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UK readers, exciting news; I have five signed ARCs of The Ill-Made Knight to give away! This book sounds fantastic and I can’t wait to dig into my copy. It’s not due out until the 1st of August, so this is your chance to read a great work of historical fiction before it hits the book store.  Here’s the description:
An action-packed tale of chivalry and betrayal set during the Hundred Years War. William Gold comes into the world as his family slides down the social ladder. His head filled with tales of chivalry, instead he is branded a thief, and must make do with being squire to his childhood friend Sir Robert, a knight determined to make a name for himself as a man at arms in France. While William himself slowly acquires the skills of knightly combat, he remains an outsider – until the Battle of Poitiers when Sir Robert is cut down by the greatest knight of the age, Sir Geoffrey de Charny, and William, his lowly squire, revenges him. But with his own knight dead, no honour acrrues to William for this feat of arms, and he is forced to become a mercenary. Scavenging a mis-matched set of armour from the knightly corpses, he joins one of the mercenary companies now set to pillage a defenceless France, and so begins a bloody career that sees William joining forces with the infamous Sir John Hawkwood and immersing himself in a treacherous clandestine war among the Italian city states. But paradoxically it is there, among the spies, assassins and hired killers serving their ruthless masters, that William finally discovers the true meaning of chivalry – and his destiny as a knight.
To win one of the five signed ARCs, please fill in the following form. Just let me know what your favourite period in history is. Winners will be selected by random lottery and you’ll be contacted by me within 24 hours of the contest’s close so that I can find out your address. The contest closes on the 3rd of July. Good luck!
If you can’t see the form, please visit this link to enter.
 Ciel Halligan is a chameleon-like aura adapter; she can change shape to look and sound just like anyone she touches. She runs her own little business and transforms into her clients to get them out of sticky situations and endure events that they simply can’t take. Her latest job is persuading a client’s boyfriend, Trey, to propose on vacation. Everything’s going perfectly until the villa explodes, Trey disappears, and Ciel’s friends Mark and Billy turn up to protect her. The villains? Modern-day Vikings who have it in for both Ciel and the male population.
Urban fantasy has been my addiction for some time now, and I’m always eager to add a new series to my shelves while I wait for other authors to release further books in my already-beloved series. In a Fix is definitely on the lighter side of the urban fantasy spectrum, and not precisely “urban” either, as there isn’t a focal city in the book as there is in so many of them.
I liked the initial idea behind this book, with shapeshifters who basically take on the difficult situations of others as a job. There are plenty of times when I think we’d all like to hire a duplicate of ourselves to deal with an event that we really couldn’t be bothered with ourselves.
Unfortunately, I really didn’t like much else about this book at all. The main character, Ciel, was so irresponsible that she drove me insane. She needed to be rescued by her male cohorts what seemed like every other page, as she went charging in no matter what, sometimes only seconds behind them. There are only so many times I can deal with someone getting caught by the exact same bad guys because of their own stupidity. She doesn’t even start off well, as her first job has a contract that allows her to sleep with another woman’s boyfriend / planned-to-be fiance for the purposes of securing “the ring”. That whole scenario makes me feel uncomfortable. The fact that the book later features a love triangle also served to put me off, as she mostly seems indecisive but keen to take whatever she can get in the meantime. Eh.
In some instances, characters that aren’t likeable can be redeemed by a good plot, but this one just became silly over the course of the book. I’m sure this book is aiming more at a quick, fun read than anything else, but I suppose I just prefer my urban fantasy reads to be at least somewhat serious and believable (in the context of their own fantasy worlds, that is). I didn’t experience that here, and overall the book let me down.
In a Fix seems like it would suit someone looking for a light, casual, funny read; when it comes to urban fantasy, it’s a bit of a let-down. I won’t be continuing with any further books in the series.
All external book links are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review.
Monday, here you are again, and here I am reading a couple of books that I think are pretty good!
I’ve been reading The Churchills by Mary S. Lovell for a few days now, as it’s a nice big chunky biography and takes a bit of memory to figure out who is who each time I pick it up. I really enjoyed Lovell’s biography of Bess of Hardwick, and so the fact that she’d written this family biography plus the subject matter interested me a lot. I’ve been to Blenheim Palace, I’m fascinated by Consuelo Vanderbilt, who married one of the dukes of Marlborough (the Spencer Churchill family) at her mother’s behest and against her own will, and I’m probably one of the few people living in the UK that knows very little about Winston Churchill aside from the big history-making stuff. So! The scene is set for a good read and I’ve rescued it from a bit of isolation on my shelf – it’s been sitting there for over a year.
 This is not really the sort of non-fiction I’d consider serious history, but rather very gossipy and very much about who was sleeping with who and when. Most of the book centers around the part of the family immediately around Winston Churchill, with a brief description of the family and a few chapters about his parents. I’m pleased with it so far; I especially like, as I always do with history, when Lovell talks about the historiography of the family and compares her own thoughts with those who have come before.
 I only started my second read today but I’m already almost a third of the way through (the joys of commuting to work). This is Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers. You may not know this, as I never posted about it, but I read Strong Poison a couple of months ago. This book, and the part of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries including Harriet Vane, came highly recommended by everyone who’d read it, and in fact Ana pressed it in my hand in London one day, so there was no chance of me saying no. While I didn’t fall in love with it, I was intrigued enough to stick the remaining three books on my wishlist. Then, yesterday, in something of a coincidence, Amy’s post reminded me that actually I quite wanted to read the rest of these books, and they dropped a couple of pounds on the Kindle. So I bought them and started reading on the train this morning.
To my surprise, I am loving this one, to the degree that I’m actually going to go cheat on The Churchills (my home book) so I can read it more. I love the banter between Harriet and Peter in particular; it’s incredibly delightful even in the middle of a murder / suicide mystery, and I really just want more time to read. I could have stayed on the train for much longer this evening. As I’m home, though, I’m going to go indulge myself while it lasts.
What are you reading this week?
 Good afternoon Saloners! I’m glad to say that I think I’m finally on the mend today; after a flu / cold-like illness struck last Saturday while camping, followed by conjunctivitis in both eyes later on in the week, I am approaching normal and very happy about that. We’ve had a chilled out weekend and done very little, which has been great. Mostly, I’ve been reading, and we finished watching the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
I’m not sure I ever wrote anything about the holiday that we intended to have last weekend. I’ve been working really hard the last few months to get in better shape. I’ve never been overweight, but since I’ve been married I have definitely gained a few pounds and my fitness level had rock-bottomed around the beginning of the year. After a completely exhausting walk at Robin Hood’s Bay earlier this year, I decided I’d had enough – I didn’t want to be so unhealthy, even if I still looked okay. So I’ve been working out really consistently and, as a little test, we planned to climb Ben Nevis in Scotland, the highest mountain in the UK, last weekend. It’s not terribly challenging; plenty of people who aren’t incredibly fit go up Ben Nevis all the time, but it would still be a nice accomplishment.
We also wanted to visit Gretna Green, that infamous place where all the characters in Regency romances go to elope, and take a ride on the Jacobite steam train, which goes on the same track as used for the Hogwarts Express and is purportedly the most beautiful train ride in the country.
We set off on Friday, and after a minor blip with our car which resulted in an hour’s delay and having to skip Gretna Green on Friday, we finally reached the Highlands.
The mountains are gorgeous and, to my surprise, still had snow on them! Given that these two days were the first all year I’d been able to spend without a jacket, it seemed really bizarre.
The campsite was also beautiful, nestled into a little green valley with lots of sunshine.
On Saturday we attempted the Ben Nevis climb, but I was already feeling unwell so we didn’t even get close to making it up and went back to the tent to read in the sunshine for the afternoon. The highlight of the day ended up being a lovely dinner, starting off with drinks to this view over Loch Leven:
And ending with this immense plate of locally grown mussels for me.
Unfortunately that was the end of Saturday night and we skipped the rest of the trip to go home early on Sunday – but it’s a holiday that we will need to repeat, as there was so much I wanted to do and simply didn’t get to. Hopefully we can take another long weekend away camping this year, and I’d much prefer not to get sick the next time.
I’m now going to attempt to do something crazy and write some book reviews. Wishing you all a lovely Sunday and a Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there!
We’re back from our interrupted camping holiday to Scotland, thanks to my body deciding that relaxation meant a fever was in order. Let me tell you, it’s really not nice to get a fever in the middle of what is probably the nicest weekend in two years in Britain and when you’ve been lucky enough to choose that weekend to go away! The only good thing about this is the fact that I’ve finished two books since we got home yesterday.
 The first, Pompeii by Mary Beard, was a mix of history and popular archaeology, a really insightful look into how the Romans actually lived in Pompeii. Beard dissects a lot of established knowledge about the buried city, compares it to the current remains, and separates her findings into chapters that focus on one particular aspect of the city and the Roman world. She very quickly does away with the idea that Vesuvius’s eruptions caught the citizens as they were going about their ordinary lives, demonstrating that they were mostly fleeing or had fled already, and then goes into the details of what has been found and what it might mean.
My immediate reaction was of course a desire to go to Pompeii, which I’ve never seen. A lot of the book also underscores how much we’ve lost even seen the ruins were discovered; early excavators in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries didn’t know what they were doing, and once vivid paintings and messages have almost completely faded.
Anyway, a brilliant book, I’d completely recommend it for anyone at all interested in Pompeii or Rome.
 Second, I finished The Heart of Valor by Tanya Huff just a few minutes before I sat down to write this post. This is the sequel to A Confederation of Valor, actually an omnibus of the first two books in the series which I sadly didn’t review, but which I loved. This is what I like to think of as character-focused military science fiction, and I think if you enjoy the Vorkosigan saga, you’ll enjoy these too. Torin Kerr, the main heroine of the series, isn’t quite as crazy as Miles, but she’s a very strong and smart heroine who knows exactly what she’s doing and the comparisons to Ellen Ripley of Alien fame are justified. What I mainly love about these is how quickly we get to know the characters and how they really feel as though each situation is life threatening; Huff gets what I think the military should be like exactly right. I could be completely wrong, and I would hope to never find out whether I am or not, but for me, these books work.
That leaves me with what I’m actually reading now, which is The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. This is a library book that I picked up because it was pretty. Not a joke; this is the benefit of using the library again, because all it takes for me to choose a book is the fact that the cover stands out. Here it is:
Lovely, and different. It’s a classic about four English women who go to an Italian castle and that’s really all I know so far. I can’t wait to find out more.
What are you reading this week?
 Subtitled “the epic novel of the city of lights”, Paris follows four families throughout the history of Paris. The De Cygne family are nobility, though their status gradually erodes over the course of history, while the Le Sourds are a range of commoners. The other two families are bourgeois and workers, representing the different sectors of French society. Throughout the novel their relationships and statuses change with history right up until the 1960’s.
Unlike the other novels I’ve read by Rutherfurd, Paris focuses on a particular segment of history more so than the others, following a few members of the families more closely from 1875. The books I’d read earlier – Sarum, Russka and London – had started in the past and moved up to the present, more or less.
I’m not really sure I liked the change, to be honest. I can kind of see why it was done, perhaps because the late nineteenth century and onwards is a bit better known, and because it allows Rutherfurd to focus more closely on specific characters for once, but those reasons are exactly why it doesn’t work. I am much more interested in earlier history and Paris certainly doesn’t lack for a fascinating past; what happened to the history before the 13th century? Just because Paris wasn’t properly the capital of a France like the modern one we know until Philip Augustus doesn’t mean that its history, even fictional history, isn’t worth writing.
Secondly, Rutherfurd really doesn’t excel at creating believable characters or writing deeply enough to make the story of them compelling. He’s much more skilled when it comes to the epic big events, creating incidental characters whose only purpose really is to live through the cities’ big moments. When half of the book is devoted to looking more closely at a few characters, this approach no longer works. I rolled my eyes at a lot of the writing here; characters’ judgement of each other is incredibly shallow and unrealistic, for one thing, and things are always told and not shown. I really did not enjoy returning to the more modern strand because I had no interest in who Marie was actually going to marry or whether Luc was going to get his revenge on Louise. I felt that his previous books worked a lot better in this respect; I wanted more historical fiction, less little social dramas that didn’t reflect anything actually about Paris.
It’s not all bad; the chapter that had the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre was actually particularly good because it gave the events a really human element through two children that suffer from the events, and reminded me of why I actually wanted to read the book in the first place. Unfortunately, most of it didn’t live up to my expectations, making this one of the most disappointing books I’ve read yet this year.
I received this book for free for review. All external book links are affiliate links.
Hello everyone! I’ve been very absent on the blogging front lately; one of my close extended family members back home in the United States has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, which is devastating news, and it has had a huge impact on how much energy and creativity I’ve had in the last few weeks. Just going to work and getting everything that needs to happen done has consumed most of my effort, leaving very little left for writing. In less severe news, our car broke down a week ago, so overall May has actually just been a terrible month. I’m aware things could be a lot worse, but at the moment I would be very happy for some good news. Here’s hoping that June is more positive; we’ve already booked a camping trip to Scotland to try and get away from it all next weekend, since I’m pretty helpless across the pond anyway, so I’ve perhaps foolishly got my hopes up.
In May I read 12 books, mostly series and urban fantasy books, although I’m pleased that I actually read some non-fiction. AND an older book, The Doctor and the Diva. And I started going back to the library – two of the books below are borrowed.
Fiction
- A Clash of Kings, George R.R. Martin
- Stray, Rachel Vincent
- The Doctor and the Diva, Adrienne McDonnell
- A Confederation of Valor, Tanya Huff
- Frost Burned, Patricia Briggs
- Moonshifted, Cassie Alexander
- She Rises, Kate Worsley
- Maisie Dobbs, Jacqueline Winspear
- Paris, Edward Rutherfurd
- The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides
Non-fiction
Favorite of the Month
 
I’m falling deeply in love with character-driven science fiction these days and Tanya Huff’s A Confederation of Valor is fantastic for it. It’s military sci-fi and a bit of the jargon and alien names takes some time getting used to, but once you’re in the main character, Torin, simply steals the show. I loved the camaraderie between her and her men, the new worlds she explores, and the way that each of the two books contains a particular expedition that grows her as a character. Loved it, should probably actually review it. I immediately bought the next in the series, Heart of Valor, and I’ll probably buy the following two in quick succession.
As for The Secret Rooms, I actually managed to review it, so you’ll find all of my thoughts contained in that post, but it’s a really intriguing mystery and simultaneous look at the declining aristocracy just before, during, and after World War I.
What’s Ahead for June
I’m considering taking a blogging break, but I’m not sure I will. I have this feeling that as soon as I decide to leave the blog for two weeks, I’ll immediately want to write something – which surely wouldn’t be a bad thing, but puts me off officially going away. I might take an impromptu break here and there, and posts are scarce enough as it is, but I’m just going to see how it goes and not stress.
In the meantime, what am I reading this month?
![IMG_0608[1]_667x500](http://medievalbookworm.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/IMG_06081_667x500-300x224.jpg)
I’m definitely not doing as well sticking to the immediate TBR pile as I used to; I read 12 books as above in May but two of these books in the picture have been on the pile since the beginning of April. Those are In a Fix and Deception, so I’m aiming to read both of those this month and in general start to work through some of the books I’ve had for a while. From this pile, I’m excited to read The Churchills and The Engagements the most, so I think both of those will definitely be June books.
What’s ahead for you in June?
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