strange and random happenstance

The dream of any book fanatic is that your favorite author will come to town. That for once you won't have to travel to some far flung location just to catch a glimpse of them. The fact that Madison has a rather large fall book festival now has helped to increase the odds of someone I love paying a visit, but it's still hit or miss. For every Natasha Pulley, Alexander McCall Smith, and Charlaine Harris, there are easily thirty authors I don't care to see speak. In fact this past fall I didn't go to a single event at the Wisconsin Book Festival, which might be a first! Thankfully I have Mystery to Me and they get quite a fair few authors coming through their doors and I am always checking their website and their newsletters to see who will be in town. Imagine my shock when I saw that Tasha Alexander would be coming! Not only is Mystery to Me local, but it is literally the closest bookstore to my house. I do not exaggerate, as I told Tasha, it is a five minute walk at most. Don't believe me? I just checked on Google Maps and it's only 0.3 miles from door to door! I couldn't have asked for a closer venue unless Tasha had been in my living room!

The event was going to be on Friday, November 6th, 2015, but the book Tasha was touring for, The Adventuress, was coming out on Tuesday, October 13th. Because I am a staunch supporter of local bookstores my rule of thumb for signings is that you must buy the book to the event you are going to at the store hosting the event. There is no excuse not to. You need to support the author and you need to support the store. If you do both the author gets to keep writing more books and might stop by the store again which you helped to keep open. Win win people! Anyway, that meant there were twenty-five days between publication and signing and I just couldn't wait that long to get my hands on Tasha's new book, though I had already got an ARC from her publishers through NetGalley I really have a thing about owning the physical book. So on October 13th I walked out my front door and took the grueling 0.3 mile walk to Mystery to Me, searched through all their copies of The Adventuress and picked the perfect one. Paid for it, put the receipt inside for the singing in November and headed home.

November 6th finally came around and my friend Marie and I were ready to have an adventure. At this point there were only two Tasha books I didn't have signed, so I placed my copy of The Counterfeit Heiress next to my copy of The Adventuress in my Mystery to Me bag from October and headed out the door to meet Marie at a restaurant three doors down from the bookstore for some hearty Irish fare. They had surprisingly changed their menu, a move not for the better which I am still bemoaning three years later, so I didn't quite enjoy dinner as much as I could. Though I could never fault the company! If I had only chosen the restaurant seven doors down in the opposite direction I would have seen Tasha earlier than the event, but such is life! After dinner Marie and I settled into the bookstore. I am of the opinion that it is best to arrive extremely early because you get the best seats and you're in a bookstore, so you'll have tons of fun looking at books until the event starts. Our seats staked out I oddly ran into an old schoolmate Jon, who I hadn't seen in person in many years, though we do chat online, and it was nice getting to talk books with him, he's a fan of cozies themed after tropical drinks and locations. I sadly was unable to get him to stay for the event which was getting ready to start.  

Because it was a cold, dark night there wasn't much of a turnout for Tasha's event, but I really don't think that mattered once she saw exactly who was in the audience, and I'm not talking about me and Marie, her devoted fans, I'm talking about a fellow author. Margaret George was in the audience. Margaret George is one of the preeminent writers of historical fiction. The only time I remember meeting her was years previously when her book Elizabeth I: A Novel came out and there was a signing at my local Barnes and Noble. Though my family as a whole has known her for years. This wasn't just because my parents were in the same circles as her, going to many of the same events, though this is true, the main reason is that we shared the same crew of construction workers. So if they weren't at our house they were at hers and vice versa resulting in many phone calls back and forth. So while I was there fangirling over Tasha, Tasha was fangirling over Margaret. To have an author you love show up for your event? I can't think of anything cooler. Plus after Tasha's presentation and Q and A she got to talk to Margaret for a bit and divulged to me she even got her email address. I was so happy for Tasha to get to have such a great and memorable experience in my hometown!

As for the talk itself? Wonderful! The fact that there were less people and it was a cold and dark night gave it this wonderful intimate feel, like we were all comrades drawn round a fire to listen to Tasha's tales. She went into greater detail about an unforgettable experience she mentions in the Author's Note at the end of The Adventuress about seeing a very fashionable lady of a certain age with an Hermes bag that contained a very well cared for live chicken. The two appeared to be window shopping along La Croisette and equally engrossed in the task. She asked her husband Andrew to back her up, and he added details to the tail about just how fascinating this was while also how obviously mundane it was for the lady and the chicken. This must be a regular occurrence for them! I love to live in a world where things like this seem like the stuff of stories but are 100% real. As any author will tell you it's the things that seem the most unbelievable that are based in fact. Tasha also talked a bit about the devotion of her fans. At a recent event she talked a bit about the next book, A Terrible Beauty, and the possible return of Emily's first husband, Philip, and a woman in the audience gasped and exclaimed "but that would make the twins illegitimate!" Tasha assured the lady that they were just characters. As for A Terrible Beauty? Come back next Friday!   

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Terrible Beauty, Alexander Autumn, Andrew Grant, ARCs, Book Signing, Chickens, Elizabeth I, Madison, Margaret George, Mystery to Me, Netgalley, Tasha Alexander, The Adventuress, The Counterfeit Heiress

The Counterfeit Heiress by Tasha Alexander
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: October 14th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

At a masquerade ball there are bound to be people dressed in similar costumes. A plethora of Cleopatras and Queen Elizabeths and Valkyries are to be expected. But Emily didn't expect another goddess of the hunt at the masked ball at Devonshire House. Let alone one who would cause a scene. Estella Lamar has supposedly stopped her gallivanting around the globe and eschewing the company of her peers by deigning to come to the Devonshire's ball in honor of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. But there's only one problem, beyond the fact she is dressed like Emily, she is not Estella Lamar! Emily's dear friend Cecile in full Marie Antoinette regalia, boat firmly in coiffure, is perhaps the only person Estella is in contact with, aside from the newspapers, as she journeys to the far flung corners of the globe, and Cecile quite clearly says that this Estella is an imposter! The ersatz Estella flees only to be found dead hours later on the banks of the Thames. The Duke of Devonshire contacts Emily's husband Colin to request that he investigates and to make sure this doesn't connect back to the ball. Soon Colin and Emily are on the case and are shocked to find that the victim is a rather respectable midwife, Mary Darby, who had aspirations of being an actress. So how did she end up at the event of the season impersonating a known recluse?

The more they look into Mary's murder the more they realize that Mary isn't the key, Estella is. Estella left France years previously after the death of her parents to see the pyramids and never looked back. Since then she has never returned to any of her three homes despite them all being kept in constant readiness of her arrival. In fact none of her employees have seen her since she left for Egypt! Yet her picture is always in the newspapers at some famous location. Or is it? Her face is never visible so it could be anyone so long as they have the right measurements... Emily begins to worry that her friend Cecile will be in for some heartbreaking news the further they follow the leads. Leads that take them across the channel to Paris where they make Cecile's house the center of their operations. They interrogate lawyers, dressmakers, printers, photographers, journalists, florists, and servants aplenty. But the only true clue they have is that they are chasing someone with a fondness for Dickens. Leaving names like Magwitch from Great Expectations and Swiveller from The Old Curiosity Shop in their wake as a type of calling card. Could this person be the auburn haired man with the magnificent mustache trailing Emily? Who knows. As time goes on it's harder to remember that they are there to find Mary's killer and not solve the mystery of Estella... But who says they can't solve both?

The more you read about wealthy families and their proclivities the more you realize it's a very thin line between eccentricity and illness which is blurred all the more depending on how much money is involved. Estella is a recluse with money, therefore her dislike of society and her habits that might seem rude to others Cecile is able to lump under the umbrella of eccentricity no matter what Emily thinks. So what if Estella left dinner before dessert? Who are we to judge if she hates people dropping in unannounced? If her best friends are dolls whom she tells stories to for hours on end should we really judge? Does it matter that much that all her houses are kept in readiness if she never plans on visiting them so long as the servants are paid? What would raise eyebrows among those of more modest means are easily forgiven by Estella's peers. Instead of seeing these habits as spiraling to some sad fate she is left to her own whims because of her monetary protection. There is almost an elegance to the madness of those with means and I can't help thinking of my Great-Grandmother Mildred Martin. Her husband was a prominent politician, lawyer, and judge in Wisconsin, while she left the raising of my grandmother to other family members and spent about forty years in her room, which she never left. Yet this was just viewed as how it was. One wonders in Mildred's case, much like Estella's, if things could have been different...

Yet Cecile shows us that Paris is far more forgiving of eccentricities than other cities. They thrive on their Bohemian artists and outsiders. Paris is a place unlike anywhere else and while Emily did spend some time in Paris during her first adventure, And Only to Deceive, the city didn't feel as real as it does in this volume. While it could be Tasha's abilities as a writer maturing over eight installments, which they have, I also have to give credit to the two locations that made this volume, the Père Lachaise Cemetery and the Catacombs of Paris. While this could be considered by some as macabre bordering on making Paris the "City of the Dead" as it where I think it's more fascinating then ghoulish, like Parisians's obsession with Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol. But then again I am a girl who loves her true crime... What resonated with me was how these actual cities of the dead connect Paris to it's past and how one is there to honor the dead, so long as you're willing to keep your end of the bargain and pay for the upkeep, while the other is there to make a titillating show of death. To concentrate on the more sensational side of death with the Catacombs, I'd never known how they were used basically as a body dump for those ousted from places like Père Lachaise and that they were actually designed to be something out of a Guillermo del Toro daydream. The more you know!

Paris is also interesting in that while it is a city that celebrates it's history it is also willing to tear it down for the good of advancement. This fascinating dichotomy can be seen in this book by the discussion of two different art forms that I love. At the Devonshire ball there is a famous photographer, Mr. Lafayette, recording all the costumes for posterity. I just adore that this modern technology was used to capture this moment in history. Following Emily into his studio reminded me of how much I am fascinated by the history of photography, from the Civil War through to the Cottingley Fairies to even our modern obsession with selfies. Photography was and is an art form that was just at the cusp of it's heyday when Queen Victoria was celebrating her diamond jubilee. Whereas this is countered with printers in France. And don't you dare say typography isn't an art, because it so is! The current resurgence in letterpress is a sign that this form of artistic expression, while some might view it as outdated, is really classical and important to the history of not just books, but graphic design. I couldn't help being fascinated by an argument that French printers kept coming back to in Emily's investigation. Everyone has heard the current argument of one or two spaces behind a period, and at this time it was two for English typesetting, but in France it was a space on either side of the punctuation, making my graphic designer friends scream about floating punctuation. But just this little insight made the book that much more real and tangible to me.

Though it's actually the references to another author, not all the technology, art, or intricately arranged femurs and skulls with a slight wink to Indiana Jones, that really made this feel like a book written just for me. I'm talking about the Dickens of it all! I love that our villain uses Dickens in a way that isn't just a smokescreen for their real identity, but as a way to clue Emily, or any other Dickens aficionado, to their real motives. By using the name of Magwitch from Great Expectations, our villain is trying to make a statement while assuaging their own guilt, that while they might be a villain, like Magwitch, the proceeds of the villainy is going to serve the greater good. In the Dickens book that would be to fund Pip's lifestyle and education, but here, here by finding out what Magwitch is doing with their ill gotten gains proves the answer to the riddle of Estella. This integration of one author's work into another's is meta goodness. Think of it as a more historically accurate version of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books. I personally think this is just bloody brilliant, and now have started thinking if you could actually do it with other authors in a similar way. They would have to be popular in order to not be obscure... but then again, our villain might have just been doing it for his own fun. And mine. Because seriously, it entertained me to no end.

But in extrapolating the idea of using a popular author to entertain the masses or just using an author to entertain oneself Tasha does have a reference that most likely her loyal readers will get but those unfamiliar with authors whom Tasha loves to read and recommend, well it would have gone over their head. I'm talking about the Elizabeth Peters Easter Egg cleverly buried in The Counterfeit Heiress. Elizabeth Peters is the pen name of Barbara Mertz under which she wrote her wonderful Amelia Peabody series. The series, recommended to me by both Lauren Willig AND Tasha, is a wonderful twenty volumes of Egyptological romps starring Amelia Peabody and her husband Emerson and their friends and family as they catch master criminals and excavate priceless artifacts. If you haven't checked out this series, please do, you will not be disappointed. The third book in the series, The Mummy Case, has the hilariously named Baroness von Hohensteinbauergrunewald. The Baroness happens to have a cameo in passing in our story. Cecile and Emily go to Le Meurice, a hotel that Emily loves, and where they hope to find Estella, instead they find out the Baroness has just checked out, a fact that they both lament. Who wouldn't want to meet a lady with that name or that reputation? Ah, this just makes me want to read The Mummy Case all over again... there are just too many books to read let alone re-read!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alexander Autumn, And Only to Deceive, Charles Dickens, Devonshire, Elizabeth Peters, Great Expectations, Jasper Fforde, Letterpress, Masquerade, Paris, Photography, Tasha Alexander, The Counterfeit Heiress

The Counterfeit Heiress by Tasha Alexander
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: October 14th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"After an odd encounter at a grand masquerade ball, Lady Emily becomes embroiled in the murder investigation of one of the guests, a sometime actress trying to pass herself off as the mysterious heiress and world traveler Estella Lamar. Each small discovery, however, leads to more questions. Was the intended victim Miss Lamar or the imposter? And who would want either of them dead?

As Emily and Colin try to make sense of all this, a larger puzzle begins to emerge: No one has actually seen Estella Lamar in years, since her only contact has been through letters and the occasional blurry news photograph. Is she even alive? Emily and Colin’s investigation of this double mystery takes them from London to Paris, where, along with their friend Cécile, they must scour the darkest corners of the city in search of the truth."

A new Lady Emily mystery! Who isn't jumping up and down in their seats I ask you?

The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters
Published by: Amulet Books
Publication Date: October 14th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Olivia Mead is a headstrong, independent girl—a suffragist—in an age that prefers its girls to be docile. It’s 1900 in Oregon, and Olivia’s father, concerned that she’s headed for trouble, convinces a stage mesmerist to try to hypnotize the rebellion out of her. But the hypnotist, an intriguing young man named Henri Reverie, gives her a terrible gift instead: she’s able to see people’s true natures, manifesting as visions of darkness and goodness, while also unable to speak her true thoughts out loud. These supernatural challenges only make Olivia more determined to speak her mind, and so she’s drawn into a dangerous relationship with the hypnotist and his mysterious motives, all while secretly fighting for the rights of women. Winters breathes new life into history once again with an atmospheric, vividly real story, including archival photos and art from the period throughout."

Having some cover design issues, other then that, I'm really looking forward to this.

The Princess in Black by Shannon and Dean Hale
Published by: Candlewick
Publication Date: October 14th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 96 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Who says princesses don’t wear black? When trouble raises its blue monster head, Princess Magnolia ditches her flouncy dresses and becomes the Princess in Black!

Princess Magnolia is having hot chocolate and scones with Duchess Wigtower when . . . Brring! Brring! The monster alarm! A big blue monster is threatening the goats! Stopping monsters is no job for dainty Princess Magnolia. But luckily Princess Magnolia has a secret —she’s also the Princess in Black, and stopping monsters is the perfect job for her! Can the princess sneak away, transform into her alter ego, and defeat the monster before the nosy duchess discovers her secret? From award-winning writing team of Shannon and Dean Hale and illustrator LeUyen Pham, here is the first in a humorous and action-packed chapter book series for young readers who like their princesses not only prim and perfect, but also dressed in black."

New Shannon Hale, can't wait. New Shannon Hale written with her husband? Even more excited! I hope I have time to go to one of their book events!

Emma and the Blue Genie by Cornelia Funke
Published by: Random House Books for Young Readerss
Publication Date: October 14th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 96 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The beloved and bestselling author of Inkheart brings her signature imagination, adventure, and humor to a magical full-color chapter book for young readers!

One night, Emma finds a mysterious green bottle floating in the ocean. When she pulls out the stopper, she sets a blue genie free! Most genies grant three wishes, but Karim can’t grant even one anymore. A yellow genie stole his magic nose ring, leaving him small, powerless, and trapped in that bottle. Emma and her noodle-tailed dog have to help Karim get his nose ring—and his magic—back!"

Totally love Cornelia Funke ever since the Inkworld books!

Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography by Neil Patrick Harris
Published by: Crown Archetype
Publication Date: October 14th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Tired of memoirs that only tell you what really happened? Sick of deeply personal accounts written in the first person? Seeking an exciting, interactive read that puts the “u” back in “aUtobiography”? Then look no further than Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography! In this revolutionary, Joycean experiment in light celebrity narrative, actor/personality/carbon-based-life-form Neil Patrick Harris lets you, the reader, live his life. You will be born to New Mexico. You will get your big break at an acting camp. You will get into a bizarre confrontation outside a nightclub with actor Scott Caan. Even better, at each critical juncture of your life you will choose how to proceed. You will decide whether to try out for Doogie Howser, M.D. You will decide whether to spend years struggling with your sexuality. You will decide what kind of caviar you want to eat on board Elton John’s yacht.

Choose correctly and you’ll find fame, fortune, and true love. Choose incorrectly and you’ll find misery, heartbreak, and a hideous death by piranhas. All this, plus magic tricks, cocktail recipes, embarrassing pictures from your time as a child actor, and even a closing song. Yes, if you buy one book this year, congratulations on being above the American average, and make that book Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography!"

OK, so I would be getting this just for Neil Patrick Harris, even if it wasn't for the awesomeness of the idea. Yes, the idea and the cover take it to a whole new level, I think it might just be LEGENDARY!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Cat Winters, Choose Your Own Adventure, Cornelia Funke, Dean Hale, Lady Emily, Neil Patrick Harris, Shannon Hale, Tasha Alexander, The Counterfeit Heiress, The Cure for Dreaming, The Princess in Black