strange and random happenstance

I was on the bandwagon for the All Souls Trilogy since the beginning. I am not fanatically devoted to the series as some of my friends are, I do not spend my spare time rereading the books over and over again, but I can honestly say I'm a fan. Though when Matthew Goode was cast as Matthew I was like nope. I don't know why, my mind just revolted, and I am a fan of his! But I was so darn curious about the series... so I waited until they all aired and got a one week free trial to Shudder and binged the whole first season. It only took me five minutes to see I was completely wrong about Matthew Goode's casting. He is Matthew, and not just because they have the same first name. I can never picture anyone else now. So good on you Goode for convincing me! Therefore a show that was originally a "show I'd one day see" became eagerly awaited viewing... and oh, the wait for season two seemed so long, but it was worth it. Season two is based on the second book in the series, Shadow of Night, which is hands down my favorite in the series because Elizabethan England! Also, wonderful cameos from historical figures like Kit Marlowe, but did I mention Elizabethan England? But what brought this season into a whole other stratosphere was the genius casting of James Purefoy as Philippe, Matthew's "father." Here's to Goode again who lobbied and cajoled to get Purefoy cast. Now Purefoy is a favorite of mine and I will literally watch anything he is in, but his acting in this was sheer perfection. His final episode where Matthew and Diana are married and mated elevated the whole show to a new level. There are just some actors that bring out the best performances in everyone and this is what happened. They all knew the importance of this episode and though it is a bottle episode with only really three characters, it's just perfect. Even my brother and father were talking about how this episode and James Purefoy's acting raised the show from cheesy fun to Emmy worthy genre television. I'm sad that this is likely the last we'll see of Purefoy as Philippe, but he's left his mark on this series that won't be forgotten as I settle in for the long wait for the final season to drop.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Discovery of Witches, All Souls Trilogy, And the Emmy Goes To, Binge, Bottle Episode, Elizabeth England, Emmy, James Purefoy, Marlowe, Matthew Goode, Philippe De Clermont, Shadow of Night, Shudder

Bryant and May and the Burning Man by Christopher Fowler
Published by: Bantam
Publication Date: December 15th, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"No case is too curious for Arthur Bryant and John May, London’s most ingenious detectives. But with their beloved city engulfed in turmoil, they’ll have to work fast to hold a sinister killer’s feet to the fire.

In the week before Guy Fawkes Night, London’s peaceful streets break out in sudden unrest. Enraged by a scandal involving a corrupt financier accused of insider trading, demonstrators are rioting outside the Findersbury Private Bank, chanting, marching, and growing violent. But when someone hurls a Molotov cocktail at the bank’s front door, killing a homeless man on its steps, Bryant, May, and the rest of the Peculiar Crimes Unit is called in. Is this an act of protest gone terribly wrong? Or a devious, premeditated murder?

Their investigation heats up when a second victim is reported dead in similar fiery circumstances. May discovers the latest victim has ties to the troubled bank, and Bryant refuses to believe this is mere coincidence. As the riots grow more intense and the body count climbs, Bryant and May hunt for a killer who’s adopting incendiary methods of execution, on a snaking trail of clues with roots in London’s history of rebellion, anarchy, and harsh justice. Now, they’ll have to throw themselves in the line of fire before the entire investigation goes up in smoke.

Suspenseful, smart, and wickedly funny, Bryant and May and the Burning Man is a brilliantly crafted mystery from the beloved Christopher Fowler."

Yeah new Bryant and May! Even if I have some issues with that cover...

License to Quill by Jacopo Della Quercia
Published by: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: December 15th, 2015
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"License to Quill is a page-turning James Bond-esque spy thriller starring William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe during history's real life Gunpowder Plot. The story follows the fascinating golden age of English espionage, the tumultuous cold war gripping post-Reformation Europe, the cloak-and-dagger politics of Shakespeare's England, and lastly, the mysterious origins of the Bard's most haunting play: Macbeth. You won't want to miss this fast-paced historical retelling!"

Seriously, that title cracks me up to no end! Also, yet another book out today with Guy Fawkes!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bryant and May, Bryant and May and the Burning Man, Christopher Fowler, Guy Fawkes, Jacopo Della Quercia, License to Quill, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Tuesday Tomorrow

Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness
Published by: Viking
ARC Provided by Viking
Publication Date: July 10th, 2012
Format: Kindle, 592 Pages
Rating: ★★★

To Buy

Diana and Matthew did it! They have successfully arrived in 1590 at Matthew's house in Woodstock. Diana thought that getting there would be the hard part, but that was easy compared to being thrown directly into the middle of the School of Night. The smartest and savviest and most renowned and infamous men of the age seem to view Matthew's house as their home... and they do not care for Diana, at first, or forever as the case may be with the lovestruck Marlowe. Soon it becomes apparent that maybe this wasn't the best idea. Matthew has drastically changed from the man he was then, not to mention the lack of a beard. And Diana... well, she obviously doesn't fit. From language to comportment to behaviour. She. Doesn't. Fit. Though as scary as being found out is, the summons from Matthew's father is even scarier. He could bring this world down around them in a flash.

Travelling to Sept Tours and living amongst Matthew's past is trying for Diana, as is the fact they have done nothing that they planned to do. She is still ignorant of her abilities and Ashmole 782 looks as if it is never to be found in the past. Matthew and Diana are buffeted around by all the people who have a claim on them, from Philippe to Queen Elizabeth to Emperor Rudolf II to the Congregation, from France to London to Prague, they try to fit there lives and their needs among the demands of these great people. As time goes on, there is more and more of a chance of effecting the past and there is more and more of a need for Diana to learn her craft and find her book and get home. Luckily, fate does seem to occasionally shine on them and sometimes their tragedies turn into greater joys.

Shadow of Night literally picks up right where A Discovery of Witches ended. While I enjoyed the first book, though didn't view it as a staggering piece of genius, but more as Twilight for the more educated adults out there, I found myself liking this book more. There were still times when I felt it was too Twilighty, what with the importance of Matthew's family, his desire for a wedding before coupling, the desire for Diana mixed in with feelings of blood lust, but at least it's obvious that Harkness knows this and she does parody it with a conversation about modern literature at Sept Tours. There where a few other mild annoyances I will mention here because they seem to fit this "Twilight" category versus any other. If Diana and Matthew had only been together for 40 days, how could her period be "off" when it barely had time to be on? Supposedly her torture changed her cycle... but only having your period different once doesn't indicate a trend of irregularity. Continuing in the vein of bodily functions, some of there sex scenes where veering towards the eww versus the aww.  "With my spine bowed, he was poised at the entrance to my womb." Icky, no thanks!

Now, let's discuss what really annoyed me, Diana's ignorance. For someone who is supposed to be a historian written by a historian, I might add, Diana is really dumb sometimes. Diana mistook a silver shaker, aka a Pounce Pot, for a salt shaker. Even if you don't know the technical term, anyone who has watched any period drama knows that there is a silver shaker that is on all writing desks that contains sand, or a similar substance, and it is an aid for absorbing excess ink in letter writing. Not one person I know would go, "oh look, salt" and then complain about it's grittiness. Grrr Diana. Also, how does a historian not know that at the time of Queen Elizabeth St. Paul's wasn't the St. Paul's by Christopher Wren, seeing as that wasn't for almost two hundred years and a great fire needed to happen. Then there's the use of the word tisane, which is an herbal tea. I can allow that Diana would use it, because she's from modern times, but the fact that others would understand it is impossible. It's from the 1930s! Then there's the quintain. I've known what a quintain was most of my life, probably because I have a younger brother who loved medieval jousting. Again, Diane must have seen a movie or a reference to the sandbags on pivots used to train in jousting. Even if she didn't know the name, she should at least know it's NOT a gibbit. The real shocker of ignorance though was when she asked a kindly Jewish man why he had a golden ring embroidered on his clothing. Facepalm Diana, facepalm. Even the Nazis used a similar method for the demarcation of being Jewish. Girl, you need to catch up on some history.

The School of Night was also another note of contention for me. Mainly because we are thrown, with Diana, head first into this group of intellectual men and have to spend the entire first part of the book listening to them bickering and sharing barbs and witticisms while desperately trying to remember who's who. These people are nothing to me. They are historical figures that are there to add to the mystique of Matthew's past, but instead just pissed me off. I liked Kit being a bitchy little boy, but other than that, I could take them or leave them. Which is much how I felt for many of the historical sections of the book... oh, who am I kidding, almost all of the historical sections. When I had an investment with Diana or Matthew or another character, than the history mattered and fascinated me. The characters she created of the young witch Annie and the street urchin Jack where lovely and broke my heart. When they where in Prague I couldn't put this book down. Yet previously I felt that we where being led on a tour of Elizabethan England. I was reading a travel guide for the time, not historical fiction. I quite literally cheered when Diana said it was "time to stop treating our sojourn here as an advanced seminar in Shakespeare's England." Because that was what the book was! Hundreds of pages of exposition, when they came to search for the Ashmole 782 and get Diana learned in the dark arts. I didn't need them playing Elizabethan house for the whole first half of the book!

Though the negatives, which I can pinpoint, while occasionally taking me out of the book (tisane, grummble grummble), didn't take away from the fact that this is a fun book. Once everything started to come together that is. When the magic started to be incorporated and we didn't dwell on the barbs and witticisms of the men, I felt the book finally became what Diana had set out to find. The way that spells are different than magic, at least for witches other than Diana. The familiars that would reside in you. Also, the way other religions magic was touched on, like the Jewish witch's Golem. A total aside, but golems are awesome, ever since I read Terry Pratchett's Feet of Clay I have been a friend of the Golems! Though not Tolkien's Golem, just so we're clear, my preciouses. This was when the book became what I was hoping it would be. We went beyond the typical challenges of a girl and a vampire love story and Harkness brought something new and interesting. Of course, seeing as this is the second book in a trilogy, we where left hanging to some extent, but at least I was satisfied enough till the next book.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Discovery of Witches, Ashmole 782, Deborah Harkness, Emperor Rudolf II, Golem, History, Marlowe, Prague, Queen Elizabeth, School of Night, Sept Tours, Shadow of Night, Terry Pratchett, Twilight

The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova
Published by: Little, Brown and Company
ARC Provided by Litte, Brown and Company
Publication Date: January 12, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 576 Pages
Rating: ★
To Order

The official patter:
"Psychiatrist Andrew Marlowe, devoted to his profession and the painting hobby he loves, has a solitary but ordered life. When renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes his patient, Marlow finds that order destroyed. Desperate to understand the secret that torments the genius, he embarks on a journey that leads him into the lives of the women closest to Oliver and a tragedy at the heart of French Impressionism.

Kostova's masterful new novel travels from American cities to the coast of Normandy, from the late 19th century to the late 20th, from young love to last love. THE SWAN THIEVES is a story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve human hope."

When the psychiatrist Andrew Marlowe admits the famous painter Robert Oliver to his care at Goldengrove, he doesn't expect that one patient to change everything about his own life, even his ethics and morals. Robert was arrested while trying to attack a painting by Gilbert Thomas based on the myth of Leda in the National Portrait Gallery. Unable to break Robert's imposed vow of silence, he must try to find the impetus for Robert's breakdown and why he felt he had to destroy that painting by conversing with those willing to talk, primarily Robert's ex-wife, Kate, and the mysterious Mary. But more importantly, Marlowe needs to find out the identity of the striking woman Robert draws over and over again...is she the woman who wrote the letters that Robert covets and rereads ad infinitum? Is the woman his wife or perhaps Mary? The deeper in he gets the more Marlowe wonders if he is really doing this for his patient or for himself and he begins to unravel a mystery that has haunted many lives for over a century. The narrative temporally flows between Marlow's search, Robert's past and 19th century Paris. All leading to one revelation...the secret that haunts Robert Olliver.

I have long been hoping for a new Elizabeth Kostova book. I adored The Historian and could not wait to see what story she set pen to next. After reading The Swan Thieves my desire for a new book was sated...but not in a good way. I must honestly say that I am surprised I made it through this book, twenty pages in I really thought it was bad but was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. With one hundred pages left I almost gave up because I really hated the book. I finished... there was no great revelation, no fixing of all that I hated, but I was one with my dislike. I had simmered from total hatred to strong dislike. But truly I cannot in good conscious recommend this book to anyone, unless you like badly written prose with stupidly florid dialogue, simplistic plotting disguised and drawn out as a mystery with unlikable and unrealistic characters. There is so much wrong with it, but let me just illuminate a few of the key problems I had so that I don't sound like some bitter harpy just venting against a book that obviously took a long time to write.

The characters. The main character, Robert Olliver, seems rather intriguing, but we never actually hear him speak for himself, we only hear about him through those he surrounded himself with. So he's the focal point but almost a non character because he is never a narrator, and these narrators... oh, they got on my nerves. Andrew Marlowe is a self centered self impressed psychiatrist with delusions of being an artist himself. He thinks he's so wonderful that the young women around him must feel his longing gazes and return them in kind. He has dubious skills as a psychiatrist, how could someone be a doctor, an "educated man," and not figure out what was going on in the first five minutes. Plus he breaks all manners of ethical codes in the end. I personally like to call this the Robert Langdon effect. Know it all older men who really couldn't find a door right in front of their noses who all the women want and all the men want to be. Then there's Kate, Robert's ex, who is so weak and is just there for exposition of Robert's past and for Marlowe to fantasize about. Mary though is the worst of the modern narrators. I kept going reading the book because I noticed Marlowe narrated less so the book might get better. Wrong! Mary is a nubile young student who lusts after her own teacher. But really how can she spare time for others when she loves herself so much... Eventually she ensnares Robert just as she later ensnares Marlowe who seems to have no ethical qualms about getting involved in his patients recent ex. The two people in fin-de-siecle France are just as bad, with the young Beatrice lusting after her husband's uncle who is a far older man.

You might have caught one of my problems. All the women are lusting after older men. Some men are twenty years their senior, some more. What is with that? It's like some male fantasy that all young women want them and their "experience." I understand if it's driven by plot or character development, but here it just seemed a given that in this world the author has created all young women want older men. I would say that the author was a middle aged man if I didn't know better.

Onto other character flaws. The artists. I have been around artists my entire life. My parents ran a publishing company which published books as well as fine art prints. My mother was an artist. I am an artist. I went to school for a Bachelor's Degree in art. I am currently back in school getting a degree in Graphic Design. There is one thing I can say with 100% certainty. ARTISTS DON'T BEHAVE LIKE THIS! Yes they can be self impressed, self centered and messed up. But all different in their own quirky way. I think Kostova captured what an artist embodies most with Robert in the miasma of his presence...but all the other artists. I'm sorry but they don't spend every second of every day thinking about how they would capture the light, what brush they would use, what exact tube of paint...on and on about this minutiae that, yes, artists do think about, but not only that. The bizarre hyper real artists that she has created live in a little art bubble where there's only art. That's not how life works. If she was trying to show that little has changed over time, how things repeat themselves and how art has basically not changed, she has failed and also annoyed me in the process. Some people have said that this book inspired them to paint and go out and be an artist. If they think that this is what it's like being an artist they are deluded.

But all that is secondary to the predictable plot and the bad writing. This book was in desperate need of culling. A couple hundred pages could have been trimmed. All the time wasted setting up reflections and echos of the past in the present just seemed bogged down with all the unnecessary ephemera thrown in. I was able to figure out "the twist" fairly quickly. There was no big surprise. I think this also has to do with how conventions have changed over time. When you read Bleak House by Charles Dickens, or even Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon the Victorian morals make the secrets not that big a deal to us living in the 21st Century. There was so many ways she could have pushed it or tied it together. I kept thinking about how Robert's obsession with the painting could be pushed in a Hitchcockian direction a la Vertigo and Madeline's obsession with the painting at the Palace of the Legion of Honor. But no... just more young women and old men. There was one line that was so bad I laughed out loud because a trashy romance novel would not have even published it. (I would quote it here but reviewers are requested to not quote from the reader copies...one can hope it will be out by then, but I doubt it). But overall what got to me was her sentence structure is often fragmented and contradictory. Like she's stringing together adjectives, often with words that are polar opposites. Oh, and on a final note...continuity errors! If someone is born in 1947 they couldn't be a small child going to the Rockefeller Christmas show that same year! This isn't The Time Traveller's Wife!

This book was a major disappointment and I really wonder how it will do. Maybe the people who liked The Da Vinci Code can pick this up. Simplistic mystery, not well written, with an aging hero who thinks he's hot shit... yeah, it might yet be a best seller, but those who loved The Historian are warned to stay away.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 6 comments  

Labels: ARCs, Beatrice, Bleak House, Book Review, Elizabeth Kostova, Gilbert Thomas, Kate, Lady Audley's Secret, Leda, Marlowe, Mary, Robert Langdon Effect, Robert Oliver, The Historian, The Swan Theives