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 After a battle with the Scots, Jamie Sinclair impulsively marries a young woman to save her from certain rape by his men. Assuming the marriage will be dissolved easily, considering he leaves it unconsummated, he is astounded when she flees in the night. That young woman, however, is not an ordinary camp follower, but Catherine Drummond, countess and laird of her clan in her own right, is far from ordinary. Jamie attempts to get her back, only to suffer at the hands of her clan; they remain married only so that Cat can avoid the marriage her cousin wants to arrange for her. Only when she realizes that she will never be laird as she ought does she go to London, to seek an annulment, but when she finds Jamie, she finds that it’s not so easy after all.
Like most people who are aware of the huge romance blogging community, I have heard of Broken Wing by this author and the huge number of bloggers who read and fell in love with it. When Danielle at Sourcebooks offered me the chance to review this, James’s second novel, there was no way I could say no. And while this book isn’t shaking the foundation of romance or anything like that, James certainly does deliver a great novel that I really enjoyed reading.
I think what I liked best about this book is the fact that the relationship between the two main characters really starts to grow when they become friends. Obviously, romance comes about between them too, but I love the way their personalities interact and they grow truly fond of each other in a way that has nothing to do with passion. This is one of the rare couples that I feel really develops a bond over the course of the novel that will actually last. They share common interests, experiences, and feelings that I could imagine sustaining them through many tough times, as indeed they do in this novel.
Plus, I loved Cat. She’s such a strong, independent, well-crafted woman that it’s impossible not to feel for her. Her curiosity, intelligence, and loyalty all endeared her to me and I really wanted her to go after what she wanted, whether that was Jamie or lairdship of her clan or even an annulment.
Probably the only problem I had with it was Jamie’s promiscuity. While he is faithful to Cat, he has a great number of “lady friends” and I felt he was too close to them for comfort. I don’t really like reading about heroes with other women, even if it’s just to show how they change over the course of the novel, like it was here. Honestly, if Cat could come upon him with a woman and misconstrue the situation, and in way that is not at all base jealousy, that is enough to put me off him. Still, this is one instance out of many, and I definitely got past it.
I do still recommend Highland Rebel. I think it has a lot to offer, namely great development of both individual characters and the relationship between them. It’s well worth a read for fans of historical romance – and I’m still really looking forward to reading Broken Wing when I get a chance.
 Ever since Katie lost her mother, she and her father, who restores old paintings, have rattled around in their big house, almost consumed with grief. Nothing is the same without her mother; Katie abandons her friends, her interests, and spends time remembering. As a balm for her soul, Katie gets away by taking a summer job at a nearby estate, digging up the garden and soon enough a mystery to go with it. In the midst of discovering another woman’s story, Katie begins to clarify her own, to reach out and embrace life and love in just the way her mother might have wanted.
It’s easy to explain why I loved Nothing but Ghosts. It is deep and meaningful and poignant, relieved by the mystery and the hint of a love story, written in absolutely stunning language. Kephart’s prose is the kind that you get lost in; almost poetic in its beauty, it had me thinking about certain lines, going back to pick up the pieces of something I’d just discovered, and at times just marveling at how effectively, simply, but gorgeously she gets Katie’s feelings across. There are connections throughout the book and I can’t wait to go back, read it again, and pick up a little on what I missed, because I know it’s there. This is a YA novel, but is easily appreciated by adults, particularly because it is so full of substance.
This book truly gets Kephart’s talent across in its depiction of Katie’s grief. Grief is impossible to define and at times it certainly feels that everyone’s grief is different, every loss is different. Yet somehow in this little novel, Kephart has written the most realistic depiction of grief that I have ever read.
Everything looks like caution afterward, everything inside me feels old and used and cracked, and people say, “Oh, Katie, you’ve handled your mother’s passing so well,” and I think, Handled. Handled? I’m barely breathing, can’t you tell? And somewhere out there Jessie and Ellen are laughing, just the two of them, in the back of an old theater, and they think that I’ve forgotten them, maybe, but I haven’t. I never would – they just remind me of my mother, they just ask about my mother, and that’s not a question I want to hear, even if I knew how to answer.
– p. 132-3.
Caution is a theme that runs through the book, as if Katie needs to step carefully without her mother’s protection, as if she needs to warn off the world because she has been damaged and hasn’t healed enough yet. There are so many meanings within this book that I’m sure someone else will draw something completely new from it that I hadn’t even considered. It’s thoughtful, quiet, but huge in its impact.
The plot itself is intriguing and I didn’t see where the mystery was going. I loved the little touch of romance. I thought a careful, slow romance with a boy heading off to college soon, someone unconnected to her mother, was perfect for this stage in her life. I sat down and read this book in only a couple of hours, it was that addictive, and then I kept thinking about it when I’d finished. For me, this is a hallmark of a great book. So often I put them down and forget all about them, but this one, I’m remembering. I can’t wait to read more by Beth Kephart.
 Mary Saunders has always longed for luxury. Born to working-class parents, she lives with her mother, step-father, and baby half-brother in a basement in lower-class eighteenth century England. Though she is somewhat educated, she really has only two options in life; sewing, like her mother, or service. Mary rebels and loses her virginity, health, and respectability for a single red ribbon, falling into a life of prostitution and alcoholism. Based on the story of a maid who killed her mistress for a beautiful dress, Mary’s story is heartbreaking but surprisingly compelling and evocative of her time.
I will admit that I struggled with this book in the beginning. Mary was extremely difficult to care about. She is so frivolous that she covets the lifestyle of a prostitute just so she can have pretty clothes. Her sojourn in a rehabilitation facility and later time with the Jones family both open her eyes a little to the respectability of honest work, but her craving for luxury undoes her good intentions every time. It is something that is a little mystifying, especially given when she sees how the Joneses have worked up the career ladder to a life which she craves.
On the other hand, however, she is a very well-rounded character. Frustrating as she is, it’s easy to see how her childhood, friendships, and longings translate into the way she lives her life. Surprisingly we can see how prostitution does suit her, creepy as that feels. She seems to enjoy her power over men while reveling in the fact that she can buy beautiful clothes and spend most of her time laughing and drinking with her prostitute friends. It’s only when she gets seriously ill that she has to pursue ways of healing and thinks about where she has gone wrong.
This is, unfortunately, an unrelentingly negative book. We learn that Mary is in prison in the first few pages and then are sent back to figure out how she got there. Even when happier things happen in her life, the reader is always aware that they aren’t going to last. I had a span of about 10 pages where I loved the book; I thought Mary’s life was going to take a turn for the better. I had been struggling with the book and then I fell in love. I fell out of love about as quickly and finished it more because I had to than because I wanted to. It was just so depressing and Mary’s obsession with money, escape, and luxury became all-consuming even though she was perhaps the happiest she’d ever been in her life.
This is a story about a girl who makes very poor choices, all of which catch up to her in the end. Knowing that from the beginning makes this a challenge, but it is still an excellent book for its portrayal of eighteenth century London, the countryside, and the insights into Mary’s mind. In startling contrast to most historical fiction which focuses on the wealthy and privileged, I do think this book is worth reading.
IndieBound | Powell’s | Amazon | Amazon UK
 Sixteen-year-old Lydia and her gorgeous mother Valentina have been living in Junchow, China, ever since they were exiled from Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. All is not well for these two women; Valentina drinks too much and Lydia must steal just to pay the rent. Her thievery places her in danger with a terrifying underground gang, from which a young Chinese Communist, Chang An Lo, saves her. That doesn’t solve Lydia’s problems, however, and they only escalate as she realizes how deeply she feels for Chang An Lo and that her mother is falling into deeper and deeper disgrace.
There are a lot of things wrong with this novel. The story has a great premise in theory and one which should really appeal to me. I love the idea of a forbidden love. Here, though, it doesn’t work. For one thing, I didn’t believe in the connection between Lydia and Chang An Lo. I don’t know if I can isolate why. I just didn’t feel that they could have possibly known each other well enough to risk their lives in such a way. In fact, I felt a little bit like Lydia was a spoiled brat, despite the fact that she’s poor and knows it. She just must have her way all the time. As an example, she asks her mother’s lover for a rabbit, even though her mother despises it and they can’t afford to eat in the first place let alone buy greens for a rabbit. She insists on charging off into the dangerous section of town, only to get people killed and risk the life of a friend. She makes bad decisions and manipulates adults to get what she wants. She’s fiery, but fiery in a way that is not appealing. The one aspect of Lydia’s character I did like was the relationship with Alfred, which I thought grew in an organic and believable way.
This book also has far too many characters. It’s not just about Lydia and Chang An Lo. It’s about Lydia’s mother and her various paramours and her friend Polly and Polly’s parents and her teacher Theo and his Chinese lover and a variety of thugs and aristocrats and communists besides. It gets confusing and I wished it had been streamlined. The book just felt too long, like the story went on and on. And to top it all off, it’s open-ended, so the reader is forced to buy the sequel if she wants to continue the story. I feel like a warning should come with books like this.
I did like the setting; historical fiction in China is harder to come by than, say, historical fiction in England, and I appreciated that. There are little bits of history thrown in, like the origins of that rabbit’s name, Sun Yat-sen, and the history of the Communist movement in China. These, however, were not enough to rescue the plodding plot and unsympathetic characters.
Finally, a minor point, which someone who works in publishing could clarify for me. Since Lydia and her mother are Russian, sometimes they use Russian phrases in their speech. Unfortunately, these are spelled out somewhat phonetically, and almost always would probably give the reader the wrong pronunciation of the word. Is there a reason that she couldn’t have just used the cyrillic, aside from the fact that most people can’t understand it? If anything, it would look even more exotic. It also felt very tacked on to me, as in, they’d say “Thank you” and then the author would add spasibo and it just threw me out of the book. Though my Russian has greatly degraded, it was once fluent and sometimes it even took me a while to figure out what words she was trying to use. Since the overall writing isn’t that good to start with, mundane and choppy, this was not an incentive to keep going. I also hated how the book’s title didn’t match its content – there are no Russian concubines in this book.
Honestly, I don’t think I’d recommend The Russian Concubine. I wouldn’t have finished if I didn’t have to. You don’t need to start at all!
This is my first time joining one of Carl’s challenges at Stainless Steel Droppings and I’m very excited! I’ve seen a lot of people having a ton of fun with them and I finally decided to forget the fact that I fail at challenges and join in.
The R(eaders) I(mbibing) P(eril) challenge invites us to read scary books between September 1st and October 31st from a variety of genres. I’m planning on doing Peril the First, which challenges me to read 4 books between now and then. I suspect the next 24 hour Read-a-Thon towards the end of October will help a lot if I participate. I’d like to but it’s the weekend after our wedding, so we might be off somewhere instead!
My pool is gleaned from my TBR pile and extensive perusal of others’ lists, since I’ve never chosen books for this challenge before!
- Mistress of the Art of Death, Ariana Franklin
- The Strain, Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
- Fragile Eternity, Melissa Marr
- Vampire Academy, Richelle Mead
- The Maze Runner, James Dashner
- The Road, Cormac McCarthy
- The Angel’s Game, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
- An Instance of the Fingerpost, Iain Pears
I think that’s a good list to start! I’ve gone with only books I currently own for now. I reserve the right to switch it up with an exciting library book, but since I’m changing libraries in a couple of weeks I’m going to wait until I can browse in my new one. Anyone want to suggest which book I should start with on September 1st?
 What’s the lightest, most “fluff” kind of book you’ve read recently?
While I was in the car on the way to Cornwall, I read What Happens in London by Julia Quinn and I think that has to be my answer. It was such a fun, light, fast read that it enabled me to ignore all the noise involved in traveling and enjoy myself. It even had me laughing a few times, which prompted curious looks from everyone in the car with me.
Speaking of Cornwall, here are a couple shots of the ocean from the very edge, near Land’s End:
 One day in the year 1202, a British man breaks into the tent of a marquis, believing that he can both kill his enemy and be killed himself, achieving his ultimate goals in this life. Fortunately, the Briton is unwillingly rescued from suicide by a pious knight, Gregor of Mainz, something of a religious and martial icon at the start of the Fourth Crusade. Before they set sail, the Briton manages to rescue an Arab princess, who shares space on the journey with Gregor, his brother Otto, Otto’s concubine, and two dimwitted servants. Together, this peculiar crew embark on one of history’s most disastrous mistakes with thousands of other knights, clerics, and leaders.
It probably isn’t normal for most readers of this book to know all about the catastrophic Fourth Crusade. Catastrophic in hindsight, that is; this one was remarkably successful in terms of victories but horrid in terms of killing other Christians and not even coming close to achieving its goal of retaking Jerusalem. For the record, all the crusades were wrong and are actually appalling to think about, but this one is even so in medieval terms, which is quite impressive. So on approaching Crossed, I generally had down the politics, the outline of events, and the crazy people who were at the head of this insanity. If I hadn’t, I think the politics would have irritated me, but the history is great. No one can make this stuff up. It’s just too unreal for words, but it happened, and at a comfortable 800 year distance, we can even find it horrific in an amusing way.
Such is what Galland accomplishes with Crossed. She doesn’t really go for a medieval mindset with these characters. The closest is probably Gregor, who adheres to medieval standards very rigidly, but the rest of the characters are often used to play with the absurdities of medieval life rather than being approximations of the people who might have lived 800 years ago. I got used to this idea in Galland’s first book and it hasn’t really bothered me since now that I know what she’s doing. The Briton is mainly the character that she uses for this purpose, employing hindsight to fuel his clever retorts and lamentations on fate, such as in response to the glory of battle,
“Is Christ smiling down at you for this? Do you become more Christian if you smear yourself in Christian gore?” (302)
At all times, we’re fully aware that this crusade is horrible and what the knights are being told to do is completely wrong. It’s terrible, but it’s also showing us the absurdity of the entire idea by poking at its ridiculousness.
Not all of the book is great, though. Parts do drag. The history is fascinating, but the politics less so, and after a point the relationship between the Briton and Jamila has more or less been exhausted. The book is lengthy because it manages to cover almost the entire crusade, but it also covers a great deal more. I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure how much of that was remembering my favorite old history professor teaching in my head as opposed to how much I was genuinely enjoying the book. I think this is certainly worth a try for historical fiction readers and history buffs, taken with a grain of salt. It’s perhaps not Galland’s best book but I’ll still be eagerly awaiting her fourth novel.
IndieBound | Powell’s | Amazon
As a final note: has anyone read both this and The Fool’s Tale and think that the Briton is actually a certain character from that book, or am I crazy?
 From the back cover:
Mechanic Mercy Thompson can shift her shape – but not her loyalty. When her former boss and mentor is arrested for murder and left to rot behind bars by his own kind, it’s up to Mercy to clear his name, whether he wants her to or not.
Mercy’s loyalty is under pressure from other directions, too. Werewolves are not known for their patience, and if Mercy can’t decide between the two she cares for, Sam and Adam may make the choice for her …
With this book, this series became my favorite in urban fantasy. I really enjoyed the first two, but I loved this one. To some extent, I can pinpoint the difference, but largely, it’s because I have grown to love these characters. Over the past two books, they’ve begun to develop, but here things start moving in a solid direction between them. The strength of a series is in how the characters grow and change over the course of it, not necessarily how they stand up on their own (for me at least) and Patricia Briggs has done everything right.
As always, Mercy is a fantastic heroine and remains that way. She knows what’s right and what she has to do to save her friends. She takes unnecessary risks, but she calls for backup when she needs it. She is a strong woman and deals with some incredibly difficult stuff in this novel, which is handled extremely well and in what I thought a realistic way (having never experienced it myself, thankfully, I can’t say for certain). She chooses between Sam and Adam, finally, and her choice makes perfect sense in context of what is revealed in the book and how those characters begin to develop. Nor is the romance heavy-handed, but just perfect and organic.
The plot is an exciting one and, for me, completely unpredictable. I had no idea who the villain was until the reveal, even though it all made sense. Some new details about the world, especially with regard to the fae, are revealed which fit in nicely with what happened in the previous two books. Tensions between the human world and the supernatural world are increasingly clarified. Eerily, this is an echo of what happens in history; people band together in protest groups and seek to persecute the Other, regardless of how similar they are to that Other. This makes Mercy’s world feel even more real and fleshes out the dangers she and her friends encounter.
If you enjoy urban fantasy and aren’t reading this series, you should by all means start ASAP. As soon as I finished Iron Kissed, I bought the fourth one, Bone Crossed, and I’m going to recommend this series to all who are interested in speculative fiction.
 One day, Bruno comes home to find a maid packing all of his things, even his personal things hidden at the back of his closet. He’s very unhappy and even more so when he discovers that his family is moving away from Berlin, his three best friends, and even his grandparents. At first glance, there are no children near Bruno’s new home, but there are a lot of people who wear striped pyjamas behind a fence. Because Bruno is curious, he wanders away from the house, and his adventure, and all those following, illuminate the mind of a little boy who has no knowledge of prejudice and the true horror to which that prejudice can lead.
I almost can’t talk about my reaction to this book. I sort of want to just say, read this, and leave it at that. That wouldn’t be a very good review, though, and I like to at least pretend that I can write decent reviews. Actually, I do think that if you haven’t read this, it might be a good idea to stop here, because this book is best knowing just what I’ve said and nothing more.
Easily, the best thing about this book is Bruno’s innocent response to everything. He is just a little boy and doesn’t yet understand that all little boys’ lives aren’t exactly like his. This is especially so because his three best friends have very similar lives to his. His parents have kept him ignorant of world events, so he doesn’t know that he is in the midst of World War II. He doesn’t know that he’s moved just outside of a concentration camp or that right now it’s a bad thing that his new friend through the fence is a Jew. In fact, he thinks it’s cool that everyone wears the same clothes, and doesn’t understand that when someone goes missing in the camp, they haven’t wandered off, it’s because they’ve been killed. He doesn’t realize that his father is a high-ranking Nazi and is causing these people to labor, starve, and die.
Bruno’s adorable personality made the book for me. The rest of the characters are shadowy and insubstantial, witnessed only through a little boy’s eyes. Shmuel’s suffering is obvious to us, for example, as people who are well-informed about history, but Bruno doesn’t understand, and as a result his character doesn’t develop very far. As the plot progresses, and Bruno witnesses atrocities and pure human cruelty, he develops hatred for those who perpetuate them, but he still doesn’t grasp the overall situation even as it begins to touch the reader’s heart.
Overall, the beauty and simplicity lies in the fact that Bruno is too young to understand why these things are happening to people who are just like him. His innocence makes the horror almost incomprehensible in comparison, and makes us wonder just how people can be so cruel, thoughtless, and prejudiced against others who are just like us but see the world in a slightly different way.
I loved The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, as much as I can love a book that is about the holocaust if that makes sense, and totally, completely recommend it.
 In October 1899, Elizabeth Holland, one of society’s most fashionable young women, is laid to rest with great ceremony, after tragically falling into a river. What was to have been her wedding day was in fact the date of her funeral. The story, however, is vastly more complicated than that, when the novel speedily backtracks so as to explain just how Elizabeth died. A beautiful, proper society girl, Elizabeth is opposed by her unconventional sister Diana, who refuses to follow the proper rules of behavior. Add in to the mix Penelope Hayes, Elizabeth’s best friend, who is determined to marry New York’s most eligible bachelor Philip Schoonmaker, as well as Elizabeth’s dissatisfied maid Lina Broud and all the pieces are in place for a scandalous tale of love, loss, and revenge.
Reading The Luxe felt a little bit like eating an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s by myself. This is actually an event that has never happened, but I imagine it would be the same: delicious and addictive, but I feel a pervading sense of guilt about it. The book was a very fun, very quick read, and I loved it for the most part. Everything kicks off with a bit of a mystery as we wonder what’s happened to Elizabeth and why on earth her sister is smiling at her funeral. While the resolution of this particular plot becomes very obvious very early on, it was a great way to snap the reader up and by the time we figure out what’s going on, the rest of the story has us engaged enough for the rest of the book to speed by.
Perhaps the unhealthy part about this book is that it is so scandalous. It felt somewhat different from the YA I normally appreciate because the girls are all so catty, promiscuous, and vengeful. Three of them hop into bed with men without much thought for the consequences; one of them actively uses her sexuality to get her way while tearing down her friend over a man who is, quite honestly, not worth either of their time. I suppose these are reasons that I’ve never been into the Gossip Girl series or really any drama about teenage girls since I stopped being one, because the outright backstabbing as shown here is actually common enough in the real world and I don’t need more of it.
Having said all that, there is no way to avoid that despite its questionable morals, I totally loved my time with this book. I found myself speeding through it and thoroughly enjoying myself. I especially came to love Elizabeth and Diana and I really want to know what happens next in their lives. I also loved the setting of New York City in the late nineteenth century. One of my two favorite books, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, is also set around this time in New York, and I’ve developed an immeasurable fondness for it as a result. I could just picture these girls heading to the Lord & Taylor on 5th Avenue for fittings!
So, in conclusion, I guess what I’m trying to say is that this book is hugely enjoyable but full of questionable moral standards and teenagers who are not to be emulated. I definitely recommend it to adults, because it’s a whole lot of fun, but I don’t think I’d buy it for a sixteen year old.
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