strange and random happenstance

The Vanishing Box by Elly Griffiths
Published by: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date: November 2nd, 2017
Format: Kindle, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Max Mephisto and his daughter Ruby may be top billing at the Brighton Hippodrome for the holiday season but if Max ever wanted a clear sign that variety is on it's way out he need look no further than the rest of the bill. To be on the bill with a tawdry tableau act of "living statues" perfectly posed so as to skirt the nudity laws is lowering to say the least. But the salacious act might have one benefit, in the very attractive Florence Jones. There's no doubt about it, she's turned Max's head with her Cleopatra tableau and her forthright attitude. She's the type of woman who is the total package, a woman who has Max thinking about the future and marriage. He has been comfortably ensconced with Mrs. M since he left the cold attic room of his landlady's house for her bed but Florence is the type of woman whom you have passionate sex with at a hotel under assumed names in the middle of the day while contemplating the future. They might both be entangled with others, Florence being a kept woman to her show's producer, Vic Cutler, and Max with Mrs. M, but their attraction goes beyond what they are both getting out of their current relationships. In other relationship news Edgar is starting to drift from Ruby. They have been engaged for so long now that it seems unlikely they will ever be married. Something Emma wouldn't mind in the least. But affairs of the heart will have to take a backseat to murder. A young florist named Lily has been slain. Two of the girls from the tableau show were sharing digs with her. What the police don't want people to know is that Lily was posed. Like a classical tableau. In fact, she was posed like a famous painting. But she wasn't in show business despite her digs. In fact it was Lily's mother who was in show business and recommended the digs to her daughter. Could Lily's murder have something to do with the show at the Hippodrome? When Vic Cutler turns up dead it seems a foregone conclusion. Which means, who could be next? Are Ruby and Max in danger? Or someone closer to Edgar's heart?

The Vanishing Box is the turning point for this series. What was predominately a male dominated series is shifting to a female dominated series and in order for that transition to be complete the Emma and Ruby problem has to be laid to rest. Which means it's time for a showdown. Ever since she first appeared on the page I've been rooting for Emma, we've all been rooting for Emma. She's the perfect match for Edgar. Ruby is glamorous, standoffish, and keeps Edgar at a remove, never confirming a date for their wedding or even admitting they are engaged because she knows her life goals are so different from his. So obviously they were never going to work and Emma and Edgar are endgame. What I took issue with was here Elly Griffiths backpedals on Edgar and Ruby's true feelings for each other. We're supposed to believe that deep down Edgar has always loved Emma and that Ruby actually deeply cares about Edgar and is sad their relationship has come to an end? I don't know what books the author thought she was writing, but this wasn't what was going on. Yes, humanizing Ruby is necessary. She can't live up on that pedestal forever, but she could have locked down Edgar at any time and she chose not to. That was her choice. Don't rewrite it mawkishly to be some sort of unrequited or doomed love affair because I am not buying it. Especially with the bigger themes at play here. The Emma and Ruby dynamic feeds into how women are viewed by society. With the tableau we are shown a world in which women are nothing more than objects. They are there to be looked at and lusted after. But they don't have any agency. Whereas Emma is a woman with nothing but agency. She has a job and goals and is breaking away for societal expectations. With the humanization of Ruby we see her moving from an ideal, in particular Edgar's ideal, to an actual living and breathing person who is more similar to Emma than Emma would probably like to admit. The Vanishing Box fits perfectly into it's era and women's liberation. Women are no longer just the focus of men's gazes. They are cops and magicians and florists and writers and on and on. Yet the killer views them as the feminine ideal. The male feminine ideal. Which is why I love when the women take over the tableau show. They were exploited by men, but now, in control, they say what is and isn't permissible. Women finally have the power. But does that mean we have to say goodbye to Edgar and Max? Only time will tell.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brighton, Edgar Stephens, Elly Griffiths, Emma Holmes, Endgame, Feminism, Living Statues, Magic Men, Magician, Max Mephisto, Murder, Murder Most Foul, Mystery, Tableau, The Vanishing Box, Variety, Women's Liberation

The Betrayal of the Blood Lily by Lauren Willig
Published by: Dutton
Publication Date: January 12, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 401 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Lady Frederick Staines. Penelope will probably never get used to the name or the fact that her identity has been subsumed into that of her husband. What a joke, Freddy, her husband. She's nothing more to him than a bed warmer while her dowery has been his ante into innumerable card games. To make matters worse they have been exiled to India to take the taint off their rather precipitous union. They are five months journey away from the world they knew. What is Penelope going to do in India while Freddy is off playing at politics? What is to become of this person she has become? Who is going to shake their head at her worryingly and sigh "Oh Pen?" That's where Captain Alex Reid enters in. He is the couple's escort to Hyderabad. He is to get Lady Frederick Staines and spouse safely to the residency. A grueling journey by land and sea. Of course it would be easier if Penelope would just behave as a British woman recently arrived in India would. If she'd not show off her fine seat on a horse or her ability to jump into a river to save a drowning man. If she'd just sit in the palanquin and sleep through the heat of the day that would be great. But freed of the strictures of the ton, well, Penelope has to have an outlet for her sheer frustration of the situation she landed herself in. Because it was no one's fault but her own. She was the one who told Freddy to come hither. She got herself sent off to the subcontinent. But if there's one slight silver lining, it's Alex. While he worries about Penelope, he's never pitied her. He's amazed by this proud woman he's met. A woman that is giving him feelings that he shouldn't be having about someone who is married, even if it's clear it's not a happy union. But their personal struggles coming to grips with their romantic feelings will have to take a back seat when some spies with flowery sobriquets appear on the scene. If only Pen had listened to Henrietta and Charlotte rambling on about spies instead of luring Freddy into every available alcove maybe she'd have some idea as to what she is up against. Instead she's just trying to piece it all together on the fly with what she half remembers and what she and Alex are able to figure out. A cobra in her bedchamber isn't just a warning, it's a sign they are on the right track. But will they all make it out of India alive?

The Betrayal of the Blood Lily is a turning point in the Pink Carnation series. Before it was rather more contained, more of the drawing room spies and keeping up with the ton. Now we see the full scope of the ambitions of the French and the world stage it happened on and our flowery spies are right there on the subcontinent. This is Pink Carnation grownup, and we get a far more grownup heroine. I really enjoy Penelope as a heroine, she's a hot mess and doesn't have anything figured out, let alone the path she has flung herself onto. With her starting out the book already married to a man she doesn't love we are in a far different position than Lauren's previous novels. Instead of an innocent happy virginal character, we have someone a little flirty, a little more worldly, a little bitter, and very much taken. And I am here for that! As for her romantic partner, Alex, oh, do I love them together. Alex is a good upstanding man with many a family woe, but with morals and a fierce loyalty to India and eventually to Penelope. Their dialogue crackles and sparkles and just keeps the pages turning late into the night. But what I found interesting while discussing this book during Lauren's Pink Carnation Read Along is that many people took issue with the adultery angle of this book. Firstly, it's just a book, secondly, Freddy is scum in a pretty package, and thirdly, Alex and Pen are endgame! To whomever commented that in a few years Penelope's eye would wander again and leave Alex, NO! That's not how these books work, this is literally the only time adultery is acceptable; when it's fictional and you're cheating on a lout who cheated first. Many, many, MANY times. Also, let's not forget he was involved in raping a fourteen year old girl! I really was shocked that so many people took Pen's adultery to heart. Plus, it's not like Alex and Penelope go into their affair with their eyes closed. Their eyes are fully open. And again, this is FICTIONAL! But I get it, Lauren is so good at writing that you truly forget these characters are fictional. Her characters are fully rounded people, not just "spunky" heroines because that's in vogue, but because of everything that has happened to them, everything that has led to this moment. Nothing happens without a purpose. Even the villain is fully rounded! And if anyone is blind to consequences... well, look to the Marigold!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adultery, Captain Alex Reid, Endgame, Fictional, France, Frederick Staines, Hyderabad, India, Lady Frederick Staines, Lauren Willig, Mature, Penelope Deveraux, Regency Romp, Spies, The Betrayal of the Blood Lily

The Vanishing Box by Elly Griffiths
Published by: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date: November 2nd, 2017
Format: Kindle, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Max Mephisto and his daughter Ruby may be top billing at the Brighton Hippodrome for the holiday season but if Max ever wanted a clear sign that variety is on it's way out he need look no further than the rest of the bill. To be on the bill with a tawdry tableau act of "living statues" perfectly posed so as to skirt the nudity laws is lowering to say the least. But the salacious act might have one benefit, in the very attractive Florence Jones. There's no doubt about it, she's turned Max's head with her Cleopatra tableau and her forthright attitude. She's the type of woman who is the total package, a woman who has Max thinking about the future and marriage. He has been comfortably ensconced with Mrs. M since he left the cold attic room of his landlady's house for her bed but Florence is the type of woman whom you have passionate sex with at a hotel under assumed names in the middle of the day while contemplating the future. They might both be entangled with others, Florence being a kept woman to her show's producer, Vic Cutler, and Max with Mrs. M, but their attraction goes beyond what they are both getting out of their current relationships. In other relationship news Edgar is starting to drift from Ruby. They have been engaged for so long now that it seems unlikely they will ever be married. Something Emma wouldn't mind in the least. But affairs of the heart will have to take a backseat to murder. A young florist named Lily has been slain. Two of the girls from the tableau show were sharing digs with her. What the police don't want people to know is that Lily was posed. Like a classical tableau. In fact, she was posed like a famous painting. But she wasn't in show business despite her digs. In fact it was Lily's mother who was in show business and recommended the digs to her daughter. Could Lily's murder have something to do with the show at the Hippodrome? When Vic Cutler turns up dead it seems a foregone conclusion. Which means, who could be next? Are Ruby and Max in danger? Or someone closer to Edgar's heart?

The Vanishing Box is the turning point for this series. What was predominately a male dominated series is shifting to a female dominated series and in order for that transition to be complete the Emma and Ruby problem has to be laid to rest. Which means it's time for a showdown. Ever since she first appeared on the page I've been rooting for Emma, we've all been rooting for Emma. She's the perfect match for Edgar. Ruby is glamorous, standoffish, and keeps Edgar at a remove, never confirming a date for their wedding or even admitting they are engaged because she knows her life goals are so different from his. So obviously they were never going to work and Emma and Edgar are endgame. What I took issue with was here Elly Griffiths backpedals on Edgar and Ruby's true feelings for each other. We're supposed to believe that deep down Edgar has always loved Emma and that Ruby actually deeply cares about Edgar and is sad their relationship has come to an end? I don't know what books the author thought she was writing, but this wasn't what was going on. Yes, humanizing Ruby is necessary. She can't live up on that pedestal forever, but she could have locked down Edgar at any time and she chose not to. That was her choice. Don't rewrite it mawkishly to be some sort of unrequited or doomed love affair because I am not buying it. Especially with the bigger themes at play here. The Emma and Ruby dynamic feeds into how women are viewed by society. With the tableau we are shown a world in which women are nothing more than objects. They are there to be looked at and lusted after. But they don't have any agency. Whereas Emma is a woman with nothing but agency. She has a job and goals and is breaking away for societal expectations. With the humanization of Ruby we see her moving from an ideal, in particular Edgar's ideal, to an actual living and breathing person who is more similar to Emma than Emma would probably like to admit. The Vanishing Box fits perfectly into it's era and women's liberation. Women are no longer just the focus of men's gazes. They are cops and magicians and florists and writers and on and on. Yet the killer views them as the feminine ideal. The male feminine ideal. Which is why I love when the women take over the tableau show. They were exploited by men, but now, in control, they say what is and isn't permissible. Women finally have the power. But does that mean we have to say goodbye to Edgar and Max? Only time will tell.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brighton, Edgar Stephens, Elly Griffiths, Emma Holmes, Endgame, Feminism, Living Statues, Magic Men, Magician, Max Mephisto, Murder, Mystery, Tableau, The Vanishing Box, Variety, Women's Liberation

Bridget Jones's Diary (Bridget Jones Book 1) by Helen Fielding
Published by: Penguin
Publication Date: 1996
Format: Paperback, 288 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Bridget Jones lives the typical life of a singleton. She drinks too much, eats too much, smokes too much, worries about dying alone, worries about not having a boyfriend, has smug married friends who are no help at all in the self esteem department, and parents that are forever causing issues. If she could just get her act together and find a nice sensible boyfriend. Though that hardly looks to be the case for this year as she has just started seeing her boss, Daniel Cleaver, who is the exact person she meant to stop fantasizing about this year... then there's Mark Darcy, the man her parents wish she would start dating. A man she finds quite odd and off putting, at least at first. With emotional ups and downs like her yo-yoing weight, Bridget has her year cut out for her.

Back in 2001 things for me were rough. They were going to get far worse that summer, but at the time I didn't know that. I really needed an escape and Colin Firth was about to show me the way. The movie Bridget Jones's Diary might not have ever registered on my radar if not for Mr. Darcy. Knowing that it was based on a book, and you all being familiar with my tendencies, I just had to read it and picked up the tie-in. The book sat languishing for a little while. I was in the middle of a theatre production of Endgame that was about to end very dramatically with the Beckett estate shutting it down and confiscating the playbills, photographs, scripts... you see, Beckett has some very sticky rules that you have to abide by his vision, so no cross gender casting, no "interpretations," it's as he wrote it or you'll find yourself never getting to see your name in a playbill as "properties master" for the first time. The weekend that was to be our big opening instead became a bit of a wake and I needed something, anything, to distract me. I picked up Bridget Jones's Diary.

I powered through the first book, ran to Borders, powered through the second book and then took to the internet to learn more about this new genre I had just stumbled on, Chick Lit. It was kind of an avalanche after that, with me ordering Helen Fielding's other books, looking at the Amazon recommendations, finding other authors, you get the picture. Helen Fielding, besides being deemed the progenitor of this literary subgenre by others, was quite literally the starting point for me as well. If you don't view Helen Fielding as the doyenne of Chick Lit, we might just as well stop talking right now. With the newest installment of Bridget's adventures about to hit shelves this past fall I knew that it was time to reacquaint myself with Miss Jones. What's interesting is that, well, I didn't love it as much as I did. Perhaps it's just that others have taken off from where she started and done bigger and better since, so therefore this was a bit flat. Also, is it just me or is Daniel Cleaver a real dick? I wonder if somehow over time Hugh Grant and his ability to be a letch with also still being cute has worked it's way so far into my mind that I forgot the truth of the book. Daniel Cleaver is a dick.

I think in fact that the movie is the more successful of the two incarnations of this story, which is the exact opposite for the second. The movie hammered out issues and some of the unrealistic situations. That is what strikes me most as annoying in the book, things that are unrealistic, but not funnily so. Bridget's mum and her men. Bridget and her unrealistic weight issues. Now here I want to be clear, it's not the struggle with her weight I object to, nor her horrific eating habits, but the fact that using a BMI index, Bridget would have to be shorter then 5'4" (which is oddly how tall Renee Zellweger is) to be fat for the weight listed... do I think she's that short? No. I think that Helen Fielding needed to do her research here a little better. That or she totally has some sort of eating disorder herself and has bizarre expectations, which I think is best summed up when Tom asks Bridget that doesn't she need 2,000 calories a day to live?

Also, the deus ex machina of Bridget and Mark. They barely have contact or talk in the book and at the end he swoops in, fixes everything and they whisk off to a hotel and declare their love for each other. Excuse me? I know this whisking of to a hotel and happily ever after is kind of a trope of the genre, it even happens in the first Shopaholic book by Sophie Kinsella... but there needs to be some development to get to that point. Sure we KNOW they are destined to be together, that doesn't mean that you just put them together at the end because it's the end... sigh. I think I'm going to go watch the movie again instead of thinking about this anymore.

Actually, one more thing... the graphic designer in me CAN NOT be silenced. I bought this lovely Penguin edition, because, I mean, seriously, this is a lovely cover, even if Bridget is a little too svelte in my mind. But there's a big problem with how the front flap's illustration looks when you're reading. A picture is worth a thousand words... so here's a picture...

Here's the cute illustration, love the banner of "No Emotional Fuckwittage."

Now here's what you see when you're reading... yes, it does look like a boob is starring at you. It's very off putting. Now I have nothing wrong with boobs, I have two of them. But do I want one starring at me while I'm trying to read? No thank you. Also, now my mom won't stop laughing after I showed her this as the definition of bad illustration placement...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: An Excess of Chicks, BMI, Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones's Diary, Chick Lit, Colin Firth, Daniel Cleaver, Darcy, Endgame, Helen Fielding, Hugh Grant, Illustrators, Penguin, Samuel Beckett, Sophie Kinsella

Bones Are Forever by Katy Reichs
Published by: Scribner
Publication Date: August 28th, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Kathy Reichs, #1 New York Times bestselling author and producer of the FOX televison hit Bones, is at her brilliant best in a riveting novel featuring forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan—a story of infanticide, murder, and corruption, set in the high-stakes, high-danger world of diamond mining.
A woman calling herself Amy Roberts checks into a Montreal hospital complaining of uncontrolled bleeding. Doctors see evidence of a recent birth, but before they can act, Roberts disappears. Dispatched to the address she gave at the hospital, police discover bloody towels outside in a Dumpster. Fearing the worst, they call Temperance Brennan to investigate.

In a run-down apartment Tempe makes a ghastly discovery: the decomposing bodies of three infants. According to the landlord, a woman named Alma Rogers lives there. Then a man shows up looking for Alva Rodriguez. Are Amy Roberts, Alma Rogers, and Alva Rodriguez the same person? Did she kill her own babies? And where is she now?

Heading up the investigation is Tempe’s old flame, homicide detective Andrew Ryan. His counterpart from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is sergeant Ollie Hasty, who happens to have a little history with Tempe himself, which she regrets. This unlikely trio follows the woman’s trail, first to Edmonton and then to Yellowknife, a remote diamond-mining city deep in the Northwest Territories. What they find in Yellowknife is more sinister than they ever could have imagined.

Crackling with sexual tension, whip-smart dialogue, and the startling plot twists Reichs delivers so well, Bones Are Forever is the fifteenth thrilling novel in Reichs’s “cleverly plotted and expertly maintained series” (The New York Times Book Review). With the FOX series Bones in its eighth season and her popularity at its broadest ever, Kathy Reichs has reached new heights in suspenseful storytelling."

You can NEVER have enough of Bones!

Foretold by Carrie Ryan
Published by: Delacorte
Publication Date: August 28th, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Richelle Mead, Lisa McMann, Michael Grant, Meg Cabot, Laini Taylor, and nine more of the hottest YA authors to hit the shelves explore the concepts of prophecy and prediction in this story collection edited by NYT bestselling author of The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Carrie Ryan.

Have you ever been tempted to look into the future? To challenge predictions? To question fate? It's human nature to wonder about life's twists and turns. But is the future already written—or do you have the power to alter it?

From fantastical prophecies to predictions of how the future will transpire, Foretold is a collection of stories about our universal fascination with life's unknowns and of what is yet to come as interpreted by 14 of young adult fiction's brightest stars."

A to die for selection of some of the best YA authors out there today writing stories about prophecy and prediction edited by Carrie Ryan, who is just the sweetest. Can. Not. Wait.

Endgame by Anne Aguirre
Published by: Ace
Publication Date: August 28th, 2012
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Regret Nothing.

Sirantha Jax has the J-gene, which permits her to “jump” faster-than-light ships through grimspace. She loves nothing more than that rush, but the star roads have to wait…

Her final mission takes her to La’heng, a planet subjugated during first contact. Since then, the La’hengrin homeworld has been occupied by foreign conquerors.

All that’s about to change.

Now, as part of a grass-roots resistance, Jax means to liberate the La’hengrin. Political intrigue and guerrilla warfare are new to her; this will be the most dangerous game she’s ever played—spies and conspiracies, a war of weapons and hearts, and everyone might not make it out alive…"

The end of the Sirantha Jax books, wail, sob.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Ann Aguirre, Bones, Bones and Forever, Carrie Ryan, Endgame, Foretold, Kathy Reichs