strange and random happenstance

A Fatal Waltz by Tasha Alexander
Published by: William Morrow Paperbacks
Publication Date: May 20th, 2008
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Not every country house party ends in murder, but this one will. Oh, if only Emily had had the sense to stay home. But no, she agreed to come to the home of a man she detests in order to support her dear friend Ivy. Ivy's husband Robert needs the political support of their odious host, Lord Fortescue, if he's going to make it in government. The only bright spot in the whole endeavor is that Emily gets to spend the weekend with Colin Hargreaves, her fiancé. But that bright spot is soon eclipsed by the Austrian Countess Kristiana von Lange. Kristiana makes it very clear that she and Colin have a past, possibly a present, and maybe a future, and there's nothing that Emily can do about it. This leaves Emily impotent with rage as Kristiana insinuates herself into the political talks among the men after dinner while Emily, trying to keep Ivy's best interests in mind, demurs and retires with the women, much to Lord Fortescue's approbation. In fact leaving the dinner table is the only thing Emily has done right in the eyes of their host. Emily's hackles are raised and another guest, Mr. Harrison, conveniently has a plan to get back at Lord Fortescue.

If Emily hadn't been so turned around by Kristiana, maybe she would have realized that Mr. Harrison didn't have her best interests at heart and maybe Emily could have seen there was a murderer among them. Instead their host is shot dead and dear Ivy's husband Robert is arrested for the murder. Once back in London Emily tries to piece together the information she has at hand with rumors and suppositions. Robert even gives her a few clues and everything points to a nefarious plot in Vienna. Emily can't exonerate Robert from London, so she packs up her bags, grabs her trusty sidekicks, Jeremy, Cecile, and Cecile's odious dogs, and heads to the town of her romantic rival. Little does she know that she is being followed by Mr. Harrison and her beloved Colin. And though she loathes to do it, she approaches Kristiana for help, which is denied. Kristiana will only help if Emily will forfeit all claims to Colin, something Emily knows, deep in her heart, she could never do. As the danger mounts and Emily makes alliances with the oddest assortment of artists and villains, she worries that she will be unable to save Robert, herself, or Colin. Could this be the end of all of them?

There's a realness to this installment that deepens your connection to Emily and her world. Up until this point it's not that her world was shallow, but that the stories dealt with situations that weren't too far removed from the world Emily inhabited. She was investigating her own little sphere of the world and crimes that were closely adjacent to it, maids that might be murderers. We've seen the strictures and the societal surface one must maintain, but at the same time it felt more in the realm of romanticized historical fiction with the denouement tied up nicely with a bow. Yet Victorian times weren't all fluff, there were real concerns, real problems, and here we are digging deeper into those issues and forging a stronger connection to Emily as Emily herself forms a stronger connection to the world around her. The first time this struck me was when Lord Fortescue has the hundreds and hundreds of birds from their shoot laid out for display during lunch. This excess, this cruelty to animals, this is the real world the landed gentry inhabited and exploited. House parties weren't wonderful social gatherings, they were sanctioned murder, even if your host didn't bite the big own.

Then there's the death fog Emily remembers engulfing London when she was a child. The poverty, the anarchists, every little thing makes Emily's world more real. Her world is grounded in truth, in a world we can see every night when we turn on the news. She is no longer sheltered, she is becoming an educated woman who we can relate to more than even before when she was just a pampered princess destined to marry royalty, if her mother had had a say in it. As Tasha writes in her afterward, this introduction of the horrors of the world is being done purposefully to make Emily a socially conscious being. And in becoming socially conscious Emily herself is becoming more real to us. Sure, we all occasionally dream of the life Emily had, being blissfully ignorant and free to flounce around the house being indulgent, but a fantasy can not last in the long run. Lady Emily's adventures would have no long term sustainability. There's only so many wrongfully accused kitchen maids a series can contain, and by expanding Emily as a person you expand her horizons. Therefore a series that could have petered out a few volumes in is releasing it's thirteenth volume this fall.

All this realness means that there is real danger and real consequences. Yes, we've had death and danger before, but Emily treated it breezily, it was there but it would be overcome and there would be no consequences except for the guilty. Here the danger is palpable. The threat of Mr. Harrison and his bullet calling cards, while yes, a little like something a Bond villain would do, upsets Emily's world of luxurious hotels and Sacher Tortes. Having to make alliances with anarchists who are dangerous themselves and are scared of Mr. Harrison gives you an idea as to this man's villainy. And while I knew there were more books in the series, I couldn't help but be drawn in and think, as Colin and Emily were, that they might not survive. This question being raised makes Emily and us realize the true dangers of Colin's job. He has faced this kind of situation again and again. In fact Kristiana hints that that is why she never left her husband for Colin, because the distraction of a wife could endanger him. Which makes Emily wonder, is Colin in her life worth the constant risk of losing him? Can she live like this? Real danger means you might not want to have to face the answers to real questions.

But for the longest time Emily views Kristiana as a far bigger danger to her and Colin's happiness than the looming specter of death. While I could groan at the introduction of a love triangle, this one never falls into the typical tropes. There was something fun about Emily having competition for Colin. You knew, deep in your heart, that Colin could never stray. At least not now that he's met Emily. But that doesn't discount the importance of this woman in his past or her powers over him in the present. Every chance she got Kristiana was pulling on Emily's strings and getting just the rise out of her she wanted. Historical Fiction with a romantic bent seems to always marry off their couples in too rapid a fashion and then have a happily ever after that only occasionally sees bumps of the romantic kind. That's why I love that Tasha hasn't married off Colin and Emily just yet. There's more believability that Kristiana is a threat. There's a playfulness in this what-if scenario. Competition can bring out the best in people, but not with Emily in this instance. It brings out all her bad qualities, and again, it makes her more real, more relatable. That Lady Emily Ashton could get her hackles up over her true love? Just shows it can happen to any of us.

Though for all it's realness, the most important aspect of A Fatal Waltz to me is it's most memorable character, the city of Vienna itself! I've never been and oddly enough have never really given much thought to this city that was literally the center of an artistic and cultural revolution, but now I want to pack my bags and go. Right. Now. Of course I'd prefer to go in winter with the snow falling in beautiful drifts as Emily enjoyed it, but as long as I can go to all the cafes and walk all the streets I think I could find true enjoyment. But alas, I don't know if such famous personages would be peopling the cafes. So could I literally get a time machine and go when Emily went? To see Klimt paint and dance to a Strauss waltz actually conducted by Strauss! To visit Sisi, the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, though I have a feeling I'd need to take Cecile with me to get that invite. Even if I didn't know how well traveled Tasha is, you can tell in reading the book that Tasha has been there, she's walked in Emily's steps before she even put pen to paper. This just makes the city so real that as I said earlier, it's a character onto itself! It's not just buildings, but memorable people and a feeling, something that makes you want to go back there even if you've never been because somehow Tasha has made this city an old friend.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Fatal Waltz, Alexander Autumn, British Country House, Colin Hargreaves, Competition, Historical Fiction, Klimpt, Lady Emily, Love Triangle, Murder, Realness, Sacher Tortes, Sisi, Strauss, Tasha Alexander, Vienna

A Fatal Waltz by Tasha Alexander
Published by: William Morrow Paperbacks
Publication Date: May 20th, 2008
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Not every country house party ends in murder, but this one will. Oh, if only Emily had had the sense to stay home. But no, she agreed to come to the home of a man she detests in order to support her dear friend Ivy. Ivy's husband Robert needs the political support of their odious host, Lord Fortescue, if he's going to make it in government. The only bright spot in the whole endeavor is that Emily gets to spend the weekend with Colin Hargreaves, her fiancé. But that bright spot is soon eclipsed by the Austrian Countess Kristiana von Lange. Kristiana makes it very clear that she and Colin have a past, possibly a present, and maybe a future, and there's nothing that Emily can do about it. This leaves Emily impotent with rage as Kristiana insinuates herself into the political talks among the men after dinner while Emily, trying to keep Ivy's best interests in mind, demurs and retires with the women, much to Lord Fortescue's approbation. In fact leaving the dinner table is the only thing Emily has done right in the eyes of their host. Emily's hackles are raised and another guest, Mr. Harrison, conveniently has a plan to get back at Lord Fortescue.

If Emily hadn't been so turned around by Kristiana, maybe she would have realized that Mr. Harrison didn't have her best interests at heart and maybe Emily could have seen there was a murderer among them. Instead their host is shot dead and dear Ivy's husband Robert is arrested for the murder. Once back in London Emily tries to piece together the information she has at hand with rumors and suppositions. Robert even gives her a few clues and everything points to a nefarious plot in Vienna. Emily can't exonerate Robert from London, so she packs up her bags, grabs her trusty sidekicks, Jeremy, Cecile, and Cecile's odious dogs, and heads to the town of her romantic rival. Little does she know that she is being followed by Mr. Harrison and her beloved Colin. And though she loathes to do it, she approaches Kristiana for help, which is denied. Kristiana will only help if Emily will forfeit all claims to Colin, something Emily knows, deep in her heart, she could never do. As the danger mounts and Emily makes alliances with the oddest assortment of artists and villains, she worries that she will be unable to save Robert, herself, or Colin. Could this be the end of all of them?

There's a realness to this installment that deepens your connection to Emily and her world. Up until this point it's not that her world was shallow, but that the stories dealt with situations that weren't too far removed from the world Emily inhabited. She was investigating her own little sphere of the world and crimes that were closely adjacent to it, maids that might be murderers. We've seen the strictures and the societal surface one must maintain, but at the same time it felt more in the realm of romanticized historical fiction with the denouement tied up nicely with a bow. Yet Victorian times weren't all fluff, there were real concerns, real problems, and here we are digging deeper into those issues and forging a stronger connection to Emily as Emily herself forms a stronger connection to the world around her. The first time this struck me was when Lord Fortescue has the hundreds and hundreds of birds from their shoot laid out for display during lunch. This excess, this cruelty to animals, this is the real world the landed gentry inhabited and exploited. House parties weren't wonderful social gatherings, they were sanctioned murder, even if your host didn't bite the big own.

Then there's the death fog Emily remembers engulfing London when she was a child. The poverty, the anarchists, every little thing makes Emily's world more real. Her world is grounded in truth, in a world we can see every night when we turn on the news. She is no longer sheltered, she is becoming an educated woman who we can relate to more than even before when she was just a pampered princess destined to marry royalty, if her mother had had a say in it. As Tasha writes in her afterward, this introduction of the horrors of the world is being done purposefully to make Emily a socially conscious being. And in becoming socially conscious Emily herself is becoming more real to us. Sure, we all occasionally dream of the life Emily had, being blissfully ignorant and free to flounce around the house being indulgent, but a fantasy can not last in the long run. Lady Emily's adventures would have no long term sustainability. There's only so many wrongfully accused kitchen maids a series can contain, and by expanding Emily as a person you expand her horizons. Therefore a series that could have petered out a few volumes in is releasing it's thirteenth volume this fall.

All this realness means that there is real danger and real consequences. Yes, we've had death and danger before, but Emily treated it breezily, it was there but it would be overcome and there would be no consequences except for the guilty. Here the danger is palpable. The threat of Mr. Harrison and his bullet calling cards, while yes, a little like something a Bond villain would do, upsets Emily's world of luxurious hotels and Sacher Tortes. Having to make alliances with anarchists who are dangerous themselves and are scared of Mr. Harrison gives you an idea as to this man's villainy. And while I knew there were more books in the series, I couldn't help but be drawn in and think, as Colin and Emily were, that they might not survive. This question being raised makes Emily and us realize the true dangers of Colin's job. He has faced this kind of situation again and again. In fact Kristiana hints that that is why she never left her husband for Colin, because the distraction of a wife could endanger him. Which makes Emily wonder, is Colin in her life worth the constant risk of losing him? Can she live like this? Real danger means you might not want to have to face the answers to real questions.

But for the longest time Emily views Kristiana as a far bigger danger to her and Colin's happiness than the looming specter of death. While I could groan at the introduction of a love triangle, this one never falls into the typical tropes. There was something fun about Emily having competition for Colin. You knew, deep in your heart, that Colin could never stray. At least not now that he's met Emily. But that doesn't discount the importance of this woman in his past or her powers over him in the present. Every chance she got Kristiana was pulling on Emily's strings and getting just the rise out of her she wanted. Historical Fiction with a romantic bent seems to always marry off their couples in too rapid a fashion and then have a happily ever after that only occasionally sees bumps of the romantic kind. That's why I love that Tasha hasn't married off Colin and Emily just yet. There's more believability that Kristiana is a threat. There's a playfulness in this what-if scenario. Competition can bring out the best in people, but not with Emily in this instance. It brings out all her bad qualities, and again, it makes her more real, more relatable. That Lady Emily Ashton could get her hackles up over her true love? Just shows it can happen to any of us.

Though for all it's realness, the most important aspect of A Fatal Waltz to me is it's most memorable character, the city of Vienna itself! I've never been and oddly enough have never really given much thought to this city that was literally the center of an artistic and cultural revolution, but now I want to pack my bags and go. Right. Now. Of course I'd prefer to go in winter with the snow falling in beautiful drifts as Emily enjoyed it, but as long as I can go to all the cafes and walk all the streets I think I could find true enjoyment. But alas, I don't know if such famous personages would be peopling the cafes. So could I literally get a time machine and go when Emily went? To see Klimt paint and dance to a Strauss waltz actually conducted by Strauss! To visit Sisi, the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, though I have a feeling I'd need to take Cecile with me to get that invite. Even if I didn't know how well traveled Tasha is, you can tell in reading the book that Tasha has been there, she's walked in Emily's steps before she even put pen to paper. This just makes the city so real that as I said earlier, it's a character onto itself! It's not just buildings, but memorable people and a feeling, something that makes you want to go back there even if you've never been because somehow Tasha has made this city an old friend.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Fatal Waltz, Alexander Autumn, British Country House, Colin Hargreaves, Competition, Historical Fiction, Klimpt, Lady Emily, Love Triangle, Murder, Realness, Sacher Tortes, Sisi, Strauss, Tasha Alexander, Vienna

The House at Tyneford by Natasha Solomons
Published by: Plume
Publication Date: December 27th, 2011
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Vienna is Elise's home. There all the trappings of the glittering life she leads seem immutable. She will always go to the opera house to hear her mother Anna sing. She will always be jealous of her sister Margot's musical talents that form a special bond between Margot and Anna. She will always take pride in her father Julian, the "strange" writer. Because her life is for always. Until it isn't. Vienna is no longer safe for Jews. Margot's husband has gotten a job in California and they are to leave shortly; Anna and Julian are waiting for visas to go to New York. But Elise poses a problem. The plan is for Anna and Julian to send for her once they get to New York, but they are too scared to leave her behind. Therefore they decide that their best option is for Elise to go into service as a maid in England. There she will be safe until she can join her family in America. She gets a job in Dorset at Tyneford for a Mr. Rivers. The house seems cut off from the rest of the world and so different from the life she left behind.

Elise struggles not just with her tasks but with her English, feeling isolated from all that she held dear. The life she is living isn't what she expected and the other servants don't make her feel welcome. She just doesn't fit. She wasn't raised to be a servant, yet she doesn't quite belong upstairs either. She is living in limbo just hoping to hear from her family. Yet with the arrival of Mr. Rivers's son Kit life becomes easier and more complicated at the same time. Kit helps Elise with her English and his presence makes her work easier to bear. Though it is apparent to everyone that they are falling in love and this upstairs, downstairs romance is problematic to say the least. As the world descends into chaos with the outbreak of World War II the world that they knew will be destroyed. Elise struggles to hold onto this new life she has grown to love all while holding out hope that her family will join her and life can be as it was. Little does Elise know nothing will ever be the same again, even this new life she has come to love.

When writing a book you can't set out to write a classic. Your book attains that status over time, it's not something that you, as the author, have any control over. You just don't and if you can't accept this perhaps you shouldn't be a writer. Moreover, when writing a book it's best to not emulate a classic but to find your own voice. Your book will never be that classic you so want to replicate and I have never believed the old saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Therefore I had problems connecting with The House at Tyneford. Solomons so wanted her book to be Du Maurier's classic Rebecca that at times you feel as if she is trying to drive the point home with a blunt instrument. The thing about aping Du Maurier is that more than any other author there is no one like her so you should never try. She has an effortless way of describing her surroundings so that the lush and verdant foliage leap off the page. Solomons flowers lay limply in the hot sun. But the number one thing you shouldn't do is call out what you were attempting to do by having your characters go and see the Hitchcock adaptation of Rebecca! Solomons would occasionally find her own footing to fall over the big illuminated arrows showing how she could never be Du Maurier.

The House at Tyneford isn't a book for subtlety. It's not just the Du Maurier debacle, it's that Solomons paints her story with big strokes trying to capture the epicness of her narrative. That her story is a microcosm of what is being played out on the world stage is obvious, she just didn't need to make it so obvious. It was the day to day struggles and the relationships forged between the characters that I was most drawn to, and yet as the narrative progressed this is what she left by the wayside in favor of grand gestures. When all the players leave Tyneford for the last time it's as if Solomons decided to severe all ties with this world and these people we have come to love. We never learn the fate of any of Elise's fellow servants. We don't even get any insight into Elise's life after Tyneford. Because to Solomons this doesn't matter. It would be too finicky and delicate, not bold and brash enough. This is, after all, a book that loves wallow in the Freudian cigar imagery. Yes, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar... but not when Solomons is writing.

But then again, having your entire story be an updating of Cinderella... well, that doesn't take much imagination now does it? Which lead me to start thinking about the Cinderella story. Here it fits more than most, because it isn't a simple rags to riches fable, it's love and comfort to drudgery to rescue. This is exactly the trajectory that Elise's life takes. And while I do love a happily ever after and a restoring of the status quo, when does this trope get played out? When do we say enough with the fairy tales give me something more real. Yes, you could say that this is more real with Elise and her plight, but still, the ending makes it fairy tale airy fairy. The heart of what I'm getting at is is Cinderella played out? I'm sure Kenneth Branagh would probably totally disagree with me because his adaptation last year is the highest grossing film he's ever done. But I really would like something new, some new twist. I would have liked to have heard Solomons voice coming through in this book instead of her trying to emulate other voices.

Despite some of the more cookie cutter aspects of The House at Tyneford, there are interesting concepts that are raised. Most of them aren't necessarily expanded on, but then again, I dwell in books and therefore a passing line can provide hours of thought. I found it interesting when the butler, Mr. Wrexham, said to Elise "you are to be the end of us all." While it's a bit doom and gloom coming from this very upright man I wonder was it so much Elise that he meant or was it what she symbolized. Was Elise a symptom of the end of the country house era or a cause? In other words, with the war creating all these refugees that then sought service in English country houses was it the war that ended this way of life, or was it the people displaced by war who upset the system from the inside? Personally, I think it was the war forever irreparably changing the landscape, but then again, in this instance, being the events at Tyneford, I would say that it was Elise. Yes their life would have change, but not in the same way. Therefore in this place and this time it's Elise.

Now that I've brought up the war in a little more detail I'd like to tackle something that irked me. Throughout the book Solomons does a great job connecting Elise and music, in fact you can't help say her name without thinking of the Beethoven composition. Music to Elise is her family and what they represent. When she leaves Vienna with the viola with Julian's manuscript hidden inside she is given a tangible and musical connection to those she loves. When one thinks of World War II and string instruments one cannot help but think of John Williams's haunting theme for Schindler's List as performed by Itzhak Perlman. At the very end of The House at Tyneford there is a composition written in honor of Elise's family, The Novel in the Viola: Concerto in D Minor for Viola and Orchestra. My problem is here we aren't given the chance to use our imagination. We aren't allowed to picture music and lasting resonance like that written by John Williams. There is an actual score and on Solomons website you can listen to it being preformed. It's not just that it's lackluster, it's that it makes something in the book so finite. Books need to have room for the readers to interpret. To bring their own experiences. To write the music and make it so uninspired takes away from the rest of the story.

The sad fact is I liked this book in spite of itself. Solomons undermines her own writing time and time again and if it wasn't for little things here and there I would write it off as a Du Maurier pastiche. It was the little things that made me like it. My most favorite moment was an aside by Kit when talking about his mother who died when he was four. He said that he no longer remembered her. He knew that he should because he was old enough. He even remembered events that she was a part of only she was no longer there. It was as if she had been cut out of the memories. This touched a nerve with me. There are people I have lost and in particular one wonderful kitty. I worry that I am forgetting, I worry that I am rewriting my own story. He has been gone so long that I can't remember the day to day. The way he felt on my lap. It's like there's this emptiness that he used to fill and he's been so entirely removed that I can't remember him. I can see why Elise writes down her story and places it in the viola. She didn't want to have this happen because she knew that at some point it must. It happened to Kit and she doesn't want it happening to her memories of him. A bittersweet thought. But then this book is filled with the bitter meeting the sweet.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: British Country House, Cigar, Cinderella, Daphne Du Maurier, Downton Denial Denouement, Freud, Hitchcock, John Williams, Kenneth Branagh, Memory, Natasha Solomons, Rebecca, The House at Tyneford, Vienna, Viola, WWII

A Winter's Tale by Trish Ashley
Published by: Avon
Publication Date: November 17th, 2008
Format: Paperback, 405 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Sophy Winter spent her formative years living in her family's stately home, Winter's End, until she was one day whisked away by her hippie mother without a backward glance. Her life then took on an itinerant feel, never really settling down until she got married and got pregnant. The pregnancy scared the husband off and she made do as a single mother working in great estates like the one she grew up in. Her daughter is now all grown up and teaching in Japan and Sophy is at loose ends, having lost her job and her home in a matter of minutes. That's when the miracle happens; she inherits Winter's End. A cousin she never knew about, Jack, has come to tell her of her good fortune and to offer to buy the house from her. He explains that Winter's End isn't in the best of shape, her grandfather funneled all the money into the restoration of the gardens at the expense of the house. Therefore Jack's solution would solve Sophy's money problems and sooth the wounds inflicted on Jack when he found out he only inherited the title. It's win win. But when Sophy arrives home she realizes she could never sell Winter's End, even to family. She doesn't care how desperately she needs to find money for it's upkeep or how upset Jack will be or how cantankerous the gardener Seth is, she only knows that she will find a way to do what is in the best interest of the house. Her home.

Several people over the years have recommended A Winter's Tale to me knowing of my love of grand English estates and chick lit. So the book had made it's way onto my shelves and languished, until this past December when it sounded like just the right read for a cold Christmas day. The thing is, there's not much Christmas in it... yes, Christmas is there, but it's almost an afterthought, the book actually getting it's title from Shakespeare not from being all yule. Yet for my love of country estates this was perfect. It's not so much a fairy tale as other books I've read go, though it would be a dream come true to inherit such a house, it's more a realistic fairy tale if that makes sense. We are given insight into the nuts and bolts of the day to day struggles to keep a grand house running. Basically the more down and dirty reality of owning Downton Abbey. Keeping the staff happy, keeping the house repaired, finding money to keep the restoration of the garden underway. Finding a happy balance between wants and needs. Prioritizing that which must get done. And cleaning. Seriously, the amount of cleaning a place like this takes, well, if you hadn't thought about it before in your fantasies about becoming on heiress, you will now. And not that that's a bad thing. In fact reading all about this minutiae, it gives you a stronger connection to this way of life than if you were to the manor born.

The minutiae is where this book lives. In the purchase of special beeswax for banisters and brushes for paintings. There's a languid feel that makes this book the perfect bedtime read. You slip into bed and you sink into the story that lulls you into a safe world of hard work with wonderful rewards. The pacing for most of the book continues on in this vein. Hundreds of pages of day by day tasks to have it abruptly changed. As Christmas nears the pace is picked up, soon we aren't spending languid days seeing the house brought back to life slowly, we're zooming along until it's later the next year at the happily ever after is thrust upon us. This is where the book kind of lost me. It's weird when the pace is abandoned in favor of some new narrative style. The book lost some of it's charm by changing tempo. I didn't feel as connected to these characters I had spent so much time forging a bond with. I felt like the bond was severed and I was left on the outside looking in as everything came together, but without me. Yes, if Trisha Ashley had continued the narrative style throughout A Winter's Tale might have been a doorstop of a book, but as I've said before and I'll say again, I don't care how long or how short a book is, it should be exactly as long as it takes to tell the story and do it justice. This book needs a little of the justice that came Jack's way.

Speaking of Jack. He is the major thorn in my side in this book. He is sleazy and scheming yet everyone thinks he's God's gift and why not let Jack have the house? He couldn't possibly do something underhanded, insert ominous music here. I give credit to Sophy that she stays the course, but there is too much of her waffling. Too many times she questions herself and doesn't stand up to Jack. So while Jack is the villain of the piece, with his dirty deals and his desperate ways, the main problem I have is that he illuminates the flaws of our heroine. Sophy is so strong of will and motivated by hard work I find it hard to believe that she'd buy any line coming out of Jack's mouth, no matter how seductive and silken. I mean, how can she be so naive? She just lost her job and her home because of a scheming relative of her employer and here she is in a similar situation and yet she's all, oh Jack, you're so pretty, you could never love frumpy me with my frizzy hair. Gaw. Just no. I know it's a staple of chick lit to have the to go to be true bad boy and the brooding good boy with the befuddled heroine in the middle not knowing what to do, but seriously? Sophy is so much stronger than the average Bridget Jones that I am baffled that she didn't call shenanigans sooner.

What sets this book apart from the run of the mill chick lit or Downtonesque book is the olde thyme stuff, IE Shakespeare! I admit about a few pages in I should have gotten that the title was from Shakespeare, given all the references in the text, but sometimes I'm not quite on the ball and as I mentioned before I seriously thought this was a Christmas book. This Shakespearean element also elevates the book to a kind of historical fiction chick lit fusion that is fun for fans of both genres. But the downside is that I think you'd have to be somewhat to fairly knowledgeable about Shakespeare and his life to get the personal references peppered throughout the story. The extracts from Alys Blezzard's journal are purposefully very cryptic and written for those with knowledge of the Bard. Therefore this book can be read on two levels, the plain old chick lit HEA, and the fusion level. Personally, if I was only reading it on the chick lit level without my knowledge of Shakespeare, I'm not sure I would have been as drawn into the book. It's the mystery woven throughout about Alys being dark of complexion, that connects with Shakespeare's sonnets to "The Dark Lady." The Shakespeare angle adds so much that without it I just don't know if it would work.

Yet that "Dark Lady" Alys is still a questionable addition to the book in my mind. Not her connection with Shakespeare, nothing like that. It's her "other" qualities. IE, the magic of it all. By bringing in a paranormal aspect I think it might be stretching the narrative's credulity to it's breaking point. The Shakespeare secret, the history of the family and the house, that's all well and good, but the magic? I could see it if there were just ghosts and Alys having been condemned as a witch, because well, any smart woman was a witch back then, but that magic... That tangible real magic that gives Sophy insight and visions. It's just a step too far. It's almost like this book so wanted to be everything that it threw in everything and the kitchen sink and sometimes enough is enough. Sometimes being descended from Shakespeare is a big enough twist. Sometimes getting your HEA is enough. And sometimes just saving your family estate is enough. There doesn't need to be "real" magic too. Because isn't everything else magical enough? Apparently not according to Trisha Ashley. But then again, some people just don't know where to draw the line, like Sophy with her "relationship" with Jack.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Winter's Tales, Bridget Jones, British Country House, Chick Lit, Christmas, Downton Abbey, Downton Denial Denouement, Downtonesque, Gardens, HEA, Magic, Shakespeare, Sonnets, The Dark Lady, Trisha Ashley

Ashenden by Elizabeth Wilhide
Published by: Simon and Schuster
Publication Date: January 8th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 339 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

Time and neglect have been brought to bear on Ashenden Park. Occasionally loved and cared for, the great estate has fallen into the hands of two siblings after the death of their aunt. They don't know what they should do with this giant white elephant they have inherited. Going back through time to the houses beginning in 1775, James Woods is finishing the architectural touches for his new masterpiece to be wrought in Bath stone, though little does he know that tragedy will personally strike him and his employers will never finish the house. It's 1844 and a new family cares for and loves Ashenden, it is the home of their dreams and their children love it well, but their grandson is feckless. 1938, the house is once again in disrepair, cut up and sold for whatever money the current owner can get for a ceiling or a mantelpiece. 1946, the war arrives and a man who is a prisoner lives where one day he will return a house to lost glory for the aunt of two siblings. Ever rising and falling in it's luck will Ashenden Park be glorious ever again?

It takes a lot to make a house memorable in literature. I don't think it's something that you can set out to do, it's something that happens over time. Manderley, Number Four Privet Drive, Tara, Pemberley, all these places are held in the hearts of readers. We imagine what it would be like to go there, to walk through the woods, to gaze at the family portraits, to be immersed in the world of our favorite story. To us readers these are tangible places that we can visit, if only in our imaginations or between the covers of our favorite book. To have the conceit of following a house through time is at once intriguing and sheer folly. If Ashenden proves anything it's that the engendering of a house in literature can not be forced on us.

In order to fall for a literary house you have to fall for the story. A house itself isn't a story unless it's peopled. Would Hill House be evil and menacing without inhabitants? No, it couldn't be because there's no one to interact with it's bricks and mortar, there's no Eleanor. The house just sits there waiting for occupants. Why yes, Asheden does become occupied, but by having the narrative spread out decades apart over a hundred plus years with different characters there is no way to become invested in the story. The house is an empty vessel and here are some people who occupy it, but don't bother getting too invested in them, they'll be gone soon enough. If there had only been some overarching plot separate from the house itself, like in Mark Gatiss's Crooked House that weaves together hauntings of Geap Manor over a two hundred year period to a conclusive denouement, well, that might have been something I could have worked with, but sadly there wasn't.

As for these people who flit through Ashenden over time. I couldn't have cared less about them. Rarely were they nice or kind, usually they were self centered jack-offs. The way the book is written it's really just intertwined short stories. I'm not the biggest fan of short stories. I like scope. I like having a beautifully built world that I can immerse myself in, which is why I like television and miniseries more then movies.  Short stories are hard to invest in unless they are perfectly crafted little jewels that can stand on their own. By having the stories linked through Ashenden this is never possible. Each story with a jerk and a bump leads to the next and the next, with ever more unlikable characters that I didn't want to invest my time in.

But the short narratives weren't the most annoying thing. What really got me was this fine breadcrumb trail of characters and even objects that Wilhide wove through the book. So to recap, lots of unlikable characters I don't like and don't care to remember are peppered throughout the history of Ashenden like little Easter Eggs. Somebody hold me back. Sure, it's a cute idea, a way to link past and present, but sometimes cute ideas should not be employed because they annoy the heck out of your readers. It's gimmicky and gets maddening real fast. That stupid brown cow pitcher, and I have to say, I actually liked a pitcher of a brown cow more then anything else in this book. I liked an inanimate object more then the people. Um, that's a problem.

This is Wilhide's first fiction book, having written a plethora of books on design and architecture, and I have to say it shows. She was unable to create an engaging book. If her goal was to show the "living history" of the house, well, I guess she did that. Wilhide was able to show how the house changed and adapted over time from it's construction to it's current state of dilapidation, but it was a depressing show and tell that felt like I was reading about the slow death of the house sinking further into despair. Never did it feel like she was exulting the house, never once giving it the people it deserved. A pop star? Please no. Anyone who was nice to the house was skimmed over. One of those nice persons was name Florence Henderson, and I hope that this was historical, because otherwise, WTF Wildhide! No.

Houses all have stories to tell. But does this mean that the stories should be told? No it doesn't. What got me most was that anytime you almost felt invested the story would shift, much in the way Jeffery Eugenides Middlesex did, and you were back at square one, usually with an even more unsavory cast of characters. If you set out to do something unique and different go all in. Go epic, go centuries of detail and dirt. Don't reign yourself in, and don't under any circumstance ellipses over time with little introductory paragraphs at the start of each chapter that are ethereal and dreamlike but are really the type of amateurish and indulgent writing that should have been cut.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Ashenden, British Country House, Crooked House, Downton Denial, Easter Eggs, Elizabeth Wilhide, Jeffrey Eugenides, Manderley, Mark Gatiss, Middlesex, Pemberley, Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

After the Armistice Ball (Dandy Gilver Book 1) by Catriona McPherson
Published by: Robinson
Publication Date: 2006
Format: Kindle, 308 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Dandy Gilver has never thought that she might be a detective. Yet that's exactly what her friend Daisy is begging of her. Their mutual "friend" Lena Duffy claims that her very expensive diamonds were stolen at Daisy's estate after Daisy's grand Armistice Ball. It has taken awhile for the "crime" to come to light because they were replaced with paste and it wasn't until a jeweller pointed this out to Lena's daughter Cara a few months later that the "crime" was discovered. Now Lena, whose husband is shockingly in trade, and insurance at that, is demanding that they pay for the diamonds, despite the fact that it can't be proven if the theft occurred when Lena says it did, and the more obvious fact that the insurance had lapsed on the jewels.

Daisy has invited the Duffy's back to her house and has begged Dandy to come along too. Daisy admires that Dandy is able to bluntly cut to the gist of a matter without overly offending anyone by just being herself. Daisy wants Dandy to wrinkle Lena out, find out what is really going on and why Lena is trying to extort them! After the house party, Dandy is still hot on the trail of the truth when she is invited to a small cabin by the sea that Lena and her two daughters have taken. Dandy is able to enlist the help of Cara's fiance after he receives an abrupt letter from Cara ending their engagement with the wedding only a few days away. When they arrive in the small hamlet, the delightful cottage has burned to the ground with Cara inside. They must all stay for the inquest, and in that time Dandy has time to mull things over. There is no way the death and the diamonds are not connected. Dandy's first full fledged case will take her where she never thought she'd go, and will risk more then just her own life.

When I was at my local bookstore one day I picked up a book by Catriona McPherson. The book was titled, Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains. The title and the lovely cover designed by Jessica Hische made it a no-brainer buy. Of course, as is often my luck, whenever I find a great book at a store it invariably ends up being not the first or even the second in a series... in this case it is the fifth. I cannot read a book out of order, but, you know what, I think that this series my be an exception to my hard and fast rule. After the Armistice Ball has some issues right from the first chapter, mainly, you feel as if you've been dumped unceremoniously into the middle of a story with people who you should remember at an event you know you've been invited to, but you have no idea who they are or where it is. This lack of introductions and place meant that I could have easily picked up any book in the series and still had the feeling that I was missing something. The first book should neatly establish place and characters, with subsequent volumes doing only a short recap. A good editor could have quickly fixed this by just having Catriona write a nice intro paragraph or two setting up where the action of the book takes place, it's Scotland by the way, so as you won't be confused for a quarter of the book, and have Dandy fleshed out a little more then her friends just dropping veiled hints as to her personality. Something can't be "so Dandy" unless we know what she is so like! Luckily the readers ignorance wanes as the book progresses.

Dandy Gilver has got to be one of the most unique creations in twenties historical fiction today, that is once we get to know her properly. She doesn't fit into any well defined sleuth category and this makes her a breath of fresh air. She is not male. She is not a young single woman who has been disowned or at the very least frowned upon by her family as being "eccentric" and "beyond the pale." She isn't widowed and therefore at leisure to travel hither and yon without the gimlet eye of society fast upon her. Instead she is married, one could argue for, not happily, but at least contentedly, with a slightly oblivious spouse. She has no intentions of leaving her husband either, he just bumbles around talking about drainage ditches while she does as she pleases. She has children! Not fully grown, so that they put Dandy into the spinster category, she is still young enough to be of child bearing years, hear that? Young! Also handily the children are usually off at boarding school, which is a blessing, because children can get underfoot when one is sleuthing. So that means Dandy can move about society without impunity and she can closet herself away and solve crimes with male friends without eyebrows (or at least too many eyebrows) being raised. A respectable crime solver, how about that?

Yet Dandy is by no means perfect. While it takes awhile to get the gist as to why she would be the perfect crime solver, it basically comes down to the fact that she is overly blunt and has a tendency to stick her foot in her mouth by saying something that no one else would dare say. "Discussing loud and plain what everyone else is thinking about but dare not mention." But this habit of hers makes her come across as a little callow, though she is far from it, and therefore leads people to confide in her, the ideal trait for someone who wants to root around in your life to have. She may be a little dense, a little artless, sometimes easily confused or led astray, with it being hard for her to know where her facts end and her fancies begin. Yet all this together does make a good-ish detective. Like most of the best detectives, she tends to take awhile to get to the point and gets the wrong end of the stick, but this is what makes a book have a compelling narrative. You don't want it over and done with five pages in. Though there is one random trait of Dandy's that I just can't wrap my head around. She really puts down men. Now I'm not saying she's a man-hater (which her overly protective maid obviously is), but she does tend to put down the opposite sex quite a lot, and while Dandy might be befuddled by clues most of the time, this odd character trait has me a little befuddled.

As for the plot itself... once I came to gripes with what was going on, ie, Scotland, Dandy, the rest of the characters all fell into place. While the diamond theft and the murder are relatively simple plot devices, Catriona does a good job of layering the mysteries and doling out the clues so that the book clips along. Yet there was the nagging feeling I had, quite early on, about a third of the way through the book, that I was on the right track, unlike Dandy. It turned out that I was indeed right, but the little wrinkle thrown in helped to make the ending still satisfying. Though with all the tiring to and fro across the countryside, I really do realize that the lure of the Golden Age of Detection was the actually leg work, but this was a bit much, it was the small details that made this book have memorable moments, excluding the vagueness of the ending. The most striking of these moments is the photographs of the dead Cara. They way they are discussed and how they play into the plot make a book that would have just been average reach new heights.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: After the Armistice Ball, British Country House, Catriona McPherson, Dandy Gilver, Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains, Fire, Golden Age of Detection, Golden Summer, Jewel Thief, Scotland