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I’m going to go ahead and assume I won’t finish The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet or How Dolly Parton Saved My Life today, so my wrap-up for the month should be accurate now.
July was a pretty busy month, given that we had two weeks’ holiday in the middle, but I still managed to read plenty. I completed 19 books and I enjoyed most of them. As you can see below, I have probably overcome my aversion to historical fiction. It’s just about choosing unfamiliar places and time periods these days, I think. I also have a depressing number of reviews to work on!
Historical Fiction
Romance
Fantasy/Horror
Non-fiction/memoir
- The Boy Who Loved Books, John Sutherland
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby
- Down Under, Bill Bryson
YA
- The Ruby in the Smoke, Philip Pullman (mystery)
- Envy, Anna Godbersen (historical fiction)
Women’s Fiction
- The One that I Want, Allison Winn Scotch
- Writing Jane Austen, Elizabeth Aston
- How to be an American Housewife, Margaret Dilloway
At least this month, I am able to choose a favorite, and that’s Brooklyn. I just adored that book and looking at it makes me want to read it all over again. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
I don’t have too much planned for next month, but I know I’ll be reading and giving away copies of The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed The White Queen last year so I’ve found myself looking forward to this one, and I hope I’ll be as excited to share it with you after I’ve read it.
How was your month in reading?
Some of these books were sent to me for free for review.
 Miss Kate Daltry’s life hasn’t been great since her father died. Since her stepmother Mariana cares nothing for their estate, nor for her, she’s had to take everything into her own hands – and when staff are fired, she ends up taking on their jobs. There are few bright spots in her life; she’s never had a London season and can’t imagine where she’d find a husband, nor is she certain that she’d be able to abandon the tenants to Mariana’s whims. When her stepsister is bitten by her pet dog, though, Kate is forced to impersonate her, complete with fiance and bratty dogs, at a ball in a prince’s castle. Little does she expect that she’ll find it so hard to keep up the pretense with Prince Gabriel.
Eloisa James is completely a must-buy author for me. You might recall that I just adored her Desperate Duchesses series, which only got better with each successive volume. While I’m not sure A Kiss at Midnight has the long-term resonance of that six book series with me, it’s still an absolutely delightful story that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Since A Kiss at Midnight is a Cinderella retelling, James chose not to set it in any specific time period so she could stay truer to the fairy tale. Some historical details as a result seem off, but the genuine fairy tale romance feel of the entire book is so worth it. The pages might as well be laced with a bit of pixie dust. I loved recognizing all the little details that are so familiar from a lifetime of variations on Cinderella, and in addition acknowledging a few of the changes the author made to mix it up. For example, the glass slippers aren’t really glass, but rather very thin fabric that is stiff and transparent. For rather obvious reasons, they could only have been worn once.
I loved the romance, too. These characters work so well together – so many of their interactions left me with a smile on my face. They learn to get past their initial misconceptions and truly love one another. I thought it was sweet and genuine. I also really enjoyed Kate’s interactions with her step sister Victoria, who is spoiled but has an extremely kind heart. Kate herself was the star of the show, though, always witty and vulnerable at just the right times. I don’t think she’d fit in at any time period that this book could have been set in, but that’s okay, because she doesn’t have to. As usual, I loved the literary references that the author threw in. She’s a professor of literature and I think it’s these touches that both add romance and make her books really stand out to me.
While this book may not have the emotional impact of, in particular, A Duke of Her Own, it was still an outstanding romance novel. I cherished the time I spent reading it, and if you enjoy sweet, fairy tale romances with a little bit of heat, this book is certainly for you.
It also has a gorgeous cover, doesn’t it?
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 Margaret Oades isn’t exactly thrilled that she has to move her entire family from England to New Zealand in the late nineteenth century, but she loves her husband and, as a woman with children, has few other options. And anyway, they will return in two years, or at least that’s the plan; her house is attacked by Maori, native New Zealanders, and she and her children are spirited into the night and enslaved for six years. In the meantime, Henry Oades, Margaret’s husband, is convinced that his family has perished, and moves to California, where he marries once again. When Margaret shows up on her doorstep, new wife Nancy Oades has no idea what to do – but the case of the two wives of Mr. Oades incites public scandal and personal difficulty that will impact the lives of all concerned in remarkable ways.
This was such an intriguing historical novel. First off, the initial setting of New Zealand in the late nineteenth century was fairly new to me in fiction, but New Zealand is one of the places I’ve had to write about at work, so I’ve done some research. This is the first time I can recall reading about it in fiction and it was marvelous to have it come to life, if only for a few pages before the horror happened. Throughout, through, I really enjoyed Johanna Moran’s writing, and I found the whole book smooth and atmospheric – the locations felt different and I appreciated each of them differently.
I also loved the characters here, mostly the wives. I immediately liked Margaret and found it hard to believe that I could like Nancy, too, but somehow I appreciated both wives and their difficulties while loving a single man. The novel conveys magnificently the strength of women; despite slurs again their reputations, physical violence, and simple jealousy, Nancy and Margaret remain admirable characters and hardly ever miss a step. While Mr. Oades, despite his seemingly kind and giving nature, remains just a shadow throughout the novel, even when he’s grief stricken about the deaths of his family members, the two women really come to life. If I couldn’t understand why they loved Henry, I could understand perfectly their reasons for staying with him; this is true of Margaret in particular. Nancy, it seems, could have easily left despite her recent marriage, but she is still in love with Henry.
The idea of this novel is great, too, in that it covers a little known lawsuit that actually existed in California. At this point, there appears to have been something of a hysteria against bigamy due to Mormons’ multiple marriages before reliable laws were enacted. I would find such censure in real life heartbreaking – as if Margaret Oades and her children hadn’t been through enough already – but sadly not unbelievable, especially not at this time. I was eager to know a few more details about the real life case and I wish someone would write an actual history about it.
Until then, though, The Wives of Henry Oades is a really engaging work of historical fiction – especially recommended if you’re interested in reading about strong women who make the best of what life hands them.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the Amazon Vine program.
 Amandine is an aristocratic child born of scandal in Poland just before World War II. She is born nameless, with a heart condition that means her continued survival is unlikely. Unable to bear the child’s presence, Amandine’s grandmother sends her to foster in a convent in France, careful to hide all traces of her ancestry bar one, an heirloom necklace. She even tells her daughter, Amandine’s mother, that her daughter has died while having surgery as an infant. Instead, miraculously, Amandine grows up dreaming of her mother, finding substitutes along the way, but never losing grasp of the fact that she has a mother who might want her. When World War II breaks out, Amandine and her guardian Solange set out across France, determined to find a safe haven in a country torn apart by war, and perhaps to find someone who recognizes the peculiar antique necklace Amandine wears.
In terms of plot, Amandine gets off to a painful start. The first chapters are riddled with the old countess’s (the grandmother’s) memories and the story of Amandine’s birth. There are pages of description and little to no action. Once Amandine gets to the convent, things pick up slightly and it’s easy to feel for the poor girl. When she goes to school, she is constantly mocked and also suffers when she has to watch the other girls reunite each weekend with their families. She has her long term guardian, Solange, but she’s no substitute for Amandine’s mother, no matter how much they love one another. Even as a child, Amandine is full of spirit and determined to defend herself and those she cares about, which makes it very easy for us as readers to care for her in turn. The rest of the characters are very well fleshed out, with believable internal conflicts revealed fairly slowly as the first half goes on. I really felt that this was a book populated by people, not just characters, if that makes sense.
The plot picks up even more once the war arrives and with a few perspective shifts; the contrast between war-ravaged France and Poland and the initial chapters in the convent is striking. De Blasi effortlessly conveys the utter pointlessness of the war and the fragility of life at the time with a few well-written passages. Characters that were built up in the first chapters as complex human beings are struck down with barely a moment’s notice. The author’s writing is beautifully descriptive and I got a real feel for convent life and the French countryside, which makes the chapters about war even harder to read in comparison. And throughout, I was constantly hoping for Amandine to find her mother, which adds an extra layer of tension to the book’s concluding chapters.
Despite a slow start, Amandine revealed itself as a complex, engaging historical novel with strong characters and a distinct French atmosphere. It’s the perfect choice for the historical fiction reader craving a thoughtful read.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
 Tilly Farmer loves everything about her life. She loves her high school sweetheart husband, her job as a guidance counselor, and her residence in the same town she grew up in. She and her husband Tyler have decided to try and have a baby. As far as Tilly is concerned, her life is just about perfect. Then an old friend turns up in town, and Tilly gains the ability to see someone’s future when she looks at their photograph. In a matter of months, her perfect life has begun to unravel, and she has to face the uncomfortable truth that it may never have been perfect at all.
I went into this book with fairly low expectations. I know a lot of bloggers who really enjoyed this, but I usually am not a big fan of women’s fiction; people living in “my” world often don’t do it for me. I just mentioned this in another review, The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan. That didn’t happen here, and in fact I found myself really enjoying this novel, perhaps because Tilly is so very different from me that I might as well have been reading a book set in a fantasy world.
The truth that this novel revolves around is the fact that Tilly is willfuly blind. When the story starts, she expresses her enthusiasm for the high school prom and how eager she is to sponsor it. It’s very clear to us that she never quite got past high school and is constantly reliving those glory days every minute of her life. While helping students achieve their goals is admirable, Tilly never seems to have her own, and is instead content with what she has – or the illusion of it. She thinks it’s cute when her husband falls asleep watching sports instead of going to bed with her, believes her father has finished drinking, and tries to persuade her best friend to stay with her own high school sweetheart husband even though he’s cheated on her. Tilly needs that gift of clarity, and it’s only when she starts to confront the uneasy reality of her life that the whole book starts to shine.
What I think I liked most about this book is that it looks at what’s underneath the ideal American life. Tilly looks, sounds, and has even convinced herself that she’s happy. But she isn’t, and those issues only come out when you look a little closer. Her mother’s death, her father’s alcoholism, her dissatisfied and distanced husband, and even her own desire to take care of her siblings are all problems that she can only confront once reality is presented to her. She moves from contentment to happiness, which made the entire book a rewarding read. The ending is slightly open, but I was left with confidence that Tilly was on track to make the right decisions for her future.
The One That I Want left me eager to read more of Allison Winn Scotch’s work. If you enjoy women’s fiction, don’t miss this.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the Read It Forward program.
 Project Noah is a secret government program to create the perfect super soldier by turning convicted criminals into vampires. In an ideal world, these vampires would then be set on their enemies; they’re so difficult to kill that a few of them could decimate armies. But this isn’t an ideal world, and there is no way to control the vampires. When they break free and the horror is unleashed on the entire United States, only a select group of survivors remain to live in the light and keep fighting for their humanity.
The Passage is easily this summer’s most hyped read. It’s been endorsed by famous authors and some of my favorite book bloggers alike, which made it essentially a must read for me, too. That’s why I snapped it up from Amazon Vine the minute I had the chance and took a long haul flight as the perfect opportunity to bury myself in this supernatural thriller.
I found it wasn’t a perfect read; for one thing, I expected it to be quite fast paced, but I had a hard time getting into it. With a full 7 hour flight, I wanted to find myself compelling enough to read the majority of it in one stroke, but I found it moved surprisingly slow at the beginning and couldn’t hold my attention while other stuff was going on. In the end it took me a good few days of holiday time to read, which was surprising for something I thought would be a heart-pounding thriller that would keep me up all night dying to know the resolution to the story.
It was very good, though, for the tale it was, and I was genuinely interested in the characters and the story as it progressed. I found I was much more interested in the story after the epidemic began; I liked in particular how the character Amy tied everything together and made the story a coherent whole instead of a few related storylines. The book is smoothly written, with moments of brilliance and mediocrity in about equal measure. It feels nicely epic, as it should when the whole world is essentially at stake after an apocalypse. And the ending – I am not even sure what to say about the ending, except that it leaves me wondering and I thought was the perfect way to finish it, while leaving me wondering what’s next if this is truly the first of a trilogy.
The Passage doesn’t quite live up to its over-hyped reputation, in my opinion, but it does provide an entertaining, scary, and often gripping read that is perfect for the beach, especially if you have a few hours to get going in the story. I would definitely recommend it to horror fans and in particular those who enjoyed The Stand by Stephen King.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free through the Amazon Vine program.
 I have been a very bad blogger for the past two weeks. After I wrote all my catch-up reviews last Monday the 12th, I didn’t write a post and hardly even looked at my blog until just this morning. I have been at my parents’ house, and since I hadn’t seen them in nearly six months, I thought it was worth ignoring blogging for a bit. I did go around and leave a few comments, but what I really needed was a break from writing. I know writing is an art that gets better with practice, but after constantly writing every day for four months, I think I was getting enough practice and just needed a rest!
Luckily, I’ve returned with what I think may be an increased zest for blogging, and even if that only shows up with timely reviews, I hope I can stick to it a little more firmly than I have the past few months. So I hope I’m back, with more effort to put in than I had before!
Keith and I had a fantastic trip to the States. Once we got there (I hate flying, so that part was not so great!) we settled in for nearly two weeks of unhealthy food, time spent with parents and relatives, and tourism in my former corner of the world. We went to New York City or close to it three times and had the opportunity to go up the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and tour Ellis Island. We had walks around Times Square and Central Park and didn’t spend nearly enough time in the American Museum of Natural History. We also paid that all-important visit to The Strand, even though it involved walking almost 70 blocks downtown in 90+ degree heat. It was definitely not a cheap trip, but we wanted to treat it like a proper holiday.
I read, too, mostly making an effort to get through a few of the review copies that had accumulated there for the past few months. I finished off:
 
I enjoyed all of them to varying degrees and I plan on reviewing them over this week and next week. I’m also thinking about my reading plan going forward; I brought back a load of books with me and I really need to prioritize! In the meantime, though, I’m reading The Magicians and Mrs Quent, an absolutely charming fantasy book that I can’t wait to tell you about.
How have you all been the past two weeks? Have I missed anything exciting on your blog?
 Eilis Lacey is quite content with her life in Ireland, living with her mother and sister. She doesn’t yet have a steady job, but she’s studying bookkeeping and hopes to get one when there are jobs available. She could go to England to get a job, like her three brothers, but she wants to stay at home. Unfortunately for that goal, her sister Rose meets with an Irish priest and decides that Eilis should try her luck in America. Eilis is secured a job as a shopgirl in Brooklyn, purchased sea passage and lodgings, and promised courses to continue bookkeeping. She finds that her life in Brooklyn is completely different from her life in Ireland, and she must grow and change to adapt in the city. When she’s called home suddenly, she then faces a choice; which life is the one she’ll stick with?
I loved this book. Loved it. I read it in a day and really hated all the times when I had to put it down. Others might call it slow, or quiet, but I just adored the development of Eilis’s character, the many discoveries she made, and how effectively I could put myself in her shoes. I loved the contemplative way in which the book was written; there’s hardly any action and all observations are third person but still from inside Eilis’s head. It made it so easy to really feel for her and wonder where her life was going and what she was going to do next.
I may also be a bit biased about this but I just adored the setting. I could easily imagine my own grandparents living a life similar to Eilis’s (although they were Italian, there are some Italians here), which brought a true personal touch to the entire book for me. I loved the descriptions of the subway, the streets, the houses, the churches, and especially Coney Island. Most of it probably looks the same now but it’s the attitude that matters here. Even Eilis’s job in the department store was absolutely fascinating for me, especially when the store decides it’s time to desegregate and starts to stock pantyhose suitable for all colors of women. Eilis, of course, is judged the only girl kind enough to serve the colored ladies, which gives us an up close and personal idea of what a real girl in her situation may have felt when she discovers that black women are the same as white women.
Finally, I absolutely adored the emotional conflicts that Eilis suffered and I felt that they were perfectly, beautifully true to life. I was amazed that Tóibín could get so inside a young girl’s head. I especially related perfectly to her feelings once she’d gone away from Brooklyn to visit Ireland – it does feel like a dream when you change countries like that, it’s almost too easy for it to become a distant memory in comparison to real life. I just couldn’t get enough of how real she felt to me, how her life is actually quite ordinary but somehow feels universal and significant. The world is changing, Eilis is changing, and the book depicts it all in such an understated way. I adore books that do that.
I loved Brooklyn and I really think it’s catapulted itself right to the top of my 2010 reads. I can’t recommend it highly enough and I will definitely be reading more by this author.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 John Sutherland grew up fatherless after his father died in an aviation accident while training for combat in World War II. (Did you know they allowed a 5% mortality rate in training for war? No? I didn’t either.) He grew up virtually motherless as well, since his mother was determined to live her life as she saw fit, whether that involved living in Argentina, sleeping with American soldiers, or leaving John to relatives on a regular basis. Throughout his childhood, John sought refuge in one thing, books. He lived and breathed the classics, ignoring his assigned work for his own personal choices. When he got older, John also found solace in alcohol, and the two remained standbys for much of his life.
I’m a bit torn about this one. I think I liked the concept more than the execution. I love the idea of a memoir about someone’s life in books, and this one promised that books saved Sutherland’s life twice. I didn’t really get much of that from the book, though, and overall it was much more just a life story than a life story in books. There are plenty of literary references, sure, and he does mention what he’s reading at times, but I think the entire book was hampered by the fact that I didn’t find John’s life particularly interesting otherwise and, more importantly, I didn’t really like John.
I can’t understand the pain of growing up without a parent, much less the pain of growing up pretty much without either of them, so I can’t speak on personal experience. I do think it’s understandable that he would struggle emotionally as a result. But some of his attitudes just failed to match mine so spectacularly that it made it hard for me to relate to him. As an example, John rarely read books for school on purpose. He hated assigned reading so, even though he was perfectly capable of understanding assigned texts and doing really well in school, he generally performed poorly on pretty much every exam he was ever given. This attitude follows him throughout his childhood, even though he must see that his grandparents and even his mother struggle along on a rock bottom basic education. He has opportunities – his mother pays for him to go to great schools – and he just throws them away. I’ve never really understood people who do this.
The worst part about it is that he then goes on to become a professor, just because there are so many positions and so few takers! It seemed wrong to me that someone who mostly disdained school throughout his life can then go on to have the best job in the whole system. I shouldn’t be so harsh, though, as people can change, and his eventual university education does leave a mark on him. I could more easily understand his willingness to bury himself in drink, but I was glad when he gave it up.
The other big problem I had was with John’s mother, who I think was the reason in large part he struggled through childhood. She more or less completely ignores him, pawning him off on relatives and friends, especially when she has a man around. She pays his way through life but seems hardly ever emotionally invested; it’s clear that John adores her but that seems mostly based around her beauty and her determination to have her own way, even at the expense of his own happiness. I can see that up to a point, but abandoning your child for three years while you go to live in Argentina? I don’t see that so much.
What I did enjoy was the historical background and the brilliant depiction of Britain throughout John’s younger years. He talks about things that were already disappearing, like quiet times fishing with his grandfather, and the history of Colchester (the town he mostly grows up in) and its schools. He’s undoubtedly a very good writer and I think he could pull off a novel if he tried, especially if he set it in the places he knows best.
The Boy Who Loved Books definitely had issues, but Sutherland is a good writer. If you can ignore the aspects I had problems with, I think this would be a good choice.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 Orchid’s family is of ancient Manchurian lineage, but they are dirt poor throughout her childhood. When her father dies, things get even worse, and she is forced to move to Peking with her mother, brother, and sister to live in a small house with her uncle’s family. Orchid starts work in a shoe shop and actually enjoys herself, mainly for the tales her boss tells her about the Forbidden City and the emperor’s many palaces. When Orchid is told that she must marry her slovenly, stupid cousin, though, she seeks refuge from her fate in a contest to become one of the young emperor’s new favorite concubines. Orchid finds herself chosen, but her world in the imperial palace is nothing like she’d imagined.
After the disappointment that was Katherine, I tempered my hopes for Empress Orchid. I would probably have waited a bit longer before reading it, but it was due back at the library and I had no choice. Besides that, I immediately wanted to read more about China, and particularly a book that was based on historical fact, after Under Heaven. I needn’t have worried about starting it so soon, though, because I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was completely fascinated by not only the characters portrayed within but also the entire Chinese culture that Min effortlessly depicts.
Orchid’s life in the book goes through a series of phases (and is picked up in the next volume, The Last Empress, which I have yet to read). She is first a pauper, a girl who would be beautiful if only she could actually eat once in a while or wear a pretty dress. She’s devastated by her father’s death, but that doesn’t stop her from seizing the opportunity to become the emperor’s concubine. Then she discovers life in the palace isn’t all it’s cracked up to be – after all, the emperor can have literally any woman he wants. He’s a spoiled brat convinced that he has the mandate of heaven, so Orchid (then Lady Yehonala) ceases to matter to him as soon as his gaze has drifted elsewhere.
After a bit of research on the internet, I’ve discovered that Anchee Min is actually a lot more sympathetic to Orchid than history has been. Here she’s depicted as a fairly wise woman who loves her son, loves her “husband”, and is much cleverer than anyone wants to give her credit for. I loved the politics involved in the book and I was fascinated by the extreme protocol of the Chinese court. It wasn’t as racy as I’d suspected either; the whole seduction part is a tiny fragment of the book. It’s much more about China’s collision with the rest of the world, the attitudes of the royal family to Orchid and towards the world, and about Orchid herself.
Empress Orchid was incredibly engaging and I would whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone interested in historical fiction or China. I am definitely going to read the sequel, The Last Empress, and seek out more books about this time period in the future.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
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