strange and random happenstance

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
Published by: Atria
Publication Date: January 1st, 2008
Format: Hardcover, 552 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

"Novels that moved back and forth between two time periods existed before Kate Morton—including my Pink Carnation books, of which the first came out in 2005—but she is undoubtedly the standard-bearer for the genre that has come to be known as “time-slip”, so I would be remiss if I didn’t mention her books here.

I chose The Forgotten Garden because it’s Victorian-set, but there are other similarities as well. In both That Summer and The Forgotten Garden, a modern heroine inherits a house in England and must uncover a mystery of which the key is an object from the past: in The Forgotten Garden, a book of fairy tales, in That Summer, a lost Preraphaelite painting." - Lauren Willig

Nell dies with an unanswered secret. A secret she bequeaths to her granddaughter Cassandra. Nell raised Cassandra ever since her own daughter abandoned her at Nell's little house in Brisbane back in the seventies. Nell's secret took her clear across the world to England, but answers were not forthcoming. Nell has felt a stranger in her own life since she learned from her father that she was a foundling, wandering the wharves of Australia. She was the answer to their prayers and so they kept her. On his deathbed he leaves the suitcase that was found with Nell. A suitcase with a very rare and beautiful book of Fairy Tales by one Eliza Makepeace. Nell takes the leap and heads to England in such of the one link she has, Eliza Makepeace. Her journey leads her to Cornwall and Blackhurst Manor. She gets an inkling as to her heritage and buys Cliff Cottage from the now broken up Blackhurst Estate, planing to return and find out who she is. She never returns.

Thirty years later Cassandra journeys to England following Nell's death, to Tregenna. Her life, like Nell's, is mired by shadows and memories. She has given up on her art, she has almost given up on life now that Nell is gone. The least she can do is come to this poky little cottage that she never knew existed and find out the truth about her grandmother. The beginning of Nell's story is back in the time when Dickens walked the streets. High above the Thames in a windowless room above Swindell's Rag and Bottle shop, Eliza Makepeace and her twin brother Sammy eek out a living after the death of their mother. They are poor but happy, with Eliza able to take their mundane and bleak lives and spin stories of pure magic. But their little hideaway is soon invaded. Her brother is killed playing a game they invented.

The bad man whom her mother always warned them of comes to take Eliza away. Far away from London to the cliffs of Cornwall. To Blackhurst Manor. The home her mother ran away from all those years ago and brought shame to by becoming pregnant by a sailor. Eliza's mother Georgiana also broke her brothers heart. Now Eliza spends her days with her Aunt and Uncle Linus and their sickly daughter Rose. In between all the visits and checkups from Dr. Matthews, Eliza is a fountain of stories and adventures that help to bring young Rose back to life. They grow together, as close as any sisters, till one day Rose journeys across the sea and falls in love with a young painter, Nathaniel Walker. Everything changes, and Eliza feels that she must make one last sacrifice. One last gesture to prove that she loves Rose more than anyone else.

Spanning over a hundred years and several generations of women, this book asks the question, can you live a fulfilled life if you don't know where you come from. While this quest would drive many, I think turning up on a dockside after a long sea journey and not knowing the how and the why would make me more than a little curious. Nell's father changed her life forever when he told her the truth. Instead of setting Nell free, the feverish quest that grips her is what drives the novel. Skipping back and forth between time periods we glean bites and pieces of the puzzle till at last all is revealed, or almost all, I still think there's more with that creepy Uncle Linus that we're not being told.

I had some issues with the book. The time periods where not very seamless, and when that first jump to Victorian times happens it changes the entire tone of the novel. It's as if Jack The Ripper himself has taken the narration away from the author and brought a dark, forbidding air that never quite leaves and is never fully satisfied. My mind would wander over all these gruesome possibilities and scenarios. Who was the bad man, whose baby was it really, is Blackhurst Manor the seat of the devil. Some of these answers I guessed right away, though Kate Morton added a twist here and there so I wasn't 100% spot on. But there were so many juicy ways she could have taken this plot and in the end I felt let down. The truth is far more mundane than my imagination wanted the story to be. Like Eliza's gift for weaving the perfect yarn, The Forgotten Garden had me thinking and plotting more than any book I've read recently. This book could have been spectacular, but at the close, it was a lackluster ending that brought dissatisfaction.

Also, a niggling aside. There is so much mention of the beautiful fairy drawings by Nathaniel Walker. Now, the endpapers of my edition have gorgeous drawings by Arthur Rackham. This does a disservice to the novel. While, yes, I will admit it's why I first picked it up, once I read the book I thought that a more unknown illustrator, more in keeping with the style of the book within the book was necessary. How about Charles Van Sandwyck? So you won't instantly be pulled out of the book by Rackham's distinctive style. Yes, every aspect of a book needs to be fully taken into account to make me happy.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Arthur Rackham, Blackhurst, Cassandra, Charles Dickens, Charles Van Sandwyck, Cliff Cottage, Cornwall, Eliza Makepeace, Jack the Ripper, Kate Morton, Nathaniel Walker, Nell, The Forgotten Garden

Peter and Max: A Fables Novel by Bill Willingham
Published by: Vertigo
Publication Date: November 6th, 2012
Format: Paperback, 400 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Peter and Max lived an idyllic life, traveling the countryside of their mythic world as wandering minstrels. Their little caravan with their talking mule wandered from town to town, playing at festivals and giving the Pipers a rather glorious life. The highlight of the year was when they arrived at their good friend Squire Peep's house and had a glorious party before continuing on together to the towns local festival. Though this year is different. Max is growing into a young man and his sullen moods have started to surface, whereas young Peter keeps thinking of Squire Peep's daughter Bo.

That night their world will change forever. It's not just that Peter and Max's father gives the family's one item of value, the flute Frost, to Peter, when Max is the oldest, it's that the rumor's of a great invading army come to pass. The Peep's estate is seized and everyone is locked away. The heads of the two families devise a plan. They will escape through the haunted and dangerous woods and make for Hamlin, a fortified town nearby that has to have withstood the forces of their Adversary.

Breaking into two parties, they go forth into the gloom, little knowing that it is not the advancing army that is their true threat, but that Max is. Overlooked by his family, his rightful inheritance taken away, the dark forest awakens something even darken within him. If he has anything to say about it, the people whom he entered the forest with won't make it out alive. Hundreds of years later and in a different world, similar to theirs, Peter and Max's final confrontation will happen.

Fairy Tales are the stories told to make us behave as children. To make us learn that not doing as you're told and going into the woods at night are the most dangerous things in the world. Because the woods are where the nightmares live. As we grow older, this fear lessens, but underneath the knowledge we have gained with age and wisdom, there is still that underlying fear. The woods is dangerous. Peter and Max bring these childhood fears back to life. Don't venture into the woods, not because there's witches and creatures to prey on you, but because Max is there. A man driven insane by his desire for what he believes is his right. Living his life between indolence and sheer rage, he haunts to woods in his quest to find Peter. This book is like Silence of the Lambs goes feudal. A sibling rivalry of fire and ice that will leave as many people dead in it's wake as possible.

Max is the kind of sociopathic antihero you just can't get enough of. This is a killer, who at the height of his power, has witches and other powerful creatures scared. His love of gaudy clothes combined with his desire for servitude, make crossing his path one very dangerous prospect. And into this man is weaved the basis for the Piped Piper of Hamlin. What kind of sick and twisted person, when they don't get what they want, would steal all your children? Max is the answer. Max legitimizes and makes sense of a rather odd Fairy Tale. He is the Brothers Grimm's very own Hannibal Lecter.

There is one thing though that needs to be addressed, how this fits into the Fables Oeuvre. For those who don't know (which you should by now given that my ninth best read of last year was in this series), Fables is a comic series created by Bill Willingham about storybook characters being real and living in seclusion without the rest of the world knowing. They were forced out of their homelands and into our world. Parts of our world mimic parts of theirs, the Hamlin of Peter and Max's world is similar to ours, and our world's reverence of Max entertains him to no end.

Your main question at this point is probably, will I understand this book without following the series. Simply, yes. They explain enough that you get the Fables "Universe" but it isn't essential to the plot. There are a few jokes you won't get here or there, but overall the Fables world doesn't drive the story. Which leads me to an important question. Why even make this a Fables novel? It would have been perfectly fine, perhaps even better, standing on it's own. Strip it down of any previously needed knowledge and then expand it. Because really, this book could have held my attention even longer, which is rare, usually I'm the one bemoaning the lack of editors in this day and age. This was just an amazing book, which makes me realize one important thing... if Bill Willingham can write this good, why is he wasting his time on a hit or miss comic series when he could be writing novels, novels that could rival some of the best fantasy writers out there? Really, that's the only thing that made me sad about this, knowing that Willingham is this awesome and usually performing below his abilities... well, that and the fact that I hated the one drawing in the book that was in the 20s I think... it looked like Leialoha was imitating Leyendecker, when all his drawings previously had a very Arthur Rackham, traditional storybook vibe... pick a style and stick to it, duh.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Arthur Rackham, Bill Willingham, Bo Peep, Brothers Grimm, Comics, Fables, Hamlin, Hannibal Lecter, Leyendecker, Peter and Max, Peter Piper, Pied Piper of Hamlin, Silence of the Lambs

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
Published by: Atria
Publication Date: January 1st, 2008
Format: Hardcover, 552 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy
Nell dies with a secret. A secret she bequeaths to her granddaughter Cassandra. Nell raised Cassandra ever since her own daughter abandoned her at Nell's little house in Brisbane back in the seventies. Nell's secret took her clear across the world to England, but answers were not forthcoming. Nell has felt a stranger in her own life since she learned from her father that she was a foundling, wandering the wharves of Australia. She was the answer to their prayers and so they kept her. On his deathbed he leaves the suitcase that was found with Nell. A suitcase with a very rare and beautiful book of Fairy Tales by one Eliza Makepeace. Nell takes the leap and heads to England in such of the one link she has, Eliza Makepeace. Her journey leads her to Cornwall and Blackhurst Manor. She gets an inkling as to her heritage and buys Cliff Cottage from the now broken up Blackhurst Estate, planing to return and find out who she is. She never returns. Thirty years later Cassandra journeys to England, to Tregenna. Her life, like Nell's was, is mired by shadows and memories. She has given up on her art, she has almost given up on life now that Nell is gone. The least she can do is come to this poky little cottage that she never knew existed and find out the truth about her grandmother.

The beginning of Nell's story is back in the time when Dickens walked the streets. High above the Thames in a windowless room above Swindell's Rag and Bottle shop, Eliza Makepeace and her twin brother Sammy eek out a living after the death of their mother. They are poor but happy, with Eliza able to take their mundane and bleak lives and spin stories of pure magic. But their little hideaway is soon invaded. Her brother is killed playing a game they invented. The bad man whom her mother always warned them of comes to take Eliza away. Far away from London to the cliffs of Cornwall. To Blackhurst Manor. The home her mother ran away from all those years ago and brought shame to by becoming pregnant by a sailor. Eliza's mother Georgiana also broke her brothers heart. Now Eliza spends her days with her Aunt and Uncle Linus and their sickly daughter Rose. In between all the visits and checkups from Dr. Matthews, Eliza is a fountain of stories and adventures that help to bring young Rose back to life. They grow together, as close as any sisters, till one day Rose journeys across the sea and falls in love with a young painter, Nathaniel Walker. Everything changes, and Eliza feels that she must make one last sacrifice. One last gesture to prove that she loves Rose more than any other.

But Cassandra, with the help of the hansom handyman Christian, can't rectify the life and times of Eliza Makepeace and how it links to Nell. Is Nell the daughter of Rose and Nathaniel? Because after their tragic death in a train collision, their daughter also died of scarlet fever. But Cassandra is certain that Nell was that child. Will Cassandra be able to unravel the clues of her own past and find out what makes her feel like Cliff Cottage is home? Could she be the descendant of the great artist Nathaniel? Sometimes unearthing the skeletons in the closet yields unexpected results.

Spanning over a hundred years and several generations of women, this book asks the question, can you live a fulfilled life if you don't know where you come from. While this quest would drive many, I think turning up on a dockside after a long sea journey and not knowing the how and the why would make me more than a little curious. Nell's father changed her life forever when he told her the truth. Instead of setting Nell free, the feverish quest that grips her is what drives the novel. Skipping back and forth between time periods we glean bites and pieces of the puzzle till at last all is revealed, or almost all, I still think there's more with that creepy Uncle Linus that we're not being told. I had some issues with the book. The time periods where not very seamless, and when that first jump to Victorian times happens it changes the entire tone of the novel. It's as if Jack The Ripper himself has taken narration away from the author and brought a dark, forbidding air that never quite leaves and is never fully satisfied. My mind would wander over all these gruesome possibilities and scenarios. Who was the bad man, whose baby was it really, is Blackhurst Manor the seat of the devil. Some of these answers I guessed right away, though Kate Morton added a twist here and there so I wasn't 100% spot on. But there were so many juicy ways she could have taken this plot and in the end I felt let down. The truth is far more mundane than my imagination thought up. Like Eliza's gift for weaving the perfect yarn, The Forgotten Garden had me thinking and plotting more than any book I've read recently. This book could have been spectacular, but at the close, it was a lackluster ending that brought dissatisfaction.

Also, a niggling aside. There is so much mention of the beautiful fairy drawings by Nathaniel Walker. Now, the endpapers of my edition have gorgeous drawings by Arthur Rackham. This does a disservice to the novel. While, yes, I will admit it's why I first picked it up, once I read the book I thought that a more unknown illustrator, more in keeping with the style of the book within the book was necessary. How about Charles Van Sandwyck? So you won't instantly be pulled out of the book by Rackham's distinctive style.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Arthur Rackham, Blackhurst, Cassandra, Charles Dickens, Charles Van Sandwyck, Cliff Cottage, Cornwall, Eliza Makepeace, Jack the Ripper, Kate Morton, Nathaniel Walker, Nell, The Forgotten Garden

Instructions by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess
Published by: HarperCollins
Publication Date: April 27th, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 20 Pages
To Buy

The official description:
"Trust Dreams.
Trust your heart,
and trust your story.

A renowned storyteller whose words have transported readers to magical realms and an acclaimed illustrator of lushly imagined fairy-tale landscapes guide a traveler safely through lands unknown and yet strangely familiar . . .

. . . and home again."

Things have turned black at the House of Night. Zoey Redbird’s soul has shattered. With everything she’s ever stood for falling apart, and a broken heart making her want to stay in the Otherworld forever, Zoey’s fading fast. It’s seeming more and more doubtful that she will be able pull herself back together in time to rejoin her friends and set the world to rights. As the only living person who can reach her, Stark must find a way to get to her. But how? He will have to die to do so, the Vampyre High Council stipulates. And then Zoey will give up for sure. There are only 7 days left…

Enter BFF Stevie Rae. She wants to help Z but she has massive problems of her own. The rogue Red Fledglings are acting up, and this time not even Stevie Rae can protect them from the consequences. Her kinda boyfriend, Dallas, is sweet but too nosy for his own good. The truth is, Stevie Rae’s hiding a secret that might be the key to getting Zoey home but also threatens to explode her whole world.

In the middle of the whole mess is Aphrodite: ex-Fledgling, trust-fund baby, total hag from Hell (and proud of it). She’s always been blessed (if you could call it that) with visions that can reveal the future, but now it seems Nyx has decided to speak through her with the goddess’s own voice, whether she wants it or not. Aphrodite’s loyalty can swing a lot of different ways, but right now Zoey’s fate hangs in the balance.

Three girls… playing with fire… if they don’t watch out, everyone will get Burned."

Before Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw was a small-town girl who knew she wanted more. She's ready for real life to start, but first she must navigate her senior year of high school. Up until now, Carrie and her friends have been inseparable. Then Sebastian Kydd comes into the picture, and a friend's betrayal makes her question everything.

With an unforgettable cast of characters, The Carrie Diaries is the story of how a regular girl learns to think for herself and evolves into a sharp, insightful writer. Readers will learn about her family background, how she found her writing voice, and the indelible impression her early friendships and relationships left on her. Through adventures both audacious and poignant, we'll see what brings Carrie to her beloved New York City, where her new life begins."

Clever Candace... not only will you get your current followers, by making this a kind of YA diary tell all, you might get some new teen readers. Trying to turn this into a Twilight Mom teen bonding experience, it's so cute, kind of desperate, but I think I'm buying into it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 3 comments  

Labels: Arthur Rackham, Burned, Camdace Bushnell, Carrie Bradshaw, Charles Vess, Drawing Down the Moon, House of Night, Instructions, Kristen Cast, Neil Gaiman, P.C. Cast, Sex and the City, The Blueberry Girl