strange and random happenstance

Rebecca's Tale by Sally Beauman
Published by: HarperCollins e-books
Publication Date: 2000
Format: Kindle, 466 Pages
Rating: ★
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Colonel Julyan has always wondered if he did wrong by Rebecca. He was her only real friend when she was the mistress of Manderley and he never looked too closely at the verdict of suicide once it was revealed she was dying of cancer. Could her husband, Maxim, have killed her in a jealous rage without ever realizing she was using him to end her life? Ever since that day in London, before Manderley burnt to the ground, the Colonel has had questions and has never searched for the answers. Almost twenty years have passed, Maxim is now dead, but the sensational tales of Rebecca de Winter and Manderley are still dredged up by the press every few years. There are even a few books circulating about. But the Colonel thinks that he has put the past behind him. That is until Terence Gray appears asking questions and giving the Colonel nightmares. The Colonel has always kept his suspicions close to his chest. Never even telling his daughter about his misgivings. But his health is failing and perhaps the last thing he needs to do before he dies is settle his score with Rebecca and that might just begin with letting Terence Gray in. Because Terence knows that the Colonel holds all the cards, the village gossips have given him tons of hearsay, but he needs the truth. He needs the truth about Rebecca, because it might just be his truth as well.

For years I have staunchly refused to read Rebecca's Tale. Having had a bad experience reading Susan Hill's Mrs. de Winter I swore off all books that were prequels, sequels, or retellings of Rebecca vowing to cling only to the words of the great Daphne Du Maurier. And then I waivered. Why did I waiver? Why couldn't I have been steadfast? Why couldn't I have found some other something, anything, to fill this last day of Du Maurier December instead of forcing myself to slog through this book? Because Rebecca's Tale is way longer than you'd think, the almost 500 pages are set in eight point font if you buy the book and then return it to Amazon realizing your eyes can't take eight point font and instead read it on your Kindle. But my main problem is the hubris to think that you can write a sequel to Rebecca and even use Daphne Du Maurier's famous opening line slightly tweaked as if you had the genius to come up with it on your own? Oh Sally Beauman, shame, shame, shame. There's a reason there are so few reimaginings of Rebecca versus the work of Jane Austen. Everyone else knew better! Everyone knows not to randomly take plot points from other characters and make then apply to Rebecca. Everyone knows not to purposefully defecate on a classic with reinterpreting every little thing and hating on that which Du Maurier held dear. Everyone but you that is.

Yet if this book is any indication of Sally Beauman's ability as a writer she's just not that good. She doesn't go in for subtly or nuance, instead using a blunt instrument to hammer home every point a thousand times over. While Du Maurier might have lacked nuance in her earlier writing or some of her dramatic reveals, she was unparalleled in using the nuance of language to covey her story. So Beauman couldn't have been a worse choice to carry on Du Maurier's legacy, a writer like her isn't humble enough to understand there are some things you just can't improve on. Instead she used heavy-handed narration. Repeating ad nauseum that a narrator has a bias, thus casting aspersions on Du Maurier's own writing! As for her own? She shows bias by making Colonel Julyan a misogynist who doesn't get the irony of his repeatedly telling Terence to beware bias. Remember bias, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, and here's a bat over your head if you haven't grasped the concept of unreliable narrators. But with all the heavy-handed foreshadowing you might just have missed the neon warning sign of bias. Between all the "no inkling then of the revelations that were to come today" and "I...wasn’t to understand its significance for several days" or "and it was then that she gave me information that would prove crucial, though I didn’t realize that immediately" you might have started a drinking game to pass the time and passed out in the process.

As for what drives Rebecca's Tale? There really aren't unanswered questions or loose ends to tie up from Du Maurier's story so the majority of this book is laboriously rehashing the details of Rebecca over and over and over. Big reveals being things we already knew but these characters didn't, like Rebecca's inability to have children. Did we need two hundred pages leading up to this reveal that shocked Terence to his core? NO! Because Du Maurier had done and dusted it before. What loose ends Du Maurier did leave are not answered here at all. Because the only wise move Sally Beauman makes is to know that she is ill equipped to answer those things which are better left unanswered. So we have a book with hundreds of pages devoted to revealing that what we knew and then when she does start to diverge, when she does start to create her own story she decides to purposefully leave everything open-ended. Excuse me? So this book is basically the characters from Rebecca analyzing their own story and then coming to no solid conclusions? But not in a fun Jasper Ffordian way, in a horrible, stodgy, dissertation sort of way? Why would anyone want to write this book let alone read it? Sally Beauman purposefully not filling in the blanks from Maxim's father's will to what really happened with Rebecca and her father filled me with such rage that I almost threw my Kindle across the room until I remembered it wasn't the Kindle's fault. It was Sally Beauman's.

Though by far the most frustrating section of this book is when we finally read "Rebecca's Tale." Here's the first person narration of Rebecca we've been waiting for all along and boy does it disappoint. Because ironically, the characters searching for answers we already knew at least had a bit of mystery, a bit of a forward momentum. Here Rebecca elliptically lays everything out. And while she omits a lot it's too straightforward. There's no way to connect to the story. There's no element of the hunt anymore so these revelations don't feel earned by the writer or the reader. Plus the misogynistic tone of Colonel Julyan starts to spill into Rebecca's own story. If I didn't know for a fact that Sally Beauman is a women I'd say she was a man who really hates women. Maybe she's just a woman who hates other women? Because how else can I account for the victim blaming which oozes off these pages? Rebecca was raped as a seven year old child in France by a fourteen year old boy. She isn't just blamed by her mother and all the locals, Max blames her and even starts to identify with her rapist. What. The. Fuck? If this was a gimmick to tar Maxim, it doesn't work, instead it tars the author. She comes across as someone who wouldn't support the #MeToo movement and in fact might go on television and claim he sexual assault was all her fault. Yes, Du Maurier did write a story about the destruction of a strong willed woman. But she would not have written her ever as a victim.

The biggest problem though with Rebecca's Tale is that while Sally Beauman obviously knows her Du Maurier she doesn't understand it. She can throw out as many hints to her life and work from J.M. Barrie to The Birds, but she doesn't understand the true underpinnings of Rebecca. Instead she tries to force a statement about women and marriage and subservience that doesn't connect to her source material at all. Rebecca had it's roots in Jane Eyre, and both stories deal with the roles women have in society and what that means. Yet both the second Mrs. de Winter and Jane in the end are the ones with power. They love and care for their husbands but they are in complete and total control. By entering a state of wedded bliss they didn't give up their power they eventually found it. Therefore to have Colonel Julyan's daughter throw away her past as a caretaker and deny herself marriage for freedom shows just how ignorant Sally Beauman is, she doesn't understand the power shifts. The whole point of Du Maurier's book is that women can have power in traditional roles that you wouldn't think would give them power. As much as I have mixed feelings over Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea at least she understood her source material. She GOT Jane Eyre and therefore made a classic in her own right. She understood women and power and wasn't about distorting the original but about giving it an even deeper meaning instead of victim blaming and sweeping the ashes under the carpet.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: #MeToo, Daphne Du Maurier, Du Maurier December, J.M. Barrie, Jane Eyre, Jasper Fforde, Jean Rhys, Kindle, Mrs. de Winter, Rebecca, Rebecca's Tale, Sally Beauman, Sequels, Susan Hill, The Birds, Wide Sargasso Sea

Star of the East by Tasha Alexander
Published by: Macmillan
Publication Date: October 28th, 2014
Format: Kindle, 65 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
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Emily prefers to avoid her mother as much as possible. As the holidays near her and Colin are of a mind to stay as far away from Kent and Darnley House as possible. Only this time Countess Catherine Bromley’s invitation is backed by the weight of the Queen who has requested Colin to go and that causes Colin concern. Emily's mother is hosting the Maharaja Ala Kapur Singh and his family. The maharaja was recently awarded the Order of the Star of India from Queen Victoria and will be spending Christmas itself with the Queen at Osborne House. So why would the Queen want Colin at Darnley House? Emily and Colin dutifully pack themselves and all three of their boys off to Kent. The house party, despite being a lavish affair with Christmas trees in every room and a feast the Countess views as worthy of the subcontinent, is rather small, being made up of the maharaja, his maharani Parsan, his two children, 18 year old marriage obsessed Sunita, and Oxford student Ranjit who brings his best friend Ned, and a few select neighbors. Everything seems to be perfect, even the fresh blanket of snow outside. Though that night the valuable, and cursed, diamond maang tika, the Star of the East, and it's companion golden bangle engraved with words of a spell of protection is taken from Sunita's room. Could the Queen have predicted this and sent Colin to avoid a scandal? Or is there another reason he and Emily were needed at Darnley House?

Tasha knows how to spin the perfect Christmas yarn for the anglophile in us all. A missing jewel, a narrow suspect pool, and all the possible culprits gathered around a Christmas tree in the proper drawing room waiting for Emily to do her version of the Agatha Christie denouement. But it's that cursed jewel that really has my heart going pitter-patter. Tasha has always included literature and authors of the day in Emily's stories, from Mary Elizabeth Braddon to Charles Dickens. In fact I've always felt that her work holds a bit of a debt to a friend of Dickens, Wilkie Collins, especially in Emily's second adventure, A Poisoned Season. Therefore to have Tasha do a full out homage to Collins's The Moonstone while also bringing back my favorite thief introduced in Emily's second adventure, Sebastian Capet, I couldn't have been happier. Though it's not just the fascinating story of how the Star or the East was cursed and then made wearable by it's companion bangle alone that made me so happy while simultaneously giving me a chill down my spin. Oh no, I have always had a love of India. I don't know it this is an offshoot of me being such an anglophile, but there's something about India that has always drawn me in. Therefore seeing the maharaja's family talking about their culture and heritage while set in a very traditional British tale made me happier than I could have thought. But isn't Christmas all about happiness?

Well, we hope Christmas is all about happiness, usually it's about familial guilt trips and bad memories. While Emily's struggles with her mother have been a continuing theme throughout this series I think that Star of the East, being set at her family's estate, gives us much more insight in one go then we've been able to string together over the course of the previous nine volumes. The story about how when her mother learned of Emily's terror of the "Chinese" bedroom that she vowed that Emily would be placed there once out of the nursery shows how controlling the Countess is. That she would be willing to scar a child to make them stronger makes me shudder. Luckily for Emily she had her father on hand, who is the Mr. Bennet of the lot. He was able, through the clever placement of his mother in the Chinese bedroom, to help Emily without incurring too much of his wife's wrath. You can see why Emily clings to the love and life she has formed with Colin. The joy her children give her, even Henry who is a bit of a troublemaker, is wonderful. She has created the life and family she wanted despite her upbringing. Contrasting Emily's past with Sunita's future is almost heartbreaking. For Emily to see a family, one who is very traditional, willing to embrace their daughter and her dreams once they realize how much it matters? Well, it's wonderful for Sunita, and more than a little sad for Emily.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Poisoned Season, Alexander Autumn, Charles Dickens, Christmas, Cursed Gem, Family, India, Kindle, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Parents, Queen Victoria, Star of the East, Tasha Alexander, The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins

The Bridal Strain: Emily and Colin's Wedding by Tasha Alexander
Published by: Tasha Alexander
Publication Date: 2009
Format: Kindle
Rating: ★★★★★
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After much temptation, much heartache, and much delay, Colin has decided that he can no longer wait to be married to Emily, his future mother-in-law and Queen Victoria be damned. So drenched to the bone high above the caldera on Santorini he proposes that he and Emily be married that very night and Emily agrees. Though Emily is swept away by the romantic gesture, not thinking of the practicalities of showing up at the church soaking wet and demanding to be wed, she is thankfully marrying a very organized man capable of pulling off the most elaborate of missions for the crown with the simplest of ease. So when they return to her villa she shouldn't be surprised that preparations are underway for a full wedding celebration, and yet she is. She's surprised and touched. The entire village has come together to see her and Colin wed. But that won't be the only surprise of the evening, as Emily's dearest friend Cecile is also on hand, there to celebrate the nuptials, but also there to provide emotional support while mourning such a handsome man leaving the marriage market. Though Cecile wouldn't let Emily marry unless the man was worry of her, luckily for Colin he is. And so, their married life begins.

So much of the first two books in Tasha's Lady Emily series is the will-they-won't-they of Emily and Colin. This isn't just played for romantic tension, though one can't deny that it is titillating, but it's practical. Emily, as a widow, has so much freedom that she has to be certain of Colin in order to be willing to shackle herself into another marriage where to the majority of Victorian society she would be nothing but a possession, and viewed, in the extreme, as a slave. But thankfully Colin loves her not as the ideal her first husband Philip viewed her as, but as this intelligent woman willing to fight at his side, not sit home and be content as the typical wife would in raising her brood. He loves her for what she has become, what she has evolved into, and that's why their relationship is so epic and why it would have been a shame not to see their wedding day. To be there as they became one, but still stayed themselves. Colin's wedding gift to Emily, of a gorgeous Greek vase, shows that he loves her for who she is and he will never force her into a mold labelled "Standard Victorian Wife." Though Tasha's extras are interesting in that it sheds light on the fact that what we view as the "Victorian Standard" isn't truth. Not everything is as it seems, Victorians were far more liberal, and there were quite a few pregnant women walking down the aisle...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alexander Autumn, Colin Hargreaves, Emily and Colin's Wedding, Freedom, Greek, Kindle, Lady Emily, Revisionist History, Santorini, Short Story, Tasha Alexander, The Bridal Strain, Victorian, Weddings

The Outsider by Stephen King
Published by: Scribner
Publication Date: May 22nd, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 576 Pages
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The official patter:
"An unspeakable crime. A confounding investigation. At a time when the King brand has never been stronger, he has delivered one of his most unsettling and compulsively readable stories.

An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.

As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can."

Summers coming and I know you just need a big old new Stephen King book to read. Go get it!

Hush, My Inner Sleuth by M.E. Meegs
Published by: Lycophos Press
Publication Date: May 22nd, 2018
Format: Kindle, 326 Pages
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The official patter:
"In the fall of 1947, the pulp-inflected ghost of Skip Ryker—a recently atomized Hollywood detective—hijacks the head of a literarily precocious young woman named Willie Tigue. The results are anything but predictable.

The serpentine saga opens at a New England women’s college, where the ever-playful Betty escapes a meddlesome narrator by slipping her friend Willie a mickey and assuming her identity. Undaunted, the plucky storyteller adopts Willie as her new protagonist and travels with her to L.A.

Meanwhile, the ethereal Ryker—whose corporeal being is reduced to lawn fertilizer when his pool house is provisioned with plastic explosive—tries in vain to solve his untimely demise. What he needs, it quickly becomes apparent, is a willing instrument.

The ensuing collision of these disparate narratives sparks a battle royal for control of Willie’s suggestible psyche—and subsequently, movie rights to the book."

I just love the whole pulp feel of this from cover design to writing! 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Hush My Inner Sleuth, Kindle, M.E. Meegs, Stephen King, Summer, The Outsider, Tuesday Tomorrow

Without a Summer by Mary Robinette Kowal
Published by: Tor
Publication Date: April 2nd, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
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Jane and Vincent have been recuperating at Long Parkmeade after the trials and tribulations they faced in France. Though spending so much time with Jane's family is hard on her, she can see it's excessively wearying for her husband. Luckily a commission in London means they are not long for the city. Jane though feels a tug of pity for her sister. Here is Melody, trapped far away from eligible bachelors and aging more and more with every passing season. Jane impulsively decides to help Melody by taking her with them to London. Jane and Vincent can work during the day and throw parties and go to receptions in their spare time so that Melody gets a chance at the happiness her sister has attained.

London though is in a state of upheaval. The unnaturally cold weather means that crops are failing and people are looking for someone to blame, and they focus on the Coldmongers, a subgroup within glamourists that dangerously use glamour outside the visible spectrum and therefore have a short life expectancy. There is also the Irish Question and lingering hostilities towards the French. Because of Jane and Vincent's notoriety as the Prince Regent's Glamourists as well as Vincent being the son of Lord Vebury, they soon are dragged into the world of politics and their entire life is on show for the world. Will they be able to save their marriage, England, and get Melody married? That might take a little magic to pull off.

Re-reading Without a Summer I think that I might have maligned the book too much previously. I felt like it was such a departure for the final forth of the book from everything that came before that it was a square peg in a round hole. It was waving at sharks and thinking of perhaps jumping over them. I was so focused on what annoyed me that I was over-analyzing everything and almost searching for faults when I should have been enjoying the narrative shift. Each of the five books in this series has embraced a different genre, so to speak. We started with the traditional Austenesque book, Shades of Milk and Honey, moved onto espionage and war with Glamour in Glass, later Valour and Vanity would embrace the heist genre, while here we have politics and all that entails, from court to courting if you will. While I'm not the biggest fan of courtroom dramas, always liking the first half-hour of Law and Order over the second, knowing that it was coming I was able to look at the book more objectively and realize that I loved it just as much as the others. See, I have learned to admit when I'm wrong, and that's a big step for me.

But I think my opinions on Regency court procedure were very much formed by my hatred of Death Comes to Pemberley. I know she's dead, but I can not ever forgive P.D. James for this book hinging on old obscure British laws and courtroom antics. This one book did more harm then anything previously to make me come to revile courtroom drama. The tropes of surprise witnesses, the fainting of women in the gallery, please. While the narrative of Without a Summer did naturally lead itself to court, did it really have to bring forward all the problems of Jane and Vincent's marriage into public view? Hinting at the lewdness of Jane occasionally wearing men's garb, and perhaps that was because of Vincent's sexual proclivities that made his father hire the prostitute for him that was the center of their earlier fight? Blah blah blah. While I know great worldbuilding takes everything and every aspect of society into consideration, I could have done with a little more magic and a lot less mundane martial law.

Moving on from what nagged me let's embrace that which delights me. The true history being magically woven into this alternate history was staggeringly good. It's not just the bigger changes that captured my imagination, but the little ones, the fact that the battle of Waterloo never happened so that Waterloo Bridge is now Quatre Bras Bridge was a nice little touch, and all down to the Vincents in their previous adventure. But I really loved how Kowal tied in the frigid temperatures of 1816, known as "The Year Without a Summer," into not just the politics of the book, but into people's belief systems. Just think, snow in summer? You'd be more then a little concerned with this now wouldn't you?

The average person doesn't grasp that weather can not be controlled by glamour. Therefore people look for a scapegoat to explain away this problem, and the Coldmongers make a perfect target. They are specialized glamourists who deal with temperature. Even other glamourists don't know much about what they do, only knowing how dangerous it is to mess with the elements of hot and cold. They are poor, they are not understood, and they make a far more logical scapegoat then a volcano half a world away, which was actually the true reason for these bizarre meteorological conditions. Plus, this generally accepted belief of their culpability means that Vincent's father is able to politically exploit the situation to his own gain. Just sheer genius. Or should I say evil genius if I'm talking about Lord Verbury?

Though what I think I didn't really get the first time I read this book is that it's heroine isn't Jane, it's Melody. I just thought that Jane had had a brain transplant and that Melody was awesome. It never dawned on me that this was on purpose. Jane comes across as a little bit of a naive bigot. I know Jane had a sheltered life and was a bit oblivious to things before the arrival of Vincent in her life... but there's naive and then there's ignorance. All her opinions seemed to be based on "wild supposition instead of fact." She jumps to conclusions, has an obvious wariness of anyone Irish, despite the fact that she's working for them, and expresses astonishment at people of different skin colors. But what this does is gives Melody room to shine. Because while she has always been "the pretty one" somehow Jane hijacked her story.

In Shades of Milk and Honey Melody didn't get a HEA, she got stuck in the country with her parents while her sister got freedom and love. Melody has only ever been valued for her looks. It's nice to have our preconceptions turned on their heads. Melody has developed in other ways, she knows about current events and politics. She doesn't care that glasses will mare her beautiful face so long as she can see. She has taken her inability to excel at certain things, like glamour, and developed her mind to compensate. Melody has evolved into this strong independent woman and if Jane looks a little bad in comparison, well, think how Melody has felt all these years being valued only for her beauty? Just another stereotype exploded in artful fashion by Mary Robinette Kowal.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 1816, Battle of Waterloo, Coldmongers, Death Comes to Pemberley, Glamour, Glamour in Glass, Irish, Jane Vincent, Kindle, Mary Robinette Kowal, Mr. Vincent, P.D. James, Regency Magic, Without a Summer

Courting Magic by Stephanie Burgis
Published by: Five Fathoms Press
Publication Date: August 10th, 2014
Format: Kindle, 105 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
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Kat has fought countless magical battles but she has never had to face the horror of making her debut in society. Her sisters have taken her coming out in hand and have the top modiste creating Kat's wardrobe, much to Kat's chagrin; there are too many pins! But her first ball is looking like it just might be interesting. There is a thief making a swath through the ton by impersonating famous personages and making off with jewels and other valuables. It is a magical crisis that is to be stopped. In order to hide the investigation Kat and three other male magicians will go to the ball with the three men paying court to Kat and posing as eligible husbands. Problem is Kat would actually really like one of them to be her husband. Alexander, the by-blow of the last head of her Order, awoken her heart years ago and she has found that despite their very different statuses in the world that he just might be her true love. But can love overcome society's strictures? Well, Kat's never played by society's rules anyway!

Do you ever finish a series and think, I wonder what the characters will be like in the future? What will they be like in five or ten or twenty years? Rarely in literature are we given this luxury to pop into their future lives just for a quick glimpse after the book or series of books ends. If it does happen at all it's usually squeezed into an afterword that is more frustrating then illuminating. This is why I think television shows sometimes do the gimmicky "what happened to all of our characters in the years to come" flash forwards in the last five minutes of their series finale, human's insatiable need to have closure. Rarely are these quick impressions satisfying. There is no development, no time to have one last adventure, just an addendum thrown to us as a bone. That is why I am so grateful for Courting Magic. When the Kat, Incorrigible series ended we got a tiny glimpse of what Kat's HEA might be, but being only thirteen, well, she wasn't ready to be out in society let alone be married. Yet there was a wistfulness and a longing that just maybe we could one day find out about Kat's own HEA.

Skip forward two years and Stephanie is giving fans what they hoped for. The problem with Courting Magic is that it doesn't fit neatly into the series, it's short, and I don't think it could even be considered middle grade, being more romantic and definitely the most Austenesque of all Kat's adventures. But that's what I love about the age in publishing we live in. Sure, we can complain all we want about the rise of the e-reader and the downfall of printed books, but before this era would Kat's story have been given closure? NO! It couldn't be published traditionally, for the aforementioned reasons, and how else could we have gotten it? Bless authors willing to embrace new mediums in order to tell the story the way they want to. I'm not going to go on a rant about technology here, I just really want to point out that sometimes technology is there for a reason and helps us, here we got closure.

While this whole series has been about love, familial love, and of course the marriages of Angeline and Elissa, Kat being younger and our protagonist, we didn't get the swoon worthy love that Austen was known for. Kat's story here is more typical Austen, coming out in society, a ball, and a proposal. Throw in some stumbling blocks, aka Alexander's status in society, and it's a very typical Regency love story. Kat is anything but typical. So of course, throw in magic, a sweet and hilarious reunion with the magically tainted Cousin Lucy, a cringe worthy run in with the Prince Regent, a couple of awkward dances, a thief worthy of the Pink Panther movies, and the bad guys being caught and you get the perfect blend of Austen and Kat. Not to mention a last minute reversal of fortune and Kat has her ideal HEA!

But what I wholeheartedly embrace is that Kat's HEA is anything but typical, in true Kat fashion. Firstly, she ends up with someone who has the same career path as she does, saving England by using magic. This means that Kat doesn't have to ever hide who she is let alone have to choose between her duty and her heart; that would destroy Kat and we can't have that. Secondly it's her true love! And no, she didn't double check with her mother's spell, she just knows. The moment she first met Alexander it was fate, but having them reconnect years later, sigh, it's almost as satisfying as when Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth finally get their HEA! But the clincher for me was that in her enthusiasm to finally end up with Alexander Kat inadvertently was the one to propose. She always has been a mold breaker, and I'm happy to read that a few years down the line that that hasn't changed.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Captain Wentworth, Courting Magic, HEA, Jane Austen, Kat Incorrigible, Kindle, Persuasion, Pink Panther, Prince Regent, Regency, Regency Magic, Stephanie Burgis

How To Be a Good Wife by Emma J. Chapman
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: October 15th, 2013
Format: Kindle, 288 Pages
Rating: ★
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Marta has lived her married life to her older husband Hector quite literally by the book. She has learned How To Be a Good Wife. Though the book doesn't tell you want to do when your son goes off to college and your life becomes meaningless. Marta starts to unravel. She drinks, she cleans, she takes her meds, she doesn't take her meds, she starts to remember, but are her memories real? She remembers a room under the house and being held captive and brainwashed till she was the wife Hector wanted. She tries to tell her son, Kylan, but he has his own life now. She is unhinged, she is a danger to herself. She is not the Marta that they remember, but did that Marta ever truly exist?  

If you have a book with an unreliable narrator there has to be some kind of revelation, an inside or outside force that is able to give some kind of resolution to the unfolding drama, even if it is a dissatisfying resolution, re Agatha Christie's Endless Night. To be left without any closure makes for a disgruntled reading experience. But then again, being in Marta's brain for even the short amount of time it took to read this book had already alienated me against her and her antics, so what's one more nail in the book's coffin eh? Marta is scatterbrained, obsessive about the weirdest things, her dinner party for her son is such a disaster it makes the Christmas dinner in The Ref look like the best party in the world. She's unstable, unlikable, and, well, selfish. Why did I read this book again? Oh yeah, book club.

The question though remains, did or didn't Hector create this wife? My mind thinks no. Because it's just too outlandish. If he had done it his own mother would have been complicit, something I don't think she'd ever have done. Plus, let's look at it this way. If Hector was making the perfect wife, after all these years of brainwashing why would she crack? Yes, empty nest syndrome, but this is a major psychotic break. And her meds wouldn't make her more compliant, after all this time she'd totally be in the thrall of Stockholm Syndrome, so drugs wouldn't be needed. Whereas if she's just crazy, going off her meds would do something. They'd make her go back to her natural crazy state. But in the end I don't care. No, seriously, I hated each character so much there was no sympathy and well, fuck the lot of them.

With Marta we are given a woman who is neurotic and self-destructive as well as more then a little dumb. Instead of doing anything logical she runs around like a chicken with her head cut off. If she had just sat down and laid out her thoughts and provided proof of her delusion, perhaps someone would have believed her. Instead of making it seem like her illness was responsible for her inability to tell her suspicions Chapman made Marta's failings feel like an idiotic character flaw of the greatest order, total dumb blond syndrome. Perhaps her decision making is completely impaired, but for some reason I just don't think so. I have this feeling that Marta has a very fixed view of the world and her place in it and when things don't go her way she acts out. This seems to be supported by how everyone treats and coddles her. She's a selfish woman who may have issues, but in the end it's her selfishness that defines her. How else would you categorize the fact that she kills herself on the day of her son's wedding? She's making the happiest day of his life all about her.

Chapman is obviously trying to explore the themes of PTSD and what it does to us knowingly or unknowingly, after all if you didn't get it she talks all about it in her afterword. But the problem is we don't know if Marta is suffering from PTSD or is just run of the mill crazy. Either way Marta is not a sympathetic character so whether she was always crazy or became crazy signifies very little to the book itself. But I think if I was a sufferer of PTSD that this would signify very much to me if I was reading this book, which I wouldn't recommend anyone to do. Because How To Be a Good Wife doesn't exactly portray PTSD in a flattering light. In fact the book kind of makes sufferers of PTSD get lumped in with people with severe mental illnesses. Now, while PTSD is a mental illness, well, it's a different kind and to have it lumped in with the psychotics, this is doing the sufferers of this disease an injustice. In fact everything about this book should offend anyone with any kind of mental instability, because Chapman obviously doesn't get it and doesn't have the compassion to render their fight with compassion and honesty.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, Book Clubs, Christmas, Emma Chapman, Endless Night, How To Be a Good Wife, Kindle, PTSD, The Ref

Night Film by Marisha Pessl
Published by: Random House
Publication Date: August 20th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 624 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Brilliant, haunting, breathtakingly suspenseful, Night Film is a superb literary thriller by the New York Times bestselling author of the blockbuster debut Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley’s life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror-film director Stanislas Cordova—a man who hasn’t been seen in public for more than thirty years.

For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova’s dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself.

Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova’s eerie, hypnotic world.

The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more.

Night Film, the gorgeously written, spellbinding new novel by the dazzlingly inventive Marisha Pessl, will hold you in suspense until you turn the final page."

Already getting advance praise as being "the book" of this summer... and I'll still read it despite them denying me an e-galley... see, I'm magnanimous. 

A Fatal Likeness by Lynn Shepherd
Published by: Delacorte
Publication Date: August 20th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"With The Solitary House, award-winning author Lynn Shepherd introduced readers to Charles Maddox, a brilliant private detective plying his trade on the gaslit streets of Dickensian London. Now, in this mesmerizing new novel of historical suspense, a mystery strikes disturbingly close to home—and draws Maddox into a world of literary legends, tormented souls, and a legacy of terrible secrets.

When his great-uncle, the master detective who schooled him in the science of “thief taking,” is mysteriously stricken, Charles Maddox fears that the old man’s breakdown may be directly related to the latest case he’s been asked to undertake. Summoned to the home of a stuffy nobleman and his imperious wife, Charles finds his investigative services have been engaged by no less than the son of celebrated poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his famed widow, Mary, author of the gothic classic Frankenstein. Approached by a stranger offering to sell a cache of rare papers allegedly belonging to the legendary late poet, the Shelley family seeks Maddox’s aid in discovering whether the precious documents are authentic or merely the work of an opportunistic charlatan.

But the true identity of his quarry is only the first of many surprises lying in wait for the detective. Hardly a conniving criminal, Claire Clairmont is in fact the stepsister of Mary Shelley, and their tortured history of jealousy, obsession, and dark deceit looms large over the affair Maddox must untangle. So, too, does the shadow of the brilliant, eccentric Percy Shelley, who found no rest from the private demons that pursued him. With each new detail unearthed, the investigation grows ever more disturbing. And when shocking evidence of foul play comes to light, Maddox’s chilling hunt for the truth leads him into the blackest reaches of the soul.

Steeped in finely wrought Victorian atmosphere, and rife with eye-opening historical revelations, A Fatal Likeness carries the reader ever deeper into a darkly magnetic tale of love and madness as utterly harrowing and heartbreaking as it is undeniably human."

Whereas I did get an e-galley for this one, realized I needed to read the first book first (and realized I've been reading too many British books and just typed realise)... so I'll get to this... one day. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

The Bookstore by Deborah Meyler
Published by: Gallery Books
Publication Date: August 20th, 2013
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Brilliant, idealistic Esme Garland moves to Manhattan armed with a pres­tigious scholarship at Columbia University. When Mitchell van Leuven— a New Yorker with the bluest of blue New York blood—captures her heart with his stunning good looks and a penchant for all things erotic, life seems truly glorious . . . until a thin blue line signals a wrinkle in Esme’s tidy plan. Before she has a chance to tell Mitchell about her pregnancy, he suddenly declares their sex life is as exciting as a cup of tea, and ends it all.

Determined to master everything from Degas to diapers, Esme starts work at a small West Side bookstore, finding solace in George, the laconic owner addicted to spirulina, and Luke, the taciturn, guitar-playing night manager. The oddball customers are a welcome relief from Columbia’s high-pressure halls, but the store is struggling to survive in this city where nothing seems to last.

When Mitchell recants his criticism, his passion and promises are hard to resist. But if Esme gives him a second chance, will she, like her beloved book­store, lose more than she can handle? A sharply observed and evocative tale of learning to face reality without giv­ing up on your dreams, The Bookstore is sheer enchantment from start to finish"

The cover and the title had me sold before I read the description and went, "yeah, I'd read that..."

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Fatal Likeness, Deborah Meyler, Kindle, Lynn Shepherd, Marisha Pessl, Netgalley, Night Film, The Bookstore, The Solitary House

Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences: Tales from the Archives by Pip Ballantine, Tee Morris et al.
Published by: ImagineThat! Studios
Publication Date: August 23rd, 2011-June 17th, 2012
Format: Kindle
Rating: ★★★
To Buy Collection 1
To Buy Collection 2
To Buy Collection 3
To Buy Collection 4

Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris have been more willing than most authors to embrace the possibilities of new media. Not surprising when you look at their bios and realize how much they have done with podcasts, facebook, twitter, all of which Tee has spoken on. So short e-pub stories don't seem much of a stretch. Yet most authors don't bother to embrace something that could so easily get you new readers and make the returning ones giggle with glee. To find that in the dark hours while you are desperately waiting for the next installment of your favorite new book series that there's a short story to tide you over is a wondrous discovery. The world of The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences also lends itself to this expansion of its universe. While there are Books and Braun, who we love dearly, there are not only peripheral characters to be explored, but also characters that have never been mentioned. The Ministry is a world wide organization that has been around for quite a few years, their archives are easily full to bursting with stories to tell. Telling some of the stories themselves, or relying on other authors, the world that Pip and Tee have created is becoming more and more rich.

At last count there are sixteen short stories set within their world. You can buy them individually or in collections of four for your reading pleasure. As with any collection of stories written by a variety of authors, the quality varies from some of the best short stories I have ever read to ones that I just desperately wanted to end. Yet, they do a very good job of showing the scope of The Ministry's power, as they take place from South America to New Zealand, India to remotest Africa, Siam to the American West, and scary houses just over the road in Islington. We get old questions answered, like why did Eliza really leave New Zealand, what happened on the river in Paris between her and Harry, how hard was it to get all those seven vases that lead to El Dorado, before Eliza broke the last one, to how bad is the situation between Books and his father. We get back stories and side stories and the Ministry Seven, the Ministry's own Baker Street Irregulars, before they where the Ministry Seven. Tons of new questions to have answered, that one can only hope for in an upcoming tale.

The first collection seems to be centered on all the evil jewels can bring. You never want to get a cursed ruby or bauble... bad luck will surely befall you! While the second collection seems to be more action, adventure, daring-do, with men being men in far off places and saving the world for Queen and Country! Rider Haggard, eat your heart out! The third collection contains my very favorite stories of all. Some of the best ones I've read. If you have a desire to read some of the best spine tingling stories, this is where to find them. Collection four is a hodgepodge of stories that didn't really catch me due to tropes of Terracotta Warriors and masturbatory jokes that seemed to key into this year's movie Hysteria. I just think the jokes fell flat and I felt sorry for Books.

Yet of all these stories, there are two that I must single out as being sheer perfection. The first is Dust on the Davenport by O.M. Grey and the second is Hanuman's Gift by Helen E. H. Madden. It does not surprise me that Dust on the Davenport won the Steampunk Chronicle Reader’s Choice Award for Best Short Story. This little ghost story about a junior agent investigating what the other agents think is just another haunting false alarm starts out as a sweet little story about a grieving widow leaning on a green agent and slowly evolves into full on heebie-jeebies land. I don't think I've had this much spine tingling since the first time I watched The Legend of Hell House, which still gives me nightmares! Pure Victorian Ghost Story perfection! While I think Hanuman's Gift will easily be a contender for this year's Reader's Choice Award. Told by Eliza's old partner Harry to the sceptical and inept archivist before Books, it shows the horrors that face agents out in the field and that local myths and legends might best be followed or you could get some zombie monkey action going on that has overtones of Neil Gaiman's Coraline. Also, we learn a lesson that is best repeated, be careful what you wish for! World peace might mean a world devoid of humanity and spending you days relaxing in your pajamas, might just indicate Bedlam.

I look forward to more of the promised stories. I'll need them if I'm to be patient till the next book comes out!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Coraline, Dust on the Davenprot, H. Rider Haggard, Hanuman's Gift, Helen E. H. Madden, Kindle, O.M. Grey, Pip Ballantine, Tales from the Archives, Tee Morris, The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences

Stopping Time by Melissa Marr
Published by: Wally Lamb Books
Publication Date: March 16th & 23rd, 2010
Format: Kindle
Rating: ★★
To Buy Part 1
To Buy Part 2

Leslie has been doing better since she left the world of fairies behind. With no more Irial or Niall, she might be alone, but she is safe. They are of course watching over her, forever bound together in a love triangle that none can escape. While Leslie and Irial had their time together, albeit with her in a drunken haze as she was the conduit for Irial to feed his people, she never got her time with Niall. While it's impossible that her and Niall could ever be together, could they perhaps stop time and get just one night?

I really loved where Ink Exchange left off, with Leslie reclaiming her life. This just seemed to be two steps back for her. The fact that they will never really be apart and that their lives are a convoluted mess, a quagmire that she was stepping out and distancing herself from as best she could made great sense. To go back and temporarily revel in that mire seemed part wish fulfillment, part falling back into bad habits. Sometimes you should not go back into stories, sometimes the ending you wrote is right. Also sometimes you get too much information between Niall and Irial and this makes it even more of a love triangle. I liked the vague. I didn't so much like this.

But, if you want to check it out, and if you're a fan of the series who wouldn't, it's wonderfully free for Kindle on Amazon, likewise it's included in the extras of the paperback release of Fragile Eternity.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Fragile Eternity, Ink Exchange, Irial, Kindle, Leslie, Melissa Marr, Niall, Stopping Time, Wicked Lovely

This week technology has had it in for me. From font corruption issues to modem and printer issues. Everything seems out to get me and making each successive thing to go wrong more likely to be first in line for a lovely pyre I'm planning for later. It's really cold after all, so it has a dual purpose... don't say I'm illogical. Anyway, here's just one of my issues. I have a Kindle, I love my Kindle, I hope it feels the same... but we just had our first fight. I love the search book function, so what should happen, but I'm reading a book and the function doesn't work. I think, this is odd, but it being a book I just downloaded, I thought that might be the reason. I checked another book... same problem. Ok, now I'm getting worried and pissed. So what do I do? I go to the manual. The lovely manual that is on my Kindle and that has all the answers. The search function doesn't work there either. So not only does my Kindle have a problem with it's indexing, but the only place where I can look for how to fix this can't be accessed because of the problem! I'm not going to read all the manual, all hundred some pages, when I'm sure the answer might not be in there. Anyway, after much swearing and some crying I turned to the web... dissolve to an hour later. I think I figured out that I just need to use the overall search function to look for indexed books and then index those that aren't indexed, ie, every book except two. So now it's doing it's merry indexing thing... hopefully this will work... hopefully... but amazon, do you think that maybe you could have some better support forums if you manual is on the machine that's malfunctioning. Crossing fingers it will all be well... I'm thinking my iPod will probably die later, that's the type of day I'm having.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 8:17 PM 3 comments  

Labels: Amazon, Font Corruption, Indexing, Kindle, Problems, Technology

I'm not buying that your over sized ipod touch is "magical and revolutionary." Sure you want us to all think we're friends as you sit down to read your new tablet... but it looked kind of unwieldy and awkward... not just the faux friend shtick. Personally I think you needed a Mies van der Rohe chair to set of the mise en scene... but that's just me. Many have waited with baited breath for the announcement of the Apple tablet... and after today I have to really question why. Waiting to make the decision of Kindle versus Sony Reader to see how Apple might clear the field and become victorious seems time badly spent. I don't think they'll be breaking any new ground, in fact they might just have helped the Kindle, with the iPad. It lacks originality, functionality and affordability. Some of the problems... size, price, having to have AT&T, the list goes on. I'm glad I have a Kindle and even if I had waited, I would make the choice again.

So how does it stack up against the Kindle? It's 1 1/2 times heavier than the Kindle. 1.56" taller and 2.17" wider, and 0.14" deeper making it much squarer. Anything bigger than the Kindle would be too large in my mind... and this is larger, plus doesn't maintain a book like aspect ratio which I expect from a reader, even if this is supposedly "so much more." Can we say shiny screen and retina fatigue? The liquid ink of the Kindle makes it easy and pleasurable to read... a few hours of this and your eyeballs might just melt out of their sockets.

In a downward economy will those who follow the cult of Jobs really be willing to shell out this much money for something so meh? People who truly want a reader will not go for it due to the cost and size, and those who just want another Apple gadget will be turned off by it just being a bigger and more expensive iPhone... they don't need another gadget. Plus with restrictions like AT&T, blurry imaging on the game apps, an inability to support flash in the web browser, make this look like a big misstep for Apple. But we'll just have to wait and see if people really are willing to shell out $500 to $800... that's a whole lot of Kindles and throw in a complete libraries of 1,500 books.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 3:26 AM 9 comments  

Labels: Apple, AT and T, iPad, iphone, Kindle, Mies van der Rohe, Sony Reader, Steve Jobs

So... the new year is upon us and I'm horrible at resolutions... maybe I'm not a resolute person? But there's one thing I'm always keen for... wellm actually two... reading and challenges. Always up for a challenge me! Hence I might have gone a little overboard on the whole reading challenges for the new year... But I figure, this way I'll read books that I've been planning to for a long time and get a little thrill out of the challenge. So aside from the Terry Pratchett 2010 Challenge, where I'm attempting to befriend DEATH, the Thriller and Suspense Challenge and the Georgette Heyer Perpetual Reading Challenge, I'm adding a further four challenges! Lets crack some spines! Or in one case... hit those buttons...

The Fantasy Reading Challenge
The Fantasy Reading Challenge can include YA Fantasy or Historical Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy or any other sub genre of Fantasy. There really are no limits to this challenge as Fantasy is such a wide and varied genre. Just enjoy and have fun! I'm not sure what I feel like for this one... but I do have so much fantasy strewn about the place it will be wasy!

Challenge Guidelines:
1. Anyone can join. You don't need a blog to participate.
--Non-Bloggers: Include your information in the comment section.

2. There are four levels:

-- Curious – Read 3 Fantasy Fiction novels.

-- Fascinated – Read 6 Fantasy Fiction novels.

-- Addicted – Read 12 Fantasy Fiction novels.

-- Obsessed – Read 20 Fantasy Fiction novels.

3. Any book format counts.

4. You can list your books in advance or just put them in a wrap up post. If you list them, feel free to change them as the mood takes you.

5. Challenge begins January 1st thru December, 2010. Only books started on January 1st count towards this challenge.

6. When you sign up under Mr. Linky, put the direct link to the post about the Fantasy Fiction Reading Challenge. Include the URL so that other participants can find join in and read your reviews and post.

E-Book Reading Challenge
This challenges was previously hosted by J. Kaye's Book Blog. When J. Kaye kindly offered to let Royal Reviews take over running this host they were very excited. I feel this is a great way to make sure that I take full advantage of my lovely Kindle I got for my birthday this past year... plus all those lovely ebooks I bought!

Challenge Guidelines:
1. Anyone can join. You don't need a blog to participate.
--Non-Bloggers: Include your information in the comment section.

2. There are four levels:

-- Curious – Read 3 E-Books.

-- Fascinated – Read 6 E-Books.

-- Addicted – Read 12 E-Books.

-- Obsessed – Read 20 E-Books.

3. Any genre counts.

4. You can list your books in advance or just put them in a wrap up post. If you list them, feel free to change them as the mood takes you.

5. Challenge begins January 1st thru December, 2010. Only books started on January 1st count towards this challenge.

6. When you sign up under Mr. Linky, put the direct link to the post about the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. Include the URL so that other participants can find join in and read your reviews and post.

The First in a Series Challenge
This challenge was previously hosted by J. Kaye's Book Blog. When J. Kaye kindly offered to let Royal Reviews take over running this host they jumped at the chance. I have so many series I've been wanting to start from Barsetshire to Mapp and Lucia, from 44 Scotland Street to The Monster Blood Tattoo, I really want to dive right into my series!

As so many of us love reading our series this one gives you the chance to include them in your challenges. As with all our other challenges there are various levels from the Curious to the Obsessed. If you start out at the Curious level and find yourself on the Addicted level then just change you post accordingly.

Challenge Guidelines:
1. Anyone can join. You don't need a blog to participate.
--Non-Bloggers: Include your information in the comment section.

2. There are four levels:

-- Curious– Read 3 novels that are first in a series.

-- Fascinated – Read 6 novels that are first in a series.

-- Addicted – Read 12 novels that are first in a series.

-- Obsessed – Read 20 novels that are first in a series.

3. Any genre counts.

4. You can list your books in advance or just put them in a wrap up post. If you list them, feel free to change them as the mood takes you.

5. Challenge begins January 1st thru December, 2010. Only books started on January 1st count towards this challenge.

6. When you sign up under Mr. Linky, put the direct link to the post about the 1st in a Series Challenge. Include the URL so that other participants can find join in and read your reviews and post.

Historical Reading Challenge
To kick off our challenge week for 2010 we are starting with a favourite at Royal Reviews. If you've been participating in our Historical Fiction Challenge for the past 2 years then you'll notice we've made some changes. Firstly the challenge will go for the full year as opposed to 3 months that it ran for previously. Then we have different levels for participants. If you're like me you'll dive straight into the Obsessed but then I am a bit of a HF fan!

I'm excited for this one... oh so much great historical fiction! Bring it on!!!

Challenge Guidelines:
1. Anyone can join. You don't need a blog to participate.
--Non-Bloggers: Include your information in the comment section.

2. There are four levels:

-- Curious – Read 3 Historical Fiction novels.

-- Fascinated – Read 6 Historical Fiction novels.

-- Addicted – Read 12 Historical Fiction novels.

-- Obsessed – Read 20 Historical Fiction novels.

3. Any book format counts.

4. You can list your books in advance or just put them in a wrap up post. If you list them, feel free to change them as the mood takes you.

5. Challenge begins January 1st thru December, 2010. Only books started on January 1st count towards this challenge.

6. When you sign up under Mr. Linky, put the direct link to the post about the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. Include the URL so that other participants can find join in and read your reviews and post.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 PM 0 comments  

Labels: Barsetshire, E-Book Challenge, Fantasy Reading Challenge, Georgette Heyer Perpetual Reading Challenge, Historical Reading Challenge, Kindle, Reading Challenge, The First in a Series Challenge

So, my blog is all about the embracing of new technologies and the melding of old and new. How else could you really categorize the internet plus the bookworld other than the two coming together in a wonderful new form. Which is also in essence what a Kindle is, the written word, but written by electronic ink. So in an effort to be more inclusive in my blogging I have decided to make my blog available to Kindle users! How cool is that? No really, cause I think it's amazingly awesomely cool and am very tempted to pay the small amount of money to read my own blog on my own Kindle... kind of insane non? Plus you can try my blog free for 14 days! So head on over to Amazon to see the awesomeness for yourself, and if you subscribe I get twelve cents! (Literally... that isn't a joke. Stop laughing! That's a hard earned dime and two pennies that is!) I'm hoping to crack that Kindle reading none overly tech savvy market of maybe five people! Also you might notice that big white box with a little bit of orange on the left hand side of my blog. It's for networked blogs... meaning you can follow me on facebook! But really, it's me being lazy, because instead of me having to go to all that effort of 20 seconds linking my blog to my status on facebook, it does it for me! So go, enjoy the internet... I'm not far away!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 3:13 AM 3 comments  

Labels: Amazon, Facebook, Kindle, Subscribe

Under the Dome by Stephen King
Published by: Scribner
Publication Date: November 10th, 2009
Format: Kindle, 1092 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

One fall day a dome mysteriously appears around the town of Chester's Mill, Maine. No one knows how or why. Over the preceding week tensions rise and the death toll mounts. Jim Rennie, the local second selectman with a Napoleon complex has spent his life constrained somewhat by the laws of the United States. It hasn't stopped him creating the biggest Meth empire in all of North America, but it has stopped him instituting martial law and making himself the town's benevolent dictator. The arrival of the dome is a dream come true. With his megalomania unconstrained, he orchestrates the events in Chester's Mill like a gifted composer. With Rennie working against the rest of the town trying and praying to be released, will the situation stay firmly under his control, or will his sins come to claim his so that he will be eating at the Lord's table by dinnertime?

Back in 2009 when this book came out I was super excited. I had just gotten a Kindle for my birthday back in August and I viewed this book as made for my Kindle. I mean, the book is over a thousand pages and could easily kill someone, even in paperback form. So a Kindle purchase it was. And there it sat. It's easier to neglect books on your Kindle then on your bookshelves because they aren't staring at you every day. It sat as a little electronic file in a little folder that says "Stephen King" that, as time went on, got pushed further and further back because of my Kindle's ludicrous need to keep files in order of when they were last opened verses the logical alphabet! Also, you know what, while I like that the Kindle has ease and access to out of print books, it just somehow has never drawn me in as much as a real book.

Flash forward to 2013 and summer's hottest new TV series, Under the Dome. Yep, before I even got to reading it it has become a TV series. I have always loved Stephen King TV series and special television events. They are tacky and over the top and above all fun in that guilty TV viewing way. So, seeing as I had a feeling I wouldn't pick up the book in the near future I started watching the show and got hooked. It's never going to be a favorite show or even one I will necessarily ever watch again, but, it is fun. When I heard it was picked up for a second season I realized that, what was fun and over the top, would leave me hanging and therefore invariably piss me off. I had read enough about the show and Stephen King's involvement to know that the show was going to drastically vary from the book, all with Stephen King's blessing, but knowing that it was to go beyond this summer I felt I needed some closure. I knew the book is a different ending so I figured, what the hell, I'll pick it up, finally, get some closure but not be spoiled at the same time. It was win win in my mind. And so I read the book, all thousand plus pages of it, and now I'm left with an odd sensation. The book didn't give me any closure and now I'm more pissed then ever that the show won't end this year.

The first thing I would like to say that this book taught me is that I would not survive under the dome. I don't keep enough food stockpiled. I have no weapons, no generator, no propane or batteries... I would be one of the first to die. But seeing as the death rate was insanely high in this book at least I would be one of the many not one of the few. Previous to this King book I had only read two of his other works, Misery and The Shining. Both these books have small, intimate casts with people isolated from society. The other end of the spectrum is books like Under the Dome and The Stand, which was a favorite miniseries of mine due to Corin "Parker Lewis" Nemec and Molly Ringwald, I mean seriously, the John Hughes girl all grown up and in a Stephen King miniseries, how could you not love this tack? Watching and reading are two different things though and the cast of Under the Dome was so large I just knew vaguely who they were, there were the "bad cops" and the "good cops," who can remember their names, I didn't, and then people in general categories based on where they usually where, like the "hospital people" and the "newspaper people." Also, when you have this many people, having a Ginny and a Gina both and the hospital, thank you Stephen King for giving me a headache. Add to that the fact that even the good guys were pretty unlikable, and well, who am I rooting for? Because personally, I think just having Junior Rennie and his posse (which is so Malfoy's posse from Slytherin) set loose on the town would have been funny and ended the book a lot earlier.

But let me get to the crux of my problem with the book, which wasn't the overtly hypocritical religiosity or the fact that I think the dome should have isolated them more like on the television show. I shall warn you that right now I'm going to give away the ending, because, let's face it, I was able to guess the ending five minutes in and it's not that shocking. Yes folks, it's aliens! Why? We don't know. This is a total cop out. At least explain something about it more then, "oh, they thought we were ants and it would be fun." Excuse me? They did it because they could? Well at least tell me more about the dome's properties? Like was the dome causing all these people to commit suicide? Because some of the animals were and, well, we are animals, so was that something the dome did or was it just based on people taking the easy way out? Explain! Also, you know, we've spent, a thousand pages with these people, maybe a few lines of how they handled life after they got out of the dome please? Now that you killed Benny did Joe and Norrie get together because she no longer had to choose? Anything Stephen, anything? Nope... ok. Guess I'll go sit in a fug over here. And by the way, having Jack Reacher show up was lame and a Lost reference, really? You should be better then this Stephen King.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Aliens, Chester's Mill, Corin Nemic, Jack Reacher, Jim Rennie, Kindle, Lost, Miniseries, Misery, Molly Ringwald, Slytherin, Stephen King, The Shining, The Stand, Under the Dome

Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar
Published by: Poppy
Publication Date: 2003
Format: Kindle Edition, 224 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

I picked this up first because I love the trashiness of the show, but second because it was only $2.99 on the Kindle and I wanted to read a book on it right away. My love of the Kindle has been confirmed with reading this book, my love of the book series, not so much. I really enjoy the tv show, which does surprise people, because it's a trashy teen show and I am more of the refined BBC broadcasting girl (yeah I know that phrase is repetitive, but it works). The naked facts are these, I grew up watching and loving Dallas, and Gossip Girl is, in essence, Dallas for teens, set on the Upper East Side. So, being a book girl, and one who really has to read the original book of an adaptation at one point or another, either before or after (sometimes simultaneously, like with Vanity Fair, but that got annoying, especially having to stop watching and then read a bit, and then having the miniseries spoil me on a major plot point), I really had no choice in checking out Cecily van Ziegesar's book. Honestly, I didn't.

For Banned Book Week, I thought I'd do a nice topical book review, ie one of the most contested of 2008. So my analysis...it was really boring. Why even bother banning this book? What they are able to make look smooth and polished on tv with all the glitz and glamor, and surprisingly really good casting, the show has Wallace Shawn after all, is really just vapid and shallow. Of course I'm not saying that I expected Shakespeare here, but the characters had no redeemable qualities at all. Nate smokes pot all the time, they all smoke like chimneys, and Jenny has really big boobs that get mentioned, a lot. Plus the whole book was only like one episode, which I think is a smart decision, as an hour of tv it works, as a 200 plus page book, not so much! The entire plot centers around Serena's return to New York from boarding school after being expelled, not for anything lascivious, but for showing up three weeks late, and then her subsequent exile from her old posse while they prepare for the "Kiss on the Lips" falcon benefit. Much bitching about Serena, Nate being stoned and unable to choose Blair or Serena and Dan loving Serena while Jenny tries to become part of the in crowd. Nothing very new or original or interesting. One plus, it was an extremely fast read.

In the end, I think I won't be picking up any more of this series to read. While it's fun to watch these characters and revel in their tawdry little world on tv I don't think I could stand living in their world for more than an hour a week. It's better to observe them from afar and not have to actually listen to what passes for "thoughts" in their little alcohol, pot and pill soaked brains.

Also what was the picture of Serena really? Couldn't we at least have had closure on that? Cause I'm not picking up another one of these just to find out.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:01 AM 5 comments  

Labels: Blair, Cecily von Ziegsar, Dallas, Dan Brown, Gossip Girl, Jenny, Kindle, Nate, Serena, Shakespeare, Wallace Shawn

To Kindle or not to Kindle, that is the question. It could be the end of proper publishing or the beginning of more wide spread dissemination of literature to those less likely to pick up a book and more likely to have an iphone. I will just have to see, I am new to the Kindle (I just got it for my birthday), but I gotta say, everything ever written by Wilkie Collins for $4.79!?! I'm over the freakin' moon!

My Pros:
Coolest packaging ever! The box is matte black but spirally out from the kindle logo, all done in glossy black, are letters and symbols. So freakin' cool.

Classic books that are out of print or hard to find available for next to nothing because they are in the public domain, ie Wilkie Collins, Baroness Orczy, the Brontes, Jane Austen, the list goes on and on.

Light, compact library in your hands, great for travel.

Books that are almost too heavy to hold, like Richardson's Clarissa, one of the longest novels in the English language, now fits in the palm of your hand for only $1.20.

The screen really does read like real paper. I thought that maybe they were exaggerating, but really, it's amazing.

I love that you can order right on the Kindle or on the Amazon website and it goes straight to the device.

Books that are more trashy or guilty pleasures, almost throw away novels, are easier to get and cheaper. I think the Kindle will lead to an increase in romance sales, being able to automatically download what you might be too embarrassed to get at a counter, obviously a plus.

All the shelf space I will save.

The books are generally cheaper than printed books.

When the Kindle goes to sleep after 10 minutes of inactivity you see awesome pictures of authors, so far I have seen Edgar Allen Poe twice, Thomas Moore twice, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Oscar Wilde, some really cool Roman lady, John Milton, Lewis Carroll, The Book of Kells, I think Dante, Emily Dickinson and finally Jane Austen. And yes, I have been letting it go to sleep to see the pictures, of course I also found by flicking the power switch you can see them too.

If I want to read a book before picking up a signed edition at the events I love to frequent, now I can buy the Kindle version and not have to spend so much money twice.

Cons:
I will probably still be buying printed books and now have double the income drain.

I love printed books, the feel and way they look on your shelf. You don't really get the feel or grandeur of a "library" with Kindle's library.

Being battery powered means that the battery could run out and a printed book never runs out of power.

The move to a paperless world. I would be heartbroken if someday, during my lifetime, that books ceased to be printed and became only available digitally. (Of course this could circumvent the horrible incidents with the Vashta Nerada as seen on Dr. Who...in other words, the only advantage to not having paper books exists in a fictional tv show, ie there is no advantage).

Lack of footnotes. The Kindle is notorious for omitting footnotes. With authors like Lisa Lutz, and in particular Terry Pratchett this is horrific! Some of their best material is in the footnotes.

Not having a hardcopy of a book. Having it only exist in digital format makes me worry about what will happen in the future, when this technology is outmoded, which it will be, what will happen to my "books"?

Slow connection to get the books depending on where you are.

To Sum Up:
I am thrilled with it so far. At first it took a little time getting used to the controls, but they aren't overly complicated at all. I also accidentally voided the first purchase I made and then it took me a few hours to get it back. But I have gotten a wicked lot of classic for almost nothing and I look forward to reading them all. So, I'll have to get back to you all on final thoughts once I play with it and read on it some more, but I would love to hear what you think about this newest form of technology that is sweeping the globe.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 2:53 PM 0 comments  

Labels: Amazon, Baroness Orczy, Bronte, Clarissa, Dr. Who, Emily Dickinson, iphone, Jane Austen, Kindle, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Richardson, Wilkie Collins