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.

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.

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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.

Good evening all! I’m not here today; instead, you can find me discussing The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin with Jodie over at Lady Business! We had a fantastic although spoilerrific discussion, so don’t miss it.

I am decidedly an introvert, and I imagine most people reading this blog are too – in general, we are people who need space away from the world to recharge our batteries, people for whom speaking in public is a struggle, and who essentially work best on our own. Cain offers a lot of definitions and also provides a little list towards the start of the book to help readers identify if they are actually introverts – she also takes pains to stress throughout that many people actually have aspects of both introversion and extroversion. This is not a black-and-white science.

I found it quite inspiring to read about how many introverts have changed the world. As an introvert who has learned to cope surprisingly well (I’m always shocked when someone doesn’t think I’m shy, and it happens more often than you’d think), I definitely felt refreshed by the knowledge that lots of other people do better with space to contemplate. The history of the subject was also interesting, especially the ways different cultures handle these personality types. It’s not surprising that more Americans count themselves extroverts than Chinese – part of it is definitely culture emphasizing ideals. But the other part is genetics, and even though we can learn to cope quite well, her strategies gleaned from interviews and personal experience are thoughtful.

I did feel a little bit at times that she swung a little too far in the direction of introverts – but given this is a book attempting to empower us, I can’t be too surprised at that. The other part I (obviously) did not find useful as a childless woman was the advice for children, and having read it I’m not sure it would have helped me as a kid. But I’ll leave that up to parents to decide – life isn’t easy for shy children, and helping them accept their personalities while giving them the skills to succeed can never be a bad thing to attempt.

Quiet is a worthwhile read for both introverts and extroverts – so the former can feel much more at home in their own skin and so extroverts can learn more about life on the other side of the divide. And if you’re in between, even better.

All book links to external sites are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review from Netgalley.

I’ve been thinking about this book ever since I read it – it’s wrapped its way into my head and hasn’t left yet. Sarah Waters never fails to disappoint me with thoughtful, intense books that provide excellent stories, well-rounded characters, and real issues that hover about in my head.

Let’s start with the spiritualist nature of the book, and of Selina herself. Victorians were incredibly keen on ghosts and talking with people who had passed on. In the book I just reviewed, Arthur and George, Julian Barnes also sees Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in this light, a little bit, but Affinity naturally goes into much more depth. Like Waters’s later book, The Little Stranger, this novel plays with the extent to which we can believe in characters who experience phenomena that is beyond their understanding. Selina sends Margaret flowers and locks of her hair, and seems to know far more about Margaret than is possible. Nurtured in that atmosphere, it’s easy for Margaret to believe in everything Selina tells her, which I think reflects the relatively common Victorian attitude to acceptance of the supernatural in their everyday lives.

Margaret also has to deal with the difficult reality of being a lesbian in a world that doesn’t really acknowledge their existence. I mean – we have trouble with this today, and over 100 years ago, the situation was much worse. Her first love, Helen, rejected her for the more traditional route of marriage to man – Margaret’s own brother. Now, Margaret is bereft, between the loss of her beloved father and her lover, leaving a massive gap that a girl like Selina could much more easily enter. After all Margaret’s been through, she’s longing for that love, that acceptance.

The story also alternates with Selina’s life before the prison, so we can learn a little bit about how she got there in the first place. Together with Margaret’s story, these two halves combine to make the final twist come to life as we understand it. That twist is something I sort of anticipated, given I’d been warned by Ana that the book was sad, but I didn’t understand what was going to happen until, finally, it did. It is incredibly effective and well done, regardless. I loved the way the book came together with everything making perfect sense – I don’t mind open endings, but there is something satisfying about a book that tells you where you stand.

Well-constructed, with excellent characters and spectacular atmosphere, this is a book that is well worth your time.

I can’t do justice to this book with my review. It is simply incredible – moving, emotional, mythical, and simultaneously epic and close in scope at the exact same time. If I had to say one thing to you about it, I would say, please read it, it is incredible.

Let’s start with the setting. The Trojan War is relatively familiar for people versed in mythology and literature; if not, I’m sure you’ve heard of the Trojan horse and the face that launched a thousand ships. This takes place around that war, primarily because it is there that Achilles will become a legend. This is The Iliad, but personal, close, and loving; for the first time I felt like I could understand Achilles and Patroclus’s relationship and just how they got to that final, brutal, excruciating point of both their lives.

This is truly a fantastic retelling, one that manages to be both timeless and relevant. Achilles and Patroclus have existed for thousands of years in readers’ minds, but in our society today, many people wish that a relationship like theirs would not exist – a travesty, if you ask me – but a book like this demonstrates just how beautiful that relationship can be, and moreover, how appropriate. It’s partly a romance, writ large on the world stage as these two players tangle with gods and the most powerful of men.

Speaking of gods, there are plenty here, and they walk the world right alongside the characters. Patroclus and Achilles encounter figures of their own legend, like those who trained Hercules, and Achilles’s mother Thetis is a goddess. Their power is appropriately terrifying, especially for Patroclus, who has the dubious role of keeping Achilles from fathering further children, and thus earns his mother’s wrath.

For anyone who may have the slightest interest in a literary, romantic take on The Iliad – The Song of Achilles is a book for you. Very highly recommended.

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Russia has always enchanted me, and lately it seems that it has enchanted many readers, too; after the popularity of Robert K. Massie’s newly released biography of Catherine the Great, The Winter Palace has arrived as an excellent fictional retelling of Catherine the Great’s life, capturing another tier of readers with the enthralling story of this Empress of All the Russias. This is the first of two halves, covering the period from Catherine’s arrival to the Russian court as Sophie, an obscure German princess, to her triumph as Empress Catherine the second.

Stachniak’s approach, showing us Catherine through the eyes of a woman who was her friend, is a very clever one, because it not only introduces us to a character we can care about, who is aware of all of the secrets in all aspects of Russian courtly life, but it also lets us view Catherine’s development through another pair of eyes. Varvara could have become a mute vehicle for Catherine, but instead she is a fully fleshed out character in her own right, with her own mistakes, successes, and loves outside of Catherine’s sphere. Her position makes her vulnerable and powerful simultaneously; as a bookbinder’s daughter with access to the most powerful people in Russia, she suffers from this odd dichotomy more than once. It’s easy to feel for her, especially when she uses the agency she has to make the wrong decisions, the repercussions of which she only comes to understand later on.

Of course, it’s probably Catherine who should be considered the star of the show here; from a young girl studying relentlessly in her room to understand Russian language and culture to a woman conscious of her power, she undergoes radical change in the course of this book. But because Varvara is close to her, it’s never hard to understand how that change has happened. We can almost witness her hardening, her learning, her ferocity growing as the politics begin to change and warp her innocence. The end of the book confirms that, perhaps, it happens sooner than we’d like to think, but it is a fascinating journey nonetheless.

All of this excellent character development is wrapped up in the gorgeous settings of the Russian court, beautiful trappings for a scheming court. It’s easy to get lost in Stachniak’s writing and her evocative descriptions. The story is smoothly crafted, too; there were a few moments towards the middle of the book where I got impatient, mainly because I knew what was going to happen and I didn’t like waiting, but looking back, I think everything was necessary for the plot to wrap up completely. My mood matched that of the characters.

An excellent choice for historical fiction readers, especially those who are eager to learn about Russia or Catherine the Great. Highly recommended.

All external book links are affiliate links. I received this book free for review from Amazon Vine.

How I didn’t read Diana Wynne Jones until last year is a complete mystery to me. She writes the type of books that I would have completely fallen in love with as a young adult – not that this means I love them any less now, but my younger self could have spent days wading through her books, off in various dream worlds inspired by these books. I loved Howl’s Moving Castle, which I read last year, and so it’s no surprise that I also enjoyed Castle in the Air – though not quite as much.

This book felt very much like a fairy tale to me, though also distinctly reminiscent of the Arabian Nights series of stories, especially in the beginning. As Abdullah’s quest takes him off north, he meets a number of curious individuals who scramble this somewhat, including a renegade soldier, a cat who seems to turn into a massive feline when she or her kitten is threatened, and a genie in a bottle.

As his journey begins to come to an end, he starts to realize that everyone has put up an illusion of some kind, and nothing is quite what it seems – but none of this is at all bad for him or for those concerned. Diana Wynne Jones seems to take some pleasure in turning stereotypes on their heads while emphasizing core strong ideals with honorable characters, which makes these perfect reads for young adults.

Though the sequel to Howl’s Moving Castle, it takes a good long while for any connections to become obvious. They’re clear by the end, but this is very much its own book, and can be read on its own. (Although why you’d want to, I’m not sure.) It’s still a very good read, and I’m looking forward to continuing with the third of this series.

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I so badly wanted to like this book. It caused a huge splash when it came out, and I’m not capable of resisting dystopias that sound awesome – plus, when it arrived as part of my Secret Santa gift, signed and everything, I started reading almost immediately. Couldn’t resist. So maybe this is a case of expectations getting too high, or me reading too much amazing science fiction and fantasy over the past few months, but this book didn’t live up to my expectations.

First of all, I’m not one to question too much, especially in books like this; I’m really good at suspending disbelief and going where the author takes me. In this book, I had way too much trouble doing that, particularly because the book hammers the discrepancies into your mind. Rhine’s life before the kidnapping is terrible, and she says that she fares better than most in her home city of New York City. She and her brother get by, with both of them working, hiding from the kidnapping gangs that want to take Rhine away. Other orphans get shut out to die in the cold by these two, because they can’t support any more people.

But when Rhine arrives at Linden’s mansion, she is truly in the lap of luxury. She’s a prisoner, in theory, but a very well-treated one. What I don’t understand is why there aren’t poor orphaned girls banging down Linden’s gate trying to get into this life of luxury. Do they simply not know what awaits them? But why shouldn’t rich people tell them, so they have a choice of wives, instead of kidnapping and killing girls? Wouldn’t it be better to have a willing wife than one you had to kill sisters to get? Maybe someone else can explain this to me – not the obvious wealth disparity, but the fact that rich, single men are not in demand. And that they kill the wives that weren’t selected – surely they’d want all the women in the world alive to continue producing children?

The other aspects of the book were enjoyable – it was well-written and well-plotted as it kept me turning the pages – but the world-building simply didn’t make sense. Some of the blurbs compared it to The Handmaid’s Tale and implied that this is a future we could imagine happening, but to be honest, I couldn’t, so it lost the whole creepy point of dystopia where we can see what our world could become. I couldn’t see our world turning into this one, unfortunately, and the best writing in the world wouldn’t be enough to cover that lack.

So, Wither is an enjoyable quick read, but don’t expect to believe in the world.

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