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 I read more books than there are days in February. Things have not been great recently, so of course I’ve sunk into my version of comfort, which means reading pretty much all the time. Plus, hubby works from home now, so I can’t really watch TV or play games because it’s too distracting for him, and thus all I do is read and apply for jobs. It’s exciting, let me tell you (not really).
On the brighter side, we have a new kitchen floor, and our flat is almost ready to go up for sale. Just some cleaning and exiling a lot of our miscellaneous stuff to my MIL’s loft before we go to see the real estate agents. We’ve been doing a little research into locations around hubby’s job and have found some reasonably cheap renting options, so we’re probably not going to be desperately poor again, and since he got paid yesterday, I can breathe a little (and finally spend the last of my birthday money on my book club books). Still can’t afford BEA, but at least I know we can pay the bills and eat without cutting into our tiny amount of savings. That should mean I’ll get some motivation back and be a more active blogger, rather than just a reviewer, but I’ll see where life takes me.
So, February’s reading:
Literary Fiction
Historical Fiction
- The Stolen Crown, Susan Higginbotham
- Shadow of the King, Helen Hollick
- The Highest Stakes, Emery Lee
- Pearl of China, Anchee Min
Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance
- The Ivory and the Horn, Charles de Lint (short stories)
- Frostbite, Richelle Mead (YA)
- Shadow Kiss, Richelle Mead (YA)
- Blood Promise, Richelle Mead (YA)
- Slave to Sensation, Nalini Singh
- Soulless, Gail Carriger (actually this book is about a million genres)
- Angels’ Blood, Nalini Singh
- Magic Burns, Ilona Andrews
- Magic Strikes, Ilona Andrews
- Dead and Gone, Charlaine Harris
Historical Romance
Women’s Fiction
- The Girl Who Chased the Moon, Sarah Addison Allen
Fantasy
Non-fiction
- The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, David Grann
- The Long March, Sun Shuyun
- Cherries in Winter, Suzan Colon
- The Computer, Mark Freuenfelder
- Mr. Langshaw’s Square Piano, Madeline Goold
Classics
There are definitely a few continuing trends this month. All the historical fiction I read was for review; I haven’t been at all inclined to read it for myself even though I enjoyed all the books that I read. In contrast, my biggest genre this month was urban fantasy (and I counted the paranormal romances in there for simplicity), and I had none of those for review. Clearly, publishers should start sending me more urban fantasy! I read a lot more non-fiction, which I’m pleased with, but I’ve been holding back on my classics, saving them for classics month. I’m almost finished with The Warden by Anthony Trollope, so I’ll have three more left to read in March to hit my target of four. I still have space for guest posts if any classics lovers are planning on joining Tasha and me!
For once, a favorite book popped right out at me, and that would be The Other Hand by Chris Cleave. This book is known as Little Bee in the US and I read it yesterday – my online book club is discussing it next weekend. It was just amazing, deep and meaningful and heartbreaking even as it was beautiful. I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about various aspects, but it’s my favorite book all year already, and I’m really looking forward to our discussion.
How was your reading month?
 Ella Minnow Pea lives on a (fictional) island called Nollop, named after the man who created the phrase “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”, which uses every letter in the alphabet. When the letters on Nollop’s sentence begin to fall off his statue, the little island erupts in chaos, the council deciding that Nollop is speaking to them from heaven. No one over the age of eight can use the letters that have fallen in writing or speech, with threats of severe punishment and exile if the rules are disobeyed. Ella and her allies must use all the creativity they possess to write a new sentence and save the island they love so much.
I loved this book. Not only is it unbelievably creative, it’s also a little challenge towards censorship, promoting literacy and standing up for your rights. It’s written in epistolary format, so as the letters fall from the alphabet, the people who communicate (and the author) must get more inventive with their phrasing and word choice. Eventually, they are permitted to write phonetically as long as the offended letters are not used – I’m not sure how that carries over into speech, but by this point there are so few people about that they aren’t speaking very much at all.
The story was very cute and I liked the characters, even though they were a bit difficult to distinguish at times. I did have to check who was writing, and probably the only distinctive correspondent was Ella Minnow Pea. I was definitely on the side of the islanders, and I think the whole book is a parody of censorship and when it goes too far. It can be ridiculous, as it is here, but I loved that at least some of the islanders were determined to stand up for themselves. I found it hard to believe that anyone would conform to such stupid rules, but it also shows the power that governments can have.
Mostly I think this is an ideal book for people who enjoy words and word play. I found myself wondering what sentence could possibly match the original for its use of all the letters, and admiring the author’s talent in managing to construct understandable, clever prose that furthers the story without the use of many ordinary letters. It’s more than I could accomplish!
Ella Minnow Pea is a tiny book, 200 pages with plenty of white space, but it says a lot and is definitely well worth the time it takes to read. I’m looking forward to reading it again.
 A while back, Tasha at Heidenkind’s Hideaway started this and hated it, ending up with a DNF review. She sent it on to me because I used to really like Gaelen Foley, and I’ve finally had the chance to read it. Today Tasha is reviewing a book I sent her in our exchange, so head on over there to see what she’s reviewing.
Max, the Marquess of Rotherstone, a member of the infamous Inferno Club, has decided that it’s time to take a wife now that his duties for the country have ended at the close of the war with Napoleon. He receives a list from his solicitor and from it chooses Daphne Starling, who is kind-hearted, sweet, and devotes her time to poor orphans in a very dangerous section of town. She’s also gorgeous, which plays no small part in his decision. They meet and begin to fall in love, but Max is unable to forget his past and the secrets he must keep steadily drive a wedge between them.
I’m definitely of two minds about this book. I’ve noticed a trend in many historicals towards having a wicked group of men as a centre point for a series. And Foley is trying to do that, but there’s a serious problem, namely that Max isn’t wicked at all. At least, no more than a normal romance hero, and to be honest no one treats him like the “Wicked Marquess” except to call him that. This couple doesn’t even “do it” before their wedding night and in a book where the courtship happens beforehand, I can probably count on one hand the number of times that happens. So, before I even start, my expectations are thwarted, although in this case I liked it because I think wicked men are overrated and I’d rather have a sweet hero who wants someone to actually love him than a cold-hearted rake who has to be forced into it.
Second, the mystery plot with the Inferno Club and a supposedly dead member of it takes up at least a third of the book and is simply not interesting. And this is what binds this forthcoming series together. This secondary “plot” requires way too much info-dumping, with one particularly notable section at the end which, frankly, I skipped over. I just could not take these men seriously as scandalous men and I couldn’t get what the big deal was. It felt so contrived, just to add on some suspense which doesn’t feel real anyway. Yes, the war was terrible, but now we have this mystical feud with secret societies dating back to the Middle Ages? Honestly, yuck. I hate that sort of storyline and I hate it more when it’s done badly. And then the worst part was that it didn’t end. No, instead half of the epilogue is taken up by a clear lead-in to Foley’s next book. I am not reading romance novels for unending plots, especially when I’ve been bored by it for an entire book.
On the other hand, though, I actually thought the love story was stupidly cute and sweet. Sure, the characters are stereotypes, especially Daphne (barring a strange personality shift for about ten pages towards the end), but that’s not really anything new. I went in expecting the book to be downright terrible in every way, but I liked Max and Daphne together, and having known a person with childhood deep control issues, I could understand some of her obstinacy in resisting the relationship better perhaps than some. There was a scene with the typical “stop arguing, I’ll control you with your passion!!” thing that I hate (seriously, this would never happen in real life), but it didn’t happen again and Daphne got properly irritated after the fact, rather than passively smiling at the way she’d been manipulated. But I guess I like corny relationships, because I was a fan of theirs by the end.
And that’s all I really have to say about My Wicked Marquess. Gaelen Foley is definitely not writing what she’s capable of, but I have to wonder if she added on the wickedness and the secret societies to placate her need to fit into the current mainstream. I guess I’d better stop expecting her to come up with another Prince Charming.
I am an Amazon Associate.
 As at the close of the Liveship Traders trilogy, the serpents have finally made it to Cassarick, where they are meant to hatch into dragons, but something is wrong. None of the serpents emerge as fully grown dragons, and none of them are capable of taking care of themselves. The dragons grow sick of waiting around, and the city grows sick of feeding them, so they agree to head north and try to find the ancient city of Kelsingra. With them goes Thymara, a girl heavily touched by the Rain Wilds and resented by her mother since birth, as well as other Rain Wilds children chosen to care for the dragons. Meanwhile, Alise, a Bingtown Trader’s wife deeply unhappy with her marriage, makes herself into a scholar of dragons and decides to go speak with them for herself.
Robin Hobb is one of my favorite fantasy authors and her worlds never cease to draw me in. We’re back in a familiar place here and I loved hearing more about it and the people in the Rain Wilds. She also draws fantastic characters. I felt so much for Alise and her struggles with her husband. There are many secrets floating around and she is clearly the most hurt by them. I wanted her to reassert her independence and remember who she was over the course of her journey. Thymara is hurt in different ways; she’s younger but has had to deal with parental and societal rejection throughout her entire life. Her father loves her and saved her from exposure as a baby, but her mother has always resented her for being so heavily touched by the Rain Wilds, unable to think of marriage or a normal life. As she embarks on this journey, she’s forced to confront the fact that her preconceptions about life may be wrong.
And there are the dragons, who have personalities of their own. Readers of previous series will be familiar with Tintaglia, but the stunted dragons are very interesting characters in their own right. They remember what it’s like to be dragons from their ancestral memories, but are incapable of behaving the way they know they should. That conflict is fantastically done.
The problem, however, is that not really all that much happens here. There is a whole lot of building up but not a lot of moving, and I fear fans of other fantasy novels might consider this one boring. Plus, it has no real plot of its own, no arc contained in this book, not even a cliffhanger at the end to mark the close. I can see why the second book is being released only a few months after, instead of the normal year, because to be honest readers would probably forget to buy the next one otherwise. It’s obviously only half a book for all its length and I have to admit that I hope the second volume will be a little more exciting. I’d suggest waiting and reading both of them together.
Robin Hobb is still an amazing author, though, and her works draw me in like almost nothing else. I’m very much looking forward to the next book in this duology. Fans of the series will love Dragon Keeper, but I think newcomers would be better starting off with her Six Duchies books.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the Amazon Vine program.
 In the Psy-changeling world, Psy attempt to deny themselves all emotions, becoming cold but completely logical. On the other hand, changelings turn into animals and are largely ruled by those emotions, accepting all of their people for who they are. Sascha Duncan has always struggled with being a Psy, unable to stop herself from feeling emotions. She has never come into her cardinal powers, either, and she knows she’s flawed, incapable of joining her mother in Psy government. When she launches a project with Lucas Hunter, a panther changeling, she realizes for the first time that there’s another world out there, and that perhaps it’s acceptable to feel. But with a changeling killer on the loose, how long will she have to feel?
I am of two minds about this book. Half of me loved it and the other half of me didn’t like it so much. Most importantly, I think, is the fact that I was really intrigued by the world. I tend to think that paranormal romance is mostly set in our world except the people in it are vampires/werewolves/fairies/whatever. This is totally different, it’s set in a completely different world. There are humans, but I don’t think there are any in this particular book. The Psy are all connected mentally, which I found to be quite an interesting concept and it worked extremely well within the context of the story. I definitely wanted to spend more time in this world. I liked the quest to catch the changeling killer. I didn’t think it took away from the romance at all even though it’s a fairly large part of the book. Rather, I enjoyed the way the storylines fit together.
It’s the romance that I didn’t like so much. While I didn’t particularly mind either of the main characters, I thought it moved way too fast and had far too many sexual scenes. It happens virtually every time the hero and heroine are alone. As we all know, I’m not really a fan of the lust = love romance, and so the first half of the book disappointed me in that way. By the end, though, I did think they’d grown past it and had been through enough together for me to “get over” the first half. Slave to Sensation definitely wasn’t as moving as it could have been.
Still, I think I’ll be reading more of Nalini Singh. I liked the world enough to continue this series and I think the author has a lot of potential. I also happen to have Angels’ Blood courtesy of Tasha at Heidenkind’s Hideaway, so I’ll be reading that next.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 Nine-year-old Michele Amitrano and his friends have little to do one very hot summer besides explore the Italian countryside around them. When the leader of their little gang, Skull, forces Michele to go off on his own in an abandoned house after a forfeit, he makes a discovery that is destined to change his perception of his friends, family, and life itself.
The outside of this book promised that it would be scary, but it wasn’t at all in the way that I’d expected, and to be honest I vastly preferred what I got to what I expected. Rather than a scary book in superficial ways, this is a book about human nature, about a boy discovering what adults can do to other little boys just like him. Michele’s loss of his childhood innocence is totally heartbreaking, but riveting. I can understand why this book kept others up all night to find out what happens next. I myself read it in just one day. It’s a very absorbing read.
This is also a beautifully written book. I don’t know whether to give credit to the author or the translator, but I could feel the heat of that Italian summer, see the wheat fields and the abandoned farmhouse, just as I could see inside Michele’s realistically wrought child mind. Michele is almost unbelievably genuine, which of course only adds to the emotional impact of the book, especially the ending. He watches as the people he trusted turn out to be fallible, which everyone realizes eventually, but hardly in this way. And of course it isn’t only the adults he’s already wary of, but those he loves and trusts.
From the adults’ perspective, I think the novel shows the desperation people have to make their lives better. Apparently crimes of this type (I’m being vague, but I think it’s worth not knowing) are still commonplace, and that only makes it all sadder. They want to move to northern Italy, which is richer, but it seems they’ll do almost anything to achieve it. I was left wondering if it was worth the sacrifice, and perhaps glad that at least one of the adults may have finally realized the amount of harm he was doing.
I would definitely recommend I’m Not Scared to anyone with an interest in thoughtful thrillers. It’s a gripping read with strong emotional impact that will leave you considering what happened for days afterwards. I’m looking forward to my next book by Ammaniti.
I am an Amazon Associate. This book was sent to me for free by the publisher for review.
 The last white family on her street in Zimbabwe lives next to Lindiwe Bishop’s family. One night, the house catches on fire, killing one woman and badly injuring another. The culprit, teenager Ian McKenzie, is sent to prison for a year. Lindiwe is still fascinated by him, and astonished when, on his return a year later, he begins inviting her along for car rides. Spanning the 1980s and 90s, this is not only a book about Zimbabwe in transition, but about love that is surprisingly realistic.
At first, I found it surprisingly difficult to get into this book. I’m not very familiar with Zimbabwe’s history and apparently they just changed over from Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, and the characters carry a lot of angst about Independence and the fate of their country. I recognized the name of Robert Mugabe, but I couldn’t remember why. I was unfamiliar with all of the slang, too. So I had a few pages of wading through something I thought I was bound to dislike. But, of course, then I got used to the slang and figured out what everything meant, the characters stopped complaining so much about history and instead the history was described in the book so I could understand, and Lindiwe met Ian.
Typically the love story was what made this book for me. I don’t want to give too much away but it’s obvious that something is going to Happen between Lindiwe and Ian from the very start of the book when she keeps his picture from a newspaper clipping. It does, and it is really beautiful, but it’s also realistic. Sometimes love isn’t good enough, and they have struggles, but they had me cheering for them from the very beginning. Their relationship takes work, as does their relationship with another person who comes into the story a little later.
The transformation of Zimbabwe was also fascinating. Wikipedia told me what was going to happen in that respect, but seeing it through the characters’ eyes was totally different. The city of Lindiwe’s girlhood, with the rich houses well-kept and the main street full of delicious restaurants and places to play, becomes a poor ghost town by the time she becomes an adult. White people were once welcomed and then become scarce. Reading through the book gave me a real sense of the change that was happening and the frustration that the people of Zimbabwe felt.
I must also admit that I was quite pleased to see that Little, Brown chose to put Lindiwe on the cover instead of Ian. I know books for adults are probably less white-washed but it’s undeniably pleasing to see at least part of a gorgeous black woman when they could have chosen the white guy.
In the end, The Boy Next Door was a great book and I’m so glad I read it. I learned a little (the author grew up in Zimbabwe so I felt she probably knew what she was talking about) and I loved the story. I think knowing a little about Zimbabwe before starting is a good idea, though!
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book from the publisher for free.
I think it’s been weeks since I did a Sunday Salon post! I have gotten out of the habit of blogging on weekends; usually there is a lot more going on in my life on those days than during the week. Overall, though, I don’t have anything new to report, which is part of why I haven’t done many chatty posts lately. I’m back in the UK after a few weeks at home. Still no news for me on the job front, but hubby has started his new job and is working from home most of the time. It’s weird to have him around but busy, although I have to say it’s inspired me to new diligence in my job search. I’m not necessarily finding more jobs, but my applications are getting done a lot faster when someone else is around working. The lack of success is getting me down, which I know is one of the reasons I’m reading more than blogging.
I have other reasons for reading a lot, too. As usual when I go home to the US, I picked up my ARCs and review copies, many of which were owed a review a while back because I expected to be home sooner than I was. So I frantically got through a lot of my backlog and packed an astonishing 71 books to bring back to the UK with me, without going over the weight limit! About 50 are my own books and I’m happy to have a much wider selection. I don’t have space for them, so a bunch of them are adorning the floor in front of the bookshelf, but I’m not going to worry about that until our flat goes on the market. I culled quite a few before I left and donated them to my favorite charity bookstore, so I’m actually not feeling very guilty for having more unread books.
I spent this morning reading a coffee table size illustrated history of computers. I have a bunch of non-fiction I want to get read this week before Classics Month starts up and since this had a lot of pictures, I decided to start it first. And now I’m indulging in some urban fantasy with Magic Burns, the second in the Kate Daniels series. And I’m leaving the rest of the week unscheduled, subject to whim, which is my favorite way to read.
If you like classics, don’t forget to tune in during March for Tasha’s and my Classics Month (her post, my post). I’d love it if you read a few classics along with us!
That’s about all going on over here; anything exciting happening in your lives, reading or otherwise?
 Classics Month starts in just over a week! A while back, Tasha at Heidenkind’s Hideaway and I decided we just didn’t read enough classics, so we chose March as the month to read more. We’re aiming to read four each, challenging each other to read one classic from our own areas of expertise and reading a classic that’s new to us together.
I have quite an overwhelming list of classics to choose from. At the moment, I’m thinking about:
The Vicar of Wakefield, Oliver Goldsmith
Lorna Doone, R.D. Blackmore
The Warden, Anthony Trollope
Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Shirley, Villette, and/or The Professor, Charlotte Bronte
The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch
East of Eden, John Steinbeck (which I meant to read this month, but I don’t think it’s going to happen!)
Possibly something by D.H. Lawrence, as I have a collection of his books
And Tasha has challenged me to read Nadja by André Breton.
I think it’s going to be great! If you love classics too, I’d love to feature you for a guest post or guest review. Just leave a comment about it and I’ll be in touch. And of course I’d love more recommendations for reading this month. If it’s not too obscure, my library will probably have it, and I know I need to read more non-Western classics in particular.
 Cassandra Mortmain wants to be a writer. She lives with her family in a castle, but they’re not rich. In fact, they’re desperately poor. Her father’s first novel, while critically acclaimed and taught at the most prestigious universities, was never followed by a second, and Cassandra is sure he doesn’t write any longer. Her beautiful sister Rose has no rich men around her to tempt into marriage. Her stepmother, Topaz, is loved by all of them, but is incredibly eccentric and rarely goes to London to be painted (her main way of earning money). As a writing exercise, Cassandra decides to write about her life in little journals, never suspecting that so soon after she begins, two men from America are to become their landlords and change their lives forever.
I’ve wanted to read this book for so long, since high school at least. I’m so glad I finally got the chance to read it, because it’s truly a charming book. Cassandra stands right out from the beginning as a fantastic narrator, drawing us in to her family’s life. Their poverty is distressing and does make the beginning of the book hard. The family is earning virtually negative money. Their servant of sorts, Stephen, who has never been paid wages, is the only employable person of all of them and thus takes a second job to support the people who are meant to be his employers. They eat mostly bread and tea, and can’t even afford real butter. I have to admit that I was worried the whole book was going to be like this, but it isn’t.
When Neil and Simon arrive, it becomes a coming-of-age story for Cassandra, who is only just growing up. It’s her slow awakening to adulthood – womanhood – that makes this book so poignant. While we’re not all poor, and we don’t all live in a castle (I doubt anyone reading this lives in a castle, although I wish I did), it is impossible for any woman to forget what it was to be a girl, when life was enchanting and new and simple. Cassandra emerges from the page as a person I’d have loved to be friends with. There is a point where games end and where adulthood begins, and Cassandra hits it here. Her narrative is sweet and honest and I’m so glad I read it. The ending wasn’t what I wanted, but I didn’t see anywhere else for it to go, not while remaining true to the characters.
I Capture the Castle is a book I know I will return to again and again in the future, and what higher recommendation can I give it than that?
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
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