The Painted Girls – Cathy Marie Buchanan

Paris, 1878. Following their father’s sudden death, the Van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opera, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous Ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola’s naturalist masterpiece L’Assommoir. Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modelling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer Aged 14. Meanwhile, Antoinette, derailed by her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie, must choose between honest labour and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde. Set at a moment of profound artistic, cultural and societal change, The Painted Girls is a tale of two remarkable sisters rendered uniquely vulnerable to the darker impulses of “civilized society.” In the end, each will come to realize that her salvation—her survival, even—lies with the other. – Publishers Website

LOVE, LOVE LOVE !!! I guess I can’t just say that, now can I?  Cathy has taken a subject she has just come across and developed a seductive, evocative historical fiction masterpiece in her newest book!!  Even if you haven’t taken ballet as a girl like I Cathy and myself have, you are still drawn into the gruelling training, the blood and sweat that is left in the practice rooms or on the stage during performances.  The attention to detail is impeccable, the emotions stirring your own as you flip or in my case devoured page by page, then realizing that you have read it in one sitting thinking what in the world just happened.  Yes, I have gushed about her earlier book The Day The Falls Stood Still, BUT! (yep, there’s that one again) You will absolutely love this one in a whole new way.  Grab that glass of absinthe, get comfy in your favorite reading place, and prepare to become enraptured in the trials and tribulations of the Van Goethem sisters as they traipse, dance and leap across the Paris Theatre Stage .  As they walk through their poor existence as best they can.  One thing I can’t help thinking about…what has happened to them in the next 20 years of their lives…Cathy does give you a small glimpse into the future at the end of the book, but do they fade into the background at the same speed they came to the foreground?  Is there something else in the background waiting in the wings? Only I can speculate or dream as they did.

This book for sure will have the Giller Judges enthralled if it is nominated this year for Canada’s Literary Prize for sure! Please Giller Gods, Make it Be !!

If you are on the USA side of the Border, it is published by Riverhead Books.  And if it is any sign of the publicity that it is receiving on both sides of the border, it will be a massive best-seller for sure !!

Reading Guide – Facebook – Twitter – Cathy’s Website – Browse Inside The Painted Girls – Q and A with Cathy

Guest Author Post – Cathy Marie Buchanan – The Painted Girls: Two Stories Intertwined

Please welcome Cathy to the blog once again for her second historical fiction book – The Painted Girls which is available both in the USA and Canada right now!  I can tell you if you haven’t read her first book which I fell in love with at the first few sentences, you should.  Cathy is one of those rare talents where writing gets better and better like a fine aged wine…that’s if you drink wine! Here is a guest post she has done for me, enjoy!

 

When Edgar Degas unveiled Little Dancer Aged Fourteen in 1881, he showed the sculpture alongside his portrait of two teenage boys on trial in the criminal court.  The Painted Girls tells the story of the young dancer who modeled for the sculpture and also that of the Emile Abadie and Michel Knobloch, the boys Degas drew in the prisoners’ box.

Art historians contend more than a shared exhibition links the artworks.  They suggest in each Degas sought to imply the depravity of his subjects. What, I wondered, lay laid beneath such a claim?

 

Marie van Goethem, I would learn, modeled for Little Dancer.  She was from a poverty-stricken family and was trained to enter the famous Paris Opéra Ballet. It was the dream of many a poor Parisian girl. The ballet offered a chance to find fame and fortune if she had talent and ambition, if she was able to attract the attentions of an admirer with clout enough to advance her career.  Such liaisons were commonplace, and unfair though it was, blame fell squarely on the shoulders of the ballet girls.  It was not surprising, then, that when the sculpture was unveiled, the public at once connected Little Dancer with a life of corruption and young girls for sale.  Her face, they said, was “imprinted with the detestable promise of every vice.”  Degas, it would seem, was successful in suggesting the child’s depravity.

Such an intention was easy enough to swallow when it came to the portrait of Abadie and Knobloch.  “Scientific” findings of the day supported notions of innate criminality and particular facial features—low forehead, forward-thrusting jaw—that marked a person as having a tendency toward crime.  Those features are incorporated into the portrait (and the sculpture, too).  Even more telling, Degas titled the portrait “Criminal Physiognomies.”

What fascinated me most of all, though, as I researched the stories of Marie and the boys was the possibility the link between the artworks went beyond the shared exhibition and the suggestion of criminality.  All three youths had inhabited the same underbelly of Paris, and I could not stop myself from imagining their paths had crossed, the ways in which such a meeting might have altered destinies.  Yes, I wanted to tell both stories, but I wanted to intertwine their lives, too.  And so on the pages of The Painted Girls, there is a fateful day when Marie’s older sister meets Abadie behind the Paris Opéra.

It certainly does make you think about this, doesn’t it?

Thank you so much Cathy for this, and stay tuned for my review of The Painted Girls.

The Headmaster’s Wager – Vincent Lam

From Giller Prize winner, internationally acclaimed, and bestselling author Vincent Lam comes a superbly crafted, highly suspenseful, and deeply affecting novel set against the turmoil of the Vietnam War.

Percival Chen is the headmaster of the most respected English school in Saigon. He is also a bon vivant, a compulsive gambler and an incorrigible womanizer. He is well accustomed to bribing a forever-changing list of government officials in order to maintain the elite status of the Chen Academy. He is fiercely proud of his Chinese heritage, and quick to spot the business opportunities rife in a divided country.

He devotedly ignores all news of the fighting that swirls around him, choosing instead to read the faces of his opponents at high-stakes mahjong tables. But when his only son gets in trouble with the Vietnamese authorities, Percival faces the limits of his connections and wealth and is forced to send him away. In the loneliness that follows, Percival finds solace in Jacqueline, a beautiful woman of mixed French and Vietnamese heritage, and Laing Jai, a son born to them on the eve of the Tet offensive.

Percival’s new-found happiness is precarious, and as the complexities of war encroach further and further into his world, he must confront the tragedy of all he has refused to see. Blessed with intriguingly flawed characters moving through a richly drawn historical and physical landscape, The Headmaster’s Wageris a riveting story of love, betrayal and sacrifice. – Publishers Website

I really liked this book ! Percival isn’t only a man who has a business, he also bribes officials and almost always has a solution to everything…Until his son causes trouble and he has to send him away to China so he doesn’t end up in prison.  His son is everything to him, he will do anything for him and his school.  When the loneliness from missing his son becomes too severe, he takes up with a young woman when gambling at one of the houses he goes to .  Later on, she becomes pregnant, and the desire to leave the country in war as well as all of the chaos is even more urgent.

Percival was an interesting man – his past marriage to his son’s mother, the bribes and people he is connected to,  especially his right hand man Mak gives him the solutions he needs until he misses his son so much that it is nearly impossible to have him return to Vietnam from China.  What won’t he do to survive? Who will he bribe next? Will he become bankrupt before he can leave the country, or worse dead?

I really loved Vincent’s narrative.  Although Percival is a man of many things, the one of the many things he loves are his son and his mistresses son, whom he was told it was his son, well, you will just have to read the book to find out. I don’t like giving spoilers !  There are times where it is all fun and games, periods of tumultuous fighting with his own family, and closest friends, but also within himself.  He wages a constant battle of doing right from wrong, and weighing them against the better good.  Does he do these things to get ahead? Of course.  Would he do anything to save his son who was exiled, absolutely.  Is it all about him, most of the time.  Does he have remorse? Of course he does.  And, I’m sure he would change things differently if he could go back in time.  That’s the thing with life, you can’t go back and change anything.  Did he learn from his lessons, yes.  Did he change? I’ll let you decide.

There were obviously good times had in the book as well, all combined into this novel it is about sacrifice, love, war, and greed.  I am sure that Vincent will be back soon with another novel of even more importance even if it is fiction.  He won the Giller Prize in 2006 for Blood-Letting and Miraculous Cures.  He was nominated for the Giller yet again this year, but only made it on the long list.  He was also nominated for the Governor Generals Awards.

Vincent’s Website – Twitter – Facebook  – Browse Inside

Touch – Alexi Zentner

NOMINEE 2011 – Scotiabank Giller Prize

Touch begins with Stephen, an Anglican priest, returning from Vancouver to the northern BC town of Sawgamet where he grew up, just in time for his mother’s death. Sawgamet was founded by Stephen’s grandfather Jeannot, when he heard a voice in the woods calling his name and his dog, Flaireur, refused to take another step. Back then, as Stephen remembers it from the stories passed down to him, men were giants, or even gods, striving to tame the land. The world of Sawgamet was enchanted, alive with qallupilluit and ijirait, sea-witches and shape-shifters; Jeannot saw caribou covered with gold dust and found gold nuggets the size of boulders. Sometimes winter refused to end, and blizzards buried the whole town in snow for months at a time. Sawgamet was a place where Jeannot had to kill a man twice and then carry the bones around with him, bound in cloth, to make sure he stayed dead.

Years later, with his mother on her deathbed, Stephen tries to piece together the past from myths and stories and memories that he’s not sure he can trust. And not everything is magical: if life in Jeannot’s Sawgamet was richer and brighter than it seems for Stephen now, it was also harder and more brutal, with both fire and ice claiming too many lives before their time. Jeannot never knew his son, Pierre, Stephen’s father, who was himself maimed in a logging accident; Stephen’s childhood was marked by tragic loss, and a lasting pain he must now confront as he considers how to pass Jeannot’s stories on to his own daughters.

A chronicle of the birth of a town and the passing of a way of being in the world, Touch is unique, compelling and full of marvels. But this book captures the most personal moments in life as well as the most dramatic ones – Alexi Zentner conveys three generations of a family’s intimate emotional experience in language that pierces the heart. This beautiful and moving novel is a great story told by a natural storyteller, and to read Touch is to enter an enthralling world that you’ll never want to leave. – Publishers Website

Believe the book’s description.  Touch is one of those books where the writing is fantastic, the story baffling, you can’t really believe what you are reading – fact or fiction, but as you read page after page, it entices you, envelopes you as if you are a person living in this town.  The realization is like being in another world, except you are right there where you are reading it, being brought into another world.  The legends, the stories – real or fabricated makes you feel like you are listening to them from your own grandparent or other family member – your eyes all widened, the look of shock or even mischievous thoughts crossing your mind wondering if it really was weird or just made up. Thoughts of making the story even more out of this world.  Yes, it does happen.

Then as you are caught up in the story telling, it reminds you of other thoughts and feelings possibly of your own mortality, other family members that have passed away, the warmness of their hugs, the food they made, the stories they told.  The stories passed on from earlier generations are as wild as they were when you first heard them.  It’s about a family, much like yours or even mine – the ties that bind, the secrets kept, the hard work, shocking revelations, the things they regret and are telling you to finally let them go.

Truly a novel that needs to be read to be believed.  It has recently been long-listed for the IMPAC Dublin Awards a few days ago, along with the other previous nominations including the Giller Prize.

If you haven’t already picked up this gem, now is the time to see what I have talked about.

Goodreads – Alexi’s Website – Alexi on Twitter – Alexi on Facebook

Listen to Alexi Zentner’s Touch from Dreamscape Media on Vimeo.

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Warfare – DK Publishing

We Make War That We May Live In Peace – Aristotle

The most wide-ranging and visually arresting history of wars and warfare ever published, War: Definitive Visual Guide documents every major war or significant period of conflict in over 5,000 years of human history.

A must-have reference gift for military enthusiasts and general readers alike, no other book about warfare contains such a diverse selection of imagery including contemporary paintings and photographs, objects and artifacts, and specially commissioned artworks, maps, and diagrams.

War: Definitive Visual Guide includes a comprehensive directory of every major war, thematic spreads examining broader topics within the history of warfare, from the role of mercenaries, communications, and the treatment of wounded soldiers, and personal accounts and objects from soldiers and civilians that bring to life the human experience of battle.

From the earliest known Wars in Sumeria and Ancient Egypt War to the occupation of Iraq, War: Definitive Visual Guide combines a coherent and compelling spread-by-spread historical narrative with a wealth of supporting features to recount the epic 5,000-year story of warfare and combat through the ages.

This is the ultimate war book.  From the Bronze Age to  present day, which includes every major war, the aspects of war, witnesses to war, as well as the hardware used through the centuries.  There are full colour photographs and artwork that portrayed major battles that changed the world.

Talks about how wars were fought in the ancient world before to Christ to present-day.  Weapons from each period – ancient, medieval, modern – how they have changed as well as the tactics have, as well as categories of weapons had me turning the pages oohing and aweing.

it also talks about the mercenaries, what they fight for, and how long they have been around…Did you know they have been around for thousands of years?  It talks about the french religious wars, the chinese civil war where the communists and the nationalists lost to the communists, and the remaining nationalists retreated to Taiwan to take China’s seat on the United Nations.

As the parent of a boy, I have to say this is one of Nick’s favorite.  He had taken it to school and had it there for a week to read during reading time.  All of his friends were intrigued to see what he was reading.

** This was previously published as War: The Definitive Visual Guide**

DK Canada

World War II – The Events And Their Impact On Real People – R.G. Grant

“Visually stunning…readers young and old will gain understanding of their world today by perusing this engrossing history”. –VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates)

Beginning with the complex political and social circumstances that led to World War II, this volume comprehensively discusses the decisions made, battles fought, lives affected, and subsequent results of the war that defined the twentieth century. It includes first-hand testimony of young soldiers who remember the front lines, as well as the wives, parents, and children left stateside.

Fifty million people lost their lives during the bloodiest and most extraordinary conflict of the twentieth century.  What was it like to experience – and survive – Such a remarkable time in history?

This incredible book combines spectacular images with dramatic eyewitness accounts by the people who were actually there: the courageous soldiers fighting on land, at sea, and in the air, and the civilians at home telling stories of fear, courage, and hope.- Publishers Website – Back Cover

I cannot fathom being in the middle of any sort of armed conflict – war, famine, the sound of guns and bombs overhead as people on the ground are running for their lives as the buildings around them are exploding.  From a quiet neighborhood to a downtown city street.  You don’t know when or where it will hit – hearing the air raid sirens going off and you are praying that it wont hit your neighborhood or anyone else’s for that matter.

War is a dirty, messy business.  For those who have lived through World War II, we have those stories now in this book with revealing footage in the attached DVD to bring you these stories.  There are also maps, charts, and timelines that provide instant information on the course of events.

Although this book is intended for children between the ages of 10 to 17, in my opinion, it is a valuable resource for all ages depending on their depth of interpretation, and of course whether parents think it is an appropriate subject to be talking about.

So on this remembrance day, please take a moment out of your day and thank the men and women that fought for our country to keep it safe, the many, many lives that were taken from our families and friends and give them thanks.

 [grandbanner xml=world-war-ii]

 

The Secret Keeper – Kate Morton

From the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Distant Hours, The Forgotten Garden, and The House at Riverton, a spellbinding new novel filled with mystery, thievery, murder, and enduring love.

During a summer party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is happily dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and watches as her mother speaks to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime. A crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy—her vivacious, loving, nearly perfect mother.

Now, fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress living in London. The family is gathering at Greenacres farm for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday. Realizing that this may be her last chance, Laurel searches for answers to the questions that still haunt her from that long-ago day, answers that can only be found in Dorothy’s past.

Dorothy’s story takes the reader from pre–WWII England through the blitz, to the ’60s and beyond. It is the secret history of three strangers from vastly different worlds—Dorothy, Vivien, and Jimmy—who meet by chance in wartime London and whose lives are forever entwined. The Secret Keeper explores longings and dreams and the unexpected consequences they sometimes bring. It is an unforgettable story of lovers and friends, deception and passion that is told—in Morton’s signature style—against a backdrop of events that changed the world. – Publishers Website

Wow, just Wow!  I have always enjoyed Kate’s work, but this one has to be the very best yet.  I was hooked from the first chapter. She held me along until the last few chapters until all was revealed, I fell dumbfounded, shocked, shaking my head.  Kate is a very skillful storyteller that If I haven’t read any of her earlier work this would be the book to start from.  I am literally speechless!  And trust me that doesn’t happen often lol

Such a wonderful story about life, love, sacrifice, and the one skeleton in a closet that has sat patiently for so long.  The only one person who knows about it is on their deathbed, wanting to share, but is afraid of the consequences – her family, friends, old friends from the past.  This one will keep you in suspense right until the end and still will have you saying to yourself I didn’t even see it coming…

Wow, Wow, Wow…

Goodreads – Kate’s Website – Facebook – Browse Inside

 

The Midwife Of Hope River – Patricia Harman

Midwife Patience Murphy has a gift: a talent for escorting mothers through the challenges of bringing children into the world. Working in the hardscrabble conditions of Appalachia during the Depression, Patience takes the jobs that no one else wants, helping those most in need—and least likely to pay. She knows a successful midwifery practice must be built on a foundation of openness and trust—but the secrets Patience is keeping are far too intimate and fragile for her to ever let anyone in.

Honest, moving, and beautifully detailed, Patricia Harman’s The Midwife of Hope River rings with authenticity as Patience faces nearly insurmountable difficulties. From the dangerous mines of West Virginia to the terrifying attentions of the Ku Klux Klan, Patience must strive to bring new light and life into an otherwise hard world. – Publishers Website

I really enjoyed this book, until that is the end of it came and I felt like the main character did something that was completely out of character at least I thought it was out of character for her to do.

She has survived so many difficulties, overcome so many obstacles in her life, then to continue a relationship with one of the other characters in the book that they didn’t even really discuss; they just continued on with it, how it should progress, they didn’t discuss their feelings about one another, it just seemed as though the author needed to (in my opinion) end the book and didn’t have any other things to share about the couple.

Maybe it is me being in this modern world and all, I’m not sure.

Overall, it was a gorgeous book, written with a sense of the time period – the ’30’s. It had genuine parts of what it was like to be a midwife back in the day.   I was quite enthralled with it.

I just thought the ending of the novel could have been written better than it was.  I hope to read more from Patricia in the future.

Reading Guide – Patricia’s Website – Browse Inside – Goodreads – Facebook – Twitter

The Printmaker’s Daughter – Katherine Govier

Recounting the story of her life, Oei plunges us into the colorful world of nineteenth-century Edo, in which courtesans rub shoulders with poets, warriors consort with actors, and the arts flourish in an unprecedented moment of creative upheaval. Oei and Hokusai live among writers, novelists, tattoo artists, and prostitutes, evading the spies of the repressive shogunate as they work on Hokusai’s countless paintings and prints. Wielding her brush, rejecting domesticity in favor of dedication to the arts, Oei defies all expectations of womanhood—all but one. A dutiful daughter to the last, she will obey the will of her eccentric father, the man who created her and who, ultimately, will rob her of her place in history.

Vivid, daring, and unforgettable, The Printmaker’s Daughter shines fresh light on art, loyalty, and the tender and indelible bond between a father and daughter.

A lost voice of old Japan reclaims her rightful place in history in this breathtaking work of imagination and scholarship from award-winning and internationally acclaimed author Katherine Govier. In the evocative tale of 19th century Tokyo, The Printmaker’s Daughter  delivers an enthralling tale of one of the world’s great unknown artists: Oei, the mysterious daughter of master printmaker Hokusai, painter of the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. In a novel that will resonate with readers of Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, Lisa See’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, and David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, the sights and sensations of an exotic, bygone era form the richly captivating backdrop for an intimate, finely wrought story of daughterhood and duty, art and authorship, the immortality of creation and the anonymity of history. – Publishers Website

I was very enthralled with this book.  A daughter who takes over her fathers painting when he gets too old to be able to do it.  She has spent her whole life studying beside him, going from place to place in object poverty, providing himself and his family the little money he can make under Communist China.  The threat of death, starvation, and shunning from the Government itself sits on their shoulders everyday while printing ‘approved’ books, and paintings; all the while painting ‘non-approved’ pieces for more money, but a much greater chance of being caught and their small livelihood obliterated with a jail sentence or worse.  As the daughter grows up in this time, she meets a friend of her fathers; really a prostitute who will figure into her whole life – from being able to apply makeup, to other womanly secrets.  They are linked for their lifetimes, in good times and bad.  It was the sad story of a woman who is attempting to eek out an existence where it is heavily controlled by the Government.  If they shun you, you are finished.  Love for family, survival, relationships on the brink of collapse, poverty, and self-sufficiency all had me engrossed along with the gracefulness of the geisha’s in the brothels who hone their craft for decades until long past their expiry date.

On  a side note – In CANADA it is entitled The Ghost Brush.  Catherine is also a Canadian!

Katherine’s Site – Twitter – Goodreads – Facebook – Browse Inside

The Orphan Master’s Son – Adam Johnson – TLC Blog Tour

Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother—a singer “stolen” to Pyongyang—and an influential father who runs a work camp for orphans. Superiors in the state soon recognize the boy’s loyalty and keen instincts. Considering himself “a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,” Jun Do rises in the ranks. He becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress “so pure, she didn’t know what starving people looked like.”

In this epic, critically acclaimed tour de force, Adam Johnson provides a riveting portrait of a world rife with hunger, corruption, and casual cruelty but also camaraderie, stolen moments of beauty, and love. – Publishers Website

At first, I got this book mixed up with another book, so initially I had said no; then as I was going through some other things I decided to click the link for it and realized my mistake.  Once I was finished reading the description, I said yes to reading this particular book.

It did sound intriguing at first, but once I opened it up to actually read it, I was astounded, shocked, and scared for the people of North Korea.  To be subjected to unspeakable acts of abuse by their government was one thing, having a fictionalized account was another.  Where most of the things were most likely accurate and not unheard of.    But then there is this main character Pak Jun Do who first lives in an orphanage where his father is the orphan master, then onto a labor camp, who then you see working in varying different jobs, until he is in one of the most coveted jobs – as taking over one of the more prominent people in North Korea.   Through his wild rides through the bureaucracy, to the United States, and back again, he serves as the novels hero in some respect – trying to be invisible but yet in his final position to free a woman and her children from the ravages of the living conditions, the propaganda, and harshest living conditions to be free.

It had taken me a bit of time to fully read this novel.  At first, I thought it was a unusual story, but as you delve further into it, it’s the story of probably many of the people of this communist country – less the assumptions of different characters of course.  I have read somewhere that the author had taken one trip to North Korea to research this novel, and i cannot believe that he captured it so effortlessly.  My impression is that of shock that people are still made to live like this in the world now.  (Here I go wearing my heart on my sleeve again…)  If you are interested in at least a fictionalized account of North Korea, the people and other things, then this is the book for you.  I felt as if I was inside the country ducking to hide wherever I could so I wouldn’t be captured much like some of the characters in the book.

Goodreads – Excerpt – Reader’s Guide – Facebook

Thanks to the women at TLC Book Tours for including me in this tour ! Here are the other blogs where you can find this book and other thoughts:

Tuesday, August 7th:  Booklover’s Book Reviews

Wednesday, August 8th:  The Bowed Bookshelf

Thursday, August 9th:  Unabridged Chick

Monday, August 13th:  As I Turn the Pages

Tuesday, August 14th:  Gone Bookserk

Monday, August 20th:  Life in Review

Tuesday, August 21st:  Unabridged Chick – author interview

Wednesday, August 22nd:  Lit and Life

Thursday, August 23rd:  Bookish Habits

Monday, August 27th:  The Scarlett Letter

Tuesday, August 28th:  Book Dilettante

Tuesday, September 4th:  Serendipitous Reading

Monday, September 10th:  Peeking Between the Pages

Tuesday, September 18th:  You’ve GOTTA read this!

TBD:  Col Reads

TBD:  So Simply Sara

#24 – The Confession – Charles Todd

Scotland Yard’s best detective, Inspector Ian Rutledge, must solve a dangerous case that reaches far into the past in this superb mystery in the acclaimed series

Declaring he needs to clear his conscience, a dying man walks into Scotland Yard and confesses that he killed his cousin five years earlier during the Great War. When Inspector Ian Rutledge presses for details, the man evades his questions, revealing only that he hails from a village east of London. With little information and no body to open an official inquiry, Rutledge begins to look into the case on his own.

Less than two weeks later, the alleged killer’s body is found floating in the Thames, a bullet in the back of his head. Searching for answers, Rutledge discovers that the dead man was not who he claimed to be. What was his real name—and who put a bullet in his head? Were the “confession” and his own death related? Or was there something else in the victim’s past that led to his murder?

The inspector’s only clue is a gold locket, found around the dead man’s neck, that leads back to Essex and an insular village whose occupants will do anything to protect themselves from notoriety. For notoriety brings the curious, and with the curious come change and an unwelcome spotlight on a centuries-old act of evil that even now can damn them all. – Publishers Website

This was my first foray into Inspectors Ian’s world and I wasn’t disappointed.  Continuing on after Ian has come back from the War, he’s back at Scotland Yard when he talks to someone who says  a murder has happened.  Yes, someone comes forward to tell him of a murder that has happened – 5 years earlier.   When this  person passes away suddenly and floating in the river, Ian takes a trip to rural village outside London to see if he can find any clues about who this person was who came to him, when a whole can of worms opens up that Ian isn’t so sure of.  Through the bends of the narrative, Ian sleuths out the people involved, the lies, the deceit, and what is behind it all in a historical mystery that will have you hooked until the end.

Then of course there is Ian himself – shattered and broken from the War and the nightmares that never seem to go away…

Charles’ Website – Facebook – Excerpt – Fun Stuff

#23 – Voyagers of The Titanic – Passengers, Sailors, Ship Builders, Aristrocrats, and The Worlds They Came From – Richard Davenport – Hines

Late in the night of April 14, 1912, the mighty Titanic, a passenger liner traveling from Southampton, England, to New York City, struck an iceberg four hundred miles south of Newfoundland. Its sinking over the next two and a half hours brought the ship—mythological in name and size—one hundred years of infamy.

Of the 2,240 people aboard the ship, 1,517 perished either by drowning or by freezing to death in the frigid North Atlantic waters. What followed the disaster was tantamount to a worldwide outpouring of grief: In New York, Paris, London, and other major cities, people lined the streets and crowded around the offices of the White Star Line, the Titanic’s shipping company, to inquire for news of their loved ones and for details about the lives of some of the famous people of their time.

While many accounts of the Titanic’s voyage focus on the technical or mechanical aspects of why the ship sank, Voyagers of the Titanic follows the stories of the men, women, and children whose lives intersected on the vessel’s fateful last day, covering the full range of first, second, and third class­—from plutocrats and captains of industry to cobblers and tailors looking for a better life in America.

Richard Davenport-Hines delves into the fascinating lives of those who ate, drank, reveled, dreamed, and died aboard the mythic ship: from John Jacob Astor IV, the wealthiest person on board, whose comportment that night was subject to speculation and gossip for years after the event, to Archibald Butt, the much-beloved military aide to Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft, who died helping others into the Titanic’s few lifeboats. With magnificent prose, Voyagers of the Titanic also brings to life the untold stories of the ship’s middle and third classes—clergymen, teachers, hoteliers, engineers, shopkeepers, counterjumpers, and clerks—each of whom had a story that not only illuminates the fascinating ship but also the times in which it sailed. In addition, Davenport-Hines explores the fascinating politics behind the Titanic’s creation, which involved larger-than-life figures such as J. P. Morgan, the ship’s owner, and Lord Pirrie, the ship’s builder.

The memory of this tragedy still remains a part of the American psyche and Voyagers of the Titanic brings that clear night back to us with all of its drama and pathos. – Publishers Website

Since it was the 100th Anniversary of the fatal accident that sank the Titanic along with most of its passengers, I thought it would be interesting to see how they lived 100 years ago.  I have to say and be perfectly honest, I think the people who served the people as well as the third class passengers had much more interesting stories then the first class passengers and the people who were in charge of the ship building.  Not that having money isn’t a bad thing, the lower class passengers/employees had more of an interesting background.  Where they were going, where they had come from, where they running from something, What was behind their going on the ship to America? That sort of stuff.  It wasn’t the how much money I have more than you, or wether their honeymoon was cut short.  I found it interesting how the decisions were made about how many lifeboats compared to how many passengers were on the ship that had originally piqued my interest.  It was quite the impressive work the Richard had put into this book.  If you are a fan of this sort of genre, I think you should pick this one up.  It may be some of the same information you have heard before, but it was interesting to see how they lived, what they were striving for, before the ship sank on that night.

Richard on Goodreads

#5 – A Good Man – Guy Vanderhaeghe

Multi-award-winning author Guy Vanderhaeghe’s eagerly awaited new novel is a dazzling follow up to his bestselling The Englishman’s Boy and The Last Crossing (a Canada Reads winner!).

A Good Man culminates what could be thought of as a trilogy of books set in the late nineteenth-century Canadian and American West, and it is a masterpiece. Vanderhaeghe skilfully weaves a rich tapestry of history with the turns of fortune of his most vividly and compellingly drawn cast of characters yet. Vanderhaeghe entwines breathtaking, intriguing, and richly described narratives that contain a compelling love story, a tale of revenge and violence, a spectacular battle scene, the story of an incident in Welsely’s past that threatens his relationship with Ada, and much, much more. While raising moral questions, this novel weaves the historical with the personal and stands as Vanderhaeghe’s most accomplished and brilliant novel to date. – Publishers Website

Although, I haven’t read the two earlier novels that pre-date this one.  It is certainly a book that you can read by itself.  I really enjoyed Guy’s writing style, it was a comfortable, relaxing read.  It was a book that mellowed you out, made you comfortable where ever it was I read.  It is one of those books that you can wind down from a long hectic day at work, certainly not one that will put you to sleep; but one that just mellows you out so you are able to enjoy it fully. At least it was for me, you may experience it differently.

Between the main characters brief stint in the Northwest Mounted Police, as well as others you will learn about; he is keeping a dreadful secret.  One, that he thinks will end his career or at least his reputation.  Determined to go on his own, he leaves Canada for the American West.  When there he learns the tales of others who are rather unsavoury and out to get him, or others as the plot progresses.

Then of course there is a  woman – Ada Tarr, married the town’s lawyer, who has a past of her own.  Sitting Bull has a cameo in this novel as well, the portrayal is stunning to his own real-life description. The fighting/war scenes are of course a staple in this historical gem of a read.  It does however, make you ask yourself some tough questions, whether you are a fan of Guy’s past works, or your first foray into his world, you certainly will not be  disappointed.

 

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#4 – Into The Heart of The Country – Pauline Holdstock

Set in eighteenth-century Canada, this compelling new novel takes the reader deep into unexplored territory. Appearing only fleetingly in the historical record of the Hudson’s Bay Company are the Native women who lived at the company’s Prince of Wales Fort and served as companions to the European traders — and whose survival was bound, for better or worse, to the fortunes of those men.

Across more than two centuries, the mixed-blood woman Molly Norton, daughter of Governor Moses and personal favourite of the explorer Samuel Hearne, speaks to us from her dreams. As the story of her liaison with Hearne unfolds, we move toward its tragic consequences. When their small society is torn apart, Molly and the other women find themselves and their children abandoned by their British masters. Now — in one of history’s cruel ironies — they must fend for themselves in the harsh country from which their own ancestors sprang.

Unflinching, powerful and rich in moral ambiguity, Into the Heart of the Country explores a tragic meeting of cultures that still reverberates in the present day. – Publishers Website

Wow, what a book ! Set in the desolate and often mostly un-inhabited northern areas of Canada during the 18th century, Pauline takes us into the wilds of Northern Manitoba during the time the English and French came to search for animal pets, work and settle.

The Norton’s, in particular the head of the settlement for the Hudson’s Bay Company sits in almost ambiguity as the Governor of the Prince of  Wales Fort. His family – a mix of English and Native people from the surrounding areas is uncommon as it was common to drink tea in Britain.  His daughter Molly undeniably half-blood, unprepared, under-dressed, and forbidden to learn the skills her Mother has learnt from her ancestors.

She is fearful of her father, even more fearful of the harsh wilderness that is right outside.  His tyrannical rule even spreads farther outside the desolation of the lands they trade furs.  He doesn’t trust anyone, ever.   Even more so as one of their Native acquaintances – Matonabbee; the head of the tribe that conducts business with the Governor from time to time.

At a time where Canada is being inhabited by people from Britain as well as France, this particular fort is forced to face the most dubious of forces.  Where there is an almost certainty of being double crossed, promises made that are  broken, or upheld amidst the harshest of circumstances.

How far would you go to protect, or destroy something that is in your way?  How far would you go to get what you wanted?  Is there anything you would do to get it and destroy the people in your way?

I was completely astonished in the way(s) that some people would do or say to get what they ultimately wanted.  The harshness of the wilderness that surrounded these people, the wish and will to survive.  Even now, in present day, the Native people of this country are still fighting for what they believe in.  They were the ones that were here first, only to have their lands and beliefs as well as to be good people stripped away from them, then and now.  This, is a story of not only tragedy, but of resilience, hope, love, and sadness.

I really enjoyed Pauline’s writing.  The book does go from past to present in mostly Molly’s voice as the story unfolds;  but also told from the perspective from other characters in the plot.  All I could think of while reading this book was how people, not only the natives who suffered, but also the people who came to begin a new life in Canada among the harshest of circumstances, the people who taught them how to survive, at all costs, wasn’t enough for some.

Into the Heart of the Country was long-listed for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize.  Pauline was also a finalist for the 2004 Giller Prize for her book Beyond Measure, as well as the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the City of  Victoria Butler Book Prize.  She won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize that same year.

Pauline’s Website – Facebook – Goodreads – Canadian Bookshelf – Browse Inside 

#73 – The Virgin Cure – Ami McKay

“I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart.” So begins The Virgin Cure, a novel set in the tenements of lower Manhattan in the year 1871. As a young child, Moth’s father smiled, tipped his hat and walked away from his wife and daughter forever, and Moth has never stopped imagining that one day they may be reunited – despite knowing in her heart what he chose over them. Her hard mother is barely making a living with her fortune-telling, sometimes for well-heeled clients, yet Moth is all too aware of how she really pays the rent.

Life would be so much better, Moth knows, if fortune had gone the other way – if only she’d had the luxury of a good family and some station in life. The young Moth spends her days wandering the streets of her own and better neighbourhoods, imagining what days are like for the wealthy women whose grand yet forbidding gardens she slips through when no one’s looking. Yet every night Moth must return to the disease and grief-ridden tenements she calls home.

The summer Moth turns twelve, her mother puts a halt to her explorations by selling her boots to a local vendor, convinced that Moth was planning to run away. Wanting to make the most of her every asset, she also sells Moth to a wealthy woman as a servant, with no intention of ever seeing her again.

These betrayals lead Moth to the wild, murky world of the Bowery, filled with house-thieves, pickpockets, beggars, sideshow freaks and prostitutes, but also a locale frequented by New York’s social élite. Their patronage supports the shadowy undersphere, where businesses can flourish if they truly understand the importance of wealth and social standing – and of keeping secrets. In that world Moth meets Miss Everett, the owner of a brothel simply known as an “infant school.” There Moth finds the orderly solace she has always wanted, and begins to imagine herself embarking upon a new path.

Yet salvation does not come without its price: Miss Everett caters to gentlemen who pay dearly for companions who are “willing and clean,” and the most desirable of them all are young virgins like Moth. That’s not the worst of the situation, though. In a time and place where mysterious illnesses ravage those who haven’t been cautious, no matter their social station, diseased men yearn for a “virgin cure” – thinking that deflowering a “fresh maid” can heal the incurable and tainted.

Through the friendship of Dr. Sadie, a female physician who works to help young women like her, Moth learns to question and observe the world around her. Moth’s new friends are falling prey to fates both expected and forced upon them, yet she knows the law will not protect her, and that polite society ignores her. Still she dreams of answering to no one but herself. There’s a high price for such independence, though, and no one knows that better than a girl from Chrystie Street. – Publishers Website

I had read and adored Ami’s last book The Birth House and this one is no exception.  A girl who is poor, wandering the streets until her Mother sells her to a wealthy woman to become a maid in her home.  That is until Moth runs away because she is abused, and fears that she will be better off on the streets.  The thieves, pickpockets, and prostitutes; until she meets a prostitute who is giving her a way out until at least she is old enough to be able to pay the madam back for everything she has provided for her.

In the meantime, she meets a female Doctor – Dr. Sadie, who helps young women like her.  She takes Moth under her wing, gives her the tools so to speak that she needs to be able to grow up and become something other than what is in line for presently.   Moth is given the safe haven of a place that she needs to grow up, to thrive, to learn, until it is time for her to find her own destiny.  In a brothel or out in the world enjoying her life, on her own terms.

This book made me think of people today, how some things haven’t changed since those times long ago.  Sure some problems are the same, but, our choices I hope would be different.  Dr. Sadie isn’t thought of as just a woman.  Now a days, she is thought of as a member of society as is every other female doctor.  We are allowed to vote and state our opinions.  Dr. Sadie, was in her time a person who was opening the way for women to be able to do what we now know as a right, an everyday occurrence.  Ami shows us that we have come from a long line of strong women, who have paved the way to be able to enjoy the rights and freedoms that we now forget that we even have them and should pay homage to these women before us for these rights.

It just so happens, that Ami has a strong women in her family as well.  You will learn more about it and the quirky little tidbits alongside the dialogue in the pages as you read.  The customs and laws of the day she writes about.  I really had to chuckle at some of them, as they were either hard to believe or just funny, but, true.  So, if you are a historical fiction fan, and enjoy learning about some place, with a strong woman at the beginning of the 19th century, this is your book.

The Virgin Cure was chosen as the first book for the Chatelaine Book Club, where they discuss a new book every month.  To keep track of the discussions, here is a link to the forum.

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