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 As punishment, Edith Hope has been sent to Switzerland to stay in a quiet hotel near the end of the season. She is to recuperate, write another romance novel under her pseudonym Vanessa Wilde, and escape the scandal she has caused. Edith gets acquainted with her fellow guests, learning their lives up to this point, and examines the difference from her own life, a generally quiet one. Interspersed with her memory and narrative are her letters to her lover David, who appears to be the catalyst for the scandal. The hotel and its guests teach Edith a few powerful lessons about love and trust before she can return to London and normality.
This book has quite a number of quirky characters. There are the Puseys, Edith’s first friends, who are thoroughly obsessed with themselves and their money; proof if any was ever needed that apples sometimes don’t fall far from trees. There is the old deaf Comtesse, living for brief visits with her son. There is Edith’s friend Monica, sneakily avoiding meals even though she’s been sent to the hotel to fix that problem. Finally, there is the man in the gray suit, an intriguing but also alarming figure who asks Edith daring questions and seems a little too interested in her.
It’s hard not to spoil anything, since it’s less than 200 pages long and nothing was really starting until page 50 or so. Moreover, I don’t know how much I have to say about this book. It was one that quietly snuck up on me. The ending was magnificent, though. At its length, the book needed something to make it stand out. This is a quiet, quaint little story. Edith’s reason for essentially being sent away is a little old-fashioned in more or less every respect, but that doesn’t make her feelings any less relevant.
Overall, I can’t say this novel thrilled me. I didn’t know what was so extraordinary about it that merited a Booker Prize. It is a quiet story with a bit of a suckerpunch ending, which I have loved before, but it seemed a bit too quiet. While the residents are interesting, Edith’s interactions with them are not the stuff of excitement, nor revealing enough to justify much attention. I’d be interested in reading something else by this author, but I wouldn’t be too excited to do so.
Check out Hotel Du Lac on Amazon.
 I’d just like to apologize; I forgot that I was in on this blog tour and I can’t find the book! It isn’t in my normal pile of due-date-sorted ARCs. So when I do find it, I will review it ASAP. Meanwhile here’s a summary from the publisher:
Holly Frick has just endured the worst kind of breakup: the kind where you’re still in love with the person leaving you. While her wounds are still dangerously close to the surface, her happily married best friend confesses over a bottle of wine that she is this close to having an affair. And another woman comes to Holly for advice about her love life–with Holly’s ex!
Holly decides that if everyone around her can take pleasure wherever they find it, so will she. As any self-respecting 30ish New York woman would do, she brings two males into her life: a flawed but endearing dog, and a good natured, much younger lover. She’s soon entangled in a web of emails, chance meetings, and misguided good intentions and must forge an entirely new path to Nirvana.
From the author of The Big Love, Secrets to Happiness is a big-hearted, knife-sharp, and hilariously entertaining story about the perils of love and friendship, sex and betrayal–and a thoroughly modern take on our struggle to be happy.
And the people who are more on task than I am with their reviews:
http://nevernotreading.blogspot.com/
http://www.writeforareader.blogspot.com/
http://www.acircleofbooks.blogspot.com/
http://abookishmom.blogspot.com
http://bfishreads.blogspot.com/
http://zensanity.blogspot.com/
http://scribevibe.blogspot.com/
http://thereviewfromhere.wordpress.com/
http://www.iheartmonster.com/
http://peekingbetweenthepages.blogspot.com/
http://hiddenplace.wordpress.com/
http://books-movies-chinesefood.blogspot.com/
http://thisbookforfree.com/
http://bookopolis.blogspot.com/
http://mindingspot.blogspot.com/
http://www.amberstults.com/
http://bookingmama.blogspot.com/
http://confessionsofaromancebookaddict.wordpress.com/
http://bookslovejessicamarie.blogspot.com
http://luanne-abookwormsworld.blogspot.com/
http://www.foreigncircuslibrary.blogspot.com/
http://cafeofdreams.blogspot.com/
http://purplg8r-somanybooks.blogspot.com/
http://www.squidoo.com/bookcase
http://www.readingwithmonie.com/
http://enroutetolife.blogspot.com/
http://www.bookthoughtsbylisa.blogspot.com/
http://cindysloveofbooks.blogspot.com/
http://danys-san.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/darbyscloset
http://epicrat.blogspot.com/
http://thetometraveller.blogspot.com/
http://jennsbookshelf.blogspot.com/
http://www.linussblanket.com
http://dreyslibrary.blogspot.com/
http://wendisbookcorner.blogspot.com/
http://booksiesblog.blogspot.com/
http://savvyverseandwit.blogspot.com/
http://bookinwithbingo.blogspot.com
http://everydayiwritethebook.typepad.com
http://booksandneedlepoint.blogspot.com
http://www.bookwormygirl.blogspot.com
 As an undertaker, Clara spends most of her days in the basement of a funeral home, carefully preparing dead bodies for their final viewing. In every casket she carefully hides a bouquet of her choice, lovingly selected to emulate their qualities and personality, if she knows them. One day she sees a little girl, Trecie, alone in the funeral home, who will neither leave or leave Clara alone. When Mike Sullivan, a policeman who is determined to get to the bottom of a three-year-old murder of another abused little girl, begins asking Clara questions, they realize that the cases may be related. Clara must choose between isolating herself and saving the life of a little girl who has found her way into her heart.
I surprised myself by liking this book so much. I have been making an effort recently to read and review the ARCs that didn’t catch me on my first try and eliminate any possible backlog. I’d categorized this one as a murder mystery, not my favorite, and the description of preparing a dead body for a funeral on the first few pages didn’t do much to peak my interest. So it sat unread and I felt guilty. Well, now I don’t feel guilty, and I’m happy because I read a fantastic book.
The one thing that pulled me in this book and wouldn’t let go was the character of Clara. Clara had a hard, hard childhood, bits and pieces of which are given to us throughout the narrative. As a result, she’s developed certain coping mechanisms, and one of them is hiding herself from the world, associating with mainly dead people, the two owners of the funeral home, and her garden. When Mike comes poking around, asking questions about the little girl who she essentially repaired more than she has done for any other human being, Clara’s defensive walls start to crack a little, and they continue to do so over the course of the novel. It was this slow unveiling which made the book for me. The other characters are similarly interesting and multi-dimensional; it’s hard to guess at the “bad guy” until clues start coming in thick and fast, because he seems good enough most of the time.
The only thing that bothered me were the many descriptions of dead people, particularly the one at the beginning where Clara describes what she does to them. I can’t say I really needed to know that. I understand to a basic extent what goes into preparing a body for an open casket but I didn’t really need to know all about it. Clara and various police officers and helpers also routinely go to the houses of dead people to pick the bodies up. All of these pickups do provide us with plot development, but corpses make me uncomfortable. It was worth it to get past that, but it is worth noting if this squicks you out.
Overall, I found this to be a great book with a fantastic main character. I think it would appeal to both mystery lovers and non-mystery lovers like me, because there is enough character development and suspicion to go around! I’m sorry I didn’t get to this book sooner; it was that great.
Available via IndieBound, Powell’s, Amazon, and Amazon UK.
 There are certain types of books that I more or less assume all readers read. (Novels, for example.)
But then there are books that only YOU read. Instructional manuals for fly-fishing. How-to books for spinning yarn. How to cook the perfect souffle. Rebuilding car engines in three easy steps. Dog training for dummies. Rewiring your house without electrocuting yourself. Tips on how to build a NASCAR course in your backyard. Stuff like that.
What niche books do YOU read?
Well, first there is my academic niche. I feel at times that I have read practically everything history on the second half of fifteenth century England, at least up until Richard III’s death. I once heard my supervisor recommending books to someone else about this and I’d read all of them. I mean, I guess and hope that will be my job eventually, but it is still a little overwhelming! I’m sure there are plenty of books and articles out there that I haven’t considered, but they’re more likely to be pop history or too old to have much relevance (i.e., the historians who made stuff up, and my supervisor is currently investigating one of these guys for me right now).
The only niche books that I read for fun are probably crochet books. I’ve gone a little off crocheting, probably because all of a sudden everyone wanted me to crochet something for them and I rebelled, so I haven’t read anything lately. I also really enjoy cookbooks, especially cupcake cookbooks. I adore cupcakes. I think they’re the perfect dessert, little bite-size portions of delicious cake and frosting, no worries about cutting slices or anything. I have a fantastic cookbook that uses cake mix with some additions to make really cool designer cupcakes. I brought some to a friend’s party once and at least three people asked me how they were made. My kids are going to have the best cupcakes to bring to school, I’m telling you.
What’s your niche?
 Elizabeth Hotchkiss and her orphaned, poor, but noble family are in desperate need of a savior. Elizabeth acts as a companion to Lady Danbury, but that doesn’t pay enough for her to send her little brother, a viscount, to Eton like generations of his forebears have gone, nor even for their sustenance. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so Elizabeth decides to somehow marry a rich man. Unknowingly, she is already falling in love with one, as Lady Danbury’s new estate manager, Elizabeth’s tutor in the ways of flirtation, is actually a marquis.
This is one of Quinn’s earlier books and it shows in the more stereotypical set-up, but it’s still a lot of fun. Elizabeth’s struggle, determination, and frustration all feel genuine. As for James, the marquis, he probably should have revealed his true identity to Elizabeth long before, but his secrecy is almost part of the fun. I liked both characters and I didn’t even mind Elizabeth’s younger brothers and sisters. Moreover, I just found out that a couple of these characters are in another of Quinn’s novels so I’m looking forward to seeking that out.
Overall, not much to say! Fun, enjoyable, light read. Not a lot of substance but delightful anyway. This may be my shortest review ever.
Available from Amazon and Amazon UK.
 This meme is hosted by Eva and Alessandra.
This one extends over two weeks. Since I’m almost at my limit of 20 books at the library, I can usually only get out as many as I’m returning. I try to keep it to 18 or 19 so that I can get any holds which come in at bad times. Each week, then, I get about 3-4, so in two weeks I’ve amassed enough to justify another post! I think I’ve taken out some good ones these last two trips. Here they are:
- Guilty Pleasures, Laurell K. Hamilton. I don’t know why I picked this one up. I know the series deteriorates massively over the last few volumes. I guess I just wanted to see all the fuss about the Anita Blake series for myself, plus the library rarely has the first volume of a series staring me in the face like that, so I took it.
- Unnatural Fire, Fidelis Morgan. I picked up the second book in this series at the library book sale so I thought I would take out the first and make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
- The Luxe, Anna Godbersen. I’m going to go ahead and blame Beth Fish for this here. She posted about it and I, like the good sheep that I am, put it on reserve. This is a series that the library does not continue, so if I like it, I’ll have to buy the rest.
- To Catch an Heiress, Julia Quinn. My quest to read Quinn’s backlist continues.
- Slightly Sinful, Mary Balogh. I recently welcomed Mary Balogh to my favorites list and this is the one my mom couldn’t find at our favorite charity bookstore.
- The Cellist of Sarajevo, Steven Galloway. Thanks to Gautami Tripathy, I almost bought this one at Sainsbury’s, but then decided to wait and got it out of the library instead. I’m trying to acquire fewer “cheap” books so I can buy more expensive hardcovers and support the authors. Also, someone told me that in the UK, authors get paid royalties for me checking books out, so that sounds pretty good to me.
- The Great Cow Race, Bone vol. 2, Jeff Smith. I actually got vol. 1 last week but read and returned it already. I can also lay this one at the door of Beth Fish Reads! Nymeth gets credit for finally pushing me over the edge though. I’ve actually already read this and might stop in for vol. 3 tomorrow. My library only has up to 5, so I’m not sure what I will do afterwards.
 Warning: This book made me a little angry, so I’m going to have spoilers in this review. Other than this, all of Julia Quinn’s books that I’ve read have been fantastic. See The Duke and I, The Viscount Who Loved Me, or An Offer from a Gentleman for examples.
When she was 10 years old, Miss Miranda Cheever was not a beautiful girl. She was not ugly, but her face was too long, her eyes were too big, and worse, only the same brown as her hair, plus she was gangly. At her best friend Olivia’s 10th birthday party, she was teased by another little girl because she was not pretty. Since she was so upset, Miranda was escorted home by Olivia’s older brother, Turner, a handsome viscount who assured Miranda that she would grow into her beauty, and advised her to start a diary so that when she was older and happy, she could remember this party. On that day, Miranda fell in love. Years later, Turner is hardened by marriage to woman who cared nothing for him, lying to gain his hand in marriage while pregnant with another man’s child. Miranda is about to embark on her first Season. When she is overshadowed by Olivia, Turner begins to spend time with Miranda, and as she realizes that her feelings have not changed, he realizes that she’s grown into all her potential.
Okay. I did not like this book. As you will know if you’ve been reading this blog, I normally love Julia Quinn. She writes believable, engaging, witty romance that is often a little different and more intelligent than you’d suspect. It’s never all about the physical aspects of the relationship, more about the characters. This book, however, had me more or less infuriated by the end.
For one thing, I didn’t really care for the characters. Miranda would have been a lovely girl. She’s set up well as the quiet, unassuming, clever, literary friend of a gorgeous heiress. She’s even funny. But she persists in loving Turner, and in my opinion, she has no real basis for loving him. I don’t really think that a single encounter at the age of 10 is enough, remembering how I felt about boys at that age and a little older. It was always love, and obviously, was also never love. When she grows up and really gets to know him, he’s turned into a cynical, bitter man who is convinced women are out to get him and at one point even wants to punish Miranda just because she attracts him. Is that kind of a man worthy of love? I certainly don’t think so. He wavers between wanting him, liking her, and wanting nothing to do with her, even after he’s told her that he will marry her. They do it, he says they’ll marry, and then he absconds from London for more than a month! Okay, obviously, this is meant to take place in a different time period, so she’d really have to marry him once she came back and proposed, but it’s almost instant forgiveness. Worse, she wants to change him after the marriage, when he’s turned into a perfectly wonderful husband already. Bad idea. I hate, hate, hate when romances do this. People don’t change on a dime because you want them to. It’s one thing to persuade him to love again, it’s another to pitch fits because he’s scared to say he does, and then say you don’t care if he says it or not. Wait, why are you fighting again? They got along so well until she decided words were more important than actions.
Also, I will be honest, sometimes these endings make me cry. This one just annoyed me. I’ll even tell you what happens, because I don’t think you’re going to want to read this after my review. He realizes that he loves her when their first child is born. Then she nearly dies in childbirth. Everyone assumes it’s a lost cause, but she magically recovers because he tells her that he loves her. She gets him to bring out her diary, with her declaration of love from age 10, and that somehow causes him to realize how much she loves him. Shouldn’t her actions over the past, oh, year indicate a little more of her love? I get that it’s supposed to be romantic and touching, but it’s not, and that’s the problem.
There are undoubtedly good moments in this book. The characters have sweet interactions. I laughed out loud at some point in the beginning of the book. The supporting characters had a little more to them (although not Miranda’s scholarly father, who conveniently doesn’t really care where she is or what she’s doing but loves her!) than usual. I wouldn’t mind reading a book about Olivia or Winston. In fact, Olivia’s book is coming out soon and I can almost guarantee I’m going to buy and read it. So it’s not all bad. It’s just that I have set the bar for Quinn romances higher than this. I read somewhere that it was primarily written in 1994, which may explain why it conforms to so many infuriating stereotypes and why it’s missing so much of the classic Quinn charm. By another author, the book probably wouldn’t have made me unhappy, although the problems would remain. I was just so disappointed.
I’d genuinely still recommend Quinn as a fantastic romance novelist and a great entry point for non-romance readers. I’d recommend going with The Duke and I. I’ll even link to that one on Amazon instead of this one. Now I know why there are always three copies of this in the library and all the rest of her books have holds lists. There is a reason!
 Pearl and May are two sisters living in Shanghai in the 1930’s. They love their city, the Paris of Asia, and make some extra money by being beautiful girls, models for advertisements and calendars. May is the favorite daughter of the family, according to Pearl, but both sisters are also best friends and can’t imagine life without one another. When they return from a painting session, their father stops them from going to bed and informs them that he has lost everything and that they are contracted to marry two strangers from America. Pearl and May are horrified, but go through with the marriages; they have little choice and no intention to leave Shanghai and follow their husbands. When World War II strikes, however, their entire lives explode and their intentions cease to matter.
I loved Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. At times I think everyone did. I never read Peony in Love, but I was excited when I received the opportunity to read Shanghai Girls. (Thanks so much, Marcia!) To my slight surprise, I wasn’t at all disappointed. I loved this novel. The best parts occurred in Shanghai, but I even liked the journey afterwards.
Seeing the world through Pearl’s eyes was fantastic. I thought that she was an interesting and unusual character with completely understandable motives. I recognized so much of regular sibling relations between her and May, especially at the end when we finally get to hear May’s side of the story. I wonder what the story would have been like if we had heard about it from her and not from Pearl; certainly Pearl’s motives made perfect sense, as did her character changes, but from the other side, things look a little different.
I liked the book a little less after they left Shanghai. The city was glamorous and fascinating to me, as were Pearl and May’s fancy lives. The traumatic experience afterwards was something I could have done without. Their new lives were populated with harsh and unlikeable figures, and Vern’s condition made me uncomfortable. Gradually, I grew to like these new side characters, but never quite so much, and at times I found the plot a little slow. Regardless, when the book was over, I was shocked. I didn’t expect it to end there, and I wanted more. I didn’t quite realize how much until there wasn’t any. To me, that’s a mark of a book I definitely liked. I’m busy crossing my fingers for Lisa See to write a sequel.
As for the prose, I thought Pearl’s voice steady and constant, the book a pleasure to read. She changed with her settings and I could feel the influence each place had on her as well as the places themselves. Her voice grew up as she did. I liked her, too, which was really important here.
Overall, I enjoyed this book a surprising amount. I would honestly recommend it. It is quite different in feel from Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, but not less worthy because of that. I recommend you check it out.
Available from: IndieBound, Powell’s, Amazon, and Amazon UK.
 Description via the publisher:
CAN A WOUNDED BEAST . . .
Reclusive Sir Alistair Munroe has hidden in his castle ever since returning from the Colonies, scarred inside and out. But when a mysterious beauty arrives at his door, the passions he’s kept suppressed for years begin to awaken.
TRUST A BEAUTY WITH A PAST . . .
Running from past mistakes has taken legendary beauty Helen Fitzwilliam from the luxury of the ton to a crumbling Scottish castle . . . and a job as a housekeeper. Yet Helen is determined to start a new life and she won’t let dust-or a beast of a man-scare her away.
TO TAME HIS MOST SECRET DESIRES?
Beneath Helen’s beautiful façade, Alistair finds a courageous and sensual woman. A woman who doesn’t back away from his surliness-or his scars. But just as he begins to believe in true love, Helen’s secret past threatens to tear them apart. Now both Beast and Beauty must fight for the one thing neither believed they could ever find-a happy ever after.
Thanks to the absolutely wonderful people at Hachette Book Group USA, I have 3 copies of this book to give away! I haven’t read it yet, but I do have it in my possession and think it looks fantastic, and just a little outside the stereotypes (I’m beginning to love books with scarred heroes). Just because I’m backed up with reviewing doesn’t mean you should have to wait!
To enter:
- Leave me a comment on this post telling me why you read romance. If you don’t, tell me why you might like to give it a shot!
- For another entry, tweet or blog or both about this giveaway.
- If you’re a subscriber or if you’re a new subscriber, let me know for another entry.
Please leave a separate comment for each entry! This giveaway will be open for three weeks, so I will be closing it on June 29th. U.S. and Canada only, no P.O. Boxes please (sorry, publisher is shipping books and I don’t make the rules). Good luck!
 When the alien soul Wanderer is implanted into Melanie Stryker’s brain, Melanie refuses to fade away. Earth has been taken over by these small souls who are seemingly peaceful and desire to placate the human race like they have with so many other races. Some humans, though, fight back, and using her memories, Melanie persuades Wanderer to seek out her lover and her brother, leaving behind this so-called peaceful society and entering the world of renegade humans.
Just a few general comments since this has been reviewed over and over:
I was a little impressed with the relationships in this book in comparison to Twilight. I didn’t like Jared in the book, but I did like the Jared in Melanie’s memories. I found Wanderer’s love story to be very believable, though, and I was surprised by that considering how I felt about Edward and Bella. I thought Wanderer a little too submissive, unfortunately, but Meyer creates a society in which her submissive characters belong. Even Melanie goes quiet after a while despite her determined personality; it seems none of her females have much of a backbone. Mostly, I just appreciated the better relationships, most particularly the one between Melanie and Wanderer.
That said, I liked the story. It dragged in the middle when everyone was getting used to Wanderer’s presence, but otherwise I thought it was a quite interesting take on the “bodysnatchers” idea. For science fiction, it didn’t put me off, and I managed to read the entire book over 2 days. I worried about the characters on their raids, I wanted them to succeed, and overall I thought the book asked a few interesting questions about the ideals of humanity. Honestly, I liked it, and I would recommend it.
The one thing I don’t really understand is how this is more of an adult book than Twilight. Sure, the characters aren’t teenagers, but not much else changed with regards to prose style, language, or offensive content. Thoughts?
This book is available from Amazon and Amazon UK.
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