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 As a young girl, Jane Maxwell was in love with Thomas Fraser, and they go so far as to declare their engagement. But Thomas goes to war and is reported dead, to Jane’s dismay and her mother’s glee. In his absence, encouraged by family and friends, she marries Alexander, Duke of Gordon, and goes on to become a famous patroness of the arts and a political activist. Thomas, however, is not dead, and Jane spends her life torn between the man she has always loved and the man with whom she has a family.
This is quite an ambitious work of historical fiction. I so appreciated the depth and complexity of it and the historical picture that Ciji Ware creates here. Jane travels between England and Scotland and I really got a feel for both of them in the late eighteenth century. Jane herself is a powerful woman and I really liked her. For all that she had trouble choosing between men, she was a figure to be reckoned with in politics and consistently knew her own mind in many respects. The book is long, but I was sucked in after fifty pages and really enjoyed it. It has a nice sweeping, epic feel to it, like these characters are important and usually doing important things.
I similarly appreciated the author’s research. I liked knowing that she’d read Jane’s letters and tried to find the mysterious man that she references as her childhood love. She filled in the missing pieces, but it’s nice to know that the real life Jane struggled with the same issues that the fictional Jane did. I also appreciated the variety of historical characters that poke their heads into the story, like Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire and Robert Burns, the Scottish poet.
It’s not a perfect read, though. It is very bawdy; it seems like all the characters are featured in at least one sex scene with a variety of different people. Some of it furthers the plot, but a lot of it feels unnecessary, and leaves me wondering if this sort of explicit writing was in favor in historical fiction when the book was originally published. I was often frustrated with the misunderstandings that the characters had, but I could recognize where their difficulties came from even if I wanted Alex to open up and Jane to stop mooning constantly over Thomas.
In the end, I really enjoyed Island of the Swans. It has its faults, but there is a great story here with well-developed characters and dilemmas. I would definitely recommend it to other historical fiction lovers.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the publisher for review.
 Matilda’s small island of Bougainville is at war. The redskins are invaders and many of the young men from her village are engaged in fighting them; she lives her life constantly tense and alert, deprived of many of the privileges she experienced in her youth. There is no electricity, no running water, no schools, and the villagers must live off the land. There is just one white man left in the village, and eventually he takes initiative and starts a school. His teaching consists mainly of reading Great Expectations aloud to the class, and Matilda for the first time discovers the power of literature.
For the most part, I really enjoyed this book. I absolutely loved when the teacher, Mr Watts, began reading Great Expectations. It was just magical to see Matilda learn about stepping outside of her life for the first time, and she remarks that she feels like she knows Pip and is completely bound up in his story. She felt like a kindred spirit after that. The book started out so charming. The war parts, however, made me distinctly uncomfortable and sad, as one might expect, so the book was certainly not all a joy, and it’s hard to say I enjoy people being hacked into pieces. It all seems to happen very abruptly, especially when I realized that the author was trying to convey a message about morality. He asks us to consider what a good person is and what a good person does, and the result was quite shocking and upsetting.
I much preferred the parts on the island to the end of the book, but I appreciated that too. I can understand why Mister Pip was shortlisted for the Booker prize. It’s such a compelling tale about the power of story and really looks at the consequences of our actions, the horror of war, and simple goodness. I was really surprised by what I got out of this slim volume, and I definitely recommend it.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 Lady Penelope Staines is the subject of Eloise’s research this time. Penelope and her husband Frederick, unwillingly married due to a compromising situation, head to India where the political situation is very unsteady. On their way to Frederick’s posting, the couple meet Captain Alex Reid, a British man born and raised in India, convinced that these inexperienced aristocrats are going to be ineffectual. In Penelope, however, Alex finds a courageous woman who has been damaged by years of criticism, far from his expectations.
I really enjoy this series and The Betrayal of the Blood Lily was no exception. The series’s change of location, even if temporary, is totally refreshing and brings in a new political atmosphere. I’ve read a few books set in India lately and this was a different time period, so I appreciated more history. I also felt like, even though this one restores the sex scene to the romance, this is more historical fiction than romance. The romance is certainly present, and very sweet, but there is also quite a bit of intrigue in the Indian court as well as Penelope’s painful relationship with her reluctant husband. It takes a little bit to get used to the different setting, but it’s worth it.
As usual, the modern day storyline with Eloise and Colin is somewhat less interesting. Not much happens, except that they’re still together. It’s hard not to feel for Eloise because she’s a charming character, and I too can imagine very little better than having the ability to delve through historical letters and documents for a day. She finds out some disturbing facts about Colin’s family but not much changes in her own personal or academic life.
I’m left wondering when this series is going to end, but as long as Willig keeps producing stories that are alternately fun and emotional, I’m going to keep reading them.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 Newly married Viktor and Liesel Landauer want to build a house for themselves, but not just any house. Viktor is the head of a huge car company in their newly created Czechoslovakia of the 1920’s, and they want a completely modern, free building, sparing them from the confines of heavy castles and palaces. In that house, the centerpiece is the Glass Room, a space filled with windows, light, and purity. Those windows, however, cannot restore light to the souls of the people who live and eventually work within the house, setting their darkness of spirit in sharp contrast with the beauty of the room itself.
Everything fits perfectly together in this book. The language is beautiful, the plot is interesting and ends perfectly, and the characters are multi-faceted and interesting. It highlights an obviously important period in history but from the slightly different viewpoint of the various ethnic groups in Czechoslovakia, living in a country constructed by a treaty and consistently struck with severe issues. There’s a lot of fiction (and, obviously, non-fiction) about World War II and its aftermath out there and I think this book took another angle to distinguish itself, and it worked.
It was interesting that eventually, while their house is occupied by others, Viktor and Liesel lead the strange life of exiles from Nazi Germany and the countries they’ve taken over. I can’t recall if I ever read a book about where the rich went when they fled, but it was interesting, especially when they tried to move again to a more permanent home and had to deal with other countries’ stupid prejudice. As we know in the beginning, they make it through. It isn’t all sunshine and roses for the characters, though, as those left behind endure the incredibly difficult experiences forced upon them by Nazi occupation and imprisonment in concentration camps.
I also really liked that the house itself was almost a character in the book. It’s used for different purposes throughout, but everyone has their own relationship with it. It makes them feel certain ways, reminds them of their lives – in certain ways, the house’s open spaces tempt them to do what they might not do otherwise. It’s an interesting dynamic.
I can definitely see why The Glass Room was nominated for the Booker Prize. It exposes the darkness and the light within people, while exploring an interesting and slightly different aspect of a war that impacted so much of our culture. Very worth reading.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from a publicist for review.
 Daniel Rooke’s childhood is miserable; as a smart boy born to poor parents in eighteenth century England, doors eventually open for him but he constantly struggles to fit in. In 1788 he seizes the chance to go on a mission to New South Wales as an astronomer, hoping to finally break out of his position in the lowly marines and become a scientist. That doesn’t quite happen; instead, in his solitary makeshift observatory, Rooke forges a friendship with the Aborigines, one in particular, that has an astonishing effect on his worldview and brings into sharp focus the issues with British imperialism.
The Lieutenant is a short, quick read, but no less affecting for all that. The book is written in third person and the beginning went very quickly, which made me feel somewhat detached and a bit frustrated, but as soon as Rooke is in the war, I was immensely wrapped up in his story. His journey to Australia was outright fascinating. More than anything, it showed the arrogance of the British soldiers, convinced that the natives would immediately like what they had to bring, want to hang around them, and be grateful for their company even after they were forcibly captured! I was astonished. I knew this sort of thing happened in the Americas but it still made me so angry.
Luckily, Rooke shared my feelings, and I loved the friendship he shared with the native girl and his diligent attempts to learn their language for the sake of speaking to them, not to become famous like one of the other crew members. I really felt that he was trying to understand them and he treated them like the people that they were. He was just a really admirable, clever man, and even though I couldn’t entirely get inside his head, I got enough of his intentions to really like him, and his actions were above reproach as long as he knew what he was doing.
I did think the beginning and the end were brief and sort of disappointing and detached, but in my opinion the entire book was worth it for that great middle section when Rooke tries to learn about another culture without imposing his own Britishness on it. He’s clearly rebuked when he does. I was happy to learn that it was based on a true story and a soldier did attempt to learn the language from a young native girl, although the author says clearly it’s fiction and should not be taken as history. Even so, knowing that at least one man attempted to understand, rather than oppress and change, makes for a great story and reminds us that some people do buck the trend of history.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the publishers for review.
 What happens when we make a choice? How do we decide which brand of jam we want in the supermarket, or what to do when we’re piloting a crashing plane and have no instructions on how to save the day? Jonah Lehrer takes a look at how we make decisions. He examines which parts of our brains do what and how we fall into traps based on how our brains are constructed. Using clear examples and fascinating, well-documented facts, Lehrer examines how we can use all of our instincts as well as our rational minds to make the best choices for ourselves.
This book was totally and completely fascinating. I didn’t really know what to expect from it except that I’d like to know more about how my brain works. Lehrer seriously delivers on his promise. His book is not too heavy on the science and I’m sure real brain function is a lot more complicated, but he distilled it down into a series of examples and explanations that I could understand and relate to what he was saying. I kept exclaiming over how true various parts were and had to read them aloud to my husband so he could get them too. I also made him read it right after I did because I just found it all so fascinating.
Let me take an example that relates directly to me. In one of the chapters, Lehrer discusses how children are taught and how the education system has it somewhat backwards. Kids are praised for their intelligence, not for their efforts. He cites studies that show that children who are praised for working hard do consistently work hard and take on tougher challenges, while kids who are praised for being smart are so afraid of failing and proving that praise wrong that they choose to do easier tasks in order to maintain their projection of intelligence. Lehrer says that this is wrong because our brain learns by making mistakes – screw up once or twice, and you’ve learned something. If you don’t screw up, you don’t improve. This is so true because all my life, I’d been praised for my intelligence, and once my intelligence didn’t cut it, I felt like a failure, just as he describes. Working hard solved the problem, but I didn’t think that I had to – after all, I was smart. Mistakes are important and that’s not something we learn.
He also explains why gambling is so addictive, why Deal or No Deal is actually a fascinating insight into how the brain works, why political pundits are often wrong (and how some of them manage to be correct), and even helps to explain the credit card debt problem, as apparently our brains have a smaller sense of loss when using plastic than when using cash, so the reward of buying something seems proportionally more important. The endnotes provide plenty of references to the studies he cites, and he looks at real life examples of decision makers who rely on both instinct (their emotional brain) and conscious thought to make choices. He examines when each are important and emphasizes the importance of taking time out to mull on important decisions, as your unconscious brain will be busily figuring out the problem for you.
Mostly, Lehrer encourages us to think, to question our beliefs, understand when we make mistakes, and try to consider everything from all angles. Sometimes it’s best to rely on your feelings, like when you’re choosing jam or playing football, and sometimes it’s best to consider why you feel that way, like when you’re choosing a political party or faced with an out of control forest fire. Overall, The Decisive Moment was compelling reading. I learned so much and I can’t imagine anyone not gaining from this book.
This title is known as How We Decide in the USA. I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free for review from the publisher.
 Legendary food critic Pierre Arthens is dying, but he doesn’t want his family or friends at his deathbed. No, he wants to isolate the food that he needs to taste one more time before he goes. And so he searches his memories of his life, trying to find that moment which is eluding his grasp. Meanwhile, his friends and family reflect on him, his attitude towards them, and their feelings, and it becomes clear that this book isn’t really about food, after all.
One thing is certain; this book will make you very, very hungry. Unfortunately I don’t have it with me as I’m writing this review, but its descriptions of the food that Pierre has eaten are lush and amazing, and he eats everything from huge rustic meals to the most refined fare at restaurants. I was wondering if food critics really examined their food in such detail, but then I figured they must. I enjoy Barbery’s writing, assuming my translation is fluid, and so reading this book was very pleasant for me.
I didn’t think it was as good as The Elegance of the Hedgehog, though. There were no insights that I felt applied to my own life outside the book, if that makes sense, aside from maybe showing love towards people that I love, which I think most normal people do anyway. Pierre’s character just never rose above his neglect of family and friends in search of food, and it becomes clear that he’s deprived himself of all the love that he could have had, and deprived his children and wife of a proper husband and father. He’s extremely self-absorbed and the only thing he really loves is food. His realizations all came a little too late for me to appreciate them, and I found I enjoyed the other characters’ chapters more than his, even if I did enjoy reading about his culinary delights. I could really feel for the other characters and it was fun to see a few from Hedgehog turn up to talk about Pierre, since he’s the one that dies early on in that book.
The Gourmet is so short, however, that it’s probably worth a read even if you don’t like Pierre. I’d definitely recommend it for food lovers in particular, and for anyone who has already enjoyed Barbery’s work.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free for review from the publisher.
 It’s with great pleasure that I bring to you one of my favorite authors, Edith Wharton, for my turn on the Classics Circuit!
Undine Spragg manages to convince her parents to move from Apex to New York City, where she’s hoping to make a brilliant entrance into society with a rich husband. Undine is a deadly combination of beautiful, selfish, and ignorant, capable of turning herself into what almost any man desires the most. She is horribly spoiled and incapable of understanding the consequences of her actions, but they are all too clear to the reader as she storms through the lives of people who wish to believe better of her.
Undine is one nasty character. I couldn’t believe how selfish she was. And Wharton doesn’t pull her punches, she lets us feel the impact that Undine has by focusing on several other characters whose lives she irrevocably changes, damages, or destroys. One of the most heartbreaking passages occurs at the end and I could really see how much damage she’d done, and how much more she wanted to do.
I thought it was interesting, though, that she can be seen as completely a product of her society. Even though her father originally was poor and became rich when she was a child, she was never denied anything, and thus sees no reason to ever be denied anything. Her first society husband is forced to work at a career he hates and is bad at to support her extravagances even though she also receives an allowance from her father, and she still complains that he isn’t getting enough. But he never tells her about his hardships, just like her father never told her where the money came from, so she still doesn’t seem to understand. At times, she reminded me of a beautiful, vapid child, incapable of truly understanding the world in which she lives. She doesn’t seem to realize that she’s hurting people. She focuses constantly on the injustice done to her and on the jealousy she feels towards other women who she sees as having more. She has an education, but it seems to have taught her absolutely nothing. I had to wonder if Wharton saw society women as children given that she chose to portray this woman so much like one.
And so Undine leaves male carnage in her wake as she moves on to the next husband and the next husband. I despised her and felt bad for her husbands and child even as I was fascinated by what she’d do next. As usual I loved the portrait of society through Undine, and all the people wasting their time with niceties and social frivolity and missing out on the big picture. I especially felt for Undine’s first husband, Ralph, who sees her as something pure and different and malleable, only to realize that Undine wanted to mold herself after the people he found to be fakes. He seemed to get to the core of the society in which he could not flourish because he recognized how superficial it all was. He sees the cracks, and through him, Undine’s other husbands, and through despising Undine, I could see the cracks too.
While this isn’t toppling The Age of Innocence from its throne as my favorite Wharton (nor Ethan Frome from #2 slot and yes, I do have a hierarchy, is that odd?), I’m definitely glad I read it. The Custom of the Country was such an interesting book and it made me think about relations between men and women, how they were, and how they’ve changed.
 Two boys, Julian Cain and Tom Wellwood, are wandering around a half-completed museum in London when they come across a third boy, Philip Warren, drawing the museum’s sculptures. He has fled from his family and his life in the horrible pottery factories, and the Wellwood family takes him in and finds him a place with Benedict Fludd, a strange and temperamental sculptor. At first glance, all of these families appear happy, particularly the large Wellwood family with successful children’s book author Olive Wellwood and her banker husband Humphry at its head. As the years go by, however, and the children grow up and learn the realities of the world, they understand that their childhood was an illusion as paper thin as Olive’s fairy tales.
I loved this book. I don’t think everyone will love it; it’s a long, dense book, more a portrait of family and art than anything with a plot. Although, to be honest, I didn’t think the descriptions of pots were as boring as everyone says, and there weren’t as many as I’d expected, either. I loved the intricate detail and the thought that went into this book. I felt it was such a gorgeous picture of late Victorian England, and Edwardian England, and even, heartbreakingly, World War I era England. It was a full picture of a society both different from our own and becoming our own. Honestly, I could live in this book’s atmosphere, even if I wouldn’t particularly want to live in a time where options for women were so limited.
I adored the children in each of their various ways and was fascinated by their coming-of-ages. There are so many different strands with each of them in the novel and their fates are all bound up together. I was riveted by Dorothy’s determination to become a doctor, for example, and I completely admired her ambition and devotion to science. I cheered on her success. I longed for the happiness of Elsie and Philip, two children seriously disadvantaged by their upbringing. I was torn by Tom’s story, and didn’t understand why his mother didn’t understand. In short, each of the characters has their own plot arcs, and some are heartbreaking, while some are joyful.
Closing the book with the effects of World War I makes the entire rest of the book feel idyllic. I felt as though I was feeling what the British must have felt as they sent their sons off to die, each with their own life story as these character possess, and I found the entire last section absolutely heartbreaking. Here is a book that depicts the horrors of war, how each life is cut off abruptly with no preparation and no ending. It’s easy to see how this changed England and this book brought it home to me.
I’m not sure I loved The Children’s Book as much as I loved Possession, but the more I think about it, the more I think that might be possible. It has made this review hard to write because I can’t pin down exactly why. But I’ve tried, and if you have the patience for this, I believe it will reward you immensely.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book from the Amazon Vine program for review.
 Lady Callista Taillefaire has been jilted three times and no longer expects to get married. All she wants is to go along with her engaged sister and raise her animals in peace for the rest of her single life. That’s until her childhood sweetheart, Trevelyan, the duc de Monceaux, returns to tend his ailing mother after years in France. She hasn’t forgotten the feelings she had for him, or the way her now deceased father insisted that their relationship was expressly forbidden. To make Callie’s life even stranger, her first ex-fiance returns to plague her, and her cousin gambles away her prized heifer Hubert, leaving her wondering in which direction her life is going to head next.
I have enjoyed Laura Kinsale’s books in the past, and was expecting another dark, passionate tale. Instead, I got a light and funny book, with humor and flirtatiousness between the characters that genuinely sparkled whenever they interacted. It turns out that Kinsale is just as good at writing lighter romances and this book did not disappoint in any way. It was as sweet and touching as it was hilarious by turns.
I liked Callie’s character; she’s somewhat on the shelf at 27, and even believes that she’s unlikely to have a baby at all because she’s so old (I laughed at this), and since she’s been jilted three times, all the men around clearly believe there’s something wrong with her. I really felt for her, as it must be so hard to be rejected over and over again in a world where marriage and babies were seen as the primary goals of women. She’s awkward but she’s sweet and it’s clear that she really cares for Trev. Although, I have to say, if you haven’t seen someone for ten years, can they still qualify as your best friend? I don’t know, but I did like that they had a friendship. It’s also hard not to love someone who loves animals, even if her preference leans towards cows.
I also liked that Trev had a genuine grievance and reason for not proposing to Callie when he wants to. There tends to be a big misunderstanding that fizzles out to nothing, but here they really had a problem, and I appreciated how it was solved. There isn’t much else to the plot, the focus is solely on the romance, but Lessons in French is a wonderful addition to the genre. I sincerely hope Laura Kinsale doesn’t leave such a long wait for her next romance!
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the publisher for review.
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