strange and random happenstance

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
Published by: Virago Press
Publication Date: 1938
Format: Paperback, 448 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and chain upon the gate... Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning as it had always done."

As she looks back on the twists and turns that brought her to Manderley, the second Mrs. de Winter can't help but wonder how her life ended up as it did. She had resigned herself to an existence as a paid companion trailing behind whomever had hired her, the reprehensible Mrs. Van Hoppper being her employer at the beginning of her story. That all changed when Maxim de Winter entered her life in his fast car. He was in the south of France fleeing the memories of his dead wife Rebecca and the one thing that blotted her out was the young girl who would become his second wife. Yet perhaps their union was foolish, or Maxim's dream to return to Manderley was unwise. Because back in England their life is haunted by the memories of his first wife, Rebecca. The specter that is hallowed by the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, and is a constant comparative presence for the new wife. Could Rebecca destroy their happiness from beyond the grave? Or will Rebecca need a little assistance from Mrs. Danvers?

When I was young my mother subscribed to The Franklin Library Mystery Masterpieces. Each month a new book would arrive and we'd set it in pride of place on our console bookshelf that housed our most prized possessions, this being the eighties it mainly housed records and our record player. The little nine year old that I was loved that each month another volume would come and expand the display on that orangey wood that just glowed with an inner light. Then one day The Franklin Library sent us the biggest box I had ever seen. They were discontinuing the Mystery Masterpieces and they sent us the remaining volumes all at once. At this time we probably had only ten volumes, so forty-two books showed up one day to our great astonishment and delight.

Until recently these books have been packed away as self space was scare; all but a few choice volumes which I had secreted away. When I was young I loved to spend time reading the spines and looking at the pictures and wondering what the books were about and making up my own stories, especially about The Thirty-Nine Steps, which really disappointed me when I found out what it was really about. When they first arrived I was too young to read most of the titles, and when I was older I was too into movies to bother with books. That all changed. Obviously. But Rebecca, the movie, was like a gateway drug. I adored the film and then I looked on our shelf. There was Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, one of the first books we'd gotten in this series, after the obligatory Agatha Christie volume that is. This particular edition would make it's way into my library and my heart.

Rebecca is that rare book that cries out to be read and re-read over and over again, each time a different interpretation and meaning unearthed. The opening line that transports you, like a dream, to Manderley. You can get lost in the happy valley among the flowers and never want to return from those magical pages. But I don't think that you truly get the book's greatness without knowing the context of Du Maurier's world, mainly her obsession with the Brontes. This is much in the vein of why people don't realize the genius of Northanger Abbey, which is a parody of the Gothic genre, not "serious" like Austen's other books! Du Maurier's first book, The Loving Spirit, takes it's name from a poem by Emily Bronte. More then twenty years after writing Rebecca her misguided biography on Branwell Bronte was published and forever secured her connection to them. Therefore the echoes of Jane Eyre that haunt Rebecca should not be thought a surprise or the least bit unintentional. Du Maurier was writing a new classic that would pay homage to and reflect Jane Eyre. A Jane Eyre for modern sensibilities, if you will.

Just as Jamaica Inn is the Wuthering Heights, so is Rebecca to Jane Eyre, just look at the similarities. The naive young girl ready for love, the misanthropic hero, the crazy wife, the destructive fire. What amazes me is that if you look at just the building blocks of these books they should be eerily similar, yet they aren't. Each book is a classic in it's own right, but the ghost of Jane Eyre isn't the only ghost that Rebecca tackles, after all there is Rebecca herself. While there is that chilling line delivered by Mrs. Danvers "Do you think the dead come back and watch the living?" What we think of as ghosts can take many forms. There are no spectral apparitions here, no things that go bump in the night, but that doesn't mean Rebecca doesn't haunt Manderley.

Rebecca recurs persistently in the consciousness of the second Mrs. de Winter causing her distress and anxiety, but she is also the bosom friend of Mrs. Danvers. Mrs. Danvers, more then anyone, works to keep Rebecca alive and in doing so makes her specter part of the foundation of Manderley itself. This is an interesting conceit on Du Maurier's part, because really, this is a ghost story without a ghost. The memory and emotion left behind is what haunts us, and if anyone could do this, it's Rebecca. As Captain Jack Harkness said on Torchwood, "Human emotion is energy. You can't always see it or hear it, but you can feel it. Ever had deja vu? Felt someone walk over your grave? Ever felt someone behind you in an empty room? Well there was. There always is."

Yet Rebecca isn't the only ghost. There's another person who haunts Manderley, she is always there, ever present, but in the shadow of Rebecca. I am of course talking about the second Mrs. de Winter. She is but mere shadow, a trace, a semblance of a person. She in fact has no name but that which Rebecca had, Mrs. de Winter. This is the most fascinating aspect of the book and many others have discussed it's importance, that the heroine has no name. One result of this namlessness is that she is a ghost, a cipher, a way to tell Rebecca's story through new eyes but without complicating the matter by creating a character with backbone.

Of course this is a two edged sword, on the one hand Du Maurier is pushing the second Mrs. de Winter into the background, but on the other hand by creating a blank slate, a character who has no real "character" we are able to put ourselves more easily into her shoes. This literary trick, I mean, really, I want to stand and applaud Du Maurier. By giving use this conduit there are so many ramifications to the narrative. By being one with the second Mrs. de Winter you therefore embrace Maxim, her husband, and therefore not just identify but condone his actions. The genius of Rebecca is that Daphne Du Maurier has made you complicit in murder and you loved every second of it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Daphne Du Maurier, Du Maurier December Deux, Emily Bronte, Franklin Library, Jane Austen, Jane Eyre, Manderley, Maxim de Winter, Mrs. Danvers, Northanger Abbey, Rebecca, Torchwood

Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden
Published by: Spectra
Publication Date: August 28th, 2007
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Captain Henry Baltimore led a night attack in the Ardennes that would forever change the world. As his entire battalion is cut down he survives the initial onslaught but is left to die with a leg wound. Out of the night sky comes large bat-like creatures, carrion eaters to feast on the dead. But there's something not right about them. One sees Baltimore and decides that he will be his feast. Lashing out Baltimore injures the creature but in return the creature destroys his leg. Later in hospital, a man appears beside his bed, and Baltimore knows he's one and the same to the creature on that battlefield. This "man" tells Baltimore that he knows not what he has done and the world will pay for the injury Baltimore inflicted on him. After this incident there are three people that Baltimore confides this story to, his three friends; Captain Demetrius Aischros, Thomas Childress, and Dr. Lemuel Rose. They know not of each other until one night when Baltimore asks them to meet him in a pub whose air of decrepitude and despair matches that of the rest of the world since the plague took hold and the Great War became of no consequence in the face of this new threat.

There they sit, waiting for Baltimore. In the interim they tell their stories because it is obvious that in order to have believed Baltimore's story, without hesitation, they too must have had some experience of this supernatural evil that walks the earth. Dr. Rose, besides treating Baltimore, also treated a man who believed he was responsible for the death of all the men he was stationed with. Dr. Rose couldn't believe this to be the case, but after a night in the woods keeping watch, believing Baltimore later was a given. Captain Aischros helped escort Baltimore home after he was invalided out of the war, if he wasn't convinced by what he saw on Baltimore's island home he was by an experience years earlier. Aischros recounts a tale from his youth when he was walking the coast of Italy and came upon the town of Cicagne, famed for their puppet shows, and barely escaped with his life. Childress is the last to tell his tale, having grown up with Baltimore on Trevelyan Island, he knew Baltimore all his life, but it was an incident while working for his own father's company in Chile that opened his eyes. They talk and wait hours, the pub becoming oppressive. They aren't sure if Baltimore is going to show, but they feel the final battle with the monster from that day in the Ardennes is at hand.

If you are a fan of good art and good storytelling then the only explanation for not knowing who Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden are would be that you've spent the last few decades under a rock. While I knew of them individually, in fact meeting Christopher Golden at a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Convention in upstate New York and fangirling over his videogame script, it was in a roundabout way that I learned about Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire. Before I started this blog I was very cunning in getting press passes for events. In February of 2007 I was supposed to go to the New York Comic Con with a friend of mine but the train from Chicago to New York was snowbound and the trip was cancelled because I wouldn't be able to make it in time. I insisted that my friend go and meet Christopher Golden knowing she would love him as much as me and it so happened that he was signing posters for a new collaboration with Mike Mignola. I still have the signed poster on my office wall next to my computer. Beautifully enlarged drawings from Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire of the church in Reveka and the church interior at Cicagne, and a weeping angel that would forever slightly freak me out after the Doctor Who episode "Blink" aired later that year. THIS I knew was a book written and illustrated just for me.

What is interesting about these two authors collaborating is that both are very familiar with vampires. Mike Mignola worked on the inadvertently hilariously awesome Bram Stoker's Dracula as well as Blade II, and the Angel comics. Whereas Christopher Golden, besides writing the scripts for both Buffy the Vampire Slayer Video Games also wrote comics and books for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. So their individual and combined vampire street cred could hardly be surpassed. But what struck me so much about this book was that it wasn't just a way to shoehorn vampires into the first world war, a time when these opportunistic creatures could flourish, instead it was almost a reinvention of the vampire for a new generation. They were carrion eaters awoken by the violence of men further spurred onto creating a destructive plague by violence against one of their own, The Red King. They lived in a symbiotic relationship with man, feeding off their dead and dying. Rarely are vampires shown as creatures there to keep the balance, keep the scales from tipping. The Red King in fact lays all the vengeful ills that have befallen mankind on Baltimore lashing out to save himself on that battlefield. It's almost as if the plague is a result of hurt pride, making the vampires pitiable more than anything else.

This spin of the morals of the vampires isn't the only way that this book stands head and shoulders above the rest. The main attraction for me was that this book reeked of Victorian Christmas ghost stories. The three men thrown together around a fire while the bleakness of the day bares down on them and they tell their terrifying stories couldn't have been more Dickensian if Dickens had written it himself. I literally couldn't contain my joy as a read this book into the late hours with chills going down my spin thinking that finally someone had written my own personal The Turn of the Screw, but with vampires and the Great War and totally not a lame premise! Seeing as I read so many stories with vampires predictability of plot and worldbuilding becomes problematic. You either have it modern, which can work, though I often like it without the tweaks to our world, or you can go all Bram Stoker. It's like there's an either or switch and you're not allowed in that middle ground. But that middle ground is where the best stories can be found. Think of one of the best episodes of Angel ever, "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been." It was set during the height of McCarthyism and was approached in a whole new way. It wasn't Victorian stodginess and it wasn't new and hip. Much like here, we have a new spin that is quite fascinating and is able to harken back to the origin story yet while still keeping the feeling of another era.

This ability of the authors to not only capture but understand the era they are writing about and tweaking just made me giddy. Let's look at the basics. The Great War resulted in the 1918 Influenza Pandemic which actually killed more people than the war itself. So World War I is forever linked to a horrible plague, The Spanish Flu. But what Golden and Mignola do here is to cleverly expand on this. What if the flu had been worse? What if this plague was supernatural in origin? What if it wasn't just supernatural but was a vampire with a severe grudge for getting his face a little scarred? The truth is, they have taken real events and made a believable extrapolation of events to their worst possible outcome. I know I shouldn't be so happy about a vampire plague descending on the world, but they just wrote it so well. They made a compelling alternate history. If you want to extrapolate further you could even take this into World War II. Now you're probably thinking I'm talking crazy, but think about it. World War II was inevitable as soon as we placed such hard sanctions on the Germans. We created our own worst enemy and we made Germany want another war. Here Baltimore by lashing out at The Red King to save himself creates the plague. Sometimes in trying to protect we make matters far worse and the ramifications impossible to foresee. Plague, World War II, you see?

With all that this book has going for it, the feeling of Poe, the more relevant yet completely original vampire, the Dickensian Christmas, I wonder if perhaps the drawings weren't a step to far. Yes, I don't think it would be a true collaboration without the drawings, but I don't really think there needed to be so many. More judiciously used illustrations better positioned would have worked better in my opinion perhaps with some red as a spot color. Yes, this seems counter intuitive with me picking up the book in the first place because of the illustrations, but they just don't really work for me. I felt they were unnecessary. My main problem was that these images were forcing us to view the story in a certain way and that's not right. Words evoke images in the reader's imagination and it's the work of these readers to create the scene in their heads. To people the world of the book as we see fit. But here we are meant to view the language in a proscribed manner. Thus making the book closer to the graphic novel end of the spectrum. Don't get me wrong, I love graphic novels, they just use a different part of the brain, one where image is primary and text is secondary, and if we're lucky they merge into a cohesive whole. Instead here Mignola's illustration would draw me out of the text make me think allowed that that isn't how I saw it and also realize that if you've seen one skull or one peaked rooftop you've probably seen them all. I am interested to see how they transitioned this book into a series of comics... perhaps that will be the proper outlet for the drawings. Whereas the story? The story is something you shouldn't miss. Just never mind that skull or that one or that other one.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Fall of Poppies, Angel, Baltimore, Blink, Bram Stoker, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charles Dickens, Christopher Golden, Dracula, Illustration, Mike Mignola, Spanish Flu, The Turn of the Screw, Vampires, WWI, WWII

The Lake House by Kate Morton
Published by: Atria Books
Publication Date: October 20th, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 512 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Midsummer has always been celebrated at Loeanneth with a grand gala. The lake house is strewn with lanterns and gondolas float on the river with fireworks dazzling the night sky above the great bonfire. While the Edevane family might enjoy their solitude in Cornwall, they still keep this tradition alive. It is 1933 and this will be the last year the family holds this celebration. Soon the house will be shuttered and it will be a time capsule of that night; the night everything changed. Young Alice Edevane would usually be reveling in these festivities, but this year is different. She no longer has time for Mr. Llewellyn, artist in resident and family friend, or her mother who wants her to help with preparations. She only has time for two things, plotting her first mystery novel and Ben. Ben is the gardener and she fancies herself in love with him. He listens raptly when she tells him about her book and talks to her like an equal. But could her book be what destroyed everything? Because in the wee hours of the night her baby brother Theo was taken from his crib. Seventy years later the case remains unsolved. Alice is now a successful mystery writer but she has never resolved what happened to her baby brother. Enter Sadie Sparrow. She's on leave from the MET with a forced vacation in Cornwall at her grandfather's house. Yet she can't sit still. Sadie stumbles on Loeanneth and the cold case consumes her. Will a fresh set of eyes find the truth of that long ago midsummer night?

There are times in your life when you just need to get away from reality and hide in a book. Sometimes it works and you fall into the story and it consumes you. Other times it backfires on you and all the troubles you were trying to escape are reflected back at you through this medium. Not only is the book too close for comfort, but once you put it down you'll be faced with reality again. Which is the situation I found myself in with Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, leading to me not being one of the worshipful majority. But that's another story for another time. When I finally picked up The Lake House it was precisely the book I needed at just the right time. It had just enough mystery with just the right level of predictability that I wanted to stay there as long as possible. I usually devour a book in a matter of days, but here I spent a week, taking my time and having a well deserved respite from reality. I languished at Loeanneth. The book became so much a part of me that I dreamt of Cornwall. I remember quite vividly being in the half-dream state where I wasn't quite fully awake but I had already started to leave my dream behind and hearing the garbage trucks making their morning rounds. The beeps were confusing and incongruous to me. There was still a part of me that knew they were garbage trucks, but my thoughts were consumed with the fact they didn't belong. The technology didn't exist yet and they would never spoil the idyll that was the lake house, because that is where I was. I haven't had this kind of dream disassociation since years ago when I thought some crop dusters were Messerschmidt's, again another story for another time.

Kate Morton's books aren't for everyone. In fact they only occasionally work for me. They spend loving detail on atmosphere and if you are more interested in narrative, well you can feel like you are languishing in a story with no forward momentum. The mysteries Morton concocts are very pedestrian. Her own creation, Alice Edevane, would weep for their simplicity. In fact the only thing that didn't ring true to me in The Lake House is that Alice Edevane is this grand dame of mystery writers the likes of P.D. James and Ruth Rendell yet she was never able to solve this mystery in her own life. Yes, you could say it's because she didn't want to know the truth, but that seems cliched. But the truth you need to remember in Morton's book is the mystery is always secondary. Yes, she did a better job this time of spacing out the clues so just when you thought nothing would progress, bam, new evidence showed up on the scene. That doesn't mean I didn't figure it out hundreds of pages earlier, but I liked the pacing. I also liked the characters, I felt like they were more fleshed out in this tale. Morton likes to have the old lady with these wonderful stories and secrets that must be passed on or solved by younger generations. It's her thing, it's her trope. But here Alice was so alive. She was the spark that kept things together. She's a spunky old lady who plays her cards close to her chest, and I just loved that. Instead of a dead aunt, a mother on her deathbed, or an old lady in a nursing home, the elderly lady this time around was active not passive and it made a huge difference.

While having the disappearance of the one Edevane son as the fulcrum this book is really about women. Particularly the bond between mothers and daughters and all the shapes and forms these bonds come in. I liked that we had mothers who knew the best thing for their child was to let them go, while also having mothers so selfish they pushed their daughter away for the sake of their own appearance. It really cast a light on the fact that there's not just one single and simple way that mothers and daughters interact. People are so different and to assume that their relationships are all the same is folly. What is also interesting is to see how the mother daughter relationship is formed by experience and also by society's conventions and how those conventions have changed over time. The relationship between Alice's mother and grandmother, women of the previous century, was more staid and reserved, because of the time and also a tragedy Alice's grandmother endured. Going forward Alice's mother wants to have a better relationship with her own daughters but realizes that her husband stands in the way of her being the "fun" parent and therefore sadly accepts her fate. Then we look to Sadie and how her own mother threw her out because Sadie got pregnant and opted to give the baby up for adoption. Just a few women, and yet their relationships are so complex and we are given insight into each one, we get to understand if not empathize with how they lived and loved.

But if I'm honest what really intrigued me with The Lake House was the real life parallels. Theo's disappearance has parallels to the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, which the book doesn't shy away from pointing out. There's something about these unsolved crimes that echo down the generations and draw us in and therefore make for great inclusions in fiction. As for my Lindbergh baby obsession, it's not as bad as my Jack the Ripper obsession, though both make me wish I could time travel just to solve unsolved crime. The thing is Lindbergh went to the same university as me and I can actually see the house where he lived from my office window. As for the kidnapping, I saw a riveting one person play on the convicted kidnapper Bruno Hauptmann that has always stuck with me. Though it wasn't just the Lindbergh allusions that I loved. Mr. Llewellyn and his children's book based on Alice's mother had so much Lewis Carroll in it I could sqwee for joy. Plus Morton played with our preconceptions based on this real life connection. She threw suspicion on Mr. Llewellyn but also called into question his relationship with the family, much as Carroll's was with the Liddells. Oh, and to hark back to those great dames of detection, there's more than a little Anne Perry in Alice Edevane. Of course Anne Perry's childhood crime of murdering her best friend's mother prior to becoming a bestselling crime writer was immortalized in the wonderful film Heavenly Creatures. This crime occurred in New Zealand, a stone throws from Morton's Australia. The idea that Alice might somehow be guilty and therefore an unreliable narrator, I can't tell you how much I loved this. Also the Mitford parallels, with Deborah, Alice, and Clemmie Edevane mirroring Diana, Nancy, and Jessica Mitford respectively was just the cherry on top of the sundae.

The only real problem I had with the entire book was Sadie Sparrow. While you might think it's a hatred of her pigheadedness and her just not really listening to people, it has nothing to do with that, I could overlook that as character flaws. My problem is her name: Sadie Sparrow. I'm sure when everyone first saw the Doctor Who episode "Blink" written by Steven Moffat they all thought that Sally Sparrow was the coolest name ever and were wishing that they had thought of it first. I know I did and I'm a reviewer not a writer! In fact my handle on my knitting site actually is Sally Sparrow, I am unashamed of my geekiness and I fully admit it. It's such a unique and distinctive name that once you hear it you can't ever forget it. Now here we have Sadie Sparrow. She's like a weak imitation, a bad knock off, a wannabe Sally but alwaysbe Sadie. Why would you EVER choose this as your characters name? Why would an editor ever let you do it? Yes the name might seem perfectly acceptable to you, the author, but it's not. This name wasn't your invention. To make matters worse Sally and her friend Kathy joke about being investigators, Sparrow and Nightingale! A bit ITV, but I'd still watch it. And here's "Sadie" being all investigative and then a PI! I'm sorry. This is just unacceptable. You could argue it's coincidence, that Kate Morton has never even seen Doctor Who. Guess what? I don't care. Yes her book has lots of real life connections and allusions, but she makes them her own. If it was a original thought or Sally just became Sadie, it's too close and MUST be changed. This isn't Moffat, it's Morton. And the last thing any writer wants to be is Moffat.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Anne Perry, Blink, Charles Lindbergh, Cornwall, Doctor Who, Downton Denial Denouement, Fangirl, Heavenly Creatures, Jack the Ripper, Kate Morton, Lewis Carroll, Mitfords, P.D. James, Steven Moffat, The Lake House

The Witch's Vacuum Cleaner and Other Stories by Terry Pratchett
Published by: HarperCollins
Publication Date: January 3rdm 2017
Format: Hardcover, 256 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Do you believe in magic? Can you imagine a war between wizards? An exciting journey in an airship or down in a submarine? Would you like to meet the fastest truncheon in the Wild West?

The Witch’s Vacuum Cleaner is the second fabulously funny short-story collection from the late acclaimed storyteller Terry Pratchett. A follow-up to Dragons at Crumbling Castle, this second batch of storytelling gems features stories written when Sir Terry was just seventeen years old and working as a junior reporter. In these pages, new Pratchett fans will find wonder, mayhem, sorcery, and delight—and loyal readers will recognize the seeds of ideas that went on to influence his most beloved tales later in life.

As Neil Gaiman says, “a Terry Pratchett book is a small miracle”—and The Witch’s Vacuum Cleaner proves to be another miracle taking its place alongside Pratchett’s astounding and cherished body of work."

Terry might have left us far too soon, but at least the books keep coming! Also, I love that the cover matches the new Tiffany Aching book design!

The Lady of the Lakes by Josi S. Kilpack
Published by: Shadow Mountain
Publication Date: January 3rdm 2017
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"It's 1796 and nineteen-year-old Walter Scott is in love. For the past few years, he has been engaged in a long-distance courtship, writing love letters to his childhood sweetheart, Mina. Though both Walter and Mina are young and from different stations in society, they share the same love of literature, a passionate temperament, and a restless heart. They know their love is meant to be. Walter feels sure Mina is the muse he needs to bring every dream of his life to fruition. But the distance between the two lovers proves too great, and when Mina meets the handsome and charming William Forbes, she is swept away, and the two quickly announce their engagement.

Brokenhearted, Walter takes refuge in the lake country of England where he resigns himself to life of misery and heartache. But then he meets Charlotte, a French girl, who, at twenty-six, has resigned herself to the fact that she will never find love. Despite their age difference, the two become cautious friends, but Charlotte's quiet disposition and keen mind intrigue Walter. She is so different from Mina, yet perhaps, for Walter, it may be that his perfect match is a woman who calms him and helps him keep his feet on the ground. Though wary of risking his heart a second time, he finds himself falling deeply in love with her.

In the end, he is able to forgive Mina, forget his heartbreak, and forge ahead in a new relationship, realizing that there is a vast difference between a man's ''first love'' and his ''true love.''"

It's like this book was written for me! 

Crimson Snow edited by Martin Edwards
Published by: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date: January 3rdm 2017
Format: Paperback, 318 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Crimson Snow brings together a dozen vintage crime stories set in winter. Welcome to a world of Father Christmases behaving oddly, a famous fictional detective in a Yuletide drama, mysterious tracks in the snow, and some very unpleasant carol singers. There's no denying that the supposed season of goodwill is a time of year that lends itself to detective fiction.

On a cold night, it's tempting to curl up by the fireside with a good mystery. And more than that, claustrophobic house parties, with people cooped up with long-estranged relatives, can provide plenty of motives for murder.

Including forgotten stories by major writers such as Margery Allingham, as well as classic tales by less familiar crime novelists, each story in this selection is introduced by the leading expert on classic crime, Martin Edwards. The resulting volume is an entertaining and atmospheric compendium of wintry delights."

Sure, releasing this AFTER Christmas seems a little strange, but it's still winter... also I'll be reading it during Christmas, because I have an ARC losers! Haha!

Mystery in the Channel by Freeman Wills Crofts
Published by: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date: January 3rdm 2017
Format: Paperback, 278 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The Chichester is making a routine journey across the English Channel on a pleasant afternoon in June, when the steamer’s crew notice something strange. A yacht, bobbing about in the water ahead of them, appears to have been abandoned, and there is a dark red stain on the deck… Two bodies later, with no sign of a gun, there certainly is a mystery in the channel.

Inspector French soon discovers a world of high-powered banking, luxury yachts and international double-dealing. British and French coastal towns, harbours – and of course the Channel itself – provide an alluring backdrop to this nautical adventure, along with a cast of shady characters."

And more good old fashioned British crime! 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: British, Christmas, Crimson Snow, Freeman Wills Crofts, Josi S. Kilpack, Martin Edwards, Mystery, Mystery in the Channel, Sir Walter Scott, Terry Pratchett, The Lady of the Lakes, The witch's Vacuum Cleaner

This year was a hard year. I think I say that every year, but this year really was. You can kind of see how I was knocked sideways in my reading habits, sticking to comics and other lighter fare. Also work and sticking to a strict exercise routine (#ExerciseWithBuffy/ #AngelAerobics/ #GilmoreGirlsGetFit/ #XOXOExercise) meant less time to read, and that's not even counting problems with my mom's health and the resultant daily catastrophes. But it is still books that keep me going. Whenever I'm really grumpy and down it's usually because I haven't picked up a book in awhile. To get lost in the dramas of other lives, to disappear into the pages of a book is one of the greatest joys in life. So when the world seems just too much at least I have my library, made up of favorites and hopefully books that will become new favorites. Here's to 2016, may you burn in hell. 2017, you've got a lot riding on you and so far it's not looking too good, so let's try to fix that OK? So let's start this party! Let's see how much I remember of what I've read this past year!

1) Unnatural Creatures selected by Neil Gaiman: SUCH a strong first story. Here's a hint when compiling collections of short stories. Don't put the absolute best first, because all the others really look like shit.

2) Kate's Story, 1914 by Adele Whitby: I am so done with this series. I mean seriously, there are no mysteries and it's all schmaltzy and blah. Could someone who has bothered to read them all contact me because I want to know if I'm right about all my conclusions without having to read any more of them.

3) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: So yeah... I finally got around to reading this classic despite knowing the whole story... and guess what? The characters are even more unlikable when reading about them. But I think Cathy might be the worst. It would be a close call though. 

4) The Forgotten Room by Karen White, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig: I haven't read the other two authors yet and I'm kind of intrigued to check them out but the annoying part of reading a story with multiple generations and thwarted love is that the couple I adored didn't get a HEA! Weep wail.

5) The Lake House by Kate Morton: I think this is easily my favorite Kate Morton book. All her books have such potential and often fail in the end, yet have an enduring grip on my mind. Yes, I could obviously see what was happening, but somehow the merging of past and present worked to keep the narrative interesting despite my insight.

6) Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor #3 by George Mann: I'm glad that The Eighth Doctor is getting some love from my friend George. It's totally unfair that Paul McGann got so shortchanged.

7) Angel and Faith: A Tale of Two Families, Part 2 by Victor Gischler: Trying to remember individual issues of this season's arc is basically futile. So I'll just say avoid Angel and Faith this season. It sucks.

8) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In Pieces on the Ground, Part 3 by Christos Gage: Whereas by cannibalizing Angel and Faith by taking their production team to Buffy... it paid off for Buffy. Buffy is awesome this season. So read Buffy, skip Angel and Faith. 

9) The Record Set Right: A Short Story from Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War by Lauren Willig: Obviously I couldn't wait until the whole collection was released to read Lauren Willig's story, so luckily it was released in advance. A beautiful little story about misunderstandings, true love, the damage of the Great War and Africa! Also, first person narration, which I believe is a first for Lauren.

10) The Cavendon Women by Barbara Taylor Bradford: Not nearly as captivating as the first book in the series. This was just everyone sitting around thinking that each other is fabulous. The possibility of deceit and murder was just a red herring to keep me reading, which was a shame. 

11) The House at Tyneford by Natasha Solomons: Odd but memorable story about World War II and a young Jewish girl out of place in her new position of safety. Also, she was totally a bitch to the man who totally loved her! 

12) Artists and Their Cats by Alison Nastasi: Does this book REALLY need to be sold? I mean it basically sells itself! Artists and cats! Go buy it!

13) Manor of Secrets by Katherine Longshore: One of those books you're not sure if you like or hate... I mean, I really haven't come to a conclusion as to whether I'd ever read it again so should I bother holding onto it? It's just a basic Upstairs, Downstairs wannabe that has one memorable character... possibly.

14) Summerset Abbey by T.J. Brown: Books where characters you like are forced into untenable positions often piss me off, because seriously, just speak up and get your shit together! Of course the character in question does do this, but in the most round-about way. Should probably read the rest of the series to see how it all turns out...

15) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In Pieces on the Ground, Part 4 by Christos Gage: See note above.

16) Angel and Faith: A Tale of Two Families, Part 3 by Victor Gischler: Don't bother with not above, just avoid.

17) Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor #4 by George Mann: Woo Hoo more Paul McGann!

18) Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho: Methinks this is the natural successor to fill the void I constantly feel every time I realize there isn't a sequel to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. But I need the next book now! 

19) Newt's Emerald by Garth Nix: Wow. What a piece of shit. Like yeah. Historically inaccurate, implausible despite being in a world with magic, and yeah, no worldbuilding either. It feels like it was just written to make a quick buck on the Regency Magic craze. Note, us Regency Magic readers expect quality!

20) Newt's Emerald by Garth Nix: And seriously, why did I read this piece of shit twice? Because I had heard the e-book version was different. Yeah, it was slightly crappier.

21) Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill: Very American Gothic with a lot of expected tropes, all troubles lead to sexual abuse and the trusty animals get killed... but somehow it still hooked me. Much like his father Stephen King tends to do.

22) Bewitching Season by Marissa Doyle: So gosh darn cute! With Queen Victoria being all the rage right now here's a way to get the younger ones interested! Though the "confusion" between the lead and her true love was drawn out excruciatingly. I wish I could be in the secret society DASH that was responsible for saving Queen Victoria's life! I also kind of really want to re-read this after watching Victoria, because I'm sure I'd get even more out of it.

23) FukuFuku: Kitten Tales 1 by Kanata Konami: With Chi's Sweet Home ending the author's publishers are putting out earlier books in English, aka FukuFuku! Which is kitten awesomeness!

24) Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer by Van Jensen: I read this because someone I know knew about my love of Buffy and thought this would be a funny read... I seriously don't remember much about it at all... like my mind is a blank. Pinocchio must not be the most memorable slayer is all I'm saying. Works in concept not in actuality.

25) Fatale, Volume 2: The Devil's Business by Ed Brubaker: So, I had to wait quite awhile to finally get this from my local library. I can seriously see why it's so popular. It's got this old fashioned Noir feel but with a Lovecraftian vibe. TOTALLY up my alley!

26) Ms. Marvel, Volume 1: No Normal by Willow G. Wilson: Not really what I expected. I was so used to seeing that poster everywhere, seriously, it is ubiquitous, and Kamala Khan SO isn't that poster. She's more goofy and more messy and just more human I guess is what I'm saying.

27) Fatale, Volume 3: West of Hell by Ed Brubaker: If I'm recalling right this is the only volume that I was like, meh. It was a whole hot mess of different time periods trying to get across the history of our female protagonist, and it just didn't work.

28) Chi's Sweet Home, Volume 12 by Kanata Konami: Finale! I wish it had never ended... but at the same time, such a sweet happy ending for all the kitties. I guess I'll just have to read them all again and again!

29) Fatale, Volume 4: Pray for Rain by Ed Brubaker: I really liked this volume, it was moody and so evocative of Seattle in the nineties and the whole grunge aesthetic, but with the underlying mystery of murder. Kind of like if you spend all your time thinking about the what-ifs of Kurt Cobain's death.

30) Betraying Season by Marissa Doyle: Witches! Ireland! I loved the first volume so much I didn't know how I felt about the more annoying sister as I viewed her... but leave it to Marissa Doyle to up the ante and make an even better book!

31) Blankets by Craig Thompson: I didn't just hate this graphic novel I detested it. It was so much whining and whinging and then creepy molester baby sitter. But more importantly, that isn't what the Milwaukee Public Museum looks like! Says the girl who spent more weekends than she can count there when she was a kid.

32) Courtship and Curses by Marissa Doyle: I love that in this one we get a glimpse back at the parents of the previous volumes. It's a neat way to continue the story without ruining what was already built, which some authors do. Also, this way I totally had my Regency Magic fix 100% here.

33) Mary Bennet and the Bloomsbury Coven by Beth Deitchman: This is a book that made me go, why the hell had I never read this before!?! Also, Mary Bennet is rocking the magic. Oh, and Mr. Bennet is still so awesome, and and and, yeah... I NEED more in this series.

34) Margaret Dashwood and the Enchanted Atlas by Beth Deitchman: And then I got more, but it wasn't enough. I need more and more and more. I need AT LEAST a book in this series for every book Austen wrote! Just so darn magical and such a fun new interpretation of Jane Austen's classics. Seriously people, you can get Jane Austen VERY wrong in spin offs and continuations. I just love Beth Deitchman! LOVE HER!

35) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In Pieces on the Ground, Conclusion by Christos Gage: As I've said before, I seriously can't remember individual issues. It's good, read it.

36) Angel and Faith: A Tale of Two Families, Part 4 by Victor Gischler: Urk. Angel sucks. Hehe, he literally does! Yeah, I might be a little loopy right at this moment... 

37) Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor #5 by George Mann: Just read this arc, OK?

38) Daughter of Mystery by Heather Rose Jones: This book was A LOT longer than I thought it was. Or at least it felt really long. But the worldbuilding was interesting if a little confusing because I think for a Ruritanian Romance the rest of Europe would be more changed. But I did really like the characters and the setting.

39) Matilda by Roald Dahl: If I was only allowed to choose ONE book from my childhood that shaped me and made me who I am it would be Matilda. As to why I picked it up, I got to see the musical this year! Woo hoo!

40) Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl: And once I was on a Roald Dahl kick I couldn't stop... and seriously, when he was on, he was ON. Sadly when he was off he was really really REALLY off.

41) High-Rise by J.G. Ballard: The flaw of this book is that in the end all the men are the same. Yes, if could be some "insight" into how men wage war despite their economic status, but it was all too samey and just lacked a female perspective. Especially considering how they basically secretly take everything over.

42) Giant Days, Vol. 1 by John Allison: Cute. Very much making me have flashbacks to college.

43) Giant Days, Vol. 2 by John Allison: And they changed the artist! I'm sorry, but I think in graphic novels and comics you have to somehow lock down your artist for the long haul, because in some cases they are THE reason you "read" these books. The roughness I loved is gone, replaces by Disney sanitation.

44) The Mystic Marriage by Heather Rose Jones: MUCH more enjoyable than the first volume. I think it's just that I get the more "physical" aspect of magic versus the more "ephemeral" because I make things. Though I still find it odd that EVERYONE in this social set is sapphic.

45) Resident Alien Volume 1: Welcome to Earth! by Steve Parkhouse: This was weird. Kind of like an old medical show your parents watched in the 70s combined with My Favorite Martian. It works, but it's still odd.

46) The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett: More Jane Eyre with magic than Jane Austen with Magic, especially with the gutsy move to shift to first person narration in the middle. But I'm loving this magic system and just this fascinating worldbuilding with unstable days and nights. How weird to live in a world of ever fluctuating daylight?

47) The House on Durrow Street by Galen Beckett: OMG! This series just keeps getting better. My most disliked character has stepped up and is involved in a murder mystery that encompasses magicians and the clergy! And just, seriously, I'm loving EVERYTHING about this series. MORE!

48) The Magicians by Lev Grossman: Um... this wasn't what I was expecting. I was thinking Harry Potter for adults instead I got whiny millennials, a Narnia rip-odd, and arctic fox sex. Yeah. So, not what I expected. The TV show is far better FYI.

49) Night Shift by Charlaine Harris: A solid end to this series. Personally I don't want it to be the end, especially seeing how good the second volume was. But IF this has to be the end, it ended well.

50) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Own It, Part 1 by Christos Gage: See above, don't remember, still worth reading.

51) Angel and Faith: A Tale of Two Families, Part 5 by Victor Gischler: Skip it.

52) Giant days #9 by John Allison: Why am I now reading the individual issues when the collected ones where just meh? Because apparently I can get addicted to anything!

53) Giant days #10 by John Allison: See directly above.

54) Ms. Marvel, Volume 2: Generation Why by Willow G. Wilson: Was this the one with Loki? I kind of liked that? Or was this the one with Wolverine which made it kind of lame? Seriously, I kind of want to know but part of this "game" is be trying to remember...

55) Ms. Marvel, Volume 3: Crushed by Willow G. Wilson: Again, no real memory... just Ms. Marvel balancing school and "duty" and being pretty boring. 

56) Ms. Marvel, Volume 4: Last Days by Willow G. Wilson: Is this the one where the world is going to end but then doesn't? I think it is... 

57) The Fade Out: Act One by Ed Brubaker: This may be my favorite Brubaker book yet! Old Hollywood, crime, dark secrets, sign me up for all of them STAT! 

58) Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff: I have tried to block this from my memory. Not that this volume was bad, just the follow up was SO BAD that this had to be redacted from my memory as well.

59) The Fade Out: Act Two by Ed Brubaker: More mystery, more suspense, it's totally like LA Confidential! Have I told you how much I love that movie!?! And yes, movie over book here people.

60) The Fade Out: Act Three by Ed Brubaker: The ending was a bit predictable, but it doesn't detract at all from this being an awesome series and dammit, now I need that deluxe edition they are selling.

61) Delilah Dirk and the King's Shilling by Tony Cliff: Just no. Historically inaccurate, painfully written, a world of no. 

62) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Own It, Part 2: The Centre Cannot Hold by Christos Gage: Good season, just read it people.

63) Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey: Really interesting space opera. What I particularly liked was how space had changed genetics. Also the Bladerunner vibe was also really cool. Perfect worldbuilding if in need of some editing. Can not wait to read the sequel.

64) Con Mans Spectrum #0 by Alan Tudyk: As I recall, this was a decent set up for the show that is the running gag in Con Man... but it was very short. And I've forgotten to get any followup comics. Doh. But I ADORE Con Man!

65) DOCTOR WHO: FOUR DOCTORS SPECIAL FCBD 2016 EDITION by Various: Yeah... I don't remember this, I think I liked it? 

66) Serenity: Firefly Class 03-K64 by Chris Roberson: OK, so this stretch of comics here prove one thing, when you are recovering from being sick and read a whole LOT of comics you probably won't remember anything. At. All. 

67) The Master of Heathcrest Hall by Galen Beckett: SUCH a good ending for this series. I love how Galen kept switching it up, adding more levels, more secrets, more awesomeness. Yeah, I know I'm not really writing anything about what the book is actually about, but spoilers would ruin the awesomeness. JUST READ THIS! NOW!

68) Batman: Gotham Noir by Ed Brubaker: There was something at a night club? Maybe? Yeah, not remembering it...

69) Buffy: The High School Years - Freaks and Geeks by Faith Erin Hicks: Did the writer of this ever watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer? EVER!?! This just feels like a money grab. It didn't work with the show's mythology or even writing style. Also, why would vampires live in a crypt with no roof?

70) Sleeper, Volume 1: Out in the Cold by Ed Brubaker: This kind of bridges the gap between what Brubaker does usually, moody Noir, and what most people expect out of comics, aka, Superheroes. So this is a good medium ground that is FAR superior to Watchmen.

71) The Ghost Rebellion by Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris: SO disappointing. Epic disappointment. And I helped kickstart this book! Instead of moving forward with the story they sat spinning their wheels in India doing nothing and then having big incomprehensible fight sequences, then nothing again. If they can't do it right just don't do it. Also, the authors constantly wanting reviews posted is annoying... there's a reason no one is posting reviews, they'd be bad and we don't want to hurt your feelings.

72) The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists and The Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab by Gideon Defoe: I'm in love with The Pirates. I love that they don't have names really and are totally goofy and aren't really that pirate like at all. Though I loved Ahab's adventure more... it was more nautically subversive.

73) Fatale, Volume 5: Curse the Demon by Ed Brubaker: But I don't want it to be over! Well... I do but I don't. The ending was very bittersweet. 

74) The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith: Not what I expected. Yes, it's a solid story, but it's obvious that Rowling as Galbraith liked to spend more time with character development than plot development. So perhaps the second book will be better... I will say it left a lingering feeling. I still remember it vividly.

75) Circling the Sun by Paula McLain: Odd story about Beryl Markham, aka aviatrix of Africa and all that. Odd because it left out SO MUCH and at the same time you never got a handle on Beryl. She felt forever a mystery. Also, all those affairs and such? Gone. Perhaps it would have made us not like her? Personally, I'd take the truth over redacted history. How to justify the truth would have been far more fascinating.

76) The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists by Gideon Defoe: This was a book club pick which actually spurred me into reading the first two stories. I liked it, but it didn't have the nautical punch and awesomeness as their adventure with Ahab. Also the more I read these books the more I feel like I should be eating ham.

77) The Cavendon Luck by Barbara Taylor Bradford: Shit storm. Just, WTF people. I just. I just can't. I want to block having read this volume from my mind, the war profiteering, the jam, the death. Just no. I think it might retroactively destroy this whole series. PS, the "luck" was that this was an ARC and I didn't pay money for it. 

78) The Pirates! In an Adventure with Napoleon by Gideon Defoe: I like The Pirate Captain fighting off against Napoleon... it's just weird how the books jump around through time and don't give a damn about historical accuracy. I can't decide if I like this or if it bothers me.

79) Fiercombe Manor: A Novel by Kate Riordan: Someone said this was like Rebecca. It's not like Rebecca. At. All. It's about pregnancy and depression and a weird little valley. Yep. Nothing more. The "ghosts" aren't really ghosts and it's yeah... it promised more than it delivered and was actually a slog to get through.

80) Lumberjanes, Volume 3: A Terrible Plan by Noelle Stevenson: I keep wanting to love Lumberjanes and every time it's like, yeah, it was OK. Kind of confusing and nothing much happened. Sometimes they get badges...

81) Bloodline by Claudia Gray: Not what I expected, aka, Han and Leia's breakup. Instead it was a political thriller the directly leads up to The Force Awakens and answers a lot of bridging questions. I liked it in the end. 

82) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Own It, Part 3: Taking Ownership by Christos Gage: More Buffy.

83) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Own It, Part 4: Vengeance by Christos Gage: More Buffy with vengeance demons is my guess from the title...

84) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: This could have been such an interesting portrait of art and theatre enduring after the end of times, but instead all the interesting stuff that happens right after "the end" gets pushed aside with a huge time jump and then a whole lot of "coincidences" coming together at the end. Also the actor whatever his name is that links the narratives, he was an ass. 

85) Star Trek: Redshirt's Little Book of Doom by Robb Pearlman: Adorable little book which I have to get myself a copy of because this was for a friend's birthday. Characters from Star Trek enacting Clue and other hilarious scenarios are all yours for the low price of this book! Oh, shouldn't say low because it was a present...

86) Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 and 2 by J.K. Rowling: Just wonderful. Yes, it's basically just a lot of timey-whimey mumbo jumbo that messes with the forth book and therefore messes with the future, but damn, it pulls on the heartstrings! Also, I ADORE Draco's son. He did something really right there. Though I don't necessarily buy that you-know-who had sex... 

87) George Sprott, 1894-1975 by Seth: Depressing tale about the last night of a great Arctic reporter's life and looking back on it. Would have been more convincing if the reporter wasn't such an ass.

88) God Is Disappointed in You by Mark Russell: So, apparently I learned WAY more in grade school than I ever thought. But overall I didn't find the summaries funny. It was too much the author's interpretation so therefore lacked a universality that I had hoped for. I was the only one in my book club to feel this way.

89) The Glittering Court by Richelle Mead: It's like an Elizabethan Court had sex with The Hunger Games and early America... and it never formed a cohesive whole and worked. 

90) Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal: I liked it, didn't love it, which is rare for a Mary Robinette Kowal book. The worldbuilding was fabulous and she really created a believable and interesting take on WWI with spiritualism, but I'll wait for the next book to be fully sold. 

91) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Own It, Part 5 by Christos Gage: It's On You by Christos Gage: It's on me to remember... and I so don't. 

92) Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare: Interesting jumping back into the world of Cassandra Clare because I kind of purposefully deleted all memory of her books from my brain... it actually was FAR more entertaining than her modern day series. The Victorian trappings and a more sinister villain do go a long way. But it's still not like what I'd even call literature... 

93) Lumberjanes, Volume 4: Out of Time by Noelle Steveson: I actually liked this one because of all the random snow AND they explained some stuff. Like Bear Woman being the old head of the camp. Stuff like that! 

94) Ms. Marvel, Volume 5: Super Famous by Willow G. Wilson: Was this the one where her brother got married? Because if it is that's the only part I liked.

95) Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War by Various: Overall a lot of interesting takes on Armistice Day but there were a few, like Beatriz Williams, that were really creepy. Seriously, her story had a protagonist that was totally a pedophile, if not totally spelled out. So yeah, the creep factor of a few kind of bog down the overall collection.

96) Runaways: The Complete Collection Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan: I'd read Joss Whedon's arc YEARS ago and I felt like I came in in the middle of a story, which I did. It was nice seeing how the runaways became runaways and found out the truth about how their parents are evil. Also, loving anything with dinosaurs! 

97) Mata Hari's Last Dance by Michelle Moran: While only having read one of Michelle's books prior to this one I loved it and have all her other books ready to go, but I felt I needed to read this one for my blog. It was just such a fascinating look at Mata Hari and how she built up her legend and obscured the truth. Real insight, which what's her name who wrote the Beryl Markham book above could take to heart.

98) Hogwarts: An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide by J.K. Rowling: OK, I'm totally not going to remember which Hogwarts short had what, but they were all really enjoyable, though personally I now want physical copies of them! 

99) Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists by J.K. Rowling: I do recall though that the second one I read, IE this one, was the weakest, which is why it took me a little while to get to the third one. 

100) Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley: Still a classic. I seriously need more Bryan Lee O'Malley in my life. His comics are verging on magical realism, but kind of closer to urban fantasy with how it's a little more real. Whatever he writes I'm getting it! Though I do question the Snot Girl thing...

101) Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden: LOVED THIS! Serious love. Gothic and Dracula like, but more modern, more relevant even if it is WWI. I felt like I was there in that creepy pub telling stories with Lord Baltimore's friends until he finally arrived. Hint, this might be a best book of the year... 

102) Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd by Alan Bradley: Easily the weakest book in the Flavia De Luce series. There just wasn't enough of her family and then that ending? It felt like a cheap shot. 

103) Harrow County, Volume 1: Countless Haints by Cullen Bunn: Amazing watercolor illustrations, it's a sham the story didn't quite come together. It was a jumbled narrative that needed more explanation and streamlining, such as how hauntings work, how the girl is actually related to the witch, just basic groundwork needs to be laid properly in order for the series to work. I'll still read on though.

104) Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies by J.K. Rowling: I think this is the one with the awesome and heart-wrenching story about Minerva McGonagall. SO amazing. 

105) It Was the War of the Trenches by Jacques Tardis: I think I can finally make a statement about Tardis. I hate him. I hate how belittling he is to his readers and how his contempt comes through. I hate his style of art where all men look the same. I also hate his stories. Yep. I hate Tardis.

106) Angelica by Arthur Phillips: Just no. I thought this would be an interesting psychological thriller, instead it's all about Angelica's father and how he was victimized and tricked into marriage. Oh please, this SO felt like the author pushing his modern day issues onto a time period that didn't think that way. Though he did capture the language of the time period well... so yes, I would say I'm conflicted but his last sentence kind of nullified the book and therefore pissed me off more.

107) Hexed Volume 1 by Michael Alan Nelson: Art thief who is basically stealing magical and haunted artifacts. Could work, but so far I'm not that convinced. Though I do love the Idris Elba shout out. 

108) Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo: SO MUCH HOPE for this sequel. But it just didn't fully work. And I'm sorry, but if you kill my favorite character, or half of the only couple I'm actually shipping, I will not be happy. Yeah yeah, she created characters I loved enough to cry over, but seriously, I'd rather have the HEA. 

109) The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson: A Halloween classic for a reason! I love the timeless feel and how you're never sure exactly what is going on. I mean think of that, this is a book that is very unresolved, and yet it somehow just works. Though I will say the ending still feels rushed to me, even if I love how the haunting is basically channeled though Eleanor completely by the end.

110) Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection by Kate Beaton: Kate Beaton comics are a great escape for fans of literature. She just GETS it. Especially the Brontes. Though sometimes she does a tad too much Canadian History and that makes me feel dumb. Us Stateside didn't really get an education about many other countries... 

111) A Bride's Story, Volume 8 by Kaoru Mori: I mean, seriously, the illustrations, the humor, the ability to make Historical Fiction Manga about the silk road seem timeless. I adore Kaoru Mori and literally can not wait until her next book is out!

112) The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story by Susan Hill: If it wasn't for that little twist at the end making the ghost unrepentantly evil... this book would have nothing going for it. Except maybe as a travel book, the descriptions of the scenery are quite nice.

113) Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries by Helen Fielding: I didn't have high expectations for this book or even the movie. BOTH thrilled and delighted me and made me cry in different ways. Bridget Jones is still on form!

114) Last Night's Reading: Illustrated Encounters with Extraordinary Authors by Kate Gavino: I SO wanted to like this book because it's a clever concept doing a drawing of the author with a quote from their book event, but Kate Gavino isn't the best artist and all the authors start to look very samey and authors I knew look NOTHING like how she drew them.

115) Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding: Going off the Bridget Jones renaissance I just kept going... and I think maybe I shouldn't have. Yes, this is a great book, but after the joy of Mark and Bridget having a baby skipping ahead to his death was a little morbid. 

116) Don't Look Now: Selected Stories of Daphne Du Maurier by Daphne Du Maurier: Your life will never be complete until you read 'Kiss Me Again Stranger.' Seriously. I don't care what short story collection of Du Maurier's you buy, this one is very nice, but make sure it has that story. It might be one of my favorite short stories of all time.

117) Harrow County, Volume 2: Twice Told by Cullen Bunn: MUCH better than the first volume. I also liked how the story was streamlined, it was about two sisters who had the potential for great evil in them and the ways they used their powers. 

118) DC Comics: Bombshells Volume 1: Enlisted by Marguerite Bennett: So, about half-way through this I realized that despite this being WWII this is totally where the new Wonder Woman movie is taking it's plot from, except it's WWI now. Overall it didn't work. They did all the cliches of women during war without making any great strides narratively. Though I DID love the Cabaret feel of some of it.

119) Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier: I would never have thought I'd like this comic about Cystic Fibrosis, but it was handled well and was actually pretty cute and didn't stray too far into the "teaching moments" that I so detest.

120) Baltimore, Volume 1: The Plague Ships by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden: I like that the book which I loved so much is continuing on in comic form. Currently it's just kind of filling in the blanks and showing stuff that was hinted at. I can't wait until it moves beyond the original book.

121) Hexed: The Harlot and The Thief Volume 2 by Michael Alan Nelson: The cliffhanger ending was all I really remember. Oh, and the total unnecessary death of a cat. That's unacceptable. 

122) Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel: Um. Why do people like this book? Bechdel seems way too impressed with her own accomplishments and her father is a pedophile! Seriously, WHY!?! I mean, if she had tried to analyze the creep her father was that would be something, instead she just gives us the facts as she knows it and a bare minimum of her own feelings.

123) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Spread of Their Evil, Part 1 by Christos Gage: Good season, yadda yadda, read it.

124) Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel: And the pain of reading Bechdel continues... yes, I regret picking these up at the library... also, this one is far more self analyzing... not that that helps.

125) Adventures of Blanche by Rick Geary: Whereas I regretted picking up the Bechdel, Geary was a wonderful surprise. Taking his grandmother's post cards as starting off points for wild adventures that stray into the supernatural and bizarre made a memorable a quick read. Now if he'd stop drawing whiskers like cats on all the people. 

126) Adulthood is a Myth by Sarah Andersen: While I want to say Liz Lemon is my spirit animal, I think the truth is it's really Sarah Andersen. Especially because of her artistic side. I just ADORE everything she draws and writes, she gets me. So does that mean we'd be the best of friends? Obviously by just hanging out in our own homes and occasionally texting because even phone calls are daunting.

127) Giant Days Volume 3 by John Allison: So, I got so far behind here I just read the collected issues... some of which I'd already read. I didn't like that it ended on a cliffhanger with one of our leading ladies possibly dropping out of college...

128) Giant Days Issue 13 by John Allison: Which means it was VERY lucky I had already bought the next two issues. I really liked the college student going back home, but of course I never got to do that, growing up where I went to college... still, it now feels like I did.

129) Giant Days Issue 14 by John Allison: And now I've run out of issues and am too lazy and cheap so I'll have to wait until my library gets the next volume in.

130) The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. Le Guin: This volume from the Science Fiction Book Club has the first three Earthsea books, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, and The Farthest Shore. The first was solid, I can see where A LOT of modern fantasy writers use this as a model for the "wizard coming of age story." The second was AWESOME! Like Elizabeth Peters writing fantasy awesome. The final volume in the book was a bit of a drag with all the characters being whiny and magic leaving the world. It wasn't a very satisfying ending... perhaps that's why she eventually wrote more.

131) Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier: One of the best books EVER written. Read it. Now. I'll wait.

132) Big Mushy Happy Lump by Sarah Andersen: The best thing I can say about Sarah Andersen is that her comics and writing make me feel like a big mushy happy lump in the best sweater I could have ever stolen.

133) Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier: A Restoration Princess Bride? Yeah, it kind of is, and yeah, I really did love it. In fact Du Maurier very rarely has let me down. Her writing is so fresh so contemporary and so perfect. I should just lock myself away for a few weeks and read all her books. ALL OF THEM! 

134) Staying Away at Christmas by Katie Fforde: An obligatory Christmas story for Christmas... which was kind of an awkward meet-cute for the divorced and widowed with kids when there's a double booking at a cottage. Not very memorable but it helped bring the Christmas spirit. 

135) Harrow County Volume 3: Snake Doctor by Cullen Bunn: The core story about the "evil" witch's BFF becoming a back woods witch doctor was solid and wonderfully illustrated. The rest... just don't switch illustrators on me people, it makes me cranky.

136) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In Time of Crisis by Christos Gage: So Buffy is going all magical internment camps... Mercy Thompson did this long ago and better. 

137) Serenity: No Power in the 'Verse #1 by Chris Roberson: Good capturing of the show and rebooting of the comics. I really didn't like anything prior, but I have hope here.

138) Serenity: No Power in the 'Verse #2 by Chris Roberson: Hope dashed because Amazonian warriors on a mission all like River? Nope.

139) Serenity: No Power in the 'Verse #3 by Chris Roberson: Hope back! Inara and Simon make an interesting pairing for a mission and this was the first of the six issues where I desperately wanted the next volume immediately. 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Frenchman's Creek
Based on the Book by Daphne Du Maurier
Starring: Tara Fitzgerald, Tim Dutton, James Fleet, Mika Simmons, Anna Popplewell, Jack Snell, Yorick van Wageningen, Danny Webb, Rupert Vansittart, Michelle Wesson, Michael Jenn, and Anthony Delon
Release Date: April 25th, 1999
Rating: ★★
To Buy

London isn't the safest or the sanest place to be and Lady Dona St. Columb sees this. Her husband has always been a gambler and he backed the wrong horse in supporting the current King. James II is on his way out; it's a foregone conclusion that his son-in-law William of Orange will soon be King of England. Therefore Dona decamps back home to Cornwall and Navron. She thought the country would be safer, but the Cornish Coast is rife with soldiers and apparently riddled with spies. Loyalties and religious beliefs are questioned by all. Soon Dona is in the center of this conflict owing to her servant William and his true master, the spy Jean Aubrey. William and Aubrey have been using Navron as a safe house while the nearby creek is perfect for housing Aubrey's boat, La Mouette. Dona is caught between a rock and a hard place, she doesn't want to look like a traitor, but who should she be swearing fealty to anyway?

The more she learns about Aubrey the more she realizes how similar they are. Dona certainly has more in common with this spy then with her fellow aristocrats. Soon she is no longer just sheltering fugitives but actively participating in their schemes. It's high adventure to stick it to the insufferable boors like Lord Godolphin and Rashleigh. As she sees it wasting three hours of her time is equal to them losing a prize ship. But at the end of this grand adventure she must return home and she is surprised by the arrival of her husband and his lecherous friend Lord Rockingham. The arrival of these two, with a full compliment of guards indicates that Aubrey's freedom is in great peril. He is now all Dona thinks about. In such an unsettled time danger is around every corner and a word spoken by even the most innocent could spell doom. Can Dona secure Aubrey's freedom? If she is successful will she sail with him into the sunset or take up the mantle of her previous life? Only time will tell.

This adaptation gives the distinct impression that one day someone was watching The Last of the Mohicans and went, "YES! That's what we want! Guys with long hair jumping off things and two forces at war and a love story!" Then someone else went "Well, how about adapting Daphne Du Maurier's Frenchman's Creek? It's set almost a hundred years earlier but we can make it work!" Conveniently forgetting everything that Frenchman's Creek stands for and making it the swashbuckling adventure they fantasized it to be. Gone is the journey of one woman's discovery of herself, a period piece that is relatable to this day, and in it's place is a rather silly movie that probably has more in common with the oft maligned Cutthroat Island than with it's source material. I mean, the title "Frenchman's Creek" doesn't even make sense anymore! Because in the book the creek is the Frenchman's hideout, here it's the house he is using and the ship is just moored wherever.

Of course this all made sense to me when I saw that the writer just happened to be the executive producer of the TV show Homeland. A show that specializes in overwrought drama that forces every aspect of life to revolve around politics and religion. I think that the rule of thumb for a happy family gathering during the holidays of not talking about politics and religion should apply to adaptations where the source material doesn't support the addition. You don't randomly throw politics and religion into a story making a time-shift needed!!! Which makes it so obvious to me that this was adapted by a man. Because the politics and the religion justify Aubrey's actions and give him morals. In the book he's a freakin' pirate, but by making him a spy, oh, everything he does is just fine. How many times do I have to yell it that this is the story of a woman! It's not Aubrey's story, it's Dona's!

To change everything to make the male more important? Just no. Du Maurier would be furious. I'm furious! She wrote strong female characters and Dona is basically made into a prop for Aubrey. She's just there to faun over him not as a means to finding out her purpose in life. This all starts early in the movie by changing WHY Dona leaves court. This creates a seismic shift in her character. In the book she leaves court out of disgust at herself and the courtly antics of those hanging around Charles II, the King BEFORE James II. To make her flee even for an ounce of danger!?! Um, how does that work with the life she then takes on? How can she be a spy if she can't handle a few disgusting suitors? All the changes just don't make sense to me. I keep asking myself "why" over and over again. Because if the people behind this thought that no one would watch a faithful adaptation of a book with great characters but little plot I'm totally confused because that's basically what Downton Abbey was and that was like the biggest hit ever.

But what really effected me the most was that this adaptation was chock-a-block with violence. Which had two results. One, I hated it, and two, it was another way in which Dona was downgraded. I'm really not one of those people harping on and on about there being too much senseless violence. I don't think video games make people kill. I'm just wanting to make it clear I'm not one of those people before I say, WTF!?! I lost count at how many people died. In the capture of Lord Godolphin and Rashleigh's ship the spies are blowing up and running through people like there's no tomorrow. If Mr. "Homeland" had wanted to show the morals of Aubrey how about keep it like the book? Aubrey doesn't kill ONE SINGLE PERSON in the book. What this does is place a spotlight on Dona killing Rockingham. In the book this single death packs a massive wallop whereas being just one death among so many it completely loses it's significance. Throw in that mass murder at the end and Dona's children beating Satan out of a dog, and Dona once again doesn't matter much.

And once again I have to point out that this isn't the fault of the actors. Yes, it was fairly obvious there was a strata among the acting abilities in the cast, Aubrey was laughably bad, but the good still shown through the muck. Actors going about, trying to do the best with what they were given, so that sometimes you see what it could have been and you become sad that this is what you have. Yet I did try to latch onto what was good, what worked. Tara Fitzgerald and Danny Webb brought their A game. You could actually see something of the book Dona and William that made them sparkle a little like Dona's ruby earrings when they were onscreen. When I read the book I was utterly unconvinced that Tara Fitzgerald could not pull off Dona, despite being such a fan of hers. This adaptation of Frenchman's Creek showed that she was 100% the right choice. Now if they had just stuck to book Dona this would probably be a glowing review! But my heart belonged with James Fleet as Dona's husband. He has this awesome James Fleetness that makes you just always love him. I don't know if it's because of Vicar of Dibley, but I truly think there's something great in his soul that makes this likability always shine through even when an ass. Of course Dona went back to her husband! There really wasn't a choice to jilt James! He made the boorish role of Harry his own and in doing so made this his movie.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Cornwall, Danny Webb, Daphne Du Maurier, Dona St. Columb, Du Maurier December Deux, England, Frenchman's Creek, James Fleet, Murder, Restoration, Spies, Tara Fitzgerald, The Last of the Mochicans, Vicar of Dibley

Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier
Published by: Virago Press
Publication Date: 1941
Format: Paperback, 260 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Dona St. Columb has tired of court. What she did with Rockingham shames her. It wasn't an infidelity against her husband Harry, it was a stupid prank that scared an old lady. A prank that has made her rethink her life, fleeing with her two children to Cornwall and Navron. Perhaps reconnecting with nature and leaving the din of London behind will help her to find a new Dona, one she can like. She hasn't been back to her husband's estate of Navron since they were first married; aside from the painting of herself hanging in the master bedroom it is quite different. There's only one servant, the almost impudent but ultimately amusing William, who seems to have run the household according to his whims. Soon Dona starts to suspect William of having another master other than her husband. There are artifacts left in her room that hint at another occupant while she was roistering in London.

But that partying Dona is gone, replaced by one reveling in the trill of a bird call and the smell of a flower. Therefore the Cornish society trying to thrust themselves on her is very unwelcome. Lord Godolphin and his ilk whinging on about French pirates are of no interest to her. Especially when she has formed a bond with the very pirate they hunt. The Frenchman is William's true master and is the one who has been sleeping in Dona's bed while she was away. She stumbled upon his ship, La Mouette, hidden in a creek near Navron. She could have given them up, told the law the secret base of the pirates, instead she joins the crew. With William as her conspirator every moment she can spare is spent with the Frenchman. They fish, they talk, he draws birds and Dona. But soon he must take again to the high seas and Dona wants to accompany him. Will his latest heist bring the law down on him or will he and Dona sail off into the sunset?

Frenchman's Creek was one of a very few books by Daphne Du Maurier that was available stateside when I was growing up, and yet it never caught my interest. I think again it's down to the misapplied moniker of "Romance Author" that Du Maurier was forever burdened with. A problem that isn't just with Du Maurier's unwelcome title but with me. For years I've often dismissed a book because it was labelled a romance. At least by this time in my life I'm willing to not let a book's genre classification sway me. Yet of all Du Maurier's books I've read this is the most romantic, but it's romantic in a way similar to The Princess Bride. There's just so much more than the romance that to brand it as such does the book a disservice. Though, playing devil's advocate, in the Frenchman, Jean-Benoit Aubéry, Du Maurier has created perhaps the ideal romantic hero. He is a classic, a paragon of the romantic ideal. He has poetry in his soul and the desire to capture nature on paper. Who wouldn't want to run away with him?

Even if years ago I could have brought myself to look past the "romance" label of the book I think the period aspect of it would have tripped me up. Frenchman's Creek is set during The Restoration, a time in England where the return of the monarchy and Charles II to the throne spurred a cultural and artistic revolution; as well as a lot of debauchery and excess. I studied this in two different history classes in college, as well as reading a plethora of plays from this time period in my theatre classes, I did mention artistic revolution didn't I? This was heavily in the theatre arena. At this point I hadn't actually hit saturation, that was to come with Charles II: The Power and the Passion. I had REALLY been looking forward to this miniseries airing and at about hour three I was flagging... in fact at about three and a half hours I reached a point where my love of Rufus Sewell couldn't compete with my boredom. So this Restoration revulsion that took place in me made me avoid Frenchman's Creek for too long because it is so fresh and so entertaining that it goes beyond the period trappings to be a timeless tale.

If I were to describe this book to someone who had a slight grasp of Du Maurier's canon I'd say Frenchman's Creek is the opposite of Jamaica Inn. Jamaica Inn is all about a good girl thrown in amongst scoundrels who are evil and bad ship-wreckers, whereas Frenchman's Creek is about a bad girl thrown in amongst pirates who do a world of good for her and are really not that bad a group of fellows. The genius of Du Maurier is that she can write two completely opposite stories and yet make you fall completely in love with both of them. In Jamaica Inn you were praying for Mary to be saved by the kindly gentry, yet here, here the gentry are fools who are to be laughed at and mocked and you are with Dona all the way as she schemes to steal from them with her Frenchman. What's more is that if you think on Dona she's an interesting character. Over the course of the book she turns away from her husband and her children and yet you are rooting her on. You sympathize enough with her that you WANT her to become a pirate. You are complicit in her crimes and you love every dangerous heart-stopping moment. Leave the children behind, take to the high seas!

And it's that desire to leave your life behind that clues you into the deeper meaning of Frenchman's Creek. Just below the surface of all Du Maurier's books you always see her. Even if she didn't openly acknowledge it she used her books as therapy. In Rebecca she dealt with the duality of a wife, who she was meant to be versus who she really was. Here it's the masculine versus the feminine self. She always viewed her creative impulses as masculine, and therefore Dona constantly referring to her adventurous side as masculine, as a cabin boy, makes sense in relation to Du Maurier. This desire to go out into the world, to please yourself, to seek adventure, to do, was in Du Maurier's mind a male impulse. Whereas the homemaker, the mother, that was the feminine self. In the atrocious TV Movie Daphne, you get the barest glimpse into her acting on her male instincts with Gertrude Lawrence. But, like Dona in the end, Du Maurier chose hearth and home, going back to her family. She may have tapped into her male side from time to time, but it was the female side that won out. But more importantly, it's the way she has dramatized this and her other struggles that have left us with such an impressive body of work. Here's to the writer with issues!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Charles II, Cornwall, Daphne, Daphne Du Maurier, Dona St. Columb, Du Maurier December Deux, Frenchman's Creek, Jamaica Inn, Mary Yellan, Navron, Pirates, Rebecca, Restoration, Rufus Sewell, Therapy

Penny Dreadful by Krysty Wilson-Cairns and Andrew Hindraker
Published by: Titan Comics
Publication Date: December 27th, 2016
Format: Paperback, 128 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The hit Showtime TV series is presented in comics for the first time! Featuring Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) and Sembene (Danny Sapani) the story recounts the events that led up to the explosive first season of the show.

This prequel reveals the terrifying events that led Vanessa to try and find her missing childhood firend, Mina Harker, and exposes the true nature of the vampiric monsters infesting Victorian London. Beautifully realized by Louie De Martinis, and written by the show scriptwriters, this collected edition takes the reader on a heart-stopping journey into the supernatural realm."

Yeah, I might read this. But probably while still seething that the show is over. Seriously Vanessa Ives isn't the be all end all of this show! MORE! I WANT MORE!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Comics, Dracula, Eva Green, London, Mina Harker, Penny Dreadful, Sembene, Sir Malcolm Murray, Timothy Dalton, Tuesday Tomorrow, Vanessa Ives, Victorian