strange and random happenstance

The Magician King by Lev Grossman
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: August 9th, 2011
Format: Paperback, 432 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Being a beloved ruler is all well and good, but sometimes it can get a little staid what with the daily balcony appearances for the common folk and the governing. Which is why the High Kings and Queens of Fillory, Eliot, Janet, Quentin, and Julia are hunting for one of Fillory's prophetic Unique Beasts, the Seeing Hare. Things don't exactly go to plan, the Master of the Hunt, Jollyby, catches the Hare and it predicts horrors and then Jollyby drops dead. Poor Jollyby. He had some memorable assets. But it's Fillory, it's a magical world, weird shit is bound to happen. Plus, how exactly do you follow through with investigating an omen? When trying to figure this out the rulers discover that the Outer Islands haven't paid their taxes in years and Quentin decides that sailing the Eastern Ocean and collecting some back taxes could be an interesting quest. Quentin resurrects and refurbishes the Muntjac and he and Julia and a few fellow compatriots head east. Which is how they meet Elaine and learn about the magic key that winds the world. Or, as Quentin realizes, the quest he should be on. They journey further east, to After Island, where he and Julia find a key and are sent straight home. Not to Castle Whitespire. To Earth. Which means they have to find a way back to Fillory. Logic dictates that they could return via the method that got them there in the first place, but Josh was the last one seen with the button and who knows what quest he's currently on. The first place to look therefore is Brakebills. But they are unable to get through the school's defenses and therefore Quentin is about to have a steep learning curve into what Julia has been up to the past few years. Because Brakebills rejected her and she had to learn her magic in other ways, through magic safe houses. Rough and crude magic that Quentin is baffled even works. Hedge Witches know the real cost of power and Julia gets a lead on someone who can help them. That someone turns out to be Josh. Who has sold the button. Because palazzos in Venice aren't cheap. But thankfully Venice has its own dragon who breaks it all down for Quentin. The magic that Julia summoned before ascending the throne in Fillory has gotten the attention of the Gods. All of them. And they don't like humans using their magic. So, not only do Quentin and Julia have to get back to Fillory, they have to save it and magic. Or else be beyond deity screwed.

Because of the tonal shift it's kind of hard to believe that The Magician King was written by the same author as The Magicians. Especially in regard to Quentin Coldwater. It's kind of like he's had a personality transplant. Whereas The Magicians was riddled with his angst and how he kept trying to find something to magically "fix" his life, which ironically couldn't be fixed with magic, here he's hopeful. He's full of the spirit of adventure and his love of Fillory. The angst is out the window and he's somehow grown into accepting what life throws at him and rolling with the punches instead of bemoaning his fate. And while this is fascinating, and something that should be dwelled on as part of the "hero's journey" he embarks on over the course of this book, it's Julia and the "heroine's journey" that is important here. Because this is Julia's book. The Magician King is like a mirror of The Magicians. Whereas Quentin viewed his life was ruined by Brakebills, Julia's actually was ruined by Brakebills, but because they didn't let her in. So she finds magic the only way she can, on the mean streets. OK, technically in magical safe houses, but still, it's not the hallowed halls of Brakebills. Which I find ironic because everyone who disliked the staid poncey pedagogy of The Magicians would embrace Julia's journey but they probably wouldn't give this series a second chance. Which is a shame. And also makes me glad that I was willing to stick with this series. Because I love this weird mirrorworld that Lev Grossman has created. And there are parts of me that are geeking out over things that are just little Easter Eggs for uber book dorks like me. For example, The Magicians pays homage to Brideshead Revisited. But it pays homage to the main characters of the novel, Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte, Quentin Coldwater and Eliot Waugh by another name. In Brideshead Revisited Sebastian Flyte's father, Lord Marchmain, is the outcast of his family, abandoning his wife and his home for Venice where he is in residence with his mistress. He is the black sheep, the other side of the coin, he is the opposite of Quentin, he is Julia. So what do they do in The Magician King that makes me so giddy? Quentin and Julia go to Venice. The sanctuary of the outcasts. Heck, that's where Josh has been hanging out all this time. They could have literally gone anywhere and yet Lev Grossman writes that they went to Venice to find Josh and talk to a dragon. Perfection. Now if I could just get past my squick at Julia's "rebel nerve endings [that] attempted to send pleasure signals to her brain, whereupon her brain burned them out... never to feel again" when she's being raped this would be a perfect book.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brideshead Revisited, Charles Ryder, Eliot Waugh, Fillory, Hedge Witch, Julia Wicker, Lev Grossman, Lord Marchmain, Quentin Coldwater, Sebastian Flyte, Summer School, The Magician King, The Magicians, Venice

The Magician King by Lev Grossman
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: August 9th, 2011
Format: Paperback, 432 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Being a beloved ruler is all well and good, but sometimes it can get a little staid what with the daily balcony appearances for the common folk and the governing. Which is why the High Kings and Queens of Fillory, Eliot, Janet, Quentin, and Julia are hunting for one of Fillory's prophetic Unique Beasts, the Seeing Hare. Things don't exactly go to plan, the Master of the Hunt, Jollyby, catches the Hare and it predicts horrors and then Jollyby drops dead. Poor Jollyby. He had some memorable assets. But it's Fillory, it's a magical world, weird shit is bound to happen. Plus, how exactly do you follow through with investigating an omen? When trying to figure this out the rulers discover that the Outer Islands haven't paid their taxes in years and Quentin decides that sailing the Eastern Ocean and collecting some back taxes could be an interesting quest. Quentin resurrects and refurbishes the Muntjac and he and Julia and a few fellow compatriots head east. Which is how they meet Elaine and learn about the magic key that winds the world. Or, as Quentin realizes, the quest he should be on. They journey further east, to After Island, where he and Julia find a key and are sent straight home. Not to Castle Whitespire. To Earth. Which means they have to find a way back to Fillory. Logic dictates that they could return via the method that got them there in the first place, but Josh was the last one seen with the button and who knows what quest he's currently on. The first place to look therefore is Brakebills. But they are unable to get through the school's defenses and therefore Quentin is about to have a steep learning curve into what Julia has been up to the past few years. Because Brakebills rejected her and she had to learn her magic in other ways, through magic safe houses. Rough and crude magic that Quentin is baffled even works. Hedge Witches know the real cost of power and Julia gets a lead on someone who can help them. That someone turns out to be Josh. Who has sold the button. Because palazzos in Venice aren't cheap. But thankfully Venice has its own dragon who breaks it all down for Quentin. The magic that Julia summoned before ascending the throne in Fillory has gotten the attention of the Gods. All of them. And they don't like humans using their magic. So, not only do Quentin and Julia have to get back to Fillory, they have to save it and magic. Or else be beyond deity screwed.

Because of the tonal shift it's kind of hard to believe that The Magician King was written by the same author as The Magicians. Especially in regard to Quentin Coldwater. It's kind of like he's had a personality transplant. Whereas The Magicians was riddled with his angst and how he kept trying to find something to magically "fix" his life, which ironically couldn't be fixed with magic, here he's hopeful. He's full of the spirit of adventure and his love of Fillory. The angst is out the window and he's somehow grown into accepting what life throws at him and rolling with the punches instead of bemoaning his fate. And while this is fascinating, and something that should be dwelled on as part of the "hero's journey" he embarks on over the course of this book, it's Julia and the "heroine's journey" that is important here. Because this is Julia's book. The Magician King is like a mirror of The Magicians. Whereas Quentin viewed his life was ruined by Brakebills, Julia's actually was ruined by Brakebills, but because they didn't let her in. So she finds magic the only way she can, on the mean streets. OK, technically in magical safe houses, but still, it's not the hallowed halls of Brakebills. Which I find ironic because everyone who disliked the staid poncey pedagogy of The Magicians would embrace Julia's journey but they probably wouldn't give this series a second chance. Which is a shame. And also makes me glad that I was willing to stick with this series. Because I love this weird mirrorworld that Lev Grossman has created. And there are parts of me that are geeking out over things that are just little Easter Eggs for uber book dorks like me. For example, The Magicians pays homage to Brideshead Revisited. But it pays homage to the main characters of the novel, Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte, Quentin Coldwater and Eliot Waugh by another name. In Brideshead Revisited Sebastian Flyte's father, Lord Marchmain, is the outcast of his family, abandoning his wife and his home for Venice where he is in residence with his mistress. He is the black sheep, the other side of the coin, he is the opposite of Quentin, he is Julia. So what do they do in The Magician King that makes me so giddy? Quentin and Julia go to Venice. The sanctuary of the outcasts. Heck, that's where Josh has been hanging out all this time. They could have literally gone anywhere and yet Lev Grossman writes that they went to Venice to find Josh and talk to a dragon. Perfection. Now if I could just get past my squick at Julia's "rebel nerve endings [that] attempted to send pleasure signals to her brain, whereupon her brain burned them out... never to feel again" when she's being raped this would be a perfect book.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brideshead Revisited, Charles Ryder, Eliot Waugh, Fillory, Hedge Witch, Heroine's Journey, Julia Wicker, Lev Grossman, Lord Marchmain, Quentin Coldwater, Sebastian Flyte, The Magician King, The Magicians, Venice

The Mythmakers by Keziah Weir
Published by: S and s/ Marysue Rucci Books
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From an acclaimed senior editor at Vanity Fair comes an intoxicating debut novel about a young journalist who discovers a short story that's inexplicably about her life - leading to an entanglement with the author's widow, daughter, and former best friend.

Sal Cannon's life is in shambles. Her relationship is crumbling, and her career in journalism hits a low point after it's revealed that her profile of a playwright is full of inaccuracies. She's close to rock-bottom when she reads a short story by Martin Keller: a much older author she met at a literary event years ago. Much to her shock, the story is about her and the moment they met. When Sal learns the story is excerpted from his unpublished novel, she reaches out to the story's editor - only to learn that Martin is deceased. Desperate to leave her crumbling life behind and to read the manuscript from which the story was excerpted, Sal decides to find Martin's widow, Moira.

Moira has made it clear that she doesn't want to be contacted. But soon Sal is on a bus to Upstate New York, where she slowly but surely inserts herself into Moira's life. Or is it the other way around? As Sal sifts through Martin's papers and learns more about Moira, the question of muse and artist arises - again and again. Even more so when Martin's daughter's story emerges. Who owns a story? And who is the one left to tell it?

The Mythmakers is a nesting doll of a book that grapples with perspective and memory, as well as the battles between creative ambition and love. It's a story about the trials and tribulations of finding out who you are, at any stage in your life, and how inspiration might find you in the strangest of places."

The intriguing question for me has always been, do you have the right to tell someone else's story...

You Can Trust Me by Wendy Heard
Published by: Bantam
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In this "slick and stylish thriller" (Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets), two best friends grift their way through the California elite, until a scam goes awry.

Summer and Leo would do anything for each other. Inspired by the way each has had to carve her place in a hostile and unforgiving world, and united by the call of the open road, they travel around sunny California in Summer's tricked-out Land Cruiser. It's not a glamorous life, but it gives them the freedom they crave from the painful pasts they've left behind. But even free spirits have bills to pay. Luckily, Summer is a skilled pickpocket, a small-time thief, and a con artist - and Leo, determined to pay her own way, has learned a trick or two.

Eager for a big score, Leo catches in her crosshairs Michael Forrester, a self-made billionaire and philanthropist. When her charm wins him over, Leo is rewarded with an invitation to his private island off the California coastline for a night of fabulous excess. She eagerly anticipates returning with photos that can be sold to the paparazzi, jewelry that can be liquidated, and endless stories to share with Summer. Instead, Leo disappears.

On her own for the first time in years, Summer decides to infiltrate Michael's island and find out what really happened. But when she arrives, no one has seen Leo - she's not on the island as far as they know. Plus, there was only one way on the island - and no way off - for the coming days. Trapped in a scheme she helped initiate, could Summer have met her match?"

Rule one, if you're looking to pull a fast one make sure you can actually get out on your own.

Speak of the Devil by Rose Wilding
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Seven women, inextricably linked by one man, must figure out which of them killed him in order to protect one another in this electrifying debut thriller.

New Year's Eve, 1999.
Seven women are gathered in a hotel room at midnight; a man's head sits in the center of the floor. They all had a motive to kill Jamie Spellman. They all swear they didn't. But in order to protect one another, they have to find out who did.

The ex, who drowns her darkest secret in a hip flask as the woman she loves drifts further away.
The wife, living out her fairytale marriage in a house tucked into woods so thick no one can hear a scream.
The widow, praying to a past she no longer knows whether she can trust.
The teenager, whose wide-eyed crush has trapped her in an unrecognizable future.
The mother figure, battling nature versus nurture under the weight of her own guilt.
The friend, forced to choose sides over and over, until she learns the price of choosing wrong.
And the journalist, who brought them all together - but underestimated how far one of them would go to keep believing the story they'd been told.

Against the ticking clock of a murder investigation, each woman's secret is brought to light as the connections between them converge to reveal a killer. Marking the debut of an extraordinary new talent, Speak of the Devil explores the roles into which women are cast in the lives of terrible men...and the fallout when they refuse to play pretend for one moment longer."

But why wouldn't they just agree to protect each other and NOT solve the case? That way they have legitimate deniability if ever caught by the cops.

The Gulf by Rachel Cochran
Published by: Harper
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In this electrifying debut literary thriller, set on the gulf coast of Texas in the 1970s at the height of the women's liberation movement, a closeted young woman attempts to solve her surrogate mother's murder in a tight-knit, religious small town.

In Parson, Texas, a small town ravaged by a devastating hurricane and the Vietnam War, twenty-nine-year-old Lou is diligently renovating a decaying old mansion for Miss Kate, the elderly neighbor who has always been like a mother to her. Mourning her brother's death in Vietnam, Lou dreams of enjoying a more peaceful future in Parson. But those hopes are crushed when Miss Kate is murdered, and no one but Lou seems to care about finding the killer.

The situation becomes complicated when Joanna, Miss Kate's long-estranged daughter and Lou's first love, arrives in Parson - not to learn more about her mother's death but for the house. Her arrival unearths sinister secrets involving the history of the town and its residents...revelations that may be the key to helping Lou discover the truth about Miss Kate's death and her killer.

A gorgeously written, gripping story of forbidden love and devastating secrets that is a surprising twist on the traditional small-town story, The Gulf is a riveting and unsettling mystery that holds up a mirror to the values - and failures - of America."

The murder is nice, but like the daughter, here for the house.

The Long Way Back by Nicole Baart
Published by: Atria Books
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"When an Instagram-famous teenager mysteriously disappears, her mother grapples with the revelation of dark secrets in this twisty, atmospheric thriller - from the author of the "poignant, riveting" (Wendy Walker, author of Don't Look for Me) Everything We Didn't Say.

Mother and daughter Charlie and Eva never sought social media fame, but when a stunning photo of Eva went viral, fame found them. Now, after more than two years documenting life on the road in their vintage Airstream trailer, the duo has temporarily settled on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Eva is happily finishing her senior year of high school and applying to college, but Charlie longs for the adventures they left behind.

When Eva goes missing less than a week before her graduation, it's Charlie who is immediately suspected of foul play - not just by their fans, but also by the police and the FBI. As a fight about one more road trip comes to light, and the truth about their relationship is questioned, Charlie realizes the rosy facade they portrayed online hid a complicated and potentially dangerous reality. Now, to clear her name and find out what has happened to her daughter, she'll have to confront her own role in Eva's disappearance - and whether she knows her daughter at all."

I mean technically the North Shore of Lake Superior is Canada, so FBI!?! But if you count the bit in Minnesota I guess...

How to Kill Men and Get Away with It by Katy Brent
Published by: HQ Digital
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Meet Kitty Collins.

FRIEND. LOVER. KILLER.

He was following me. That guy from the nightclub who wouldn't leave me alone.

I hadn't intended to kill him of course. But I wasn't displeased when I did and, despite the mess I made, I appeared to get away with it.

That's where my addiction started...

I've got a taste for revenge and quite frankly, I'm killing it.

A deliciously dark, hilariously twisted story about friendship, love, and murder. Fans of My Sister the Serial Killer, How to Kill Your Family and Killing Eve will love this wickedly clever novel!"

Hopefully the Killing Eve books and first three seasons because if it's anything like season four it's a big hard nope.

Something Close to Magic by Emma Mills
Published by: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A baker's apprentice reluctantly embarks on an adventure full of magic, new friendships, and a prince in distress in this deliciously romantic young adult fantasy that's perfect for fans of Margaret Rogerson and Gail Carson Levine.

It's not all sugar and spice at Basil's Bakery, where seventeen-year-old Aurelie is an overworked, underappreciated apprentice. Still, the job offers stability, which no-nonsense Aurelie values highly, so she keeps her head down and doesn't dare to dream big - until a stranger walks in and hands her a set of Seeking stones. In a country where Seeking was old-fashioned even before magic went out of style, it's a rare skill, but Aurelie has it.

The stranger, who turns out to be a remarkably bothersome bounty hunter named Iliana, asks for Aurelie's help rescuing someone from the dangerous Underwood - which sounds suspiciously like an adventure. When the someone turns out to be Prince Hapless, the charming-but-aptly-named prince, Aurelie's careful life is upended. Suddenly, she finds herself on a quest filled with magic portals, a troll older than many trees (and a few rocks), and dangerous palace intrigue.

Even more dangerous are the feelings she's starting to have for Hapless. The more time Aurelie spends with him, the less she can stand the thought of going back to her solitary but dependable life at the bakery. Must she choose between losing her apprenticeship - or her heart?"

A baker off on a big adventure? Count me in!

Parallel Hells by Leon Craig
Published by: Sceptre
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Paperback, 224 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In this deliciously strange debut collection, Leon Craig draws on folklore and Gothic horror in refreshingly inventive ways to explore queer identity, love, power and the complicated nature of being human.

Some say that hell is other people and some say hell is loneliness...

In the thirteen darkly audacious stories of Parallel Hells we meet a golem, made of clay, learning that its powers far exceed its Creator's expectations; a ruined mansion which grants the secret wishes of a group of revellers and a notorious murderer who discovers her Viking husband is not what he seems. Asta is an ancient being who feasts on the shame of contemporary Londoners, who now, beyond anything, wishes only to fit in with a group of friends they will long outlive. An Oxford historian, in bitter competition with the rest of her faculty members, discovers an ancient tome whose sinister contents might solve her problems. Livia orchestrates a Satanic mass to distract herself from a recently remembered trauma and two lovers must resolve their differences in order to defy a lethal curse."

I usually avoid short stories like the plague, but with this book, bring on the black death!

Maddalena and the Dark by Julia Fine
Published by: Flatiron Books
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"For fans of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and Mexican Gothic, a novel set in 18th-century Venice at a prestigious music school, about two girls drawn together by a dangerous wager.

Venice, 1717. Fifteen-year-old Luisa has only wanted one thing: to be the best at violin. As a student at the Ospedale della Pietà, she hopes to join the highest ranks of its illustrious girls' orchestra and become a protégé of the great Antonio Vivaldi. Luisa is good at violin, but she is not the best. She has peers, but she does not have friends. Until Maddalena.

After a scandal threatens her noble family's reputation, Maddalena is sent to the Pietà to preserve her marriage prospects. When she meets Luisa, Maddalena feels the stirrings of a friendship unlike anything she has known. But Maddalena has a secret: she has hatched a dangerous plot to rescue her future her own way. When she invites Luisa into her plans, promising to make her dreams come true, Luisa doesn't hesitate. But every wager has its price, and as the girls are drawn into the decadent world outside the Pietà's walls, they must decide what it is they truly want - and what they will do to pay for it.

Lush and heady, swirling with music and magic, Maddalena and the Dark is a Venetian fairy tale about the friendship between two girls and the boundless desire that will set them free, if it doesn't consume them first."

Venetian fairy tales are everything to me, especially when they go to the dark.

The First Bright Thing by J.R. Dawson
Published by: Tor Books
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"If you knew how dark tomorrow would be, what would you do with today?

Ringmaster - Rin, to those who know her best - can jump to different moments in time as easily as her wife, Odette, soars from bar to bar on the trapeze. And the circus they lead is a rare home and safe haven for magical misfits and outcasts, known as Sparks.

With the world still reeling from World War I, Rin and her troupe - the Circus of the Fantasticals - travel the Midwest, offering a single night of enchantment and respite to all who step into their Big Top.

But threats come at Rin from all sides. The future holds an impending war that the Sparks can see barrelling toward their show and everyone in it. And Rin's past creeps closer every day, a malevolent shadow she can't fully escape.

It takes the form of another circus, with tents as black as midnight and a ringmaster who rules over his troupe with a dangerous power. Rin's circus has something he wants, and he won't stop until it's his."

Who doesn't want to read about rival circuses? 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Authors, Circus, Emma Mills, Instagram, J.R. Dawson, Julia Fine, Katy Brent, Keziah Weir, Killing Eve, Lake Superior, Leon Craig, Magic, Nicole Baart, Rachel Cochran, Rose Wilding, Short Stories, Venice, Wendy Heard

Death in the Floating City by Tasha Alexander
Published by: Minotaur
Publication Date: October 16th, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

As a child there is always that one person whom you are thrust into a relationship with because of your parents. The greatest joy of growing up is that there comes a time when you no longer have to associate with them and can relegate them to your past. Which is exactly what Emily did with Emma Callum. Emma ran off with an Italian Duke and Emily never thought of her again. Until Emma reached out for help. She had heard of Emily's success in solving crimes and is in desperate need of her assistance. Stranded in Venice Emma doesn't even speak Italian and her father-in-law Conte Barozzi has gone and gotten himself murdered and her husband Paolo is missing. If there was ever a time for Emily's help it is now. But even murder can't fully change someone and as Emma flirts with Emily's husband Colin instead of answering their questions Emily wonders if it was wise to help her old nemesis. Though Emily and her husband are professionals and they will do the job asked of them despite the hindrance of Emma. Their first clue is a ring that was found on the Conte's body and a historian is needed.

Luckily when they arrived in Venice a note was waiting at their hotel from a local scholar turned bookseller inquiring after the ring. Emily is hoping Signore Caravello can help answer a few questions as to the ring's provenance. With his magnifying glass he finds two initials next to the maker's mark, BB and NV. Because the ring was found in the possession of a Barozzi, it's assumed that this belonged to some relative. Emily, now with the help of Singnore Caravello's daughter Donata, searches for this relative and finds Besina, who lived in the 15th century. Yet their one hope of confirming her as the ring's owner is dashed when the painting that just might have shown her wearing it is vandalized. What's more the Barozzis sworn enemies, the Vendelinos, swear that the ring is theirs and has been missing for centuries. Soon Emily and Colin are juggling not just a murder, but valuable missing books, a possibly forgotten legacy, a medium whose reputation was destroyed, the Conte's probable mistress and her jealous husband, and most disturbing of all, a person dressed as a plague doctor following Emily through the canals of Venice. Yet the crucial question is, can they solve the crime in the present by finding out what happen to Besina all those years ago?

There is a plethora of books set in Venice, and the truth is the setting doesn't make the book but a well written book can make the setting, forever linking the two in your mind. Death in the Floating City perfectly fits into the pantheon of books set in Venice that were instant classics for me, from Daphne Du Maurier's Don't Look Now to Mary Robinette Kowal's Valour and Vanity to Susanna Clark's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. These are all books that show Venice as imperfect yet lead you to fall in love with the city despite it's issues. I'm not talking about the fact that it's sinking into the seas, but the Italian way of life as it was back in the day. As I think of it in my mind as women's rights, marriages, and whores oh my. Courtesans, mistresses, and illegitimate children were all par for the course in Venice. What's so fascinating though is the way Tasha writes so that there's our modern POV then there's Emily's POV, which is Victorian but constantly working to break the shackles and think more modern, and then the Venetian POV which is far more fluid and modern, but that fluidity and the resultant issues drives the plot forward. It's literally a culture clash at it's most dramatic and I couldn't put it down.

What really drove the narrative in this installment was that the secondary story instead of being journals or letters that are concurrent with our story was instead the story of Besina and her ill fated love to Nicolo Vendelino way back in 1489. At first I was prejudiced against this story because being set in Italy and the couple in question being from warring houses I was sure this would be Tasha's take on Romeo and Juliet and personally, that isn't a favorite play of mine. Yes, it's a classic, I mean, it's Shakespeare after all, but not all Shakespeare floats my boat. Oh how wrong I was to compare it to that play of the Bard's. This secondary storyline soon became my favorite part of Death in the Floating City and I had to restrain myself from jumping ahead to see how it played out. The best way I can describe the story of Besina and Nicolo is that it's like Sarah Dunant decided to write her version of Drake Carne and Morwenna Chynoweth's star-crossed romance from Poldark. Much as with the two young lovers on Poldark, my heart was continually breaking, hoping for Besina to break free and be with Nicolo. Their story is tragic and heartbreaking and achingly perfect. Because, if I'm being honest, much like how Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, sometimes perfection isn't a happily ever after.

Even though my attachment to Besina and Nicolo is the reason I lost my heart to this book I can not discount all the other awesomeness contained within the pages of Death in the Floating City. The menacing plague doctor like the "child" in the raincoat in Don't Look Now is haunting, but that's just the tip of the iceberg! There's Caterina Brexiano, the maligned medium! There's Brother Giovanni with his knowledge of books and his hunt for the truth. As for the books? Oh dear me, I swoon at the valuable books and illuminated manuscripts contained within these pages. But the vapors don't stop there. The gorgeous illuminated manuscripts contain secrets not just in their detailed artwork but on the very pages they were written. Secrets hidden in art? This is Lady Emily's version of The Da Vinci Code, but next level, because instead of being bogged down with religiosity we are on the hunt for the story of Besina and Nicolo! A love lost to history recovered! This book didn't just make me want to go to Venice, it made me want to delve back into my art history studies. Oh, I do love a good illuminated manuscript. If only they all held such secrets as the ones Tasha has dreamed up!

It should be a truth universally acknowledged that we all have in our past some frenemy. Imagine the theme song to Veronica Mars playing here... While Emily never considered Emma her friend, she was in one of those situations where friendship was forced on her and it turned sour, or shattered like her doll's face when Emma destroyed it. Whether it's similar to Emily's case or just a friend from childhood that proved themselves a complete and utter two-faced bitch, there's someone in everyone's past whom we'd rather avoid but some lingering sentimentality, AKA the sign that you are the better person, makes you willing to help if they reach out a hand. That is the situation Emily faces. While there is that deep temptation to just laugh from afar, something that social media makes so easy in this day and age, there's the other, more juicy feeling that you can prove to them that you are the better person. You hope that your help will finally awaken some kind of gratitude in them, but as is often the case, as Emily sees, they are just the same person but older. You can see them more clearly for who they are and you pity instead of hate them. But still, reaching out that hand and being the better person? Priceless.

Now here's a question I have for the floor. Hopefully you have been encouraged by Alexander Autumn to pick up one or all of Tasha's wonderful Lady Emily series and I want your expert opinion. Is this the first time that Emily's writing is shown to be definitely written from a future date for an audience? Because Emily has a throw away line about how her identification of NV would prove to be entirely inaccurate, proving this was written at a later date. Also at the same time she says "as you will see" where the you is us, meaning, definite knowledge of an audience. Now I don't have any problem with this, seeing as an author that Tasha greatly admires, Elizabeth Peters, used such devices in her Amelia Peabody series which is another series I love. In fact, there's a part of me, a part that will reference but will not spoil the ending of this book, that noticed a certain resolution that mirrors an event that takes place at the end of the sixth installment in that series, The Last Camel Died at Noon, that makes me think, Tasha did this on purpose. If she did this for that very reason, that's cunning. But also if you think about it, this is the first case that Emily and Colin take that doesn't literally land on their doorstep, so that could have been why there's a change as well... either way, I'll be waiting to see if this writing quirk happens again. Onwards to the next book!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alexander Autumn, Amelia Peabody, Death in the Floating City, Don't Look Now, Elizabeth Peters, Poldark, Romeo and Juliet, Tasha Alexander, The Da Vinci Code, Venice, Veronica Mars

Death in the Floating City by Tasha Alexander
Published by: Minotaur
Publication Date: October 16th, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

As a child there is always that one person whom you are thrust into a relationship with because of your parents. The greatest joy of growing up is that there comes a time when you no longer have to associate with them and can relegate them to your past. Which is exactly what Emily did with Emma Callum. Emma ran off with an Italian Duke and Emily never thought of her again. Until Emma reached out for help. She had heard of Emily's success in solving crimes and is in desperate need of her assistance. Stranded in Venice Emma doesn't even speak Italian and her father-in-law Conte Barozzi has gone and gotten himself murdered and her husband Paolo is missing. If there was ever a time for Emily's help it is now. But even murder can't fully change someone and as Emma flirts with Emily's husband Colin instead of answering their questions Emily wonders if it was wise to help her old nemesis. Though Emily and her husband are professionals and they will do the job asked of them despite the hindrance of Emma. Their first clue is a ring that was found on the Conte's body and a historian is needed.

Luckily when they arrived in Venice a note was waiting at their hotel from a local scholar turned bookseller inquiring after the ring. Emily is hoping Signore Caravello can help answer a few questions as to the ring's provenance. With his magnifying glass he finds two initials next to the maker's mark, BB and NV. Because the ring was found in the possession of a Barozzi, it's assumed that this belonged to some relative. Emily, now with the help of Singnore Caravello's daughter Donata, searches for this relative and finds Besina, who lived in the 15th century. Yet their one hope of confirming her as the ring's owner is dashed when the painting that just might have shown her wearing it is vandalized. What's more the Barozzis sworn enemies, the Vendelinos, swear that the ring is theirs and has been missing for centuries. Soon Emily and Colin are juggling not just a murder, but valuable missing books, a possibly forgotten legacy, a medium whose reputation was destroyed, the Conte's probable mistress and her jealous husband, and most disturbing of all, a person dressed as a plague doctor following Emily through the canals of Venice. Yet the crucial question is, can they solve the crime in the present by finding out what happen to Besina all those years ago?

There is a plethora of books set in Venice, and the truth is the setting doesn't make the book but a well written book can make the setting, forever linking the two in your mind. Death in the Floating City perfectly fits into the pantheon of books set in Venice that were instant classics for me, from Daphne Du Maurier's Don't Look Now to Mary Robinette Kowal's Valour and Vanity to Susanna Clark's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. These are all books that show Venice as imperfect yet lead you to fall in love with the city despite it's issues. I'm not talking about the fact that it's sinking into the seas, but the Italian way of life as it was back in the day. As I think of it in my mind as women's rights, marriages, and whores oh my. Courtesans, mistresses, and illegitimate children were all par for the course in Venice. What's so fascinating though is the way Tasha writes so that there's our modern POV then there's Emily's POV, which is Victorian but constantly working to break the shackles and think more modern, and then the Venetian POV which is far more fluid and modern, but that fluidity and the resultant issues drives the plot forward. It's literally a culture clash at it's most dramatic and I couldn't put it down.

What really drove the narrative in this installment was that the secondary story instead of being journals or letters that are concurrent with our story was instead the story of Besina and her ill fated love to Nicolo Vendelino way back in 1489. At first I was prejudiced against this story because being set in Italy and the couple in question being from warring houses I was sure this would be Tasha's take on Romeo and Juliet and personally, that isn't a favorite play of mine. Yes, it's a classic, I mean, it's Shakespeare after all, but not all Shakespeare floats my boat. Oh how wrong I was to compare it to that play of the Bard's. This secondary storyline soon became my favorite part of Death in the Floating City and I had to restrain myself from jumping ahead to see how it played out. The best way I can describe the story of Besina and Nicolo is that it's like Sarah Dunant decided to write her version of Drake Carne and Morwenna Chynoweth's star-crossed romance from Poldark. Much as with the two young lovers on Poldark, my heart was continually breaking, hoping for Besina to break free and be with Nicolo. Their story is tragic and heartbreaking and achingly perfect. Because, if I'm being honest, much like how Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, sometimes perfection isn't a happily ever after.

Even though my attachment to Besina and Nicolo is the reason I lost my heart to this book I can not discount all the other awesomeness contained within the pages of Death in the Floating City. The menacing plague doctor like the "child" in the raincoat in Don't Look Now is haunting, but that's just the tip of the iceberg! There's Caterina Brexiano, the maligned medium! There's Brother Giovanni with his knowledge of books and his hunt for the truth. As for the books? Oh dear me, I swoon at the valuable books and illuminated manuscripts contained within these pages. But the vapors don't stop there. The gorgeous illuminated manuscripts contain secrets not just in their detailed artwork but on the very pages they were written. Secrets hidden in art? This is Lady Emily's version of The Da Vinci Code, but next level, because instead of being bogged down with religiosity we are on the hunt for the story of Besina and Nicolo! A love lost to history recovered! This book didn't just make me want to go to Venice, it made me want to delve back into my art history studies. Oh, I do love a good illuminated manuscript. If only they all held such secrets as the ones Tasha has dreamed up!

It should be a truth universally acknowledged that we all have in our past some frenemy. Imagine the theme song to Veronica Mars playing here... While Emily never considered Emma her friend, she was in one of those situations where friendship was forced on her and it turned sour, or shattered like her doll's face when Emma destroyed it. Whether it's similar to Emily's case or just a friend from childhood that proved themselves a complete and utter two-faced bitch, there's someone in everyone's past whom we'd rather avoid but some lingering sentimentality, AKA the sign that you are the better person, makes you willing to help if they reach out a hand. That is the situation Emily faces. While there is that deep temptation to just laugh from afar, something that social media makes so easy in this day and age, there's the other, more juicy feeling that you can prove to them that you are the better person. You hope that your help will finally awaken some kind of gratitude in them, but as is often the case, as Emily sees, they are just the same person but older. You can see them more clearly for who they are and you pity instead of hate them. But still, reaching out that hand and being the better person? Priceless.

Now here's a question I have for the floor. Hopefully you have been encouraged by Alexander Autumn to pick up one or all of Tasha's wonderful Lady Emily series and I want your expert opinion. Is this the first time that Emily's writing is shown to be definitely written from a future date for an audience? Because Emily has a throw away line about how her identification of NV would prove to be entirely inaccurate, proving this was written at a later date. Also at the same time she says "as you will see" where the you is us, meaning, definite knowledge of an audience. Now I don't have any problem with this, seeing as an author that Tasha greatly admires, Elizabeth Peters, used such devices in her Amelia Peabody series which is another series I love. In fact, there's a part of me, a part that will reference but will not spoil the ending of this book, that noticed a certain resolution that mirrors an event that takes place at the end of the sixth installment in that series, The Last Camel Died at Noon, that makes me think, Tasha did this on purpose. If she did this for that very reason, that's cunning. But also if you think about it, this is the first case that Emily and Colin take that doesn't literally land on their doorstep, so that could have been why there's a change as well... either way, I'll be waiting to see if this writing quirk happens again. Onwards to the next book!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alexander Autumn, Amelia Peabody, Death in the Floating City, Don't Look Now, Elizabeth Peters, Poldark, Romeo and Juliet, Tasha Alexander, The Da Vinci Code, Venice, Veronica Mars

Don't Look Now
Based on the short story by Daphne Du Maurier
Starring: Donald Sutherland, Julie Christie, Hilary Mason, Clelia Matania, Sharon Williams, Nicholas Salter, Leopoldo Trieste, Massimo Serato, Renato Scarpa, Bruno Cattaneo, David Tree, Ann Rye, and Adelina Poerio
Release Date: October 16th, 1973
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

John and Laura Baxter are trying to pick up the pieces of their life after their young daughter Christine's death by accidental drowning in their backyard. Now in Venice John is working to restore a church while his wife is mired in her grief. Taking off time from work John takes Laura out to lunch where she helps two elderly sisters in the bathroom of the restaurant. One of the sisters is blind and claims to not only be psychic but to see Christine. This revelation has a profound effect on Laura. She collapses at the restaurant but later, back at their hotel, John and her passionately reconnect. Laura makes plans to meet the sisters again and try to contact Christine in a seance. Christine has one message, her father must leave Venice. He is in danger. The threat is unclear and John thinks it's a trick the sisters are playing on him and his wife and is angry. What does he have to fear in Venice?

Maybe the threat isn't in Venice? There's a late night phone call from their son's boarding school saying he has been in an accident. Laura rushes to England but when she is supposed to be homeward bound John sees her with the sisters making a stately procession down one of the canals. Convinced that the sisters tricked his wife into staying behind when their son needs her he frantically searches Venice for the three of them, actually going to the police in the end. But the police have their hands full with a recent spate of murders. In fact they find John's story so unlikely that they think he might just be involved in the murders somehow. When John finally finds Laura she is in England. But how? And more importantly, all this is detracting from the warning. John is still in Venice... is this wise?

Don't Look Now is the only adaptation of her work that Daphne Du Maurier ever blessed with her seal of approval. Frankly it's quite easy to see why she liked this most of all the various adaptations of her work. Don't Look Now remains true to the spirit of her short story. Instead of drastically changing locals or time frames or having Mrs. Danvers self immolate Nicholas Roeg took what Du Maurier had written and used it as a framework and built on it. Everything that happens seems like a natural progression of the short story from the page to the screen. What's more, many of the faults of the story, smug narration, a lack of foreshadowing, are eliminated by the simple expedient of the visual medium of film being able to show us instead of tell us. What I felt worked best was that Roeg carried various thematic imagery through the film but tied it back more firmly to the loss of Christine.

In Du Maurier's short story Christine's death is the driving force of the story but at the same time an afterthought. Her death from meningitis distances the reader. It's rare this could happen to them. But by having Christine drown in an accident it's more relatable. This could happen to anyone. Plus Venice being a city on water the threat of drowning is constantly present. With water and mirrors there is this reflective quality used throughout the film not just being a constant reminder of Christine's death but how it reflects back on her parents and on us. In fact I was reminded again and again of the Michael Caine classic, Dressed to Kill. Don't Look Now has that same feeling of relevancy and horror despite being made over forty years ago.

Seeing Christine's more relatable death isn't the only way Roeg makes the trauma more real. In Du Maurier's story John and Laura are in Venice on holiday, which, to an extent, makes them feel a little uncaring to the reader. Let's just forget about our dead daughter and our grieving son at boarding school and take a little trip shall we? Yeah, not the most sympathetic of characters. In the film John is in Venice for work. By them being in Venice for work and not play makes their suffering more alive. They aren't just trying to brush it under the carpet, they aren't just trying to make do and mend, they are still trapped in the sorrow but are attempting to keep moving forward. John is burying himself in work so that he won't constantly be in pain.

Their pain is a constant presence throughout the film and this connects you to John and Laura. Anyone with an once of empathy has to feel something for them. The scene that really struck me as getting to the heart of their relationship and therefore their story was a rather graphic sex scene, bizarre armpit licking and all. The reason this scene works is it shows two humans groping toward each other, trying to connect; yet at the same time it shows the distance that has grown up between them. They are physically together but mentally apart. This scene, which is a little uncomfortable to watch, is heartbreaking. To be together and apart simultaneously, it shows us, without anything but action, what grief and despair really are.

Roeg is also able to show the seedy side of Venice. This isn't a holiday for John and his wife, they are there off season. Venice is cold and wet and full of pigeons. In the story it's almost tourist perfect, with the murders shoved as far in the background as possible until that salient plot point can't be avoided. Hence when "the end" comes you missed all the clues because Du Maurier used them so sparingly, perhaps wanting that shock to the system at the very end. Roeg uses the murders ubiquitously, but in the background. Always there, always waiting, adding a level of danger, suffusing it throughout the film but never drawing too much attention to it. I loved how one of the sisters described Venice as being "a city in aspic inhabited by the dead." There's poetry and morbidity and danger all in that one phrase. Here there are alleys and shadows and mystery. Running and rushing and the feeling of danger. We aren't just stuck in John's head, we are running along beside him.

Yet the pay dirt of the film is the inclusion of the church. This is introduced by the simple expedient of John being a church restorer. Though why it's brilliant is because it gives the story balance. We have the supernatural ever present with the sisters and their premonitions. The supernatural was built in from the get go. Yet skepticism doesn't quite balance belief in the supernatural. Skepticism can't destroy evil, only good can, and that would be embodied by the church. This addition also helps to place the film strongly amongst it's peers. Good versus evil and the church were part of the zeitgeist of the early seventies. Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, The Omen, the classics of the occult horror genre all had this dichotomy. To include it in Don't Look Now? Where it logically fit? It would have been stupid not to and Roeg was cunning in his adaptation. He knew just what to add and just how to do it. No wonder Du Maurier gave it two thumbs up.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Daphne Du Maurier, Don't Look Now, Donald Sutherland, Drowning, Du Maurier December Deux, Grief, Murder, Nicholas Roeg, Psychic, Rosemary's Baby, Seances, Sex, The Exorcist, The Omen, Venice, Warning

Don't Look Now by Daphne Du Maurier
Published by: NYRB Classics
Publication Date: October 28th, 2008
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

John and Laura have gone to Venice in the hopes of putting the past behind them by revisiting places they loved when they were whole. They haven't been whole for awhile. They have been drifting apart, trapped in depression since the death of their daughter Christine due to meningitis. Venice is supposed to reinvigorate them. Instead what starts as a pleasant trip soon turns incomprehensible. One day they see elderly twin sisters in a restaurant. Laura runs into them in the restroom and discovers that one of the sisters is blind and claims to be a psychic. She tells Laura that she sees Christine there with her and her husband and that she is happy. When Laura tells John this story he claims they are nothing more than charlatans and goes out of his way to avoid them. Yet fate has other plans. That night after getting lost in the labyrinth of Venice they again meet the sisters in a restaurant and the sisters are very enthusiastic to meet Laura again.

John, in his cynicism, thinks it's the sisters sinking their claws into Laura, while Laura insists it's because the sisters have a message for John from Christine; he is to leave Venice at once because he is in danger. John scoffs at this but when they get back to their hotel there's a message that their son Johnnie, who is away at boarding school, is sick with appendicitis and Laura thinks this is the reason that Christine wanted them to leave. Laura is able to get an early flight out but John has to wait. When the plane was supposed to be in the air he sees his wife and the sisters on the grand canal. Thinking there must have been a mix up or the sisters are up to something he spends the day trying to find his wife and the sisters. But perhaps he should have paid more attention to Christine's warning and the sister's insight that John himself has the power of psychic understanding.

"Don't Look Now" is an odd little story, perhaps best remembered by the movie with the same name. The problem I faced with this story is that we are given this glimpse into the marriage of John and Laura but it's as if we are looking through glass from the famous Murano workshops. There's this weird distance that stops us from forming any real connection with the couple. This entire story is written in such a way that the reader always feels like an outsider. It's not just the lack of connection with John and Laura but "Don't Look Now" was written with an insider's knowledge of Venice. Of course during the time period Du Maurier wrote this story her readers would have been more familiar with Venice as it was a common tourist destination but that doesn't help me. I've sadly never been to Venice so the way John rattles off locales makes me think he's smug and is just another way I am excluded from becoming a part of the story. But then again, John is kind of an idiot. His ham-handed approach to finding his wife to his complete unwillingness to actually listen to the sisters means he gets what's coming to him. As for the supernatural of it all? Du Maurier has done better, but that ending. It is a shocker. Mostly because it was so vaguely foreshadowed.

But if you've only read Daphne Du Maurier's novels you truly haven't experienced her range as an author. Yes, her novels are some of the best and most beautifully written and suspenseful books you'll ever read from Rebecca to Jamaica Inn to The Scapegoat, but they often cover the same ground and don't even touch on the supernatural and strange that her short stories, such as "Don't Look Now" and "The Birds" delve into. It's like Du Maurier felt a freedom in this shorter format that let her handle the outre, the other, and the persecuted that will surprise you in their range and occasional depravity. Each story is easily worthy of Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone with a supernatural agency at work in the everyday lives of our heroes and heroines that is never quite fully explained. In "Blue Lenses" Mrs. Marda West has ocular surgery with special lenses inserted to regain her sight only to open her eyes and see that everyone has an animal's head. At first she thinks it's a joke being perpetrated on her but soon comes to realize that these visions are giving her insight into the true nature of people. People whom she trusted are animals of dubious nature and ill repute.

"The Blue Lenses," besides showing this "otherness," showcases an ongoing theme in these shorter works. Du Maurier's protagonists often think that they are the object of a joke being played at their expense. They are the victim of a con and the proper authorities are often viewed as conspiring against them. From "Split Second" to "La Sainte-Vierge" to "Don't Look Now" to the aforementioned "Blue Lenses" delusion and trickery are what everything hinges on. But this paranoia that has these people confused by what they see, hoping they are mistaken, actually shines a light on Du Maurier's true interest, plumbing the depths of humanity. The fact that these characters are so willing to believe that someone would go to the trouble of conning them shows a fear of the "other," a fear of what people are capable of. Because looking deeper, past the supernatural trappings, at the root these stories show that people are capable of murder.

In fact sometimes Du Maurier forgoes the supernatural entirely and tells a tale that is, in the end, just about murder. In fact my favorite story, "Kiss Me Again Stranger," is about a troubled girl who kills RAF men she meets. Of course it wouldn't be a true Du Maurier story if you weren't bamboozled into thinking it was a love story until the very last page, but again and again that is why these stories work, she is continually subverting your expectations. Yes you could boil this all down to man versus nature, be it's man's inner nature or actual nature or something against nature, but trying to condense it down does an injustice to the writing. Du Maurier through stories about killer birds, "The Birds," and killer usherettes, "Kiss Me Again Stranger," and women joining mountain cults that may be leper colonies, "Monte Verità," touches on so many truths and so many weighty topics that you can see why she was always miffed that people called her a "romance" author. She is so much more. If you don't believe, just pick up this book. I think it will change your mind.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Daphne Du Maurier, Don't Look Now, Du Maurier December Deux, Jamaica Inn, Kiss Me Again Stranger, Monte Verita, Psychic, Rebecca, Rod Serling, Short Story, The Birds, The Scapegoat, The Twilight Zone, Venice

Valour and Vanity by Mary Robinette Kowal
ARC Provided by the Author
Published by: Tor Books
Publication Date: April 29th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Jane and Vincent have been accompanying Melody and her new husband on their wedding tour of the continent. Leaving the newlyweds at Trieste, Jane and Vincent take ship to Murano. Lord Byron has given the Vincents an open invitation to visit him in Venice, which is a nice cover for what they plan to do in Murano. They have long wanted to visit the famed glassmakers there after their discovery about weaving magic into glass to make it portable and not tethered to the earth in a fixed locale. The couple hope that with improved techniques and materials they can get reliable results. Yet as Napoleon rallied and invaded Belgium when they were first experimenting with this idea, they are once again derailed by outside influences.

This time they are set upon by pirates who, while ransoming them and hence not enslaving them, take all their possessions and leave Vincent with a nasty concussion. Finding Byron away from home they are struck with the realization that they are destitute. A kind man from the infamous boat journey takes them in and gives them everything they could need till either Byron returns or they are able to alert their families. Only sometimes kind men have ulterior motives and the Vincents could be in far more trouble then they could even guess. In fact pirates might be a welcome relief. Just don't tell Jane's mother about the pirates, she'll never forgive Vincent.

There are few authors out there which I will drop everything for. Phone calls go unanswered, emails pile up, work deadlines get stretched to breaking point. If it wasn't for the fact that food keeps me going and therefore keeps me reading I don't think I would remember to eat. Even on a re-read of these books I have found myself reverting to these habits that are usually only employed when I first hold the book in my hands. My love of these books has grown and developed over time, much like the books themselves. They are no longer just Jane Austen fanfic with magic, they're so much more! The books are part history, part fantasy, part alternate reality, there's just so much to love about them that I really can't stress enough that you should go out right now and get yourself all the books, because the first won't be enough.

So what keeps me coming back to Mary's series, seeing as I have just devoured the first four books in quick succession yet again? Aside from the fact that I love anything Regency (ahem Regency Magic) and Mary captures the feeling of the time period by sprinkling in historic details without inundating us with information, she has created a world where the magic just works. I'm not talking about works as in you say a spell and wow a light goes on, or even that it's successful in that something magical happens, I'm saying in the way she has created how magic is done just makes sense. The way magic resides in the ether out of the visible range and is brought forth and woven into something visible, either temporary or lasting, just works, it makes sense. Add to that the manipulation of ether outside the visible spectrum, such as cold and hot, as being dangerous, and the system just clicks into place.

As an artist myself, the way you think creatively, the way work takes a toll on you physically and mentally, Mary just nails it. While Jane would blush if I went into specifics, the issue with her "flower" I totally get. There is such a simpatico going on between me and Jane with our feelings and our physical beings that I am right there with her every step of the way. While yes, there is this part of me going, Jane is me, there's a happier part of me going Jane is Jane. She is an amazing heroine, she doesn't just have a spine, she has spine enough for both her and Vincent, supporting them through their trials and hardships, making plans, taking names, befriending nuns, it's just perfect.

And those hardships. Mary perfectly captures the day to day struggle of someone who once didn't have to worry about where the next meal will come from. The shame of being less then you were and being indebted to others and having your name sullied. Wondering if there will be shelter, if there will be food, if you will be warm. Valour and Vanity shows the flip side of Regency life. It's not all ballrooms and magic, it can be working on the street in danger of fainting just hoping to bring money home for some food or wood for the fire. And the scene where Jane buys a bar of soap. The fact that a bar of soap can be such a luxury and such a source of contention. But I can say, there is something so amazing that something as small as a little bar of soap that can subtly change your outlook. But I do also look at Jane's life and think, I am glad I grew up knowing how to cook and clean. There can be something said for self-reliance.

Now speaking of those nuns... they are just one of the many aspects that made this book so awesome. The blurbs comparing this installment to Ocean's Eleven aren't wrong. Only I would personally choose Ocean's Twelve, having seen it twice in theatres it's a better movie for many reasons; it has an awesome soundtrack, has a part in Italy, I believe even in Venice, has an amazing Chachi joke, makes more fun of itself with meta humor, and has Eddie Izzard. Here we have glamourists, nuns, pirates, puppet shows, disguises, the Eleventh Doctor, breaking and entering, there is just so much awesome that it's hard to pinpoint what makes it work so well unless you count the fact that everything works so seamlessly together.

The thing I found interesting is you don't really think of heists starting before this past century. Sure there were pirates and brigands and all number of baddies who did all number of innumerable nasty things, but the heist feels like a more modern invention. In fact the definition of heist shows the word being an Americanism from the twenties and even references cars to define it. Aside from Michael Crichton's The Great Train Robbery, while being Victorian in conceit, but still very much a product of the seventies, I can't think of a successful book that combines a 19th century setting with an elaborate heist. For this alone Valour and Vanity should be held extraordinary and a must read, if not for every other reason I mentioned. Oh, and of course, me being a pusher for this series. Go on! You know you want to read it...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Byron, Eddie Izzard, Glamour, Heist, Jane Austen, Magic, Mary Robinette Kowal, Michael Crichton, Nuns, Ocean's Eleven, Regency Magic, The Great Train Robbery, Valour and Vanity, Venice

Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: August 10th, 2010
Format: Paperback, 256 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Polly Hampton was hoping that upon her family's return from India that she would reach the cold climate of England and that everyone would be more refined and not at it all the time. By it, she means love and the affairs of the heart. Sadly, her friend Fanny fills her in, that indeed, daydreams of love fill most hearts even far away from India. The thing is, Polly does not want love. She doesn't want her mother constantly hoping for her to fall into a mad passion, even arraigning for notorious French seducers to ply their trade on Polly. Polly will play the part but her heart will never enter into it. Lady Montdore continually has Fanny as her own "spy" hoping that Fanny can detect a glimmer of love within her daughters cold heart. Lady Montdore has spent her life planning for her daughter to have "all this." Yet, when the truth comes out as to the long game Polly has been playing, "all this" doesn't even enter into it. Love takes many forms, and it doesn't matter if it's odd or unconventional, love is what matters.

Love in a Cold Climate is always combined with The Pursuit of Love in adaptations for the simple reason that the events are actually concurrent with the previous volume. Also, for some reason, they think it's more romantic or apt to call it by Love in a Cold Climate. While I do see the reasoning, I always feel that by doing this neither story is getting full justice. While Pursuit is Linda's tale, Love is more obviously, not just Polly's story, but Fanny's, whose life gets fleshed out. It's not just about living in Linda's world anymore, but Fanny's own world and how others view it. In giving us more time with Fanny, who, let's face it, is the character the majority of us will identify with, there is a stronger connection for me with this book. Fanny's love of Linda, and, really, hero worshiping of her, gave the first book less heart for me. Perhaps it's because I'm the more sensible one and will identify with whichever character that may be. Like in Sense and Sensibility, I am Eleanor, not Marianne. I am Fanny, not Linda. While Polly might be the "main" character for much of the first half, her flinty heart, the opposite of Linda's overflowing heart, puts Fanny center stage and gives me a more satisfying read. Also, less time at Alconleigh and more time with Fanny's father figure Davey, means you realize what a hoot Davey is. His humor and his love of gossip fuel the fires of this book to make it more fun and full of laughs then you would expect after reading only the first volume.

There is also so much in this book that appeals to the lover of Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey in me. In Fanny staying with the higher echelons at Montdore House we have grand feasts on such a scale that you may be salivating while reading this book. There are balls where the rooms are flooded (on purpose) to make it like Venice, where you can float on gondolas indoors, an image that I think will never leave me, despite how short that passage is! With the character of Cedric, we have open acceptance of a gay character in a 1930s setting! Yes, there is some not quite PC labeling of him, but for the time, it was very forward. While Cedric didn't sit that well with critics in 1949, the fact remains that Nancy had a fully realized, sympathetic character with a non-mainstream lifestyle who was loved, truly loved by Lady Montdore, and therefore secured his acceptance in the aristocracy.

Yet for all that, Nancy can never make one non-mainstream lifestyle acceptable. This is a fatal flaw in this book, and that is Boy (Harvey) Dougdale. In fact Boy has so loomed in my memory that, aside from the "Venetian Ball" he is the overwhelming memory I have of this book. Boy is not just lecherousness, he is a pedophile. I am sorry, but there is no humor in someone who is not just sick but, as Uncle Matthew would say, a sewer. He has preyed on all the young girls, and boys, and for this he is nicknamed the Lecherous Lecturer. Yet is anything done about this pervert in their midst? NO! In fact most people find it funny in a kind of deviant way, "Oh, that's just Boy". He is in fact pitied, yes PITIED, because his unwanted attentions to young girls has resulted in him marrying one of the young girls he molested with his "sexy pinches" and massages. Pitied because his proclivities sparked an unwanted love that drove this girl to pursue him to the alter, not just the roof for a little cuddle. Guess what, don't fiddle with little children, because no matter what others think, I will not pity you, I will hope that the little girl will murder you on your wedding night.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alconleigh, Downton Abbey, India, Love in a Cold Climate, Mitford March, Nancy Mitford, Sense and Sensibility, The Pursuit of Love, Uncle Matthew, Upstairs Downstairs, Venice

The Secret History by Donna Tratt
Published by: Vintatge
Publication Date: 1992
Format: Paperback, 559 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy
Richard arrives at Hampen College in New England because it's the only school that will take him in and give him some money. It's an eccentric little school and Richard doesn't quite know what he will study. Having studied Greek back in California, he is drawn to this elite circle that has formed around Julian, a professor who holds his classes in his office as a kind of salon, wherein he shall be your sole educator, in the vein of true classicism. Once Richard finally finagles his way in, he becomes a part of this eccentric circle consisting of Henry, the nominal leader, Francis, the literary closet gay, Bunny, the rather dimwitted leach, and Charles and Camilla, the down at heels twins. They are his life entire. Every moment is spent with them or thinking of them. Yet there are secrets. One secret will tear them apart from within. Because, what if, in the pursuit of knowledge, to experience all the Greeks did, a ceremony was performed. A ceremony that had unintended consequences. A ceremony that will fracture the group. A ceremony that was evil and will leave evil in it's wake.

This book reaches the lofty position of one of the worst books I've read in a long time, not just because of the glacial pacing and the unlikable characters, but because of two majorly flaws. There is a disconnect in the book between what it is and what it wants to be. This dislocation gives the book a jarring feeling, like trying to force a square peg in a round hole. The book felt so not of it's time. There is a timelessness to it that feels routed in the early half of the 20th century. You feel like you could be at a small sequestered college surrounded by autumnal foliage and the cast of Brideshead Revisited would wander around the corner. But a coke addict with a boom box is what you usually get. This book is shockingly in the 80s. It doesn't feel like the 80s. The little quiet and queer Greek scholars feel of another time. Which I guess might have been Donna Tartt's purpose... but if it was, it failed. Every time something "80s" happened it felt like an anachronism. A splash of cold water in the face that made me think for the 100th time, why am I still reading this book.

The disconnect isn't just a temporal one, but one of character. Bunny has purposely conflicting descriptions. He is young, very clothes conscious, is a skinflint, so your mind starts to build this very wane, dapper man, who might be slightly effeminate. A Sebastian Flyte of the 80s if you would. For chapters you have this image, and it builds, and gains force, this is who Bunny is. With a name like Bunny, how could you not get this image. Yet then Tartt contradicts this all with, no, he's a good old boy who's a homophobe that is very muscularly built with a fondness for sports. Say what!?! The name Bunny was ironic? You let me believe this image for hundreds of pages to then throw in a curve and make this character no longer work for me. People are built of contradictions, this is true. Yet why go out of the way to obviously create all these Brideshead references, with Venice and Bunny and what have you, only to go, fooled you. Rule one of writing, you don't alienate your reader. They'll get snarky, they'll write crap reviews, and they will never buy your books again, and what will you do without an income?

The second problem I had was with the issue they had of what to do with Bunny. Kill him, move on, the end, I just cut your book by 400 pages Donna. Because that is the evil that comes of their ceremony, Bunny becomes a blackmailer. These people don't have morals, we've already seen that. Incest, it's ok, in fact, it's kind of sexy. Being bisexual with friends occasionally, that's fine too. Heavy drug use, alcohol abuse, Bacchanalia's, murder, they've done it all. Yet they hesitate to kill the one person who they loath, who is blackmailing them, and who was never much of a friend. Uh... where did the sudden morals come from? Perhaps because Donna Tartt was being paid by the word and the longer she could stretch out this anguish, this pointless debate about the inevitable, the more healthy her check at the end.

I didn't know what to expect going into this book. I had heard so many things about it. I had some sort of vague idea that this was going to be an intriguing mystery about some horrific crime, something "beyond the boundaries of normal morality". Instead I got 500 plus pages of whiny eccentric Greek scholars dithering about the inevitable and revelling in debauchery in such a boring way, it didn't feel debauched. The only mystery this book offered was of it's laudatory nature. Please, why? I agree with another review I read, I resent the time I spent on this book. Next please?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brideshead Revisited, Bunny, Donna Tartt, Greek, Sebastian Flyte, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, Venice