When Shen Tai loses his father, he finds himself at loose ends, unable to reconcile himself to the required years of mourning which Kitai society demands. Instead, he goes to the site of his father’s last great battle, where thousands of bodies lay unburied and ghosts cry out for peace. Tai spends two years digging graves and laying bodies to rest. When Tai receives a message from a former princess of Kitai, now married to a Taguran in a bid for peace, granting him two hundred and fifty Sardian horses, he realizes that he’s received an incredible gift and his life is in danger. He discovers this in the worst way when an assassin comes for him, killing one of his closest friends; Tai must now head into the heart of the empire, facing guaranteed danger, to discover what his friend was trying to tell him and to figure out what to do with the horses.
Guy Gavriel Kay is one of my favorite authors, if not at the top of the list. I own and have loved every single one of his novels, and as such I have been anxiously awaiting my chance to read this. I adore his brand of historical fantasy – cultures I recognize instantly, with just a bit of added magic to make them new and his own. I finally decided I couldn’t wait any longer to read his newest release – especially when I was perfectly in the mood for a fantasy world based on the Tang dynasty in China – and I was not disappointed.
While this probably isn’t my favorite of his works (I don’t think he’ll ever match The Lions of al-Rassan with me), it was nevertheless a beautiful, engaging read that pulled at all of my heartstrings and really captivated me in a way few books manage these days. The book is narrated mainly by Tai, with a few sections featuring his sister Li-Mei and the prostitute he loved before his father died, Spring Rain. I found Tai’s straightforwardness and modesty in a world of political subtlety to be very endearing, while Li-Mei was a strong woman put through things I don’t think many women of the period would have been able to endure. As for Spring Rain, I didn’t quite connect with her as much as the other two, and I think overall she was meant to have more emotional impact on me than she did. I was a bit more in favor of another direction for Tai, one that he eventually chose, and I think that limited her influence on the story. The secondary characters were also well done, particularly Wei Song, Tai’s Kanlin warrior. I loved her alternating fierceness and timidity; she was overall just perfect.
The plot is a bit complex, full of court intrigue and carefully planned interactions, but I thought was done quite well. I loved the political turmoil that Kitai was thrust into over the course of this book and its eventual consequences. For me, everything held together really well, and had me very interested in the actual history that took place over this time. I wondered how closely Kay stuck to known history and I’m really looking forward to reading some of the suggestions he gives in his author’s note to find out a bit more about the facts of the time.
Kay’s writing as always is gorgeous and lyrical. I regularly wish I could write like him every time I read one of his books. He’s truly masterful at getting across emotion and making scenes of carnage and death seem both beautiful and tragic at the same time. This one didn’t quite have the effect that some of his other books have had in the past, but it’s impossible not to get swept away by the stories that Kay tells.
While Under Heaven doesn’t quite rank as my favorite by Kay, he is an amazingly gifted writer and this is a historical fantasy well worth reading.
I am an Amazon Associate. Nymeth sent me this book when my blogger secret santa didn’t come through. Thanks again!
Ruth Young is a professional ghostwriter, proud of her flourishing career but a bit tired of the constant demands of her aging mother and her busy boyfriend. Sometimes she even struggles to get along with her boyfriend’s daughters, two girls who used to adore her. As her mother’s condition worsens, Ruth finds herself much more interested in her mother’s history and tries to discover the roots of who she is and why they are both the way they are. With the help of her mother’s handwritten life story, Ruth may be able to find peace and resolve the many conflicts that are straining her life.
This was an “eh” book for me, but I don’t think it necessarily would be for everyone. I have a habit of ignoring book summaries in favor of just reading them straight, and this is often both a good idea and a bad idea. It’s a good idea because I really hate spoilers and I find most books are best read without any previous knowledge of anything. It’s a bad idea because if I have no idea what a book’s about, I can’t really tell if it’s something I’m not going to like, especially if I think it’s something different. And that happened here. I knew there was some modern day component, but I didn’t expect it to be two thirds of the book.
The story of Ruth’s mother is sandwiched between two halves of Ruth’s modern day life. While I really enjoyed the middle section, especially because I’ve developed a practically insatiable craving for historical fiction about China, I just didn’t like the parts about Ruth. I don’t think this is the book’s fault. I don’t like most books set in the present unless they have a little something extra to them, like fantasy or horror, or if they’re about an experience I’m completely unfamiliar with. I’m just not really interested in emotional family relationships, especially not when they’re set in a world I live in. So when I realized the whole book was mostly about Ruth’s adjustment of her modern day life, trying to fit her Chinese mother in more harmoniously with her American life, I was disappointed and I got through those parts as fast as possible.
Of course, I loved the middle section, and I really wish the whole book had just been historical fiction about Ruth’s mother. LuLing’s life and voice are powerful and moving. I was truly fascinated by her story of Precious Auntie, her nursemaid with a past to be mourned, and her own life’s progression when she realizes the truth. I was so disappointed when this section ended! I could have happily continued reading for much longer, but unfortunately the book switches back to Ruth about when LuLing is ready to leave for the United States.
I’m not going to avoid further books by Amy Tan, but I probably won’t actively seek them out if they have that central focus on modern day women. If, however, you enjoy women’s fiction AND historical fiction, I think The Bonesetter’s Daughter would be a great fit for you.
When she was a child, Zoe Octavia Lexham frequently ran away. Despite that, her father took her to India when she was 12, where you guessed it, she vanished. After twelve years of searching and many fakes, Zoe finally escapes the harem in which she has been imprisoned and returns to London. She’s immediately recognized by Lucien de Grey, the earl of Marchmont, one of her childhood friends. Lucien has lost everyone he’s ever loved in his life, and he thought Zoe was one of them. After only a short while back in her presence, he realizes that he can’t let her go again.
I was hoping to enjoy this book like so many others have, but it let me down a lot. And that’s down to a single problem, which is the complete unbelievableness of Zoe. I’ll grant you that most historical romances are not exactly realistic and probably would never have happened within their own time periods, but often the emotions and situations of the characters resonate perfectly with modern readers like me. This was definitely not the case here. Zoe seems almost completely unaffected by her time in a harem. She’s technically a widow but of course she remains a virgin, even though we learn how she’s sexually experienced from attempting to seduce her former husband. Wouldn’t that sort of thing carry emotional scars? Instead, she seems to think it’s perfectly acceptable to fondle a man in her father’s house, rather than carrying any scars from being forced to attempt engagement in sexual acts with a man she didn’t like very much. They’re interrupted at least twice; where on earth was their sense of propriety? Why does no one care? It’s like her entire imprisonment is a mere excuse to make her a little bit less inhibited than a normal heroine would be, but without any drawbacks that a woman of her time period should have experienced.
It’s overall a very strange book; Zoe fits perfectly into society again when it suits her, like she’s never been away, but her lack of inhibitions doesn’t match. When she is reminded of her imprisonment, it’s on something completely unrelated, simply the concept of being unable to leave her house. I couldn’t understand why she was perfectly happy to use her harem skills to seduce Lucien but then cried when she couldn’t leave the house because her life was in danger. It made no sense at all to me, and as a result I just couldn’t like her. It would have honestly been a DNF if I didn’t know I could read it in two hours; I mostly just finished it because I figured I might as well.
It’s a minor point as well that unfortunately I don’t really like Loretta Chase’s writing. It always seems far too stilted to me, the dialogue unrealistic, and as a result I couldn’t believe in the love story either. I’d quote an example but unfortunately I’m at work without the book. It’s a shame because in theory I like the idea of Lucien’s personal journey, from his constant heartbreak to his ability to love again, but the rest of the book didn’t work for me. I just don’t think I’m interested in reading another book by Loretta Chase – not even the famed Lord of Scoundrels. Something about her writing doesn’t work with the way I think, so I’ll be avoiding her in future.
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 Chinaa 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 Katherinewas 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.
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 Bleedsis 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.
When her boyfriend not only dumps her but becomes famous, shoving his betrayal in her face at every turn, Anna realizes that she has to get away from her American life. So she takes a cue from her French side and goes to live in her aunt’s Paris apartment for free. She stumbles upon a job translating an erotic novel from French to English, and as she writes more and gets involved in a French romance, she starts to wonder if the characters in the book are real.
I’m sad to say I didn’t particularly like this book. For one thing, there was just too much emphasis on sex. I didn’t realize she was translating an erotic novel! I don’t read the backs of books and sometimes that does lead to nasty surprises like this one. The novel wasn’t particularly nice either – I will admit that after the first one, I skimmed all the rest of the excerpts of the erotic novel.
Still, I persevered in reading the rest of the book, hoping Anna would learn something from her French life to apply back to her American life. I was disappointed in that too. It seemed to me that she just constantly moped in her apartment, lamenting the unfortunate state of her life, except when she went to hang out with her trendy French friends who all had their own issues and subsequently complained about them. The mystery of the erotic novel didn’t pan out either as I wasn’t interested in the book enough to actually remember the characters’ names. Bad, I know – but by the end, I was genuinely skimming the entire book and skimmed huge sections just to get to the end.
Just about the only thing I did like about the book was the wordplay and the rumination on the nature of language. Because Anna is a translator, she ends up thinking a lot about how concepts work in different languages and how some phrases just don’t work outside of their native tongue. I have studied four languages, five if you count Middle English, and although I don’t know any of them particularly well, this is a concept I’ve run into quite a bit. I definitely wanted to learn French.
Don’t take my word for it, though, as you might feel differently; Jennifer at Literate Housewife loved this book and named it one of her top 10 of 2009. I wish I’d felt the same way as she did! Foreign Tonguewas definitely not the book for me.
I am an Amazon Associate. To be honest, I’m not sure why I have this book or where it came from, but I know it was sent to me for free.
Lucy Waltham has been in love with her brother’s friend Toby for eight years. When suddenly everyone declares that his engagement to a Miss Sophia Hathaway is guaranteed, Lucy decides she has to do something about it, and sets out to seduce Toby. First, though, she practices on Jeremy Trescott, the Earl of Kendall, who unbeknownst to her has begun to see her as a woman, not the foolish little girl she once was. When she kisses Jeremy, she gets a lot more than she bargained for.
While I liked this, it definitely had faults. Tessa Dare’s writing was surprisingly strong and carried me through the book without any trouble, and for the most part I liked Lucy and Jeremy. The falling in love was great, right up until the couple was about to get married (roughly halfway through the book). Then they decided that they couldn’t talk to one another and spent the rest of the book agonizing over stupid misunderstandings that could have easily been fixed. It’s like a lesson on how not to communicate in a relationship. Still, it was sweet, and my affection for the characters kept me going through to the end.
Sophia Hathaway longs to escape her stifling existence in England. So she flees her home and her fiancé to buy passage on the Aphrodite, a former pirating ship with a domineering ex-captain, Benedict “Gray” Grayson. Sophia wants nothing more to be her own person, posing as a governess called Jane on her escape. Instead she finds a person that she suspects will complete her, but how will they get past all the lies?
I’m a little wavery on this one. I liked it for the most part, but what bothered me were the constant lies. I couldn’t really imagine that anyone could base a relationship off total dishonesty, yet here these two are managing it. I kept wanting to shake Sophia and get her to tell at least Gray the truth, before it was too late. But it all wrapped up quite nicely (as these books are prone to do) and I did enjoy reading it.
Isabel Grayson has known that passion is dangerous from a very young age. Instead of seeking a love match like her brothers urge her to do, Isabel decides to marry a peer with influence so she can change the world. But then she meets Sir Tobias Aldridge, her brother’s wife’s jilted fiancé. Toby not only thinks Sophia is absolutely gorgeous, he thinks marrying her is a perfect way to get back at Sophia. The difficult part? Falling in love with his wife while her only love is charity cases.
This was a very sweet last installment in the trilogy. My only issue with it was Isabel’s reluctance to embrace her actual personality. She is so determined to suppress her own emotions that she is actually quite boring at times, but at least she had a good reason behind it. I really liked Toby and I could completely understand his frustration and attitude. And I was glad that rather than using Isabel, he genuinely liked her and enjoyed her company throughout the book – there was never anything as coldhearted as the summary implies.
I have to admit, though, the best part of this book was the sub-romance between Isabel’s brother and her doctor friend. He’s black and she’s white and I wanted to cheer that Tessa put that romance there. It’s not perfect; they’re both depicted as “flawed” people (his is because he’s a widower, hers because she is a female doctor in a time when women weren’t even allowed to be doctors) but considering the total absence of normal colored people in mainstream romance novels, I was very very pleased.
All in all, this was a really nice debut trilogy. Tessa Dare is releasing a new trilogy this summer and I just love the trailer she’s done for it. It just shows how creative you can be with a camera, a laptop, and children’s toys!
Isabella d’Este, daughter of the Duke of Ferrara, is thrilled with her father’s choice of husband for her. Francesco Gonzaga, the future Marquis of Mantua, is not a wildly handsome man but their betrothal looks to lead to a love match. Just one month later and she’d have been marrying her younger sister’s Beatrice’s betrothed – the much older Ludovico Sforza, regent of Milan. Ludovico has more power, but he’s put off Beatrice’s wedding for so long that it looks like it might never happen. When it does, however, Isabella meets Ludovico and for the first time is jealous of her younger, less attractive sister, because she and Ludovico are clearly of the same mind about many things. Moreover, Ludovico’s Milan is home to Leonardo da Vinci and Isabella wants nothing more than to be made immortal by the genius artist. But all is not well in Italy as the political machinations of her leaders come back to haunt them.
I have wanted to read this book ever since I read Stealing Athena by the same author two years ago. When I started to get bored with most historical fiction, I thought I would give Karen Essex a chance to bring back my fascination with it. At first, it wasn’t looking good. The book started off slowly and I set it aside for a full week in favor of other, more immediately compelling books. When I sat down to finally force myself to read it, though, it picked up and I enjoyed it by the end.
There’s no denying that Essex’s writing is lovely. She paints a gorgeous picture of a variety of places in Italy. I loved how the book was set right during the Renaissance, but there are still plenty of reminders of the Middle Ages, like jousts, hanging around to remind me that this was a period of transition. I could definitely imagine myself feasting and dancing in the courts along with the main characters, which I did appreciate.
The focus on art was fascinating as well. Isabella’s desire to immortalize herself takes up quite a bit of the story and art remains a central focus throughout. The characters are either painted or commissioning paintings or both – while Leonardo da Vinci slowly gets on with a variety of different kinds of art. Essex also reminds us how transient art is; some of the paintings she mentions are lost or have been destroyed in the meantime. It doesn’t all lead to immortality as Isabella would like.
The story is compelling in the end; it’s far more than a simple battle between two sisters for one man, as the cover would have you believe. It’s really about all of the women who are painted, or long to be painted, by Leonardo da Vinci, and the way that politics can destroy the overambitious. I would definitely recommend Leonardo’s Swansto anyone who enjoys historical fiction.
Henrietta Lacks, a poor black woman, died of cervical cancer in the 1950’s. Her doctor had never seen a tumor like hers and scraped some cells off for research purposes. To everyone’s surprise, those cancer cells were the first to keep on living and separating outside the human body and spawned an entire research industry. Nicknamed HeLa after the first two letters of Henrietta’s first and last names, these cells caused a virtual revolution in research and led to cures and treatments for a variety of illnesses as well as a way to test the effects of various calamities on human tissue. But Henrietta’s family received no money and Henrietta received no recognition for her contribution. Rebecca Skloot puts together the facts and gets the family’s side of the story in an effort to earn Henrietta the recognition she deserves.
I have one word for this book and it is wow. I was incredibly fascinated – and at times saddened – by this entire book. I am not anything even close to a scientist and had never heard of Henrietta or the HeLa cells, but now I think that’s a shame. I’m glad Skloot finally got a book published and is setting up a scholarship fund so Henrietta can get the recognition she deserved, even if she’ll never know it.
The book flips between the past and the present, explaining Henrietta’s story and later that of her cells alongside Skloot’s quest to get in contact with the family and then her relationship with each of the individual family members. I read this for a book club and one of the members suggested that Skloot was essentially harassing the family with constant phone calls and visits. While I do think she was especially persistent at the beginning and that wasn’t right, the fact that the family wanted Henrietta’s story told and appreciated the recognition she received for me outweighed the fact that Skloot was pushy in the beginning. I wished that the family could have told Henrietta’s story instead, but the poor state of their education has prevented it all this time. I was pleased to hear, though, that the latest generation is going to college and grad school, so they’ll be moving up in the world.
Skloot really excels at explaining the scientific parts that are scattered throughout this book. I’m not a scientist and I have never really been interested in science, but I was surprised by how fascinating I found the various processes related in here. I was also totally astonished at how unethical the current system is. I had absolutely no idea that doctors are pretty much free to do as they like with discarded human tissue. Some do offer a consent form, but they’re not legally required to do so and it’s perfectly okay for someone else to make money off of my cells without giving a cent to me. I don’t want to hinder medical research but something about that seems very wrong. Henrietta’s family didn’t even have health insurance so they had no access to any of the treatments that their mother’s cells made possible!
This whole book is genuinely fascinating. It’s a completely readable work of narrative non-fiction that brings up a ton of issues about medical science and ethics while telling the story of a woman who should definitely be remembered and commemorated. I very highly recommend The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
This is book five in the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs and as such there may be spoilers for the first four books. Check out my review of Moon Called, the first book in the series.
The fae are possessive and secretive. So when Mercy Thompson’s friend, who is slightly fae but mostly human, loaned her a book, she probably shouldn’t have accepted it. But she did, and now he’s disappeared and a faery queen wants that book from her. Meanwhile, her dear friend and former love Samuel is losing his will to live, letting his wolf take over (a dangerous situation for any werewolf) and she’s still trying to navigate the murky waters of her new and uncertain mate bond with Adam, the alpha of her new werewolf pack.
I’ve said it on every single review of these books but I love them! I think they’re fantastic and Patricia Briggs has a great story in every book. She never goes too far, it’s always just the right mixture of plot and character development. In each book, the main plot wraps up but the overarching plot keeps developing – the characters grow and change over the whole series. This book isn’t an exception. I loved returning to her world and picking up the same characters’ stories.
In this particular volume of the installment, I really appreciated where the characters’ relationships went. I have always totally loved Adam and I’m so encouraged by his relationship with Mercy. It was fantastic that there was more of him in this book. And Samuel – I may not like him as much as Adam, but I was still very captivated by what was going on with him in this book. I liked how she wove in aspects from her other Alpha and Omega series, too, because I also like Charles and Anna.
I liked the plot, too. I didn’t remember the person who lent Mercy the book, but I thought enough was explained that it didn’t matter. It wasn’t entirely suspenseful because I didn’t think anything particularly bad was going to happen to the characters (although I have been shocked by that in other series) but I was definitely intrigued by what happened. In fact, the book captivated me enough that I could read it in the space of three hours while sitting in a noisy van moving furniture. Yes, it’s that absorbing.
In short, I still love this series! And now I have a really, really long time to wait for the next installment. But when it comes out, I’ll be reading. I highly recommend Silver Borne and the rest of the Mercedes Thompson series to anyone who likes urban fantasy.
When Shen Tai loses his father, he finds himself at loose ends, unable to reconcile himself to the required years of mourning which Kitai society demands. Instead, he goes to the site of his father’s last great battle, where thousands of bodies lay unburied and ghosts cry out for peace. Tai spends two years digging graves and laying bodies to rest. When Tai receives a message from a former princess of Kitai, now married to a Taguran in a bid for peace, granting him two hundred and fifty Sardian horses, he realizes that he’s received an incredible gift and his life is in danger. He discovers this in the worst way when an assassin comes for him, killing one of his closest friends; Tai must now head into the heart of the empire, facing guaranteed danger, to discover what his friend was trying to tell him and to figure out what to do with the horses.
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