita Hemmings has longed to attend the country’s most exclusive school for women, Vassar College. Now, a bright, beautiful senior in the class of 1897, she is hiding a secret that would have banned her from admission: Anita is the only African-American student ever to attend Vassar. With her olive complexion and dark hair, this daughter of a janitor and descendant of slaves has successfully passed as white, but now finds herself rooming with Louise “Lottie” Taylor, the scion of one of New York’s most prominent families.
Though Anita has kept herself at a distance from her classmates, Lottie’s sphere of influence is inescapable, her energy irresistible, and the two become fast friends. Pulled into her elite world, Anita learns what it’s like to be treated as a wealthy, educated white woman—the person everyone believes her to be—and even finds herself in a heady romance with a moneyed Harvard student. It’s only when Lottie becomes infatuated with Anita’s brother, Frederick, whose skin is almost as light as his sister’s, that the situation becomes particularly perilous. And as Anita’s college graduation looms, those closest to her will be the ones to dangerously threaten her secret.

I loved this story of a woman trying to get an education at Vassar before they accepted African-American students. Her life is compared and contrasted to the life of her brother who was enrolled as a Negro student at newly desegregated MIT. Where he is able to live relatively freely because the racists just ignored and/or avoided him, her attempts to keep from drawing attention to herself were thwarted by a roommate who is determined to be best friends. Lottie drags Anita into a high class social life and introduces her to people who she knows wouldn’t talk to her if they knew she was black.

The book addresses the pain of having to cut family members out of your life if you are passing.

The author did a good job of incorporating the views of many different types of people – black people who saw this as a practical way to get an education, black people who wanted her to be a vocal proponent for civil rights, white people both for and against desegregation, and white people who were against bigotry until events touched their lives.

What I found most remarkable about this story is that it is based on real events. I wasn’t surprised by a woman passing as white to attend a segregated college but I was surprised about some of the details that seemed a bit over the top that turned out to be based in reality. I can’t discuss it all because of spoilers but make sure to read the historical note at the end.

A good companion to this book would be:

A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in America by Allyson Hobbs

“Between the eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, countless African Americans passed as white, leaving behind families and friends, roots and community. It was, as Allyson Hobbs writes, a chosen exile, a separation from one racial identity and the leap into another. This revelatory history of passing explores the possibilities and challenges that racial indeterminacy presented to men and women living in a country obsessed with racial distinctions. It also tells a tale of loss.”

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Backlist Books
Books Set in North America
POC authors

19 Jul, 2017

The Essex Serpent – My Total Book Tour Fail

/ posted in: Book Review, Reading

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
on June 6th 2017
Pages: 422
Genres: Fiction
Published by Custom House
Format: Paperback
Source: Book Tour, From author/publisher
Setting: England

Set in Victorian London and an Essex village in the 1890's, and enlivened by the debates on scientific and medical discovery which defined the era, The Essex Serpent has at its heart the story of two extraordinary people who fall for each other, but not in the usual way.
They are Cora Seaborne and Will Ransome. Cora is a well-to-do London widow who moves to the Essex parish of Aldwinter, and Will is the local vicar. They meet as their village is engulfed by rumours that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming human lives, has returned. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist is enthralled, convinced the beast may be a real undiscovered species. But Will sees his parishioners' agitation as a moral panic, a deviation from true faith. Although they can agree on absolutely nothing, as the seasons turn around them in this quiet corner of England, they find themselves inexorably drawn together and torn apart.

I am a supremely organized book blogger. When I do book tours as soon as I find out the date I am scheduled to post, I put a draft post on my WordPress calendar. That way I don’t get messed up. I’ve known for months that my review of The Essex Serpent was due on July 19. When I went to write this up I looked at the list of other bloggers participating and wanted to see what they thought of the book. I was surprised to find no posts for the people posting before me. I looked at my email. Still didn’t see the issue. Then I saw it. JUNE 19. Oh.

So here is my way-belated book tour review of The Essex Serpent.

I first heard of this book through the enthusiastic promotion of the British release last year by Simon Savidge. When the book became available in the U.S. I decided to read it to see why he was so enthusiastic. We obviously read very different types of books because he considers this to be a very plot driven novel and I think of it as more of a character driven one.

Cora is not a typical Victorian widow. It is implied that her husband was abusive and she certainly is not grieving him. She decides to go with her companion Martha and her young son Francis to Essex because she wants to follow in the footsteps of female amateur naturalists. Hearing rumors of a monster in the estuary thrills her to no end. Her friends urge her to contact the local vicar. She has no interest in that. She doesn’t want to be stuck in company with a stuffy vicar. The vicar and his wife don’t have any interest in her either. They assume she is an elderly lady with a wastrel son but they invite her to dinner to be nice.

This book covers a lot of issues in England at this time. Martha is a socialist who is campaigning for safe housing for the poor in London. At this time to get into good housing you had to prove that you were of good morals. This offends her because the landlords could go out drinking and being irresponsible but the tenets would be evicted if they acted like that. She convinces a young doctor with family money to spare to join in her the cause.

Francis would now be recognized as autistic but in this book he is just seen as a bit odd. He’s mostly left to his own devices because Cora doesn’t know how to interact with him.

Cora has an admirer in Luke Garret, the doctor who treated her husband. He wants to do more and more daring operations and is fighting the medical establishment.

The Ransomes, the family of the vicar, get involved with Cora and her entourage. Will Ransome is the vicar who is interested in science. He knows that rumors of a serpent killing people and livestock are just superstition but he can’t get his parishioners to listen to reason. This talk is tearing his small village apart and then Cora appears and runs roughshod over the town. It is hard to tell what is more damaging – the rumors or the visitor.

The writing is lyrical and mystical. It evokes foggy mornings and salt water breezes. Of course because this is historical fiction and not urban fantasy, there is no magical creature in the river. Seeing how the author resolves all these plot lines and logically explains the serpent is part of the drama.

This is a relatively slow read. It takes time for the writing to sink in. The plot jumps around often so it can be a bit tricky to keep track of who is where at what time. You don’t always know why you should be interested in characters until they start to tie into the larger narrative.

This book is good for people looking to lose themselves in the writing of a slow paced glimpse of life in rural Victorian England with a hint of mystery mixed in.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Books Set in Europe

18 Jul, 2017

When The Future Comes Too Soon

/ posted in: Book Review, Reading

When the Future Comes Too Soon by Selina Siak Chin Yoke
on July 18, 2017
Series: Malayan #2
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Format: eARC
Source: From author/publisher
Also in this series: The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds

In Japanese-occupied Malaya, lives are shattered and a woman discovers her inner strength in a world ravaged by war.
Following the death of their matriarch, the lives of Chye Hoon’s family turned upside down. Now that the British have fled and the Japanese have conquered, their once-benign world changes overnight.
Amid the turmoil, Chye Hoon’s daughter-in-law, Mei Foong, must fend for her family as her husband, Weng Yu, becomes increasingly embittered. Challenged in ways she never could have imagined and forced into hiding, Mei Foong finds a deep reservoir of resilience she did not know she had and soon draws the attentions of another man.
Is Mei Foong’s resolve enough to save herself, her marriage, and her family? Only when peace returns to Malaya will she learn the full price she must pay for survival.

I loved the first book in this series – The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds. That was the story of a woman in Malaya who witnesses the change of her area when the British colonize. Her oldest son is educated in England and she has huge hopes for him that he fails to live up to. He marries a Chinese girl to please his mother. This book picks up immediately after the death of the protagonist of the first book. Her Chinese daughter-in-law tells the story of how they survived the Japanese occupation of World War II.

I was a bit reluctant to pick this book up because of the time period. I know that Japanese occupations in Asia were brutal. This book does talk about one massacre but overall it keeps a much narrower focus. It looks at how this one family survived the war. They know people in the resistance but that isn’t talked about much.

One of the conflicts was knowing how to react to the Japanese. They were invaders and they could be cruel but they also allowed Asian people into high ranking jobs that the British establishment would have never allowed. Our narrator Mei Foong’s husband, Weng Yu is given a job that he has always wanted by the Japanese. She has learned that her husband is a coward. He would head to bomb shelters first before helping her or their children. She has lost a lot of respect for him. He is in turns indifferent and cruel to her. Mei Foong learns to grow her own food and sells her mother’s jewelry in order for her family to be able to eat. The family basically keeps their heads down and does what they have to do to survive unnoticed.

“If anyone had called me a collaborator to my face, I would have recoiled. As far as I was concerned, we were only giving the Japs our unwilling cooperation.”

This is a shorter book than the first one. It only covers the years of the war. It mostly the story of the disintegration of a marriage and a woman’s finding strength in herself that she didn’t know she had set against a backdrop of war instead of a novel about the war. It isn’t necessary to read the first book before picking this one up but it adds to your background knowledge of the area and the characters.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes historical fiction. Mei Foong is a great character. She grows from a shy, pampered, upper class bride into a woman who knows her worth and is able to take care of herself.

About Selina Siak Chin Yoke

Of Malaysian-Chinese heritage, Selina Siak Chin Yoke (石清玉) grew up listening to family stories and ancient legends. She always knew that one day, she would write. After an eclectic life as a physicist, banker and trader in London, the heavens intervened. In 2009 Chin Yoke was diagnosed with cancer. While recovering, she decided not to delay her dream of writing any longer.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Books Set in Asia
POC authors

27 Jun, 2017

Kiss Carlo

/ posted in: Reading

Kiss Carlo by Adriana Trigiani
on June 20th 2017
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Published by HarperCollins
Format: ARC
Source: Book Tour, From author/publisher

It’s 1949 and South Philadelphia bursts with opportunity during the post-war boom. The Palazzini Cab Company & Western Union Telegraph Office, owned and operated by Dominic Palazzini and his three sons, is flourishing: business is good, they’re surrounded by sympathetic wives and daughters-in-law, with grandchildren on the way. But a decades-long feud that split Dominic and his brother Mike and their once-close families sets the stage for a re-match.
Amidst the hoopla, the arrival of an urgent telegram from Italy upends the life of Nicky Castone (Dominic and his wife’s orphaned nephew) who lives and works with his Uncle Dom and his family. Nicky decides, at 30, that he wants more—more than just a job driving Car #4 and more than his longtime fiancée Peachy DePino, a bookkeeper, can offer. When he admits to his fiancée that he’s been secretly moonlighting at the local Shakespeare theater company, Nicky finds himself drawn to the stage, its colorful players and to the determined Calla Borelli, who inherited the enterprise from her father, Nicky must choose between the conventional life his family expects of him or chart a new course and risk losing everything he cherishes.

Kiss Carlo is a meandering family story that takes place over a few years in post WWII Philadelphia. The Palazzini family lives together in a large house containing Uncle Dom and Aunt Jo, their three sons and their wives, and a cousin, Nicky. The men all work together also in the family cab company.

What no one knows is that Nicky has been moonlighting at a struggling Shakespeare theater. He’s a stagehand but an emergency forces him onstage mid-play and makes him realize that he wants to act. He also has a man die in his cab which forces the realization that he isn’t doing exactly what he wants with his life. His actions shake up the whole Palazzini family when Nicky breaks off his engagement and moves out of the house.

The book is full of distinct and interesting characters. With such a large cast it could have been hard to keep the characters separate, but the author did a very good job of writing each one as a individual with their own backstory, personality traits, and motivations. There are no “generic sisters-in-law” here.

Hortense is the African-American dispatcher and telegraph operator at the cab company. She’s no nonsense and proudly self-educated. Her husband doesn’t appreciate her and demeans her. She forges a friendship with a housebound Italian widow over a weekend who shares part of her way of making marinara sauce. This leads to a business opportunity for Hortense because she’s savvy enough to see how a simple sauce fits into the need for convenience for the modern house wife. Adding this character gives an outsider’s view of the Italian families and neighborhood of Philadelphia.

This is a long book that doesn’t have one distinct through story. It is a book that you just need to settle into and let it take you along for the ride instead of trying to imagine where the journey is going to take you.

Purchase Links

HarperCollins
| Amazon | Barnes
& Noble

About Adriana Trigiani

Adriana Trigiani is the bestselling author of 17 books, which have been published in 36 countries around the world. She is a playwright, television writer/producer and filmmaker. She wrote and directed the film version of her novel Big Stone Gap, which was shot entirely on location in her Virginia hometown. She is co-founder of the Origin Project, an in-school writing program that serves more than a thousand students in Appalachia. She lives in Greenwich Village with her family.

Visit Adriana at her website: www.adrianatrigiani.com, like her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Books Set in North America
Foodies Read 2017

16 May, 2017

The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds

/ posted in: Reading

The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds by Selina Siak Chin Yoke
on November 1st 2016
Pages: 474
Series: Malayan #1
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Published by AmazonCrossing
Format: eBook
Source: Owned
Also in this series: When the Future Comes Too Soon

Facing challenges in an increasingly colonial world, Chye Hoon, a rebellious young girl, must learn to embrace her mixed Malayan-Chinese identity as a Nyonya—and her destiny as a cook, rather than following her first dream of attending school like her brother.
Amidst the smells of chillies and garlic frying, Chye Hoon begins to appreciate the richness of her traditions, eventually marrying Wong Peng Choon, a Chinese man. Together, they have ten children. At last, she can pass on the stories she has heard—magical tales of men from the sea—and her warrior’s courage, along with her wonderful kueh (cakes).
But the cultural shift towards the West has begun. Chye Hoon finds herself afraid of losing the heritage she so prizes as her children move more and more into the modernising Western world.

This is an historical fiction novel set between the 1870s and the 1940s in Malaysia. In this area of Malaysia at the time it was common for people to be of mixed ethnic heritage. But now the British have started to establish a presence. Towns and cities are growing. Chye Hoon’s father decides to learn English and move the family to a larger city to get ahead. Although she is smart, she is not able to go to school. She is headstrong and not beautiful so stays unmarried for a long time before becoming a second wife to a Chinese man who left his family behind in China.

This story focuses on the way the world is changing around Chye Hoon. She is taken to a backwater town after her marriage. She watches Ipoh grow into a mining center. She sees her children grow up and learn English as their major language. Even her daughters are able to be educated. But her family traditions are very important. She longs to be able to pass on the stories that were told to her and the traditions of the families in her area. Her children are not interested.

What do we lose in the name of progress?

I had never heard of the Nyonyas and Babas. It took me a while to understand exactly what those terms meant. This is from Wikipedia.

“Peranakan Chinese or Straits-born Chinese are the descendants of Chinese immigrants who came to the Malay archipelago including British Malaya (now Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, where they are also referred to as Baba-Nyonya) and Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia; where they’re also referred as Kiau-Seng)^[4] between the 15th and 17th centuries.^[5]

Members of this community in Malaysia address themselves as “Baba Nyonya”. Nyonya is the term for the women and Baba for the men. It applies especially to the Han populations of the British Straits Settlements of Malaya and the Dutch-controlled island of Java and other locations, who have adopted Nusantara customs — partially or in full — to be somewhat assimilated into the local communities. Many were the elites of Singapore, more loyal to the British than to China. Most have lived for generations along the straits of Malacca. They were usually traders, the middleman of the British and the Chinese, or the Chinese and Malays, or vice versa because they were mostly English educated. Because of this, they almost always had the ability to speak two or more languages.”

When you try to investigate Nyonya culture, the first things you see are food. Food played a big part in this story. Chye Hoon is widowed and has to make a living. She decides to sell traditional Nyonya food to the men working in the tin mines of Ipoh. Her specialties are cakes. Here is a video of a type of Nyonya cake.

I really enjoyed this book. I was immersed in her world that was changing so rapidly that by the time of her death it was unrecognizable. This series will be continuing and picking up with the story of her daughter-in-law in World War II. That book comes out in the few months. I’m glad for a bit of a break in between because I feel like a need to mourn a bit for amazing life of Chye Hoon before switching the main character of the story to the daughter-in-law.

About Selina Siak Chin Yoke

Of Malaysian-Chinese heritage, Selina Siak Chin Yoke (石清玉) grew up listening to family stories and ancient legends. She always knew that one day, she would write. After an eclectic life as a physicist, banker and trader in London, the heavens intervened. In 2009 Chin Yoke was diagnosed with cancer. While recovering, she decided not to delay her dream of writing any longer.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Books Set in Asia
Foodies Read 2017
POC authors

05 Apr, 2017

People of the Songtrail

/ posted in: Reading

People of the Songtrail by W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O'Neal Gear
on May 26th 2015
Pages: 352
Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Historical
Published by Tor Books
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library

On the shores of what is now northeastern Canada, a small group of intrepid settlers have landed, seeking freedom to worship and prosper far from the religious strife and political upheaval that plague a war-ridden Europe . . .
500 years before Columbus set sail.
While it has long been known that Viking ships explored the American coast, recent archaeological evidence suggests a far more vast and permanent settlement. It is from this evidence that archaeologists and early American history experts Kathy and Michael Gear weave their extraordinary tale.

I never know quite how to characterize the Gear books. Historical fiction with magic? Magical realism? Historical fantasy?

The authors are archeologists. They start with the archeological details of pre-Columbian American sites and build adventure stories from there. This book is set on the east coast of Canada during the time of the Vikings. A group of boats has sailed together from Greenland but were separated in a storm. They make landfall up and down the coast. The different groups have different experiences of contact with the Native Americans.

There have been Viking raids previously. The Native Americans are rightly hostile to any landing on the shore. Children have previously been taken as slaves. These slaves have taught a few Vikings the language so they have translators. One group talks to the Native Americans. Another sets off a massacre of a village.

Now one boat with a judge on board tries to convince the Native Americans to trust him to deliver justice to them for the crimes committed against them. Yeah, I wouldn’t have believed him either.

This isn’t my favorite of their books. There is so much going on that it is hard to focus on a main plot. There are political dealings in Scandinavia and England. There is a Danish witch and a Native American spirit worker getting together to fight the bad guys. There is fighting among the Vikings.

I think I would have liked this one more with a little more historical detail and less magic. Those aren’t words that I say very often. I was interested in how these groups of people interacted. With all the magic flying around I knew that it didn’t go like that in real life. No one was resurrecting people by riding into the afterlife on eight legged horses.

Read this one if you are in the mood for a historical fantasy that compares and contrasts Native American and Scandinavian spirituality and mythology. Look elsewhere if you want to know what really happened.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Backlist Books
Books Set in North America

30 Mar, 2017

The 228 Legacy

/ posted in: Reading

The 228 Legacy by Jennifer J. Chow
on July 25th 2013
Pages: 320
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Published by Martin Sisters Publishing
Format: Paperback
Source: Library
Setting: Taiwan

Three generations in an all-female Taiwanese family living near Los Angeles in 1980 are each guarding personal secrets. Grandmother Silk finds out that she has breast cancer, as daughter Lisa loses her job, while pre-teen granddaughter Abbey struggles with a school bully. When Silk’s mysterious past comes out—revealing a shocking historical event that left her widowed—the truth forces the family to reconnect emotionally and battle their problems together. A novel of cultural identity and long-standing secrets, The 228 Legacy weaves together multigenerational viewpoints, showing how heritage and history can influence individual behavior and family bonds.

I didn’t know anything about Taiwanese history until I read this post from Shenwei about the 228 Massacre. After World War II Japan ceded control of Taiwan to China. The government that was put in place on the island was hated for corruption. There were protests on February 28, 1947 that led to a violent crackdown from the government. Thousands of people died. It was not officially acknowledged or discussed until 1995.

Shenwei gave a list of books in her post that touch on the massacre. I decided to read The 228 Legacy.

This book is about three generations of Taiwanese-American women living in LA in the 1980s. The grandmother, Silk, came to the U.S. as a pregnant widow. She has never talked much about her life in Taiwan other than trying to pass on the language. Her daughter, Lisa, knows nothing about her father. She is struggling with keeping dead end jobs while caring for her mother and daughter. The granddaughter, Abbey, is trying to make friends with the popular people at school but this has disastrous consequences.

The heart of the story is Jack, a Chinese man who recently lost his wife. He lived at the nursing home that Lisa worked at. He recently ran away. Lisa gets involved in his life but when Silk meets him she reacts violently to having a Chinese man in her house. This is the beginning of finding out about Silk’s memories of the massacre.

I wish this book went deeper. There are several good storylines here but I didn’t feel like it did more than scratch the surface of each. There should have been more emotion in both Silk and Abbey’s stories. Both are traumatic but they feel like they are recounted matter of factly.

I liked Lisa’s story the best because it showed her growth as she discovers a career that she actually enjoys.

I may look into some other books on Shenwei’s list to learn more about Taiwanese history than I learned from this book.

About Jennifer J. Chow

Jennifer J. Chow, an Asian-American writer, holds a Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a Master’s in Social Welfare from UCLA. Her geriatric work experience has informed her stories. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Backlist Books
Books Set in Asia
POC authors

21 Dec, 2016

Climbing the Stairs

/ posted in: Reading Climbing the Stairs

Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman
on May 1, 2008
Pages: 256
Genres: Young Adult
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
Buy on Amazon (affiliate link)
Setting: India

“During World War II and the last days of British occupation in India, fifteen-year-old Vidya dreams of attending college. But when her forward-thinking father is beaten senseless by the British police, she is forced to live with her grandfather’s large traditional family, where the women live apart from the men and are meant to be married off as soon as possible.
Vidya’s only refuge becomes her grandfather’s upstairs library, which is forbidden to women. There she meets Raman, a young man also living in the house who relishes her intellectual curiosity. But when Vidya’s brother decides to fight with the hated British against the Nazis, and when Raman proposes marriage too soon, Vidya must question all she has believed in.”

I’ve been a big fan of this author’s verse novel A Time To Dance. Climbing the Stairs is a bit different. This is a historical fiction book set in World War II. Vidya’s father is a doctor who aids nonviolent protestors who are injured by British soldiers. Vidya’s brother is concerned about the strategic value of India leading to a Japanese invasion. He wants to enlist in the Army. The rest of the family is horrified. They are Brahmin and that caste does not traditionally join the military. They especially do not join the British Army.

Vidya’s father believes in her dream to go to college instead of being married at a young age. When he is injured and they have to move to his father’s home, all her dreams are forgotten. Her family is treated as a burden. Vidya and her mother are used as servants for the rest of the family. Vidya gets permission to read in her grandfather’s library while she watches her newborn cousin. Here she is able to help enhance her education while her world crumbles around her.

I really enjoyed this book. It is a short book but sets the time and place well. There is a true conflict between appreciating and supporting the British defense of India against the Japanese while still fighting against the British subjugation of Indians. There is conflict between traditional ideas of a woman’s place in Indian society and the desire to have a different life.

Important Spoiler about the Dog

Vidya has a dog at the beginning. It is known that her uncle hates dogs. I had to put the book aside for a bit because I just knew something bad was going to happen to the dog when they had to move in with the uncle and grandfather. I can’t handle something bad happening to dogs. Nothing does though. He gets a good home. They even visit him later and he is doing well. The dog is fine. Carry on reading.

About Padma Venkatraman

Padma Venkatraman was born in Chennai India and currently lives in the United States. She has a doctorate in oceanography. Her debut novel was published in 2008.

Website

02 Dec, 2016

Flygirl

/ posted in: Reading Flygirl

Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith
on January 22nd 2009
Pages: 288
Genres: Historical Fiction, Young Adult
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Format: Paperback
Source: Owned
Buy on Amazon (affiliate link)
Setting: Louisiana and Texas

“Ida Mae Jones dreams of flight. Her daddy was a pilot and being black didn’t stop him from fulfilling his dreams. But her daddy’s gone now, and being a woman, and being black, are two strikes against her.
When America enters the war with Germany and Japan, the Army creates the WASP, the Women Airforce Service Pilots – and Ida suddenly sees a way to fly as well as do something significant to help her brother stationed in the Pacific. But even the WASP won’t accept her as a black woman, forcing Ida Mae to make a difficult choice of “passing,” of pretending to be white to be accepted into the program. Hiding one’s racial heritage, denying one’s family, denying one’s self is a heavy burden. And while Ida Mae chases her dream, she must also decide who it is she really wants to be.”

I loved this book so much. From the very first pages, I believed that we were in Louisiana in the 1940s. Ida Mae and her best friend feel like real people who grow apart over time because of the differences in their abilities to advance in the world. This book addresses not only racism but also the colorism in the African American community.

Ida Mae’s father taught her to fly for their crop dusting business. She hasn’t been able to get her license because the instructor wouldn’t approve a license for a woman. When women are started to be hired to ferry planes between bases to free up male pilots for combat, Ida Mae wants to join. She is very light skinned so she lets the recruiter assume that she is a white woman. This makes a divide between Ida Mae and her darker skinned mother, family, and friends. A big question in the story is can she come back from this? Once she starts living the life of a white woman, will she be willing to be seen as a black woman again?

I read about this topic in A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in America but I haven’t seen it addressed in historical fiction often.

If you are interested in reading more fiction about the WASP, check out The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion.

Flygirl is YA so it is a quick read. I would recommend it to anyone who likes women-centered historical fiction.

10 Oct, 2016

Radio Girls

/ posted in: Reading Radio Girls

Radio Girls by Sarah-Jane Stratford
on June 14th 2016
Pages: 384
Genres: Historical Fiction
Published by NAL
Format: Paperback
Source: Owned
Buy on Amazon (affiliate link)
Setting: England

“London, 1926. American-raised Maisie Musgrave is thrilled to land a job as a secretary at the upstart British Broadcasting Corporation, whose use of radio—still new, strange, and electrifying—is captivating the nation. But the hectic pace, smart young staff, and intimidating bosses only add to Maisie’s insecurity.
Soon, she is seduced by the work—gaining confidence as she arranges broadcasts by the most famous writers, scientists, and politicians in Britain. She is also caught up in a growing conflict between her two bosses, John Reith, the formidable Director-General of the BBC, and Hilda Matheson, the extraordinary director of the hugely popular Talks programming, who each have very different visions of what radio should be. Under Hilda’s tutelage, Maisie discovers her talent, passion, and ambition. But when she unearths a shocking conspiracy, she and Hilda join forces to make their voices heard both on and off the air…and then face the dangerous consequences of telling the truth for a living.”

I love historical fiction and especially British historical fiction. I was thrilled to receive this book from my OTSP Secret Sister and had to read it immediately.

BBC radio was only allowed to broadcast during set hours and was not allowed to cover news. One of their most popular departments was Talks, headed by Hilda Matheson. It was unusual for a woman to be allowed to head a department. The head of the BBC, John Reith, was a very conservative man who asked all (male) applicants for executive positions two questions – Are you a Christian? and Do you have any character flaws?

He thought that Miss Matheson was too liberal in topics she wanted to cover. She also kept bringing in homosexuals to present topics. He did not approve but did seem strangely up to date on who had rumors circulating around about their sexuality. Their conflict was real and this novel examines their issues through the voice of Maisie, a secretary that they share. Reith warns her about being too ambitious and being exposed to the wrong kinds of people while working in the Talks department. Matheson encourages her to speak up and promote ideas for new shows. Eventually Maisie is enlisted by Matheson to spy on some new backers of the BBC who have ties to an increasingly unstable Germany.

Hilda Matheson was a fascinating woman who I’d never heard of before. She was a political secretary for Lady Astor, the first female Member of Parliament. Then she went to the BBC and after that she worked on the Africa Survey. She also became a radio critic and wrote a textbook on broadcasting. She was a lesbian who had relationships with several high society women in England. A book on her alone would have been fascinating.

There is spying, burgeoning feminism, the evolution of new technology, and arguments about censorship. What more could you want from one book?

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