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 Allison Glenn has done her best to hide what happened the night she was arrested, but people always find out. Five years later, she’s out of prison, but she isn’t sure she’s happy about it; in prison she had peace for the first time in her life. Though everyone knew what she’d done, they’d done heinous things themselves. Out in the world, though, she is judged and condemned without an opportunity to speak up for herself. Her sister has been open to the criticisms for five long years, dealing with the stigma of that night, and wants nothing to do with Allison ever again. But Allison won’t give up and her perseverance will have consequences not only for herself and her sister, but for an innocent little boy and his family as well.
These Things Hidden is a book that starts out fairly slow but more than makes up for its drawn out beginning. Because it’s only a short book, I was surprised at how many characters were introduced over the course of the first fifty pages; there are four perspectives and each have their own supporting characters. I suspect it felt longer than it was because I was most drawn to Allison’s story and I wanted to get back to her immediately! Lucky for me (and the book’s momentum), the individual stories began to be interwoven almost immediately and all of them are necessary for the central mystery of the book.
Essentially, finding out what exactly happened that night, when Allison got arrested and destroyed her family’s life, is the underpinning of the entire book. Bits and pieces are made clear as the story goes along, but it doesn’t all wrap up until the end of the book. It’s an important driver for the rest of the book, which is a more emotional look at family love all around. Each character has a completely different relationship with her immediate family. Claire and her husband have been unable to conceive and have been able to adopt Joshua. Charm loves her stepfather, but has a difficult relationship with every other member of her family. And obviously, Allison and Brynn’s relationships with their families have changed drastically since that night and continue to evolve. They’re all very different structures, but the women are connected.
One thing I really appreciated about the book as well was how different each of the women’s voices were. I don’t know about you, but often when I’m reading a book with multiple narrators, they start to blend together. I hardly ever notice chapter divisions and there have definitely been times when I’ve sped through a book, the perspective has changed, and I haven’t realized that I’m in someone else’s head. That doesn’t happen here; each woman is distinct, with her own story to tell. The only one I struggled to relate to was Brynn. While I couldn’t understand all of their actions, I understood hers the least, but I think if I had gotten further inside her head it would have been a bit worrying.
These Things Hidden is a compelling novel that explores the relationships between women and their families in real depth while providing enough plot to keep the pages turning. Recommended.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free for review from a publicist.
 India Selwyn Jones is a female doctor who wants to make a real change in the world. She dreams of opening up her own clinic in Whitechapel, a very poor area of London, and helping women and children have healthier, longer lives no matter their economic status. But her fiance would see her dreams stifled and aims to make her the perfect political wife, simply an asset to him as he rises to the top of British politics. It doesn’t take many ventures into Whitechapel before India meets Sid Malone, legendary bad guy who masterminds gangs of thieves, opium dens, and brothels, making a fortune on the backs of others. India doesn’t know that Sid is actually Charlie Finnegan, brother of Fiona Finnegan from The Tea Rose, but she quickly realizes that he is a gangster with a heart, and they have a cause in common – helping the poor of London to live better lives.
After reading The Tea Rose, I didn’t rush to open this, its sequel, simply because I wasn’t really that crazy about it. I knew Jennifer Donnelly could do better, though, and with some urging from my mom, who adored both books, I finally settled down to read it. While it still isn’t as polished as Donnelly’s later books, I found The Winter Rose to be a superior book in almost every way, with more realistic characters, a more intense love story, and another eye-opening peek into the often dreary world of Victorian London. There was even a trip into Africa, further widening the scope of the story, and all adding up to one insanely compelling book.
I loved that the central focus here was more on improving others’ lives, rather than enriching the characters’ own. India is wealthy, but she doesn’t act like a wealthy heiress of the time. She’s far more interested in prenatal care, saving lives, and eventually doing what she can just to make people happier. She eschews a comfortable position taking care of wealthy women to focus on those who really need her, and determines to make their lives better without wringing every last penny from them. Sid is also wealthy, but on the dark side of wealth; he knows what it’s like to be poor and does indeed do his part to shelter others from harm. He is a good man who sometimes does bad things. Though they are both superior to their peers in many ways, they never achieve the surreal perfection that both Fiona and Joe did in The Tea Rose; they remain firmly true to life and I was glad to follow them on their adventures. Fiona and Joe also feature in this book, though not the main characters; even with them Donnelly has dialled down the perfection and made them both more human and fallible while still retaining their core characters.
The scope of the novel is immense but the story doesn’t drag; it keeps moving and skips some of the parts which could have become boring. In fact, I read the last 300 pages in one sitting, staying up far later than normal to actually finish the book. I read it in about three days; its predecessor took me over a week. That should tell you how much more I enjoyed this book! I particularly loved the parts in Africa at the end; they were so evocative and suspenseful that I kept turning the pages well past when I should have stopped.
The Winter Rose is a fabulous, sprawling novel that takes into account not only characters’ lives and loves but the wide-ranging social situation of the poor and the wealthy. Highly recommended, and now I can’t wait to read The Wild Rose in August.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 Shortly after her mother’s death, Yeine is summoned to the capital, Sky, by her royal grandfather. Formerly ruler of a small nation, Yeine has never been acknowledged by her mother’s family because they never approved of her parents’ marriage, but her death changes everything. Yeine is declared an heir to the throne and must compete with her two cousins, both of whom were raised in Sky, or her life will end. Quickly, her struggle takes on bigger dimensions as she finds herself caught in a war between gods, questioning whether she can save those who have been imprisoned to serve humans or must bow down the god who now rules over all.
It’s been a long time since I read a new-to-me epic fantasy as engrossing as this one. I’ve seen this book over and over again, but mainly dismissed it from my thoughts. Then, it got chosen for a book club pick, and though I was forced to miss the meeting, I still bought and read the book in time. I’m so happy about that – I would have missed out on an amazing book more or less because the cover didn’t appeal to me and I thought it would be another 1000+ page chunkster. How wrong I was. This was a stand-out book with a gorgeously realized world, beautifully drawn characters, and a strong emotional heart.
One of the many reasons I read fantasy is down to world-building. I can get lost in a well-written fantasy world, happily exploring the corners of it for page after page. Though this is only the first book in a trilogy, I am well and truly intrigued. In this world, the struggle between the gods has defined the way the people live. The original war left one god supreme, one god killed, and the third major god imprisoned, along with the rest of the lesser gods, forced to obey humans. Naturally, they’re not particularly fond of this, and will do anything to get out of it, hence one of the core plotlines of the book that becomes clear as we go along.
Probably the only part that I struggled with at the beginning is the writing style and the inadequacy of Yeine herself. The book is told through Yeine’s reflections and her memory is muddled. She goes back in time and talks to herself, for reasons that also become clear as the book continues, but which lead to a confused reader at the start. But when everything came together at the end I was left wondering how well the foreshadowing would stick together on a second read, which means I do plan on reading it again at some point.
To top it all off, there is a romance involved, which when done well almost always makes a book better for me. I loved this one. Though as mentioned earlier Yeine is frustratingly powerless, obviously a pawn in others’ hands at times, there was certainly something about this pairing that pulled on my heartstrings and had me crossing my fingers for them. I think it would have been a lesser book without that emotional anchor.
I am very glad that I read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of number two in the series! Expect a review of that one soon too – I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to wait. In the meantime, I highly recommend this to other fantasy readers. There is a reason it’s been nominated for a Nebula.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 The marriage of Monsieur Montespan and his wife, Francoise de Mortemart, was an accident, but at first a fortuitous one. Montespan’s brother, Francoise’s fiance, was killed in a duel, leaving him free to claim the beautiful lady. They begin their marriage deeply in love with one another and have children together. Francoise, however, starts to chafe at their poor lifestyle and the couple becomes mired in debt. To make up for it, Montespan heads off to a series of wars, while his wife enters the court, taking on the name “Athenais”. She is so beautiful, charming, and accomplished that she attracts the eye of legendary Louis XIV. What is a loving husband to do?
I’ve only recently become interested in the reign of Louis XIV; in high school, I had a history teacher who was fascinated by him, which led to a bit of an overdose. After I visited Versailles last October, though, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the man who had built the palace, the “Sun King”. As a result, I snapped this book up for review and have really been looking forward to reading it. I was particularly attracted by the fact that it was written by a Frenchman; I’ve read plenty of Americans and Brits writing fiction about French history but rarely a French novel in translation. I was not disappointed, especially given that the book is written in a much grimmer style than most historical fiction I’ve read.
By this I mean Teule doesn’t miss portraying history as it really was, at least as far as a modern novel can, including all the excesses that to us seem rather vile; nobles stuffing their rotting teeth with butter, the horrors of the duel, even the fact that the king visited with people while on his chamber pot, which I’ve heard before from multiple sources. He’s also quite happy to describe the pleasures that Montespan took with his wife, but given Teule is French, this is no surprise; even when I went to Paris I could tell things were a lot freer in this respect. This is no romantic, sanitized version of history. I questioned at times whether things were that disgusting, but given what I’ve actually learned about the past, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that it was all true.
The rest of the book is very accurate, at least as far as I can check. It seems excessive, but yes, Montespan did actually protest the fact that his wife was the King’s mistress, reject his offerings, and set up mourning for their love while she was still alive. Even Athenais’s new hairstyle is as described. It’s sensational, but the best kind of sensational because it actually happened. I felt incredibly sorry for the poor man but at the same time wanted to give him a push into getting over his wife. I’ve since learned that poor Montespan has been ridiculed throughout history for refusing to sit back and let the King take his wife while he enjoyed the spoils of it, so I’m glad Teule has at least done his part to turn this around and show the court as a darker and more sinful place than normally portrayed.
If you’re interested in historical fiction that portrays a version of Louis XIV’s court without thick rose-colored glasses on, Monsieur Montespan is an excellent choice. Moreover, it gives us a perspective outside the glittering world of court and Versailles, which I for one quite appreciated. Recommended.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free for review.
 March has been an eventful month over here. Hubby’s birthday and exciting computer build, family concerns, and various other issues have dominated the month. I’ve now been in my job for an entire year, and with that have lived in the same flat in the same town for a year as well – the first full year anywhere since high school. We’ve finally made progress towards selling our old flat and I passed my Life in the UK test, so I’m all set to submit paperwork in November when I renew my visa. Just hoping everything is okay in my family and I’ll be set for another month.
Unsurprisingly, with everything else going on, it was a fairly slow reading month for me. I read 14 books, which I know is still quite a few, but isn’t much compared to previous months, even working. I did read two immense books in there, but I balanced them out nicely with shorter YA and romance reads. Overall I think I did pretty well given the circumstances!
Fiction
- The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
- Captive Bride, Bonnie Dee
- Wintergirls, Laurie Halse Anderson
- Queen Hereafter, Susan Fraser King
- River Marked, Patricia Briggs
- Before I Fall, Lauren Oliver
- Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, Sarah MacLean
- The Glassblower of Murano, Marina Fiorato
- Monsieur Montespan, Jean Teule
- The Hundred-Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin
Non-fiction
By far the best thing about a slower reading month is the lack of reviews waiting to be written. I only have four to do and I’ve finished two books in April, which is far off my usual lackluster performance.
Favorites of the Month
This month’s fiction favorite is a toss-up between Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin. Both were spectacular in different ways, but both surprised me with their excellence and had me thinking about them even after I’d finished reading.
Non-fiction favorite goes to A World on Fire. Yes, it took me two weeks to read, but I felt like I learned so much and was given a totally new perspective on a topic I’d been learning about since elementary school. Very much worth it for anyone who enjoys history.
Looking Ahead
April promises to be an exciting reading month. The Read-a-Thon is next weekend and I’m really looking forward to participating – it looks to be my only free weekend all month and I’m so glad it fell on that one. I think this is my fifth one; it’s hard to believe it’s been so long since the first. I’ve already read two outstanding books and I’m hoping for many more. Possibilities include:
- Dreams Underfoot, Charles de Lint
- Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal
- The Native Star, M.K. Hobson
- 13 Rue Therese, Elena Mauli Shapiro
- The Paris Wife, Paula McLain
- The Four Ms. Bradwells, Meg Waite Clayton
- The Color Purple, Alice Walker
If you’ve read any of these books, tell me where to start! I wish you all a fantastic April.
I am an Amazon Associate. Some of the books mentioned in this post were sent to me for review.
 After her husband leaves her for a professional woman that can have his children, Leonora Manin decides to seek her heritage in Venice. Her mother fell in love with a Venetian, but wound up raising Leonora alone in London, separating her from an essential part of her heritage. Leonora arrives in Venice to learn about Corradino, one of her ancestors, and to find herself again in the city of her birth. Her story is interwoven with that of Corradino, her famous ancestor who was at the time the most skilled glassblower in the world.
I remember a lot of other bloggers reviewing this book when it came out a good while ago. It seemed to be good, but not spectacular – that was enough for me to acquire it on my Kindle when it was on offer for just £1. I hoped to find something a little more than others did, but in the end I felt the same, just liking the story rather than really getting into it.
The first thing that turned me off from the book was the style of the writing. It was okay, but I often felt like it was trying just a bit too hard to inject the prose with beauty. It felt flat and stilted instead, with descriptions of Venice dragging on, and I really disliked the way the perspective was sometimes taken away from the main characters and written from an observer’s point of view. The book also switched around haphazardly between characters, sometimes having one new perspective for a single chapter and nowhere else in the book, which threw me off when it felt like the first half of the book was simply Leonora and Corradino. Why introduce other narrators when it’s already hard enough to connect with the two established?
The romance also happened much too quickly. They’d hardly met by the time Leonora decided she was permanently in love, and to be honest I never really connected with either of them. I did enjoy Leonora’s perspective, especially in the beginning, and felt for her, but just could not understand her attraction nor her reckless disregard for certain consequences. And I say this as a happy reader of romance novels, because I adore a good love story – unfortunately, this isn’t one. Everything was written to be a big deal, with lots of excitement and feeling and drama, but I couldn’t believe in it at all.
To top that all off, I didn’t even really like the historical parts, usually my favorites. Corradino was too cocky for my tastes, much too sure of himself, and I didn’t like what happened with the plot in that section. It just didn’t tie together as well as I would have liked; moreover, I never really “got” why Leonora felt more of a connection to Corradino than her own father, who also blew glass. Was it just because he was more famous?
I sound very critical here, but I don’t mean to be – I did actually enjoy reading The Glassblower of Murano. It passed the time well and I found it good for a casual read. But if you’re looking for a proper, in depth work of historical fiction (or even a fun switch between history and the present) I’d recommend you look elsewhere.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
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