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Lucien de Malheur has it out for the Rohan family. He’s determined to make their lives miserable, and he decides to enact his revenge through the only girl in the family, Miranda. He arranges for an accomplice of his to seduce Miranda, abduct her, and marry her. In the event, he ends up raping her and ruining her forever, rather than marrying her, which is not good enough for Lucien. Several years later, once Miranda has gained her independence and feels more comfortable as a forever-single woman, Lucien decides the time is right and seeks to seduce her himself.
This is one of those books that, while I rather enjoyed reading it, caused some serious ideological issues for me. I could not fathom why Miranda would ever stay with Lucien, for one thing. Love is NOT unconditional, certainly not to the extent that he challenges her, and I can’t imagine any self-respecting woman clinging to a man who clearly didn’t care very much about her. Simply the fact that he’d arranged for her rape would have been enough to drive me up the wall; it’s stranger because she seems to suffer no ill effects from being raped, I expected at least something when she first slept with Lucien but it’s as if it didn’t happen. This seems so unrealistic to me; I would contrast it with Gaelen Foley’s depiction of Bel’s recovery in The Duke for a novel that felt more in the realm of possibility in this regard. Miranda is even determined not to call it rape, which I suppose could be a coping mechanism, but it was. She did not consent, therefore it is rape, and to imply otherwise is wrong.
I also was quite dissatisfied with the ending, mainly because I couldn’t understand how the problem was going to be resolved. I didn’t get how someone like Miranda, who clearly can think for herself throughout the book and is quite a spirited character, would end up just settling for this horrid man. We can see that he’s not as horrid as he claims, but the things that he does completely bely what we see going on in his head. And sometimes he has even thoughts that make him seem truly evil, such as when he expresses relief that Miranda is not a virgin (due to him) because he doesn’t like virgins. Ugh. It just seemed so insensitive, so much the opposite of a man who is supposed to be falling in love. I would have expected jealousy at that point in the story.
Then there was a secondary romance, which was quite sweet overall except it was a love at first sight type deal. I struggle with those as well; I generally didn’t see enough of the couple to really believe they’d fallen in love. I liked the couple, don’t get me wrong, but it just felt a bit too hasty.
It’s kind of a shame, because I think Breathless could have been a decent romance otherwise. Anne Stuart is a fine writer and has a great ability to carry a narrative along; I kept reading even with all my “WTF” moments and I was convinced she’d find a way to wrap it all up in the end. I usually like the bad boy redeemed stories, but Lucien just never seemed like he was actually redeemed, not until he’d gone too far. Unfortunately, that meant it didn’t wrap up nicely, but I’d still read another book by Stuart. I would just hope that it wasn’t full of so many romance cliches, soulless heroes, and willfully blind heroines.
I am an Amazon associate. I received this book for free through Netgalley for review.
 Explorers throughout the ages have been convinced that a huge city lies within the Amazon rainforest. Descriptions written by the first conquistadors only backed them up, and many men set out to find it only to lose their lives in the process. One such determined explorer was Percy Fawcett, who took his son and his son’s best friend into the jungle. Convinced he knew where the city was, he eagerly set off with the boys and only two guides, only to vanish forever. Mysterious legends sprouted up around his disappearance as well. Dozens of years later, author David Grann decides to head into the forest after them, seeking to find out what really happened to the trio and to uncover some truths about the mystical city itself.
What a fascinating book. You may notice I’ve been into travelogues lately, and there is nothing I enjoy more than an author combining history with his or her own personal journey. This is precisely what Grann does with his search for a city in the Amazon. I adored the chapters on Fawcett, on the Amazon, and was as wrapped up in the legend as all the explorers were – although not quite enough to set off on foot through the Amazon. I particularly appreciated the fact that Grann travels in a vehicle and notes that such a journey would have taken Fawcett weeks of hacking through undergrowth. When Grann thought his trip was hard, it really brought into focus how incredibly difficult exploration of the rainforest was for men of Fawcett’s time and before.
Grann also notes that explorers of the Amazon are often ignored in favor of those who explored the North Pole. For one thing, those explorers eventually succeeded, whereas no one managed to find the city of Z. The exact same thing was happening while Fawcett was alive. He struggled to get funding whereas northern explorers received both money and glory. He became famous in the end, only to vanish at the apex of his popularity. One particularly notable chapter included a famed northern explorer heading into the Amazon with Fawcett, only to turn back because he couldn’t take it. It seems that either you’re suited to risking your life in intense heat and with many creatures out to kill you, or you’re more suited to dying of the cold – you can’t be awesome at both apparently.
I was probably least interested in Grann’s personal story. It’s fairly obvious that he hasn’t died, which takes away all of the suspense, and he doesn’t really risk his life that much either. I’m not saying that he imposes himself too much on the story; he doesn’t, it’s simply that I find historical details far more exciting. He does make a few interesting discoveries, mainly at the end, and it’s worth it to get an up close and personal look at the natives that are likely very similar to those that Fawcett and various other teams encountered while on their hunt for the city.
The Lost City of Z was a fascinating look into exploring the Amazon rainforest and all of its perils. I would definitely recommend it.
I am an Amazon associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 During Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Jan Wong traveled to China to attend university. As a third generation Canadian Chinese, she was one of the first two non-native Chinese admitted since Mao took power, and much of that was undoubtedly due to her belief in Mao’s principles. In actuality, she believed in the watered-down version she’d been taught, and had no idea of the real depth and consequences for people who disagreed with Mao. As such, when she told a teacher that a girl she’d just met had asked her how to leave China, she had no idea that she was irrevocably changing that girl’s life. As an adult, she deeply regrets her actions, and decides to head to China and find the woman she betrayed to ask forgiveness. In the meantime, she discovers how much Beijing has changed and continues to change to meet the 21st century.
I found this book utterly fascinating. I’ve read a few books now on the experiences of Chinese people during the Cultural Revolution, but never one from the perspective of an outsider like this one was. Mainly, I was amazed that despite growing up as a Westerner, Wong became obsessed with China and her Chinese past. I was also quite surprised to discover that much of Mao’s regime had been whitewashed, so even when she was in China she had no idea what was really going on. I think that got across more of the deception than a few of the other books had; growing up in China, you would quickly realize that life was very uncertain and a heartbeat separated you from ruin. Growing up in Canada, Mao’s China simply seemed like a place where everyone worked for the betterment of society.
Standing in vivid contrast to Wong’s memories is the Beijing of 2008 (when she returned) with its glitzy buildings, intense consumerism, and ever-expanding apartments. She’s amazed that apartments formerly admired, reserved for only the highest of professionals, now look worn and tiny in comparison to the immense ones her old contacts have achieved. There are shopping malls everywhere, even if no one shops in them, the smog is so thick you can’t see the sky, and there are so many cars in Beijing that you’re risking your life by stepping onto the road. They’re also steadily pulling down the remnants of China’s past in favor of skyscraper after skyscraper. This is Beijing, which means I hope that the rest of the country still has a few historic palaces, but the rampant destruction of perfectly good historical architecture made me very sad.
It makes Jan Wong quite sad, too; even the China she knew no longer exists, but some of it is still around. China is still a police state, so the government can do mostly whatever it wants. That means large, endless building projects that no democratic country would ever approve. Wong spends time reminding us of those contrasts as well. In terms of her search for the woman she’s betrayed, she finds it extraordinarily difficult to find her because the country has in effect wiped away the Cultural Revolution. Records mysteriously vanish from that period and no one wants to tell her what has happened to Lu Yi.
I really enjoyed Chinese Whispers. I thought it perfectly combined the history of the Cultural Revolution, with which I’ve been so fascinated recently, to modern day Beijing. Since Wong is Canadian, I felt like I received a whole new perspective on the period, and as a result I’m very happy I read this book and would recommend it to anyone else interested in modern China.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 A rare female doctor, trained in Salerno, is recruited to head to England along with two men in order to solve an important crime. Adelia is a mistress of the art of the death; she “reads” bodies in order to find out exactly what happened to them. In short, she does autopsies, and her skills are essential to try and find out who has been taking and killing small children in Cambridge. The Jews have been blamed, of course, despite the fact that they’re obviously innocent, and they have even been killed by townspeople, so they are all holed up in the center of town. Adelia’s job is to find the murderer, without getting murdered herself.
Sometimes being unfamiliar with mysteries is useful, because I just loved this book. I mean, I’m probably going to spend this entire review gushing about it mostly because I can’t help myself. I’ve done what I normally don’t do and read reviews prior to composing my own, and have discovered that quite a few people thought the mystery was too predictable for the book to be interesting. I suppose that some aspects were predictable – the character who commits the murders is always a suspicious character though I didn’t guess which one – but I never read mysteries for the whodunnit aspect. I usually don’t even guess. Taking this solely as historical fiction, I just adored it.
I liked it so much that I didn’t even particularly care that Adelia seemed so anachronistic to me. After all, there were female doctors trained at Salerno (which I knew, but the author kindly clarifies as well) and it’s not outside the realm of imagination that one would develop as independent a spirit as Adelia does, even if it was unlikely. As a modern reader, I thought she was fantastic all around, and I loved the romance that developed and her eventual response to it. I loved even more that it was a romance between two imperfect people who never planned on it happening, but were so drawn in by one another that they simply could not resist.
I also enjoyed all the little medieval details that Franklin sprinkles throughout the narrative. I really felt the atmosphere, which doesn’t always happen when reading historical fiction. I was particularly pleased with her depiction of Henry II, who she describes pretty much precisely as I’d imagined him to be, as a clever man with an unfortunate temper that betrays his intellect. He doesn’t show up often, but when he does he quite steals the show, as I think the king would have done in the Middle Ages.
I can easily say that this is the first medieval novel I’ve read in over a year that I wasn’t ready to pick apart with inaccuracies. The simple truth is that I enjoyed it far too much. Since everyone in the novel was fictional, apart from Henry II, I didn’t have to worry that something was wrong and I didn’t know about it. The case itself was fictional. Even the small details that Franklin includes which didn’t happen she explains in her afterword – including the origin of her idea for the book, a case which genuinely did occur.
I absolutely can’t wait to get to the next book in this series – I’ve already requested it from the library. I loved Mistress of the Art of Death and would recommend it to anyone interested in historical fiction or historical mysteries.
I am an Amazon associate. I purchased this book.
 Emmett Conn has lived a long, normal, and moderately happy life. A veteran of the First World War, he’s now 92 years old and regrettably suffering from a brain tumor which has a strong chance of ending his life. An injury in battle erased his memory from before the war, but thanks to a combination of drugs and the tumor, flashbacks emerge, where Emmett (then known as Ahmet Khan) was a gendarme during the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire during the very beginning of World War I. None of this fits with Emmett’s knowledge of his past, but as the scenes continue to play out in his head, he begins to believe that he was that man and question the entire basis of his American life.
This was such a powerful book. I thought the reflections were the perfect way to tell the story; it’s an amazing contrast between Emmett’s settled US life and his job forcing the Armenians out of the country. It’s impossible to like him at first, and I’d say it remains difficult throughout the book, simply because he is brutal. He, like so many young impulsive people, seems almost addicted to the feeling of power. The Armenians become faceless evil to him, an “other” that has committed crimes against his people; thus he can commit crimes against them without thinking. It’s a tale that you can find throughout history, still going on in the present day; if we can dehumanize our enemies, it appears easier to watch them suffer or even kill them, for most people. I knew (and know) virtually nothing about the Armenian genocide, regrettably, but it is surely this type of thinking which allows such unspeakable crimes to happen. Even now, we can happily stereotype people based on their age, their race, their gender, their religion, but if you know anyone at all you’ll realize that each and every person is different.
So Emmett discovers when he gets to know Araxie. He finds himself drawn to her without realizing why, and then when he comes to know her, he struggles more with the atrocities he’s committed. He knows they’re wrong. He knows he doesn’t want to hurt her, feels guilty for killing people she knows and loves. He learns precisely that lesson; that each person, no matter where they come from or what they look like, is still just a person. That’s why this book, for me, was so powerful and moving. It was not just an incredible story, but it had that anti-prejudice theme running through it so strongly. I can’t stand people who discriminate against others for any reason; so I struggled to like Emmett. Sure, he doesn’t look evil in the present day, but then how many murderers astonish their family and friends with the crimes they’ve committed? But then he started to realize what he’d done, and I appreciated him more along with the book as the story continued.
Make no mistake, at times this is a violent and disturbing book, but these things happened. Turks did rape, assault, and murder Armenians as they deported them. Mustian doesn’t really shield us from the atrocities committed and at times, the parts in the present come as a relief because the parts in the past are hard to take. It wouldn’t be as meaningful without this, though, and in the end I think a more accurate and detailed depiction is necessary.
The Gendarme is a powerful portrait of and a cry against prejudice. It’s also a really good, gripping story, as Emmett’s past is revealed through his memories and has an increasing impact on his future. Highly recommended.
I am an Amazon Associate. Many many thanks to Candace at Beth Fish Reads for sending this to me for our book club!
 In the county of Basque, in northern Spain, three men stop at a bar before a wedding. In the bar resides Maria Antonia Etxarri, a teenager whose life is due to be intimately, if reluctantly, intertwined with the bride’s, Isabel Cruces. Told alternately through flashbacks to the past, including the war which occurred shortly after the wedding, and from a doctor’s viewpoint in the present day, The Wrong Blood slowly reveals to us a story of love and need. Two women, lives irrevocably altered by the war, find something that they need in one another, and find some degree of fulfilment even if their lives don’t turn out as they’d originally planned.
This is one book that demonstrates beautifully the reason I rarely stop reading books – I almost always finish them, and whether you agree that’s a good idea or not, it does mean I discover some gems I’d otherwise have stuck on the DNF pile. I have a history of disliking historical fiction set in Spain, but this sounded so appealing I just had to give it a try. At first I thought this was going to be another book I didn’t really like that much – I didn’t really understand what the three men were doing in the bar, the language felt distant and peculiar, and I just didn’t like the doctor. While I never really liked the doctor, I eventually grew to find the language poetic as I got further into the story and treasured the connections made in the rather strange beginning, as it all came together amazingly well by the end.
It was when the war began that things got interesting, because those events set off the huge changes that beset Maria Antonia and Isabel. When the novel starts, we know that Maria Antonia has inherited Isabel’s house in the present, even though Isabel has a grandson who is coming to stay there and Maria Antonia appears to have been the housekeeper. This immediately made me wonder what had happened, what connection bound these two women that Maria Antonia would be favored over Isabel’s own progeny? It took the whole novel to get there, but I finally found out, and it all made sense in the end, even the title. And along the way we’re treated to lovely prose (the translator did an excellent job here) and a very atmospheric story. I even loved that the time flipped from the past to the present because the contrast between the earlier Spain and the current Spain was marked and fascinating.
This particular novel fits perfectly the type of historical fiction that’s occupying me these days; set in a slightly unusual (for me) location and time with a compelling story to tell and great writing to back it up. It was such a wonderful read that I’m still thinking about it, and I am enthusiastically recommending The Wrong Blood to anyone who enjoys historical fiction. I don’t think you’ll be sorry if you give it a shot.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free through Netgalley for review.
 Anchee Min grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution. She was virtually responsible for her younger siblings since the age of six, as her parents both had to work all day and thus had no time to actually provide for the family. Min grew up an ardent supporter and worshipper of Chairman Mao, even going off to become a peasant in relatively good spirits. It was only love that made her realize there was something wrong with the way her society worked, and which would eventually propel her to leave China and make her home in the West instead.
Since I’ve enjoyed a few fiction books by Anchee Min, I thought I’d read her memoir and see what really happened to her in the midst of Mao’s China. It was certainly a rewarding read, but since I’ve been quite obsessed with the period lately not much about it was actually new – it was just a new perspective on a similar story. It’s always vastly interesting to realize how completely people bought into the Communist mindset, if hard to believe – Min freely admits that she fell a victim to the craziness of the culture as much as anyone else did. It took her a long, long time to realize that life might be better elsewhere – so long that it’s not even in the scope of this book.
At the center of the book is a love story between Min and one of her Communist leaders. While the details are never totally explicit, the eroticism of this bit startled me and a love affair wasn’t quite what I was expecting in the midst of all the strict farming and regulations. She very eloquently demonstrates the fact that only this intense love can inspire minds – at least her mind – to break free of all the conditioning that had been forced into them throughout the years. Anchee Min seized not only on this relationship but on others, feeling them all the more intensely for their forbidden nature.
What was most incredible to me is the fact that Min is precisely the same age as my parents, and that really brought home to me how recent this was. Her life is so vastly different from my parents’ that it’s almost impossible to believe they lived in the same century. Shortly after this I read Chinese Whispers by Jan Wong, which also gave wonderful perspective on this in the light of modern China and how everything has become vastly different again. Min’s own story is set just in the right period to be an absolutely fascinating portrait of all that China was, no matter how brief that period was in their history.
This may not be my favorite account of life in China during the Cultural Revolution, but it was certainly an interesting one. I’d recommend Red Azalea to anyone interested in the period or looking for more on Anchee Min’s life in comparison to her fiction.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 The world has been more or less overtaken by zombies, groaning swaying creatures who exist mainly to feast on the remaining humans’ flesh. “R” is one such, but he occasionally has dreams about what it’s like to be human, and he thinks about who he was even though he can’t quite figure it out. On a raid one day, R sees a girl, Julie, and instead of eating her, decides to save her. He masks her with zombie blood and brings her back to the airport where the zombies live, somehow changed because of her brightness, vivacity, and humanness. Despite the fact that R is a zombie and Julie is a human, things begin to change between them, and R begins to wonder if there might be more to life than his zombie self realised.
I doubt my summary above conveyed this book properly, and I hope you haven’t clicked away, because I loved this book. I mean well and truly loved it, was completely drawn in by it, found passages in it that I liked and actually marked to remember. If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you’ll probably know by the lack of quotes around here that I simply don’t take note of it very often. I’m rarely struck by a particular passage to such an extent that I’ll specifically mark it out – I see them, but I generally just keep on reading. Not here.
What most struck me about the book was the fact that Marion used death in order to define life. It was somehow funny and profound at the exact same time – I knew that this guy was an arm-waving, moaning zombie, Marion cracks jokes regularly about how they try to recapture certain elements of their humanness – but at the same time he’s reminding his readers, reminding me, how actually amazing it is to be alive. And now I’ll shut up and just quote the book:
Sex, once a law as undisputed as gravity, has been disproved. The equation erased, the backboard broken.
Sometimes it’s a relief. I remember the need, the insatiable hunger that ruled my life and the lives of everyone around me. Sometimes I’m glad to be free of it. There’s less trouble now. But our loss of this, the most basic of all human passions, might sum up our loss of everything else. It’s made things quieter. Simpler. And it’s one of the surest signs that we’re dead. (p 25)
It just struck me as so poignant – life, messy as it is, is something that is precious, and now that R has lost it, he realises this.
Of course, this is also something of a love story, if one of the most unusual ones that I’ve ever read. I was doubtful at first, I’ll be honest, because who can imagine a zombie as a hero? I’m already not the world’s biggest fan of paranormal romances. But, rather astonishingly, it works, and it’s not because we forget R is a zombie, either, as we’re reminded of this very often. Instead, it’s because we can see inside his head, and we see how he changes as Julie enters his life. It’s quite a remarkable book. And despite the author’s intro amusingly citing his lack of qualifications, it’s beautifully written, and I was pulled into this post-apocalyptic world without any effort on my part.
Warm Bodies is an astonishingly beautiful book – a reminder of what it is to be human and a touching romance wrapped up in a zombie novel, of all things. It’s also wildly funny at times and even disgusting at others, which also makes it one of the most peculiar books I’ve ever read, but it’s oh so worth it. You truly won’t be sorry you picked this gem up.
One last quote, on this post-apocalyptic world:
What is left of us? the ghosts moan, drifting back into the shadows of my subconscious. No countries, no cultures, no wars but still no peace. What’s at our core, then? What’s still squirming in our bones when everything else is stripped? (p 148)
I am an Amazon Associate. I won this book from the publisher on Twitter.
 Thursday has decided to return to Swindon, although she enjoys her job in the book world. When her son Friday starts speaking Lorem Ipsum she knows she has to return to the real world to raise him. Beyond that, she also wants to find a way to uneradicate her husband, Landen, who has never met his son, and she finds herself in charge of protecting Hamlet. There’s also an all-important croquet match to be won, some time travelling of course, and a few discoveries along the way that make this installment a must-read for fans of the series so far.
I’ve always enjoyed this series, but I think I liked this book better than the rest. I found it a little hard to get into – it’s that adjustment period fitting myself back into Fforde’s world – but once I was in I was hooked, and a bit sorry it had taken me so long to actually get to this particular book. Once I remembered where I was, all those emotional connections came back, and I was really wrapped up in the story, particularly Thursday’s quest to get her husband back. Being apart from the one you love is pretty terrible, and even in a fictional world, the fact that no one remembered him was just heartbreaking.
The story for itself was quite a good one, too, and I just love the huge number of literary references scattered throughout. Hamlet was pretty obviously the big one for this book, although there is quite a memorable scene with the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. Fforde pulls in some historical references too with Thursday’s time traveling father, which obviously just pulled me in even further; there isn’t much I like better than fantasy AND history in one book! Especially when the book has an ending as wonderful as this one did – I’m almost not sure I want to go to the next one, but I’m also very curious about what happens next.
This is a bit of a short review as I’m never sure where to go with series books that I’ve already reviewed some of, so I’ll just leave you by saying I enjoyed Something Rotten very much. The whole Thursday Next series is wonderful for those who enjoy fantasy or science fiction and, of course, books.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 Bartholomew Fortuno is one of several regular acts at P T Barnum’s American Museum in New York City. He is the stereotypical thin man; he eats virtually nothing to the point where his bones and organs are clearly delineated beneath his skin. He doesn’t see his act as mere human fascination with the grotesque; instead he hopes to connect with those in the audience by showing them their true nature. When a mysterious new act, a woman with a beard, arrives at the museum, Bartholomew finds himself enthralled and abandons his old friends in favor of the new woman. When he discovers that she isn’t what she seems, he’s forced to reevaluate his entire life and career.
Unfortunately this is a book I just felt rather “meh” about. It’s made it very difficult to write this review. I was quite excited by the prospect of it at first. I’m really interested in the history of the circus and just read quite an interesting non-fiction YA book on Tom Thumb, who was a figure at the American Museum, so I was eager to enjoy this exciting era through fiction. I wasn’t quite as enthralled as I’d hoped, but I did enjoy the book overall.
In some ways, it did live up to what I expected of it. I was fascinated by the way that Bartholomew defines himself through his physical self, the way his thinness and unnatural lack of hunger has changed the way he’s lived his life. He almost gets arrogant about his body, convinced that he’s truly something special, rather than a man who starves himself to become a freak that is gawked at by countless people every day. It led me to wonder if that was how I’d cope, should this have been my life. Would I too ascribe such importance to my physical dimensions and give myself airs because I exposed some part of human nature others couldn’t see in themselves? I don’t know, but it was quite fascinating.
As a result of his arrogance, though, I didn’t really ever come to like Fortuno. I hated his fixation with the bearded lady, his refusal to see the world as it really was. He truly gets airs about himself and neglects his friends – people who genuinely care about him – in favor of this woman who really doesn’t care what happens to him. He is completely out of touch with reality, which is an essential facet of his character but made him so hard to like.
There isn’t much else to this novel beyond Fortuno’s slow reevaluation of the world around him, which makes it a bit of a slow read, but it is nevertheless interesting. I particularly enjoyed the thorough imagining of the American Museum. It really helped me picture what it might have been to live there, especially as one of the exhibits. I felt for many of those who weren’t Bartholomew, and I wished for their lives to get better and for them to escape the exploitation.
Though I think The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno could have been more, it was still an enjoyable read. I would recommend it to anyone else who is interested in thinking about the origins of the circus or New York City in the mid 19th century.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the publisher for review.
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