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 In the seventeenth century, after the Puritans have taken over England, life is very difficult for women, especially those without a husband’s protection. When Rachel Lockyer gets pregnant and her married lover William Walwyn is in the Tower, she has no recourse to defend herself. She instead hides her pregnancy from her employer and, when the baby is born, she conceals its death and buries it in the woods. But she’s suspected, spotted, and brought to trial; her own personal tragedy overshadowed by the law’s complete inconsideration for women.
The Glovemaker was a clever, thoughtful work of historical fiction that I really enjoyed. We don’t really get much set in Puritan England; I think I’ve read one other book set in this period recently that I loved, which was Lady of the Butterflies, and is slightly later. This is after the Civil War, when rule has become really strict, and of course, it’s targeted against our main character, Rachel.
Even though Rachel is sleeping with a married man, which leads to all of her woes, it’s still impossible not to feel for her as she slowly unravels her story. Her love affair with Walwyn manages to be so real and so genuine that I wasn’t sure I liked his wife, even though I could see her point of view, too; it’s a brief book but it packs a massive punch. There are more twists than you’d expect from the description and it’s worth experiencing them for yourself. Rachel was, for me, a great character, with a surprising amount of depth and a woman who could invoke sympathy in me, too.
It’s kind of a shame this book probably won’t be read by many men, because I think it’s actually a very valuable, heartbreaking story about life and women’s rights. It’s partly about the impact that laws can have when they are written by men with no consideration for the women they’re hurting and what that can do. A stillborn or miscarried child is a heartbreaking event in a woman’s life – but these laws were designed to ignore what a woman had to say, to ignore her pain and punish her for circumstances beyond her control. It’s an unfair burden to women, and stories that are about the seventeenth century have plenty of validity for our current lives as well. Shouldn’t women’s voices be heard in issues that are about their lives and bodies?
A worthy read – for those who like historical fiction, for those who like a plot that slowly unravels, for those who are concerned about women’s rights. Recommended.
On a related note, this book is known as Accidents of Providence in the United States.
All external book links are product links. I received this book for free for review from the publisher.
 I’ve decided to subscribe to Asimov’s on my Kindle and decided to write very brief thoughts on the stories in this and any other magazines I might choose to read in the future. I think “Short Story Saturday” is probably owned by someone but no one I follow; please let me know if I’m stealing your feature so I can give you credit!
My very first short story – or “novelette” as the magazine calls it – in years was The Way of the Needle by Derek Künsken. Both a thriller and a contemplative story about loyalty and friendship, the beings in this novelette have developed under the heat of microwaves. They’re made out of needles and feed one another in a relatively strict hierarchy. Mok, a Follower of the Needle, an order of martial priests, has a reputation to make and an assassination to carry out. On his way, he meets a slave, who he must befriend to make his way to the upper echelons of the palace and his assassination target …
I absolutely surprised myself by how much I delighted in this story. I loved every bit of it, from the weird world to awkward, half-arrogant Mok, to the actual ending of it. It felt quiet, just the way I like, but so powerful – and you’d never really imagine that spiky metal creatures soaking up microwaves could really do that, but these did. Brilliant – this story had me absolutely eager to read the rest of the magazine and reinforced my feelings that science fiction is still my current obsession.
 This is the sequel to If I Stay. The review will contain spoilers for that book.
Mia may have stayed in her life after she lost her whole family, but that didn’t mean she was going to keep everything in her life the same. In fact, she left her native hometown almost as soon as she could, when she was accepted into Juilliard. Her boyfriend, Adam, was left behind, and even three years later, he’s never quite gotten over the blow. His new rock star reputation hasn’t helped at all; in fact, he usually just wants to be left alone, not interrupted on the street. But when Adam and Mia’s paths cross in New York City, he is forced to face where she went, and where he wants to go himself.
Like most others, I found If I Stay to be an incredibly powerful book that had me eager to read the sequel. While that book was really self-contained, I was entranced by the concept of the other side of the story, Adam’s story. I didn’t know how much I would like him, but I loved him in this book. He was tormented, but justly so, I think; I actually found myself wondering if he’d have been so tormented if he hadn’t become famous. Certainly part of his need for Mia seemed driven from his need for a life as it was before stardom and groupies, although not all of it.
Other than the star main character, I found myself really enjoying the rest of the novel as I went through it. Adam was tortured, yes, but in a way that I could almost understand, and sympathise with; the writing is smooth and the plot is easily sped through, not that there is much of one. A lot of the book is Adam mulling over the last three years and, finally, exploring New York City and feelings past with Mia – both of them catching up and trying to understand where to go next.
Ultimately, however, the ending wasn’t really what I’d hoped for. Well, it was, but it somehow didn’t fulfill the promise of the rest of the book. I was looking for something that was, I think, more powerful, and we didn’t get that here. I wanted to whole-heartedly love every piece of this book, believe me, but I also wanted something *more*.
Regardless, Where She Went is a very good read, emotionally wrenching in parts, worth trying if you do wonder where Mia went after the ending of If I Stay.
All external book links are referral links. I received this book for free from Amazon Vine.
One of my first iPhone pictures – a crochet spider I made for my husband. He lives on the piano!
 Tom Stein is finally achieving some success for his superstar client, Michelle, in between teasing his stern assistant, Miranda, and bowing down to his boss, Carl. He’s not expecting what Carl lands him with next; no less than the position as agent to the world’s first alien contact. The Yherajk are blobby, morphable aliens with personality, and the one that has come down for exposure to the masses is Joshua. Tom is charged with representing Joshua and somehow earning him a place in pop culture, facing the biggest and most potentially rewarding challenge of his career – and for humanity.
I’ve felt very much into science fiction lately, but because this is all fairly new, I don’t actually have very many books in my TBR bookcase that actually fit the bill. Years of historical fiction isn’t cutting it for me right now. So the book sitting by John Scalzi on my shelf – even if humorous rather than the sort of epic I was craving – was the best possible option.
In the introduction, Scalzi writes that this was his first book, his attempt to find out if he could actually write a novel before he tried to get published. Once his books took off, it made sense to dust it off and actually publish it, and that’s roughly how it landed in my hands. The book is full of trademark Scalzi wit, and it’s really obvious as a reader of his blog that it’s his voice coming out through the characters. I find this with almost all of his books these days, and I can’t say I really mind. I’m used to his voice, and I find him very amusing.
That said, this was different regardless as it’s set in the present day, amongst superstars and ordinary working folk alike. I actually liked the setting and the concept, and I found the book to be a fantastic ride. It’s not particularly deep, and it’s relatively predictable, but I think the fun factor is probably precisely what Scalzi was going for here. How much more ridiculous can you make the first alien encounter? I loved the Yherajk, they were truly a great concept for a race of aliens, and I think the book really shows off how Scalzi’s wild mind works.
It’s also a very speedy read – it’s only a short book – and works well as the standalone it is. I often feel there isn’t enough standalone fiction like this – there is the compulsion to turn everything into a series now. While I love series, I also love a book that resolves itself at the end like this one.
I can tell you that I’m now definitely looking forward to reading more of Scalzi’s humorous books as well as his deeper Old Man’s War style reads, but I’d easily recommend both. Agent to the Stars is also not what I’d imagine as a science fiction novel, so it’s a great taster for those who aren’t sure if they’d like the genre or not.
All external book links are affiliate links. I purchased this book.
 It’s a bit late on a Sunday after another busy week, so I’m going to keep this quick with something I found particularly exciting about blogging this week – my authorship snippet has started to show up in Google!
Whether you like Google or not, I still think it’s great to see my name and face next to my review. It adds an extra level of accountability for bloggers, too, I think.
I noticed that particular review was referring me a ton of visits this month, so lo and behold I am the first review ranking and have that great little snippet there! It ties into my Google+ profile, which admittedly I barely use, but it’s nice to see my name next to my review and makes the result stand out. I suspect it’s resulting in the extra traffic, which is also nice. I hope I’ve inspired more than one purchase, as I love Bernard Cornwell.
If you’d like to do the same, there are instructions here and in many other places online.
 By no fault of his own, twelve-year-old Jack is one of the most ostracized boys in town, and all because of his last name. The Witcher family are considered white trash, and even though Jack is smart, fair, and honest, he is tarred by the same brush that affects all his family. It’s harder for sensitive Jack, who has to deal with all of the follies of adolescent life at the same time he’s shunned by the people who he longs to be friends with. The fact that his brother is suspected of murder doesn’t help. How can Jack reconcile his feelings for his family with his longing to be accepted for once in his short life?
If Jack’s in Love may be the first Amy Einhorn book that I didn’t outright fall in love with myself. Not that it’s a bad book, really; it was fine, and I enjoyed reading it, but it wasn’t that compelling or earth-shaking for me. I was easily able to put it down and come back to it later, and as I read it a while before I wrote this review, parts of it have faded quickly from my mind, so I’m afraid I didn’t find it all that memorable, either.
But there were certainly parts that I did enjoy – for instance, I liked Jack’s character, although the rest of them I was happy to take or leave, and I found the perspective of his struggle to be really interesting. He’s on the inside of a classic “white trash” family, but he sympathizes with both them, especially his mother, and the family whose son has disappeared. It’s seeing two halves of the coin which draws me in to books like this, and which also makes me a little more disappointed that I didn’t find myself loving it.
The book is set in the American south in the 60’s and 70’s, so there are also hints of the racial divide; for instance, Jack’s father is friends with a black man who lives in a certain district, and Jack’s older Jewish friend Gladstein lives in the same place. But that’s about the extent of these tensions; Jack’s love for Myra, the murdered boy’s younger sister, dominates most of the book. This is the part where the book really fell down for me; I didn’t like their romance much at all, and I didn’t believe in them as a couple no matter how young. There were too many barriers, and while a good book would be all about knocking those down, I wasn’t feeling it here.
Anyway, many others have enjoyed this book considerably more than I have; visit the Book Blogger Search Engine for many more reviews. While If Jack’s in Love had its moments, I ultimately found it to be disappointing; regardless, I’ll be looking out for Wetta’s further work as he has a lot of potential.
I purchased this book.
 Henry Skrimshander is an outstanding shortstop and it’s that which draws Mike Schwartz to recruit him to Westish College in Wisconsin. Within a very short space of time, Henry has revitalized the Westish team and brought them victories that had been vastly beyond their reach. But with one missed throw, Henry’s entire life is thrown off balance. Who is he, if he can’t always throw perfectly? And what is the team without him? Surrounding Henry are all of the dramas of closed-in literary college life; affairs with professors, mature students, deadly dull jobs, and even a bit of studying every now and again.
It’s taken me a while to review this book, which I’m not sure is entirely positive; I loved it and I felt like I had a lot to say about it once I’d finished, but I left it a long while to actually sit down and write. The Art of Fielding is a book that, without question, has received an enormous amount of hype. Even before Kathy brought it across an ocean for me, she told me that it was going to be one of the big releases of 2011, and I’ve watched it receive review after review. I managed to keep myself away from spoilers of all kinds and experience the book for myself, though, when I was ready for it.
I made the right decision, because I loved this book. I felt as though it tapped right down into a deep sense of American nostalgia, a story about being the best you can be and what happens when you’re not sure you can achieve that any longer. Where do we go once we’ve hit our peak? Not only does Henry experience this, but each of the other characters are faced with periods of monumental change and the fact that their lives simply can’t be the same again. It reminded me of my own leaving college; I loved my time there and even now when I look at the pictures I’m blasted with a ton of nostalgia. But I’ve moved on, and these characters have to move on, too, regardless of whether their stardom is behind them or right in front of them.
At times, I did feel the book was a little bit long; there was one particular spot in the latter middle where I felt the story was dragging. But for the most part, I got completely swept up into this world. I’m not a fan of baseball, although I certainly know my way around a field mostly because I grew up amongst Yankee fans and went to a public high school. That may have helped, but I think the book is deeper than that and touches something universal – it might apply to baseball, but it might equally apply to a writer who isn’t sure he or she can ever write a novel as good as their first, or a musician who fears becoming a one-hit wonder. If that should happen, when do we let go? Or do we carry on trying?
I know this review is not really a review – it’s very obscure, instead. But I think The Art of Fielding is a book that is well worth your time. It was a surprisingly fast read, for its size, and it swept me up in its simultaneously grandiose and personal story. I recommend it.
All external book links are affiliate links. I received this book for free – thanks again Kathy!
I felt like January was an exceptional reading month. It was good in other respects, too; I received my Indefinite Leave to Remain visa for the UK and celebrated my birthday on the 12th. I’ve made peace with the fact that I’m never going to resume a review every weekday, I don’t read enough or have time to write 5 reviews, and have aimed for 3 instead, which I’ve been managing pretty well. I haven’t decided if I’m going to fill the other two days with something or not, we’ll see where the mood takes me!
In terms of actual reading, I finished sixteen books and most of them were excellent. I typically haven’t found the time to review them all yet, not even close, but if you stick around, I’ll be sharing some absolute gems with you later on this month!
Here’s what I read:
Fiction
- Arthur & George, Julian Barnes
- Castle in the Air, Diana Wynne Jones
- Death Masks, Jim Butcher
- The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
- If Jack’s in Love, Stephen Wetta
- A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal, Meredith Duran
- Miles, Mutants, and Microbes, Lois McMaster Bujold
- Full Dark, No Stars, Stephen King
- A Rogue by Any Other Name, Sarah Maclean
- Spartacus, Ben Kane
- Affinity, Sarah Waters
- The Winter Palace, Eva Stachniak
- Blood Rites, Jim Butcher
- Agent to the Stars, John Scalzi
Non-fiction
- The Etymologicon, Mark Forsyth
Though I didn’t do so well with the non-fiction, it’s partly because I’ve been reading an absolutely massive history in the background with all of these books. The fiction I read was incredible. In many ways it was typical of the latter half of last year, but better – there’s a ton of variety in there, and I feel as though I’ve read some meaningful stories that are going to stick with me. Isn’t that what all readers are looking for?
Favorite of the Month
 
I can’t pick just one, so have both! I loved both of these and recommend them whole-heartedly. It’s early now, but I’m confident they will end up on my best of 2012 list.
Ahead for February
There are so many books I wish I could be reading now that it’s difficult to choose! I’ve just started World War Z and I’ve been reading The History of the World in 100 Objects, which covers the history of the whole world through various objects at the British Museum. It’s a fascinating book – I love how much the author can pull from just one object, and I’m looking forward to seeing some of the objects in person (most for the 2nd or 3rd time) when I head to London towards the end of February.
Other books I’d just love to get to:
- Leviathan Wakes, James S.A. Corey
- A Discovery of Witches, Deborah Harkness
- The Hare with Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal
- The Kingdom of the Gods, N.K. Jemisin
How was your January reading month?
 After falling in love with Jack Hampton during the course of The Tory Widow, Anne Merrick has fully devoted herself to the Patriot cause – but because she’s still known as a Tory, she’s infiltrated their camp with her loyal maid, Sally. Anne and Sally have the dangerous job of not only discovering information, but passing it on to the men without being spotted. Naturally, this means tensions are constantly running high, but never higher than when the Patriots and Redcoats clash in battle, and Anne and Sally fear for all of their lives as they try to win the day for their cause.
I’ve enjoyed all of Christine Blevins’s books so far, and this one isn’t an exception. It takes a slightly different approach than the first two; because it isn’t a romance at all really, since Jack and Anne are together at the start and remain in love throughout the book. It’s a direct continuation of the first book. In all, the sole thing that confused me was the title – Anne already turned, and I didn’t really see her going back to the Tory cause after falling in love with Jack. I’ll forgive the book that, though, as I quite enjoyed the story as it progressed onwards.
Like in the last book, Anne is a strong, independent woman with a taste for the world. She and Sally are very successful in what they do; the book demonstrates this effectively by opening with the two of them accidentally killing a massive snake. They’ve made themselves indispensable to the Tories, but all that means is that Anne can see both sides of the war. She firmly believes in independence, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t find herself befriending various other people in the camp and witnessing the horrors of war for herself. Since she’s not directly in battle, these don’t come about too often, but Jack’s often in the thick of things himself.
I also enjoyed the atmosphere that permeates the book. There’s a real sense of desperation, hope, and upheaval among the patriots. Blevins has set the book right at the turning point of the war, as she explains in her author’s note, which makes for an exciting read. Having those little trinkets that she sent really helped, too – as soon as a character mentioned a bayberry candle, I knew what it was going to smell like, and I could fall a little bit deeper into the world she created. This is a great book to read with a cup of tea by your side anyway, not only to help with the atmosphere – we’re still right in the midst of the American Revolution, after all, and the characters are often drinking tea when they can.
I would definitely recommend these books to historical fiction fans – The Turning of Anne Merrick has less romance than the previous two, so if that was putting you off, don’t let it stop you here. I would however recommend you read The Tory Widow first; the backstory becomes more valuable as the novel progresses. I’m looking forward to seeing what Christine Blevins writes next!
This review is part of the Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tour – here’s the full schedule and information for more reviews!
All external book links are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review as part of the tour.
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