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 I almost did! The deadline is this Wednesday and it’s a good thing I had a look.
For those who don’t know, BBAW is a celebration of books and book bloggers. There are awards, theme days, and all sorts of good stuff going on. I was on course to help out in a big way this year, but soon realized that with my job I wouldn’t have the time to do everything else in my life (and, as I worked nearly 60 hours this week, which is by no means normal but certainly draining, I probably made the right choice). I wasn’t sure if I was going to enter, but then as I was filling out the registration, I figured it wouldn’t hurt.
I had a quick look and historical fiction – amazingly – still comes out on top for the genres I’ve been reading this year. The genre has definitely served me well in the past, so I’m not going to change that this time. I’m submitting the following five reviews for consideration:
I chose a mix of positive and negative. I’m not really holding out too much hope this year, but no point not entering. One thing’s for sure – I can’t wait until September 13th!
Can you believe that it’s July? I certainly can’t; months seem to be flying by these days!
I’ve done pretty well with my reading this month. I managed 18 books, so I’ve read a little more than half a book every day. I think that’s pretty good; I have no idea how I’m managing it, but I’m pleased with this rate and I hope I can manage it. I think I’d have managed to read even more if I hadn’t spent most of the last three days of the month working!
I won’t be doing a genre breakdown today; I don’t have my spreadsheet with me so it isn’t as easy as normal. I’ll just list them instead.
- Eden Springs, Laura Kasischke
- Day for Night, Frederick Reiken
- Wild Romance, Chloe Schama
- Flirting with Forever, Gwyn Cready
- The Mistress of Nothing, Kate Pullinger
- The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, Bill Bryson
- Shiver, Maggie Stiefvater
- Magic Bleeds, Ilona Andrews
- Girl in Translation, Jean Kwok
- The Confessions of Catherine de Medici, C.W. Gortner
- Ten Things I Love About You, Julia Quinn
- The Blue Orchard, Jackson Taylor
- The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, Kelly O’Connor McNees
- Dragon Haven, Robin Hobb
- Katherine, Anchee Min
- The Radleys, Matt Haig
- Don’t Tempt Me, Loretta Chase
- The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight, Gina Ochsner
I actually had a few disappointments this month, so my favorites are very easy to choose! I’ll have to go with The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger and The Confessions of Catherine de Medici by C.W. Gortner for making historical fiction interesting again. I definitely recommend both of those.
I’m not sure what I’ll be reading in July. I have two weeks off to visit my parents, so I’m sure I’ll get some read, but I’m going to leave my choices up to the whim of the moment!
Do you have any summer reading plans?
 Katherine is an American, one of the first to arrive in China when they begin to open up to the world in the 1980’s. Zebra is a Chinese woman who has had a tragically difficult life; she’s spent her childhood laboring with peasants and being regularly raped by her supervisor. She’s been transferred to a city temporarily to work in a factory and there she meets Katherine, her English teacher. All of Katherine’s students are fascinated with her, attracted to her, and eventually fall in love with her, especially the men. China isn’t easy on foreigners, though, and Katherine and Zebra are on course to learn that in one of the worst ways.
Ever since I read Pearl of China a few months ago, I’ve been eager to read more by Anchee Min. I got this secondhand a while ago and since it’s her first novel, I thought it was a good place to step back to and start again with her work. Unfortunately, I think I was wrong, because I simply didn’t like this book very much at all.
Perhaps I’m just being a little too prudish, but it bothered me how much the Chinese characters took advantage of Katherine. They played on her innocence regularly, knowing she wouldn’t understand, and it felt to me like they were leering at her constantly. I can understand a lot of the fascination on both their behalves, but the whole book just gave off too much of a sexual vibe, like they were constantly taking advantage of Katherine and sometimes one another. I didn’t really like Katherine, I felt she was childish and too susceptible to temptation, and when she tried to adopt a child I just got frustrated. I didn’t think she was at all mature enough to take care of a little girl. To top it off, some things were discussed frequently which in my opinion should probably be kept a little more quiet.
It’s a shame because I think it could have been an interesting book; after all, Zebra is learning a lot about what was kept from her during the Communist regime in China. I think her mind could have been expanded in different ways, rather than solely through this sort of obsessive sexuality. It definitely didn’t live up to my expectations. I didn’t even like the way it was written, which tells me that Min’s writing has advanced quite a bit in the past fifteen years. Some of the strange comparisons stick out in my head; she compared cracked lips to potato chips, for example, which didn’t really help me visualize anything besides a person with potato chips for lips.
In the end Katherine was a pretty big disappointment, but it hasn’t put me off reading more by Anchee Min. I think I’ll try some of her novels set in an earlier China; since I enjoyed Pearl of China, I may get on with those a bit better.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 Verna Krone leaves school after eighth grade to help her family get by. She’s sent to help out at a farm, where the master of the house leers at her and she misses her family regularly. She doesn’t stay long, though, and through a series of jobs moves herself up in the world until she makes a connection that enables her to become a nurse. Verna sees her true purpose in life as helping people and somehow she ends up helping a well-respected black doctor perform abortions, a profession that at this point in history could never lead to anything good.
This book was incredibly compelling for me from beginning to end. We find out right at the start that Verna is helping the doctor with his abortions, then head back into the past to learn about her life and how she got there. Hers is really a very sad story of a woman constantly used and mistreated by men, which makes her hard and often unyielding – it’s no wonder she wants to help other women get out of their mistakes. She has enough bad relationships to make anyone wary of men.
I loved that this was essentially a true story rewritten in fiction. Part of me wondered if it would have actually been better as non-fiction, but I think it did its job really well. It does contain a number of little messages within; first and foremost that money isn’t really all that brings happiness. I think that, for most people, this is pretty obvious, but Verna was poor for so long that she truly thought money would solve her problems. It also focuses a lot on local politics towards the middle and end and the level of corruption was extremely depressing. I know these political machines existed to gain votes, but that doesn’t always make them easy.
The novel also deals with racial politics, especially at the end. Because Verna is white, she receives natural advantages, even when she’s poor. This is contrasted drastically with the doctor, who is black, and they have a number of uncomfortable interactions where the reader can simply feel the prejudice between them, the wrongness of it, and a desire to eradicate it.
Taylor’s choice to write the story in first person made Verna as a character very easy to feel close to despite her faults. I kept hoping for her life to get better, for her to learn a bit more about the good side of life, but she’s constantly battered on all sides. I did wish that we could have known a little more about the older Verna, when she became the author’s grandmother. Instead it ends just before that. But I think it’s a good sign that I was eager for more, to see how Verna kept on changing and growing as a person even into old age.
The Blue Orchard is a fascinating book that explores many issues of its time effectively and compelling. It’s the perfect historical fiction choice for those interested in a variety of aspects of postwar American life and I’d definitely recommend it.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the publisher for review.
 This book is the sequel to Dragon Keeper. The books are virtually one story, so read that one first (and before you read this review!)
The dragons and their keepers continue their slow and perilous journey up the Rain Wilds river. As they journey closer to the land they hope is fabled Kelsingra, the secrets that the small society has kept from each other are finally coming clear. Thymara is astonished to discover that her fellow marked Rain Wilders are blatantly defying the rules of their society back in Trehaug and for the first time realizes that she can be more than just a strange-looking girl who should have been killed at birth. She also grows closer to Alise, former Bingtown lady, who also has a few uncomfortable truths about her life to face on the journey.
Robin Hobb is one of my favorite fantasy authors. I really enjoyed Dragon Keeper but I was disappointed that it ended so abruptly – it was pretty clear to me that the two were truly meant to be one book. So I wasn’t surprised that this picked up exactly where the last left off; it followed through really well and successfully concluded this story and in turn the story of the dragons which had really begun in the Liveship Traders trilogy. This is perfectly understandable even if you haven’t read that trilogy, though; it’s just a matter of added depth and richness to Hobb’s world.
This is a book I was thrilled to sink my teeth into. I love living in Robin Hobb’s worlds and I could have happily spent way more than 500 pages immersed in this one. The characters are always so interesting and engaging and that’s especially so in this one. Their disputes really come to a head and all secrets from the first book are finally revealed and even developed further.
This book is really about the women; Thymara and Alise each find their freedom in different ways. They’re equally trapped by society before the embark on their journey; Thymara is so heavily marked that she’s forever an outcast, forbidden love, children, or a normal life and considered an abomination. Alise, on the other hand, is stifled by fitting in perfectly, by marrying a man she did not love and who did not love her but who was an excellent catch nonetheless. By traveling with the dragons, both women find themselves and embrace their freedom to be who they want to be, not who society says they should be.
Robin Hobb continues to produce writing that is genuinely amongst the best in epic fantasy today. Honestly, I wish I could read all of her books over again for the first time. Dragon Keeper and Dragon Haven together make up a wonderful duology and one that I will happily recommend to all who enjoy fantasy.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the Amazon Vine program.
 Since I just finished Don’t Tempt Me by Loretta Chase, which was quite disappointing, I thought this was the ideal time for a Sunday Salon post. I haven’t had much time on the weekends; we’ve been busy readying up our old flat for sale or rent (we still haven’t decided yet) and since it’s a six hour round trip, sitting in the car has taken up a lot of my weekends by itself!
All the traveling has given us a good chance to see a few of the sights along the way, though. Last weekend, we finally went to visit Bosworth Field, which is where the Battle of Bosworth happened and the Wars of the Roses ended. I have always wanted to go there and I was particularly excited now that they’ve officially found the battlefield. Unfortunately, the battlefield is actually on a private farm and ordinary visitors aren’t allowed. Instead, there’s a visitor’s centre which talks about the time period, the battle, and its aftermath, with some archaeological artifacts at the end. To make the disappointment worse, half of the artifacts, including ALL of the cannonballs and gunshot, were gone for research. I’m all in support of research, but did they really have to take all of it? There wasn’t even anything to take a picture of.
We also recently went to Hardwick Hall, which was a vastly more interesting place. It’s one of the estates built by Bess of Hardwick and it was truly an amazing place; we had less than an hour there and we definitely plan to go back, especially since I didn’t have my camera. I’ve now acquired Bess of Hardwick from the library; once I’ve read that, we’ll also go to Chatsworth. Having historical background in mind always makes visiting historic places even better, don’t you think?
I plan to spend the rest of the day catching up on reviews; I’m working overtime two days this week so I doubt I will have much energy for blogging the other three! In two weeks, though, we’ll be off visiting my parents in the United States, so I’m looking forward to the break. After that, I’ll probably begin reading The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight, and I also need to read Skeletons at the Feast this week for next weekend’s book club. That might just be it, though!
What are you planning to read this week?
 Young Louisa May Alcott dreams of becoming a writer. She’s already published stories and dreams of making her living with her pen, but her father’s situation necessitates a move to the tiny town of Walpole, New Hampshire. Her family is forced to live on the charity of others due to her father’s refusal to work, but the four Alcott girls are still welcomed by the local townspeople. The young people, naturally, form their own groups, and within them a number of love stories take place. For Louisa, the young shopkeeper Joseph represents a different life, but she struggles to fit her love for him in with her aspirations as a writer.
I expected to love this book since it seems almost everyone I know has. I did enjoy it, but I definitely failed to fall in love with it. I loved Little Women as a child; it was the first novel I ever managed to read and I’ve read it countless times since then. I still hadn’t had any idea that the family was based on Alcott’s own, in some respects, but I clearly recognized many of the characters and enjoyed that connection in particular. I was, of course, one of the many girls who couldn’t understand why Jo didn’t marry Laurie (yep, I was a romantic when I was eight years old), but I could understand Louisa’s decisions here.
Louisa’s father Bronson was easily the most irritating character of the book for me. He lectures his daughters and his wife on proper behavior and tries to inspire his “values” in them, but despite his perfectly able-bodied status he refuses to work and instead spends days in his study reading and writing. Not for profit, of course; work is somehow not appropriate for him but it’s fine for his daughters to go off and earn money to support his lifestyle. It all made me quite angry, especially that the women were in such a position that they couldn’t leave him to suffer along on his own as they should have done.
I liked the romances and the community of young people; I thought it was all sweet and well done, even if I already knew how it was all going to end due to knowing a little about Alcott’s life. Knowing the ending of the book had no influence on how I felt about the middle bit, even if I did wish Louisa would run off to be with Joseph. I really wanted more of the genuine historical background; I understand that Alcott burned her letters
To be honest I’m not sure why I didn’t love it; I felt it was lacking something, but it’s hard to put my finger on it. I feel I should have enjoyed more a book with such strong literary and historical ties. Though I can recommend The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, especially to fans of Little Women, I wish I had felt towards it what everyone else seems to.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the Amazon Vine program.
 Kim and her mother arrive in the United States from Hong Kong only to discover that nothing is what they’d expected. Kim’s aunt has paid for their passage and their green cards, but she doesn’t allow them to stay in her home, instead putting them in a falling down apartment, charging them excessive rent, and deducting huge portions of their wages for the immigration costs. Kim not only has to help her mother at work in the evenings but struggles along at school; she’s used to excelling but the difficulty of learning English and the strange environment makes her life very uncomfortable. As she adjusts to her new environment, she soon learns that she has to choose between her dreams and her love.
I was actually really surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I managed to read it in one day – a work day, no less – and I found myself thinking about it constantly. I’ve always been interested in stories about immigrants to the US, no matter when they happened, and this was not at all an exception. I was very interested in the contrasts between Kim’s and her mother’s attempts to keep their native culture alive – the holidays they celebrated, the food they ate – and her attempts to learn English and navigate the American school system, which is difficult enough for those of us who do speak English and grew up in the US.
The difference is especially highlighted in Kim’s clothing. She and her mother are so poor that her mother for a time continues to make her clothing. Her lack of traditional bra and panties causes her a huge amount of embarrassment when the other girls can see her and reluctantly, they’re forced to spend the money on store-made underwear so the mocking stops.
The difference between her time at school and work in the factory with her mother also show how different the two experiences are; Kim’s one school friend just doesn’t believe that such illegal factory work can exist. It made me sad that they moved to the US for a better life, yet Kim’s mother could never even dream of being a music teacher again.
I think what I liked best about the book, though, was Kim herself. Her narration is written excellently and really drew me in. She grows up and changes throughout the book, earning her way to the status she deserved; yet her voice is still believably modest even as she outperforms all of the other students. Her emotions are so well realized; when she fell in love, I very clearly remembered what it was like myself, and I felt her pain at times like it was my own.
Girl in Translation is a poignant story about a girl who must find her way in a foreign culture and prove her true potential to her new country. I very much enjoyed it and I would certainly recommend it to someone who enjoys the classic immigrant story.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the publisher for review.
 Catherine de Medici is just a girl with a little too much life experience when she leaves her home of Italy to be married to the French king’s son, Henri. Wondering and hoping for the best from her marriage, Catherine is dismayed to discover that her new husband has a mistress intent on keeping his attention away from her. With her status at stake, Catherine must make sacrifices to take control of her life, but they are sacrifices which only strengthen her for the extraordinary role she must take in the lives of her children and her adopted country, France.
Even though I really enjoyed C.W. Gortner’s last work, The Last Queen, I was worried how I was going to react to this one. I’ve mentioned my recent disaffection with historical fiction quite a lot, but since I so recently loved The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger, I thought it might be time to give it a try. And I was right – I loved this book. I thought about it when I wasn’t reading it and I fully enjoyed immersion in it throughout its 400 pages. Gortner has penned another winner and I’m glad I didn’t wait one minute longer to read it.
Making Catherine de Medici, one of history’s favorite villains, a sympathetic character is an impressive feat, but Gortner does just that. Charting her growth from naive girl to married princess to crowned queen to mother and regent allows him to give her life perspective which is rarely achieved in other works that target the same time period but focus on different characters. As a result, we can see how and why she acts the way she does, and with these believable motives in place, her character shifts and she becomes a character we can relate to instead of a conniving queen, even if she might appear that way to others.
I also really enjoyed the settings; I could picture sixteenth century France and its many troubles easily. A number of important historic events happen during Catherine’s reign as queen, most notably the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, and the struggle between the Huguenots and the Catholics was, for me, well portrayed, and captured a lot of the frustrations and violence which seethed through France and its neighboring countries at the time. So much was happening that the book never slows down or feels boring; whether it’s Catherine’s personal life in turmoil or the country itself, something is always going on to keep the reader entertained and captivated.
The Confessions of Catherine de Medici was surprisingly just as excellent as I’d hoped, and I think it’s an excellent choice for other lovers of historical fiction – even if, like me, you are a bit unhappy with the genre as a whole. C.W. Gortner is an amazing writer and you’ll find me lining up for his next book ASAP.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
 This is book four in the Kate Daniels series. For the first book, check out my review of Magic Bites.
Nothing ever goes right for Kate Daniels. Not only has Curran, the Beast Lord, stood her up after an agonizing wait, right when she thought she might be ready to surrender her heart, but her family connection is finally coming back to haunt her. Facing down a relative is Kate’s worst nightmare, especially when her shapeshifter friends prove especially vulnerable, but with every step she begins to realize that her father might find her and destroy everyone and everything she cares for.
The husband and wife writing team of Ilona Andrews didn’t slack at all with this book. It truly feels like the series is building up to a climax – Kate’s confrontation with her father, the famed Roland. The battles are ratcheting up in intensity as Kate learns what she can and can’t do and similarly what her famed family can do to make her life miserable. The intensity and epic feel of the book still surprised me; for a slim volume, it truly does feel like Kate is battling for the world, which is something I enjoy greatly in fantasy especially.
I loved the romantic angle in this one as well. Kate and Curran have been alternately at loggerheads and in lust for some time now and I think all fans of the series are eager for something to happen between these two. The initial setup here has the couple again opposing one another, as they both believe different stories about what happened on their designated date night. What happens after that I won’t spoil, but in this aspect as in so many others, Magic Bleeds is far from a let down.
There is plenty more to love about this book, like Kate’s wicked sense of humor, numerous cultural and literary references, the fantastic and well-described world (with a few more details about the mythology here), the exceptional and realistic character growth of all the characters, and so on. Probably the only thing I’d say wasn’t perfect was the sheer number of fight scenes, but it fits in with the mythology and with the previous books, so it’s hard to complain. This is now by far my favorite urban fantasy series – something I’d never have predicted with the first book.
If you enjoy urban fantasy, you should be reading this series.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
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