strange and random happenstance

The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager
Published by: Dutton
Publication Date: June 21st, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Casey Fletcher started drinking the day her husband drowned in Lake Greene. But her grief has become so all encompassing that it's destroying her life. For awhile she had her drinking under control and then she didn't. Passing out cold in the play she was staring in on Broadway and having to be dragged offstage while unconscious by her costars was literally her career vanishing down the bottle. Her mother swooped in and banished Casey to the Lake House in Vermont. The house where Casey spent the last happy moments of her life before it all went to hell. Now her mother and her cousin call daily to check in. Her acting skills are put to the test by declaring she's not drinking because of course she is. Her neighbor Eli is supplying her with the booze her mother had hoped to deny her. The lake is as deserted as it always is this late in the year. There are only five houses on Lake Greene. The Fitzgeralds have already left for the season, Eli is always there, and handyman Boone is working on the A-Frame next door. Which leaves the glass house directly across from Casey. And the inhabitants of that house are about to throw a wrench in Casey's plan to drink herself into oblivion. Casey sees someone drowning out on the lake and rushes into action and saves her new neighbor Katherine Royce. Like Katherine knows who Casey is, Casey knows who Katherine is, the supermodel turned philanthropist who's married to tech guru Tom Royce. The girl who had the billboard in Time Square that captivated the world and Casey. They are the owners of the glass house. That night Tom and Katherine come across the lake to thank Casey and since Eli is already over they take the party outside and Eli gets to telling ghost stories around a fire. The evening is cut short when Katherine passes out. She and her husband return home but Casey is worried about Katherine and gets out her husband's binoculars. Watching the Royces becomes her new obsession. One that might prove deadly when Katherine disappears.

The House Across the Lake marks a turning point for Riley Sager. In his previous books that have hauntings or other paranormal phenomenon he meticulously pulls back the curtain to prove that it was humans all along, just an old man under a mask solved thanks to Scooby and the gang. Here he does not. And I love it. I was a little sad when the Camp Nightingale disappearances was a revenge well plotted. As for the mysteries at the Bartholomew being at the feet of the elite, well, couldn't I have had just a hint of the real horrors of Rosemary's Baby? As for Baneberry Hall and House of Horrors, it was sadly human horrors. The genius in making the paranormal real in this specific book is that Riley Sager is doing a spot on pastiche to the Gillian Flynn genre that was so lovingly and accurately skewered by Kristen Bell's The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window. There's a predictability to this genre that relies on copious amounts of alcohol and unreliable narrators and Riley Sager does a good job leaning into these tropes with Carrie Fisher, I mean Casey Fletcher, as his protagonist. Husbands, neighbors, everyone is a suspect when her neighbor disappears. Yet what is really happening goes back to a ghost story that Eli told around Casey's fire pit. It's a moment that is almost a blink and you'll miss it moment. There are so many other elements at play in that scene that what Eli has to say gets lost in the kerfuffle. In fact, I was so busy putting together the other parts of the jigsaw I lost sight of the bigger picture so that it was a nice surprise to realize the kind of book I thought I was reading wasn't what I was reading at all. As a reader it's really wonderful when your expectations are proved wrong. When a book turns out not to be what you expected, but better. While Riley Sager is a must buy author for me after this twist I can't wait to see what he writes next.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alcoholic, Carrie Fisher, Disappearance, Ghosts, Gillian Flynn, Kristen Bell, Lake Greene, Riley Sager, The House Across the Lake, The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window

The Andromeda Evolution by Daniel H. Wilson
Published by: Harper
Publication Date: November 12th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Fifty years after The Andromeda Strain made Michael Crichton a household name - and spawned a new genre, the technothriller - the threat returns, in a gripping sequel that is terrifyingly realistic and resonant. The Evolution is Coming.

In 1967, an extraterrestrial microbe came crashing down to Earth and nearly ended the human race. Accidental exposure to the particle - designated The Andromeda Strain - killed every resident of the town of Piedmont, Arizona, save for an elderly man and an infant boy. Over the next five days, a team of top scientists assigned to Project Wildfire worked valiantly to save the world from an epidemic of unimaginable proportions. In the moments before a catastrophic nuclear detonation, they succeeded.

In the ensuing decades, research on the microparticle continued. And the world thought it was safe...

Deep inside Fairchild Air Force Base, Project Eternal Vigilance has continued to watch and wait for the Andromeda Strain to reappear. On the verge of being shut down, the project has registered no activity - until now. A Brazilian terrain-mapping drone has detected a bizarre anomaly of otherworldly matter in the middle of the jungle, and, worse yet, the tell-tale chemical signature of the deadly microparticle.

With this shocking discovery, the next-generation Project Wildfire is activated, and a diverse team of experts hailing from all over the world is dispatched to investigate the potentially apocalyptic threat.

But the microbe is growing - evolving. And if the Wildfire team can’t reach the quarantine zone, enter the anomaly, and figure out how to stop it, this new Andromeda Evolution will annihilate all life as we know it."

Damn, sometimes I miss Michael Crichton so much it hurts.

Otherlife by Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller
Published by: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: November 12th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Return to the series BuzzFeed compared to Ready Player One with the third book in the fast-paced trilogy from New York Times bestselling authors Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller that's perfect for fans of HBO's Westworld.

Simon, Kat, Busara, and Elvis are on the run with the tech super-villains at the Company hot on their heels. The new VR gaming experience the Company created, OtherEarth, will change how the world experiences gaming. Paired with the hardware the Company developed, it has the potential to alter our reality forever.

The Company is on its way to becoming the world's newest superpower. And Simon is determined to shut them down forever. But to do that, he'll have to survive OtherLife - the next phase of gaming, and a complete reality reboot."

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Jason Segel? Because seriously, I love him so much, just finished re-watching Freaks and Geeks and am in need a a Jason fix, and this fits the bill!

A Sanctuary of Spirits by Leanna Renee Hieber
Published by: Kensington Publishing Corporation
Publication Date: November 12th, 2019
Format: Paperback, 256 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"New York, 1899, and the police department's best ally is the secret Ghost Precinct, where spirits and psychics help solve the city's most perplexing crimes...

There's more than one way to catch a killer-though the methods employed by the NYPD's Ghost Precinct, an all-female team of psychics and spiritualists led by gifted young medium Eve Whitby, are unconventional to say the least. Eve is concerned by the backlash that threatens the department-and by the discovery of an otherworldly realm, the Ghost Sanctuary, where the dead can provide answers. But is there a price to be paid for Eve and her colleagues venturing beyond the land of the living?

Searching for clues about a mortician's disappearance, Eve encounters a charismatic magician and mesmerist whose abilities are unlike any she's seen. Is he a link to mysterious deaths around the city, or to the Ghost Sanctuary? Torn between the bonds of her team and her growing relationship with the dashing Detective Horowitz, Eve must discern truth from illusion and friend from foe, before another soul vanishes into the ether..."

Psychics and spiritualists fighting crime? I don't just want to read this book I want to live it!

Lethal Pursuit by Will Thomas
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: November 12th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"London, 1892 - Cyrus Barker is brought into a game of international espionage by the Prime Minister himself in the newest mystery in Will Thomas's beloved series.

Private enquiry agents Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn receive in the mail an unexplained key stamped with the letter Q. Barker, recognizing it for what it is, uses the key to unlock an anonymous door in the alleyway, which opens to an underground tunnel leading to Downing Street.

The Prime Minister has a small task for Cyrus Barker. A Foreign Office agent stole a satchel in Eastern Europe, but was then himself murdered at Charing Cross. The satchel contains a document desperately wanted by the German government, but while the agent was killed, the satchel remains in English hands. With a cold war brewing between England and Germany, it's in England's interest to return the document contained in the satchel to its original owners and keep it out of German hands.

The document is an unnamed first century gospel; the original owner is the Vatican. And the German government isn't the only group trying to get possession of it. With secret societies, government assassins, political groups, and shadowy figures of all sorts doing everything they can - attacks, murders, counter-attacks, and even massive street battles - to acquire the satchel and its contents, this small task might be beyond even the prodigious talents of Cyrus Barker."

Victorian John le Carré!

The Body on the Train by Frances Brody
Published by: Crooked Lane Books
Publication Date: November 12th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 332 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Frances Brody's eleventh Kate Shackleton mystery is sure to delight readers of Rhys Bowen and Jacqueline Winspear.

Two murders. A one-way ticket to trouble.

And it's up to Kate to derail the killer.

London, 1929. In the darkness before dawn, a railway porter, unloading a special train from Yorkshire, discovers a man's body, shot and placed in a sack. There are no means of identification to be found and as Scotland Yard hits a dead end, they call on the inimitable Kate Shackleton, a local sleuth, confident her local knowledge and investigative skills will produce results. But it's no easy task.

Suspicion of political intrigue and fears of unrest in the Yorkshire coalfields, impose secrecy on her already difficult task. The murder of a shopkeeper, around the same time, seems too much of a coincidence. The convicted felon was found with blood on his hands, but it's too tidy and Kate becomes convinced the police have the wrong man.

By then it's too late. Kate finds herself in a den of vipers. The real killer is still at large, and having tinkered with Kate's car, nearly causes her to crash. Not only that, but Scotland Yard has turned their back on her. As Kate edges toward the shocking truth, she's going to need all the strength and resourcefulness she can muster to uncover this sinister web of deceit."

For the Agatha Christie cozy fan in all of us. 

The Glass Thief by Gigi Pandian
Published by: Henery Press
Publication Date: November 12th, 2019
Format: Paperback, 274 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A locked-room mystery at a Paris mansion. A supposed ghost haunting a French family who looted treasure from Cambodia.

A reclusive thriller author writing a novel in honor of historian Jaya Jones--is it a work of fiction or a devious device to lure Jaya into solving a chilling mystery?

Three unsolved murders spanning seventy years have befallen the same French family, each taking place two nights before Christmas at their Paris mansion--and blamed on the family ghost.

When Jaya realizes the truth hits closer to home than she realized, she must risk everything as she flees San Francisco for France and Cambodia to find a missing sculpture known as the Serpent King and stop a flesh and blood killer."

I was sold at locked-room mystery in a Paris mansion, everything else is just icing on the cake.

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance by Daniel Wallace
Published by: Insight Editions
Publication Date: November 12th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 192 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Explore the creation of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, Netflix’s highly-anticipated new prequel series from The Jim Henson Company, with this all-access look at the show’s journey to the screen.

Delving into the incredible creative process behind the series, this deluxe volume reveals how Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, legendary character and costume designer Brian Froud, and director Louis Leterrier brought Thra and its characters to life alongside the artists and puppeteers who are continuing the legacy of the original film.

Filled with exclusive interviews with the creative forces behind the show, plus concept art, set photography, puppet designs, and more, this is the definitive exploration of The Jim Henson Company’s epic return to Thra."

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is a perfect show and everything the original movie could have been with a better script. I can not wait to delve further into the amazing designs of Thra. 

Bowie's Bookshelf by John O'Connell
Published by: Gallery Books
Publication Date: November 12th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Three years before David Bowie died, he shared a list of 100 books that changed his life. His choices span fiction and nonfiction, literary and irreverent, and include timeless classics alongside eyebrow-raising obscurities.

In 100 short essays, music journalist John O’Connell studies each book on Bowie’s list and contextualizes it in the artist’s life and work. How did the power imbued in a single suit of armor in The Iliad impact a man who loved costumes, shifting identity, and the siren song of the alter-ego? How did The Gnostic Gospels inform Bowie’s own hazy personal cosmology? How did the poems of T.S. Eliot and Frank O’Hara, the fiction of Vladimir Nabokov and Anthony Burgess, the comics of The Beano and The Viz, and the groundbreaking politics of James Baldwin influence Bowie’s lyrics, his sound, his artistic outlook? How did the 100 books on this list influence one of the most influential artists of a generation?

Heartfelt, analytical, and totally original, Bowie’s Bookshelf is one part epic reading guide and one part biography of a music legend."

A few years back I went to the touring Bowie exhibit and it was apparent that he was inspired by everything he took in, in particular what he read. This little insight into his life is invaluable to a fuller understanding of this remarkable man.

Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge by Sheila Weller
Published by: Sarah Crichton Books
Publication Date: November 12th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A remarkably candid biography of the remarkably candid - and brilliant - Carrie Fisher.

In her 2008 bestseller, Girls Like Us, Sheila Weller - with heart and a profound feeling for the times - gave us a surprisingly intimate portrait of three icons: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon. Now she turns her focus to one of the most loved, brilliant, and iconoclastic women of our time: the actress, writer, daughter, and mother Carrie Fisher.

Weller traces Fisher’s life from her Hollywood royalty roots to her untimely and shattering death after Christmas 2016. Her mother was the spunky and adorable Debbie Reynolds; her father, the heartthrob crooner Eddie Fisher. When Eddie ran off with Elizabeth Taylor, the scandal thrust little Carrie Frances into a bizarre spotlight, gifting her with an irony and an aplomb that would resonate throughout her life.

We follow Fisher’s acting career, from her debut in Shampoo, the hit movie that defined mid-1970s Hollywood, to her seizing of the plum female role in Star Wars, which catapulted her to instant fame. We explore her long, complex relationship with Paul Simon and her relatively peaceful years with the talent agent Bryan Lourd. We witness her startling leap - on the heels of a near-fatal overdose - from actress to highly praised, bestselling author, the Dorothy Parker of her place and time.

Weller sympathetically reveals the conditions that Fisher lived with: serious bipolar disorder and an inherited drug addiction. Still, despite crises and overdoses, her life’s work - as an actor, a novelist and memoirist, a script doctor, a hostess, and a friend - was prodigious and unique. As one of her best friends said, “I almost wish the expression ‘one of a kind’ didn’t exist, because it applies to Carrie in a deeper way than it applies to others.”

Sourced by friends, colleagues, and witnesses to all stages of Fisher’s life, Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge is an empathic and even-handed portrayal of a woman who - as Princess Leia, but mostly as herself - was a feminist heroine, one who died at a time when we need her blazing, healing honesty more than ever."

A while back now EW (because Entertainment Weekly seems to have forsaken the "weekly" and are now monthly) profiled this book and instantly I was like yes. This is a book I must read.

It's Garry Shandling's Book by Judd Apatow
Published by: Random House
Publication Date: November 12th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 472 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From Judd Apatow comes an intimate portrait of his mentor, the legendary stand-up comic and star of The Larry Sanders Show, with never-before-seen journal entries and photos, as well as new contributions by fellow comedians and writers.

Garry Shandling was a singular trailblazer in the comedy world. His two hit shows, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show and The Larry Sanders Show, broke new ground and influenced future sitcoms like 30 Rock and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and his stand-up laid the foundation for a whole new generation of comics. There’s no one better to tell Shandling’s story than Judd Apatow - Shandling gave Apatow one of his first jobs and remained his mentor for the rest of his life - and the book expands on Apatow’s Emmy Award-winning HBO documentary, The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling.

Here, Apatow has gathered journal entries, photographs, and essays for a close-up look at the artist who turned his gaze back onto the world of show business. Beyond his success, though, Shandling struggled with fame, the industry of art, and the childhood loss of his brother, which forever affected his personal and professional lives. His diaries show Shandling to be self-aware and insightful, revealing a deep philosophical and spiritual side. Contributions by comedians and other leading lights of the industry, as well as people who grew up with Shandling, along with never-before-seen pieces of scripts and brilliant jokes that he never performed, shed new light on every facet of his life and work. This book is the final word on the lasting impact of the great Garry Shandling."

How old were you when you realized Garry Shandling spelled his name with two "R's"? I was today years old.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Carrie Fisher, David Bowie, Frances Brody, Freaks and Geeks, Garry Shandling, Gigi Pandian, Jason Segel, Judd Apatow, Kirsten Miller, Leanna Renee Hieber, Michael Crichton, The Dark Crystal, Will Thomas

Mata Hari's Last Dance by Michelle Moran
Published by: Touchstone
Publication Date: July 19th, 2016
Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

The woman formerly known as Lady Margaretha MacLeod has come to Paris to reinvent herself. Styled as Mata Hari, the "Eye of the Dawn," she has been trying to get work in the various dance halls. But she is too exotic, too foreign. Little do they know she's just a girl from the Netherlands who can spin a tale. At the last place she auditions, the disreputable L'Ete, she is once again turned away, but her luck is about to change. Edouard Clunet, a respectable and successful lawyer saw her dance and wants to act as her agent. The dance halls aren't the place for Mata Hari, she needs a select and refined audience, one Edouard can introduce her to. Her first production is for Clunet's client, Guimet, who has built a library to house his extensive collections and wants to have a ceremony with two hundred guests to open his Place d'Iena. Mata Hari's dance is a sensation. Her storytelling, her risque dances, they electrify the audience and soon she is coveted by all of Paris to perform at their function. But Clunet is clever, he only chooses the best venues with the best hosts, concerned just as much with Mata Hari's image as with her abilities.

Soon Mata Hari is performing one of a kind shows for the Rothschilds, Jeanne de Loynes, and Givenchy. Her habit to also occupy her host's bed lets Mata Hari accumulate beautiful possessions and living quarters, those that her pricey performance fees don't quite stretch to. She is the name on everyone's lips, so of course she is given opportunities beyond Paris which she jumps at. Madrid, Berlin, never did she think she'd play such lavish locations! But now that she has everything she could ever have wanted she realizes what she misses most, that which she ran away from. Her daughter, Jeanne Louise, whom she left behind with her husband when she fled after the death of their son. She has spent so much of her life telling tales and reinventing herself that to open up to Edouard, to tell him a truth, raw and painful, is a revelation. Her success will continue longer than she ever imagined, but it's her past she can never recapture that she wants most. As time goes on her habits with her lovers and her ability to spin a yarn will catch up to her with the most dire of consequences. Everyone has to face the music in the end.

When I was younger I didn't quite know who Mata Hari was. But then again, being told of a great courtesan doesn't seem like the kind of tale you'd tell as a bedside story to a child. So I had these wild ideas about who she was. A seductress, a storyteller, and a spy, all with the most amazing outfits. Someone out of The Arabian Nights like Scheherazade. Someone from antiquity when Gods walked among the deserts. A grand heroine of myth. The truth is she'd probably like the myth in my mind. It wasn't until much later that I learned the truth of her tragic life. Ironically I didn't learn about Mata Hari in any history class but in the episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles that was written by Carrie Fisher, which should have been subtitled "Indy Gets His Groove On." Here was the beginning of the truth I never knew. The woman I thought relegated to dusty tomes was a "spy" during the first world war! While there are those who'd argue that this is old, to me, if a person was alive in the same century I was born that's pretty recent news. Gone were The Arabian Nights delusions and in their place was this woman who defied convention and died for the greater good.

I think where my erroneous impressions of Mata Hari came from was the fact she was a courtesan. Courtesans seem of an older era, when Kings walked through Versailles and a Maharajah took a woman to bed bedecked with jewels. When you think of the turn of the past century when a woman slept around or had a lover she was a mistress or worse. But mistress doesn't do Mata Hari justice. Neither does any of the more derogatory slurs that could be mentioned. She was a true courtesan. She was well educated, skilled, and able to tell the most intoxicating stories. So she accepted gifts of jewels and property, these were never payment, they weren't even really a transaction of any kind, more a thank you for a good seduction. She lived outside the expectations of society. Or at least the expectations of a woman in society. She acted more like a man when it came to whom she took to bed. It was all about desire, hers and theirs, and if they happened to look really fabulous in a uniform, all the better.

By living outside of the proscribed norms it was interesting in how I related to Mata Hari. As in, I didn't relate to her AT ALL. I mean, sure spending a night on your back or a day dancing to be draped in jewels might be some people's ideal life, just not mine. The truth is, she's not the most likable person. It's not just that her morals don't jive with mine, it's something more, something deep down that while I can be fascinated by her I would never like her. In fact, I found it interesting that Mata Hari kind of reminded me of Linda Radlett from Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love. They are both very acquisitive beings who like the finer things in life and don't scruple when it comes to what they want to do. While I like to view myself as carving out my own life, I'd never go for such a drastic trailblazing method. But that is what makes Mata Hari so interesting. She goes big or goes home. More than that though she really knows how to craft a tale. Her lies are so intoxicating and fascinating, that while you might balk at her life choices, you have to admire her style.

Where Moran's storytelling surpasses Mata Hari's is in showing the real purpose of all Mata Hari's storytelling, to mask her pain. Mata Hari's life growing up as Margaretha Zelle, later MacLeod, wasn't the smoothest of journeys to be sure. The situations that she was forced into by the abandonment of her family at a young age eventually resulting in her early marriage would be events best forgotten. When this is compounded by the death of her beloved son you can see why she ran away and rewrote her own story. Many people would give anything to be able to rewrite their past, even pasts not nearly as traumatic as that lived by Mata Hari. A new city, a new name, a new past. She did a marvelous job reinventing herself and creating a legend. But legends are rarely relatable. Through her writing Moran lets us see behind the veil and while you might never quite come to terms with and like Mata Hari, you really feel for her. Her struggles, her pains, her decisions, even the atrocious ones, you just get it, and that's what historical fiction is about, connecting to another person in another place and time.

As for whether Mata Hari was killed because she was a spy? Well, I'm not of the harsh opinion Wikipedia holds that she was too naive and stupid to be a double agent. Because if anything her reinvention shows that she was a clever woman who knew what she wanted and got it. I agree with Moran's inference that Mata Hari's downfall was a judgment on her as a person versus any knowledge or secrets she might have held. Mata Hari didn't fit into the standard mold. She was a woman who lived her life as she wished. Certain men in power couldn't handle this. The world was at war and people were expected to toe the line and behave or all would be lost. Mata Hari went from being a juicy topic of conversation used to titillate to a wanton woman who was out to steal your husband. She was judged for what she did and paid the ultimate price. So what if men did what she did all the time, she was a woman and therefore her death was for the greater good. Yes, her ability to spin stories did come back to bite her on the ass, because she had a honeyed tongue and could make anything sound like truth so how could you believe a word she said? But what this book made me realize is that her story still resonates. She was a woman who lived her life outside of societies expectations and paid for it. Therefore I give you Mata Hari, a true feminist icon! She died for the cause, and can that be said about Isadora Duncan?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Fall of Poppies, Carrie Fisher, Courtesan, Dancer, Feminist, Mata Hari, Mata Hari's Last Dance, Michelle Moran, Nancy Mitford, Paris, Storytelling, The Pursuit of Love, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

Victoria by Daisy Goodwin
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: November 22nd, 2016
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"I do not like the name Alexandrina. From now on I wish to be known only by my second name, Victoria. Melbourne nodded. Victoria.

Early one morning, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria is roused from bed with the news that her uncle William IV has died and she is now Queen of England. The men who run the country have doubts about whether this sheltered young woman, who stands less than five feet tall, can rule the greatest nation in the world. Surely she must rely on her mother and her venal advisor, Sir John Conroy, or her uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, who are all too eager to relieve her of the burdens of power.

The young queen is no puppet, however. She has very definite ideas about the kind of queen she wants to be, and the first thing is to choose her name.

Everyone keeps saying she is destined to marry her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, but Victoria found him dull and priggish when they met three years ago. She is quite happy being queen with the help of her prime minister, Lord Melbourne, who may be old enough to be her father but is the first person to take her seriously.

Drawing on Victoria’s diaries, which she first started reading when she was a student at Cambridge University, as well as her own brilliant gifts for history and drama, Daisy Goodwin, author of the bestselling novels The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter as well as creator and writer of the new PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria, brings the young queen richly to life in this magnificent novel."

Even if I wasn't suffering from severe withdrawal since the end of the Victoria series ended this would be a must read for all the Lord M that apparently was cut for time from the series. More Rufus!

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher
Published by: Blue Rider Press
Publication Date: November 22nd, 2016
Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"When Carrie Fisher recently discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved—plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Today, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon is indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a (sort-of) regular teenager.

With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher’s intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time—and what developed behind the scenes. And today, as she reprises her most iconic role for the latest Star Wars trilogy, Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into the type of stardom that few will ever experience."

Royalty week continues with another of my favorite royals... Princess Leia! 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Carrie Fisher, Daisy Goodwin, Princess Leia, Queen Victoria, Royalty, Star Wars, The American Heiress, The Fortune Hunter, The Princess Diarist, Tuesday Tomorrow, Victoria

Mata Hari's Last Dance by Michelle Moran
Published by: Touchstone
Publication Date: July 19th, 2016
Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

The woman formerly known as Lady Margaretha MacLeod has come to Paris to reinvent herself. Styled as Mata Hari, the "Eye of the Dawn," she has been trying to get work in the various dance halls. But she is too exotic, too foreign. Little do they know she's just a girl from the Netherlands who can spin a tale. At the last place she auditions, the disreputable L'Ete, she is once again turned away, but her luck is about to change. Edouard Clunet, a respectable and successful lawyer saw her dance and wants to act as her agent. The dance halls aren't the place for Mata Hari, she needs a select and refined audience, one Edouard can introduce her to. Her first production is for Clunet's client, Guimet, who has built a library to house his extensive collections and wants to have a ceremony with two hundred guests to open his Place d'Iena. Mata Hari's dance is a sensation. Her storytelling, her risque dances, they electrify the audience and soon she is coveted by all of Paris to perform at their function. But Clunet is clever, he only chooses the best venues with the best hosts, concerned just as much with Mata Hari's image as with her abilities.

Soon Mata Hari is performing one of a kind shows for the Rothschilds, Jeanne de Loynes, and Givenchy. Her habit to also occupy her host's bed lets Mata Hari accumulate beautiful possessions and living quarters, those that her pricey performance fees don't quite stretch to. She is the name on everyone's lips, so of course she is given opportunities beyond Paris which she jumps at. Madrid, Berlin, never did she think she'd play such lavish locations! But now that she has everything she could ever have wanted she realizes what she misses most, that which she ran away from. Her daughter, Jeanne Louise, whom she left behind with her husband when she fled after the death of their son. She has spent so much of her life telling tales and reinventing herself that to open up to Edouard, to tell him a truth, raw and painful, is a revelation. Her success will continue longer than she ever imagined, but it's her past she can never recapture that she wants most. As time goes on her habits with her lovers and her ability to spin a yarn will catch up to her with the most dire of consequences. Everyone has to face the music in the end.

When I was younger I didn't quite know who Mata Hari was. But then again, being told of a great courtesan doesn't seem like the kind of tale you'd tell as a bedside story to a child. So I had these wild ideas about who she was. A seductress, a storyteller, and a spy, all with the most amazing outfits. Someone out of The Arabian Nights like Scheherazade. Someone from antiquity when Gods walked among the deserts. A grand heroine of myth. The truth is she'd probably like the myth in my mind. It wasn't until much later that I learned the truth of her tragic life. Ironically I didn't learn about Mata Hari in any history class but in the episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles that was written by Carrie Fisher, which should have been subtitled "Indy Gets His Groove On." Here was the beginning of the truth I never knew. The woman I thought relegated to dusty tomes was a "spy" during the first world war! While there are those who'd argue that this is old, to me, if a person was alive in the same century I was born that's pretty recent news. Gone were The Arabian Nights delusions and in their place was this woman who defied convention and died for the greater good.

I think where my erroneous impressions of Mata Hari came from was the fact she was a courtesan. Courtesans seem of an older era, when Kings walked through Versailles and a Maharajah took a woman to bed bedecked with jewels. When you think of the turn of the past century when a woman slept around or had a lover she was a mistress or worse. But mistress doesn't do Mata Hari justice. Neither does any of the more derogatory slurs that could be mentioned. She was a true courtesan. She was well educated, skilled, and able to tell the most intoxicating stories. So she accepted gifts of jewels and property, these were never payment, they weren't even really a transaction of any kind, more a thank you for a good seduction. She lived outside the expectations of society. Or at least the expectations of a woman in society. She acted more like a man when it came to whom she took to bed. It was all about desire, hers and theirs, and if they happened to look really fabulous in a uniform, all the better.

By living outside of the proscribed norms it was interesting in how I related to Mata Hari. As in, I didn't relate to her AT ALL. I mean, sure spending a night on your back or a day dancing to be draped in jewels might be some people's ideal life, just not mine. The truth is, she's not the most likable person. It's not just that her morals don't jive with mine, it's something more, something deep down that while I can be fascinated by her I would never like her. In fact, I found it interesting that Mata Hari kind of reminded me of Linda Radlett from Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love. They are both very acquisitive beings who like the finer things in life and don't scruple when it comes to what they want to do. While I like to view myself as carving out my own life, I'd never go for such a drastic trailblazing method. But that is what makes Mata Hari so interesting. She goes big or goes home. More than that though she really knows how to craft a tale. Her lies are so intoxicating and fascinating, that while you might balk at her life choices, you have to admire her style.

Where Moran's storytelling surpasses Mata Hari's is in showing the real purpose of all Mata Hari's storytelling, to mask her pain. Mata Hari's life growing up as Margaretha Zelle, later MacLeod, wasn't the smoothest of journeys to be sure. The situations that she was forced into by the abandonment of her family at a young age eventually resulting in her early marriage would be events best forgotten. When this is compounded by the death of her beloved son you can see why she ran away and rewrote her own story. Many people would give anything to be able to rewrite their past, even pasts not nearly as traumatic as that lived by Mata Hari. A new city, a new name, a new past. She did a marvelous job reinventing herself and creating a legend. But legends are rarely relatable. Through her writing Moran lets us see behind the veil and while you might never quite come to terms with and like Mata Hari, you really feel for her. Her struggles, her pains, her decisions, even the atrocious ones, you just get it, and that's what historical fiction is about, connecting to another person in another place and time.

As for whether Mata Hari was killed because she was a spy? Well, I'm not of the harsh opinion Wikipedia holds that she was too naive and stupid to be a double agent. Because if anything her reinvention shows that she was a clever woman who knew what she wanted and got it. I agree with Moran's inference that Mata Hari's downfall was a judgment on her as a person versus any knowledge or secrets she might have held. Mata Hari didn't fit into the standard mold. She was a woman who lived her life as she wished. Certain men in power couldn't handle this. The world was at war and people were expected to toe the line and behave or all would be lost. Mata Hari went from being a juicy topic of conversation used to titillate to a wanton woman who was out to steal your husband. She was judged for what she did and paid the ultimate price. So what if men did what she did all the time, she was a woman and therefore her death was for the greater good. Yes, her ability to spin stories did come back to bite her on the ass, because she had a honeyed tongue and could make anything sound like truth so how could you believe a word she said? But what this book made me realize is that her story still resonates. She was a woman who lived her life outside of societies expectations and paid for it. Therefore I give you Mata Hari, a true feminist icon! She died for the cause, and can that be said about Isadora Duncan?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Fall of Poppies, Carrie Fisher, Courtesan, Dancer, Feminist, Mata Hari, Mata Hari's Last Dance, Michelle Moran, Nancy Mitford, Paris, Storytelling, The Pursuit of Love, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles