Hello Stranger

I cannot believe that I am already writing my last post for February.  I made a New Year's Resolution to write a post three times a week--and I'm sure you can imagine the amount of dedication that takes.  I do read fast, but I also try and pick books that are across genres and interests, and sometimes that means the actual reading can be a struggle.  For the most part, I have been working with books that I own, but most of those fall into the same sort of genre.  I'm trying to do some branching out.  Today, I am incredibly happy to share the fourth book in Lisa Kleypas's Ravenel series:  Hello Stranger.  Let's do a little bit of "The Story So Far."

In the first book, Cold Hearted Rake, Devon Ravenel has just become Earl Trenar.  It's not a position that he wanted, and he certainly doesn't want the responsibility of his cousin's widow and three younger sisters.  Unfortunately for him, he falls for said widow, Kathleen, and grows to enjoy the sisters, Helen, Pandora and Cassandra.  He even enjoys the challenge of trying to put together the  Trenar estate and pull it out of debt.  One of his plans of getting some much needed money into the estate is to marry the eldest of the Ravenel sisters, Helen, to a friend of his, Rhys Winterbourne.  Which leads to book two, Marrying Winterbourne.  Helen and Rhys are about as different as two people can be, but they manage to find a lot in common.  Helen's heart is huge however, and when she discovers she has an illegitimate half sister fathered by the man her fiance loathes with a passion, she is willing to give up everything to save her sister.  This book introduces us to Dr. Garrett Gibson and, in a round about way, Ethan Ransom, the hero and heroine of Hello Stranger.  My current favorite in the series is the third book, Devil in Spring.  Lady Pandora is caught in an accidentally improper situation with Gabriel, Lord St. Vincent--a settee clearly wants to destroy her plans to never marry.  This book deals with the ideas of a woman in business--Kleypas has started to venture into the time when women were starting to break out socially.  Gabriel finds a way to allow Pandora to marry and keep her business her own, but in the process of creating her board game, Pandora uncovers a conspiracy.  The reason I love this particular book is because Sebastian and Evie, Gabriel's parents, are my favorite characters from Lisa Kleypas's Wallflower series (their book is Devil in Winter.)  So now you're all caught up!

Dr. Garrett Gibson is an incredible character and I am very glad that she is getting her own book.  She is a female doctor--she went to college, got a degree, and works in progressive medical treatments.  Well, progressive for the time, like sterilization.  It was new in the late 1870s.  She's very much a take no prisoners kind of woman, and possibly the most progressive and least traditional of all of Kleypas' heroines that I've read to date.  I have not read every book that she's written.  I've worried about Garrett in previous books because she seems far to eager to just accept that she will push boundaries and worries little about her own future. 

Ethan Ransom, on the other hand, is a mysterious character that we never really learn much about until halfway through Hello Stranger.  Pretty much all we know about him is he's some kind of detective, good in a fight, and has an unknown connection to the Ravenel family.  We learn that Ethan is the illegitimate son of the late Earl--and that if he'd been legitimate, he would be the Earl of Trenar rather than Devon.  Ethan's latest line of work, however, places him squarely in the line of fire and he ends up taking a bullet to the chest.  Can Garrett, with all her doctor wonderfulness, save Ethan?

I feel like I've spent more time describing what happened in previous books than I do talking about Hello Stranger.  A bit of that is because I was a little disappointed with this book.  It builds on the conspiracy that was uncovered in Devil in Spring, but a lot of the book felt like Garrett saying "Take me, Ethan!' and Ethan saying "No, I'm not good for you."  It made for a bit of a frustrating read.  It also ended really abruptly!  We got our proposal, but it was over almost as quickly.  We didn't really get an epilogue at all, so there's no idea of where our characters are in six months, a year, ten years. 

What we did get, however, was a sneak peak at the next Ravenel book, and I might be more excited for that one than I was for Devil in Spring.  The next book is the story of West Ravenel, the younger brother of Devon.  He has gone from a wishy washy London rake to a successful farmer and estate manager over the course of the books.  He's a great character for fun (And has a great set of scenes with a recovering Ethan in Hello Stranger!), and he's getting to the point where it's time for him to marry.  Phoebe, Lady Clare, is the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of Kingston--otherwise known as Sebastian and Evie, also the parents of Gabriel, Lord St. Vincent!  We get to see more of the Challon family.  Phoebe is a widow with two young children.  She's just starting to reenter society after a year of mourning, but first she has to attend her brother's wedding.  A wedding where she's about to meet West Ravenel--a man she's despised since her husband first wrote of him when they were children.  We don't have a release date for Devil's Daughter yet, but my guess would be some time next February/March, unless we get VERY lucky, but I doubt that!

Wrinkles

If you don't know already, Disney has remade A Wrinkle in Time, and it's a good thing because the movie that does exist is not the best.  Based on Madeline L'Engle's book, A Wrinkle in Time, there are some pretty intense special effects needed for the film.  Now, I haven't seen the new film, but I have some issues with the casting that I'll discuss in a moment.

As for the book--I remember reading this book when I was a kid, purloined from my grandmother's bookshelf.  I remember enjoying it, and a few pieces of it, but not the whole thing, so I'm glad I pulled out a new copy to reread it in anticipation of the movie.  It wasn't quite the book that I remember.  I know that it's meant for ages 10-14, according to the back of my copy, but it felt more childish than I remembered, and at the same time, more adult. 

Charles Wallace is a child who is probably about five.  He's not in school yet, but he is very smart.  Today we might say that he has Asperger's or Autism, but L'Engle describes him a special.  He sees and understands things that a normal person can't.  I don't believe he is meant to be a character that you can relate to, but in this reread, I found him to be rather arrogant and annoying.  Yet, he is a central character to the book.  Calvin O'Keefe is pretty likable.  He's a jock, but he doesn't fit the stereotype.  He is a kind person, and a great communicator.  He's in high school, probably about 10th or 11th grade.  Meg is the last of the trio.  She's probably in 9th grade, but she is argumentative and angry.  It's understandable--she was very close to her father, who has been missing for two years.

The three children are sent on an adventure by Mrs. Which, Mrs. Whatsit, and Mrs. Who.  These three characters are not quite definable, but they are quite possibly my favorite characters of the book.  They take the kids through space and time by tessering, a type of travel which is literally wrinkling space and time to get to your destination (Don't worry if you're confused, the book has a great visual inserted to explain this!), finally to the planet Camazots, where their father is being held captive by IT, a manifestation of the Darkness that is spreading through the universe.  It seems an impossible task for children, but how many books show children doing the impossible by virtue of imagination or flexibility or innocence?

While I did enjoy my reread of this book, I found some of the characterization to be distasteful, which made it difficult to get through.  It also ended a bit abruptly, but  there are three more books in the series, which I will, of course, have to read. 

As to my problem with the movie's casting--this is going to be a bit controversial, I'm sure.  I love the
fact that the casting is multicultural, but I also feel like the took the multicultural casting too far.  First, as to Mrs. Murry, the children's mother.  She's described as having beautiful red hair that is naturally curly.  I love Gugu Mbatha-Raw, don't get me wrong, but she can't have that hair and be black.  It wouldn't be natural, as it is in the book.  I do think they got Dr. Murray right--he's supposed to have the bluest eyes and Chris Pine fits that description beautifully.  But then, with the Murray children--If their parents come from two different races, why was only one of the Murray children cast as non-white?  Sure, we haven't seen the twins in previews and I can't seem to find their actors online (they are really unimportant in this book, so it's possible they were left out), but Meg is played my Storm Reid, who is at least part black, while Deric McCabe, who plays Charles Wallace, looks a bit Asia, if anything.  I'm concerned that the casting for this movie has been entirely political rather than staying true to the novel.  If a character's race is left indeterminate in descriptions, which I quite often see, cast them however you chose.  But when a character is described a certain way, I feel like movies and TV shows should stay true to the story.  For instance, the Mrs. W's--they aren't really described because they feel so beyond description, and I am THRILLED with the choices made in casting (and costuming).  And they are major characters, more so than Dr. or Mrs. Murray.    Anyway.  I'm still going to go see the movie--I am very excited to see what they've done.  And maybe and on-screen Charles Wallace won't be as obnoxious!

You Never Know When A Stray Vampire Will Come to Stay

I originally listened to today's book on audio, and it was my first experience with Molly Harper as an author.  I thought it was a super cute book that has a lot of elements of other books that I like, so I've been going around reccomending it to a ton of people.  Without having read the Jane Jamison quartet, which preceeds this book, I still enjoyed The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires. 

Iris Scanlon is doing the best she can.  She's very human, guardian of her seventeen-year-old sister, Gigi, has a degree in botany, and runs her own daytime concierge service for vampires.  It gets the bills paid, and hey.  Vampires don't have the same window of time as humans for getting important papers and such filed at buildings that are open 9-5, or even a bit later since the Great Coming Out in the late 90's.  She's squeaking by but a little extra financial padding would be pretty nice.  So when she trips over her new client, Mr. C. Calix, and he offers her $25,000 for a safe place to live for a week--well, I wouldn't have said no either.  And especially not to a Greek (literally!) god of a man. 

Cal is tyring to hunt down who is poisoning vampires.  A simple additive in their Faux Type O, and suddenly a vampire is in the grips of bloodlust and people die.  Shouldn't be that hard of a problem to solve for a man with a gift for puzzles, but being poisoned makes the man a little weak and confused.  So he does what he can and offers Iris a deal.

Iris is less than happy, originally, with having a vampire in her house.  Cal has no idea what to do with Iris and, when she's around, GiGi.  In his defense, he hasn't had a "family" in..... a while.  Little does Cal know, Iris holds the key to him figuring out his mystery.

This may have been the first Molly Harper book that I read, but it's far from the last.  I've since read the Jane Jamison quartet and most of the Half Moon Hollow books.  I find them to be funny and the characters to be relateable, even when they aren't necessarily human.  The small town attitudes remind me a lot of Kathleen Brook's small town of Keeneston, even though everyone isn't practically related and we don't always see all the characters we know and love.  There's something about the small-town vibe that calls to me.  Maybe it's saying I need to move to Kentucky!!

The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday

I thought about changing today's post in wake of the Parkland, FL, shooting last week.  But I think, in the wake of this tragedy, it is important to remember the people who dedicate their lives to protection and fighting the good fight.  True Honor doesn't have much of its setting on the ground in the US, but the characters and settings are extraordinary.

The book begins on September 9, 2001.  For the discerning reader, you'll note that is two days before the September 11th terrorist attacks.  That date starts the events of the whole book.  Darcy St. James is a retired spy from the CIA.  She's brought back into active duty after a former contemporary attempts to kill her.  Two days after her own attack, she sees two planes hit the Twin Towers.  Sam Houson is a Navy SEAL who meets Darcy just before the attempt on her life.  When he sees the Towers attacked, he knows what is coming next.

Darcy starts a long game looking for a man who not only knew about the attacks beforehand but profited them as well.  She digs through information to hunt him and his compatriots down.  Sam is on the front lines fighting for his country in dangerous, often classified missions.  Despite their circumstance, Darcy and Sam start a relationship that is slow, sweet and understanding.  They both know the danger the other faces, and some of the pitfalls of the job.  They are able to help each other through, often by just being the person to answer the tough questions.  Both Darcy and Sam are religious individuals and have the right Bible verse ready when needed. 

The book takes a reader through the first year or so after the terrorist attacks.  While the characters and story line are fictional, it is likely that many similar people and stories played out in the wake of the attacks.  That's one of the things that I really enjoy about this book, despite the fact that I didn't read it until many years after September 11th.  In 2001, I was nine years old and in the fourth grade.  The author, Dee Henderson, shared that she nearly didn't write this book because, as she was writing, September 11th actually happened.  I'm sure that changed the original course of the story.  I am very glad that she did.  More than the military aspects, True Honor is a story of devotion to one's country, and to each other.  It's about finding the endurance to survive what you're going through and the trust that tomorrow will be better.  It's the third of four books, although I would argue that the fourth book doesn't fit the mold of the other three, and it's my favorite.  This book is about surviving, and when I'm having a hard time, it's the book that I pull out to read.

Another thing that I like about Ms. Henderson's books is how she brings religion into them.  In this book, the main characters are both believers, so they share Bible verses and have faith that things will change.  In some of her other books, only one of the main characters is a believer, but there is no forcing religion on the other characters.  The believer presents the other character with information, but allows them to make their own choice about belief when they are ready.  That's why I enjoy Ms. Henderson's books over other authors classified as "religious fiction".

When you need a little peace, or need a nice book with a sweet romance and ultimately a happy ending, read this book.  You'll thank yourself.

My First Guest post!

One of the things I want to do with this blog is to get in other people's opinions and feelings on different genre of books.  A book is different for everyone.  Today is my first guest post!  It's written by my cousin, Andy, and it's a perfect fit.  Today is President's Day, and the book we're looking at is 41: A Portrait of my Father  by George W. Bush.  I haven't read the book, but from Andy's words, it seems like an interesting read.  When Andy and I were talking about the book, he said that it was doubly interestnig for him because he listened to it and it was narrated by George W. Bush as well.  That make it feel even more personal, like you're listening to stories that he's telling.  Here's the review from Andy:

A memoir of the 41st President of the United States, George H. W. Bush, written by not only by his son, but also by the 43rd President of the United States. What a unique and complex perspective to examine the life of a president from!  This was a very enjoyable read, as it presents the story of two presidents and their childhoods, looking for interesting similarities and differences along the way. The story is told with great love and tenderness, which seems to almost burst from the pages at times. It pulls at the heartstrings and fills the reader to the brim with the “warm fuzzies”. But it is not blind love, and George, Jr. speaks about some of his father’s mistakes and shortcomings. Even knowing much of the history as I do, I loved the perspective of one man’s life, how he grew and changed with the times, yet remained much the same in many ways. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about politics, or memoirs and biographies, or who just love a good father-son story.

This is a book that was recommended to me by a student, and I admit my expectations were low going into it. So often, these memoir type books are cookie-cutter and self-congratulatory. Full discretion, this one doesn’t really escape that mold. With that said, though, I think it’s worth the time, because of the interesting perspective it provides. It helps that George, Sr., is one of my favorite presidents, especially in the modern era. I admire his strength and expertise, and above all, his pragmatism. He did what he needed to do without forsaking his ideals or becoming obstinate and mired in partisanship. If it weren’t for his “Read my lips: no new taxes” pledge, I (and George, Jr.) believe he would have won a second term and earned as much if not more adoration as Reagan or Clinton.

At any rate, this was an uplifting book. The story of a young man who worked his way up through the military, business, and government positions to become the 41st President of the United States, and how that man managed to raise his son to become the 43rd President, as well. It’s about both the man and the politician, through the eyes of his son and another politician. If you’re looking for something a little out of the ordinary, this is a great choice.

A Little Bit of Love

So, I am not a fan of Valentine's Day.  I'm very single, and Valentine's Day seems to be designed to make single people feel pretty bad.  But that's just my feelings.  This time, I decided that I'd share some of my favorite romance novels with you!

1.  Devil in Winter, by Lisa Kleypas
Devil in Winter was the first historical romance that I read.  At the time, I didn't know that it was part of a series or what it would lead to, but I thought it sounded interesting.  It kick started a love of historical romances that still exists for me.  Evie Jenner is practically a captive to her mother's family.  She's the sole heir to her disreputable father's huge fortune, and her mother's family wants that for themselves.  To escape their plans (and their household), she heads for the only man as desperate as she is and offers him the Devil's Own bargin.  Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent, is so desperate for a bride that, just the week before, he had tried to elope with Evie's friend, Lillian Bowman.  When Evie offers to elope with him, as long as he will allow her to see her dying father, he takes the deal.  However, Sebastian is a libertine and Evie is incredibly shy and has a slight stutter.  How could these too opposites create a working marriage?  They do, I can tell you that!  They have desire on their side, and there is even a book that features one of their children in another series by Ms. Kleypas.


2.  Always, by Kindle Alexander

This one is a hard hitter, and I'm nto going to lie, I'm nervous about including it.  I read a lot of books that might be considered on the fringe, or easily offensive to some people.  While I don't want to ofend anyone, seriously, I'm not makeing you read the book, shut up.  Always is a story about two gay men who have a better romance than pretty much anyone else.  Avery is a big man in politics and from a political family.  Kane is a restaurant owner who was disowned by his super religious family.  Together, they're beautiful.  One thing that I love about this book (and many others by the duo that make Kindle Alexander the author), is the way that problems are presented.  They are legitimate issues that Kane and Avery face, namely Avery's political career.  Yet, they face the issue as a couple.  This book follows Kane and Avery's life as a young couple, new parents, and to the end.  I guarantee, you will cry.




3.  Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follet

Many people will look at the 1000+ pages of Pillars of the Earth and then gently set it back down on the shelf and move on to find something shorter.  I urge you not to.  This is a gorgeous work that presents love in many different fashions.  I wanted to make sure in this post that I didn't just stick to our own preconcieved notions of love.  Pillars has love between characters, with the most vibrant romance being that of Jack and Aliena.  Their love is troubled from the beginning, but by the end they have a happy ever after.  There is a love of God and religion, but not always in the way you think.  Prior Phillip is certainly a God loving man, but each of the characters has their own relationship and method of worship.  Bishop Waleran certainly embodies a love of power, where King Stephan and Queen Maud are fighting for the same throne in a love of duty and what they each believe to be the proper course for England.  They aren't married, promise.  But different types of love are represented so thoroughly in this book that I can't sit here and name them all.  If you're less into large novels and more into movies, Starz did a fabulous mini series based off of the books featuring Ian McShane, Hayley Atwell, Eddie Redmayne, and Matthew McFaden.

4.  The Hollow Kingdom Trilogy, by Claire B. Dunkle

 I've linked the first book of the Hollow Kingdom Trilogy here, but all three books are wonderful.  These stories take place in the 1800s and feature humans, Goblins and Elves.  The best part about these books is that they really push for you to love someone as they are.  In the first book, Kate and her sister, Emily, have come to Hallow Hall, their ancestral home, as orphans.  Their guardian is a cousin who is jealous of the fact that they shall inheirit, and he is a mean and slimy man.  Kate, however, catches the eye of the Goblin king, called Marak, and he wishes to steal her away and make her his bride.  She is terrified of him, but when her sister goes missing, she trades herself to Marak for Emily's freedom.  Unfortunately, Emily was not being held by the Goblins!  In the second book, Close Kin, Seylin goes off in search of the Elves he believes that he belongs to when Emily unknowingly shuns him. His search for self and Emily's chase after him leads them to find a small band of Elves.  In this band is Sable, a woman who, in order to save herself from death, scarred her own face.  She knows no love, and doesn't expect any.  It is the Goblins who teach it to her.  The third book, In the Coils of the Snake, is my favorite.  It takes place about forty years or so after the first two books.  Seventeen year old Miranda is a human who has been raised to be the Goblin King's wife.  When Elves return to their ancestral home, Catspaw, the new King, must marry an Elvish bride.  Miranda feels cast aside and is found by a noble Elf named Ash.  He takes her back to camp.  This book focuses less on love itself but more on overcoming predjudices.  A fact of all Elvish and Goblin marriages, at least for the kings, is that there are no children of them unless there is acceptance and love between the couple. 

5.  Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

Say what you will, but Austen's classic Pride and Predjudice is one of the best romances out there.  It's so well loved that there are hundreds of spin offs and retellings, more movies and specials than you can shake a fist at, and more copies than the world knows what to do with.  Lizzie Bennet, blinded by her own pride and her percieved predjudice towards the wealthy, refuses Mr. Darcy, who is battling his own pride.  Her family doesn't help matters, certainly, but the affection between Lizzie an Jane is a great thing to aspire towards if you have sisters.  The range of characters is just so intense and everyone is individual enough that you can't forget them.  Except maybe poor Mary Bennet.  Still, I might know one or two books just for the middle Bennet sister!







And here's a bonus:  My favorite romantic movie is The King and I or Anna and the King.  The story of Anna Leonowens and the King of Siam is a beautiful one.  They are from two very different worlds, but the still find things that they have in common with each other.  It is, however, pretty much the epitome of a doomed love story.  She's a proper British woman and he's a polygamous king from a "barbarian" country.  In the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The King and I, King Mongkut dies in the final scenes, seperating them forever.  In the movie Anna and the King, a young prince Chulalongkorn looks over his father dancing with Anna.  The sheer longing between the characters makes my cry every time.  Good tears, though.  Always good.

What are some of your favorite stories of love and romance?  Does love always have to be romantic?

From Thief to King

 

When you read Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief, you get introduced to a motley but incredibly interesting cast of characters.  Most interesting is the main character, Eugenides, called Gen.  Gen has claimed through the country of Sounis that he can steal anything, and the magus, an important adviser to the king takes him up on that claim.  Gen gets himself arrested, and the magus plucks him out of prison to go and steal a mythical talisman.

Now, I've jumped in the middle of the story, and that's something that I don't do to often.  I jumped in because that's how Turner writes.  When we meet Gen, he's in prison.  It's only later that we learn of his past and how he set himself up to go on this adventure.  Eugenides, which is a name as much as a title, is the Queen's Thief of the country of Eddis.  It's a title and a position at court.  He is also the cousin of the queen.  The magus drags Gen through the country with Pol, a soldier, and his two apprentices, Ambiades and Sophos.  They are traveling to a small temple built in the middle of a river to steal Hamiathes' Gift, a stone given to the Eddisian king Hamiathes by the Great Goddess as a symbol of his right to rule.  In Eddis, having the gift means that you are the true ruler of Eddis.  The magus of Sounis wants it for his king.  While Gen may or may not be successful (I'll let you find out for yourself), on the way back to Sounis, they are captured by the Attolians.  This leads to our first introduction to the Queen of Attolia.

The Queen of Attolia is definitely more.  Eugenides is captured early in the book and he suffers from an ancient punishment for theivery--His right hand is cut off.  When he is returned to his cousin, Eddis, she declares war.  The war is an important piece of the background as Eugenides gets back on his feet and rediscovers who he is.  In the second half of the book, he is actively taking part in the war, but not in a way that all of Eddis's ministers know about, but a secret, spy-like way.  This book also introduces the Mede Empire.  Definitely by this point a readier is getting Mediterranean vibes--Greek city states, Persian Empire, and all that jazz, but in a fantasy, updated fasion.  Guns and cannons do exist.  Eventually, Eugenides steals peace by getting the Queen of Attolia to marry him.

The King of Attolia is about Eugenides becoming the king that he is meant to be.  To do this, he really has to step out of the shadows and become a force in his own right.  He is one in secret already--he sneaks through the palace at night and knows seemingly everything that is going on, but in public he acts like a bored child.  He is impossible to force into the open until he is ready, but when he does he has played every piece in exactly the right fasion to awe the people around him.  He becomes a king who has the potential to be a king above kings. 

For many years, I thought the series ended after this third book, but I recently discovered that there was a fourth book, called A Conspiracy of Kings.  I don't like this book as much, because it doesn't focus on a main character that I'm that interested in.  The first three books focous on Eugenides.  This fourth book focuses on Sophos, the heir of the king of Sounis.  For some reason, it makes this book much harder to get into for me.  To be honest, I'm still reading it, and I've discovered there is a stand-alone book as well called Thick As Theives.  Maybe I'll like these by the time I'm done, but I really like Eugenides, and sometimes it's a character that draws you to the series.  When I finish these last two books, I'll have to make sure to review them on their own!

One think that is particularly interesting is teh way that Turner changes her point of view between The Thief  and The Queen of Attolia.  The thief is told from Eugenides point of view and in first person.  The Queen and The King are both told in third person.  It makes it feel that, as Eugenides becomes more aware of the greater world around him and his place in it, the books become more aware as well.  Another thing to note is that Eugenides is young.  If I had to guess, in The King, I would say that he is maybe 18.  But he is very, very smart.

Anyway.  I'm off to read about conspiracies, so start with these three and ENJOY!

Small is Not A Bad Thing

So, I originally planned to end the week with a blog about one of my favorite childhood classics, The Secret Garden.  However, in the wake of Tempests and Slaughter and how I waxed poetic (Hah!) about Tamora Pierce's writing, I thought I'd take you in depth with another of her series.  Recently, I've reread two different series by Pierce, so it was a matter of picking which one I wanted to discuss.  I thought about the Immortals Quartet, because Daine is one of my favorite characters in all of Tortall,but I think in today's world, the Protector of the Small quartet is more appropriate.

In the same NPR article that I quoted on Wednesday, Pierce was asked about the #MeToo movement and if she saw that movement and other current events reflected in books of her genre.  She answered that science fiction and fantasy give children exposure to real world problems at a distance, allowing them to close the book at the end, think about what they've read, have discussions and come to an opinion.  I think this is a particularly astute answer because it's true.  I hadn't realized it before, but it is true.  The Protector of the Small quartet deals with bullying, prejudice, assault, cruelty and a number of other topics, but in a way that gives you food to think about instead of saying "This is bad."  Characters have their own opinions which leaves you open to decide where you stand.

First Test is the first book of the quartet.  We are reintroduced to the only female knight in the land of Tortall, Alanna the Lioness, because a girl has come forward wanting to be a page.  The Training Master, Wyldon of Cavall, doesn't think this is a good idea, but he is convinced by the king to allow the girl to try.  Wyldon places her on probation--if she doesn't finish the year and prove herself, she will not be allowed back.

The girl in question is ten year old Keladry of Mindelan, or Kel to her friends and family.  Her parents were ambassadors from Tortall to the Yamani Islands, where women are trained with weapons and without to protect themselves.  She also learned to hide her emotions in the Islands, because that is what is done.  She is not happy about the probation--it is asked of no other page--but she agrees.  Her first night in the palace her room is vandalized by the boys.  This leads to one of my favorite exchanges.  Salma, basically the housekeeper of the wing, points to a piece of vandalism that says women can't fight and asks what they think their mothers do when raiders come and the lords are away--"Sit in their solars and tat lace?"  Kel tells her about an aunt who lit barrels of flamable materials on fire and had them catapulted at the enemy raiders.  Salma replies, "As would any gently reared noblewoman."  I don't know why, but I crack up every time I read this.  Kel's best friend quickly becomes Nealan of Queenscove, a fifteen  year old late arrival to the pages.  Honor is everything to Neal--Queenscove is a pillar of the country, and his older brothers died in the Immortals War leaving no knight for the country.  So he steps away from learning to be a healer and turns to knighthood.  By the end, he manages to balance both.  Kel manages to excel in her classes during the first year, but shows her skill in a final hunt at the end of the book.  Wyldon allows her to return the following year.

In Page, three years pass.  Kel gains a maid of her own, named Lalasa, who was assaulted by another noble.  It was not reported because it would be the word of a maid against that of a noble.  Who would believe her?  Kel teaches her how to protect and defend herself, which she is able to successfully do, a huge boost to Lalasa's confidence.  She continues to pass her classes with ease, particularly as Lord Wyldon makes things more difficult for her.  This time, he doesn't do it because he wants her to fail, but he's trying to make her better.  Kel also shows another flash of being a successful leader when she manages to rally some of her fellow pages in a small skirmish, keeping them alive until help can arrive.  Discovered in the first book, Kel is afraid of heights, and her character as person and her ability to overcome problems is tested when her maid is kidnapped.

Squire sees Kel as squire to one of the most interesting men, I think, that Pierce has written.  Lord Sir Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak was a year mate of Alanna and King Jonathan.  In the book, he commands the King's Own, an elite force that is often on the front lines.  With Raoul, Kel gets an education in command, supply, tactics, strategy, and warfare.  They hunt immortal bandits.  They fight in some of the first skirmishes of the new war.  And Kel begins to fight in tournaments, allowing others to see her skills.  During this book, Prince Roald's new bride finally arrives from the Yamani Islands, and it is a childhood friend of Kel's. She is able to help smooth the way between them so that their marriage can be successful.  Kel proves herself capable of being diplomatic as well as a good warrior.  However, in her Ordeal of Knighthood, Kel is given a task. A man named Blayce the Gallan is creating monsters of steel from the souls of kidnapped and killed children.  Find him, she is told, and kill him.  And now Kel, who protects anyone who cannot protect themselves (and tries with some who can protect themselves), is given her greatest challenge.  In an incredibly touching moment, Kel is presented with her shield by some of the most important women in the land.  Her shield carries a distaff border--one with two colors-- that signifies a lady knight.  She is the only one with this honor.  Lady Alanna never claimed one.

Full war has broken out in Lady Knight.  Kel goes north with her newly knighted year-mates where she is placed in command of a refugee camp.  She is not happy about this--she wants to go and hunt Blayce and I don't blame her one bit.  He is an evil piece of work who, in the final confrontation, basically says its' not his fault his powers lie in necromancy and death.  Well, no, but you don't need to be creating creatures of ultimate death with the souls of CHILDREN you monster.  Sorry.  I'm a bit opinionated about that one.  Anyway.  Kel is actually really good at managing the camp, and everyone says so.  But when she is away and the camp is attacked, and her people stolen, she's a scooch upset.  She totally goes down the treason route, chases her people to Scanra, and with a little bit of help, gets them back.  You go Kel.  I don't want to give too much away!

Always the hard part with these is not giving too much away.  I want you to be interested in the story but not have all the details.

I've said before that this Quartet is my favorite although the main character is not.  Why?  In Pierce's other quartets, her characters are gifted with some kind of magic.  Kel isn't.  She's truly the result of what hard work and determination can get you, and I appreciate that.  It reminds me that I can do more with my life.

Anyway.  I'm going to leave you there for today.  I'll be back on Monday with a new book and a new genre!

This One's For the Boys

DISCLAIMER:  I'm doing something I don't normally do.  I'm writing half of this blog post the night before the book comes out, and then I'll finish it after I've actually read the book.  Sounds a bit odd, but I have ben excited about this book for what seems like a decade, easily, so I want you to know what I feel like going in, and what I feel like coming out.

Also, I want to talk about this cover!  It's beautiful!  I think the title seems a lot more violent than Pierce's usual books (Battle Magic is the only one I can think of that comes as close), and after having finished the book, I promise you that it's not all violence!  The cover also feels to me like foreshadowing of events that happen in other series. 

MONDAY NIGHT:  Tonight at midnight, my preorder for Tamora Pierce's newest book, Tempests and Slaughter, will arrive on my kindle.  Not one ounce of lying here, I will stay up until I finish this book.  I don't care if that means I'm up until tomorrow, and then so exhausted tomorrow that I just can't do anything.  You see, I discovered Ms. Pierce as a writer when I was in sixth grade (I think) when my advanced reading group was asked to do a project on a writer.  I didn't know who to write about, but my teacher, whose name I can't remember, much to my chagrin, suggested that I read Ms. Pierce.  She wasn't in my school library, but I went off to the town library.  There, I found all the books I needed (and the school library started to buy Pierce's books, so I was able to get them out at school, too.  My late grandmother was a huge help during this time, as my father, for some reason, had something against letting me go to the town library.  I don't know why.  But Gran took me multiple times a week.  Even then, I read quickly, so I often finished five or six of these books a night, and I reread them all the time!).  This project was due in the spring of 2004, so Ms. Pierce's full bibliography wasn't out yet.  This is the moment where I will say that I do like the Emelan books (Circle of Magic, The Circle Opens, and The Circle Reforged), but it's the Tortall books that I'm drawn to.  The Tortall books have very strong female characters, but unlike many books I've read, they don't either make men seem weak in comparison, nor do they belittle women who don't choose to be "strong" like the main characters.  I know this seems like an odd thing to say, so let me try to explain a bit better.  Some books that I've read have a strong main character and that character looks at the weaker characters as if they are actually weak.  Which is a bit demeaning!  But, for example, in the Protector of the Small series, main character Keladry gets a maid, Lalasa, who has no desire to be anything more than a dressmaker.  Lalasa has been attacked and mistreated by men, and this makes her afraid.  Kel makes Lalasa learn self defense, if only so that Lalasa can protect herself. She doesn't try and turn Lalasa into a warrior like herself, but Kel's confidence in Lalasa gives Lalasa the support she needs to break out of her shell and become a confident young woman herself.

Anyway.  back to Tempests and Slaughter.  We first meet Numair in Wild Magic, published in 1992 (the year I was born!).  He's in his mid to late twenties at the time, and the most powerful mage around.  (Numair is 24, a fact that I was able to get between the new book and looking at the dates in Wild Mage.  A question has been answered!)  We learn very little about him until the third book in the Immortals Quartet, Emperor Mage.  In that book, we learn that Numair was born Arram Draper in Cathark, the great empire to the south, and something happened that caused him to flee and change his name.  I have been curious about what happened for fifteen years.  I want to know what happened!  However, Ms. Pierce went on to finish the Immortals Quartet, write a duology, a collection of short stories, another quartet and a trilogy in the Tortall worlds, and books in the Emelan world.  But I remember watching Ms. Pierce's website before the remodel (which looks amazing) and seeing that she had a duology planned about Numair's origins.  That was maybe 2007?  So, I've known this book was coming for a decade!  I can't wait to see why Numair had to leave Cathark.  I have a theory that Numair was more powerful than the heir to the empire, Ozorne, and Ozorne's jealousy is why he had to leave.  I shall see after I have the book read!


TUESDAY:  Okay, so I finished the book.  It was great!  Not quite what I was expecting--but that didn't make it any less of an awesome book.  Numair is solidly Arram Draper in this book.  He doesn't even think the name Numair, although at one point his teachers mention that he should start thinking of a mage name.  He is an advanced student at the University in Cathark, taking classes with students three years his senior.  After a freak accident, he is moved up to mostly individual studies or small groups with Ozorne, a prince of the Empire, but fourth in line for the Emperor's throne I believe, and Varice Kingsford, a witch talented with hospitality magic.  Arram is only  ten at the time, Varice twelve and a half, and Ozorne, 13.  The book covers four years, so he's only fourteen at the end, but already going through puberty.  Pierce does, like she does in all of her books, treat puberty and sex as matter of fact--in an NPR article she mentions that she asked her writing partner all the little questions, which he answered after laughing himself silly.  I also laughed myself silly reading those parts. 

In his education, Arram gets to do some truly amazing things!  Sebo, a water mistress, takes him walking along the bottom of the river, where he can get up close with crocodiles and hippos--oh, and the crocodile god, Enzi!  Because everyone needs to get personal with a twenty foot crocodile.  I'd be doing some panicking, no lie.  With Ramassu, he learns all kinds of amazing healing, although some of this means going to a sick house in the middle of a typhoid outbreak and the gladiatorial arena during the games.  He goes through some incredible experiences quite young. 

Although Numair develops feelings towards Varice, the book seems to focus more on Arram's relationship with Ozorne.  During the course of the books, two of the three heirs in line for the throne before Ozorne die, one in incredibly suspicious circumstances.  This makes Ozorne two steps away from the throne.  We know that twelve years after Tempests and Slaughter Ozorne is Emperor and he is a cruel one.  He cares little for the people around him, unless they are his precious birds.  You see flashes of madness in Ozorne, and his mother, and one of the Masters even says that the family has some instability in it.  As much as this book is about making Arram into Numair, it's about Ozorne's slow downfall.  Not that we've seen all of what is to come.  There are two more books scheduled in the series!

There were a lot of things that I loved about this book.  Arram as a child, the development of his relationship with Sarge, a character that, again, we know from the Immortals quartet, the name dropping of a few characters that we met in the Beka Cooper trilogy (set three hundred years before the majority of the Tortall books).  We meet Lindhall Reed for the first time, and he's a fabulous character.  There were also a few things that felt a little lacking.  Some of it was action.  There were a few brief moments, but the action in this book felt more like it was espionage.  It was quiet.  There are questions everywhere, but the book felt a little... Tame?  But I might feel that way because I was left wondering what happened next.  It also felt like it ended a little abruptly, and seemingly mid academic term.  Pierce clearly did this for a reason, but we wont know the reason until the next book comes out, and we don't know when that will be.  Ms. Pierce is not the quickest in releases--she doesn't usually come out with several books a year, but she doesn't write at a George R.R. Martin pace.  When she wrote the Beka Cooper trilogy, we got a book every couple of years (2006, 2009, and 2011).  However, Halloween 2017 saw the release of A Spy's Guide to Tortall, which was less than four months before Tempests.  My guess is we will see the next book in 18-24 months.  It seems like so long to wait!

That doesn't mean that there aren't many reasons to reread!  I would not only reccomend reading Tempests, but all of Pierce's books.  They are great fun, and they have some amazing characters that you will really like!  (Daine is still my favorite character, while the Protector of the Small quartet are my favorite books.)

What Makes A Rebel?

I will be the first to admit that I do not know a lot about the history of India.  My experiences with the country, in history and in fiction have been brief.  When I was young, I read a book about Jahanara, the daughter of the Moghul Emperor Shah Jahan and his wife, Mumtaz Mahal (They are buried in the Taj Mahal).  When I was reading about Mary Curzon, Vicereine of India in the early 1900's, my research was more focused on what Lady Curzon did for the women and children of India, not as much on the history of the people.  When I read Daughter of Empire, which I wrote about just last week, I was exposed to the passing of power from the British Empire to the India and newly created Pakistani people.  Colonial India has a fascinating, if brutal and bloody, history, and I imagine the history of the country is just as interesting.  I look forward to reading more about it!

I say all of this because of the newest book I've read.  Rebel Queen is a book by an author I've read and written about before--Michelle Moran.  I like Ms. Moran's writing because she manages to create real life heroines that a reader can connect to, despite the differences in culture or time period.  This time, her heroine is Rani Lakshmi of Jhansi, although her narrator is one of the Rani's female bodyguards, Sita.  This is an interesting writing technique that Moran used in Nefertiti, where the heroine and the narrator are not the same character.  It creates an interesting tension in the book, because the narrator does not always agree with the protagonist and vice versa.

Sita is the eldest daughter of a carpenter in a small village.  She lives with her grandmother, who is not a likable character, her father, her younger sister, Anu, and their widowed maid, Avani.  Sita's mother dies in childbirth.  Daughters are not really wanted in Indian culture, it seems, as their dowry can beggar their parents.  Sita's grandmother tries to sell Sita into prostitution at a temple, but Sita's father refuses.  Instead, he and their neighbor train Sita to become a Durgavasi, a companion to the Rani* who are not only trained to keep the queen company but to protect her with their lives if necessary.  There are only ten at one time.  The training makes Sita unmarriageable, so when she faces the trials to become a Durgavasi and succeeds, there's a bit of a collective sigh of relief.  Once in the city, Sita is thrust into a world that she doesn't necessarily understand.  In her village, women are kept in purdah, or isolation.  In Jhansi, purdah is not followed. 

The first months of Sita's time with the Rani are fairly peaceful.  The Rani is pregnant, and the eventual birth of a son is a celebrated event.  However, all is not peaceful in Jhansi.  Some Indians fight with the British East India company.  They are a mix of Hindu and Muslims, but are being given leather hats made from cow leather and the cartridges for their guns are greased with pig and cow fat.  These are offensive to the Hindu's, to whom cows are sacred, and the Muslims, to whom anything pig is sacrilege.  These tensions are building as the Rani's son and then her husband die.  We later learn that they were poisoned with hemlock by another of the Rani's Durgavasi.  The tensions between the Indians and the British eventually cause a rebellion.  The Rani attempts to calm the tensions diplomatically, but is eventually unable to.  Battles ensue, atrocities occur, and many innocent and not so innocent people are killed.

Rani Lakshmi is one of the people who dies (spoiler alert from history) and with her death, all of India comes under British imperial control.  Eighty nine years later, Lord Mountbatten, then Viceroy of India, signs the papers that make India a sovereign country once more. 

I've been eyeing this book for a while because I liked Ms. Moran's Egyptian Royals series so much, but I never really found the motivation to read it.  Then I was in Barnes and Noble the other day, and I found it on sale, so I thought what they hay!  I picked it up, then had some free time before I needed to be at work so I started reading.  I wasn't so sure for the first few chapters that I'd like the book, but once I got into it, I was hooked.  I was fascinated by this period of history that I didn't know about.  I knew that when the British decided to add a country to their Empire, they weren't particularly--polite--about it.  Often times, they were very underhanded and sneaky until you didn't even realize what was going on.  The way that the Rani was aware of what was going on but not really able to do anything about it was great.  It was the epitome of being stuck between a rock and a hard place.  She was also forced into decisions and actions based on the decisions and actions of those around her, Indian and English alike.  It begs the question--what makes a rebel?  Is it a conscious decision, or is it simply a label applied afterwards?  Interestingly, rebel is used when that side loses.  Otherwise, someone is a revolutionary.  There's something to think about!

I definitely recommend this book to anyone.  It's not a girly story, it has far too much action for that, but it isn't all action.  It has the same sort of poetry that I associate with some classics, where the language creates a poetry of it's own.  And you never know--it might spark an interest in history and culture that you didn't have before.  After all, Moran notes that she did not need to embellish the history of Rani Lakshmi and her Durgavasi, but rather separate what actually happened from the legends that have sprung up around them.

*Rani is the Indian word for Queen.  A King is called a Maharaja

A New Fountain Should Be an Easy Proposal

Some of my fondest memories are helping my aunt in her classrooms during the summer.  She taught fourth grade for many years, but has also taught fifth through eighth, I believe, and worked as the library/media specialist in her school.  She's lucky enough to have worked for over twenty years at the same school.  (Is that lucky?  I don't know!)  Needless to say, I got some fabulous books from her.  She would often send me home with a book to read from her shelf with instructions to tell me what I thought of it when I have it back. 

One book she gave me to read when I was eight or nine years old was Regarding the Fountain:  A Tale, in Letters, of Liars and Leaks by Kate Klise and illustrated by M. Sarah Klise.  It was a quick read, but it's funny because there are plays on words on every page.  Every name, if you say it out loud, sounds like something else.  There are names like Dee Eel (Deal), Sally Mander (Salamander), Minne O. (Minnow), and Sam N. (Salmon).  These, combined with the quick exchanges and the fast characterization.  The book is told through a series of letters, memos, postcards, and pictures.  Each character has their own font and personality, which is quickly established.

The principal of Dry Creek Middle School, Walter Russ, writes a letter to Florence Waters, a famous fountain designer, asking her to replace the leaking drinking fountain by Sam N.'s fifth grade classroom.  She agrees, but writes to the fifth graders asking for their ideas.  As they are going to see it the most, their opinions matter to her.  This starts an exchange of letters where a relationship builds between the class and the designer.  She sends them letters and gifts to help their learning, and they send her fountain ideas and information about their history project.  While they are investigating the history of the town, they uncover a secret conspiracy to limit water. 

It was many years between the first time I read this book (which had to be some time around 2000, two years after it was published) and when I bought my own copy, but I never forgot about the book.  It's a great one for a short laugh, and it would be a great book to read with a child around third grade or so.  The reading level is fifth grade, but it is enjoyable at a younger age.  They might not catch all of the plays on words, but that doesn't make it any less fun.  What I was really excited about, though, was that when I looked up Regarding the Fountain, I found four more books in the series--Regarding the Sink, Regarding the Bathrooms, Regarding the Trees, and Regarding the Bees.  Each is just as funny as the last, and in all of them you learn things.  For instance, in Regarding the Bathrooms, there is a lot of Roman history, and specifically information on Roman baths.  It's fascinating, and tied into the story in an easy to read, believable way. 

I'd grab a copy of these, if only to keep around when you need a quick read and a good laugh!

As Close to a Royal Memoir as We May Ever Get

I find the lives of the upper echelons to be absolutely fascinating.  My undergraduate research focused on Queen Elizabeth and the women around her, but I'm also intrigued by what little we know of her personal life.  My graduate research was all about a number of American women who married into the British aristocracy.  One of the most interesting books to me, when I was doing that research, was the memoir by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, The Glitter and the Gold--a book that I talk about in this post. Balsan was candid and told what life was really like as a duchess.  One day, I would really like to see a memoir from someone at the center of the Royal family.  Queen Elizabeth II would have a phenomenal one, I'm sure, but even one from the younger generation, from Will or Kate, Harry or even Meghan would be amazing.  These are the people changing what monarchy means in today's world.  As we don't have any of those memoirs yet, let me tell you about the one that I did read:  Daughter of Empire: My Life As A Mountbatten, by Lady Pamela (Mountbatten) Hicks.


Lady Pamela Hicks is the second born child of Lord Mountbatten--a man known as Dickie.  If you watch Netflix's The Crown, the name should sound familiar.  Dickie Mountbatten was uncle to Prince Phillip and a second cousin to Queen Elizabeth.  Lady Pamela was one of Queen Elizabeth's ladies, and even a bridesmaid at her wedding.  There are only so many characters a TV show can handle, after all!  Her memoir seems short, although my copy is 240 pages long.  Something that is important to remember for this book is that Lady Pamela lived through things such as World War II, the Abdication Crisis, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Suez Canal crisis, her father was held by Queen Victoria at his baptism--These things that seem so long ago happened within living memory for Lady Pamela.

Lady Pamela starts the book as most memoirs start, by talking about her parents.  Dickie Mountbatten was an upstanding Englishman who, after seeing his German father pushed out of the Navy during World War I, was determined to rise to his father's place as First Sea Lord and Admiral of the Fleet.  He was in love with his wife, Edwina, a heiress and orphan who had abandonment issues.  While Dickie Mountbatten was often away, Edwina Mountbatten would surround herself with friends and lovers--and Dickie, so desperate to see his wife happy had no jealousy.  Lady Mountbatten used her husband's job in the Navy to be able to travel the world.  This allowed Pamela and her older sister, Patricia, to see the world as well.  It continues through her childhood and into World War II, during which the Mountbatten girls were sent to New York to live with Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, a friend of their parents.  After World War II, Lord Mountbatten was sent to India as Viceroy to partition the country and prepare to hand over government to the Indians.  This was an interesting section, because Lady Pamela talks about meeting people that are inspirational, influential, and seem to be above being as "normal" as they seem in the memoir--notably Pandit Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi.  The picture below is of Lady Pamela with Nehru.  After the Mountbattens returned to England, Lady Pamela went into her cousin Elizabeth's service.  During this section of the book she talks about missing the bustle of India, her life in Malta, and, finally, the death of the King while Princess Elizabeth was in Kenya.  I think the saddest part of this section is that, before she learned of her father's death, Princess Elizabeth was writing him a letter to tell him how much he would enjoy the area. 

I originally wasn't fond of the title that Lady Pamela used for her memoir.  Daughter of Empire.  She was from a cadet branch of the English royal family, and from the Greek one.  But the more I read, the more the title grew on me.  Lady Pamela grew up in many different parts of the Empire; she was a global child.  She also lived her early life in service to Princess, then Queen Elizabeth II.  She served the empire.  In the end, I rather liked the title.  I also found it interesting that Lady Pamela stopped her narrative in 1955--but by that point, she had already shared stories of her life on four continents.  She'd stepped foot in a good portion of the British Empire at that point.  In the epilogue, Lady Pamela briefly talks of her romance and marriage with her husband, but the final image made me tear up.  During her honeymoon, Lady Pamela's mother, the inestimable Lady Louis Mountbatten, passed away.  As she had asked, she was buried at sea.  Lord Mountbatten was crying, the only time that Lady Pamela could remember that detail of her father.  As per Pandit Nehru's instructions, marigold petals were scattered across the sea, showing the respect of Nehru and India. 

Memoirs are always an interesting read.  In a non-fiction book such as you'd read for school, facts are laid out in a very factual way.  Memoirs, however, have a lot more emotion in them.  When they are written about a period that was several years before, there is always, to me, a hazy feeling.  We don't often remember the bad about our own childhood, but it's also hard to remember the good.  Everything has the kind of magical feeling.  Lady Pamela's memoir was so different because she talks about people that we "know" today, like Elizabeth II or Prince Phillip.  Memoirs are also hard, because facts can be skewed.  Memory doesn't always match up with fact, but it provides context and emotion.