In college, Donovan Campbell went to a training camp for the US Marine Corps. He thought it would look good on his resume and provide him with some experience. He never had any intention of joining the Marines in actuality. When he graduated from Princeton, Donovan realized that he wanted to do something more with his life than work in an office. He wanted to do something that mattered. So he joined the Marine Corps for real. Leaving his young wife Christy behind, Donovan was required to train his 40-man infantry platoon in record speed as they prepared for their deployment in Iraq. The platoon, named Joker One, was relieved when they were stationed in Ramadi, as it had been relatively quiet. Ramadi did not stay quiet. During his months in Iraq, Donovan’s leadership and quick thinking were tested and questioned time and time again, but his greatest constant remained his love for his men. This book is in part his tribute to them.
I was amazed by how this story of war in Iraq could pull me in. Even when, at times, terminology was confusing and I had to flip to the glossary at the back, I never regretted picking it up and perhaps most surprisingly, I didn’t want to put it down. It would be wrong to call this an exciting book, given the horrific events that happen herein, but it was a moving, astonishing memoir. The love shared between Donovan and his men, their extremely strong friendship, is what powers their mission and this narrative. I was with them when they met, during their training, and while they fought for their lives against insurgents they could hardly distinguish from regular Iraqis.
Joker One is a way for those of us who have never experienced war, who may even be against the war (though never against the soldiers), to get a hint of what living in Iraq must be like. Donovan describes in detail the 50-80 lb gear that they are required to wear, the constant heat in mid-summer, the indifference and sometimes hatred that the Iraqis feel towards the American soldiers, the fear of running for his life and the anguish when one of his men is injured or killed because of a decision he made. The Marines hardly sleep and their lives are in constant danger from bombs tossed against their compound. Men are injured and killed and the platoon shrinks, week by week and month by month. I am more than ever astonished by the courage and strength it must take to volunteer for this and I admire the men in this book for their fortitude and honor.
With all the strife and pain in this book, I was frankly amazed by how easy it was to read. I suspect the author has a gift; he is educated and it shows. He is a worthy choice to put a voice to this compelling story and to reveal to us the sacrifices that men make every day in Iraq as well as the friendship, respect, and love that can grow between them. I am glad I chose to read this book. Ignorance is never a virtue and it is extremely important to understand what is happening in the world around us. Joker One was a fabulous choice.
As an undertaker, Clara spends most of her days in the basement of a funeral home, carefully preparing dead bodies for their final viewing. In every casket she carefully hides a bouquet of her choice, lovingly selected to emulate their qualities and personality, if she knows them. One day she sees a little girl, Trecie, alone in the funeral home, who will neither leave or leave Clara alone. When Mike Sullivan, a policeman who is determined to get to the bottom of a three-year-old murder of another abused little girl, begins asking Clara questions, they realize that the cases may be related. Clara must choose between isolating herself and saving the life of a little girl who has found her way into her heart.
I surprised myself by liking this book so much. I have been making an effort recently to read and review the ARCs that didn’t catch me on my first try and eliminate any possible backlog. I’d categorized this one as a murder mystery, not my favorite, and the description of preparing a dead body for a funeral on the first few pages didn’t do much to peak my interest. So it sat unread and I felt guilty. Well, now I don’t feel guilty, and I’m happy because I read a fantastic book.
The one thing that pulled me in this book and wouldn’t let go was the character of Clara. Clara had a hard, hard childhood, bits and pieces of which are given to us throughout the narrative. As a result, she’s developed certain coping mechanisms, and one of them is hiding herself from the world, associating with mainly dead people, the two owners of the funeral home, and her garden. When Mike comes poking around, asking questions about the little girl who she essentially repaired more than she has done for any other human being, Clara’s defensive walls start to crack a little, and they continue to do so over the course of the novel. It was this slow unveiling which made the book for me. The other characters are similarly interesting and multi-dimensional; it’s hard to guess at the “bad guy” until clues start coming in thick and fast, because he seems good enough most of the time.
The only thing that bothered me were the many descriptions of dead people, particularly the one at the beginning where Clara describes what she does to them. I can’t say I really needed to know that. I understand to a basic extent what goes into preparing a body for an open casket but I didn’t really need to know all about it. Clara and various police officers and helpers also routinely go to the houses of dead people to pick the bodies up. All of these pickups do provide us with plot development, but corpses make me uncomfortable. It was worth it to get past that, but it is worth noting if this squicks you out.
Overall, I found this to be a great book with a fantastic main character. I think it would appeal to both mystery lovers and non-mystery lovers like me, because there is enough character development and suspicion to go around! I’m sorry I didn’t get to this book sooner; it was that great.
Pearl and May are two sisters living in Shanghai in the 1930’s. They love their city, the Paris of Asia, and make some extra money by being beautiful girls, models for advertisements and calendars. May is the favorite daughter of the family, according to Pearl, but both sisters are also best friends and can’t imagine life without one another. When they return from a painting session, their father stops them from going to bed and informs them that he has lost everything and that they are contracted to marry two strangers from America. Pearl and May are horrified, but go through with the marriages; they have little choice and no intention to leave Shanghai and follow their husbands. When World War II strikes, however, their entire lives explode and their intentions cease to matter.
I loved Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. At times I think everyone did. I never read Peony in Love, but I was excited when I received the opportunity to read Shanghai Girls. (Thanks so much, Marcia!) To my slight surprise, I wasn’t at all disappointed. I loved this novel. The best parts occurred in Shanghai, but I even liked the journey afterwards.
Seeing the world through Pearl’s eyes was fantastic. I thought that she was an interesting and unusual character with completely understandable motives. I recognized so much of regular sibling relations between her and May, especially at the end when we finally get to hear May’s side of the story. I wonder what the story would have been like if we had heard about it from her and not from Pearl; certainly Pearl’s motives made perfect sense, as did her character changes, but from the other side, things look a little different.
I liked the book a little less after they left Shanghai. The city was glamorous and fascinating to me, as were Pearl and May’s fancy lives. The traumatic experience afterwards was something I could have done without. Their new lives were populated with harsh and unlikeable figures, and Vern’s condition made me uncomfortable. Gradually, I grew to like these new side characters, but never quite so much, and at times I found the plot a little slow. Regardless, when the book was over, I was shocked. I didn’t expect it to end there, and I wanted more. I didn’t quite realize how much until there wasn’t any. To me, that’s a mark of a book I definitely liked. I’m busy crossing my fingers for Lisa See to write a sequel.
As for the prose, I thought Pearl’s voice steady and constant, the book a pleasure to read. She changed with her settings and I could feel the influence each place had on her as well as the places themselves. Her voice grew up as she did. I liked her, too, which was really important here.
Overall, I enjoyed this book a surprising amount. I would honestly recommend it. It is quite different in feel from Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, but not less worthy because of that. I recommend you check it out.
On Shrove Tuesday, 1672, in Langenburg, Germany, a young woman by the name of Eva Kustner brought a festive cake to her neighbor, Anna Fessler. Anna had recently given birth and as such, was still in delicate health, watched over by two other women constantly. Anna ate one of Eva’s cakes, but the rest were thrown away. Later that night, Anna began having convulsions and died. In the investigation that followed, blame fell on Anna Schmieg, Eva’s mother and the wife of the miller. Anna Schmieg had never been liked by her neighbors but had instead a reputation for alcoholism, nasty language, and cursing. It isn’t a stretch for them to accuse her of witchcraft and poisoning and throw her in prison. In this enlightening work of micro-history, Thomas Robisheaux explores Anna’s trial and sentencing as well as the larger political climate to give us a deeper look at accusations of witchcraft, the uncertain state of Germany after the Thirty Years’ War, and peasant culture in the late seventeenth century.
The broad concept of this book is fascinating. I had no idea that using one event to explore outlying themes was called micro-history but I love it. The trial of Anna Schmieg, as well as those of her daughter, husband, and fellow witches in other communities, was the focal point of this work, but so many interesting ideas are carefully considered. First, we are taught a little about village life. The miller was, naturally, an essential for every village, but was also rarely liked by townspeople. He could withhold grain, charge too much, or beef up his grain with sawdust and no one would ever know. He was also frequently richer than the average peasant. So suspicion falling on the miller’s wife, especially given Anna’s reputation and the coincidence of the cakes, is easily understood.
We also explore the reasons why Anna was found guilty and the potential thought process going through the heads of all the men involved, from the judge to the doctor who examined Anna Fessler’s body to the university authorities who were pulled in to pass judgement. This is all explained very carefully and I never felt lost or confused. Robisheaux explains everything he mentions and I felt that I learned a lot here about legal process, Protestantism and medical theory. It’s fascinating why people who had never seen Anna Fessler’s body decided that she’d died of arsenic poisoning and more still how the constant questions broke both Anna Schmieg and her daughter, horrible as that is, into confessing.
All of this, naturally, is wrapped up in the political struggles of The Holy Roman Empire and particular folk beliefs which caused the townspeople to react as they did. To some extent witchcraft was part of their culture and that made it even easier to single out those whose actions may have seemed entirely ordinary otherwise. With recent devastation behind them and threats on the horizon, people wanted someone to blame. Anna Schmieg was their scapegoat.
Never once does Thomas Robisheaux tell us outright his theory. Instead, he provides us with the evidence and allows us to draw our own conclusions. He doesn’t manipulate the evidence, but lays out the facts in a way that is understandable and interesting. There is no villainizing. Clearly, Anna Schmieg was not a witch, but she may have poisoned the cakes; they may have been intended for someone else, however, and not Anna Fessler. There are theories, but Robisheaux doesn’t force them on his reader. Instead we’re left with the feeling that we’ve learned something and, even better, that we want to learn more.
This dual narrative alternates between Connie Goodwin, a 20th century PhD candidate in history searching for that elusive beast, an original primary source, and the story of a peculiar line of women in 17th and 18th century Salem who are accused of witchcraft, perhaps not entirely without basis. Connie’s life is about little other than history; she is thrilled when she stumbles on clues towards what may be a lost Salem witch. As she makes friends – perhaps more than friends – with attractive restorer Sam, digs around in archives, and attempts to clean her grandmother’s colonial house, Connie realizes that there are larger forces at work than just her search for the physick book of Deliverance Dane.
I’m not sure what I was expecting when I picked this up, but I certainly got more than that! I loved this book. I could relate to Connie very, very well. She’s a PhD student and I’m only a lowly MA student, but much of our experience and love for history is very similar. I loved reading about her research, poking through archives full of that old book smell, and her discoveries. I haven’t been able to poke through archives on my own yet but I can’t wait for an excuse! Anyway, being able to relate to the protagonist so well made this book for me.
I also found the idea very clever. We’re so caught up in the fact that there weren’t witches at Salem that we miss out on the fun of pretending that there were, and moreover that magic exists. I loved this idea and I found the way it was executed very well done; it fits with what I know of the Salem witch trials but still provides something new and different.
As far as the villain goes, I figured that out, but I enjoyed the journey to Connie’s discovery. Her relationship with her mother was particularly interesting; she seems to be able to “see” her mother over the phone without even realizing that she’s doing it or that it’s unusual. That was the first hint I had regarding any abilities. I also liked the way things developed between them over time. I loved the character of Sam, who restores old buildings for a living. Can I have his job? Someone please say yes.
Anyway, I’m doing a very sorry job of expressing how much I liked this book! Its 350+ pages flew by. I had dreams about it. I thought it was well told, fast paced, engrossing, and interesting. If I had to pick one thing I didn’t like, it was a few of the longer flashbacks; some of the characters felt like their stories had already been told. Regardless, I liked Deliverance, and I didn’t mind when we heard about her or her daughter.
I would definitely recommend this book. It works as historical fiction but it also works as a regular novel. I loved reading it and maybe you would too.
When Skaaha’s mother dies in a chariot accident, her entire life changes. Instead of being the prized daughters of a leading warrior queen, Skaaha and her sister are separated, sent off with their fathers to learn trades. Skaaha has never met her father before but quickly grows to like him and to enjoy forging. As she grows to maturity, she begins to suspect irregularities in her mother’s death and falls in love with a man who is not entirely suitable. After Skaaha’s first Beltane, she realizes that she must find the answers and become a warrior to match her greatest enemies.
Though Warrior Daughter isn’t massive at under 500 pages, it feels epic in scope. I loved learning about the 2000-year-old Celtic world that Skaaha inhabited. Her character is based on the legendary Scathach, one of the many mythical figures in the Ulster cycle, as a young woman. The society is matriarchal; women are warriors, leaders, and free to choose as many husbands as they’d like. The gods are women. Pregnant women are essentially worshipped and looked up to. I’m thinking this doesn’t sound so bad!
Of course, it’s not so easy for Skaaha. She has the blood of the gods running through her veins thanks to her mother, but that only makes her life harder as others envy her. Skaaha grows quite strong throughout the novel, growing and changing as she faces new obstacles constantly. I really liked her. I suspected who was behind much of the conflict in the novel – it’s really quite obvious from the beginning – and I was firmly on Skaaha’s side throughout the novel.
Possibly the only warning I might give to this novel is that it’s quite graphic. There is a violent rape and the characters have a lot of sex with each other. The rape in particular was extremely difficult for me to read, as I imagine it would be for any woman, but it did have bearing on the plot, as did much of the other graphic scenes. Everything, whether scarring or healing, furthers the development of Skaaha’s character, so in that sense I don’t think I would call it gratuitious, but I could have done without so many details.
After reading Warrior Daughter, I find that I’d love to learn more about the Celtic culture which the author researched and recreated. Her author’s note only further piqued my interest, especially when she discussed archaeological discoveries and comparisons she drew in order to make this society as close as possible to the real one. I found it fascinating and I can’t wait to do some of my own research.
This is a fantastic historical novel. While not for everyone, I was absorbed in the story and enjoyed my time with it greatly. I would definitely recommend it and I’m eager to read Janet Paisley’s first novel.
In college, Donovan Campbell went to a training camp for the US Marine Corps. He thought it would look good on his resume and provide him with some experience. He never had any intention of joining the Marines in actuality. When he graduated from Princeton, Donovan realized that he wanted to do something more with his life than work in an office. He wanted to do something that mattered. So he joined the Marine Corps for real. Leaving his young wife Christy behind, Donovan was required to train his 40-man infantry platoon in record speed as they prepared for their deployment in Iraq. The platoon, named Joker One, was relieved when they were stationed in Ramadi, as it had been relatively quiet. Ramadi did not stay quiet. During his months in Iraq, Donovan’s leadership and quick thinking were tested and questioned time and time again, but his greatest constant remained his love for his men. This book is in part his tribute to them.
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