|
|
 Three lost souls meet in Athens, where their lives are destined to change forever. Rebecca is a young French painter, fleeing two years as a stewardess with Air France and a life bereft of personality and understanding. While trying to work out who she is, she stumbles upon two men; her first friend in Athens is George, a lonely American Ivy League educated linguist in love with ancient languages, alcohol, and Rebecca herself. But then she stumbles upon Henry Bliss, a Welsh archaeologist, who she suspects can show her not only the secrets of the ancient city she lives in but of her own heart, even though he’s hiding his own secrets from the distant past. Each of them is lost in some way; each of their relationships defines who they are and what they will become in the years ahead.
I’ve heard so very many amazing things about Simon Van Booy that it was only a matter of time before I actually read one of his books. He’s earned acclaim as a short story writer, too, but I always prefer to read novels when given a choice, and Everything Beautiful Began After is his first novel.
After reading the prologue, I was worried that I would find the whole novel somewhat impenetrable – beautiful, but written so abstractly that I’d need to really concentrate to work out the meaning, something I don’t always have the energy for at present. I could grasp what he was trying to do, viewing events through the lens of a child, but I was relieved when the rest of the book was written in a more easily readable style. Still very beautiful, though, as occasionally he jumps out at you with phrases that smack you over the head with meaning, such as:
… truth is just a lie that everyone believes.
And it takes a moment just to let that sink in, how true it is to life, but how it also simply sums up everything that particular character is experiencing at that moment.
All of the characters in this book are very inward-looking, very self-aware, and prone to analysing their own feelings through a microscope. But it’s really about growing and changing, not forgetting tragedies, not getting past them, but accepting them as part of who you are and what you’re going to become. Even just as the title says – everything beautiful began after – and indeed, it’s once you get past and accept the snags of your life that something beautiful can begin.
This is also a surprisingly fast read; I have a relatively small size hardcover version with 400 pages and I absolutely zipped through it. Except for those moments which catch you off guard, and make you stop and think, the book is a smooth and very beautiful read. It is probably worth sinking in and spending a bit more time with it if you can, though I do think it was incredibly powerful to read it in as few sittings as possible, as I did.
Very highly recommended for those who enjoy literary fiction, flat out beautiful writing, and engaged, thought-provoking characters. This won’t be the last time I read a book by Simon Van Booy.
All external links are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review.
 Anne Wynter is a governess, eking out a living for herself after a somewhat disastrous separation from her family at a tender age. Daniel Smythe-Smith is a gentleman, recently returned from exile after one of his own badly planned younger mishaps sent him to the continent for 3 years. When Daniel spots Anne playing with his cousins at the annual Smythe-Smith musicale, he can’t take his eyes off her; who is this mysterious woman who draws him in so easily? As he seeks her out, Anne tries to hide the minefields of her own past, even as she finds herself falling hopelessly in love with a man clearly above her station.
Julia Quinn’s books are regularly delightful and fun reads, but I’ve felt recently that she’s been losing a bit of her touch – focusing more on the sweet, less on the actual emotional perils that make romance novels such compelling reads. To my surprise, A Night Like This still retained her sweet hallmarks, but added on a layer that felt like a refreshing blast from the past as far as her writing goes.
I think the main thrust behind this was the past of both of the characters. Daniel’s past is immediately apparent; he accidentally shot his friend Hugh, the son of the Marquess of Ramsgate, in a duel, and was driven from the country for three years while the fledgling lord’s father sought revenge. He only has returned to England because Hugh came to visit him and assure him in person that his father would no longer kill Daniel if he stepped foot on his native soil. Anne’s past, on the other hand, is revealed much more slowly, and is far more heart-breaking, adding a touch of emotional tension to an otherwise sweet and romantic read. It wasn’t the actual subplot that I liked, as romance novel mystery subplots tend to be silly or useless obstacles; it was the addition of depth to each of the characters.
I liked the scenes where we witnessed Anne as governess to the younger Smythe-Smith girls and their individual personalities, too; they add a further touch of humour to the book and help a reader understand just why Daniel and Anne fall in love with one another. Again, Quinn’s novels are very sweet and sparkly on the interactions, but tend to be lacking in the emotional intensity department, and while this is an improvement on the last one, I still don’t think she’s quite returned to the early Bridgerton days.
As a pleasurable way to pass an afternoon (or a transatlantic flight, which is where I read this), A Night Like This is a great choice, and definitely a sign that Julia Quinn is making strides towards regaining her golden touch. Not quite there yet, but a lot of fun, and recommended for romance readers.
And as a final note, this is a truly delightful cover, a refreshing change from the usual half-undressed couple!
All external book links are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review.
Growing up moderately wealthy in Venice, Iago has always been something of a disappointment to his father. Fifth son and a clever mischief maker, Iago ropes his friend Roderigo into misdeeds while using his clever words to escape blame. His life changes dramatically when he goes to join the Artillery and develops a well-deserved name and reputation for himself, even as his father continues to use him to achieve political success. Iago’s forthrightness and history gain him an unexpected position with the new General, Othello, and the love of his beautiful wife, Emilia. But Iago’s jealousy is a banked ember just waiting to burst into flame, with deadly consequences for all who hold him dear.
I read Othello back in high school, and I thought I’d forgotten most of it, but a book focused purely on Iago and just how he got to the point where he became obsessed with twisting the truth and destroying people’s lives was something that immediately appealed to me. I knew he was a great villain, and having read Galland’s previous books, I knew I was in for a treat. This book fulfilled all of my expectations, providing a fascinating view into the psyche of a man who is compelled to lie, to twist the truth, to plant insinuations, all because he is jealous and insecure in himself.
I can’t remember whether anything was specifically mentioned in regard to Iago’s past in Othello, but Galland imagines his insecurities traced back to his childhood, where his father simply refuses to believe in him and forces him to do the family’s bidding even at the potential expense of Iago’s career. Moving forward, he has difficulty believing in himself and seeks sole appreciation; his jealousy leaps out whenever his wife talks to another man, and the constant hints that his wife is actually Othello’s mistress lay the groundwork for all that is to come. The characters are the star of this show, particularly Iago as he spends plenty of time inside his own head. We can see when he is jealous and when he restrains himself, which happens increasingly over the course of the novel.
For me it was fairly clear when Galland was required to take on Shakespeare’s mantle and tell his story through her eyes; everything speeds up and becomes dramatic, and events begin to happen outside of Iago’s own head, most of them in the space of a single day. His own insinuations begin to spark Othello’s own insecurities and the denouement of the play comes to a rapid conclusion, resulting in a very speedy and tense read for the end of the novel. I knew what was going to happen, vaguely, but I can imagine the events being as surprising for a first time reader as they would be for someone who had seen the play. It is a Shakespearean tragedy, and I found myself dreading the ending as the characters became ever more familiar to me and Iago’s deception became clearer and more defined.
With well-defined characters and believable motivations for one of Shakespeare’s greatest villains, I, Iago is a fantastic read.
All external links are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review.
 Like many of the women who are the new focus of popular history, Mary Boleyn has left a very slim paper trail. There are entire periods of her life where no one is quite sure where she actually was, let alone what she was doing or feeling. Only two of her letters survive, to our knowledge, and our ideas of her as a legendary whore are based mainly on much later opinions of her. With very little to work with, Weir attempts to reconstruct Mary’s life and, in several cases, set the record straight.
In a lot of this book, Weir engages in one of my favourite things, evaluation of other historians. I love historiography, and she does a good job picking apart others’ arguments and showing what was based on actual source and what wasn’t. Unfortunately, a number of the historians she chooses to engage with were working a considerable amount of time in the past, rather than those who are working now and would be more likely to follow current standards for documentation and analysis. Saying that, I’m not sure how many historians are presently working on the Tudors and Mary Boleyn, as popular culture is not necessarily connected to academic culture, so it’s possible she didn’t have much more recent to work with; her main focus is revising people’s opinions of Mary as an infamous whore, and I did enjoy her investigation of how that reputation came about.
Unfortunately, because of the scarce information, some flaws pop up in Weir’s work; it’s extremely repetitive, as she has the need to make an assumption about Mary’s past, then treats it as fact and tells us about it over and over again. Her reputed affair with the French king is constantly discussed, for example. I’ve definitely appreciated some of Weir’s other works more than this one in this respect. There just isn’t much here. I felt like Mary’s life would have been much more suited to a longer article or inclusion into a collection, instead of a book on its own. I failed to really get a sense of who she was; the most affecting and interesting part of the book, for me, was when Weir actually quoted a letter that she wrote. I understand that there are only two letters, but the difference really demonstrated to me how little I’d felt for Mary up until that point.
Mary Boleyn was a book I didn’t mind reading; it may be considered dry by others who aren’t particularly used to reading history and expect it to be more like a novel (there are pages of speculation about Mary’s birthday, for instance), but if you do enjoy biography you won’t have any trouble getting involved here. Unfortunately, I found the end result ultimately disappointing, and I hope Weir chooses a better documented subject for her next full-length work of popular history.
I received this book for free for review. All external links are affiliate links.
 In Hannah Payne’s world, a dystopian United States set in the future, criminals are punished by having their skin turned various colours, length and colour determined by the severity of the crime. Chromes, as they’re called, are society’s outcasts, shunned and often killed for their crimes. When we join her story, she’s been turned red, indicating that she is guilty of murder. She is guilty of aborting her child – the product of her adultery with one of the foremost religious figures of her day, whom she absolutely refuses to turn in, even though it would make her sentence more bearable. This cross between The Scarlet Letter and The Handmaid’s Tale has a considerable amount of power as we follow Hannah into defying her upbringing in a world that has startling parallels to our own.
When She Woke is a book that gained a lot of praise when it first came out, and I’ve been looking forward to it for a while. I loved The Handmaid’s Tale - as much as you can love a book in that vein – and I’m alternatively fascinated and horrified by these indications of where society might go. In light of the recent controversy in the United States over birth control, this book seemed like an incredibly timely read, and the implications not entirely far-fetched, either, certainly not when a debate I thought (hoped) was in the past has turned out to remain relevant. The book certainly has a pro-abortion slant, and would likely go against the beliefs of many conservatives.
While I don’t think it’s quite as powerful as the two books I mentioned in the description, particularly not The Handmaid’s Tale, it is a worthy addition to that crowd. I found the scenes after Hannah is released from her initial imprisonment to be the most powerful – her father finds her a safe house, which turns out to be a place where women are brainwashed into feeling incredibly guilty and traumatised over their sins, to the degree of creating dolls to represent their aborted children and telling the story of their abortions over and over again.
I did have some trouble with Hannah’s choices – at one point, she risks her life and those of many others simply to see the man she loves again – especially at the end of the book. After all that had happened to her, I simply don’t think I would have done that, even though it’s clear she loves him beyond all degree of sanity. But overall, I really was swept away by the story and found myself absorbed and disturbed by the book as I read. This is an emotional read and I did really feel for Hannah throughout the very large majority of the book, alongside her fellow suffering women.
When She Woke is indeed a fantastic read, and Hillary Jordan remains an author I’ll be watching.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free for review.
 Seven portraits of women reading, seven stories imagined by the author, Katie Ward, about the history of each painting. This brief, beautiful book captures the universal emotions of women throughout history, at all different stages in their lives, all centered around that one activity which many of us love above all others. The stories range in date from the fourteenth century to the imagined future, where the author cleverly ties together all of the paintings and their stories. Each chapter, focused on the imagined history of one painting, is a kind of short story, and can easily stand alone as well as part of the wider collection that is concluded to some degree at the end.
The writing in this book is beautiful and I just adored the way it was structured. I had a good look at the source behind each of the stories – both the real paintings and the inspirations for those which don’t exist or are conglomerates – and thoroughly enjoyed the connections and the differences in style as the novel progressed. Each chapter does feel like its own little story, with its own world and characters. The ending ties them up neatly, but so does the universal female emotion that pervades each. For me, each story highlighted how much we all exist in our own worlds, but how we are all tied together by our very existence. For example, in one of the stories, a teenage girl obsesses over an older painter, imagining herself in love, her feelings so reminiscent of my own immature years that I was completely taken aback. In another, a mourning aristocratic lady asks her artist friend to finish a painting of her female lover, who has recently passed on, and the grief and the emotion contained within just that one story was incredibly moving.
Several reviews of this book have highlighted the fact that it doesn’t contain quotes for speech, and that this makes it difficult to follow; I did not have this problem at all, and I actually enjoyed the flow of the writing. It’s worth noting, though, if that is something about a book that will bother you, but I didn’t even think of it as a complaint until I’d looked at other reviews. All of it was breathtaking, I thought, and Ward’s narrative voice was gorgeous enough to keep me pinned to the pages. It’s as though Ward gave me a window into the minds of the women in each of the paintings, and those thoughts were simply stunning.
I really can’t praise this book enough – Girl Reading is perfect for women who love to read, who love history, who are looking for a book that reminds them of our experiences throughout history. Very, very highly recommended.
I received this book for free for review.
 Battista della Paglia is an art collector, a thief, and a secret agent for François, the king of France. His mission is to find the most valuable artifacts, paintings, and sculptures for the king’s growing art collection. When Battista is instructed to find a mysterious sculpture, his quest brings him into contact with a woman with a secret. This is the Lady Aurelia, who accompanies Battista on his quest to find the sculpture. Aurelia has been living under the watchful eye of the Marquess of Mantua, her guardian, and has never felt anything like the freedom and emotions she experiences with Battista. But Aurelia’s secret could put all that they’ve built together in jeopardy, should she reveal it to Battista and the world.
I was very much intrigued by this book when I first heard of it; having read and enjoyed one of Donna Russo Morin’s earlier books, I was looking forward to reading another of them. Morin’s most recent effort is not a disappointment, but is quite a creative take on Dante’s Inferno. Combined with some of the adventure from one of the author’s favorite video games, The Legend of Zelda, the book finds our two heroes thrown into some serious, death-defying situations, which may not entirely reflect real life, but which provide a lot of entertainment for the historical fiction reader. Tied in with this is a romance between our two main characters, who naturally feel themselves drawn to one another after the harrowing experiences they’ve had searching for these objects. Mainly, the book is a lot of fun, very much a historical romp, which requires the reader to let go a little bit and simply enjoy the ride.
While I did enjoy the book, I found the author’s prose a little bit hard to get into at times. It’s not necessarily a book that you can just pick up and put down again; some immersion into her world is definitely required. The main character, Battista, was a real person, and an art thief at that. One of my favorite Renaissance artists, Michelangelo, also makes a substantial appearance, as do a few of his pieces. I’m always happy to see known historical characters appear in the books I’m reading and I was pleased to see him depicted. He definitely added to the overall atmosphere. I also enjoyed Battista’s band of fellow thieves; there’s an air of male camaraderie amongst them that means we – and Aurelia – immediately fall in love with a few of them.
All in all, The King’s Agent was an enjoyable read, and a pleasurable immersion into the world of early sixteenth century Florence. Recommended for historical fiction fans who are able and willing to suspend disbelief to enjoy a fun book set in a fascinating historical world.
I read this book as part of a tour with Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours. For more information and the full tour schedule, please go here. To read more about the author, visit her website.
All external book links are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review as part of the tour.
 In One Night in London, we learned that the three de Lacey brothers may lose their inheritance due to their father’s prior marriage – they could all be illegitimate. Gerard de Lacey, the youngest of the brothers, may be something of a war hero, but is in serious trouble if he does get disinherited, as he will have very little left for himself in the world. Determined to find the blackmailer, he heads to Bath, where the clues lead, but his path is interrupted by a young widow who proposes to him on the spot. Lady Katherine Howe is not beautiful, but she is wealthy, and she’s desperate to escape her mother and her impending marriage to a second man that repulses her.
Ah, the marriage of convenience. It’s a trope that appears in quite a lot of historical romance and, of course, because this is a romance novel, the characters do fall in love eventually. That said, a trope done well is still an enjoyable read, and I certainly found Blame it on Bath to be precisely that. Almost as fun as One Night in London, and actually happening in parallel, Gerard and Katherine – affectionately nicknamed Kate early on – are a couple that beg to fall in love from their very first, awkward meeting.
In this particular book, Kate blossoms from a girl hidden beneath her mother into a woman in her own right. Clothed in plain, simple, dark dresses throughout her life, so that her mother faces no competition, Kate’s marriage to Gerard allows her to shed that weight and figure out who she really is. She may not be one of the gorgeous heroines which feature on the pages of most novels, but as he falls in love with her, Gerard sees her personality shine through her face and realize that she is, in fact, beautiful to him; it’s very heart-warming to read.
I liked the setting, too; Bath is easy to visualize now that I’ve been there, and the city is very similar to the way it would have been in the book. It was a nice change from London, where most romances of this type take place.
Still, I didn’t enjoy this book quite as much as the first in the series; the couple fail to communicate at certain parts of the book, which never ceases to annoy me. It just creates problems – it certainly made the heroine have a moment of backsliding that frustrated me a lot.
So Blame it on Bath is not a flawless romance, but it was certainly worth reading, and I’ll happily pick up the third and final installment when it releases.
I received this book for free for review.
 Home is probably the most cherished place in the world for most of us. We spend huge chunks of our lives cleaning, decorating, organising, and simply enjoying our homes, but how has the house change throughout history? What would our houses tell us about what went on in them before? Lucy Worsley tackles this topic by exploring the history and evolution of four different kinds of room in an English house, from the medieval period right through to the present. The living room, the kitchen, the bathroom, and the bedroom are Worsley’s subjects, but the people who populate them truly make them what they are, and this is a fascinating journey.
I must admit a little bit of bias and prior knowledge of this book. The series, hosted by Worsley, was actually televised here in the UK over four episodes, one for each room. So I already knew that I was interested in the subject matter (although that wasn’t a surprise) and I’d picked up many of the facts previously. If you have seen the show, though, the book adds bits and pieces and draws more conclusions from Worsley’s experiences living certain aspects of old-fashioned lives.
Social history, for me, is completely addictive; I love finding out why there might be a shoe hidden in my attic or how recently some British homes actually got proper bathrooms and plumbing. There are Victorian ash-midden privies in my little garden and, even though now they’re considered “outbuildings”, that little slice of history is one of the things I love about England. Worsley gives equal time here to the ordinary and the aristocratic, particularly because in many cases developments made for the wealthy finally trickled down to the poor.
Worsley’s writing style is also very engaging and the book is a pleasure to read. There are plenty of endnotes, but this is not dry history at all. It’s full of facts that I’m sure I will regale people with for weeks to come, lots of curiosities about how our homes actually got to be the way they are and how differently people treated them. Consider the bedroom, once simply integrated into the main living space with little to no privacy, which slowly migrated to becoming one of the most private places of all, especially as the living room took its place.
One of the most interesting aspects of a book like this, for me, is how the home can highlight just how much society has changed. Just one part of this is obviously the presence of servants in our lives. Not that long ago, a huge proportion of the population was employed in service, a respectable occupation and one that had a huge part to play in the development of the home. Some things certainly wouldn’t have been possible without servants – older kitchen ranges, for example, required daily cleaning and blacking, not to mention the issues surrounding the chores of actually preparing and serving food. The monumental shift away from servants, along with the inventions and innovations that replaced them, have played a role in the development of the home today.
All in all, If Walls Could Talk is a fascinating journey through the home, a joy to read, and a trove of worthy little details for those interested in the history of ordinary people as well as royalty. Definitely recommended.
All external book links are affiliate links. I received this ebook for free for review.
 Lucy Morgan’s position in Elizabethan society is awkward, to say the least. Part of a troupe of singing girls who entertain the queen and court, Lucy is often hidden away in the back due to her African heritage, even though she has one of the most beautiful voices in the group. That’s until one of the soloists becomes ill, and the queen takes a liking to her. On the famous royal visit to Kenilworth, often viewed as the occasion during which Robert Dudley aimed to win the queen’s hand in marriage, Lucy becomes favored by the queen, and is asked to spy on Dudley and his mistress Lettice Knollys for Elizabeth. But she’s not the only one spying – or plotting – in the court, and an assassination plot that Lucy uncovers could have deadly consequences for all involved.
It’s been a few months since I read a novel set in Elizabethan England, and I think the break did me good as I found myself thoroughly enjoying this novel. Told in alternating viewpoints, with Lucy, her guardian and spy Goodluck, Lettice Knollys, and the queen herself narrating, I was quickly swept up in this exploration of the history surrounding that single event, a visit to Kenilworth Castle. For me, this worked much better than another book covering some large part of Elizabeth’s reign. Instead, we witness all those tensions over the course of a summer, when many things appear to come to a head.
For one thing, the author chooses to depict this as the moment at which Elizabeth firmly rejects her lifetime love, Robert Dudley, for practical reasons in part; she chooses to speculate something about the queen which I won’t reveal. The real origin of this is disclosed in the author’s notes, as with all the historical fiction I like best. But there is also Elizabeth’s anger at Dudley’s relationship with Lettice Knollys, her younger cousin who still retains much of Elizabeth’s youthful, now vanished beauty.
All of this creates quite a bit of emotional drama at the court, and Lucy is mixed up in all of it. She is chosen by Leicester and by the queen to carry out individual tasks, plus she is becoming aware of herself as an attractive person thanks to the fact that she meets a stableboy, Tom, who shares the color of her skin, and who is very attracted to her. But this isn’t a romance novel, and Tom isn’t her primary concern; the queen, her guardian, and Leicester are. She’s under a lot of pressure to reveal secrets, only to discover that there might be even more afoot. There are consequences to the prestige that Lucy’s always wanted, and she certainly discovers them in spades here.
I also really liked Lucy as a character; I could easily imagine a young black woman being shoved to the back of a procession not very long ago, much less in the Tudor period, and I found her reactions to be honest and authentic for the most part. The author does a very good job setting the scene at Kenilworth, too; I’ve been there, and I could picture some of the events taking place in a more complete castle. It added a nice bit of realism to the whole book.
A very enjoyable read for those of us who are still looking for more Elizabethan historical fiction; if you haven’t been reading any for a while, you may find yourself pleasantly surprised by The Queen’s Secret. Recommended.
All external book links are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review.
|
|
Recent Comments