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 The Slepy family story begins with Christina ‘Seena’ Slepy on trial for her husband’s murder in Africa. The portion of the story leading up to the day is slowly revealed through flashbacks interposed with Seena’s thoughts on just how she and her family got to this point. Dick’s obsession with Catholicism, Seena’s affair, Amaryllis – so dark and different from her sisters – questions her parentage, and Mary Grace, Mary Tessa, and Mary Catherine all grapple with their own problems related to growing up and becoming women. Arrival in Africa merely exacerbates the tensions between the family members, each a world unto themselves, until the novel’s explosive conclusion.
I struggled with Amaryllis in Blueberry for a number of reasons, primary among them the fact that it reads like a shallower imitation of The Poisonwood Bible. I loved that book when I read it in high school and I have even managed to read it again since, a rarity for books I read in those days. It has stuck with me over the years in a big way, enough that the parallels between these books, with the divided family of daughters, one vain, one religious, the super-religious father, all heading to Africa on said father’s initiative, struck me at once. In that book, I was swept away by how the characters grew and developed, how Africa changed them in ways both good and bad.
Christina Meldrum appears to be trying for the same effect here, and while I enjoyed the book as I was reading it, just a day away from it has made me question it. It certainly did not have a similar effect on me, and I’m sure that’s in part because I didn’t care for the characters. They all seemed very self-absorbed, not unrealistic, but people I couldn’t relate to. Even Amaryllis, the title character, is a vague and shadowy girl.
One thing I did very much appreciate, though, was the characters’ efforts to break free of boxes, particularly Grace. She knows that because she is beautiful and blonde that she doesn’t have to be smart and that people in fact expect her to be dumb and make mistakes. So, even though she was clever as a child, she begins to rely on her beauty and becomes the stereotype that others expect. Some of the events in Africa help her to realize that she doesn’t have to be that way, that she shouldn’t put others in the boxes she hates herself, and that she can be both smart and beautiful.
I also think part of the problem is that the book is too short for what it’s trying to do. The narrative skips around between a huge number of characters, a real problem when their chapters are only a couple of pages long, and it’s difficult to get to know any of them particularly well. Some of the storylines seemed unnecessary, like Clara’s, and at times I felt irritated that the book led me to think in one direction just to provide an ‘a-ha!’ moment at the end. It felt cheap to me because the book wasn’t powerful enough to deliver an ‘a-ha!’ moment on its own. The writing was lovely, but in the end I just didn’t connect with it.
A few other reviews to give you a different perspective …
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 After Brenna was mentally abused and nearly killed at the hands of a notorious murderer, she has struggled to feel safe even amongst her fellow changelings. What’s worse, she’s lost the ability to change after her abuse, making her feel vulnerable and completely unlike herself. In this state of mind, she has been trying to heal with the help of Sascha, star of Psy-Changeling book 1, and Judd Lauren, one of the coldest Psys around. Judd makes Brenna feel safe, though, and as she begins to spend more time with him the attraction between them goes. But every touch and emotion is literal pain for former Arrow Judd, trained so well that his brain begins to combust at the seams, making the fulfilment of their feelings seem like an impossibility.
I have had an interesting relationship with Nalini Singh’s work so far. In the romance blogosphere, I’ve found that she is completely revered. So many people love her books that it’s impossible to resist picking one up. For me, though, the connection hasn’t been there. I’ve enjoyed her books but so far she hasn’t catapulted her way up my favorites list. With this book, though, I could sense something starting to change, as I got so much more invested in this book than in the earlier two.
In this one, I think the difference was in the characters. Judd Lauren in particular is just the kind of hero I seem to like best. He’s tough because he has to be, the classic dangerous man who just needs a little affection. What I really loved, though, is that he doesn’t really soften. He doesn’t become like a changeling. Instead he expresses his emotions towards Brenna as best he can; he can fall in love but she can’t completely change him. They’re very clearly different types of people who bond regardless. They need healing, but their past lives can’t be erased just because they’ve fallen in love. The entire romance was excellently done, in my opinion, and had me really eager to read more, wishing I had already had the next Psy-Changeling book!
Caressed by Ice is a solid, very enjoyable paranormal romance, further enhancing the Psy-Changeling world and drawing me deeper into Singh’s snare. Recommended!
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 Told entirely through letters, The Color Purple is the story of Celie, a black girl who is sexually abused by her father, giving birth to two of his children, and who grows into a woman abused and cowed by her husband. It’s only when her husband’s long-time lover, Shug, a nightclub singer, comes to stay with the family that Celie begins to find her feet, experiencing sexual awakening, love, and a modicum of independence for the first time in her life. Alongside Celie’s story are letters from her sister Nettie, who becomes a missionary in Africa over the course of the story and discovers her own happiness in a very different way.
I knew this book was going to be good; I’ve had it recommended to me multiple times, but somehow never managed to actually get my hands on it until I read about it in The Heroine’s Bookshelf. Set alongside some of my all-time favorite books, The Color Purple finally called out to me and demanded to be read. Now that I have, I’m very glad I listened!
This is not a book for the faint of heart. These poor women have a very tough time, particularly Celie, who is beaten down again and again until she has virtually no spirit left. She’s abused as a very young girl, forced to give birth to children of incest, and not even allowed to keep those children – the only two she ever has. She’s told constantly that she is plain, worthless, and exists to do the bidding of the men around her. Her only bright spot in life is her sister Nettie, and when Nettie goes then Celie’s spirit goes with her. Even though she meets other vibrant women, it takes living with a woman with spark, Shug, to teach Celie how to embrace her own.
I felt so much for Celie throughout this book. She is treated like a slave and never stands up for herself, but as readers we know that she has a pure heart and is a woman just waiting to love and be loved. The other characters also inspire sympathy – I loved in particular Nettie’s letters from Africa – but not to the same extent. This is her book of suffering and her book of self-discovery, both in one go. Celie’s revelation is not only of this world but it’s also religious, which I could appreciate even without sharing her beliefs.
In fact, there was only one thing I didn’t like about the book; the timelines. The lives of Celie and Nettie simply don’t match up. Events that take years in Celie’s life pass by in much less time in Nettie’s life. It was confusing, but ultimately the book still has a lot to say and I didn’t let this put me off.
The Color Purple is a fantastic book that I waited much too long to read. Don’t make the same mistake!
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 Mia has a fairly typical teenage life, full of big dreams and her potential as a cellist at Juilliard when she moves to New York City for college. But she’s also torn between leaving her boyfriend Adam and friends behind to achieve her dreams, knowing that things are going to change soon. On one snowy winter day, Mia learns that despite all well-laid plans life is always unpredictable, leaving her with a single choice, probably the most difficult she will ever have to make.
I purposely waited a good while before beginning If I Stay because it was incredibly hyped on its release and I didn’t want that to tarnish my own experiences with it. I always hesitate with a book everyone loves, because sometimes I don’t love it as much as they did, but with Where I Went out and clogging the blogosphere with reviews, I thought I’d better get a move on before the story was completely spoiled. With this book, I fell just as hard as everyone else. I had actually managed to avoid spoilers of any kind, so I wasn’t quite sure where the book would take me. I simply knew that a girl had to choose whether to live or to die over the course of the book.
It all starts out quite straightforward. Mia and her younger brother have been granted an unexpected snow day from school, so both of her parents stay home too. When the snow starts to clear up, they head out for an amazing free day, but the roads are still slippery, and a large truck hits Mia’s family’s car. Mia winds up in a coma with an extended out-of-body experience as she does her best to decide whether life is worth living. This approach means that we can see just how deeply everything affects her; we learn the status of her family members as she does, we witness all of her visitors, and we can see how painful her choice truly is.
I loved how, despite Mia’s circumstances, we still get a complete picture of her life before the accident, told through flashbacks that make perfect sense. This doesn’t work for some novels, but it struck me hard; Mia isn’t the drama queen or mean girl that features in many teenage novels, but neither is she a wallflower. It’s easy to get the gist of her personality from the flashbacks and begin to understand just what she’s lost and what the world would lose without her. We get to know all of her family members and the depth of their relationships to her and to one another. Although I thought her family seemed at times too perfect, they needed to be for the book to really work. As for her romance with Adam, I liked that it was already somewhat on the rocks before the accident even happened due to their potential separation. It felt more real than a simple diehard teenage love story.
If I Stay is an excellent YA novel that uses a tragedy to explore very common teenage feelings of uncertainty against the world and the fragility of life. I’d recommend it!
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 This anthology is composed of four stories by very prominent urban fantasy / paranormal romance authors, each of roughly equal page length and often filling the gaps in their larger series. I’ll be honest, I bought this one because it had Ilona Andrews on the cover (as I would buy anything the husband and wife team write) but I read all of the stories and will give them all a bit of time in this review. All of the stories in the anthology have something to do with big, vicious dogs, as you might imagine from the title!
First up was ‘The Britlingens Go to Hell’ by Charlaine Harris. This story begins with two Britlingens, elite bodyguards, sent into a place called Hell due to a personal vendetta. This story is loosely connected with the Sookie Stackhouse series in that the Britlingens were introduced in one of the books, but otherwise is completely separate – these bodyguards live on their own world and simply travel around the universe to protect others.
This story was probably my least favorite. I didn’t really get a feel for either of the main characters, though I did like that they encountered Amelia Earhart and Narcissus. It was fun, but also a bit strange, with giant slugs featuring alongside some odd sexual mechanics. I think it would be okay for some, but I thought it a bit out of place in an urban fantasy anthology where all of the other stories resemble our world in one way or another, and it wasn’t at all what I’d expected.
The second story was the one I was looking out for, ‘Magic Mourns’ by Ilona Andrews. Kate is out of the office due to injuries from a previous book, leaving her friend Andrea, a secret werekin, in charge when a three-headed dog starts rampaging. Andrea has to defeat not only the dog but contend with her feelings for a bouda and her secret shame at her own genetic background.
Any reader of this blog will know that I adore this series and personally felt the anthology was worth the purchase for this alone. The change of perspective was actually really nice; I adore Kate, but I had read a lot about Andrea too and was quite happy to get in that additional backstory (and of course it helped that Kate appeared at the very end!). It was just fabulous to get a little bit more of this world and there is actually a surprising amount squeezed into this story even though it never feels rushed. Andrea has to deal with a lot of her own personal issues and the romance comes out exceptionally well.
‘Angels’ Judgement’ by Nalini Singh is similarly an extension of her Guild Hunters series, of which I’ve so far read the first two. In this one we learn how Sara and Deacon got together and in the process are taken along on a hunt for a rogue vampire. I enjoyed this one and I liked having a different perspective on the world along with a romance that wasn’t headed by an irritating angel, as the normal series books have been. This is set prior to the actual books so contains no spoilers for the series itself.
Last was ‘Blind Spot’ by Meljean Brook. I’ve only read Brook’s steampunk book, The Iron Duke, and none of the Guardian series in which this novella plays a part. I’ve read that it contains minor spoilers for one of the books in the series, but it wasn’t a particular concern of mine as by the time I hit book 5, I’ll have to reread this novella! Anyway, this novella is about former CIA operative Maggie who is sent with a hellhound to find a missing woman and protect her brother Geoffrey Blake. At first, neither we nor Maggie understand how a blind man can help find his sister, but Blake’s unique talents soon reveal themselves and the hunt is on.
I was fairly surprised to find myself enjoying this one and think I’d have to pick it out as my second favorite of the anthology. I enjoyed the romance and the storyline of this and really thought it gave us a lot while fitting neatly within the confines of its length. I do actually have the first full novel of the Guardians series on my TBR and am looking forward to reading it a lot more now.
Overall, this anthology was worth the money for me and provided four stories that I enjoyed, albeit to varying degrees. I’d go so far as to call it a must-read for fans of any of the latter three authors, but I wouldn’t pick up the book for the Charlaine Harris story alone.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 Journalist Asne Seierstad went to live with an Afghani family in order to really live the life they did and to write about the experiences from the inside. Seierstad focuses on the family of a bookseller, who has two wives, and a large number of children, both daughters and sons. The Khan family are not exactly typical in that they are still fairly well-to-do and Sultan Khan, the bookseller, does his best to continue spreading knowledge. Despite this, he treats his wives and daughters like second-class citizens, putting his own interests before everyone else’s. Seierstad uses the Khan family to explore the larger story of lives in Afghanistan and to try and understand what it is to be a woman in particular in the country today.
While I didn’t always enjoy reading this book, it was definitely a worthwhile read. Seierstad’s writing is mechanical but illustrative of the wider problems in Afghanistan. She focuses on a number of aspects of the family lives of the Khans and their relatives. Sultan Khan lives with his mother, siblings, wives, and children all in one house, which leads to an understandably stifling atmosphere. No one has any privacy – and the Khans are lucky in that they have enough money and are not suffering as much as many others are. Sultan makes trips outside Afghanistan which are long and dangerous ordeals but which provide him with new books for his store and a greater background knowledge of the world around him.
For me, the most interesting stories centered around the women of the family. Sultan’s youngest sister, Leila, is little more than a slave to their mother. Despite the fact that she’s attractive and has received offers of marriage, Leila is expected to stay at home and tend her mother, even when she tries to act on her dreams after the departure of the Taliban. More than anyone Leila shows how difficult it is for women, as she genuinely tries to get forward and is constantly rebuffed and pushed aside. Meanwhile, Sultan’s first wife has been relegated to the sidelines, robbed of the only role which matters in her country, due to a younger woman with whom she must now be friends. It isn’t easy for Afghani women.
The additions of Afghani culture were also greatly appreciated. I’ve also recently finished The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, wherein the women do actually manage to help themselves, and the extra background this book provided placed both in a better context for me. Though both were at times difficult to read, I’m glad I did, and I would recommend the pair of them to anyone interested in the daily lives of Afghani women in particular.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
Yes, it is now the 26th of April, and I still have two Read-a-thon books to post about. Eek! I decided to combine them in this post with shorter reviews.
 Touching the Void, Joe Simpson
Joe Simpson is a mountaineer who likes to tempt fate. He’s happiest when climbing huge mountains in ways that no one has ever managed before, putting his life literally at risk for the thrill of the climb. While in the Peruvian Andes, he learns just how risky this is and goes to the very limit in his attempt to survive the worst.
While I admired how Simpson really defied death in his attempts to find his way back to the camp after a horrific accident, I suppose my problem with mountaineering stories is that I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that anyone would choose to do this. I’m not into mountaineering and I don’t understand the challenge at all. It’s still quite inspiring, as the story of human endurance is universal, but I just couldn’t help thinking, “Why?”
 Lady Isabella’s Scandalous Marriage, Jennifer Ashley
Isabella and ‘Mac’ Mackenzie have been separated for years, due to numerous difficulties in both their marriage and the way they first came together. Mac realizes that he’s missing out on so much good in his life and makes a real effort to win Isabella back, including sobering up and taming his wilder self, but Isabella isn’t sure she can bear with the hurt again.
The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie was such a fantastic book that I knew I’d buy Ashley’s next book in the series right away. After all, anyone who has the guts to write a romance novel about a guy with Asperger’s syndome, who has been through the horror of a Victorian mental hospital, has my vote when it comes to romance. I didn’t expect this one to smack me in the face with an equal level of greatness, but I still found it to be a very enjoyable read.
At its core it is something like a romance novel set after the normal romance novel. Mac and Isabella already fell in love, he already swept her off her feet, and they’ve already been married. But their marriage was fraught with difficulties and they separated. This book documents the struggle they have with returning to love after a separation. Very good in its own right.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased one of these books and borrowed the other.
 Sophie is the eldest of three girls; though her own mother has died and her father has married, she gets on very well with her stepmother and two stepsisters. But when her father dies, things begin to change; Sophie’s sisters are sent to learn different trades and Sophie herself must take over in the hat shop. Unhappy with her lot, Sophie longs for change, and runs afoul of the witch of the wasteland, who turns her into an old woman. To get her life back, Sophie heads to Howl’s Moving Castle, where she hopes the enigmatic wizard Howl can help her.
I bought this book before Diana Wynne Jones’s recent passing; I felt the best way to react to that news was to start reading her work ASAP, as I should have done when she was alive. And I really should have because, as everyone told me I would, I loved this book and I was completely captivated by the story here. I read it during the Read-a-thon all in one go and that was truly perfect for it, because I could simply lose myself in this lovely book.
For me this book felt like a fairy tale I might have read when I was much younger, though it is obviously also very appealing for adults. It certainly seems a book to suit all ages, personally. I was entranced by the idea of the moving castle and Howl himself – I could see the end coming from a while previously, but that didn’t make it any less sweet.
My favorite part really is Sophie’s entire switch of thought process. As a young woman, she’s trapped in the hat shop. She becomes very timid and set in her ways. By turning her into the old lady she’s become, the witch actually does her a favor, because she realizes what she is missing. She also brings her into contact with Howl, and unquestionably the best scenes in the book occur when Sophie has actually gotten to Howl’s castle.
The fantasy characters themselves can be a riot with each of their very distinct personalities. In particular, I thought Calcifer in the fire was a fun character, and I was intrigued by the relationships Howl had with people outside the castle – I wondered how much the rest of the series picked up on what was established here, and trust me, I intend to find out.
Howl’s Moving Castle is exactly as wonderful as you suspect it is. Read it! You won’t be sorry.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 This collection of stories is the first set in Charles de Lint’s mythical city of Newford, where everyone from all segments of society can get in touch with magic if only they believe.
Kelly at The Written World and I both chose Dreams Underfoot for the Once Upon a Time V challenge – once we saw that we both intended to read it, we decided to read it together! We each asked the other three questions. Here are the three she’s asked me, and my answers:
1. What is it, in your opinion, that makes de Lint’s stories so readable for the people that pick up one of his collections?
De Lint’s stories are so immediately captivating for me because they take place in a world we could all easily imagine ourselves living in. His fantasy is the stuff of myth and feels organic, so it could well have come from our world – it fits right in with Native American creation myths, for example, and is never out of place. Because Newford is fictional, it could be right in our backyard. For me at least, I think this is a low barrier to entry; you don’t need to be acquainted with the world to hop right in, like you would with most fantasy.
2. Last year when I read The Ivory and the Horn with Carl, I said that I thought de Lint could write very believable female and male characters. Would you agree?
I would definitely agree. I find all of the characters to be very realistic and they usually manage to have character arcs no matter how little they stick around. I can’t recall any time where I felt he’d stuck one of his characters into a pigeonhole, which can be so easy to do in a short story. They’re all living, breathing people, which I think goes along with the first question because it’s another thing that makes his work very appealing.
3. At the same time that I was reading this book, I was also reading The Very Best of Charles de Lint. One of the things that both collections had me thinking about were de Lint’s ability to capture very serious issues in very readable ways. Would you agree with this based on what you have read by him so far?
Absolutely – a lot of the characters here go through really tough situations. It can be hard to read about the abuse they’re put through, but I am always reminded that this happens to real people. People die here, they beat each other up, and they even abuse themselves. In some ways I think de Lint softens the edges – the fantasy aspects can be terrifying or they can be an escape, and the supportive Newford community is certainly something that doesn’t always exist when real people need it. But overall the stories feel incredibly real.
You can read Kelly’s answers to the questions I asked over on her blog! I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 India Selwyn Jones is a female doctor who wants to make a real change in the world. She dreams of opening up her own clinic in Whitechapel, a very poor area of London, and helping women and children have healthier, longer lives no matter their economic status. But her fiance would see her dreams stifled and aims to make her the perfect political wife, simply an asset to him as he rises to the top of British politics. It doesn’t take many ventures into Whitechapel before India meets Sid Malone, legendary bad guy who masterminds gangs of thieves, opium dens, and brothels, making a fortune on the backs of others. India doesn’t know that Sid is actually Charlie Finnegan, brother of Fiona Finnegan from The Tea Rose, but she quickly realizes that he is a gangster with a heart, and they have a cause in common – helping the poor of London to live better lives.
After reading The Tea Rose, I didn’t rush to open this, its sequel, simply because I wasn’t really that crazy about it. I knew Jennifer Donnelly could do better, though, and with some urging from my mom, who adored both books, I finally settled down to read it. While it still isn’t as polished as Donnelly’s later books, I found The Winter Rose to be a superior book in almost every way, with more realistic characters, a more intense love story, and another eye-opening peek into the often dreary world of Victorian London. There was even a trip into Africa, further widening the scope of the story, and all adding up to one insanely compelling book.
I loved that the central focus here was more on improving others’ lives, rather than enriching the characters’ own. India is wealthy, but she doesn’t act like a wealthy heiress of the time. She’s far more interested in prenatal care, saving lives, and eventually doing what she can just to make people happier. She eschews a comfortable position taking care of wealthy women to focus on those who really need her, and determines to make their lives better without wringing every last penny from them. Sid is also wealthy, but on the dark side of wealth; he knows what it’s like to be poor and does indeed do his part to shelter others from harm. He is a good man who sometimes does bad things. Though they are both superior to their peers in many ways, they never achieve the surreal perfection that both Fiona and Joe did in The Tea Rose; they remain firmly true to life and I was glad to follow them on their adventures. Fiona and Joe also feature in this book, though not the main characters; even with them Donnelly has dialled down the perfection and made them both more human and fallible while still retaining their core characters.
The scope of the novel is immense but the story doesn’t drag; it keeps moving and skips some of the parts which could have become boring. In fact, I read the last 300 pages in one sitting, staying up far later than normal to actually finish the book. I read it in about three days; its predecessor took me over a week. That should tell you how much more I enjoyed this book! I particularly loved the parts in Africa at the end; they were so evocative and suspenseful that I kept turning the pages well past when I should have stopped.
The Winter Rose is a fabulous, sprawling novel that takes into account not only characters’ lives and loves but the wide-ranging social situation of the poor and the wealthy. Highly recommended, and now I can’t wait to read The Wild Rose in August.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
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